Nick Baines's Blog

It’s a bank holiday, the weather is mixed, the house is empty and I am trying to put off doing some work.

I’ve been reading up on some of the responses to the Mark Thompson speech at the Edinburgh Television Festival the other day. The Guardian leader gets it right: the debate is not just a little skirmish between a couple of bruisers, but is of huge significance for our society as well as the media: ask the Italians if Berlusconi’s media dominance is just a personality matter. It is also interesting that Murdoch’s newspapers seem not to have carried Thompson’s speech or addressed the issues – which speaks for itself.

However, the gaps in today have made it possible to catch up on some new music. This is an unashamed plug for three very different bands.

Whatever the Weather is the title of the latest offering by Nottingham-based ska band Jimmy the Squirrel. Ska is the sort of music you can’t help smiling to – even when the lyrics are miserable. It’s like a fun version of reggae. I have to declare an interest in this band, though, because the songwriter and singer is my son-in-law, Liam O’Kane. But, I wouldn’t dream of plugging his stuff if I thought it was rubbish or I didn’t like it; after all, I have my own critical credibility to consider! (Er… hmmm….) This band – which has a great reputation for ‘live’ gigs – is getting better with each album and deserves a wider audience. Fantastic, fun stuff.

I remember getting into big trouble for suggesting that 19 year old Alexandra Burke couldn’t possibly sing Leonard Cohen’s epic song Hallelujah because she hadn’t lived long (or hard) enough. I maintained (and still do, for what it’s worth) that some songs bear the depth of experience and can’t be sung by someone who hasn’t been there. For example, would Bob Dylan’s Modern Times album be worth listening to without that rugged, rasping voice? Some of the great blues music is the same: a 19 year old Londoner couldn’t do justice to any of John Lee Hooker‘s stuff.

So, I was a bit surprised to hear the eponymous debut album by Bournemouth-based blues band Paint it Blue (name nicked from the Rolling Stones?). They have a great local following and I haven’t heard them live (I was sent a copy of their CD); but, the idea of just-post-teenagers doing justice to the blues was questionable. Until I heard the album, that is.

The music is tight, the technique sound and the music mostly original. The moody voice of singer Hannah Robinson puts into question the ageist prejudice I mentioned earlier: her voice might yet be young and have years of maturing ahead, but she grabbed my attention – she has a rich, working voice that allows an unexpected emotional depth. This is an unassuming band that, again, deserves a wider audience. Turn down the lights, turn up the volume, open a bottle of Rioja…

Crowded House have now put out their second CD, The Intriguer, since they re-formed. I hadn’t had a chance to listen since it came out a couple of months ago, but it was worth the wait. I could listen to Neil Finn’s voice all day and his astute lyrics are always intriguing. But, even if the sound is typically Crowded House (what else should it be?), they play a damned good tune. I love hearing good acoustic music, too, and these guys have it all: melody, harmony, rhythm and wit. Even if, as they sing in Amsterdam, “the grey men are shadowing us”, music like this breaks out into the daylight of simple creativity.

The bank holiday work-avoidance strategy is paying off. Now for Cockburn, Clapton and Springsteen…

At last. After several years of hearing the BBC and its public service remit being picked away at by the people who hope to benefit (financially, at the very least) from its decline, the Director General, Mark Thompson, has struck back with a powerful defence of the culture, ethos, purpose and performance of the Corporation.

In the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture in Edinburgh last night he talked tough and he challenged those who wish to see the BBC weakened. Predictably, the instant response from representatives of Sky and other independents was to claim the lecture amounted to little more than ‘a plea for the licence fee’. Why predictable? Because it is easier even for professionals to sneer than to engage with the debate on reasonable terms.

First of all, Thompson was not defensive about the BBC (in a protectionist way) and openly described the challenges facing the organisation in the next few years. One of these challenges is the deliberate negativity within the media industry (and politics) regarding the BBC:

The purists have spent a generation making the free market case for abolishing the licence fee and the British public agrees with them less now than they did when they started. Nor is there any evidence that the public have any enthusiasm for the privatisation of Channel 4, the Arts Council of the Air or any of the other schemes which the hardliners have come up over the years. But of course you wouldn’t know any of this if you based your assessment of public attitudes to British broadcasting on the evidence of most of the UK’s national newspapers. Systematic press attacks on broadcasters, and especially on the BBC, are nothing new of course ⎯ the first hostile campaigns began back in John Reith’s day ⎯ but the scale and intensity of the current assaults does feel different.

He then goes on to ram the point home:

Often the reporters freely admit to us that they know the story they’re working on is going to be ramped up, distorted or just plain nonsense. But as one journalist said to one of my colleagues recently: ‘It doesn’t matter about the facts, they just want to trash you.’ Now that’s what I call refreshing honesty. Not the public interest. Not accountability. We just want to trash you.

Now, hurting the feelings of BBC leaders is not the issue here. The issue is why there is such a strong agenda of negativity in sectors of the UK media against an institution revered around the world and (as every poll seems to suggest) loved by the public? (Read the report – he quotes figures.) By the time he has a go at Sky and the Murdoch Empire, it is clear that he is suspicious of the motives behind criticism from certain quarters.

Secondly, Thompson talks up the wider broadcasting field and stresses the need for a strong Channel 4, a strong ITV and a strong independent sector. Yet, he sees that strength lying in the commissioning of and investment in excellent British creative programming. Why? In order that all people have access to the best  and that we are not reduced to a lowest common denominator culture in which we simply buy in – regardless of quality – what everybody else is making abroad:

Exceptional per capita investment in new production has meant that we have a far bigger position in the most expensive forms of TV drama, comedy, landmark factual not a sufficient condition for producing the best TV in the world, but it is a necessary one.

As everyone knows, much of that investment derives from direct and indirect public intervention. Free market purists claim that, if you reduced or eliminated this intervention, the market would simply fill the gap. But look around the world. There are plenty of countries where public intervention is on the wane – licence fees cut, public broadcasters in decline – but in no country anywhere has the market stepped up to replace the lost programme investment.

But do not believe anyone who claims that cutting the licence fee is a way of growing the creative economy or that the loss in programme investment which would follow a substantial reduction in the BBC’s funding could be magically made up from somewhere else. It just wouldn’t happen. A pound out of the commissioning budget of the BBC is a pound out of UK creative economy. Once gone, it will be gone forever.

Thompson makes his case strongly, but the speech needs to be read as a whole and only then addressed critically. The BBC faces significant challenges, but it needs people at the top who believe in it, are not afraid of fighting for it and can articulate a vision for its confident role in the emerging digital world. It feels to me like we have heard a strong first strike. We need more.

I didn’t realise I felt so strongly about the value of the BBC in this competitive world until I heard James Murdoch’s MacTaggart Lecture last year. The brazen amorality of his case and the deliberate omission of anything that confounded his argument (News Corp says it wants competition, but actually wants to be dominant across the media platforms, eliminating the competition it doesn’t like…) was shocking. The massive progress led by Murdoch Senior in changing the way the media operate were undermined (in my view and that of some others who are interested in media policy) by Murdoch Junior’s arrogance – the arrogance of those who have power and know they have the money to increase their concentration of power. As Thompson observes:

Sky is already a far more powerful commercial counterweight to the BBC than ITV ever was. It is well on its way to being the most dominant force in broadcast media in this country. Moreover, if News Corp’s proposal to acquire all of the remaining shares in Sky goes through, Sky will not just be Britain’s biggest broadcaster, but a full part of a company which is also dominant in national newspapers as well as one of the Britain’s biggest publishers.

According to Enders analysis, it will be a concentration of cross-media ownership which would not be allowed in the United States or Australia, News Corp’s other two most important markets.

Compare the ethical assumptions behind these two statements:

There is an inescapable conclusion that we must reach if we are to have a better society. The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.

and

People say to me ⎯ ‘aren’t you afraid that Sky is going to start spending more on original British programmes and will therefore be competing head-to-head with you?’ But that’s what should happen. It would be good for the BBC. It would be good for the industry. It would be good for the public… What would success look like? Strong creative and commercial revival at ITV, 4 and 5. A Sky which was as proud of spending hundreds of millions of pounds on new British programmes as on the HBO archive. British producers succeeding in international markets, not at the expense of quality but because of it.

The former was James Murdoch’s conclusion, the latter Mark Thompson’s.

Mark Thompson has taken the debate to the nay-sayers and has raised the rhetorical stakes. There are interesting times ahead.

The BBC website is likely to shock the world today with a headline of staggeringly obvious accuracy:

Religion may influence doctors’ end-of-life care

Better sit back and absorb that one. The report begins:

Doctors with religious beliefs are less likely to take decisions which could hasten the death of those who are terminally ill, a study suggests.

So, before we go on to look further at the BBC’s report, why don’t we ask why the corollary of the headline wasn’t addressed instead. The item could – with equal validity – have begun with:

Doctors with no religious beliefs are more likely to take decisions which could hasten the death of those who are terminally ill, a study suggests.

(‘Suggests’? Why not ‘concludes’? Or would that make the story less worthy of coverage?)

The report goes on:

The London University research urges greater acknowledgement of how beliefs influence care. Doctors and campaigners described the findings as “concerning”.

I guess my question is the one I keep banging on about in various posts here: is it only religious beliefs that are to be ‘acknowledged’ or all beliefs? All human beings have a world view based on assumptions about why the world is the way it is, what matters (and why) and how moral decisions should be made. This is not the sole preserve of ‘religious’ people. Every human decision – including medical ones – are influenced consciously or unconsciously by the world view of the decision-taker. There are no exceptions.

This simply means that we should be asking of the (unidentified and unquantified) ‘doctors and campaigners’ what are the implications of their own world views on the treatment or advice they give to their patients about end-of-life options. What the report really seems to ‘suggest’ is that religious people might be more open, more honest or more clear about the moral or philosophical basis of their moral approaches.

Let’s try it a different way. I have just been in Berlin and looking afresh at the rise of the Nazis in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. The question keeps being raised as to how human beings could possibly have done to other human beings what the Nazis did. It is dangerous to over-simplify such enormous matters, but it can be said at the very least that the disconnection came partly from an accommodation with a world view that reduced some people to (a) categories that are (b) sub-human. As we also saw in Rwanda in 1994, see people as vermin and you find it easier to treat them as vermin.

This is NOT to say that non-religious people are to be equated with Nazis or other genocidal psychopaths. Conscious atheism or agnosticism should be demonstrate equal consistency and be examined for inherent weakness in the same way as religious beliefs should be subjected to rigorous scrutiny. But, atheism cannot simply be assumed to be the neutral default position from which any other ‘belief’ is a dangerous deviation.

The point is simple. Religious beliefs and convictions should influence doctors – but so should non-religious doctors allow that their assumptions and beliefs (about the way the world is, why the world is that way, where human beings derive their value – and why – and what happens when we die… and why this matters).

The British Medical Association said: “Decisions about end-of-life care need to be taken on the basis of an assessment of the individual patient’s circumstances – incorporating discussions with the patient and close family members where possible and appropriate.

Absolutely right – except that there is no mention of the basis on which these ‘decisions’ are to be taken.

The religious beliefs of doctors should not be allowed to influence objective, patient-centred decision-making. End-of-life decisions must always be made in the best interests of patients.

The ‘best interests of patients’. According to which criteria? Who decides and who defines?

Again, the corollary of that statement is: “The non-religious beliefs of doctors should not be allowed to influence objective, patient-centred decision-making.”

The unidentified and unquantified ‘doctors and campaigners’ might well be ‘concerned’ – but so should the rest of us be concerned at their naivete, selectivity and the poor philosophical thinking behind the ‘suggestions’ or ‘conclusions’ they derive from their research. Perhaps they are simply bringing the wrong questions to the data in the first place? Perhaps this is a matter of using language properly – for the language used in these statements gives the game away.

Update  27 August 2010: Much fuller analysis to be found here.

The Church of England has just published its response to the BBC Trust’s consultation regarding its review of Radio 3, Radio 4 and Radio 7. The element of the response that has caught the eye of the media is the appeal for the creation of the post of BBC Religion Editor to cover radio, TV and online news output, arguing that there is “no logical distinction between the genre of arts, science and business and that of religion, the landscape of which likewise demands a ‘trusted guide’ for both internal and external stakeholders”.

We urge the Trust and Executive to give serious consideration to this proposal; one that is intended as much for the benefit of people of no particular faith as for those of faith.

This is not an original call. Roger Bolton, BBC presenter of great renown, articulated an identical call in his speech to the Sandford St Martin Awards back in May 2010 -  a speech that provoked a great deal of media interest both in and beyond the BBC itself. Roger said:

When the much maligned John Birt (I never thought I would utter those words) set about restructuring BBC news and current affairs in a somewhat blunt and perhaps unnecessarily bloody way, he correctly identified a real weakness in the coverage of finance and business.  His solution was to create BBC Editors with real budgets and power at the heart of the news machine and with guaranteed access to the airwaves.  Hence Jeff Randall and now Robert Preston, who have transformed the coverage.

I believe BBC News similarly requires a Religion Editor, able to appear on the networks to interpret the latest religious story at home and abroad, but more importantly to bring a religious perspective to the vast range of areas such as foreign affairs and medical dilemmas where that perspective is so often, and so bafflingly, absent, both on air AND behind the scenes in internal editorial discussions.

Now, no doubt this will provoke the secularists again as it appears to represent special pleading by Christians for more ‘religious’ programmes. This, however, is a big mistake. In the same way that the BBC decided that some elements of the world’s news need to be understood and explained – interpreted – , so the religious perspective needs similar treatment.

Whatever one thinks about the ‘content’ of any religion – or, indeed, its validity – what cannot be disputed is the impact that religion (as a phenomenon), religious world views (as lenses through which billions of people interpret the world and human experience), and religious practice have on that world. I might think some of it is loony or perverse. I might find it incredible that people can think and live the way they do – or treat other people as they do. But not liking it is not the same as understanding it or acknowledging it as a reality.

A Religion Editor would not be there to propagate or evangelise (thank God), but to explain, interpret and educate. Think how different things might have been if the 9/11 media coverage had had such a person who actually understood Islam before the crime was committed.

Such a person might also offer some advocacy for those who feel constantly misrepresented by media coverage of religion or of religious perspectives on world events. I know this will raise temperatures  among those who believe Rchard Dawkins is infallible and fundamentally inerrant (and I know his current programmes are broadcast from the Channel 4 stable, not the BBC), but we might be spared some of the nonsense that gets through the editors’ desks when it comes to religion.

During the making of his latest programme (against faith schools) Dawkins was apparently surprised to visit a Church of England school comprising 95% Muslim children. Despite a full interview with Jan Ainsworth (Church of England Director of Education), he omitted from the final cut any evidence that contradicted the conclusions from which he had started his programme. That’s fine as evangelistic polemic, but it isn’t very ‘scientific’ – which involves looking at the evidence and deriving conclusions (however provisional) from that. (Jan Ainsworth writes about this on a blog.)

OK, I have confused two things here. The call for a Religion Editor is about helping all people understand the world and the news better (regardless of belief about it); the Dawkins stuff is a call for more intelligence and evenhandedness in what is commissioned. The God Delusion is about to hit our screens; I wonder if The Dawkins Delusion would ever be commissioned to follow or accompany it?

This is not about ‘my’ worldview being vindicated in the media – or even being ‘given space’; rather, it is fundamentally about treating the viewing public as intelligent people capable of (a) listening to a proper debate before making their minds up, (b) having their prejudices and assumptions challenged and (c) being shown the best of such intelligent debate rather than the worst of lazy polemic.

Leonard Cohen performed in Berlin last week, the night before we arrived for the weekend. The Berliner Morgenpost on Friday had a rave review of the gig, using language that was both critically appropriate and affectionate. Describing Cohen as “one of the most moving singer-poets of our time”, the reviewer maintains that “seldom today is it possible to experience such an emotional, definitive, truthful concert.” What better conclusion could any artist wish for than this:

We cannot thank the venerable old man enough for subjecting himself to the exertions of such a long world tour. For standing on a ‘live’ stage again and letting us share in his great art.

At the age of 76 Cohen did six encores for his overwhelmed audience. I’ll be happy to still have a pulse at 76.

There is something about this generous appreciation of Cohen that exemplifies the spirit of Berlin. Walking around the Museuminsel or strolling down Unter den Linden towards the Brandenburg Gate, it is easy to forget both the agonies that were born in this city as well as the high culture that characterises German arts and music.

This is a city that bears the scars of the last century’s brutalities, divisions and inhumanities. On Friday and Saturday we visited the Reichstag as guests of the former German Bundesminister, Frau Dr Irmgard Schwaetzer, and saw in the bowels of the restored building not only the thousands of bullet holes that riddle the walls and give some idea of the slaughter that this building witnessed, but also the graffiti written on the walls by the Soviet soldiers who took the Reichstag and ended the war.

Generously accompanied by a retired German Ambassador, Dr Alexander Arnot, we visited some powerfully moving and challenging places:

• Topographie des Terrors (the newly-opened exhibition on the site of the Gestapo HQ and Main Office of the SS – which is overlooked by what was Goering’s Ministry of Aviation and a remnant of the Berlin Wall)
• the Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand (in the Bendlerblock where Stauffenberg had his office to which he returned thinking he had just killed Hitler on 20 July 1944… only himself to be taken out and shot along with other officer colleagues: Hitler had – incredibly – survived the bomb)
• Gedenkstätte Plötzensee (where several thousand people were executed by the Nazis).

One of the powerful reasons for visiting these places is that they resonate not only with horror and terror, but also with heroism and sacrifice. They remind us that Nazi terror was not only directed at the Jews, homosexuals, Communists, mentally ill or handicapped people, but at Germans at every level of society. People were executed even for thinking the ‘wrong’ things – see, for example, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke.

I have no idea how I would respond to the threat of a regime such as the Nazi dictatorship. None of us does. It is shameful when people who live in relative security pass judgement on those who compromise or give in to intimidation and violence – especially with the marvellous benefit of hindsight. Talking to Dr Arnot I was reminded of the story I was told years ago about cattle on the prairies of America and how they manage to get hit by trains when there is only one train track for hundreds of miles. They don’t set out to get killed by a train. Nor do they have a strategy for roaming over the plains. They just put their head down and nibble a bit of grass. Then they nibble the next bit and then the next bit after that. They just keep nibbling and sometimes find themselves where they shouldn’t be – in front of a speeding train. They just nibble their way to destruction.

Evil takes hold because people compromise a little, then a little more. Then it is too late. But, frankly, if I was asked to sign a piece of paper in order to ensure that my children were able to be educated and not be excluded (as happened in the GDR), I would probably have signed. None of us knows until we are there.

Two other striking elements to the day’s visits and conversations:

1. Language is key to all this. The concentration camps were built on the need to take certain people into ‘protective custody’. Corrupt language and you corrupt the soul, opening us up to all sorts of miseries. (One of the points made by Rowan Williams in his book on Dostoyevsky.)

2. The Bible can be used to justify all sorts of appalling things. The Nazis quoted Paul: “Those who do not work shall not eat.” We know how that was used to justify systematic barbarism.

I was in Berlin this last weekend to preach at the Dom (Cathedral). The extremely generous Domkirchenrat and their wonderful pastor, Dr Petra Zimmermann, were wonderful hosts. Yet, standing in the Dom I couldn’t help but notice the gold lettering in the ceiling which quoted from the Lord’s Prayer: “Dein ist das Reich” – “Yours is the Kingdom” – and wondering how that was read by Christian worshippers while the Nazis were corrupting, terrorising and brutalising their society.

I must go back before long. Berlin is – to my mind – the most fascinating, moving, challenging and demanding city in Europe. So much history is held there for those who wish to see it. Questions pour into the mind – for example, how did a society that experienced the fear generated by the Gestapo and SS so easily accustom itself to the Stasi in the GDR? Berlin is not just a place of horror, however; it is also a place of amazing culture, remarkable reconciliation, astonishing reconstruction, formidable hope and the courage to look not only to its past glories and crimes, but also to shape a better future. It is inspiring as well as sobering.

… is the title of a book being recommended by loads of people this week. I’ll add it to the list of books I need to read – a list that grows by the day.

I hope I won’t be alone in Berlin this weekend. I will be there (with my wife who has never been to Berlin before) to preach in the Cathedral (Berliner Dom) on Sunday morning. The Dean (Dompredigerin) and Cathedral Council (Domkirchenrat) are being very welcoming and hospitable and we are looking forward to a very full and enjoyable weekend.

This is only hampered by the fact that I will be preaching in German. My German isn’t great, but I managed to preach there a year ago (at the conclusion of an academic conference I hadn’t attended) and they still invited me back. I asked some German friends to go over my sermon in order to make sure (a) it is comprehensible, (b) it is reasonably coherent and (c) won’t make the congregation laugh at my mistakes.

The good aspect of doing something like this in a foreign language is that you have to keep it simple. You work out what you want to say, how you want to say it and don’t dress it up in the sort of complexities you can get away with in your own language. So, they’ll be getting something on the conversion of Paul – who remained as passionate, pedantic, irritable and sarcastic after his conversion as he was before it when he went around persecuting Christians.

I’ll be back on Sunday evening to do a two-minute ‘live’ Pause for Thought in the Chris Evans Show on BBC Radio 2 on Monday morning. Again, the discipline of saying something (anything) in two minutes is great for people who can talk for ever about anything when put in a pulpit.

Ho hum. One of these days my mind will become fertile again and I’ll get back into the groove of regular blogging.

This shouldn’t be funny. But it is. And it deserves a wider audience.

Bit of an odd-sounding title, isn’t it? But, it’s the title given to an initiative being explored at present by the Church of England and the Government. Slipped on to the Church of England website the other day (wisely not trumpeted as it is ‘work in progress’), it shows some entrepreneurial spirit on behalf of the Church in testing out the reality of David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ notion. After all, being a ‘good neighbour’ is what Jesus told his people to be.

The Church of England is actively discussing with Government plans for a major extension to the pastoral work of parish churches, particularly in multi-religious neighbourhoods. These propose a variety of ways in which the recognised strengths of the Church of England can contribute to the flourishing of people in these neighbourhoods.  The Church Urban Fund with its 25 years of experience of supporting local communities in deprived urban areas, will oversee the programme. 

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and Baroness Warsi, Minister in the Cabinet Office, have affirmed the role of the Churches and Faith communities at the heart of local communities and have spoken positively of the unique contribution of the Church of England’s 20,000 local churches, schools and centres at the heart of every neighbourhood.

What is particularly significant about this is the recognition that the Church of England is committed to the thriving of all in our communities, not just those who ‘belong’ to the church. This is rooted in the theological assumption that the church is a means to an end and not the end in itself – the church is called to be a sign of the kingdom (presence) of God and to give its life to that end. We may fail a million times – and need to be recalled to that central vocation – but this remains our commitment.

The statement goes on:

The Church of England’s ethos as the national Church is to have a duty of care for all parishioners irrespective of their religious belief or none. A consequence of this has been its very substantial contribution to inter faith initiatives at local, regional and national levels and with all Faith communities.

 The proposals have the strapline “Being Neighbourly” and could include new support for street and neighbourhood level initiatives; partnerships with national faith based and inter faith organisations and work with young adults.

 The Church of England believe these proposals could be a significant affirmation of the contribution of faith communities to the ‘Big Society’.

This reinforces the point that what is often loosely called ‘establishment’ does not have to do with privilege and status, but with service, obligation and sacrificial commitment to our communities. And rather than whinge about the deficiencies of Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ (is it a con or a concept?) or the slowness of the Church of England as an institution in responding to a changing social scene, it attempts to get on and shape something for the future.

The Minister responsible, Eric Pickles, said:

For years, churches and other faith communities have been quietly making a huge difference day-in and day-out, to every single neighbourhood in the country – something that has not been sufficiently recognised by central Government. We can together build on the huge amount of experience faith groups have in getting out into the community. The Church of England’s proposals to extend their work with communities are very interesting and we are looking at them closely.”

The Church of England gets used to being knocked – often with good reason. This looks to me like a good reason for optimism and support. Detailed proposals are to be discussed in the autumn and we will watch this space to see what emerges in due course.

August so far has seen holiday, the birth of my first grandson and not a lot of blogging. A slip of the tongue on the Chris Evans Show (BBC Radio 2) last Monday had me claiming ten ‘weeks’ holiday instead of ten ‘days’. Time to get working again, I guess.

I have been musing recently on the debates and discussions provoked by Anne Rice’s recent well-publicised rejection of Christianity. Rice is OK with Jesus, but not with Christians. Not surprisingly, she has drawn a lot of sympathy – from within the churches as well as from the usual suspects outside. Follow-up articles have been interesting for exposing some of the thinking behind rejection of an institution whilst trying to hold on to the essence of the faith the institution claims to represent. Some of the thinking is interesting; some is surprisingly weak. Can you keep Christ and give up being a Christian? asks  Must Christian life involve religion? ponders Shirley Lancaster. Staying in the fold is tough, confesses Rebecca Jenkins. We must escape the institutions, argues Theo Hobson.

The first thing to say is that the reaction of Anne Rice to horrible Christians is understandable – as is the sympathy of those who wrestle with their own relationship to and involvement in the institutions of the church. All of us have to take our own responsibility for our belonging (with all that comes with it), departing or rejection of the church in any of its forms. Anyone with a conscience will find living within the church a delicate business: there will always be stuff that we or I think is wrong, misguided, wicked or unChristlike. And, inevitably, for some people I will be the object of their anger or suspicion, the one who is wrong, misguided, wicked or unChristlike.

What is interesting about the responses to Anne Rice’s decision is the emphasis respondents place on what I will summarise in two specific words: individual and spirituality. The suggestion seems to be that we can take Jesus seriously as an individual with a personal (private?) faith while staying outside of any corporate engagement (institution). Shirley Lancaster states that we really are only interested these days in doing the deep and personal spiritual ‘interior journey’ and then begs a series of obvious questions. This is what she says:

Every age has to redefine what is the essence of Christianity. Asking the question, can you follow Christ and give up being a Christian, strikes a chord with those of us who do take Christ seriously but don’t want to be branded with other people’s ideas of how a ‘Christian’ is defined: we earn a ticket to heaven if we are nice to everyone and don’t enjoy ourselves too much – the dull and life-denying being a prerogative of good Christian faith.

Really? Every age might have to rediscover the essence of Christianity, but ‘re-define’ it? According to which (or whose) criteria? Christianity cannot be self-defining in the same way Marxism cannot be self-defining. If I shape my notion of Marxism in ways that essentially negate the essence of Marxism, I haven’t re-defined it at all – I have abandoned it. Lancaster’s ‘ticket to heaven’ statement is a parody of Christian faith.

I am reminded of the Muslim who pleaded with us thirty years ago to judge Islam by the best of Muslim examples and not by the worst – just as Marxists wish to be judged by their best examples and not the worst parodies or excesses. Why do we so easily judge Christianity by the worst examples of hypocrisy and failure rather than by the best examples? (Shirley Lancaster later acknowledges these.)

However, Lancaster goes on to say:

The question being asked by many of those stepping back from organised religion is perhaps more radical. Is Christian life essentially a religion at all? Jesus was critical of formal religion that was only for show. St Paul’s passionate teaching, following his conversion, is centred on a personal relationship with Christ – we take on ‘the mind of Christ’ not a dress code or rule book. For centuries the Christian mystical tradition has mapped the interior journey as a way to uncover the ‘inward eye’ that Jesus insisted we need in order to perceive his truth.

Again, I am sympathetic to the charge until I begin to think about the assumptions behind it. Jesus was an observant Jew who engaged fully with ‘formal religion’. Not all formal religion is ‘for show’. St Paul’s teaching involves the ‘personal relationship with Christ’ and then spills huge amounts of ink working away at how the ‘personal’ is to be related to the ‘common’ (or ‘corporate’) life of the committed community. He knows no possibility of a privatised faith set loose from relationships in, with and through a community called ‘church’. (And Paul, rather embarrassingly for the argument, says quite alot about dress codes and rules.)

I guess I can sympathise with the emotion behind Shirley Lancaster’s statements, but she cannot base them on such an obviously flimsy foundation. Theo Hobson, in an interesting reflection on the matter, repeats his oft-made assertion that the institution is awful and should be abandoned whilst hanging on to the essence at its heart. Yet the same individualism and notion of self-defining spirituality are there again:

… Christianity is so overwhelmingly dominated by institutionalism that it is difficult to lay claim to a non-institutional Christian identity. There is no recognized position of “non-institutional Christian”. But there ought to be one – and Rice is in a position to start the ball rolling.

My question to Theo Hobson is one I have posed before. Christianity knows no possibility of institution-free existence, so what would it mean to be a ‘non-institutional Christian’? You’d have to leave out the ‘Christian’ bit because, as I observed above, it is not possible to read Jesus (or Paul) and conclude that it is possible to be a ‘spiritual’ Christian isolated from any obligation to others both within and without the church. You can only hold this position if you leave Jesus out of the picture – or re-shape him into someone more convenient to our individualistic preferences, but divorced from the character in the Gospels and emptied of anything he said.

I agree with Hobson about needing a “corrective to the tired assumptions of the God debate”. he makes an interesting point when he goes on to say:

Our whole discourse about religion is far too dominated by philosophical framing. Maybe we should learn to see religion as a special sort of artistic tradition. And maybe this is the way in which a non-institutional Christian identity can gain traction. Though images are central to Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, they actually have a powerful anarchic energy: they quietly imply that the essence of religion lies here, in the magic of representation, and not in rules and priestcraft.

Yes, jesus taught in pictures and stories which, once given are lost. That is to say that (for example) Jesus never offered a three-line definition of ‘the Kingdom of God’ and then demand that we all sign up to it; rather, he said repeatedly, ‘the Kingdom of God is like…’ and told a story or described an image. Then he left it to his hearers to work it out, using imagination as well as reason based on experience. A risky way to teach, maybe, because the image might be re-described in a distorted way or misinterpreted – or the story might be mis-remembered, half-told, twisted at important points, and so on. So, I get Theo Hobson’s point about ‘anarchic energy’ (even if I think his language overstates the case).

But, what would his desired ‘non-institutional’ Christianity look like? Where are these people – apparently motivated by Jesus – organising at huge personal and corporate cost service to a local community? Or feeding the hungry in inner-urban parishes? Or advocating for rural communities where the children can no longer afford to live near their parents? Take the ‘institutional church’ out of our communities and see what you are left with. ‘Individual’ or ‘personal’ does not seem a million miles away from ‘selfish’ and ‘self-referential’.

The problem with this is as old as humanity itself. Dismantle an institution and you are not left ‘institution-free’, but with a new form of relating or belonging… a new ‘institution’. The individuals, if they are to take Jesus seriously and make some impact on a beautiful-yet-mucky world, will have to converse somehow, relate somehow, organise somehow, set up organisations somehow, finance them, and so on. And within ten seconds of starting this we will already be involved in politics, power play, competing priorities, and all the other ‘institutional’ stuff we all want to reject.

I am open to learn, but I need that question to be addressed first.

I first came across ‘relics’ (bits of saints) when reading Chaucer at secondary school. At the time I thought it was a bit of weird superstition to stick a dessicated bit of (allegedly) someone’s body in a box, put it in a holy place and invite people to ’venerate’ it – which I also didn’t understand.

I still don’t quite ‘get it’ now. I watched the coverage of the devotion many paid to the relics of St Therese of Lisieux earlier this year and couldn’t work out why the presence of someone’s body parts should evoke the devotion they did. I am perfectly happy to say that this is my personal deficiency, but having had it all explained to me, I still don’t quite get it. Maybe there is some bit of me I can’t suspend. (It won’t be a surprise, then, if I also confess to not being perturbed by the beatification of John Henry Newman this coming September – however inspiring or interesting I might find him – as I don’t think it makes the slightest difference to him or us.)

I was chatting to a couple of my colleagues this morning about a holiday visit to the Church of St Titus in Crete where a sign tells the visitor that the skull of St Titus (first Bishop of Crete and recipient of Paul’s New Testament letter) is housed in a side chapel. This led us on to a conversation about relics in general and then to a question in particular.

If you thought you were likely one day to be venerated, which bits would you (a) like to be preserved as a relic and (b) which would you definitely not want preserved for the devotion of the faithful?

We didn’t reach a conclusion. But we did miss the point about the purpose of relics…