Jan Skelton
Profile
The prospect of interviewing Jan interested me for several reasons: her contribution to the chapel newsletter in November 2002, entitled ‘Why I became a Unitarian’; her recent organisation of two discussions on Islam; and her recent gift to the chapel of a framed poster which shows the symbols of thirteen world religions. So I wondered where this truly catholic view of religion originated.
Jan was born in Dorking in 1965. Her parents were Anglicans, but they switched to the United Reformed Church because they preferred the more relaxed style of church service there. ‘The minister was a really lovely man, overflowing with warmth and good humour,’ she recalls, ‘an excellent and inspiring preacher. He was a big influence on me. He emphasised the teachings of Jesus in the gospels and what they could teach us about living a better life. It was this moral passion which drew me to religion from an early age.’
In 1983 Jan got a scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford, to read Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. She enjoyed studying philosophy, because it encouraged her to think critically about her own beliefs. She joined the Christian Union, but left again almost immediately, because the attitudes she encountered were very different from her liberal church back home. ‘The emphasis was on salvation (only Christians were saved), and what you believed was more important than what you did. I found this sectarian notion offensive. At the time I knew little about other faiths, but I was dismayed by the arrogance of people who assumed that their own faith – largely an accident of birth – was true to the exclusion of all others.’
After graduating, Jan moved to Birmingham, where she worked in Sparkbrook as a housing officer for the City Council. She had grown up in an area that was ‘very white and mono-cultural’. Working in Sparkbrook brought her into contact with people of many races and faiths. This experience helped to develop her conviction that all the major faiths have at their core a similar message of love and compassion, despite their differing forms of religious custom and expression.
Jan moved back to Oxford in 1992 and took a job as welfare-rights worker with the Citizens’ Advice Bureau in East Oxford, another area of mixed faiths and races. A large proportion of her clients were Muslim. ‘Many were extremely poor, but I was very struck by their generosity and hospitality.’ In 1999 she left the CAB and joined Oxford City Council, where she is now designing and delivering training courses on housing and council-tax benefit legislation. Jan says that as she approaches the age of 40, she is at a career crossroads. She is considering moving into another area of training, or a different form of teaching. She has applied to the Probation Service to do some voluntary work, teaching basic skills of literacy and numeracy to offenders.
Jan has lived with her partner, Tjeerd, for six years. He is Dutch and is a senior lecturer in computing at Oxford Brookes University. ‘We got together as a result of a hiking trip with friends along Offa’s Dyke during the summer of 1998. I think we bonded over a shared love of dogs, beer, and the outdoors.’ The other major love of her life is her ten-year-old Border Collie, Baldric, who despite increasing deafness and arthritis ‘is still enjoying life and is (objectively) the best and cleverest dog in the world’. [NB: this profile was written before the birth of Jan’s and Tjeerd’s son Daniel in January 2007!]
BR: What led to your interest in Islam?
JS: I was disturbed by the backlash against Muslims after the events of September 11th 2001. I decided to find out more about Islam, and I read the Koran (in English). I was particularly interested in the Muslim view of Jesus. In the Koran, Jesus is presented as a servant of God: a prophet in a long line stretching back to Abraham. But the Koran emphasises the oneness of God and suggests that Christianity has erred in viewing Jesus as part of a divine trinity. This view of Jesus instantly struck a chord with me and helped me to focus on something that had (subconsciously) bothered me for years: Jesus did not claim to be God, and his teaching was not focused on himself. This led me to wish there was a religious movement which celebrated the teachings of Jesus without requiring a belief in his divinity or the unique status of Christianity as a religion. It was shortly after this that I discovered Unitarianism…
BR: Since you wrote your early essay about why you became a Unitarian, how have things developed?
JS: At the MCO chapel I have found openness, inclusiveness, and a willingness to draw on a variety of spiritual traditions, which I welcome. But I wouldn’t like the teachings of Jesus to be overlooked. After all, Unitarians are uniquely placed to try and untangle the actual teachings of this man from the myths that the Christian church has built up around him. I would welcome a greater focus on those teachings, actually.
BR: What books/authors have influenced your religious thinking?
JS: Reading The Myth of God Incarnate by John Hick was an important turning point. He is a Christian religious philosopher who has been influenced by other faiths and sets out a philosophical basis for religious pluralism. Also influential were books by Geza Vermes (Jesus the Jew, The Changing Faces of Jesus), which explore, from a Jewish perspective, the gradual transformation of the historical Jesus into the Christ of Christian orthodoxy. More recently I have enjoyed reading Doubts and Loves: What is Left of Christianity? by the former bishop Richard Holloway. I share his view that moral passion is the enduringly valuable part of the Christian religion. For practical inspiration and good humour I turn to Rabbi Lionel Blue, Desmond Tutu, and the Dalai Lama.
BR: Do you think there is any common link between the world’s religions?
JS: I believe they are all human constructs in response to the same ultimate reality, and therefore you would expect a common thread, like the Golden Rule (‘Do unto others as you would they did unto you’), to be running through them. Of course, when you get down to the detailed codes of behaviour and traditions, there are differences; each religion has been formed within a particular culture at a particular time in human history. But the central core is the same, and I believe that is the most important thing.
BR: During the service today, the preacher listed his favourite saints; which are yours?
JS: Gandhi, Mandela, and Tutu come to mind.
BR: Do you have a favourite quotation?
JS: It’s not a quote but an analogy, employed by John Hick. If you make a two-dimensional map of a three-dimensional world, you have to distort the image. Different projections produce different maps. So it doesn’t really matter which map you use: they are all valid in their own way, and you wouldn’t want to see the development of a single world religion, because it wouldn’t work.
BR: Thank you, Jan, for sharing your story. I think I better understand where you’re coming from.
Bob Redpath, January 2005