Not proud of my prejudices

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s refreshing to have your prejudices challenged.

British Society has two great pillars, Church and State, and I’m not particularly fond of either. They’re still heavily intertwined over here where the Queen remains head of the Church of England. Other more enlightened countries have gone to some lengths to keep the State apart from the Church, as in France (where secularism is practically a state religion) or the US (which seems on occasion to regret the fact).

It’s not that I have anything especially against the Church of England. I’m just not convinced by two great arguments advanced for faith in general: that they bring consolation to individuals and communities together. The problem with the first assertion is that ‘because it makes me feel better’ has never struck me as the most persuasive argument for the truth of any proposition. As for the second, it seems to me that as soon as religion has built a community, it defines anyone outside it as ‘other’, and ‘other’ quickly degenerates into ‘wrong’ and ‘wrong’ in turn into ‘heretic’ or ‘unbeliever.’ That strikes me as far too close to persecution, hardly an activity for which humankind special motivation.

But then along comes someone like Giles Fraser. He was Canon Chancellor at St Paul’s, but resigned when it looked as though the cathedral authorities were going to evict the ‘Occupy’ protestors from outside their front door. He reckoned that he could imagine Christ being born in that camp. After a brief period out of work, he’s about to start a new appointment, not as a Dean or Bishop (although he was apparently on the right sort of shortlists), but as a vicar of an Inner London parish with some of the toughest social difficulties in the country.

I feel almost obliged to go and hear him preach. Fortunately, he’s going to be writing a regular column in The Guardian so I can be entertained and edified without having to do anything that drastic.

So much for the Church. What about the State and its great symbol, the Royal Family? Surely I can indulge my comfortable view that they're without redeeming features? But no sooner do I reassure myself on that point, than along they come and redeem themselves a bit. On a royal trip to Copenhagen, the Prince of Wales and Camilla had themselves introduced to Sofie Gråbøl, star of the extraordinary Danish series The Killing. And then they paid a visit to the set.

Sofie, in one her trademark jumpers, giving another to Camilla

It’s appalling, isn’t it? The two series of The Killing have provided some of the best TV I’ve seen in years. And some of the Royals like it too? Ghastly. I may have to concede that they have some taste.

At least it was Camilla who persuaded Charles to watch with her. She’s not a real royal at all but just married into the family (which in passing suggests that her good taste is perhaps not that reliable when we get out of the realm of TV series). She had to fight to get into the family, against the vehement opposition of the Queen. It was that paragon of parenting skills who initially managed not only to push Camilla out of the way but to move Diana in instead, and didn’t that work out well?

So at least I can console myself with the thought that my agreement with Camilla over a TV series isn’t really a concession to an authentic royal. Which is a relief. Because though it’s refreshing to challenge one’s prejudices, it’s also tiring. Nice to be able relax back into some simplistic preconceptions.

Time to take back our souls. With or without the Church

It’s a tough confession to make, but I may have been guilty in the past of lying in church.

This happened on occasions when I attended Christian services, usually because I knew that it would give pleasure, or at least comfort, to someone else if I was there.

In that spirit, I intoned with the others that I believed ‘in one holy Catholic and apostolic Church’. 

Now that wasn’t strictly a lie. After all, I certainly believe that such a Church exists. Several, in fact, and each convinced that theirs is the only one. Still, I’m not convinced that my belief really honours the spirit of the affirmation.

We laid claims to lots of other beliefs too. That Jesus Christ was the son of God, begotten not created, born of a virgin. That he was taken and crucified and on the third day rose again. The whole shooting match, basically.

Except that actually it wasn’t the whole shooting match. Not by a long stretch. That was made clear to me, in the kind of blinding flash someone really insightful provides when he explains something obvious that has previously escaped your attention.

It was a Guardian article that pointed out that the Nicene Creed we so glibly repeat, jumps directly from the conception and birth of Christ to his death and resurrection. All his life in between is just left out. Gone is the reference to its being easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Gone is the driving of the moneylenders from the Temple. Gone indeed is anything that might have made a structure of power and privilege at all uncomfortable.

As the writer of the article pointed out, the Nicene Creed expressed the views of the Roman Empire when it decided to adopt Christianity as a state religion, without being keen on giving up any of its prerogatives. It marked the transformation of Christianity from a religion of the poor and oppressed into a religion of the strong and wealthy.

Who wrote that article? Giles Fraser. And last week he resigned as Cannon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Why?

Now that’s a question worth asking. And answering.

As I mentioned in my last blog, we had visitors from France over the weekend. On Saturday, we popped by the tented demonstration outside the doors of St Paul’s Cathedral. The protest is directed against the ethical decline that allowed the wealthiest members of our societies to bankrupt us and then continue to subsidise their lifestyles at our expense. Where else in England would be more appropriate for such a protest than the City of London, home of our financial institutions, as well as of St Paul’s?

I have rarely seen so peaceful a demonstration. ‘Gentle’ is probably the right word for it. When we arrived a rabbi was preaching and occasionally chanting. Near him stood a Hindu holy man, and there were priests of various denominations of Christianity around too. The atmosphere was that of religiosity, of deeply but not violently held belief.

St Paul's protesters: in tents but without evil intent

And yet the Cathedral had shut its doors, on the pretext that the demonstration represented a health and safety threat. Next the authorities went to court to ask for the demonstrators to be moved on; police action was expected within a few days, with a possible descent into violence.

No wonder Fraser felt he had to resign. As he said himself, he could imagine Christ being born in one of those tents. So what we were seeing was the clearest illustration of one of the two sides of Christianity. The official Church had closed its doors on those who were appealing for justice and charity, and now it was planning to use state power against them. It was the Nicene Creed, Christianity with its compassionate heart torn out of it.

Since then, however, the other side of the faith has reasserted itself. Graeme Knowles, the Dean of St Paul’s who announced the closure of the doors, has also resigned. And now the Church has dropped its legal action and opened them again.

It seems that the tensions that the Council Nicaea tried to settle live on unresolved in the Church to this day.

To me, though, what matters in all this is what it says of attitudes in society.

Those people in front of the Cathedral represented no threat. They were not aggressive. But they were different from the image that our leaders want to project for us all. And in today’s atmosphere of stultifying conformity, such difference is not to be tolerated.

Well, the Church’s change of heart means it will tolerated a little longer. And perhaps on the shoulders of the protest will come a more general awakening that says ‘I too have no wish to be the same as those who claim to lead us. Why model ourselves on them? They destroy and then conspicuously fail to make any contribution to rebuilding.’

If enough people pick up the challenge, then maybe we can put the soul back into a belief system hollowed out in the Nicene Creed. And give all of us, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Moslems, Christians and others better values to believe in than those of the City of London.

Even the non-believers.

Even the ones who haven’t always been strictly truthful in Church.