Christmas Revival

As Christmas approaches there is often a spate of journalistic comment about religion that doesn’t necessarily bear on the season, but on the state of Christianity as a whole. Dr Abacus recently called the attention of myself and other clergy he knows to a piece for the FT by Camilla Cavendish, about the benefits of religious observance, while in The Scotsman Tory leader in Scotland Murdo Fraser tilts at the long-toppled windmill of Dr Richard Dawkins to allege ‘early signs of a Christian revival’ in the UK. I thought both were a bit questionable. Baroness Cavendish describes herself as an unbeliever but prescribes religion for personal wellbeing, while Mr Fraser, while also declaring Christianity’s utility in answering what he reports as Nicky Gumbel’s summary of human needs – ‘to be loved, to have a purpose, to belong’ – adds to them its role in underpinning 'Western values', basically roping God into culture-war discourse. His description of Christianity’s ‘inspiring message of hope and light’ rings every bit as hollow and unconvincing as you might predict. I’d never dream of using arguments like this. The first amounts to ‘come to church and you might feel a bit better’, while the second translates as ‘come to church and together we can stop the Muslims’. Never satisfied, me.

Meanwhile over on Radio 4 we have a somewhat more rewarding and intellectually hard-edged diatribe from Will Self:

It’s precisely in order to hear [these ultimate questions] posed that I attend church services of all denominations, and ones in mosques, ashrams, gudwaras, and synagogues as well. Other non-believers may go for aesthetic reasons, and especially at this time of year, for a live enactment of some Christmassy reverie; I go, as I say, to test the mettle of my own understanding of my self, and its relation to others and the world, and for this to work for me, I require a sermon! Often, I’ll find the sermon in the established churches so woefully bad I have to restrain myself from heckling. It’s not just a matter of banal popular cultural references, it’s the reduction of the majesty and awe that should be associated with this extraordinary belief system to a kind of weak humanist jus.

… which all acts as some sort of cautionary warning as I compose the five sermons I will preach across Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, just in case someone like Will Self is there, ‘believing that any sermon I hear could be the one that triggers some profound conversion experience’. At least he was mildly approving, despite one throwaway reference to Nigel Farage, of what he heard ‘on Advent Sunday as I sat with about forty others in the exquisitely beautiful St Jude’s-on-the-Hill’, preached by, as it turns out, Revd Emily Kolltveit, former Mediaeval Baebe and leader of symphonic-metal band Pythia before she caught religion. I wonder what sermon got to her.