God's Agents: Biblical Publicity in Contemporary England 9780520957107

Table of contents :
Contents
A Note to the Reader
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
1. Angels in Swindon
2. The Semiotics of Relevance
3. Kingdom and Christendom
4. Doing God
5. Good Trouble and Good Timing
6. Reasonable Religion
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

God’s Agents

The Anthropology of Christianity Edited by Joel Robbins 1. Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter, by Webb Keane 2. A Problem of Presence: Beyond Scripture in an African Church, by Matthew Engelke 3. Reason to Believe: Cultural Agency in Latin American Evangelicalism, by David Smilde 4. Chanting Down the New Jerusalem: Calypso, Christianity, and Capitalism in the Caribbean, by Francio Guadeloupe 5. In God’s Image: The Metaculture of Fijian Christianity, by Matt Tomlinson 6. Converting Words: Maya in the Age of the Cross, by William F. Hanks 7. City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala, by Kevin O’Neill 8. Death in a Church of Life: Moral Passion during Botswana’s Time of AIDS, by Frederick Klaits 9. Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective, edited by Chris Hann and Hermann Goltz 10. Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods, by Allan Anderson, Michael Bergunder, Andre Droogers, and Cornelis van der Laan 11. Holy Hustlers, Schism, and Prophecy: Apostolic Reformation in Botswana, by Richard Werbner 12. Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches, by Omri Elisha 13. Spirits of Protestantism: Medicine, Healing, and Liberal Christianity, by Pamela E. Klassen 14. The Saint in the Banyan Tree: Christianity and Caste Society in India, by David Mosse 15. God’s Agents: Biblical Publicity in Contemporary England, by Matthew Engelke

God’s Agents Biblical Publicity in Contemporary England

Matthew Engelke

University of California Press Berkeley

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Los Angeles

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London

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2013 by The Regents of the University of California Chapter 1 was originally published, in slightly different form, as “Angels in Swindon: Public Religion and Ambient Faith in England,” in American Ethnologist 39(1) [2012]: 155–170. Chapter 2 was originally published, in slightly different form, as “The Semiotics of Relevance: Campaigning for the Bible in Greater Manchester,” in Anthropological Quarterly 84(3) [2011]: 705–735. The material from these articles is reused here with permission. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Engelke, Matthew Eric. God’s agents : Biblical publicity in contemporary England / Matthew Engelke. — 1 [edition]. pages cm. — (The anthropology of Christianity ; 15) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-520-28046-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-520-28047-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Bible—Publication and distribution—Great Britain. 2. Evangelistic work—Great Britain. 3. British and Foreign Bible Society. I. Title. BV2369.E54 2013 267'.13—dc23 2013016100 Manufactured in the United States of America 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Nature’s Natural, a fiber that contains 30% post-consumer waste and meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1192 (r 1197) (Permanence of Paper).

For Harriet and Louis

Contents

A Note to the Reader Acknowledgments Preface Introduction

ix xi xiii 1

1. Angels in Swindon

37

2. The Semiotics of Relevance

64

3. Kingdom and Christendom

98

4. Doing God

131

5. Good Trouble and Good Timing

162

6. Reasonable Religion

188

Conclusion

225

Notes References Index

239 257 267

A Note to the Reader

Throughout this book there is some slippage in the terminology used to describe where this study takes place. To some readers this may appear confusing; to others, perhaps sloppy. Sometimes, for instance, I refer to the “United Kingdom,” other times, “Britain,” but mostly “England.” In doing so I am not being sloppy; indeed I try to follow the usage patterns of the people I studied and in accord with national-level discourses. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state with a monarchy and a parliamentary democracy. It includes England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, the first three being countries on the island of Great Britain, the last sometimes referred to as a country and sometimes a region (depending on who is speaking). There are also some small islands within the group of islands known as the British Isles, such as the Isle of Man. Under the banner of “devolution,” Wales, Scotland, and, with increasing regularity, Northern Ireland retain (or take, again depending on who is speaking) certain political powers—with Scotland and Northern Ireland in many ways more distinctly so. The United Kingdom is often referred to as “Britain,” but it would be a mistake, and an offensive one at that (at least to many non-English), to refer to the United Kingdom as “England.” England is the largest country within the country (itself a confusing characterization, but no less accurate for being so); it has a population well more than ten times that of any of the other countries

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or region in the United Kingdom. And it is, of course, home to the Houses of Parliament. Life on the British Isles is full of accretions and what many British people call “fudges,” and the ways in which the places and the people are denominated are among them. This anthropological study took place in England—and indeed only in certain parts of England—and yet at times I refer to Britain or the United Kingdom for what I hope will now, with this note, be reasonable reasons. Often this switching has to do with political language or in relation to the mass-media outlets and publics about which I write or to which I refer. With space explained, let me also add a short comment about time. This study took place, as I will remind readers at a number of points, from 2006 to 2009. Anthropologists wrestle with what verb tense to use, with some plumping for what is called “the ethnographic present.” I write in the past tense, at least most of the time, not because the world I studied has disappeared or because I want to deny the natives coevality but rather because that world has, in many ways, already moved on, and one of the things the staff at Bible Society were always keen to stress is that I make it clear that what’s written about in the pages to follow is not necessarily what they are doing today. Bible advocacy is driven by temporal dynamism, the texture of which will, I hope, emerge in the ethnography to follow.

Acknowledgments

The research for this project was funded by a STICERD/Annual Fund New Researcher Award from the London School of Economics and a British Academy Small Research Grant (SG-47097). It was greatly facilitated by the late Olivia Harris, who, as chair of the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics (and an inspiring colleague), allowed me to be flexible and creative with my school commitments so that I could spend lots of time in Swindon, Manchester, and other addresses in London (and South Africa and Ethiopia for week-long trips). A very large number of friends, colleagues, and students have contributed to the direction and shape of this book, sometimes by reading parts of it or listening to parts of it, sometimes by discussing it with me, and sometimes by having the good sense to talk about something else or just generally keep me on my toes. If I tried to list them all I’d never be able to, but let me mention by name Catherine Allerton, Rita Astuti, Andreas Bandak, Mukulika Banerjee, Laura Bear, Maurice Bloch, Fenella Cannell, Alanna Cant, Simon Coleman, Girish Daswani, Abby Day, Stephan Feuchtwang, Sarah Franklin, Chris Fuller, Naomi Haynes, Deborah James, Webb Keane, Pamela Klassen, Michael Lambek, Gordon Lynch, Bernice Martin, David Martin, Meadhbh McIvor, Birgit Meyer, Danny Miller, David Morgan, Rebecca Nash, Kevin Lewis O’Neill, Jonathan Parry, Mathijs Pelkmans, Michael W. Scott, Alpa Shah, Anthony Shenoda, Don Slater, George St. Clair, Hans Steinmuller, Anna Strhan, Matt Tomlinson, Harry Walker, and Linda Woodhead. Jon Bialecki, xi

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James Bielo, Tom Boylston, and Harry West went above and beyond the call of duty; they read the whole manuscript and offered really useful comments. Joel Robbins, partly as the series editor but mostly as a wonderful friend, also needs to be singled out. And although they don’t know anything about this book, I’d like to thank Neko Case, Bill Evans, and Richard Hawley too. Several of the chapters were presented in seminars, workshops, and conferences, including at the London School of Economics, University College London, Sussex University, Birkbeck College, Durham University, Kent University, Cambridge University, the University of Copenhagen, Bergen University, the University of California at San Diego, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, the University of Virginia, the University of Toronto, Reed College, Scripps College, the College of William and Mary, two of the Global Seminars on Religion, Media, and Culture (in Accra and Hyderabad), and the Centro Inconti Umani in Ascona, Switzerland. In addition to the individuals named earlier, I received an incredible amount of helpful feedback from colleagues in these venues. At the University of California Press, my editor, Reed Malcolm, has been a constant source of support and has made the whole process seem easy. Two anonymous reviewers for the press offered insightful readings that helped me clarify several aspects of the arguments and ethnography. I’d also like to thank Stacy Eisenstark and the production team at California for their wonderful help. More generally in terms of production, I’d like to thank Emilie Hitch, Anne Decobert, Maja Londorf, and Alanna Cant for transcribing the interviews, Megan Laws for preparing the figures, and Rebecca Wallis for helping with the manuscript. Without doubt my greatest debt is to the many people at Bible Society and Theos who opened up their work and lives to me. It is always humbling, as an anthropologist, to see how generous and trusting others can be, subjecting themselves to being scribbled about and gazed at from the corner of the room. Several of these people appear in the pages to follow, but there were many, many more who offered their time and thoughts. Last but by no means least, I’d like to acknowledge the love and support of my family, especially my mother, Karen Engelke, Bill Nash and Elizabeth Becker, Suzanne and Randy Richardson, and above all my wife, Rebecca, and our children, Harriet and Louis, both of whom like to ask me what I do at work each day. (This is what I was doing, guys, whenever I said, “writing a book.” And now that you can both read, why not give it a go?)

Preface

When James Catford became the chief executive officer of the British and Foreign Bible Society he put a television in the lobby of Bible House. It was tuned to Sky News. The television anchored the small waiting area, past the reception desk, outside two separate doors, one of which led to meeting rooms and the other to a staircase that took you up to an open-plan office, where many of the staff had their desks. Next to the waiting area was a small, partly glass-walled room, interior to the building, that staff could use for collective prayers, if they so wished. As a visitor you would not necessarily know this, however; assuming your eyes weren’t drawn to the television screen there was nothing in the prayer room that would have caught your eye. Bible House was built in the early 1980s; nothing about it catches your eye. It is hardly unusual these days for a waiting area to have a television. But what was going on here had very little in common with the television in a doctor’s office, airport lounge, or car repair shop. At Bible House the television had little functional value. Unlike in other waiting areas, you didn’t need to mollify your boredom; I never saw a visitor have to wait more than five minutes. There weren’t many visitors to begin with, anyway; Bible House is not the kind of workplace with a steady stream of outsiders coming through. This television was part of a theological message. This television—tuned always to the news—was a statement that what goes on at the British and Foreign Bible Society is in and of the world. James Catford was proclaiming that the Bible is public. xiii

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This book documents a vision of Christianity as a public religion. I explore the ways in which a group of staff at Bible Society, called the Bible Advocacy Team, worked to counteract the idea that religion ought to be, or even must be, a private affair, “disconnected” from the wider world, concerning only matters of personal belief, as if they could exist independent of wider realities. Their vision of religion refuses to keep to itself—to leave politics to politicians, the cosmos to scientists, culture to artists, media to journalists, and the economy to bankers. In the Society’s vision of public religion, Christianity should connect to and even ground all such social institutions and networks. The staff’s goal, as expressed in the Society’s motto, was “making the Bible heard.” And for them it had to be heard loud and clear. The staff approached this goal in a variety of ways and means and with a variety of audiences and publics in mind. Central to all of these efforts was a commitment to publicity. To engage “the man on the street,” as they often put it (although I’ll say person), they ran major advertising campaigns and sponsored art projects, one of which involved Christmas decorations for the local town center shopping arcade. To engage fellow Christians and the churches, they launched a Bible study program designed to take place in coffee shops and pubs; they also established close relationships with a number of politicians, encouraging them to “think Christianly” about public service. And to engage the media and chattering classes they established a think tank, which published reports and put on major events to do with everything from the provision of chaplains in state-run hospitals to the value of Charles Darwin’s legacy. In all this they were striving to be God’s agents. In this study, the term God’s agents has three main connotations. Above all, staff at Bible Society, and especially those on the Advocacy Team, can be understood as public relations agents for the Good Book. In all the work they did, they were trying to promote and in many cases improve the image, relevance, and uptake of the Bible. And it was about promotion, not proselytization. At least not in any straightforward sense. Bible Society is not a missionary organization. For most of its history the Society has functioned as a publishing house, providing Bibles to a worldwide network of churches and missionary societies, as well as the hospitals, schools, prisons, and other such institutions they run or service. Before becoming CEO, James worked for both HarperCollins and Hodder, two of the United Kingdom’s major commercial publishers, as an editor and publishing director. “God’s agents” is meant to capture a sense of the Society’s historical work and current set of influences: the

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staff as PR agents, as literary agents, working nonstop to promote their star author and His book. And indeed one of the main points of this book is that when we talk about “public religion” today, we’re often actually talking about “religious publicity.” Staff at the Society are also agents in the sense that they understand the role of Christians to be central to the realization of the Kingdom of God. They subscribe to theologies in which waiting around is not an option. Withdrawing from the world is not possible. Keeping one’s faith to oneself is unthinkable. And while there is a clear line between the power of God’s will and their own, staff understand it to be God’s will that they be active in the world—that they redeem the gift of human freedom and become socially engaged, going public with faith. But God’s agents are not only human. From the wind of the Spirit to the power of the printed word, there has been a long-standing conviction within Bible Society that inspiration, revelation, and change come about in numerous ways. It was during an earlier research project, on apostolic Christians in Zimbabwe, that I first came across this central tenet, one indebted to the evangelical tradition out of which the Bible Society movement emerged. Literature produced by Bible Society has often included tales and testimonies of the Bible’s agent-like qualities; falling open to a particular chapter and verse—to exactly what a given reader needs to hear—is by far the most common. There are many others. One that stays in my mind is the Bible in a supporter’s chest pocket that “took a bullet” in the Boer War. “This Bible saved my life,” said the man (in Smit 1970, 130). “The Bible reads people,” a phrase I first heard in Zimbabwe, was invoked as well in England—and not without realization of the intimation of enchantment. Indeed while on the face of it what the Advocacy Team did every day revolved more around the language and logic of marketing—the PR side of things—every act of advocacy is based on an underlying appeal to the mysterium. James and others were quite clear that Christians cannot wait around for the Book to do all the work; it doesn’t always fall open at the right spot on its own, and it doesn’t take everything that life shoots at us. But this “magic,” as James and I once discussed it, is a key aspect of what inspires the Society. The term public religion has come to mean religion that refuses to accept any demand to restrict its role to private life. Central to this demand, certainly in terms of how staff at Bible Society understand it, is that religion be made over into a matter of “personal beliefs,” self-cultivation, and other-worldly concerns. Within the West there are two traditions of thought associated with this demand of particular note to the Society:

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the Enlightenment tradition of philosophy and the liberal tradition of political theory. In many cases these traditions overlap, coming together under the label of modernity. Indeed liberalism is “pre-eminently the political theory of the Age of Reason” (Canovan 1990, 9); all the same, the Enlightenment and liberalism should be recognized as separate and as having diversity within themselves.1 According to the Enlightenment story, one general justification for the removal of religion from public life is its irrationality and unreasonableness. The work of some Enlightenment philosophers is in fact antitheistic—antireligious—and the privatization of religion can even be seen by them as the first step in its eventual elimination. Although the liberal story is often perceived to be antireligious because of its insistence that religious talk be left out of political debate, liberalism is not always driven by the same kind of reason as the Enlightenment tradition that denounces religion. The liberal justification for religion’s privacy is out of fear not that it is inherently irrational but that it is one of many particular discourses that hamper the realization of justice. In this schematic view, the Enlightenment thinker might say, “Religious belief is irrational and antimodern; if we can’t get rid of it altogether, we ought at least to keep it as far away from the workings of political power as possible.” Whereas the liberal might say, “Religious belief is not a good base for political argumentation, especially in a pluralist society; it’s only ever likely to cause divisions and lead to people talking past one another. If an argument can’t be won on the basis of appeals to ‘common reason,’ then it’s not worth making.” These are the two perceived demands of privatization that drove Bible advocacy. Neither of them was countenanced in Bible House. Some members of the Advocacy Team spoke about the Enlightenment and liberalism in their day-to-day work. As one team member put it to me, charting what he saw as the challenge to faith, “It really started big-time, I suppose, with Copernicus and the Enlightenment. And obviously Darwinism and all that kind of thing. So basically, gradually, as scientific materialism took over—took hold in Western society—the Church has gradually lost more and more ground.” We will get to science and Darwin’s connection to all of this toward the end of this book. But the legacy and power of these traditions was crystallized in another word—also hinted at in this remark—the many meanings of which will be explored in the chapters that follow. That word is secularism. Secularism was not a wholly dirty word in Bible House, and there were many ways in which the work of Bible advocacy was meant to

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own it, and even champion it, as a Christian concept. As what follows will show, there were important ways in which the Advocacy team wanted to be secularist, or even secular—at least sometimes. And in some instances secularism and related words were used descriptively, without a note of anxiousness or annoyance; when team members spoke of “secular culture,” for example, they often just meant things that were not part of the church or of a religious character. But in other cases when the staff spoke about “secularism,” the “secular authorities,” or “secular humanism,” they were highlighting what they took to be persons and points of view insisting that religion be kept out of sight. Sometimes the further implication was that these persons and points of view were hostile to religion altogether—that out of sight was a start but that out of the frame would be much better. In some cases the hostility was seen to be underwritten by a comforting sense that religion is on the decline anyway—that society is undergoing a process of “secularization” in which the spark of faith will fade. In other cases the hostility was seen to be underwritten by an active effort to extinguish the spark; not content with the hand of history, some secularists were seen as wanting to help with the snuffing out. Like other perceptions of public moods and social states, this one among the staff at Bible Society got encapsulated in a sound bite, a pithy phrase that summed things up: “We don’t do God.” Ever the good agents, they deployed this phrase with great effect. It was taken from Alastair Campbell, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s press secretary, and it reverberated—as a challenge—throughout all efforts at Bible advocacy and even more widely throughout the public sphere and Christian publics and counterpublics in Britain. The simple reading of Campbell’s pronouncement is that political figures in Britain must work according to a secular settlement in which faith remains private. This is a generically liberal position, something along the lines that religion and politics ought to be separate. Alongside this, though, Campbell’s words have been interpreted in other ways. By 2003, which is when he said it, Campbell’s public persona was as the “devious high priest of spin,” and an aggressive and bombastic one at that.2 He was certainly never afraid to confront those who he felt were in the wrong or misrepresenting Blair or the government position. Campbell spoke his mind in plain language. On the occasion when he declared that God would not be done, Campbell was replying on Blair’s behalf to a question from a Vanity Fair reporter who had asked Blair about his Christian faith. It was well known at the time that Blair held a strong

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faith, and in the context of his relationship with President George W. Bush, with whom he was embarking on a war in Iraq, that faith had become a particularly interesting issue among Britain’s chattering classes (i.e., people who read Vanity Fair). What was remarked upon at the time, and subsequently, is that Campbell felt empowered—even compelled—to answer on Blair’s behalf. In accounts of the exchange, Campbell is even described as having “interrupted” the prime minister.3 For the staff at Bible Society—and a good number of other Christians who participate in the public sphere—Campbell’s attempt to keep religion out of the public in this memorable instance served as a troublesome indication of just how influential a certain brand of the secular settlement had become, a brand that got understood, like Campbell’s public persona, to be rather pugnacious, informed by the kind of Enlightenment sensibility sketched earlier. Moreover what Campbell said in relation to Blair’s position as a politician was taken within Bible Society and elsewhere to apply to any Christian who wanted to speak up, speak out, or be public about his or her faith. Alongside Blair, one of the most powerful symbols of such an injunction—although there have been many others besides—was a check-in clerk for British Airways, Nadia Eweida, who, in 2006, was temporarily suspended for refusing to remove a cross necklace while on the job. Indeed just as Blair’s boxing-in by Campbell, Eweida’s case was understood as a bellwether of the societal mood and reinforced the perception among some Christians that God could not be “done” publicly in any way, shape, or form. Signs of personal faith—be they words, jewelry, or anything else—had to be kept to oneself. The Bible Advocacy Team were not particularly concerned with Alastair Campbell per se; as with all sound bites, who first said it, and in what context, mattered less the further it circulated. In a post on his blog several years after the fact, Campbell actually said his words were “not a major strategic statement but an attempt to bring to an end an interview in which an American journalist was asking ‘one final question’ after ‘one final question.’ ”4 By the logic of this argument, the journalist could have been asking Blair if he was a cat person or a dog person, and Campbell would have replied, “We don’t do pets.” Campbell is not religious and describes himself in the same blog post as a “pro faith atheist”; he did, at least, devote the core of his career to working for a deeply religious premier. Such clarifications and explanations seem not to have mattered much, however, and Campbell’s words have been kicked around the public square like a ball on a school playground.

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Blair and many others have joined in the game. In one of his first extensive interviews after leaving office, Blair remarked on the power of the privacy injunction and, more, the stigma attached to breaking it. “It’s difficult if you talk about faith in our political system,” he said. “You talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you’re a nutter.”5 Speaking in relation to the Eweida case, the Catholic archbishop of Southwark went further, picking up on the claim of a particularly antiChristian stance. “There seems to be a prejudice against Christians or against the manifestation of the Christian faith which totally puzzles me,” he said.6 And so, “we don’t do God.” This simple phrase has had more impact on the terms of debate over public religion in Britain than any other. It has defined the better part of a decade’s worth of conversation, debate, perception, and action. Within the Bible Society’s Advocacy Team the reply has been, “Yes we do!” •

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In October 2009 there was a workshop on “religion and the news” at Cumberland Lodge, an educational charity in Windsor Great Park. I attended the workshop with a member of the Bible Advocacy Team, who was there as an invited guest. In one of the sessions, one of the speakers, a journalist, began with a joke. “There’s only one mention of the media in the Bible. It’s in Luke, chapter 8,” she said, going on to cite it from the King James version: “Then came to him his mother and his brethren, and they could not come at him for the press.” The journalist’s joke got lots of laughs but raises serious questions about the relationship between Christianity and its modes of publicity. What, in any given place and time, are the legitimate and legitimating forms of proclamation? How, in contemporary England, can and should the Good News garner publicity? How can Christianity be a “public religion”? These are the questions that frame this book. To call something “public” is not a wholly modern thing; the concept, though, has been thoroughly modernized, some might even say commoditized, such that its link to the traditions of thought and life in the ancient Mediterranean world might seem lost. A central premise of this book is that public, as a term, has historical specificities, and I set out to trace them in new millennium England. But another central premise of this book is that contemporary Christian concerns with publicity are often linked to the ancient Mediterranean worlds recounted by Luke and his fellow apostles; they are certainly so linked by members of the

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Bible Advocacy Team. God’s agents strive for what they understand to be fidelity to the teachings of Jesus, teachings that, in their view, are necessarily “public,” in today’s parlance. In this respect the gospel lesson that provided the journalist at Cumberland Lodge with the material for her joke is an important one within the Bible Society movement. It is a lesson that underscores the commitment to publicity. Jesus faces “the press” after telling the parable of the sower (Luke 8:1–15). The sower, you may recall, if you know your Bible, “went out to sow his seed,” although much of it fell on poor ground and got “trodden down,” “withered,” and “choked”; yet “other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundred-fold.” After explaining the meaning of the parable to his disciples—“on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience”—Jesus continues by invoking another image. “No man,” Jesus says, “when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light. For nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest; neither anything hid, that shall not be known and come abroad” (Luke 8:16–17). In this, as in so many other passages of Scripture, God’s agents find confirmation of their commitment to being public. The British and Foreign Bible Society adopted the image of the sower as its colophon in 1889 and continued to use it through the late 1990s (Steer 2004, 412). It was a perfect symbol for the Society’s goal of spreading the word, of broadcasting the seed. To broadcast, in fact, is not a term invented for the age of radio and television; the pioneers of mass communication borrowed it from the Hebrew prophets (Durham Peters 1999, 206–11; Simonson 2010, 13–17), who in turn borrowed it from the arts of land husbandry. “Publicity,” which we can define as a condition or quality of being public, is a modern concept. Coined in the seventeenth century, it was, as Jürgen Habermas (1962/1989, 1–26) shows, tied to the emergence of the bourgeois public sphere in Britain (publicity), France (publicité), and Germany (Publizität or öffentlich). The distinguishing feature of the public sphere, particularly in Britain, was its function as an arena for public debate distinct from the workings of the state and society; the public sphere, brought about by the discourse of private persons, could be used to hold both to account. It allowed for “people’s public use of their reason” (27), and the force of arguments was carried not on the basis of any given person’s status (“so says the king”) but rather on

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the rightness of the argument itself (“so demands reason”). What allowed for this arrangement was the medium through which the discourse took place: the medium of the printed word. By the end of the eighteenth century it had become axiomatic to assume that the precondition for any project of enlightenment or political enfranchisement was the democratization of print. Publicity in the early modern era was governed by what the literary critic Michael Warner (1990, 42) calls “the principle of negativity.” For an argument or idea to be properly public it had to bear a negative relation to the person making it. The “republic of letters” became a powerful metonym of the age that located authority and legitimacy in printedness, in disembodied “publication.” In such a republic “social authority, like truth, holds validity not in persons, but despite them; it is located not in the virtuous citizen nor in God nor in the King, but in the light of day, in the supervision of publicity itself” (82). Such a republic has never really existed. Habermas’s depiction of the public sphere is idealized—one prominent sociologist calls it a “hazy unreality” (Thompson 1995, 261)—and glosses over important considerations. For one thing, entry into the bourgeois public sphere was never as straightforward as letting reason flow forth from one’s pen. As many of Habermas’s critics have stressed, those pens tended to be held by certain classes of white men—a fact of personhood never fully negated (see, e.g., Calhoun 1992; Fraser 1992). Habermas has also been questioned for his elision of religion; The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, first published in 1962, leaves religion largely out of the story (see Zaret 1992 for a discussion pertaining to the case of England) and certainly cannot accommodate the subsequent constitution of public spheres outside the West in which religion has played a central role (Hirschkind 2006; Meyer 2004; Meyer and Moors 2006; Rajagopal 2001). Habermas has taken many of these criticisms on board (see Habermas 1992) and notably amended his view on public religion over the years (Habermas 2011; Habermas and Ratzinger 2007). In any case, even for him, if a truly laudable public sphere ever existed, it has long been lost. By the 1830s the public sphere had been tainted by commercialization and, over time, the reintroduction of personality, especially with the development of new media technologies such as radio, film, and television. Certainly when we think of publicity today we are less likely to think of the social and political projects of John Stuart Mill or Benjamin Franklin and more likely—much more likely—to think of the junkets and tours of Hollywood actors and pop stars.

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The understanding of what’s public remains as much a “clouded amalgam” (Habermas 1962/1989, 1) as ever. Yet invocations of the public, and the promises of freedom, democracy, and enlightenment such invocations suggest, remain deeply attractive. What is more, not all observers are as dyspeptic as Habermas about the effects of new mass media on publicity’s qualities and potentials (Calhoun 1992; Latour and Weibel 2005). And more generally, Habermas’s many critics are often admiring critics; they do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. However they may be defined, though, enlightenment, democracy, and other ideas and ideals associated with “the reinvention of publicness” (Thompson 1995, 235–65) integral to the narrative of modernity are never “the exfoliation of material technology” (Warner 1990, 6). Books do not make a world good all on their own; neither does revelation or salvation. These things have to be got at through social and political relations and are shaped by the currents and contingencies of history. Within Christian traditions, even those strongly evangelical ones in which the agency of the Book is palpable, this is often actually recognized. The agency of Scripture is only ever part of the story. As John Durham Peters (1999, 52) reminds us within the context of his wide-ranging study on the idea of communication, “the parable of the sower celebrates broadcasting as an equitable mode of communication that leaves the harvest of meaning to the will and capacity of the recipient.” Audiences and publics have always mattered in this way for the Bible Society; audiences and publics have always been part of the equation of publicity. As clouded as our understanding may be, there remains in the contemporary moment a lasting commitment to a central aspect of the early modern acclamation of public things. Public things are supposed to be good things.7 Part of what makes them so is the normative demand that they must be free of “personal agendas” and “private interests.” That which is public ought to be illuminated by the light of day and nothing else, certainly not the light of the candle of which Jesus speaks in the Gospel of Luke. In England the character of publicity still creates awkward conditions for the presence of God. The insistence on disembodiment—the separation of rightness of word and deed from the subject who expresses them—is, for many Christians, an odd and unhelpful demand. It contravenes the essence of Christian self-formation and social relations alike. In a very important sense, publicity asks us to erase ourselves. This makes no sense to the Christians I got to know in the course of this

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study. And this is the root of the problem for proponents of public religion; this is where the stories of enlightenment, liberalization, and secularization come together to set the scene for the Bible Advocacy Team. The central argument of this book is that we cannot understand contemporary formations of the secular without paying attention to the dynamics of publicity. Secularity and publicity are inextricably linked, and it is vital not to subsume this link under the banner term “public religion.” How and why is a religion ever public? That’s what anthropology must ask—and answer. What the dynamics of publicity reveal in this case is that the challenge of the secular for these Christians lies in how to reconcile the principle of negativity with the duty and desire for proclamation, for broadcasting the seed. •

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All the talk of doing God and Bible advocacy was not what I had in mind when I conceived of a project on the Bible Society. Having been trained as an anthropologist of religion with a focus on Africa, my initial thinking was that fieldwork would take me there; I thought I would follow some of the Society’s international projects and look at issues to do with religion and development. As part of this I expected to spend time with staff at the Society looking at issues of design, production, and distribution. I thought I might do ethnography of the Book as such. I already knew something about the Society’s international work. In the research for my PhD, carried out in Zimbabwe, I had interviewed the general secretary of the Bible Society of Zimbabwe, as well as a team of translators that had been working on a new translation of the Bible into Shona, the Bantu language spoken by the majority of Zimbabweans. I had also read a lot about the Society’s nineteenth-century roots and the important role it played in establishing print cultures and reading publics in the global South. I was interested in the Society during the course of my PhD research because it helped set the social and theological backdrops against which the Christians I was primarily studying had defined themselves. These people, members of an African apostolic church founded in the 1930s, referred to themselves as “the Christians who don’t read the Bible”; they rejected the authority of Scripture for a combination of sociopolitical and theological reasons, the former having to do with colonialism, the latter based on what I detail as an ultra-Protestant concern about one’s personal relationship with God being mediated in any way (Engelke 2007). While for most Protestants the Bible is not seen as a barrier to that

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relationship, for these apostolics, it was, and they did without it in the same way other Protestants do without popes and rosary beads. These African apostolics wanted a “live and direct” faith, and they saw the Bible as something getting in the way of that. It was the materiality of the text, in other words, that became a major theme in my earlier work, and the work of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) served as a prime example of the ways in which that materiality was otherwise made to matter. The brief reference earlier to the Society Bible “taking a bullet” for a supporter in the Boer War is a perfect example of how the Book’s physical existence has been linked to its metaphysical one; for the strongly evangelical, Bible-loving Protestants who worked for and worked with the BFBS, the Word of God was seen always to have these integrally material qualities. In short, then, one way of explaining my interest in a project on the BFBS is to say that I wanted to switch from studying a group that was no-Bible to one that was all-Bible. The Society is still all-Bible. And yet as the anthropology to follow makes clear, that does not translate today into a single-minded focus on the production and distribution of books. If there is one thing I learned from studying the Bible Advocacy Team, it is that, for them, the Bible is not a book; the Bible ought not to be thought of only or even primarily as paper and ink. I soon discovered that if I studied the BFBS, I was not going to be observing or participating in a world full of translators, book designers, and printers. To be sure, next to the waiting area in the lobby of Bible House was a glass case containing a large Bible, opened every day to a different chapter and verse. And you could go upstairs in Bible House, to the open-plan office, and find a selection of Bibles on shelves near the desks of the handful of staff who ran the Society’s trading arm. But in much of my research, and in much of the advocacy team’s work, Bibles were often nowhere in sight. Sometimes meetings were opened with readings from a Bible that someone had brought, but even for a Bible study group I participated in, the Word of God usually came in the form of printouts from PDF files off a computer, nothing more than a few sheets of white paper. My arrival at Bible House also brought the surprise that, while the Society still works internationally, its domestic projects, which cover England and Wales, were of a wholly different nature and raised a host of issues I hadn’t expected to find the Society involved in. These are the issues of Bible advocacy. I quickly realized that England might be exactly the kind of exotic and unfamiliar place that whets the anthropo-

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logical appetite. And so while I did make it to Africa twice for this project—once to South Africa and once to Ethiopia—I turned my gaze to a new landscape of what were to me, especially as an American, uncharted territories. This is an anthropology that took place in Swindon, Camberly, Prestwich, Didsbury, Castle Cary, and London.8 This is also an anthropology, focused as it is on publicity and public religion, that took place in relation to the mediascapes of modern Britain: books, newspapers, magazines, radio shows, television shows, the Internet and blogs, events, even billboards and lampposts—these were the platforms of publicity that shaped Bible advocacy and the mediums through which the staff both worked and envisioned their task. Shifting my focus from Africa to the United Kingdom also meant coming to grips with the sociology of religion. Although anthropologists have worked in Western places for a long time now, and on much more than cross-cousin marriage or collecting origin myths, it’s still the stereotype that we all head off to “the bush” in this way (although in Zimbabwe my “bush” was an urban area of over 2 million people). Certainly many of the people at Bible Society and in the research more generally found my professional background surprising. Many of them knew of and even read sociologists of religion in Britain. So what could I add? In relation to traditions of sociology based on qualitative research, the answer did not always involve something wholly distinct. And indeed I would like this book to be considered in part sociology of religion too, contributing to that discipline’s empirical and theoretical work on lived religion and secular formations. All the same, for specialists in either anthropology or sociology, some differences will be evident. Had this been written in a more fully sociological mode, the approach to the secular might have been more consistently explicit, engaged with the “secularization thesis” and its afterlife. But as one anthropologist who has written in this area puts it, the secular can also be approached “through its shadows” (Asad 2003, 16)—sideways, as it were, or, as I discuss at various points, through the ambient, background qualities of public engagement. I will return to and reflect upon the scope and methods of my fieldwork at various points throughout the book. To finish setting the stage, however, let me say a further few things about the particular forms my anthropological research took. Above all, it involved that most scientific of anthropological endeavors: participant observation—or, more plainly, hanging out. I hung out with people; I sat at the table and sometimes even said things. I spent as much time with the staff as I could,

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both in the context of work for Bible Society and, where possible, outside that context. My research began in July 2006 and concluded, as much as anthropological research can ever be concluded, in December 2009. The most intensive period was between July 2006 and October 2007, throughout which I worked full time on the project, sometimes seven days a week. It was during this period that I spent part of each week in Swindon and/or with Bible Society staff in their work elsewhere, mainly London and Manchester but also the places mentioned earlier, giving me a taste of the Christian festivals, vicarage sitting rooms, church halls, theological colleges, and even comedy clubs frequented by staff doing their work. At Bible House and in my travels I conducted seventy-four tape-recorded interviews and five video-recorded focus groups. I attended a huge range of both regular and ad hoc meetings and events. (Bible advocates have a lot of meetings.) In July and September 2007 I interned in the office of the Society’s London-based think tank, Theos. On a few occasions I went to church with staff and also, as mentioned, participated in a Bible study group during the spring of 2008. As with most anthropology projects, all of this structured and accountable activity was important, but even more so were the innumerable informal conversations I had with people or those moments before and after an interview in which what’s really on someone’s mind comes out. This is the crux of hanging out. Anthropology of this kind is about what you discuss over lunch or what comes up in a taxi or train ride that you share—sometimes intentionally, sometimes by chance. It’s about what you can observe with someone at an art museum when you meet him or her not to conduct an interview, or even to be especially inquisitive, but just to spend time to get to know one another. This kind of anthropology is about observations too: what people choose to read on plane rides to Addis Ababa or even something as seemingly inconsequential as how they get on an elevator. All such “imponderabilia,” as the famous anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski once put it, matter a great deal. In addition, this research involved cultivating certain practices of reading, listening, viewing, and surfing attendant to the concerns of the people I studied and the publics and counterpublics to which they contributed and helped constitute.

Introduction

The British and Foreign Bible Society, which is also known as the Bible Society of England and Wales, is a Christian charity. It has been based in Swindon, a town in Wiltshire about an hour’s train ride from London, since 1983. Until that point it had been based in London, in a majestic Bible House on Queen Victoria Street in the City of London. When I began my research in July 2006, the Society employed seventy-five staff and had annual incoming resources of close to £12.3 million; by the time I finished my research in December 2009, the Society had expanded, with 105 staff and annual incoming resources close to £13.4 million. As expressed in its annual reports, the Society’s long-term vision is “for a day when the Bible’s God-given revelation, inspiration, and wisdom is shaping the lives and communities of people everywhere.” Approximately 80 percent of its annual resources come from donations, grants, and legacies by people who support this mission. The Society was founded in 1804. Its founders were deeply involved in the late eighteenth-century evangelical revival, many of them Anglicans in the circle that became known as the Clapham Sect. Of these, William Wilberforce, a longtime member of Parliament and a symbolic leader of the abolitionist movement, was the best known, and the Society has often highlighted his role as a founding father. Like many evangelicals both within and outside the Church of England, Wilberforce’s vision of Christianity was fueled by a commitment to the social and spiritual uplift that came with personal salvation. Justification was by 1

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faith alone, and the emphasis was on the individual’s recognizing that redemption is possible only because of the sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross. Universal access to the Bible was the means by which this realization could be made, so much so that an organization devoted to its promotion was seen as both right and necessary. For evangelicals of this period, the key was that “Scripture should be made accessible to all and all had the right and the duty to read it in a search for truth, unimpeded by the mediation of priest and hierarchy” (Ditchfield 1998, 27). Evangelicals had their own vision of what the democratization of print would enable. Two historical factors helped convince the evangelicals that their vision could be realized. First was the expanding horizon of the British Empire, fueled by a conviction that the Bible was the key to England’s greatness (Sugirtharajah 2001, 53). The world was Britain’s canvas, and by 1804 evangelicals were already beginning to make use of it, following the routes of empire around the Cape of Good Hope, on to the Indian subcontinent and beyond. The second factor was that printing technology took a major leap forward around the turn of the nineteenth century. Not much had changed since the days of Gutenberg in the fifteenth century; over the first few decades of the nineteenth century, however, such developments as machine printing and stereotyping (in which plates of texts were produced and could be stored for future use) made possible hitherto unimaginable print runs at increasingly affordable cost (Howsam 1991, 74–120). For the first time in history a theological vision could make use of political and technological developments to imagine a global Christianity, a Christianity indexed by the presence of the Book throughout the four corners of the world. At the inaugural meeting of the Society it was agreed that the “sole object shall be to encourage a wider dispersion of the Holy Scriptures.” Wider dispersion is something of an understatement: over time the founders of the Society wanted nothing less than to put a Bible in the hands of everyone on earth, ideally in their native tongue and ideally for a price that anyone could afford. It was through this book, got at by reading and reflection, that people could come to know their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Three key decisions were made at that initial meeting and enshrined in the Society’s constitution. The first was that the Society was to be an independent organization, with a General Committee composed of both Anglicans and other Protestant churches (known as Dissenters or Non-Conformists); today that translates to a stipulation that the Board

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of Trustees must contain somewhere between 40 and 60 percent Anglican representation. While this was to be an organization of Christians, then, it was not, in one sense, a Christian organization. As one early admirer said, it was “a society for furnishing the means of religion, but not a religious society” (Howard quoted in Howsam 1991, 7). From its earliest days, the BFBS made use of a secular logic to define its work, bracketing religion, at least in some instances, as something that could be conducted, like electricity, or checked at the door, like a coat. The second key decision was that the Society would publish Bibles “without note or comment.” There was to be no direction given to the way a passage should be read, no interpretive notes or marginalia. The Bible was to speak for itself. This freedom from denominational stricture was designed to provide the space for the Society to get on with its business. As explained in the minutes from the first general meeting, “As the very Constitution of this Society will stand aloof from party views, it is hoped that Christians of every Denomination will cheerfully come forward to encourage an object which they all so decidedly profess to approve.”1 Third, the founders decided that their Bibles should be sold for prices “as low as possible” but that, as a rule, they should not be given away for free.2 To this day the only major exceptions to this rule are Bibles provided to such institutions as hospitals and prisons. In practice it has also often meant accepting payment in kind as well as coin; reports of the Society, especially from the colonial era, are full of stories of exchanging Bibles for livestock, foodstuffs, and sometimes simply promises to read it. The Society’s constitutional arrangement has worked relatively well for over two hundred years. In terms of being an organization of Christians but not a Christian organization, the BFBS clearly turned the processes and dynamics of secularization to its advantage. Members of the Bible Society came together as private believers in a public body. This allowed them, with some measure of success, to navigate theological differences and to rally around the commitments they shared to the primacy and power of the Bible. For them, this was a text that had an agency all its own and which God’s children had a duty to disseminate as widely as possible. Yet such a vision, sola scriptura, was not always a strong enough bond to hold the Society together. Ironically in terms of the Society’s firm commitment to publicity and public religion today, strict measures were needed in the first several decades to keep religion “private” enough that it did not infringe on the workings of

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the Society’s business. It was not until 1858 that the Society’s annual meetings were opened with prayer, a practice that could introduce points of contention.3 There were other periods of conflict and strain. One early crisis was precipitated by the decision in 1813 to leave inclusion of the Apocrypha to the discretion of local Bible societies in Europe. (Other Bible societies had started taking root in European national and regional contexts, often with the direction and financial support of London.) By leaving important decisions to other budding national societies in this way, the BFBS could promote distribution and circulation within Roman Catholic regions. Some constituencies within the BFBS were opposed to this. The Scottish Presbyterians were unhappy with the Society’s answer to the Catholic question, and this led to the Edinburgh and Glasgow branches, along with almost all of the smaller Scottish branches, leaving the BFBS in 1826 (see Howsam 1991, 13–15). To this day the BFBS, despite its formal designation as British, restricts its domestic work to England and Wales, and this is partly why it is known in the United Kingdom as the Bible Society of England and Wales. (The other reason is that “British and Foreign Bible Society” sounds too colonial.) There are Bible societies in Scotland and Northern Ireland that are independent of the BFBS. (Here we see how the name Britain can be confusing in terms of what it designates.) The hallmark of BFBS Bibles has always been their presentation “without note or comment.” What this meant in practice for most of the nineteenth century is that, wherever it had an English-language market, the Society published the Authorized Version, the King James Bible, without any interpretive materials or reader’s notes. Of course, the Society’s commitment to and use of the King James Bible is itself an important comment, for every translation is a directed reading. Everyone associated with Bible Society recognizes this and recognizes that the message of, say, a Good News Bible is going to differ from that of the King James version, Contemporary English Version, or any other. As I have discussed elsewhere (Engelke 2007, 46–78), though, and as others have noted (Zemka 1997, 188–223), there is an important sense that, as within wider evangelical circles, the BFBS has often operated as if the meaning of the Word is ultimately immune from cultural and linguistic distortions. Certainly much of the early Victorian missionary age was characterized by a faith in the Bible’s ability to speak for itself, to stand free from history and transmit universal meanings. This understanding of the Bible’s agency is still central to the Bible Society movement’s ide-

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ology of dissemination and is captured succinctly in that felicitous phrase The Bible reads people. Today this commitment to refraining from “note or comment” is interpreted more loosely. While the Bibles the Society trades do not have interpretive notes, it does produce and trade supplementary materials with a range of theological groundings. For members of the Bible Advocacy Team, moreover, it can often be especially difficult to maintain this particular type of neutrality or degreezero position. The other central element of the movement’s foundation has been the principle of providing Bibles cheaply, but not for free, in all but exceptional circumstances. Business acumen was central to the Society’s early success. Reading through the archives of the Society you discover a preoccupation with the costs of paper, arrangements with individual printers, payment rates to bookbinders, and other matters concerning the financial mechanics of publishing books. Very little is devoted in any explicit sense to a discussion of Christian doctrines, traditions, or beliefs. It is therefore not surprising that the one major scholarly study of the early Society is by a historian of book and print culture (Howsam 1991); her book is not about religion per se. John Owen, one of the early secretaries of the Society, put it this way, echoing in another register the point about its not being a “religious organization”: “The line of business is, with few exceptions, as direct at the Bible Committee as it is at Lloyd’s [the well-known insurance market based in the City of London]; and there is little reason to expect the peculiar tenets of Calvin or Socinius to enter into a debate for dispersing an edition of the Scriptures, as there would be if the same men were met to underwrite a policy of insurance” (quoted in Howsam 1991, 7). Of course, the Society did not operate without “peculiar tenets” of its own, despite Owen’s insistence that business is business. It was nevertheless effective at presenting itself to its supporters as running things as directly as Lloyd’s did and to capitalizing on the supposedly standard register of commerce. Leslie Howsam (1991, 50) explains that the stipulation about free Bibles reflected the founders’ consideration of “contemporary concerns about the degrading effects of charity upon the poor.” As one committee member put it, “A gratuitous distribution could not satisfy the minds of those who wished to counteract the degrading influence of Pauperism, to check the progress of Infidelity, and to extend the empire of Religion and Morality” (quoted in Howsam 1991, 50). The uptake of Scripture had to be active, volitional, and measured in part by the index of exchange. From its inception the Society has positioned its product on

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a fine line between commodity and gift. The distribution was not gratuitous, but neither was it given over to market forces. Charitable donations from a public sympathetic to the Society’s goals have therefore been especially important. The donations are a subvention of the work, often a direct subvention of production costs. It is these donations that accounted for the nearly £13 million of incoming resources in the 2009–10 fiscal year. That income was gathered via a range of vehicles: special appeals (in 2007, for instance, the Society raised money for Bibles commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Ghana’s independence); fixed debits (the Society has a long-standing Biblea-Month program); fundraising by “local action groups” (I visited one such group in Surrey that raised money for the Society through a Bible read-a-thon); and, importantly, legacies. In order not to inculcate what some today might call a “culture of entitlement,” the Society has always made itself the conduit of this charity, asking donors to give so that it might sell the Bible without regard to market rates, allowing those who receive it to do so with dignity, and yet with a sense of relation that is more often associated with gifts. In the majority of markets, and for the majority of its editions, even today many of the Society’s Bibles are thus sold at a loss. As one of the South African general secretaries once put it, the Society is “a publisher with a difference, namely the more successful we are, the more money we lose.”4 There is a tension between the commitment to business and the operation of the Society as a charity, dependent upon a network of supporters to provide subventions for its products and projects. As we shall see, this tension has shaped the scope of Bible advocacy to a considerable extent; the Advocacy Team does not have carte blanche in terms of what it can do or how it can spend its budgets. Its activities have to conform to the expectations of the people who donate money to the Society, as well as the rules and regulations guiding the activities of organizations with charitable status in England and Wales. The Charity Commission sets very clear sector guidelines that inform all of the Society’s contemporary work. To make possible the kind of “success” referred to by the South African representative—to build up a network of financial supporters—the Society established “auxiliaries,” known today as the local action groups. Such groups have historically served as channels of distribution in addition to financial support. Auxiliaries were first set up in most of the English and Scottish counties and comprised local Christians drawn to

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the evangelical flavor of the BFBS cause. Auxiliaries paid subscriptions to the parent society, which entitled them to Bibles at discounted prices (Howsam 1991, 38–39). Every auxiliary also had a number of associations composed of individuals who would visit those less fortunate to tell them of the BFBS cause and offer them its product. Association members were, in effect, volunteer colporteurs. By 1832 the Society had 37,500 such members across England alone (Howsam 1991, 2) and growing numbers abroad, in the Cape Colony, in India, and elsewhere. Many of them were dominated by women (Hofmeyr 2004). By the 1860s the BFBS’s domestic auxiliaries had become almost entirely devoted to raising funds because the need for grassroots distribution in England and Wales was no longer as pressing as it was in the empire and beyond. From its inception, then, the Bible Society positioned itself squarely within the realm of the commercial yet never renounced the importance of Christian charity or sense of Christian community. It used both to create a kind of public that, at the time, was relatively new: one of “social relations on a retail basis” (Howsam 1991, 39) that, in an evangelical register, tried to cut across boundaries of class and culture. Here we see an initial move to develop an idiom of philanthropy within a language of business. Alongside the sensibilities of its constituents, the Society’s commitment to cheap Bibles has been based on the belief that people do not value what they get for free. This was certainly the view during my research. Lesley Whelan, the Society’s director of services and a member of the Executive Team, was one of many people at Bible House who told me why. We were sitting at a table in one of the Society’s meeting rooms, and we each had a glass of water, which she used to describe the point about value. “We’ve got water on the table,” she said. We’ve got it out of the tap and we drink it and throw the rest of the water down the drain. I was watching Tribe on the television last night [a show documenting a British man, Bruce Parry, who goes and lives, anthropologistlike, with a remote and “exotic” people], and the children there were walking all day to get their water. And I think they value that muddy water more than we value the water out of the tap. And it’s a bit like that with Bibles, really; we find that if we give them away for free, at events or schools, half of them go in the bin. And what we want to do really is to enable those Bibles to be used. And human nature being what it is, you tend to value what you pay for. So there is usually a price attached to it, but the affordability is important.

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The quasi-commercial register is understood as a window into the mind of the potential consumer-confessor. In this way the BFBS took a specific understanding of value and exchange often associated with the market and extended it into the realm of religion. The commodity being offered, though, has never been fully surrendered to economy, and indeed the ambiguous status of books is still central to their understanding as a commodity form. As the sociologist Laura J. Miller (2006) has shown, this is often the case with small, independent book merchants in the United States. These independents see themselves as “devoted to books for their own sake rather than as a means to acquire monetary reward”; for them, books are not like other commodities but have a “sacred quality” (165, 192). What I want to emphasize here is that the genealogy of this idea can be traced back to early modern Protestant ideologies of the book, an ideology that still finds expression in the Bible Society today. The Bible Society remains committed to providing Bibles without “note or comment.” It still conducts a significant amount of work overseas; during the period of my research, two-thirds of its annual program budget was earmarked for international projects. And it still operates on the principle that Bibles should be sold rather than distributed for free, even if the definition of what counts as a “sale” has been stretched further and further. More generally there is also much about the Society that reflects the need to balance the line of business with the work of God. Under James Catford, for example, the trading arm of the Society was reorganized and tasked with breaking even—something it had never done. Where the Society did sell books, and regardless of any “sacred quality” the Bible may have, James wanted the work to pay its own way. “And I’m happy to say this,” someone on the trading team told me, “because I’ve said it before.” Before James reorganized the Society’s business model, the trading staffer told me, “the place was very badly run.” Of course, much has changed over the past two hundred years. Having a CEO is relatively new for the Society; indeed James’s registered title was general secretary, reflecting not only an older model of organization but a different approach to leadership. The Society today is as likely to distribute audio Bibles as printed and bound editions. Particularly in its work in Africa and parts of Latin America, these audio versions, distributed as tapes, compact discs, and now digital files, are an important part of the work. In part these new formats reflect a conviction among the staff that a book is not the only medium through which

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figure 1. James Catford, 2009. Photo by Charlotte Bromley Davenport. © Theos. Used with permission.

the Bible can be read or known. The image of the solitary, silent reader misrepresents the evangelical approach to uptake of the Word; there are good theological reasons the Society’s motto was “Making the Bible heard.” A full sensory experience of the Word has often been part and parcel of the evangelical attitude toward Scripture. As we shall see, a large amount of the Society’s work, certainly via the Bible Advocacy Team and certainly in England, does not involve “actual” Bibles at all. The Society also underwrites, produces, and distributes a range of supplementary materials, from textbooks that can be used in religious education classes in

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schools to films and documentaries; during the course of my research, for example, the Society was involved in the production and subsequent distribution of a BBC program called The Miracles of Jesus, hosted by the well-known Somali British journalist Rageh Omaar. They also produced a short film about William Wilberforce called The Walk and commissioned plays to be staged in different Bible advocacy projects. They even staged a fashion show in Manchester. All such productions, products, and events are about making the Bible heard. The BFBS is often regarded as the instigator of a Bible Society movement, the first of what became a worldwide network of regionally and nationally based organizations. Many of these local societies were set up by the BFBS and run initially from London. Today they are independent and loosely federated under an umbrella organization called United Bible Societies, which is based in Reading, England (not far from Swindon). There are over 140 Bible Societies in this worldwide network. The BFBS has closer ties with some more than others; under James, particular efforts were made to foster connections with, for example, the societies in Ethiopia, China, and Palestine. Many of the wealthier Bible societies, such as the American Bible Society, Canadian Bible Society, and South African Bible Society, also have strong links with BFBS but are not in any way dependent upon direction from Swindon.

Where Are We ? The Emergence of Bible Advocacy The Society moved to Swindon because the London office was expensive and cramped. The Bible House in Swindon was built with space in mind—and the staff needed it, or at least they did for their first decade there. Into the mid-1990s, when the Society still functioned in the main as a publisher and retailer of books, there were over 150 staff at Bible House and every inch of the building was used, much of it to warehouse stock. Trade was a major component of the work, and the business at hand was selling books. Printing and binding were contracted out, but staff who started in the 1980s remember it as a very different organization in terms of the day-to-day work. They produced Bibles. One woman I interviewed used to spend her day typesetting (it took two years for her to complete a single edition); she then moved to “picking and packing” in the warehouse, filling orders for churches, schools, and individual customers. Another woman, who worked in human resources, said, “In the ’90s, we tried to move away from the trading side of things. Although

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we still have a small trading side—a small operation—we wanted as an organization to move away from being a publisher, because we couldn’t compete with the bigger publishers out there. So it was like, ‘How are we going to change? How are we going to move forward? What are we going to put our energies into? What’s our strategic direction?’ ” A perfect storm hit in the 1990s because the motivation behind these questions came not only from commercial concerns of viability but also from faith-based concerns of desire and credibility. In England and Wales making the Bible available, in the most straightforward sense, had been a nonissue for a long time. Increasingly the problem was simply getting people to pick up a book they already had or could easily get. Philip Poole, the deputy CEO, told me that from the mid-1990s “credibility” began to replace the concern with “availability.” He recounted their thinking at the time: “In our culture, where are we? What is the role of Bible Society? Everybody in our culture’s got a Bible who wants one. Should we just shut up shop? Is the job done?” True to the spirit of the Society’s founders, Philip and his colleagues were not willing to rest with the way things were. They had become mindful of present-day concerns with privacy, individual choice, and pluralism, but they wanted something to happen to get “a secular culture like Britain,” as Philip put it, to connect with the Good News. The answer was Bible advocacy. This twenty-year perspective allows us to appreciate an important point: the Bible Advocacy Team was not formed as a rapid-response unit to deal with the pronouncements of Downing Street staff about whether God should be done. Even though Alastair Campbell’s diktat shaped discussion during the course of my research, the initial idea for advocacy was driven by a concern with general apathy rather than pointed antipathy. The apathy, moreover, was understood to be an issue for Christians as much as for the general public. Staff at the Society reserved some of their strongest criticism for churchgoers. As one key member of the Advocacy Team said, “There’s a lot of talk in the Church about making disciples and going out there and wanting to impact the world. But quite often they don’t do it. That’s the first thing. Obviously some do—I don’t want to be fully condemnatory. But overall we know the Church is, kind of, losing market shares. So it’s obvious: they’re not doing it.” Such “Church-facing” work was an important part of the Advocacy Team’s portfolio, and we’ll look at some versions of it in the chapters to follow. All the same, James regularly made it clear to the team that the main impact of its work should be “in the culture.”

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Like many social actors of a certain sort, staff associated with Bible advocacy did not always want to define the concepts they used. The Culture, which team members sometimes wrote with a capital C, was one such concept, and we’ll return to a discussion of this word in chapter 2. Credibility was another key word, but when I asked Philip what it meant he just said, “It’s one of those things where, if you define it, you’ll define it away. But you’ll recognize it when you see it. And you’ll recognize the lack of it.” Philip wasn’t trying to be glib or slippery, and it wasn’t that they hadn’t thought about it. His answer reflected something of the Bible advocacy approach, one that, as we’ll see, it’s not always up to a single person to define. The meaning of advocacy was subject to more or less the same philosophy. The team did not want to define it too strictly, lest that hinder their work—or God’s. But the nature of advocacy, and the fact that Bible Society is a charity, forced some specification. At the end of the day, after all, people—whether “in the Culture” or “in the Church”—had to know what was being advocated for. And donors had to be told how their donations were used. The Executive Team and the Board of Trustees needed the Bible advocates to account for themselves. It wasn’t enough to know what they spent their budget on; the Board, in particular, wanted the spending to be justified. Even so, the basic concession was minimal. As the head of advocacy said, “Advocacy is about moving [people] from the mind-set that says, ‘[The Bible] is rubbish, this has nothing to do with me, it’s difficult, it’s irrelevant,’ . . . to somewhere different.” Somewhere different. Philip Poole said advocacy was about dealing with “the increasing fact that the Bible [is] being progressively marginalized.” It was easier to say what Bible advocacy was not, and the team often defined their work through such negative contouring. It was not proselytizing. It was not knocking on doors or standing on street corners. It was not about pushing a particular interpretation of Scripture. It was not about telling people how to live or what to do. And despite the Society’s long-standing commitment to the line of business, Bible advocacy was not about selling anything—not literally, at least. The Society’s approach to advocacy had firmer contours. Advocacy had to involve engaging with what the Society recognized as the four key “cultural drivers” of modern British life: media, art, politics, and education. These drivers had been articulated over the course of the late 1990s and early 2000s and were regularly referenced in team meetings and work. This special language was second nature to the team, especially

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those who worked out of Swindon. “In a modern democratic society, these are four of the most significant areas of public life that influence the culture in which we live.”5 Some Advocacy Team positions were crafted to match the drivers. One of these was the media development officer, a post created in 2005. Its first incumbent was David Ashford, a twenty-something Catholic with a first degree in theology from Manchester University and a master’s degree in public relations. He came to the Society after working for five years in corporate PR—“a load of bollocks,” he told me. David, who liked to wear skinny black ties and sunglasses and who especially liked to make fun of the tweed sports coat I often wore during fieldwork, spent much of his time liaising with journalists (Christian and not) in the media industries. He also gave advice on colleagues’ projects, managed some important relationships with consultants who did social and media research for the Society, ran a blog called “Byte My Bible,” and put together the Bible Style Guide, a hip-looking reference book that “provides a crash course in the Bible for busy journalists, broadcaster, and bloggers.” The Guide is, in its own estimation, “packed with useful facts and figures” as well as “handy overviews of issues that often hit the headlines.”6 The Advocacy Team grew in line with the Society’s general expansion over the late 2000s. When I arrived there were a dozen posts; by the time I left there were fifteen, and a few more were being planned. In addition to the media development officer, other key posts included an arts officer, senior parliamentary officer (although there was no junior officer to match), campaigns manager, Bible and church development officer, an officer for Wales, and director of Theos, the “public theology think tank” that the Society founded in November 2006. The head of advocacy was Ann Holt, an Anglican canon with a distinguished career in education; she was made an officer in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire—OBE, in common parlance—in 2001 for her services to education, having worked closely with the governments of both John Major and Tony Blair on an important quango (quasi-nongovernmental organization). (There is, of course, no formal British Empire these days, and the honors are not without their critics, but most British people understand them as recognition of significant contributions to a particular profession or field.) Ann was a formidable Bible advocate. You always knew when she was in the room. She had a strong voice and strong opinions, and, while she lived in Bristol, where her husband worked for the bishop, she expressed herself with the no-nonsense flair of a working-class girl

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figure 2. Ann Holt, 2009. Photo by Charlotte Bromley Davenport. © Theos. Used with permission.

from the East Midlands. Ann was the first person in her family to go to university. From behind thick lenses she would lock eyes and never blink as she engaged you on some issue, often with reference to a book she was reading at the time or something that was going on in the news. While some of the staff positions matched closely one or another of the cultural drivers (arts, politics, media), members of the team were expected to claim stakes in all four drivers. This was most true of the media position, as media was the master driver. For God’s agents, nearly everything got refracted through concerns with public representation and circulation. For better or worse, it was the public sphere and public

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culture that mattered, above all to James, and he was insistent on this point. As the team duly acknowledged in their Advocacy White Paper 2008, a document outlining their vision for the Board of Trustees and which I had the opportunity to observe them draft over a three-month period, “We need to remember that Church people as part of the wider society are swayed more by what they read in the Media than what they hear in the pulpit!” The White Paper went on to confirm: There is a possible process for embedding ideas in the Culture that assumes a sequencing using all four drivers. . . . 1. The Media capture the social imagination, often by using 2. The Arts. We should remind ourselves of the influence of the Artistes in a celebrity culture as well as their Arts 3. Politics takes up ideas and gives them authority by making them into strategic policy and 4. Education reinforces them in all sectors of society. When once they become embedded in the curriculum they become very hard to shift.

In some of the points made earlier about what Bible advocacy is not, we can see the imprint of the Society’s two-hundred-year-old constitutional promise of refraining from “note or comment.” As mentioned, though, and as the team members regularly reminded themselves, the work of advocacy posed particular challenges for keeping the promise, challenges made all the greater by the emphasis on media engagement. How could the Bible advocates hope to capture the attention of any public by proclaiming, “We’re here to offer no comment”? So what was advocacy advocating, and how could it be communicated? We know from Ann what advocacy meant in outline; it was quite simply moving people from the mind-set that the Bible is rubbish to somewhere different. The chapters to follow provide examples of these efforts, advocacy projects that I followed as they unfolded. While every project was different and every member of the team had his or her own particular takes, advocacy was driven by some general principles and approaches. Before we turn to this template for advocacy, though, it will be useful to say a bit more about the general character of the Christianity that emanated from Bible House. What kinds of Christians are we talking about here? Beyond the constitutional stipulation that between 40 and 60 percent of the Society’s Board of Trustees must be members of the Church of England, other links to the Established Church—the Church of

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England—are equally evident. The Society’s patron is the queen, and its president during the period of my research was the bishop of Durham, N. T. Wright. James Catford and three of the other five members of the Executive Team were Anglicans.7 But even with such strong representation, both formally and incidentally, it would not be helpful to say that Bible Society is an Anglican concern. So far as I have been able to gather, there is very little that all or even most members of the Church of England share, other than being members of the Church of England. And in fact even that seems not to be true in every case. “I attend an Anglican church,” one of the Executive Team members told me. “That doesn’t make me an Anglican.” When I asked Lesley Whelan about conducting a survey with the staff to get a sense of denominational breakdowns, she laughed. “You can if you want to,” she said, but she wasn’t sure there would be much point. As I came to learn over the course of my research, and as the wry remark from one of her colleagues suggests, she was right. To be sure, there were some straightforward declarations. The interviews I conducted often ended with questions about the person’s own faith background. “Oh, C of E” was the most common reply, often in an offhand way. But it got as specific and emphatic as “I’m a mad-for-it, spirit-filled, charismatic, Pentecostal person!” There were also a handful of practicing Catholics, including three key staff members. But even in the one-on-one setting of an interview, where we sometimes spoke for ninety minutes or more, many staff never identified themselves according to denomination, and several made it clear that they would just as happily attend a Baptist church as a Methodist church; it all depended on the congregation and the pastor or preacher. A few others made it clear that the last place they would ever be found on a Sunday morning was a church, and even beyond this small group it was common to hear ambivalence expressed toward organized religion and the Church writ large. One staff member told me that he did not tell anyone about his personal faith background and where he went to church; he kept what he called a “firewall” between his private life and his work. This is, I think, yet another instance of the ways in which public-private splits get refracted in different ways within the overall emphasis on biblical publicity. Bible Society also employed a practicing pagan and at least two selfidentified nonbelievers, both of whom used the term non-Christian to describe themselves. Granted, all three had administrative roles, and on rare occasions they had felt uncomfortable. “But I recognized that it

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was my problem,” one of the non-Christians said. “I mean, it’s a Christian charity, and the majority of people here are Christian, and so it’s my problem, not theirs, and I certainly wouldn’t expect them to change. There have been a few times where unwittingly—I’m not saying people go out deliberately to upset non-Christians—but I have a couple of times felt that I shouldn’t be where I was at the time, because I felt very, very awkward and not wanted. But that really is the exception rather than the rule.” One of the Roman Catholics on staff also felt awkward on occasion because of Protestant presumptions: “I think Bible Society is wanting to be interdenominational and genuinely wanting to be neutral, but because of the people that make it up and their own experience of the world and experience of the Church, it’s inevitably, largely, overwhelmingly a Protestant organization.” But what makes something or even someone Protestant? There is certainly no easy way to label the Christians who worked for the Society. They had a love of the Bible, yes—although, then again, one of the staffers told me the whole idea of “the Bible reading people” was “a load of rubbish.” They wanted faith to be public, yes—although, then again, as we have already seen, that effort at publicity was conditioned by a longstanding institutional effort to keep faith “private,” at least in certain times, ways, and places. They were Protestant technically, mostly— although, then again, not wholly, and even this label was problematic. And there were those who told me that the Bible is the literal Word of God and others that literalism is embarrassing. After one staff meeting, during which someone with literalist views gave a presentation, one of the people I was getting to know well said he was very concerned about the impression the speaker may have left. “I don’t want you to think we all approach the Bible that way,” he whispered. There were many other differences. Some staff were pro-life; some were pro-choice. There was little talk of homosexuality or the question of gay bishops or women bishops in the Anglican communion, yet these were major themes of discussion within the communion (and more generally) during the period of research. James always said that Bible Society would take a stand on these issues when the Church worked it out. “We don’t have a position on anything,” he once told me, only slightly tongue in cheek. A few staff on the Bible Advocacy Team spoke up in support of gay rights, and on more than one occasion gay rights campaigning in the 1960s and 1970s was presented as a model that Christians might emulate today; there was respect for the ways gay rights activists had challenged the stigmas of sexuality. Regardless of differences, though—and

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they did exist—what was most notable was how infrequently these differences caused difficulties within the Advocacy Team. There was not a high turnover of staff on the team during the course of my research. Only one person left, after having been there only about a month, because of irreconcilable views; he simply couldn’t work in the ecumenical atmosphere, at least as it existed at the Society. The least unhelpful label, if I can put it that way and if there has to be one, is evangelical. The Christians I got to know at Bible Society could be described as in key respects evangelical Christians. I say this in part because many members of staff referred to themselves as evangelical, and historically the work of the Society fits that mold. The Society’s roots are certainly planted firmly in evangelical soil, not only through its connections to the Clapham Sect but also, for example, through a longstanding association with the Evangelical Alliance, an umbrella group founded in 1846 that still has a very active public role today. Among the staff it was, again, particularly important to see the work as carrying on the legacy of Wilberforce and his contemporaries. James and other senior figures made much about the example set by Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect, an example that was explicitly tied to the ways these forebears stood proudly in the public square and declared their faith in no uncertain terms. James and colleagues took inspiration from Wilberforce’s commitment to social change, standing tall against all odds for the cause of freedom, as played out in the campaign for abolition. “Wilberforce beavered away for over twenty years before he got his bill,” Ann often said. She was referring to the Slave Trade Act of 1807, the culmination of a decades-long campaign waged by a number of actors and constituencies but with Wilberforce as a key figure, which outlawed British participation in the transport and sale of slaves. Such long-term commitment was linked to the idea of evangelicals as Christians who did not waver and did not give up. Ann often referred to Wilberforce’s persistence when it looked like a Bible advocacy project wasn’t working or came across as pie in the sky. If the early evangelicals could help to do something so monumental, why couldn’t the Advocacy Team today?

What Time Is It? One of the most important organizing metaphors of Bible advocacy was the idea of creation as a drama. And the Bible, God’s agents thought, was its script.

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Although the focus on story and drama is not uncommon to Christian theologies and hermeneutic traditions, the Society’s version of it was inspired in no small measure by the scholarship of Bishop N. T. Wright. It is no coincidence that Wright was made president of Bible Society; James wanted to take the Society and its work in Wright’s direction. Above all, that was to a place in which the Gospel is seen as a public message, driven by more than personal salvation, and in which God’s people “build for the Kingdom.” For Wright, “the point of following Jesus isn’t simply so that we can be sure of going to a better place than this after we die. Our future beyond death is enormously important, but the nature of the Christian hope is such that it plays back into the present life. We’re called, here and now, to be instruments of God’s new creation, the world-put-to-rights, which has already been launched in Jesus and of which Jesus’ followers are supposed to be not simply beneficiaries but also agents.”8 This emphasis on public action and moving beyond the concern with personal salvation is a recurring theme not only in Wright’s work but in much of what else got read at Bible House. Many of the theologians and other writers who found favor at the Bible Society also embrace the drama metaphor and similar tropes. One important element of these tropes is that they reflect certain structures of action and sensation above and beyond any practice of reading. Scripture in each of these views is more than a set of words; faith is more than belief. Scripture should be imbibed, embodied, lived out. Among the writers who make these arguments, and whose books I was encouraged to read, are Dallas Willard, Eugene H. Peterson, Lesslie Newbigin, Craig Bartholomew, Michael Goheen, Brian McLaren, and Rob Bell. Several of these figures were cited in the various white papers and other internal documents produced by the team, and all of them were featured in presentations, seminar discussions, and informal discussions in and around Bible House.9 James, who was a very busy man, regularly made time for me during my research, both in Swindon and in London, where he lived, but the only time he emailed me outside some chain of correspondence (a chain usually initiated by me), and really out of the blue, was to let me know that Dallas Willard was coming to London and I ought to go hear him speak. For readers familiar with contemporary Christian literature, the family resemblance of these names will be evident. For while they would not all self-identify as such, many of these writers have been influential within a new kind of evangelicalism known as “the emerging church”

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or “emerging evangelicalism.”10 There are certainly parallels between many emerging-church ideas and practices and the structure of the team’s approach to Bible advocacy. I say “structure” because not all members of the team had a personal affinity for the ideas or even used them to guide the individual projects they led. It is more that, formally, Bible advocacy looked “emergent” in key respects, and there were important ways in which the team’s work bore the imprint of James Catford and Ann Holt, the executives most committed to this kind of thinking. The team had some room to develop as it might, but at the Society there was always clear direction from above. Conversations during team meetings often came around to a standing question: What is James’s thinking on this? Ann also never failed to make her own views clear. Because of their prominence within Bible House, situating the theology of the Bible in relation to this constellation of writers is a productive way to begin to understand how the team’s vision took shape and got implemented. Even sympathetic voices call the emerging church an “inchoate movement” (Begbie 2011, 184), but what unites emerging evangelicals is a dissatisfaction with the dominant labelings of faith and belief and the ways these labels have frustrated what they see as an authentic ecclesiology. In their view evangelicalism has suffocated itself through a tight hold on propositional belief, personal salvation, and overheated conviction. The emerging project is a “cultural critique” (Bielo 2011, 5–6) of the relationship between evangelicalism, at least as it is stereotypically portrayed, and “the culture.” In the wake of this critique, it is hoped, it will not make sense to speak of being conservative or liberal, religious or secular. These evangelicals want to be all such things and none at the same time. The point of emerging church thought and practice is “to resist categorical identities and to reimagine and occupy them as intertwined, mixed, fluid along a spectrum” (Harding 2009, 118). Such an approach lends itself to drama very well and was structured in Bible House by a key question that Wright poses again and again in his articles and books: What time is it? The point of this question is to inspire action, to move in relation to the unfolding of events, to be sensitive to the ways in which the here and now connects to the always already. One of the books that tackles this question and that was used to structure the work of Bible advocacy is Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen’s The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story (2006). James was so impressed with the book that the Society helped underwrite the production costs of its publication in the United

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Kingdom—it appeared originally in the United States—and prepared an abridged edition for use in classrooms and church-group studies. The Drama of Scripture was the focus of an all-staff meeting at Bible House in October 2006, at which Philip Poole explained how the approach was structuring the Society’s work. Philip, a sober and quiet man, began by asking his colleagues to imagine a scene: Imagine you are an experienced Shakespearian actor. You know the plots, characters, traditional and modern versions. You are steeped in Shakespeare. Then a new play is discovered, although a portion is missing in the middle. You’re invited to a performance at the director asks, “Can you fill in the middle? Where do we take it?” Tom Wright uses this example, suggesting we’re in the missing part. We have the Bible and we know the Kingdom is coming again, but we are living in the middle, the middle part of the drama.

And with that, Philip showed a PowerPoint slide of the cover of The Drama of Scripture. “What time is it?” he asked, hands outstretched, with another nod to Wright’s words, a question that Bartholomew and Goheen (2006, x) ask as well. The Bible tells the story of the drama, beginning with creation itself and taking the action up through the penultimate act: the time of mission, of witness. That time is now. The point that Wright and Bartholomew and Goheen want to make is that it is up to us to find our role in that story. And whatever that role might be for any individual, it ought to involve demonstrating signs of the Kingdom. Such demonstrations and such witnessing are in preparation for the final act of the drama, in which there is redemption, in which the Kingdom of God is restored and revealed. There is nothing unusual in a Christian understanding of time having this trajectory or of seeing it set out as such in Scripture. Moreover Christian times, as with other sacred and scriptural times, are often lived as having meaning instilled within them. These times are teleological; they have a purpose, a direction, and an end. In such understandings of time humans do not make meaning so much as discover or reveal it. This approach to time might not seem to provide the best makings for a drama, at least if you value suspense. We may be in the penultimate act, but because we’ve read the final act—because we know what happens, because history is teleological—what does it matter? There is nothing we can do to alter the end of the story, so who cares about the

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drama of now? The answer set out by Wright and his admirers is that God cares. And crucially he cares not only in relation to us as individuals— that is, how we achieve personal salvation—but also in terms of how we manage our stewardship of creation. As Bartholomew and Goheen (2006) argue throughout their work, God wants his love for us to express itself in this way, for us to use the gift of human freedom to manifest signs of the Kingdom in the worlds we occupy. The drama of now is thus very gripping indeed and is fueled by more than a reductive question of whether or not any given person will be saved. The drama demands our complete attention and our complete participation in and engagement with the world. This move away from what is understood to be a traditional emphasis within evangelicalism on personal salvation is a common theme in emerging-church thought and practice. In any emerging-church view a good drama has to have more than one actor. It is social, public, interactive, “mixed.” As Goheen and Glanville (2009, 12) put it: Jesus commissions his followers to continue his work as they embody and announce the presence of God’s liberating rule. If this message is true, then its significance bursts beyond that private sphere called “religion,” something we value for our worship and our personal ethics. Rather than being an entertaining “religious tale” it becomes a “secular announcement” or “public truth” for all people in all times. It is concerned with the whole human situation and not only some area called “religion.”

The Advocacy Team’s approach began with this recognition of the Bible’s public truth, its both-and secular-religious, personal-public qualities and dimensions. As the team put it in one of their many in-house documents, Bible Society’s Theology of the Bible, “The Bible is intended to be a public text.” And true to a dramatic impulse, the Bible is not so much a book to be read as a story to be lived. In this rendering the Bible is a full-body experience, a way of life and a way of living that melds body and mind. Reading is not only, or even primarily, a cognitive activity; it is also a sensual experience. What we think of as “the Bible”— leather, glue, paper, ink—is but one of its many forms. During meetings, Ann used to ask the Advocacy Team, “How are you doing Bible?” Doing Bible. It was never “How are you applying biblical principles to your work?” or “How do the Scriptures relate to this activity?” As Peterson (2006) declares, “Eat this book!” For a month or so around the time she was reading Peterson’s book, Ann would place it on the table or hold it aloft in meetings, as if it provided a beacon of light. Alongside drama, it

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was tropes of embodiment and consumption that caught hold in Bible House. For James, too, reading the Bible in this embodied, active view was crucial. He would talk often of the monastic tradition of lectio divina (divine reading), something that Peterson also highlights in his work. This is “reading that enters our souls as food enters our stomachs, spreads through our blood, and becomes holiness and love and wisdom” (Peterson 2006, 4). Central to this embodied biblical encounter was what the Advocacy Team referred to as the Bible’s “de-manualization.” “The Bible people would like is one that helps them live ethically,” David Ashford said at one team meeting. His point wasn’t that the Bible has nothing to do with ethics but that it cannot be treated as a “rule book.” David worked closely with social and market researchers who did focus groups for the Society. One of these had been with young, unchurched parents, some of whom suggested that perhaps the Bible’s moral guidelines could be used to help raise well-behaved children. Despite the good intentions, this kind of sentiment always worried members of the team. It stripped the Bible of its full meaning. It was a disembodiment and objectification of the very incarnation that defines the Christian message. “How do we get away from using the Bible as a manual?” Ann asked at a team meeting where some market research results were being discussed. “It soon starts to become like The Highway Code. We revert to that. The Barthian view is that we read the Bible in order to let the Bible read us. This is what I’m interested in and what I’d like to pursue.”11 Ann’s choice of simile, and her invocation of that central Society belief in the Bible’s own agency, is a particularly useful way of understanding what is at stake in this approach. Here the team’s “theology of the Bible,” as they put it in the 2008 white paper, begins to look a lot like what some anthropologists propose in actor-network theory (Latour 2005) or archaeologists propose with the idea of human-thing entanglement (Hodder 2011). These are views in which the conceptual difference between people and things is not always clear and which challenge an understanding of who—and what—can act in the world. Another central element in this theology is God-given freedom. In the dramaturgical approach “part of being human is the freedom to choose” (Bartholomew and Goheen 2006, 23). It is an evangelical approach par excellence, and the link with what Wilberforce and other Clapham Sect figures emphasized was often stressed. The abolition movement of the late eighteenth century brought together a number of constituencies opposed to slavery (Anstey 1976). For the evangelicals,

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the motivation was based on a theological conviction about the sanctity of an individual’s fully borne freedom. It was not enough to be in sovereign possession of one’s mind; sovereign bodies mattered too. Neither, though, was it all about what the liberals recognized as rights. “To evangelicals anti-slavery was a divinely-ordained duty in which those to be liberated were brought to the knowledge of the gospel” (Ditchfield 1998, 109). The fact that Wilberforce and others were “freedom fighters” in this way was a source of pride and inspiration within Bible House. The contemporary take on freedom is, all the same, different from that of Wilberforce. Within the Bible Advocacy Team and in accord with the emergent-style sensibility I am tracing here, bringing the gospel to the people replaced the classical emphasis on bringing the people to the gospel. This is why team members did not knock on doors or stand on street corners; for them, the classically evangelical approach was pushy, demanding, judgmental, and rigid. One of the images the team used in the 2008 white paper to explain their approach was that of a kite: “A kite may be tethered, but it has room to swirl, flex and fly, it has a fixed point but ultimately is not rigid.” And while they did not consciously develop the metaphor in this way, it is helpful as well to think of a kite as an attraction, something that catches the eye and perhaps even inspires one to dream. But this engagement is up to the onlookers: the choice is theirs to gaze upward or continue on their way. Advocacy was always pitched as an invitation, not an insistence. Advocacy was something public and fostered publicity and yet respected privacy and choice. The seemingly paradoxical combination of resolve, action, and laissezfaire attitude that defines the Advocacy Team’s theology of the Bible resonated with what has come to be called a “missional” stance by some evangelicals. Coined by Lesslie Newbigin, the British ecumenicist, and taken up by leading emerging-church writers, missional Christians are supposed to replace missionary Christians, those paternalistic figures of a previous era. A missional Christian does not preach fire and brimstone or condemn the heathen other for having childish ways. This is because a missional Christian thinks in terms not primarily of individuals and personal salvation but of the world writ large in which usthem divides dissolve. For Newbigin, who spent the better part of four decades in India, another point of the missional model is to decouple the link between missionizing and “foreign” lands. His time in South Asia helped him see the West anew. As far as he is concerned, Western

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Christian traditions have suffered internal displacement, and the Christian in the United Kingdom has become a stranger in a strange land. Faith in such contexts has been “domesticated” by the Enlightenment, as Newbigin puts it. “Culture” is thus the staging ground both at home and abroad but also a space of uncertainty in which it is not up to the Christian to act as judge. Brian McLaren (2004, 118–19), a contemporary writer much influenced by Newbigin and another writer widely admired in the Society with an emerging-church sentiment, calls this a generous orthodoxy:12 “Jesus comes with saving love for the world. He creates the church as a missional community to join him in his mission of saving the world. He invites me to be part of this community to experience his saving love and participate in it. . . . Those who want to become Christians (whether through our proclamation or demonstration), we welcome. Those who don’t, we love and serve, joining God in seeking their good, their blessing, their Shalom.” To be sure, Newbigin at least was not of the opinion that all faiths are equal. Neither were the staff members involved in Bible advocacy. Newbigin’s (1989, 183) missional approach is grounded in the conviction that the Gospel is the truth, and he rejects “a pluralism which denies the uniqueness and decisiveness of what God has done in Jesus Christ.” But the missional approach takes up the question of salvation by answering that the fate of others is in God’s hands. Missional Christians are certain in themselves but not on behalf of or in relation to anyone else. It would be hard to overstate the importance of the culture concept in this constellation of images and ideas. The Advocacy Team spent a lot of time talking about culture, inspired by their readings of Newbigin and others. Living “in the Culture” and “connecting” to it were guiding principles, whether that meant Tamil Nadu, where Newbigin spent much of his life, or the outskirts of Cincinnati, where the anthropologist James Bielo (2011) recently studied emerging evangelical house churches. Speaking “into the culture,” as members of the Bible Advocacy Team often put it, is crucial. Missional Christians need to “dwell” in that culture too. Ann once told me about a good friend of hers who spoke of the need for Christians to “invade the culture.” Consciously or not, Ann said, describing what needed to be done in such terms was precisely what was keeping Christians from effective witness. As Lesley Whelan put it to me, Bible Society stood in the gap between the church and the culture. This was where the emerging evangelical wanted to be too. That gap was “a most uncomfortable place,” Lesley said, but it was where the Society should be in order to build a bridge.

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Speaking into the culture also means embracing it. Here, in many ways, the missional ideal begins to look like a Catholic theology of enculturation: finding God in “pagan” forms and giving expression to Christian faith in local social, aesthetic, and even cosmological registers. Whether dwelling in a longhouse in Borneo, a favela in São Paulo, or a rustbelt town in the American Midwest, the missional Christian should “settle into a locale and learn the intricacies of a place and its people” (Bielo 2011, 120). But embracing the culture is more than this; it should involve shifting people to a new place: “Christians live as part of their culture and of this global world as prophetic voices, as critical participants” (Goheen and Glanville 2009, 19). As the anthropologist Susan Harding (2009, 179) notes, citing a popular emerging term, the point is indeed to meet people “where they are.” In most of the chapters to follow, however, we will see how embracing the culture raises some of the most difficult issues within Bible advocacy. It poses two main dangers: the first is that by meeting people where they are you cannot get them to where you think they should be; the second is that you start to “dwell” with them for so long that you lose sight of where you yourself came from. “Going native”—going secular, as it were—was a real worry in advocacy work. Was any given project doing Bible? And would “the Culture” know? Yet this emphasis on meeting people where they are, of adopting what some staff members referred to as an “incarnational” approach, stood at the heart of the Society’s strategy for advocacy. The cultural investments are also used to express the sense of alienation from wider society and a mixture of mourning and indignation for something lost. Dwelling in the culture is not always easy or comfortable for the missional Christian, and the goal is never one of going completely native. This is why Lesley called the Society’s position a “most uncomfortable place.” Borrowing from the sociologist Peter Berger, Newbigin (1989, 7–13) speaks of Christianity’s need to reassert its “plausibility structure.” Putting this in terms of the Advocacy Team’s concerns, the metanarrative once provided by Christianity is seen now to be provided by secular humanism. Even worse, as Newbigin, Wright, and many others have argued, Christians went along with the new arrangement. After the eighteenth century, they often stress, Christians accepted the Enlightenment story and their place within it: a private place, tucked away, and having nothing to do with the world. Even Christians started to treat the Bible as a largely personal story, something to read to and for themselves. It was this domestication that ren-

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dered Scripture into a rule book, robbing it of its publicity and worldshaping role. In recent years Wright has expressed optimism that this plausibility structure is coming undone. “I regard it as a hopeful sign,” he argued in a lecture in February 2008, “that we are today being more explicit than we were a generation ago about the ambiguous nature of the European and American Enlightenment.”13 Missional Christianity is about long-term, authentic relationships. It is based on “the idea that no successful evangelizing can occur without personalized, trusting, and lasting relational commitments” (Bielo 2011, 120). This means meeting the unchurched on their ground. Bible advocacy is certainly a long-term project. I was repeatedly reminded by staff that what they were doing at any given time was at best a phase and at worst a false start in what was inevitably going to be a lengthy process. Ann often said the team was “testing” things and “playing around.” She was not being flippant; she took the job very seriously. But as strangers in a strange land—setting out into the culture, leaving the (false) comfort of the Church—she and the others felt themselves on terra incognita and knew they wouldn’t always find the best ways to connect with the public. Even successful advocacy efforts, though, are but one moment, one scene in the penultimate act of the long drama of Scripture, in which they might be manifesting signs of the Kingdom. I have suggested that there are continuities between emergingevangelical sentiments and longer standing sentiments, traditions, and Christian confessions. It is perhaps especially notable where emerging evangelicalism picks up on Catholic traditions, as with lectio divina and inculturation. This is another indication of why emerging thought appeals to James and others; it helps blur the boundaries between ostensible “Protestant” and “Catholic” differences. What is more, much of what inspires the emerging sentiment is nothing new: “meeting people where they are” is not a late modern or postmodern innovation in Christian worldview. It was Christ, as members of the Advocacy Team often put it, who first met people where they really are. “Christ spoke the language of the culture he was in,” one member of the team often said. The temporal mind-set here is perhaps best defined as “ancient-future” (see Bielo 2011, 70–117): it is about recovering what are seen to be authentic forms, expressions, and mediums of faith, many of which are as old as the Church itself, and combining these with the resources and recidivisms of postmodernity. Emerging-church literature can be jarring to read. Despite their rhetorical self-deprecations, emerging-evangelical writers can sound pretty

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self-satisfied about how different they are. It is therefore especially important to keep in mind that what emerging evangelicalism most often promises to break with is “conservative” evangelicalism, or at least the stereotype of conservative evangelicalism. There are historical specificities to the emerging-church critique, marked above all by a thirty-year period (1970s–1990s) in which conservative evangelicalism came to dominate, especially in the United States. This kind of evangelicalism, described elsewhere in the ethnographic record (e.g., Coleman 2000; Crapanzano 2000; Harding 2000), can be in-your-face loudspeaker loud, wed to literalism, anchored to an unswerving truth, dismissive of ritual and its trappings, fond of big buildings, big meetings, and television crusades, and certain—absolutely certain—of its superiority and rightness. Harding (2009, 176) quotes an American college student newly drawn to the emerging sensibility in a way that sums this up nicely; when this young woman, who grew up in what she calls the “Christian bubble,” got to college she realized she didn’t want to be “a white American girl who votes for Bush.”14 As in Tennessee, where Harding’s college student had her emergentesque epiphany, in England I found it was often George W. Bush who stood for what was wrong with the evangelical image. Notwithstanding their concern for the lack of room for public religion, some staff at Bible Society thought that with Bush on the stage it was no wonder, whatever else Tony Blair might say, that people might think Christians were nutters. If there is one particularly stubborn us-them divide in the approaches I am mapping, though, it is with the conservative evangelical. Even here claims of distinctiveness and distinction need to be taken with a grain of salt, and it is worth noting as well that many emerging-church writers are critical of “liberal” evangelicals too; it’s just that, because liberal Christianities have failed to make themselves robustly public, they don’t require as much disparaging. And yet there are some discernible differences between emerging and extant forms of evangelicalism. Perhaps none is more important and relevant for understanding the emergent qualities of Bible advocacy, and the kind of Christianity it produces, than a difference in their approach to time. As we have seen, one answer the Advocacy Team gave to Wright’s question was “It’s time to get involved in the world and play our part in the drama.” For them the drama was near its end but not at its end. Bible Society was not a haven for millenarians. As James once joked during a Bible study session he was leading, “Eschatology: it’s not the end

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of the world.” In the terms of anthropologist Jane Guyer (2007), Bible advocacy is structured to address “the near future”—precisely the temporal horizon with which a certain kind of conservative evangelicalism does away, or, as Guyer puts it, “evacuates” (see also Bialecki 2009). Evangelicalism for Guyer (2007, 409) is one of two important examples of a form of temporal reasoning in the contemporary world (the other being monetarism) that seems to eschew a near-future, plandriven concern with “the ongoing life of the social and material world” by staking its hopes in the long run. Drawing on the ethnographic record as well as her own reading of some paradigmatic evangelical books (the Left Behind series), Guyer notes that a certain kind of conservative evangelical thought treats the current time (the penultimate act of the drama of creation) as one whose “intelligibility is explicitly in abeyance” and which, crucially, must be “endured by waiting” (414, 415).15 To be sure, the emerging alternative does not claim to know, much less comprehend, what constitutes a sign of the Kingdom. And yet, as captured in the intention of Wright’s question and in James’ jokes and careful placement of television sets, Christians really ought to try. Waiting should not be endured. Guyer says that what evangelicalism does is “privatize the near future” (411); it makes it a time and place given over to a shortsighted focus on personal salvation. This does not describe what happens in Bible advocacy or in the visions of the authors who were read by the staff. Guyer notes in passing that the exploration of current temporal reasonings might tell us something about the “doctrines, practices, and effects of secularisms” (418). Indeed they do. To think of the near future as a private space, a private time, disconnected from “the ongoing life of the social and material world,” is, for God’s agents, a particular kind of secularist computation of religion that makes no sense. One of the mainstream popular books that influenced the work of the Advocacy Team was Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point (2000). In fact before any of the Christian writers referenced in this section were recommended to me, I was told to read Gladwell.16 He defines a tipping point as “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point” (12). It is the moment when something happens that changes the state of things, and it can be used to understand everything from meteorology to markets, from how rain becomes snow to how mobile phones go from being a luxury to being a necessity. Gladwell’s argument is that we are gradualists at heart, “with expectations set by the steady passage of time” (13). And yet against this intuition we face “the world of the

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Tipping Point,” a place “where radical change is more than a possibility” (13–14). Gladwell pitches his book to several kinds of people, all of whom seek the benefits of tipping points: educators, parents, marketers, business executives, and policymakers. What is surprising is that he leaves religious believers off this list—surprising not only because they too look for tipping points but because the idea of a tipping point owes so much to a certain kind of Christian understanding of conversion. Gladwell’s idea of the tipping point is really just a secularized version of the Damascene conversion story. Shortly after reading Gladwell’s book I ran into Ann at Bible House. When I told her I had read it she became very animated. “The thing that’s missing,” she said, “is how can you know something’s going to tip? That’s not addressed. That’s what we want to find out.” With that she chuckled and turned back to what she was doing. Like marketers and PR agents, the Advocacy Team was attracted to the possibility of a sea change in attitude toward the Bible. Perhaps, like mobile phones—only more, of course—there would someday soon be a realization that life cannot function properly without the Book. Yet such a reading of society did not really fit well with the Advocacy Team’s approach. The tipping point approach is the millenarian approach, the shift to a temporal reasoning driven by dates and numbers that function as “fateful moments and turning points” (Guyer 2007, 416). By contrast, advocacy is about “the reach of thought and imagination, of planning and hoping, of tracing out mutual influences, of engaging in struggles for specific goals” (409). The team’s meetings were framed by five-year plans, not gazing out the window. Indeed the staff was routinely presented with five-year plans: where the executive wanted them all to be in 2012, and so on. At one such near-future session, in August 2007, James Catford and his colleague, Peter Meadows, the Society’s director of communication and giving, delivered a forty-eight-slide PowerPoint presentation complete with goals that staff members were asked to recite aloud in unison. We seek to change the way people beyond the Church view and relate to the Bible was one of these, slide 14, followed by some concrete suggestions as to how such a change might be gauged. And every January there was a Red Letter Day during which Bible House was effectively shut down, with the staff bused off to team-building events in London, or at least treated to cakes in an all-day meeting convened in one of the otherwise empty wings of Bible House (the downsizing in the 1990s meant that not all that space was actually used), at which such

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visions and further plans were presented. Specific goals abounded yet were always buoyed by an appeal to providence. After the August 2007 session, which turned out to be very long and intense, James offered the staff an inspirational message: “We’re sensing the wind of the Spirit here. I really do believe we’re the people who can make this happen.” And then he closed with a prayer: “Stand up and commit this to God. Take a moment of silence while we commit this together. Lord, we come together staggered by these aims. We ask you to bless us, each of us. We pray for them that you’d bless each of us. We ask you, oh Lord, to give us the supporters to achieve this. We believe this is our day to make an impact on the culture.” As with all-staff meetings, Advocacy Team meetings often began and ended with a reading from the Bible or a prayer. These were thoughtful and serene moments, designed to reflect something relevant back to the task or topic at hand. But such readings and prayers never evacuated the near future. The staff never kept their noses in the Book for very long— five minutes at most. Then it was down to doing Bible. Discipline, preparation, accountability: their agency was never in abeyance. After offering his prayer at the August 2007 meeting, James passed around the aerial photo of a building in central London that the Society had just purchased. This building, he told his staff, was going to be an important new base for the Society’s work. They wouldn’t be moving in for a few years (they had to wait for current tenants’ leases to expire, and then remodeling work would need to be done), but for James, it was a concrete step toward realizing the Society’s goals. While I have suggested that the Advocacy Team’s theology of the Bible reflected emergent and missional sensibilities, there was a specificity to their task not always in play within such sensibilities more widely. To wit, the nature of the “long-term relationships” in advocacy was distinct. Unlike what we see in much socially engaged missional action, the Advocacy Team’s focus was on publics, not persons. Their missional engagement with culture, “the Culture,” was about shaping plausibility structures. Even when they worked with particular people it was often about fostering a relationship with their oft-invoked proverbial person on the street: the the shopper in Swindon or Manchester, the student, the young parent, the politician, the hospital patient, the scientist. The intimacy they sought was with the worldviews, commitments, and concerns of these cultural others. It was an intimacy based on publicity. So this is what Christianity looks like with the television turned on. In Bible House the whole point of faith was to infuse and inform society. It

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was to drive “the Culture.” God’s agents always wanted to get in on the act.

Outline of the Book The chapters to follow can be roughly divided into three segments in a spectrum of publicity to do with the conditions or qualities of being public. Chapters 1 and 2 deal with the Advocacy Team’s engagements with publics in the broadest sense: discursive formations that are brought into being through their invocation and through the circulation of texts. These are the chapters in which we’ll see how the Society addresses that person on the street. These kinds of public index the social imaginary of their producers. They create what they need in order to say what they want. This does not mean that such publics are flights of fancy; the person on the street, as the Society understands him or her, has been put together by any number of sources that tell us something about the ways actual people think and act—not least the market and social research of such importance to the Advocacy Team. Yet the point of addressing a public is to move beyond any concrete audience or constituency; it is to enter into a “relation among strangers” (Warner 2002b, 74–76). A public in this sense is the n+1 of the modern social imaginary. In chapter 1 the focus is on how the Society tries to engage the general public in specific times and places. In 2006 the Society provided the Christmas decorations for the shopping center in Swindon; through the decorations, a series of kites designed as angels, the arts officer wanted to connect with people who might identify as “spiritual but not religious”— angels being a good bridge, he reckoned, over the gap between the churched and the unchurched. In 2007 the Society launched a Bible reading group initiative that was designed to take place in coffee shops and pubs. The idea here was to have Christians “getting it out in public,” witnessing politely, if you will, not sitting down with strangers but sitting among them so that faith could shape the ambience of everyday life. In chapter 1 the focus is very much on this idea of ambient faith, of appealing to the sensory registers of social and commercial spaces to generate a biblical publicity. Chapter 2 turns to an advocacy project in which the public engagement was more direct, reminding us of the extent to which publicity “craves attention like a child” (Warner 2002b, 89). It deals with an advertising campaign in Greater Manchester, mounted on roadside billboards, bus stop shelters, tram cars, taxis, and even beer mats, through

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which the Society hoped to convince the general public that the Bible is relevant to the cares and concerns of modern life. In this project a revelatory message was made secondary to a cultural one; it is in this chapter that we explore most fully the Advocacy Team’s invocation of the church-culture divide and how secularity gets configured as part of a Christian project of engagement and renewal. Chapters 3 and 4 turn to the Society’s activities in the public square. The most spatially determined of publicity’s instantiations, the public square is a term used to describe the realm of politics, governance, and related areas of civic life. It is a public in which talk—as opposed to print—has particular value and thus one in which the body retains its valence. The metaphor of the public square has been particularly popular among Christian writers, I think because it suggests a refusal of the principle of negativity that is central to so many enlightenment and liberal positions; indeed the square is often the metaphor of choice for those who want to contrast “liberal” and “theological” positions on the secular settlement clash (Audi and Wolterstorff 1997). In recent traditions of Christian public theology, invocations of the public square often connect back to the work of Richard John Neuhaus (1984/1988), for whom the liberal ideal that the public square should be neutral— “naked,” as he put it, free of any particularist agenda—is both wrong and misguided. Like Neuhaus (although not necessarily with the same agenda), the Advocacy Team set out to show how the liberal model creates problems and restrictions of its own. These chapters explore their concerns and correctives, turning to the subjects of politics, governance, and the law. Chapter 3 presents the work of the Society’s parliamentary liaison, Dave Landrum, who spent his days working with members of Parliament, lords, and others in and around the Palace of Westminster in an effort to get them to “think Christianly” about public service. For “Discourse Dave,” as he was known around the palace, this meant encouraging an explicitly Christian presence and community, as well as more God talk in political debates. Chapter 4 shifts attention to Theos, the Society’s public theology think tank. Theos was launched in 2006 and was in many ways the most visible and stable platform for Bible advocacy during the course of my research. Theos occupied a unique place in the structure of the Bible Advocacy Team. The staff had its own office in London and its own director, Paul Woolley, who was responsible for setting the agenda for research and outreach. At the end of the day, though, Theos still worked

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under Ann Holt, and its team was in Swindon each month for various meetings. The mandate for Theos was to produce “public theology,” and this first chapter on their work looks in particular at efforts to “do God,” picking up most directly on the Campbellian diktat. After detailing the launch of Theos in November 2006, the chapter returns to the Palace of Westminster and how Theos weighed in on issues of constitutional reform. Chapter 4 also marks a shift in focus in the kind of work I followed. Given its unique position within the structure of the Society, Theos was not bound in the same way by the constitutional stipulation of withholding a point of view. They could offer “note or comment,” or at least some combination of social and theological commentary. This affected the nature of their cultural engagements and articulation of publics. Chapters 4–6 follow more specific debates, issues, and personalities than the earlier chapters. For Theos, public engagement was about telling more tightly focused stories; publicity as they sought it was dependent to a much greater extent on meeting the demands of journalists and the news cycle. Chapters 5 and 6 turn to the most well-worn arena of publicity, certainly in terms of academic interest: the public sphere. Again there is a spatial determination here, one often remarked upon in relation to the shortcomings of rendering the German term that Habermas uses, Öffentlichkeit, into the English term public sphere. Habermas’s original use of the term is not free of this spatialization, but he also uses Öffentlichkeit to connote “(the) public” and “publicity” in ways that the English translation cannot fully account for (see Burger 1989, xv). I use the English term as a placeholder for the kind of writing, talk, and action that take place and get constituted through mass media. And whereas Habermas was concerned primarily with the public sphere vis-à-vis politics, our understanding of public spheres today do not have to relate to only so-called strictly political concerns; all issues that might be deemed to be of “public interest” might be aired and debated in a public sphere. Chapter 5 looks at the ways Theos tried to situate itself as an actor in the public sphere by generating publicity in the most commonly understood sense today: embarking on projects that the team hoped would gain extensive media coverage. This chapter also considers the unpredictability of publicity, focusing in particular on projects to do with patriotism and neighborliness, public attitudes toward Islam, and the role of chaplains in state-run hospitals. As with any organization looking for public attention, sometimes the best laid plans to generate

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publicity do not work, and sometimes small or incidental projects can turn into significant interventions. Chapter 6 broadens the view into the public sphere by turning to Theos’s engagement with one of the most vexed legacies of the postEnlightenment secular settlement: the relationship between religion and science—or, more broadly, faith and reason. Throughout my research, Bible Society had to contend with and make sense of a parallel and very influential publicity, that of “new atheism.” Ever since the publication in 2006 of The God Delusion by the celebrity science writer Richard Dawkins, a particularly strong version of Enlightenment antitheism has gained voice in the public sphere, helping to stage a “God Debate” that went on throughout the whole period of my research (and well beyond). For Theos in particular, this debate was both resource and risk. The Theos team used it in 2009, in conjunction with the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his most important book, On the Origin of Species, to conduct a massive project on what I call “reasonable religion.” It is through this project that we get the fullest sense of the ways Bible advocacy works to counter Enlightenment renderings of religion as irrational and antimodern. Throughout each chapter, and with an eye toward their synthesis into a bigger picture of Bible advocacy, three points should be kept in mind. First, as far as the Bible Society was concerned, in many ways the most significant challenge to public religion came not from those with something to say about God but from those who didn’t bother to say anything at all. It was apathy, not antipathy, that really exercised the staff. Although much of what they did was shaped by the challenge in Campbell’s pronouncement and although Dawkins’s views and comments got their attention, much of what they thought about was the general public, for whom God was understood to be irrelevant in terms of not only public life but life itself. Second, there is a paradox at the heart of the Society’s perceived dilemma. On the one hand, God is being silenced, mocked, and ignored, and these are all reasons to do advocacy. On the other hand, taking comfort from both academics (Berger 1999) and journalists (Micklethwait and Wooldridge 2009), the Bible Advocacy Team refused to accept any version of secularization theory that put religion in inevitable decline. “God is back,” Paul Woolley often used to say, even before John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge published their book, God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World. And yet, inasmuch as God was back and being done, the fact that He wasn’t always perceived

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to be welcome or up to much good sparked concern. Al Qaeda, the Taliban, George Bush, child abuse in the Catholic Church, the cartoons of Mohammed published in Danish newspapers, wrangling in the Anglican communion over homosexuality and women bishops: these actors and events weren’t iconic of “public religion” so much as bad publicity for being of faith. For God’s agents, then, the cliché that all publicity is good publicity didn’t ring true. The third point is particularly important, for more than all of this, staff members at the Society were not complacent because “public religion” had never been the ultimate prize. While this is a book about how a certain group of actors wanted to position Christianity as a public religion, by the end of the book it should be equally clear that this goal was only a near-future aspiration because public religion itself is a compromised term. The very fact that religion has to be qualified as “public” is testament to the power of a certain kind of Enlightenment thinking. To champion public religion as an end in itself is to concede the primacy of a secular settlement in which that qualification remains necessary. Just so, religion, as we’ll see, is a term that many of the staff at Bible Society would happily do without; it too is part of the modern vocabulary that makes demands no good Christian should countenance.17 So there ought to be a day when James Catford can switch off the television in the lobby of Bible House. This will not be a signal that the Society is disconnecting from the wider world but rather that the connection can be taken for granted. That day is not tomorrow, it’s not next year, and it’s probably not even a decade away. But God’s agents believe it is out there, somewhere. The chapters to follow document some of the scenes leading toward its hoped-for realization.

chapter 1

Angels in Swindon On the Production of Ambient Faith

One day in January 2006, Luke Walton went with a colleague to the Parade, an outdoor shopping center in the heart of Swindon. The Parade is a good example of the modernist architecture that dominated so much postwar building in Britain; that is to say, it’s pretty stark. It was cold that day, and windy, especially given the tunnel-like effect of the Parade’s buildings. Luke was looking for an idea. He had been hired not long before as the arts officer for Bible Society, and one of his first projects was to coordinate the 2006 Christmas decorations for the Parade. The Christmas celebrations that had just passed, in 2005, involved a typical display of colorful lights and had been dubbed the “Harry Potter Christmas,” complete with a holiday visit from two members of the cast of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, who were on hand to turn on Swindon’s Christmas lights just the night before the film was released. Luke had nothing against Harry Potter per se, but he didn’t see how the stories had anything to do with Christmas, much less what he, as a Christian, believed was the most important part of Christmas. He wanted to do better. Not long before taking the Bible Society job, Luke, who is an ordained Anglican priest (not a prerequisite for the post), had been involved in arranging the annual conference of the Fellowship for Parish Evangelists. At the conference, two researchers, Yvonne Richmond and Steve Hollinghurst, had presented some findings that caught Luke’s attention: while most people look down on religion, many also acknowledge the 37

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importance of spirituality and even the existence of spiritual beings. What the researchers emphasized, as Luke recalled for me, was what he called “the spirituality of angels in the common domain.” Angels, he got to thinking, can still capture the imagination. Angels can still inspire a faith of sorts, even if the traditions in which they’re found do not. Luke’s interest in the presentation by Richmond and Hollinghurst can be related to academic debates in recent years about shifts away from religion and toward spirituality. In Britain one of these debates has taken shape around the sociologist Grace Davie’s (1994) thesis on “believing without belonging.” Simply put, her argument is that while church affiliation and attendance levels are dropping, Britons themselves are not necessarily becoming disenchanted; they still recognize, as Luke emphasized, a spiritual dimension to life. As other scholars of religion in Britain have gone on to argue, people express their connection to this dimension through more “individualistic” rather than “institutional” channels. According to some of the most influential researchers, there is a “spiritual revolution” (Heelas and Woodhead 2005) under way that is reconfiguring the tenor and tone of religiosity. Luke wanted in on the revolution. As he stood on the Parade in Swindon that cold, windy winter day, the point about angels and “spirituality in the common domain” hit home. For the Bible Society’s Swindon Christmas, why not use angels rather than movie stars to mark the celebrations? Why not create a spectacular display of angel kites flying in the wind above the Parade’s shops? Angels in Swindon might be the perfect way for Luke to reach the spiritual-but-not-religious public. The fact that Swindon Borough Council had gone with a Harry Potter Christmas in 2005 was hardly surprising or shocking to Luke, just as it wouldn’t have been to many other Christians in England for whom the “true” meaning of Christmas has long been changed by consumerism and other onslaughts of secular modernity. Although 72 percent of people identified themselves as Christian in the United Kingdom’s 2001 census, the rhetoric of Christians as a minority, and sometimes even an embattled minority, hits home especially at Christmas, providing an annual opportunity for reflection on the ways in which “doing God” is becoming increasingly difficult. I got a good sense of this during the first few months of my research. Just before Christmas 2006 there was casual talk among staff at Bible House that the Christmas holiday season was going to be rebranded as “winterval.” One version or another of this story seems to crop up in the news every year, or at least to circulate as rumor, and while the de-

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tails are often vague, it feeds into staple preholiday moral panics. In 2006 alone there were plenty of other indicators of the moral panic to choose from, with the Daily Mail reporting that “only one in 100 Christmas cards sold in Britain contains any religious imagery or message”; Gordon Brown, then chancellor of the Exchequer, criticizing a government-funded children’s center in Sheffield for referring to a “winter celebration” rather than “Christmas” in a newsletter; and the Very Revered Colin Slee, dean of Southwark, complaining about the “pathetic spinelessness” of local government councils for “deleting Christmas from their greeting cards and street decorations” (very much in “threat of winterval” tradition).1 So part of what was appealing to Luke about the angels idea was that it allowed Bible Society to meet the Harry Potter public on a conceptual middle ground. Angels, he surmised, could be more easily fit in to the spiritual-but-not-religious imagination. Even as most people are not part of an aggressively atheist vanguard, the general populace is wary about too much religion and does not like to be preached at. The good thing about the angels is that they wouldn’t be preaching; in fact they would keep their distance, high above the walkways of the Parade, fluttering in the wind. This general approach was a good fit as well with the Society’s historical commitment to not offering “note or comment” when it came to how people should take up the messages and meanings of Scripture. It also picked up on the Advocacy Team’s own theological imagery; faith, as they wrote in their White Paper 2008, should be more like a kite than an anchor. Luke thought that the angels idea could probably work for the Borough Council too; he suspected that the councilors would have to be mindful, in this secularly sensitive age, of not coming across as sanctioning a “Christian” project. The Christmas angels wouldn’t be depictions of Gabriel delivering the divine message to Mary. They would just be angels. They wouldn’t force the local councilors to face up to whether or not they were pathetically spineless. So indeed the angels would not be part of any “public religion.” But if this would not be public religion, neither would it be what we might assume to be its post-Enlightenment opposite: “private religion.” Part of such a suggestion, as I have highlighted, had to do with the appeal to spirituality that the angels allowed. If the angels were to work, it was hoped they could do so on the basis of tapping a spiritual channel among Swindon’s shoppers. Just as much, though, as I will go on to consider in some detail, it had to do with playing on the sensory registers that often serve to confuse the coherence of public-private divides. Luke wanted the angels to have a material impact—to demand, in their physicality,

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a sensory engagement with the shoppers of Swindon. This was going to be something akin to a site-specific art installation, incorporating the ambience of the Parade and, in the process, challenging what the Society perceived to be the normative understanding of public-private distinctions. What Bible Society wanted to foster in this project was an ambient faith, a modality of faith that became central to the production of their biblical publicity.

Ambience and the Public- Private Divide Bible Society’s effort to bring angels to Swindon allows us to address what we might call the sensory stakes in long-standing debates about public and private religion. These debates—and the very idea of religion being public or private in the first place—have their origins in several sources: the interiorization of faith, often associated with the Reformation (Asad 1993, 27–54; Keane 2002; Taylor 2007, 539–44); the emergence and codification of the difference between politics and religion, as understood in relation to both Church and Enlightenment narratives of secularization (Casanova 1994, 11–39; Gauchet 1997, 101–61); and, for instance, the increasingly common recognition, especially after the Romantic Age, of religion (and now spirituality) as being about feelings and immaterial truths not subject to institutional arrangement or control (Bender 2010, 1–20; Heelas 2008; Taylor 2007, 313–17). In just the brief introduction to the Angels project I have provided, it should not be difficult to see how all three of these source traditions are relevant to understanding what Luke was up to. And they touch on much of what else we’ll consider in this book. Rather than rehearse the traditions, however, I want to make the case for ambience as a concept that can help us think through the issues each tradition raises. I then return to my research, drawing out the issues first in relation to the Angels in Swindon and then in relation to another Bible advocacy project, called “Lyfe,” about promoting Bible reading groups in such public places as coffee shops and pubs. The question of the ambient background to any social situation, cultural context, or historical current is not one that has received much explicit attention from anthropologists, and yet I want to argue that it can be a helpful concept with which to make sense of the ways in which religion can be understood (and gets understood) as public or private. My interest in ambience is part of a broader effort to encourage atten-

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tion to the sensory (Meyer 2008, 2009), material (Keane 2007), and kinetic (Luhrmann 2004) aspects of the social analysis of religion, especially when it comes to the analysis of semiotic modalities and forms. Angels flying in the wind, and even skinny lattes (extra hot), can be “sensational forms” that “address and involve beholders” (Meyer 2008, 708). For the Bible Advocacy Team, kites and coffee became important mediums for doing God. Needless to say, the concern with controlling religion’s public presence is not unique to Western liberal democracies; it is also especially notable in non-Western national contexts where a discourse of secular modernity has been influential. Charles Hirschkind’s (2006) work in Cairo on the circulation of audio cassette sermons is a good example of this—and a good example of how ambience can be understood as both an aspect of social life and an analytic tool with which to make sense of publicity and privacy. As an aspect of social life, cassette sermons help set the ambience of the Cairene streets; as Hirschkind tells us at various points in his book, it was sometimes difficult during fieldwork to escape the sounds of sermonizing; the words of preachers could seep out of various private or otherwise nonpublic spaces and fill the air. State secular efforts to render faith a private matter were met by a robust Islamic counterpublic discourse. There are many aspects to Hirschkind’s case in showing this, but the point I want to highlight here is that the ambient qualities of a public—he calls it the “sensory environment” (125)—are indispensable to its constitution.2 Susan Gal’s (2002) work on the public-private distinction is also helpful here (see also Tomlinson 2007). Her basic argument is a simple one, but often gets lost in the simplifying tendencies of social action and social analysis alike: public and private are relative, indexically linked terms. They are “dependent for part of their referential meaning on the interactional context in which they are used” (Gal 2002, 80). The distinction is, as she puts it, “fractal”—part of an internally recurrent pattern. One of the examples she provides is the publicity and privacy of a middle-class American household. The house is a private space, a family space, in contrast to the public space of the street, the neighborhood, the town, and so on. Yet within the house, certain spaces are private, such as the bedroom, and certain spaces are public, such as the living room. Yet even within these spaces, of course, publicity and privacy can be created, depending on the circumstances—circumstances defined in some cases by the ambience. Paying attention to ambience can, I think, supplement

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this model of the public-private split, especially where the material qualities of specific signs are integral to their effect, as I now illustrate by turning to the Angels in Swindon.

The Angels Luke needed two things to make his idea work: some angels and some money to sponsor them. On the money front thus began a series of conversations with the Council, local businesses, the Swindon interfaith group, schools, and even the Great Western Hospital, that extended throughout most of the calendar year. The Council was open to the Society’s idea because the Council would not have to pay for the project; indeed, in the end, Bible Society covered the costs itself along with support from several businesses, a primary school, and the hospital. According to Luke, the interfaith group was also very keen on the overall idea: one of the things about angels is that they are indeed common to many religious traditions; in this sense, they successfully indexed an appeal to something “spiritual” that Luke had hoped for. Moreover while Christmas is a Christian holiday, these representatives from other faiths were firmly behind its promotion; as far as they were concerned, any holiday or public project that could be cast in faith terms was a good thing. None of them were plumping for “winterval.” Within the context of broader debates about religion and multiculturalism in Britain, it is worth noting the interfaith agreement on this occasion in Swindon, especially in light of the self-perception among some Christians that they are an embattled minority. To be sure, the sense of embattlement for Christians cannot be reasonably compared with that for those of other faiths in Britain, especially Islam; the claim that it might—which has been made increasingly in recent years—has led some prominent Christians in the public sphere, such as the London Times’s religion correspondent, to express a mixture of surprise and shame.3 As in many other European contexts, the idea of Britain as a “Christian nation” is prevalent in some quarters of the far right, and Islamophobia is a pressing issue (Bunzl 2007). At the same time, what Luke experienced in Swindon is another part of the story that is important to acknowledge. Interfaith dialogue in Britain is not as strong as it might be; for Luke and many of his colleagues, though, the hope is that it will develop as Christian ecumenism has since the 1980s. When it came to business sponsorship, representatives to the interfaith group were less united. Some saw the commercial side of Christmas

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as an inevitable component they might as well work with, especially if it injected a semblance of something spiritual back into it. Others expressed a concern that including businesses in the sponsorship only fostered commercialization of what they wanted to hold out—at least among themselves—as a sacred commemoration. From the very start of the project, then, Luke found himself walking a fine line between (for lack of better terms) religion and the marketplace. To design the angels, Luke approached Carl Robertshaw, whose London-based company, Kite Related Design, is one of the most respected in the business, having produced kites and banners for such clients as the pop star Björk and major London cultural venues such as Somerset House. Robertshaw is not a Christian. This did not matter as far as Luke and Bible Society were concerned. In fact Bible Society often sought out relationships with non-Christian and even more generally nonreligious professionals because they wanted to work with the best of the best and not restrict themselves to what some of the staff refer to as “the Church ghetto” (organizations and individuals who cater specifically to Christian customers). Working with unchurched professionals was also seen as a good way to ensure Society projects were as accessible as possible, especially given how often the Society wanted to engage “the culture.” Robertshaw’s profile was perfect. Luke met with Robertshaw to talk through some biblical passages about angels, giving him a sense of what the Society was looking for. But they also spoke about angels more generally, and it turned out that Robertshaw had an interest in the style of angels depicted in Japanese manga (comics). It’s from this genre that Robertshaw drew inspiration for the kites. In discussions about the Angels project and in the promotional materials that Bible Society produced, the fact that the Swindon angels were inspired by a Japanese design was almost always emphasized, as it was an excellent way of appealing to and even helping create the “common domain” of which Luke spoke. I never heard staff at the Society relate much detail about manga; the important point was that, coming from Japan, it was clearly non-Christian and non-Western. To anyone who knew something about the history of manga, though, the fact that the style has roots in the work of a twelfth-century Buddhist monk (Allison 2006, 52; Ito 2005, 458) would have served only to reinforce the conceptual point of the project’s generic spirituality. Manga is, moreover, a style marked by its “plasticity” and a marriage of “the mundane with the fantastic” (Allison 2006, 53)—exactly what angels perched above a shopping center in a postindustrial English town were

figure 3. An Angel in Swindon, 2006. © Bible Society. Used with permission.

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meant to invoke. What Robertshaw came up with in the end was a pure white angel, rather angular, with an overall wing span of four meters. The Society had twelve of these showcase angels made, mounted in the outdoor space of the Parade as well as shopping foyers, and also produced smaller versions that people could purchase and fly as kites. The twelve showcase angels were a productive design for the space of the Parade. The fabrics that Robertshaw used combined the senses of strong and stiff with light and flexible to good effect, and the Swindon wind that had so struck Luke—both literally and figuratively—became integral to the angels’ effect.4 Like the sails on a ship, the angels could also convey a paradoxical mix of movement and groundedness. The whiteness of the angels was likewise motivated, being both meaningful (certainly in Christian traditions) and unmemorable (in the sense that you’re more likely to remember, say, hot pink). In a similar way, the genericness of the angels’ anthropocentric form—no marks on the bodies, no facial features—provided an open invitation to the onlooker to fill in the blank, to appropriate the object into one’s own life or story. Or not. As objects, then, the angels were semiotic bundles of determined underdeterminedness. As emplaced objects, they were meant to be ambient actors, yet again hard to pin down. What was at work here? Kite? Wind? Maybe something more? Maybe the spirit of Christmas; maybe an angel? These were the kinds of questions and associations Luke hoped to provoke. Luke gave an update on the Angels project at the September all-staff meeting, which was always an important venue for showcasing advocacy and other projects. He was, as usual, an upbeat and compelling speaker that day, and it was clear that he had captured the attention of his colleagues—all the more so, I suspect, since he was talking about something that would be happening in Swindon, which was unusual for advocacy work. He began by telling everyone how important it had been to him to make use of the local environment—to incorporate that strong, cold wind he had felt on his first visit to the Parade some eight months before. The angels were going to be “quite physical,” he said, sensory art that played upon the surroundings. He also expressed his hope that the angels might instill some “civic pride.” Swindon has a reputation in Britain of being a “national laughing stock” and suffering an “unfair share of slurs and sneers.”5 As Luke put it, perhaps the Society’s angels could be “angels of the South,” a reference to the sculptor Antony Gormley’s famous installation Angel of the North, which sits atop a hill overlooking the town of Gateshead, the A1 (the major road

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that runs near it), and the east coast rail line (which runs between London and Edinburgh). In the eyes of many commentators, Gormley’s Angel had come to stand for Gateshead’s economic and cultural regeneration in the late 1990s, a sign of public art’s ability to stir the spirit of capitalism. The Angel also gave Gateshead and the North a sense of respectability, for that region too had been laughed at in the past. As the Guardian editorialized, “Whether viewed as a spiritually uplifting icon or a phoenix rising from the ashes of the abandoned coal mine beneath it, the Angel of the North has been a joyous addition to the northern landscape.”6 Going on in this vein, the Guardian emphasizes how, after the Angel’s arrival, Gateshead was the beneficiary of much else besides— not least, we are informed, “a fine restaurant.” There had been some issues, Luke went on to tell his colleagues, about how the project was being “messaged.” The Borough Council had proposed calling the display “Swindon’s Mythical Christmas,” he said, in a deliberate tone of disappointment. A wave of sympathetic sighs rolled through the room: Ooh, that wouldn’t do. The Society needed to build relationships in the wider community, but it ought not surrender principles; implying that angels are mythical would be implying that they’re make-believe and might end up serving as fodder for the aggressive secularists and atheists out there.7 So Luke pushed back a bit and was able to get the Council to agree to call the project “Swindon’s Angelic Christmas.” The messaging also involved designing posters to promote the project, and on this front the Society wanted to keep a bit closer to its biblical focus. The first suggested text for the poster was “Good News! Hope!” Very biblical indeed. But the Council did not like this language. “The secular authorities want to reduce everything to a muddle to not offend anyone,” as Luke put it on another occasion, a “Bible and culture” seminar held in Swindon just a few weeks before Christmas Day. “We don’t do religion,” he said, affecting the voice of one of the local councilors with whom he had worked and invoking the figure and language of Alastair Campbell. “That’s the extreme secular line,” Luke continued, switching back to speaking as himself. “Their religion is no religion.” All the same, of course, he went on, the Society didn’t want to “do religion.” That’s not what angels are about. But in the context of the seminar in which he was presenting, Luke could speak freely to his audience, which comprised counterparts from the Scandinavian Bible Societies—an especially attentive audience, perhaps, given Scandinavia’s recent labeling by one sociologist as the “society without God” (Zuckerman 2008).

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In the “Bible and culture” seminar Luke was appealing to two meanings of the term secular, meanings that are often entangled and left purposefully so. In one sense, referring to “secular authorities” meant simply those who work in government roles, not church roles. Any individual who is a secular authority might well have “private” or “personal” religious commitments but is expected to keep these separate from the work of the state or local authorities, to maintain the sense of differentiation that is central to the normative version of liberalism. The secular in this sense is cast as a kind of political and social neutrality, and the chief commitment is to notions of tolerance, fairness, and equality of access and opportunity. In another sense, though, secular serves here as a code word for “antireligious” and thus invokes the figure of the atheist aggressor. The secular in this sense is not a neutral descriptive but part of an ideological agenda, a secularist position that is perceived as hostile to the very existence of faith. In this second sense, a secularist is presumed to be an atheist, as well—and an antitheist atheist at that. I have said that secular is not a dirty word around Bible House, something to revile and resist in favor of such presumed opposites as religion, spirituality, or the sacred. Indeed for Luke and his colleagues, what they perceive to be secular is often embraced; moreover, as we’ll discuss at various points, references to religion can also invite opprobrium, for not all staff were entirely happy with that term either. In this sense, and despite the initial impulse to tag the promotional posters for the angels with “purely” biblical language, the Council’s unease with the line “Good News! Hope!” turned out to be an unwitting help. The Council had been quite right to want to tone down the religion. The poster ended up with a more appropriate amalgamation of old and new, sacred and secular. The text read, “The Angel Said Unto Them: Don’t Worry, Be Happy!” Here the King James Bible—“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10)—meets Bobby McFerrin: Here is a little song I wrote You might want to sing it note for note Don’t worry be happy In every life we have some trouble When you worry you make it double Don’t worry, be happy.8

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Several months after Christmas 2006, Luke and I sat down for an interview in one of the small meeting rooms at Bible House to reflect on the Angels project, now that it was over. I asked him what he had hoped the project would provoke. What kind of question did he want Christmas shoppers to have asked? “Gosh, is the Christmas story a spiritual one?” he replied. “Or, is the Bible a spiritual story?” It was pretty basic, then, I said. “Totally basic,” he confirmed: Really way back there, I think. I didn’t have great hopes that they would wander along and suddenly fall on their knees and go, “Oh yes, Angels: they must be all around me.” . . . It was as basic as that. And it goes back to the insight that Yvonne Richmond and Steve Hollinghurst had had—that there was something deeply spiritual in the recognition that there are spiritual beings. And therefore, where can we build bridges? . . . I was trying to be in the place with the person who hasn’t considered a spiritual dimension to life, [yet] who is, apparently, quite spiritual. . . . I’m trying to earth it, make it very real, very tangible. So, the angels weren’t effete or ethereal. They were quite tough images; they were angular. They give a great sense of speed when they’re turning in the wind, they were really quite vigorous and active—living.

If the angels and the promotional posters were not meant to be too in-your-face—determinedly underdetermined, as I put it earlier—there were still ways in which the Society wanted to push the envelope of what to expect. Perhaps their most provocative idea was to have the angels mounted as if they were heading to the end of the shopping Parade, where the public toilets are located. The Society wanted to put up a nativity scene at the toilets, making the point that when Jesus came, he came not to the center of society but the margins. As best the Bible Society could figure, a public toilet in Swindon was the modern-day equivalent of a manger in Bethlehem. The Borough Council wouldn’t go for this at all, much to the amusement and annoyance of Luke and his colleagues. Ann Holt was particularly exercised. The nativity itself wasn’t the problem; what the Council said was that putting a nativity so close to the toilets might be offensive to Christians. But here they were, as I was told again and again, telling this to an organization of Christians. Luke, Ann, and others cast this as evidence of political correctness gone mad and of the knots that a “secular authority” committed to “neutrality” can tie itself up in. All the same, and incredulity aside, the Society knew such a move would be offensive to some Christians. That’s why they wanted to do it. Fellow Christians need some shaking up, some prompts to connect with the more uncomfortable aspects of the Gospel message. As one member

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of the staff often told me, the Society was supposed to cause “good trouble” for Christians. Ironically perhaps the Council was fulfilling its mandate for tolerance on the streets: the Parade needed to remain a “neutral” space. Reception of the Angels in Swindon was mixed, in Luke’s view, and he was eager to stress it was his first major project in the job. There were indeed no people dropping to their knees and praising the angels around them, as predicted. At the same time, the Angels got a bigger holiday crowd than the stars of Harry Potter had the year before: over a thousand people turned out for the launch event in 2006. There was no evidence from the merchants that business had picked up because of an angelic presence, although here too Luke never seriously thought the angels could lead to that. “There are many more things,” he said, “like mortgage rates, interest rates, and the state of the economy that build traffic into shops at Christmas time.” The angels did make it into the regional news. BBC Wiltshire featured a slide show of pictures of the angels on its Wiltshire Life website and moderated a comment board. There were thirteen posts by twelve people, eight of whom could be said to have been positive, and of the four who were negative, two were berating the Council for what they assumed was its frittering away of money, and another Swindon in general for trying to be cultured, playing quite deliberately on the town’s abject image. There was only one negative comment about the angels themselves: one man thought they looked like the prototype for a new version of the Concorde. For him, it seems, they were perhaps too underdetermined as signs, calling to mind not heaven but what many Britons consider its hellish inverse: Heathrow Airport. Two of the positive reactions stand out in relation to my argument about ambience. On the BBC Wiltshire website, one person, identified as Steve, wrote, “I think they are beautiful! A real change to the normal lights and a wonderful change to the environment. My 4 year-old was fascinated by them!” Another, identified as Amanda Hull, wrote, “I passed one on the street today and it was swaying in the wind beautifully— what a clever idea! Well done Bible Society and Mr. Robertshaw.” What interests me in these comments, and gave some encouragement to the Society, is the hint of the angels’ ambient effect: the extent to which their physicality and sensuality became affective. The Christmas season, of course, is often drenched with mood. The season is produced by ambient media: music in stores and piped into the streets, the lights, the decorations. Indeed, certainly in a place like England, Christmas is

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arguably the single most effective day of the year for driving home the power and importance of ambience. The angels, swaying in the wind, producing a great sense of speed, were being put forward as indices of ambient faith—a sensory invitation to “do spiritual.” It is not enough to conclude, however, that the angels were successfully ambient on the basis of a few comments on a website forum. And I found it unproductive, standing out on the Parade, to ask passersby what they thought; calling attention to an ambient effect is a surefire way of dispelling it. Ambience is most successful in this context through its unconscious affection. And yet the success of this project is beside the point. What we are tracing here is an improvisational moment in the drama of Scripture.

Lyfe: “Getting It Out in Public” Luke’s effort to bring angels to Swindon is only one aspect of the Advocacy Team’s work to harness the cultural driver of the arts. Much of this work could be called ambient and is similarly underdetermined—never pushing the public too far or too fast into the arms of Jesus. Indeed the Society often goes to some length to message the Bible as a source of inspiration and ideas that aren’t necessarily tied to the Gospel—a good book, rather than the Good Book, if you will. For the Angels project, as we have seen, this involved meeting the shopping public on what was hoped to be a spiritual middle ground—trying to entice this public, in a roundabout way, to make links between the angel kites swaying in the air and their own nascent or florescent faith in spirits. As he explained it to me, Luke sees his particular part of Bible advocacy as “working alongside those in the visual arts, both of faith and no faith, to see the Bible as a place of inspiration for creativity and communication.” If the arts work is successful, it will affect a shift in what the Society understands to be widespread attitudes toward the Bible as irrelevant, out-ofdate, and/or the preserve of “fanatical” Christians who spend most of their time telling other people what they should or should not be doing. This is part of why Luke and his colleagues came around to the idea of referencing Bobby McFerrin in the Angels poster: it was an injection of contemporaneity, a helpful push from the “secular authorities.” Ambient work is not the sole preserve of the arts officer and is often either impromptu or epiphenomenal, not part of an intentional production but a production nonetheless. One of the best examples of this was a Pentecostal-style prayer session I attended in the Houses of Parliament

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in June 2008. The pastor leading the session had been invited to Westminster by the Society’s parliamentary officer, whose work we’ll discuss in chapter 4. It was a Prayer Week, and I had just finished a four-stop prayer walk with the parliamentary officer and a handful of his guests. We had begun in the Victoria Tower Gardens, adjacent to the Palace of Westminster, then crossed over Lambeth Bridge to Lambeth Palace, the archbishop of Canterbury’s residence. Then we stopped at the southbank foot of Westminster Bridge, which gives such a good view of Parliament, before heading over the bridge to stand in the shadow of the clock tower, housing the famous Big Ben. This walk in itself was an ambient move, placing us amid the public—joggers, office workers, and, especially on Westminster Bridge, throngs of tourists; for a short while, we were part of the background scene to life along this important stretch of the River Thames. But the real effect came when we moved inside, to a meeting room in Westminster’s Portcullis House, to join the well-known Pentecostal preacher. There were about twenty people gathered; the pastor started a long series of prayers—for Gordon Brown, the prime minister, and for God’s work to be done through Parliament. After some minutes he fell into tongues, and several other people followed suit. The door to the room was closed, but it was very loud, and it got louder as the session unfolded. Not everyone there was comfortable with the happenings, and the Society’s parliamentary officer had a half-grin on his face—partly a grin of worry, partly of joy. We could certainly be heard in the hallway and adjacent meeting rooms. Even for Parliament this was an unusual cacophony, an ambient noise that became an enactment of faith. Luke does more than ambient work. Not every project is about a background effect. One of his other projects, for example, was running a short film competition, “Big Story, Little Film,” in which amateurs were asked to relate a story from the Bible in five minutes. The film competition was about sensuality, reinforcing the Society’s commitment to moving beyond the written text. But it was not about ambience, about some background effect; the Bible was the central focus of attention. Big Story, Little Film was different as well in that it focused more explicitly on biblical narratives and Christian audiences. The winning entry was a Lego animation, Jesus Calms the Storm, produced by a father and his primary-school-age son, with the boy reading the text of Mark 4:35–41, as the Lego boat and Lego figures were tossed to and fro on a Sea of Galilee composed of a blue bed sheet. Most such church-facing work is straightforwardly connected to the Bible like this and need not

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be ambient. But some church-facing work is also ambient, and it’s to the Society’s project to promote Bible reading “in public” that I now turn in an effort to round out these discussions. Rob Hare was hired on to the Advocacy Team to develop “Lyfe” (Life, your faith encounters), a project aimed at getting Christians to start Bible-reading groups with their friends and colleagues. For James Catford in particular, so taken by the tradition of lectio divina, this was going to be one way of building confidence in Christians who might feel intimidated about reading the Bible for themselves. The placement of these reading groups in coffee shops and pubs played quite purposefully off the sense of lectio divina as a group practice, and one likened to communal feasting—not only “Eat this book!” as Eugene H. Peterson puts it, but “Drink it too!” Lyfe was run virtually: anyone could register on the website and download the materials themselves as PDF files, which are organized around particular themes (hope, money, justice, etc.) and related to a set of passages from both Testaments. Rob did give presentations on Lyfe to churches and at Christian festivals, but the Society’s hope was that the project would spread virally on the basis of individual initiative. Lyfe was never pitched as a Bible study; the connotation would have been that that’s what happens at church under the guidance of a pastor or priest. That was too intimidating and formal. But there was one aspect of the program that Rob and his colleagues realized may be intimidating: when the Society had its way, Lyfe groups were to meet not in church halls or people’s living rooms but in local pubs and coffee shops. Lyfe was supposed to be public in this sense, and, I suggest, to help set the ambience of the public square—to be part of the background noise of daily life. As Rob put it to me, “That is a huge leap. When I talk to people about Lyfe and they go, ‘Oh, we have to go to Starbucks?,’ I say, ‘Yeah, go to Starbucks. Get this thing we call the Bible. Get our Christian faith outside of our comfortable homes and go somewhere public.’ ” To encourage this leap, the Bible Society produced a short promotional video about Lyfe, which Rob showed to various church groups and which could be played on Lyfe’s web and Facebook pages. The video opens with catchy music (modern, upbeat) before cutting to a statement that flashes up against a white background: “We used to hide it.” Then the video cuts to a young woman. “I have to say sometimes I feel quite embarrassed,” she says, hand on chest. Then back to another statement: “We used to be ashamed of it.” Then another woman: “It’s

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figure 4. The cover of the first Lyfe brochure, 2007. Coffee shop, mobile devices out. Very public. © Bible Society. Used with permission.

open in my handbag and you can’t tell what it is,” she says, hands on her Bible, which flops open easily from so much use. “But now we’re getting it out in public,” flashes the next message, and then the video cuts to footage of a coffee shop. “Aw, shucks,” says the second woman in a voice-over, “if it can’t happen in Café Nero, then where’s it gonna happen?” (Café Nero is an Italian-style coffee shop chain in Britain.) More messages appear: “Sharing it with others”; “Anytime,

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anywhere, anyhow.” “What’s great about being in a pub is, it’s a relaxed atmosphere,” says one man. Another message: “Unleashing its power.” “It’s saying that the Word of God is relevant irrespective of where we are,” says another man. “Bookshop, pub, someone’s kitchen table, wherever it might be,” says a third man. “You and your mates in a  normal setting,” he later adds. “It starts conversations with people sometimes. That’s a bit surprising. You’re in a pub with a Bible. I mean, [someone asks] ‘Jesus didn’t drink, did he?’ And I’m like, ‘Well of course, yes he did.’ ” “It doesn’t feel like doing church or doing religion.” In just under four minutes, this promotional video aims to convey a sense of understanding the embarrassment that Christians might feel about “being Christian” in public, especially by reading the Bible. By playing on a language with sexual undertones, complete with a transgressive suggestion of “getting it out in public,” the Society is situating the Bible at the heart of debates about public mores and manners. Is this something that should take place outside the home? Simultaneously the video provides reflections from Lyfe participants who can attest to the program’s value. The comments throughout by Lyfe participants first reinforce and then challenge what is perceived to constitute a “normal setting” for engaging with Scripture: the privacy, as nested fractally within this instance, of one’s church life. In the process they testify to the potential for both outreach—“It starts conversations”— and an inner experience of faith and what it should be: “It doesn’t feel like doing church or doing religion.” More than any other advocacy project I studied, Lyfe also brought the shame question to the fore. That Christians in England might feel not only beleaguered but also ashamed of their faith became an increasingly common theme in public discourse after 2006. The mocking of religion, especially Christianity, by such public personalities as Dawkins, the journalist Christopher Hitchens, and the philosopher A. C. Grayling had a cumulative effect answered most forcefully just before Christmas 2010. (Not an incidental fact of timing, as we can appreciate.) Working with a group called Christian Concern, the former archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey—Lord Carey of Clifton—published a pamphlet, I’m Not Ashamed, in which he called on Christians to stand up for themselves and their faith.9 “So,” wrote Lord Carey, “it appears that flowing from a combination of well-meaning political correctness, multiculturalism, and overt opposition to Christianity, a new climate, hostile to our country’s tradition and history, is developing.” There are

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things to be ashamed of, Lord Carey says: “There are aspects of Christianity of which I am ashamed. I am ashamed of the way in which the external form of religion has got in the way of real faith and I am ashamed of the timidity of much western Christianity. But I am not ashamed of Jesus and his teaching. I am not ashamed of his promise to bring life, hope, and freedom to individuals, communities, and nations.”10 Lord Carey was not someone that staff on the Advocacy Team usually invoked. But they were cognizant of the extent to which the shame question was pressing itself upon many Christians and took full advantage with Lyfe to connect with church audiences for whom such language resonated. We used to be ashamed of it. But now we’re getting it out in public. During the spring of 2008 I joined Rob’s Lyfe group, which he ran with some friends from the Baptist church he attended in suburban Surrey. Dutifully we met not in the church hall but in a nearby Café Nero. Sometimes my fellow group members brought a pocket Bible, but more often than not we worked from nondescript PDF printouts. Each Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m., we gathered in the café’s spacious seating area, settling into the fake leather armchairs. There were usually four or five of us, and we met for about an hour, competing for space with young mothers meeting up for chats and the occasional pair or trio of office workers on a late lunch or early afternoon break. As in many such situations where one is asked to put one’s thoughts on the line, in front of others, the sessions began somewhat slowly. No one ever wanted to be the first to speak up on whatever theme we were addressing, and we eased in to discussion of the Lyfe materials only after casual chitchat. But eventually everyone unwound, and some quite animated discussions could ensue. It didn’t happen on every occasion, but there were at least regular moments when the conversations went above the decibel level normally deemed appropriate by the English, especially in a wellheeled home county such as Surrey. One of the sessions that really got the group going was on love. There were five us that day: Rob (he had chai); Dan, who worked for Surrey Police (a latte); Sal, a young mother (latte and sandwich); Charlie, an associate pastor at the church (frappuccino and sandwich); and me (Americano).11 The Lyfe worksheets had six different readings from the Bible on the theme in question, drawn from the Good News edition. We spent the whole time that day on the first reading, a very wellknown passage from one of the epistles, 1 Corinthians 13:

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1 I may be able to speak the languages of human beings and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell. 2 I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains— but if I have no love, I am nothing. 3 I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned—but if I have no love, this does me no good. 4 Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; 5 love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; 6 love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. 7 Love never gives up; and its faith, hope, and patience never fail. 8 Love is eternal. There are inspired messages, but they are temporary; there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it will pass. 9 For our gifts of knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial; 10 but when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear. 11 When I was a child, my speech, feelings, and thinking were all those of a child; now that I am an adult, I have no more use for childish ways. 12 What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face-to-face. What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete—as complete as God’s knowledge of me. 13 Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.

It took us a few minutes to get to talking, because it took a while to read such a long passage. Everyone knew the passage, of course, but everyone still pored over it. Sal and Charlie were munching away on their sandwiches in the meanwhile. Rob suggested we underline what we found notable. “Verse two is interesting,” said Dan. “It’s almost saying, if you have love, it consumes your being.” “I looked at that and thought, how can you be nothing?” Sal replied. “I was challenging that—that can’t be right.” “The other side is to know that God is love. That ability to love is part of God,” said Dan. Charlie hadn’t stopped eating his sandwich; it was a mozzarella melt, and there was a big string of cheese hanging down from his mouth. Everyone started making fun of him. “Carry on!” he cried, behind the cheese. “You can get Christians who know the Bible really well, but they’re crotchety,” Rob reflected. “I’m getting worse!” Dan confessed. “Kids take it out of me.” “Now you’ve got real responsibilities,” Charlie offered; he had taken a break from munching away. “It puts demands on your faith. When you’re a young Christian, you don’t have that.” “I’m acutely aware I’m less patient,” Dan said. “You’ve got a reservoir of love, and you need to refresh that. It can get low.”

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“Yeah,” Sal added. “A daily one. Waking up and asking God for patience. You see yourself spiraling into it with children.” “I find this the perfect description of what love ought to be,” said Rob. “It’s this. And I’m nowhere near it.” “You can only give what you already have,” said Charlie. “Taking that time, even just five minutes.” “Just that prayer,” Sal said. “If you’re able to feel compassionate, it comes back to you.” “Is love just love?” Dan asked. “In order to love, do we have to have God in us?” “Everyone has the capacity to love,” Charlie replied. “I know some very loving non-Christian people. They put some Christians to shame. This passage is crammed between two passages, about the church and spiritual gifts. And Paul comes along and says this!” “I remember Rob Bell saying something about this,” Rob said, but didn’t expand. Rob Bell was one of the emerging-church authors popular around Bible House. His book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith made quite a splash in evangelical circles: “The challenge for Christians . . . is to live with great passion and conviction, remaining open and flexible, aware that this life is not the last painting” (2006, 11). The art of today will become the kitsch of tomorrow. Bell lives with an uncertainty and flexibility that not all evangelicals find comfortable.12 “Do we really believe God loves us?” Charlie asked. “Every day I say, ‘Lord, I believe you love me.’ ” “Being filled with God’s love is necessary in order to pass this love on,” said Dan. “When I’m close to God,” Charlie said, “I have a great capacity for helping other people.” “If your relationship is right with the Lord, you just feel peaceful,” Sal added. Dan brought us back to the reading: “Verse seven: Love’s faith and hope. It has qualities. How do people who don’t know God, how do they carry on loving? If we think it’s all about the Holy Spirit, how do people who don’t have the Holy Spirit, how do they get their reservoirs up? Is it just part of our DNA? Can we get love from other things?” Sal had to leave at this point; it was time to get the kids from school. “People get it from loving others,” said Rob. Dan: “We have the ability to love, but maybe we need to look . . .” Charlie interrupted: “God gives you the capacity. But you can get drained.”

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“Can people who are not Spirit-filled, or not Christian, can they grow in love?” asked Dan. “I don’t know,” said Charlie. “I think they get it from other people,” Rob said again. “People in church are no different from people in the world,” said Charlie. “God has made us in his image. And whether we acknowledge him or not, we have those capacities.” “When your first child is born,” Dan reflected, “a whole new thing comes out. And I wonder if the Holy Spirit is bringing something out of us, more than putting something into us.” It had been an intense exchange, which unfolded in fits and starts, but it kept a pace. At this point, though, everyone was getting tired and the conversation started to peter out. When it was clear they were done, Rob joked, “Well, got that one sussed now!” “I’ve been reading this for twenty-one years,” Charlie replied, serious and happy, “and am only just beginning to understand.” Such details of conversation are not strictly central to our concerns; this is not a study of Bible-reading groups, although there are some insightful ones out there (Malley 2004; Bielo 2009b). It is nevertheless useful, I think, to open a window onto what is, for Society staff, a very important aspect of what they do. This is the kind of “doing Bible” that always put a smile on Ann Holt’s face. Taking us back to the issue of ambience, what I want to remark upon is the sense in which the initial awkwardness of these Lyfe group meetings could be slowly transformed itself into a “joyful noise” of sorts— not the noise of song as expressed in Psalm 100, from which the phrase comes, but a heartfelt exchange that helped shape the ambience of the café. If we were not quite reconstituting the public sphere that emerged out of London’s coffee houses in the eighteenth century (see Habermas 1962/1989, 27–42), we were nevertheless, in our own, ambient way, “getting it out in public.” No one from nearby tables ever stopped what they were doing to ask us what kind of coffee Jesus drank, but we were an undoubted sensory presence that, for the members of the group, served as an important sign of faith and act of public engagement. As in the Angels project, the production of ambient faith in a Lyfe group depends on at least two refusals: the refusal to accept the distinction between public and private when applied to religion and the refusal to be satisfied with the very idea of religion itself. In many ways the argument about public and private here simply reinforces what we considered in relation to the Angels project: ambience becomes a way

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of undercutting the distinction between them, of, in the Lyfe case, allowing for the possibility of a “private” conversation to be overheard. Not unlike what Hirschkind (2006, 125–28) found in Cairo, here we have a “public noise” of faith that can sometimes push, or be pushed, to the foreground. In Lyfe, however, the paradoxical way this refusal becomes possible is better evident than in the Angels project: Bible Society undercuts one normative public-private contract (the religious one) by undertaking another (the commercial one). Getting it out in public is made possible, in other words, as much by the cappuccino on the table as the Bible or piece of paper in one’s hand. What the cappuccino stands for is the commercial transaction that has taken place between the store and the customer. Lyfe members are, in effect, buying the right to subvert the public-private iteration of religion, but only by acknowledging that Café Nero constitutes a public space for its paying customers. It is, in this sense, the kind of private publicity that doesn’t obtain in the space of a shopping district or main street. As we can now further appreciate, it matters that the Angels were not mounted in the Parade’s shops but rather the more public spaces that connected them. All the same, there is a difference between the joyful noise of Lyfe and that of, say, Cairo’s streets. It gets us back to something of the theological commitment that undergirds the Society’s historically important theological “no comment.” In both the Parade and the coffee shop or pub, it is up to the other, pedestrian or patron, to engage. On the basis of what Hirschkind (2006) describes, that engagement is often not negotiable. Bible Society does not do megaphoned messages, and that matters in terms of how the link between sensuality and faith gets made. There is one more comparison to draw. For Luke, the refusal of religion played out in the main by his appeal to a broader discourse on the spiritual; in Lyfe the intention is somewhat different, best captured in one of the final remarks in the promotional video, emphasized in my reading of what I called the “inner experience” of participants: It doesn’t feel like doing church or doing religion. Here we get a sense of the ways in which, for Bible Society, the very idea of religion becomes an imposition. For the members of Rob’s Lyfe group, for instance, it wasn’t about being religious or spiritual at all; they spoke about what they were doing as “biblical” and “Christian.” Staff at the Society often spoke in this way too, especially when I tried to frame questions in relation to religion. Recall as well that staff often expressed an ambivalence toward the Church, at least part of which needed to be understood in

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light of this reluctance to support “institutional religion.” This is what Lord Carey decries as religion’s “external forms”; it finds expression as well in emerging church thought, with its strong emphasis on postinstitutional modes of sociality, in which the very kind of small-group, nonhierarchical interactions encouraged by Lyfe become the norm.13 One of the staff members at Bible Society put this to me in very clear terms. “I mean, I would love for there to be an established Church that was of some use,” she said. “And if I thought for a moment that I could influence it to be that, I would go.” In the meantime she never went to services and didn’t belong to a church. On Sunday mornings she stayed in bed, at most switching on the radio to have a church service playing in the background.

Summary Every framing of the public and private is something new: you cannot transpose their relation from one scale to another and preserve their meanings in every respect (see Gal 2002, 85). When all is said and done, though, the production here of ambient faith is not only an effort to foster change in relation to the public-private distinction: it is about obviating the need for such a distinction altogether. What the Society staff would like is for Christianity to be above qualification—for a world in which there is nothing to be gained by referring to religion as public or private in the first place. This is the kind of public religion, in other words, that offers what the sociologist José Casanova (1994, 43) calls “counterfactual normative critiques of dominant historical trends . . . by crossing boundaries [and] by raising questions publicly about the autonomous pretensions of the differentiated spheres.” In other words, this is Christians refusing to not do God, suggesting how we might understand things otherwise. Secularization as a theory of differentiation is primarily told as a story of the separation of religion from politics. We have seen in this chapter how that differentiation is brought about by a further nesting of differentiations, those of public and private. In chapters to come we will have occasion to highlight others: faith and knowledge; passion and reason, and more. In the examples of Bible Society projects presented here, this master story of differentiation is part of the background to the story, a kind of conceptual ambience in itself. This background provides a way to foreground another element of the story, for one thing the Society’s projects make clear is that questions of public

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religion are also often questions of religion’s publicity, of its manifestations not in spaces and times of politics per se but rather in those of the market. As shown in other studies of religion and modernity, not least those that focus on shifts to “spirituality” (Bender 2010; Carrette and King 2005; Heelas 2008), the market square becomes as important as the public square for articulating positions on public-private divides (see also Casanova 1994, 63–65). The Society’s focus on Christmas, on a shopping mall, and on coffee shop chains is not contingent on choices of seasons and sites through which to advance its agendas. By way of a summary, then, it might be productive to move the discussion beyond a focus on religious projects to suggest how an interest in ambience has been taken up elsewhere and how these interests reflect back on the conditions of possibility for Bible advocacy. In 1978 Brian Eno released his pathbreaking record, Music for Airports. This was the first self-consciously produced “ambient music”; the term itself was coined by Eno. His motivation was to counter what he saw as the leveling effects of the by-then ubiquitous muzak, which he defined as “familiar tunes arranged in a lightweight and derivative manner.”14 Rather than beginning with mass production and making an environment fit the product, Eno wanted to turn things around, to celebrate the specificities of a space and time—or, as he put it, “acoustic and atmospheric idiosyncrasies.” Such site-specific compositions should contain within themselves a whole series of possible levels of engagement. At its best, ambient music should be capable both of stirring thought and sweeping it away: “It must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” There is a danger in Eno’s approach of making a mistake, highlighted by Walter Benjamin (1968): insisting upon the connection between an original work of art and its aura. There is nothing inherent in muzak that prevents it from being “interesting.” And the more general point that any music can be ambient music also holds, at least in a weak sense of the term. If music is part of the background noise, it is ambient. This highlights how, for Eno, ambient music in his sense of the term—the strong sense, if you will—is an intentional creation. It is supposed to be in the background, created as such. If this is the case, ambient music also relies upon a paradox, for it is intentionally nonintentional. What it “does” to or for the listener is supposed to be up to the listener. It tries to be nothing or, perhaps more accurately, anything. Thus Eno’s music also raises important questions about the extent to which a sensory form can be intentionally produced or controlled. Likewise ambient music can also be related back to Gal’s (2002) model of public and private as

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nested and fractal, for one function of ambient music, whether in the weak or strong sense, is to allow people to have privacy in public. Eno’s ambient projects are a critique of music’s marketization, its mass commodification. Yet it should probably come as no surprise that the concept of ambience has been equally well harnessed by those who want to extend rather than restrict the reach of the market. We see this in the emergence of what is known as ambient media advertising. In the context of advertising, ambient media refers to the promotion of a product in site- and material-specific forms, most of which will never have been previously recognized as appropriate spaces for advertising purposes. So it is ambient because it is what would normally be understood as the background to a traditional advertising space or medium. If we think of the cars and taxis passing a billboard as part of the expected background to the context of billboard advertising, then taxis that are painted with ads, or as ads, can be understood as ambient media. Most people are now so used to taxis with ads on them that the ambient move will have lost its intended effect, which is to prompt a kind of figure-ground reversal that challenges our understandings of the organization of public space. And yet while these days taxis may not be particularly controversial platforms, it is not unusual for forms of ambient advertising to cause a stir and, in some cases, disapproval. One campaign that generated ire was the decision of the CBS television network to promote its programs on the shells of 35 million eggs.15 Most of these were pitched as puns, as in a “hard-boiled drama” and “leave the yokes to us.” Disagreement over this campaign hinged in part on whether and to what extent this should be seen as an invasion of privacy, invoking a battle cry of “Eggs are not public!” Of course, the specificity of the product and its packaging was itself an intentional provocation, since before buying eggs people open the cartons to make sure they aren’t broken. The consumer thus becomes implicated in the process of bringing the ad concept to fruition, and much was also made about breakfast time becoming a commercial event. Such implications are also pronounced in ambient media campaigns in which potential consumers are interpolated into the ads themselves—when part of one’s body becomes part of the media message. One increasingly common ad type in London, for example (and likely elsewhere), has been to place photographs of headless bodies on the sides of buses, such that the heads of actual passengers, sitting in the seats, complete an ad image. Another is to incorporate a mirror into an ad so that one’s reflection

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becomes part of the ad. These ambient campaigns are a metacomment on what we already know: that the market is mounting a major challenge to the subject-object distinction—yet another fractal at work. These two brief examples of ambient music and ambient media are only indicative, but I hope they are enough to highlight the fact that the question of differentiation stands at the heart of a range of contemporary projects and concerns with the constitution of public-private divides. Ambience is a useful mediating concept in these various projects, a way of challenging the sufficiency or aptness of a fractal. Throughout this chapter I have suggested how the sense of ambience gets imagined as the background for a fractally recursive conception of publicity and privacy in the work of Bible advocacy. And this appeal to ambience can be good to think about. With sensory semiotics we can better understand, and even push beyond, the structure of the publicprivate distinction. The Society’s ambient faith is supposed to be interesting and engaging. Yet as I have also suggested, the potential to be interesting is dependent on the potential to be ignored. The theology behind the Society’s not having a theology hinges on choice, a value central to the mind-set of the marketer and evangelical alike. What is being played out here, through the ambient, is a tension between the material, as a bathos of modernity, and the spiritual, as an equally modern lure.

chapter 2

The Semiotics of Relevance Campaigning to Culture

For religion to be a positive force for good, it must be rescued not simply from extremism—faith as a means of exclusion; but also from irrelevance—an interesting part of our history but not of our future. —Tony Blair (2008, 17)

Some sociologists still argue that “God is dead” (Bruce 2002), even if doing so is “in defense of an unfashionable theory” (Bruce 2011). Secularization theory certainly isn’t what it used to be. The way it was conceived a generation or two ago, as a theory that religion declines as societies become more modern, is almost everywhere démodé. Steve Bruce is one of the few sociologists of religion working on Britain who maintains a commitment to this decline thesis, notwithstanding the arguments of colleagues—some of long standing (Martin 1978)—that neither “secularization” nor “modernity” have stable meanings and necessary connections to one another (Casanova 1994), or, for example, that church attendance numbers and other statistics are the best indices to use (Davie 1994; Day 2011; Heelas and Woodhead 2005). One result of these kinds of studies, bolstered by more conceptual work (Asad 2003; Connolly 1999; Taylor 2007, 2011), has been to shift attention away from the very task of posing a secularization thesis. Simply put, within the sociology of religion in Britain the question of whether or not God is dead has become less interesting—and less productive—than tracing the particular ways the secular and religious take shape, are mutually constitutive, and either promote or discourage certain kinds of questions and debates (Knott 2010; Lynch 2007; Martin with Catto 2012; Woodhead 2012). 64

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Shifts in the sociological treatment of these issues are mirrored, even if unintentionally, in more popular and public versions of the God debate. In the past decade the argument about God has undergone a subtle but important shift. The assertion has become that “God is not great” (Hitchens 2007), that God is a “delusion” (Dawkins 2006).1 Indeed, as we have already seen, if you want to unsettle a Christian these days, don’t say God is dead: say He shouldn’t be done. Don’t say He doesn’t exist, in other words; say He’s irrelevant. This shift in argumentation is more than a matter of semantics or rhetorical predilections; it tells us something about the conditions of possibility by which the God debate gets conceived and carried out. The question of relevance, and how best to define and convey it, can be seen as a long-standing concern within Western Christianities, from how the Frankish clergy tried to convert Saxon pagans in the eighth century (Fulton 2002, 16–41) to how a Baptist minister in the American South asserted the affinity between fundamentalism and politics in the twentieth century (Harding 2000). As Rachel Fulton and Susan Harding both show, supporting more general arguments about Christianity’s defining characteristics, such projects of demonstrating relevance often revolve around a careful crafting of language. For the Frankish clergy the issue was how best to “translate their religion into terms that the pagans could understand” (Fulton 2002, 19). That translation had to carry “the urgency of history,” as Fulton puts it (23), and posed both linguistic and affective challenges. According to Fulton, it was not only about what words to use, but how to make them “compelling” (23), how to convey the love they indexed. As Harding (2000) discusses in her work on Jerry Falwell, the fundamentalist Baptist preacher from Virginia, a similar project took place vis-à-vis the wider American public in the 1980s. Harding’s interest is the “immense empire of words” (15) that Falwell constructed through his ministry, an empire centered in Lynchburg, Virginia, but which, over the 1970s and 1980s, became a national force in both conservative Protestantism and American politics. Falwell was a major voice in crafting and disseminating what Harding calls “hybrid religious and political rhetorics” (24), which in the process transformed the dominant image of fundamentalists as disinterested in the wider world into a “moral majority” tasked by God to save America through engagement in cultural politics. Falwell made fundamentalism relevant to American politics in a way it had never been before. He helped make conservative Protestantism a public religion.

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Alongside this national-level focus, Harding (2000) also reflects on the more intimate ways in which the empire of words can subjugate individuals. In what is one of the most well-known sections of her study, she describes how Christian language, especially as used by those skilled in the art of witnessing, can come to “inhabit” a listener. Her primary evidence for this is herself. After a long interview session with a minister from Virginia named Melvin Campbell, Harding almost gets into a car accident on the way back to her motel: “I slammed on the brakes, sat stunned for a split second, and asked myself ‘What is God trying to tell me?’ ” (33). Although the meeting with the minister was supposed to be for an interview, he had turned it into an opportunity to witness. As a good anthropologist Harding went with the flow, allowing him to take the conversation where he wanted. In the process, she writes, she became “inhabited by the fundamental Baptist tongue I was investigating”: “It was my voice but not my language” (33). Here we see something of the urgency to which Fulton (2002) refers in such a different context. Timing is everything; as a concept, relevance is marked by a quality of temporality, its “pertinency to important current issues,” as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it. Campbell’s language had taken hold of Harding (2000), the fact of which came out in the “split second” after her near accident. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and for a moment, at least, a Christian language pressed itself upon her; it was relevant. While it is true that Christians invest in ways of speaking as Christians and getting others to do so, we have already seen that God’s agents do not, or cannot, always make such investments. One of the main lessons of Bible advocacy is that there can be times and places when Christians ought not to sound like Christians or look like Christians because it hinders the kind of public work they hope to accomplish. Sometimes they need to sound like Bobby McFerrin. This is often what it meant to bring the Gospel to the people rather than the other way around. This is what it meant to be “cultural.” This chapter explores the flip side to the tradition of work looking at Christianity and language. In doing so, we move from the production of ambient faith to the careful crafting of language that occupied the core of so much advocacy work. Here we get to other ways in which doing Bible took place in relation to the Society’s publics. There is no better example of this effort than the Society’s “Campaign to Culture” in Greater Manchester, which ran in May and June 2007. The aim of the Greater Manchester Campaign (GMC) was to get

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the general public thinking about the Bible, to suggest its relevance. In this context “relevance” meant how it could be understood as part of English heritage and, even more, as a resource for making sense of one’s life and the contemporary world. As with the posters for the angels in Swindon, which urged people not to worry and be happy, the GMC required attention to how language was understood to work for the general public, as well as how words connected with other semiotic registers and forms to communicate particular messages. Figuring out what the general public thought about the Bible was a perennial concern within Bible House. Like many people, staff at the Society often extrapolated from their personal experiences and the newspapers and other media outlets in an effort to gauge the public mood. This was often the focus when it came to such concerns as the threat to Christmas. But when it came to more general sentiments about faith and the Bible, “proper research” mattered a lot more. One of the important inspirations for Luke Walton’s project on the angels in Swindon was the presentation he heard at the evangelists’ conference; that research became a mandate for his spiritual-but-not-religious approach. My arrival at Bible House was seen as an opportunity for researchbased feedback, not only in terms of what I might publish but by sharing some of my primary data with the Advocacy Team. The most significant instance of giving back along these lines took place in relation to the GMC. I conducted a series of focus groups with young people during the middle of the campaign and then presented the findings to the GMC Campaign Team. I highlight some of those findings later in this chapter. From time to time the Society commissioned focus group research and media analysis from commercial agencies and in 2007 even bought a small but influential Christian social research company, Christian Research, in an effort to deepen its in-house capacities.2 In April 2006, in the run-up to the GMC, David Ashford commissioned what was to become a particularly important project, “securing wider engagement with the Bible,” by the firm KSBR Brand Futures. KSBR reported their findings to the Bible Advocacy Team in October 2006 in a seventy-eight-slide PowerPoint presentation. It came at a crucial period for the team, as many of the members were in full-swing preparation for the GMC. The Society as a whole was also in full-swing preparations. Unlike any of the other projects I observed, the GMC drew extensively on the time and expertise of staff from across the organization. The Marketing Team was particularly important, and its

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members often worked side by side with the Bible advocates. Peter Meadows, the director of communication, in charge of the Marketing Team, was as involved in GMC meetings as Ann Holt was, and James Catford also played a significant role in shaping the effort, even if his vision usually got filtered through Ann and Peter. There was, though, a formal campaigns manager, a Methodist minister from Nottingham named Rob Cotton. It was his job to make sure all of the work got coordinated and to serve as the Society’s point man locally. He spent the second half of 2006 and the first half of 2007 living and breathing everything Manchester, meeting with as many church leaders across the Greater Manchester area as he could. KSBR’s findings really helped shape the ways relevance got framed for the Manchester effort.3 Participants in the focus groups had been screened by KSBR “to exclude outright rejecters of the Bible as well as committed church-goers and people of other faiths.” The Society’s main interest was young parents, but KSBR also looked at “empty nesters” (older parents) and secondary-school students. The focus groups were held in Manchester and southeast London. KSBR’s research presented a mixed picture. One of the headline findings was described as a paradox: people acknowledge the Bible to be “one of the great cornerstones of western culture & value” and yet “tend to doubt its relevance in the contemporary world and often question its validity as ‘source material.’ ” On the one hand, KSBR found that the young parents in the focus groups (mentioned in the introduction) thought the Bible could be useful in helping their children build moral character. Moreover, “when pushed,” all respondents could “see beyond all their negative associations of the Bible and agree that it articulates a valuable moral framework.” On the other hand, the negative associations dominated. The vast majority of focus group participants were intimidated by the language and length of the Bible. The general impression in the focus groups was that the Bible meant the King James Bible; many people did not seem to know that it is available in more contemporary versions. One of KSBR’s slides had a particularly memorable quote, taken anonymously from one of the participants, emphasizing this perception: “For me the Bible has a cold and dark feel to it—it reminds me of walking through a graveyard.” The Bible appears not only daunting but dated, even “dead.” In their executive summary of the research, the consultants concluded that the Bible “is fundamentally felt to be at odds with modern life. Therefore people drift away from the Bible as they, and society in general, increasingly [free

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themselves] from official reasons to come into contact with the Bible (Church, School, Sunday School etc.).” What the consultants were presenting was the story of a certain kind of secular world, one in which religion is on the wane, with its texts and traditions following closely behind, albeit still retaining some general cultural and historical value. Graveyard imagery aside, this was not a God-is-dead picture. It was more like a God-is-not-great picture, but with room for improvement, more like God-is-difficult-and-dull. For the team it suggested that things were bad but not hopeless. The team listened patiently during KSBR’s presentation, which was conducted by two young men in dark clothes who had come to Swindon for the day from KSBR’s office in Hertfordshire. Whenever I looked around the room, I saw that one or another of the team members sat up straight, arms crossed. They were either skeptical or frustrated, I thought; as became clear during the questions and answers that followed, it was some of both. When the consultants finished their presentation, one of the team members sitting next to me leaned over and whispered, “Yeah?” He wasn’t sure that KSBR were saying anything the team didn’t already know. Most of the others were struck by how limited the views of the Bible had been. David Ashford, who was running the session, could sense the mood. “We need to listen to these results,” he said, “even if it’s not what we’d like.” The language issue stuck out. Did the public not know about the Good News Bible? Or the Contemporary English Version? Even more dismaying to the team was the fact that Jesus never seemed to come up in the focus group discussions. “How relevant is the message of the Gospel?” asked the Society’s parliamentary liaison officer, who had come in from London to attend the presentation. “The absence of the word Jesus from these conversations was striking,” replied one of the KSBR researchers. “People didn’t describe it as the story of Jesus; they talk about it as a book containing bits of guidance. Jesus was not what the Bible is about.” “You need to get to point B before you get to point C,” David Ashford reminded his colleagues. As much as he and Ann, and everyone else couldn’t stand the idea of the Bible as a rule book, something with helpful bits of guidance for parents with young children, that’s what point B was all about. Jesus is point C material. The advocates had to keep that in mind. This much was not news to the team, and the staffer who had questioned the findings of the research had a point: What was new here? All the same, because it was research, because it backed the hunches that had guided a lot of previous advocacy efforts, KSBR’s findings carried

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weight. The consultants made it even clearer than it had been that the struggle for relevance and credibility had to be waged in cultural terms and in cultural time.

The Culture “Culture,” Ann Holt once declared to her colleagues, “is a weasel word.” This was after a good hour of discussing its centrality to the project of advocacy, in which she and her team colleagues alternately defended and disparaged the concept. Yet, as for many anthropologists, it seems, it is, in the end, a weasel word that evangelical Christians cannot do without. Anthropologists and evangelicals don’t think about culture in exactly the same way, however. For anthropologists, the opposite of culture is nature. For evangelicals, the opposite of culture is the Church. Culture in this Christian use carries a particular set of meanings that owe their force to certain assumptions of secularization as a process of differentiating religion from everything else. As a result what Christians have is the Church; the world they occupy is the world of the Church. What everyone else has is the Culture. Culture talk within the context of Bible advocacy was a mark of these two worlds, of Christians occupying something parallel but not necessarily in sync with the rest of society. I have already highlighted the depth and range of this culture talk within Bible House. It underpinned much of Bible advocacy and much of the theological and popular Christian literature that staff read. Elsewhere in the United Kingdom (Guest 2007; Strhan 2012) and the United States (Bielo 2009b; Elisha 2011; Harding 2000), sociologists and anthropologists have documented this kind of evangelical culture talk, often punctuated with the image of a church-culture “gap.” I heard it too, more generally, throughout the course of my research, issued from the lips of the many Christians with whom the various staff interacted. I also got to understand it by enrolling in a three-part course at the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity (LICC) called “Kiss the World Beautiful.” There is no formal connection between the LICC and Bible Society, but the theological outlooks of the organizations are similar, and there were at least three people connected to Bible Society projects who had close relations with the LICC, two of whom were involved in the GMC. Founded in 1982 by the evangelical Anglican John Stott, LICC is devoted

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to “whole life discipleship” based on what Stott called “double listening.” This means that Christians must listen to the Word of God and the world around them; in contemporary parlance (much of Stott’s most influential work was published in the 1970s and 1980s), they must not close the Church off from the Culture. Christians must recognize the full meaning of the Incarnation: “It comes more natural to us to shout the Gospel to people from a distance than to involve ourselves deeply in their lives, to think ourselves into their culture and their problems, and to feel with them in their pains” (Stott 1975/2008, 40). As did his near contemporary, Lesslie Newbigin, Stott saw this point as just as relevant to the evangelical at home as abroad; like Newbigin’s theology, Stott’s was premised on Christians being strangers in a strange land. In its activities and publications LICC emphasizes this whole-life approach and this double register, producing a number of resources for how Christians can connect—and extend—their faith into the workplace, the marketplace, and all other arenas of “modern” life. The point of this is to break down the Church-Culture divide by which so many Christians are said to live. The point is to close the gap. Nigel, the lecturer at LICC who ran the course, had me at the Institute for coffee after the course had finished. He summed up LICC and Kiss the World Beautiful this way: One of the things we talk about here is the sacred-secular divide, whereby people come to believe that certain things are important to God—Church, Bible study meetings, prayer meetings, and that kind of thing—and then other things aren’t really important to God, like the work you do (unless it is Christian), the music you listen to (unless it is Christian), that kind of thing. So in a sense we are out to knock down that sacred-secular divide and to encourage folks to see that God is interested in the whole of life and that the call to discipleship is a call to follow Christ in every area of life, not just some specific compartments. Where Kiss the World Beautiful comes in is to say, well, there are a lot of people who have a nagging sense that they ought to be able to think biblically about everything in their life and yet somehow that is hard. And with culture these days moving at such a pace, people can feel daunted and almost left behind, just overwhelmed.

On the first evening of Kiss the World Beautiful, Nigel was speaking to sixteen of us, spread over five tables in the main space of LICC, which is based in a converted church just a stone’s throw away from Oxford Street, London’s busiest and most iconic shopping district. I was at a table with three young women, all in their twenties. One was a special needs teacher from northeast London; one, originally from Nigeria,

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a trainee teacher at the Institute of Education; the other was a freelance marketer. About half the participants were men, and not everyone was young: ages ranged from early twenties to mid-sixties. (The second and third sessions, held over the following two consecutive weeks, drew about twenty-five people each time, across a similar age range.) At the start of the first session, Nigel began by declaring, “All of you live in culture, like it or not. It’s in the air you breathe. But you don’t necessarily recognize it.” Over the course of the next two hours, he took us through a series of exercises in the first step of coming to realize this. He called it “losing our timidity” and hinged it on the difference between “living with culture” and “engaging with culture.” Living with culture, he said, is, at best, the Christian bubble attitude, the sense that there is all sorts of stuff happening out there that is not connected to Christians because it’s not connected to the Church. “Engaging with the culture,” on the other hand, is breaking down that Church-Culture divide, the sacred-secular divide, and accepting whole-life discipleship. Engaging with culture is recognizing that there is nothing outside a biblical purview. In a lesson in how to engage culture, Nigel began by noting that many Christians are used to shutting off from a critical engagement with the productions of culture around them. We are all used to reading reviews—of movies, of books, of nearly everything these days—and yet we feel disconnected from the process. “And you may think, ‘Who am I?’ ” Nigel stated that Christians often don’t feel entitled to engage in cultural critique, to ask: What is this song or this television ad saying? What is it telling me about the world I live in? Halfway into the evening, he cited one of Clifford Geertz’s definitions of culture: that it is “the ensemble of stories we tell each other about ourselves.” That first session was about making sense of how artistic and commercial productions reflect the values we hold or those held by the Culture. As an example of engagement, Nigel chose a thoroughly secular-onsecular critique. He asked us to listen to two popular songs from the mid-1980s, “I’m Your Man,” by Wham!, and “Panic,” by the Smiths. He handed out sheets with the lyrics of each. “If you’re offended by the Wham! song, don’t blame me,” he told his churchgoing audience, “blame George Michael!” “All I want is for you to be there, / and when I’m turned on / If you want me, I’m your man!” Michael sings. We all listened and read along. The young women at my table were bopping along. On his PowerPoint, Nigel had put up three questions:

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Wham! was easy for the groups. They had a lot to say. “I think we all know what it’s about,” said one man. Another said, “It’s about sex. . . . But the context is wrong, for me as a Christian.” A third man added, “It’s very much a product of its time: ’80s, feel good, all about me. I was comparing it with a catchy tune now—Lily Allen, say, which is more cynical and realist.” The Smiths’ song was found to be more opaque. The basic message was clear. “Railing against the disco culture,” someone said. “It’s a critique of the kind of Wham! music we just heard,” a woman added, being more specific. “Burn down the disco / Hang the blessed DJ,” sings Morrissey, the Smiths’ front man. “Very dark, but I like it,” one of my tablemates said. People started thinking about what else was happening in the 1980s: maybe this had something to do with the miners’ strike?4 After some further speculation, Nigel made his point: “You’re doing this. You’re engaging with the culture. All with a song under three minutes.” Then he explained exactly why the Smiths wrote “Panic.” Morrissey and the Smiths’ guitarist, Johnny Marr, were listening to BBC Radio 1 in April 1986 when the news broke about the disaster at Chernobyl. Just after the news bulletin, the DJ put on Wham!’s “I’m Your Man,” and the Smiths found it abhorrent: How could the DJ play such flossy pop after announcing a nuclear disaster? Their response was to write “Panic.” This exercise—Nigel called it “Just a Song”—was only the first of several for the evening, all aimed at helping us “lose our timidity.” “As Christians we need to be less timid in this way. It’s great that you all came here tonight,” Nigel told us. “But not that long ago the Church was arguing that Christians shouldn’t engage with the culture.” He was gently prodding his audience to question a certain kind of conservative evangelicalism. “Our cultural engagement is not bolted on,” he said at the end of the evening, as we were packing up our papers. “And so we shouldn’t be timid in drawing inferences about our culture. Make a difference wherever you are. You’ve done it on the hoof. Don’t be timid about drawing inferences,” he repeated. “You are a transformed people.” At face value the Culture and the Church represent the kind of neatly bounded, capital-C objects anthropologists tried to banish long ago. Taken to its extreme this culture talk does paint a picture of Christians

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as alienated strangers in modern-day England. Sometimes, at both Bible Society and elsewhere, the Christians I got to know would say things that sharpened this picture. “There’s a gulf at the door of the church between [Christians] and the society outside,” Luke once said. “There is no fringe.” When questioned about this rigidity and sense of separation, however, everyone was quick to qualify the terms. That’s why Ann called it as “weasel word.” Staff members recognized that Christians do not live inside a bubble or cage or locked within the church and that non-Christians and secular institutions do not exist independently of the faithful and Christian concerns. Even in the LICC course, there was a tension between the participants’ expressions of feeling separate from the rest of society and a recognition that this was not so. Despite the fact that most of the participants explained their attendance in terms of feeling “alienated” or “out of it,” many had clearly been “engaging” with culture in a variety of ways and were au courant with any number of cultural “streams” (as one participant put it); the man who had compared Wham! to Lily Allen was in his forties—not surprising, then, that he was familiar with a 1980s pop group, but being able to compare George Michael to Lily Allen suggested he hadn’t shut himself off from the pursuits of his youth. He obviously still listened to Radio 1. Ann described the relationship between Church and Culture as a figure eight: you can recognize the existence of separate spheres in life, but you also have to recognize their connection. When it comes to the Culture, “we are part of it,” she said, when I pressed her on these points. One of the reasons the Society uses this dualism, she told me, is for convenience; it’s an analytic shorthand and has to be accompanied by all the requisite caveats. At the same time, she stressed, this is part of the more widespread Christian language in England with which the Society must work. In that she was certainly right. It represents a “churchy attitude,” but Ann noted ruefully the Society cannot reject it completely if they want to be effective in their Church-facing work. The potential implications of this acceptance on the nature and scope of Bible advocacy, however, were always in the back of her mind.

The Blimey Effect The GMC was Bible Society’s third Campaign to Culture.5 The first was held in Nottingham in 2003 and the second in Bristol in 2005. The hallmark of these campaigns was a “media buy”—the purchase of ad space— focused on billboards, bus shelters, bus panels, taxi cabs, and even beer

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mats and washroom poster panels. In each case the Society put up what it hoped would be provocative “creatives” (ads) to get the general public thinking about the Bible. The official aim of the Greater Manchester Campaign, according to the briefing document, was “to bring the Bible to peoples’ attention and prompt them to explore its relevance and significance.” According to Beth, the young Catholic woman on the Advocacy Team who coordinated all three efforts, a successful campaign in more everyday language is supposed to produce a “blip on the radar.” “A successful campaign,” she said, “would be somebody seeing a billboard or some form of media mix and them saying, ‘Actually, blimey, that’s made me think completely differently about the Bible’ or ‘It’s changed my perceptions.’ ” Moving people away from an association of the Bible with graveyards toward someplace more inviting, was considered enough of a first step and a challenge in its own right. To do this the Society had to do three things: present people with something unexpected, not scare away the target audience, and above all, make the link between the Bible and daily life—in essence, suggest how the Bible was always already a part of their world. In the campaigns, relevance meant getting people to recognize and appreciate the always-already nature of the Book. Presenting the general public with something unexpected was considered absolutely crucial if the campaign was to be a success, but only if it didn’t scare people away. In line with the Society’s general dissatisfaction over Church outreach, the last thing they wanted to do was design posters expressing churchy attitudes. Relevance had to be made in those cultural terms. In Manchester, as in the other campaigns, the Advocacy Team made a conscious decision to work with a mainstream advertising firm, not one in what some staff called the “church ghetto.” In the first instance, the team had always reasoned, the posters had to be stripped of any outward religiosity. Putting up a Bible or a cross or a picture of Jesus might have led to an automatic turnoff. Staff knew that if they wanted to start conversations about the Bible, they could not begin with the Bible; it would have been the equivalent of knocking on people’s doors, which is just what unchurched people expect from Christians. Moreover the creatives had to say something and nothing at the same time; they had to spark thinking about the Bible but not convey the impression that this was a campaign engineered by Christians telling other people how to live their lives. The Campaign to Culture in Manchester was by far the most ambitious of the three projects, covering a population (2.4 million) almost

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ten times the size of the original target in Nottingham. In Greater Manchester the Society purchased space on twenty-two taxis, thirty buses, 140 table tops, 140 washroom panels, 226 billboards, 240 metro (tram) headliners, and 100,000 beer mats. According to advertising calculations, this provided 110 million OTS—“opportunities to see”—that is, 110 million potential engagements with the general public. Like the other campaigns, the GMC had two directions: Culturefacing and Church-facing. Ideally it would speak to each constituency and bring all of them closer together. In this sense, the campaigns represent the furthest advance in the Society’s bridge-building, gap-closing exercise. The creatives were geared toward the person on the street, but it was hoped that they might provide something of a conversation starter, getting that person on the street into a church, onto a website, or into conversation with a Christian friend or family member about what the Bible had to offer. To try to make these connections easier to engineer, the Society coordinated and helped sponsor a calendar of local events that churches could host across the Greater Manchester area. These included everything from neighborhood fairs and big band nights in pubs to theatrical productions by nationally touring theater companies. Dozens of these local events were held, spurred on not only by the Society but by an active GMC Liaison Group, comprising local church leaders and Christians in helpful professional roles, such as the media, which met regularly in the months leading up to the campaign. The Society also ran some flagship events itself, including an amateur film competition judged by Nick Park, the Oscar-winning creator of Wallace and Gromit, and a fashion show for Iron Army, a Christian design firm based in Los Angeles.6 The fashion show, using the theme “Home,” was modeled on the story of the Prodigal Son. The tone and target audience of these events varied; some were very churchy, but some were supposed to be “completely culture.” The fashion show, for example, was supposed to appeal to young, hip Mancunians and did not have overt biblical content; if you didn’t know much about the story of the Prodigal Son before the event, you might not even have picked up on the gospel undertones. As Luke Walton once said, it is important not to “overload” the bridge between the Church and the Culture. “Too often we’re sending a ten-ton truck of information at people. You have to be more measured.” From the very first set of GMC planning meetings I attended, this measured approach was an evident concern, as was the desire to avoid the church ghetto. What was interesting about these early meetings was

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that they concerned a Church-facing activity; wherever possible, the staff tried to address Culture and Church audiences in the same kind of language and mood. The focus was on how to get local churches and, in particular, young adult congregants involved in promoting the campaign. The perceived danger was coming off as too churchy or out of touch with culture. It was August 2006, and the staff knew they wanted to hold some information sessions for these possible local supporters, or “church activists,” that upcoming November. But where? Should it be in a church hall or someplace else? “The venue has to be kickin’,” said Jamie, the Society’s events officer. “And we need to have natural presenters,” chimed in Lucy, a young woman from the Society’s marketing team. “It’s not just putting up the vicar. It has to be someone with talent. . . . Whatever we do has to be slick. It can’t be a vicar’s perception of what twenty-five- to thirty-five-year-olds would want to do.” By the end of that meeting, everyone had come to the conclusion that the best way forward was to meet in a pub or a club and put on some comedy. They debated booking a rock band but worried about people having different musical tastes. Comedy, everyone thought, would have more universal appeal. Jamie knew some good comedians to ask; they were Christians, but they toured the mainstream circuits. Just to be sure this plan would work, Lucy stressed that they needed to talk to their contacts in Manchester too. “We need to talk to people who know the culture,” she said, conscious of the fact that the culture in Manchester would not be the same as the culture in Swindon. Jamie got in touch with the comedians. A few weeks later he reported that he had arranged to see one of them in what he referred to as a “completely culture” show. In an email about the show, the comedian had apparently warned Jamie, “Hope you don’t mind, this show may be a little raw.” “No, that’s perfect,” Jamie replied. “I want to see the connect to culture.” A good deal of caution, care, and concern went into finding the right pitch for the intended audiences in the campaign. The target market for the creatives was twenty-five- to thirty-five-year olds. This reflected a growing interest within the Society in reaching younger audiences and, hopefully, eventually, new sources of financial support. As with many churches in England, the Society was worried about the graying of its constituency. Anglican “grannies,” who were often presented as the key demographic of supporters for Bible Society’s work, are generous and loyal, but they are not enough of a base to sustain the Society’s future. The plan for the comedy night was a reflection of this. At the same time, the campaign was not supposed to be an exclusively youth effort: it had

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to speak to a cross-section of the church communities and the public at large. Getting it right with the comedy night, as with other “activist events,” was of the utmost importance. Whatever care went into the Church-facing work in terms of relevance and accessibility, even more was poured into the creatives project. The initial theme of the GMC, “Unexpected,” was meant to provide a creative thread for the ads. The general public in Greater Manchester was going to be prompted to think about the Bible in “unexpected” ways, challenging their perceptions and prejudices. One of the early ideas for how to do this involved putting biblical quotes onto billboards— but not, of course, what people would expect, not what people would know was in the Bible. So, instead of John 3:16, it might be Song of Solomon 4:5—“Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies” (NRSV)—and then tagged with something like “The Bible: Unexpectedly Saucy.” Another draft idea, also along “saucy” lines, included a photo of a shapely woman partially undressed, standing in front of a mirror in her bedroom. What finally made it to the mock-up creative stage was a bit tamer: a man and woman embracing in bed (clearly wearing pajamas), framed by 2 Samuel 11:4, “She came to him, and he slept with her” (NIV). While these ideas would surely have grabbed the public’s attention, the Society did not commission them. The saucy route was deemed too risky and imprudent because it might well have offended some of the Anglican grannies, not to mention some of the church communities in Manchester that the Society wanted to get to know. This raises a point worth reemphasizing, as it was something Catford and Holt always had to be aware of. Because Bible Society is a charity, it has a duty to spend donor money in ways those donors might expect, as overseen by the Trustees. In crafting just how “unexpected” the campaign could be, the Advocacy Team did not have carte blanche. Reconciling Bible Society’s constitutional arrangement as a charity with the staff’s desire to be professional and market-savvy in their approach to Bible advocacy was not always easy. When the Campaign Team had settled on a number of possible creatives, in early March 2007 they came together for a meeting to make the choice. Not long before, David Ashford had run the ideas by a friend of his who wasn’t Christian. One of the members of the GMC Liaison Group did something similar, with a group of Christian and non-Christian friends in Manchester. None of the ideas grabbed these potential viewers. The dry runs confirmed a growing sense on the team

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figure 5. A mock-up of a “saucy” ad for the Greater Manchester Campaign, 2007. It never appeared. © Bible Society. Used with permission.

that the advertising firm the Society had hired wasn’t quite right. The team was getting worried that what they were working toward was second-rate Christian. What Lucy had warned against back in August was now nagging at the back of everyone’s mind: Was this vicar-quality work? The ad firm was mainstream—part of the culture—but it was the Society’s reputation on the line. It was their call, not the ad firm’s. By this stage in the campaign cycle—just over two months until the ads went up—the anxiety over being second-rate and churchy became unbearable. So Bible Society dismissed its ad men at the eleventh hour. After some heroic efforts by David, a new firm was hired and came up with an alternative set of creatives in a very short period of time—just three weeks. The new ads were a radical departure from the earlier ideas, though. They even moved away from using “Unexpected” as the creative thread. This energized the team (they were tired of the “unexpected” line) but caused some confusion and even consternation among members of the Liaison Group, none of whom was consulted and all of whom had been selling the virtues of the “Unexpected” theme to their congregants and colleagues. The new concept for the ads was “the Riddle of Life.” There would be seven “riddles” to solve, each of which was presented as a tabloid

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newspaper headline that linked to a biblical story. The hook was that each headline had a key word blocked out, which the person on the street would have to guess. If the person could correctly identify the missing words in all seven riddles, he or she stood a chance of winning £7,000 to give away to a local charity, hospital, or school. In Riddle of Life #1, the headline read “Last XXXX for wrinkly mum!” against a hot pink background. It referred to the story of the birth of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 21:1–7. This textual reference actually appeared on the creative itself, in very small print under the blacked-out word. Underneath the headline was the Riddle of Life logo, a website URL, and a shaded box of text that read, “Solve the 7 riddles around Greater Manchester and you could win £7,000 to give away to a local charity, hospital, or school—you choose who. Find entry forms on beer coasters and washroom panels, or enter free online at www.riddleoflife.org. Terms and conditions apply.” On that campaign website, all seven creatives were reproduced, along with links to paraphrased versions of the biblical stories in question and even links to external web pages that contained the exact chapters and verses as translated in the Good News Bible. So for Riddle of Life #1, it read, “The Lord blessed Sarah, as he had promised, and she became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham when he was old. The boy was born at the time God had said he would be born. Abraham named him Isaac, and when Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded. Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac was born. Sarah said, ‘God has brought me joy and laughter. Everyone who hears about it will laugh with me.’ Then she added, ‘Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.’ ” The intent behind these creatives was to convey the relevance of the Bible to today’s world. Everything in these ads was an assertion of the Bible’s contemporaneity, its coeval qualities. The shift to newspaper headlines—marked by the formatting and typeface—was a comment on a crucial aspect of what the Society sees as the temporality of the everyday in postmodern England (postmodern being a word that rolled off the tongues of several team members with ease). What matters is what’s happening today, right now. The catch, of course, is that this privileging of the present, so conceived, is not so special. Because what’s happening now—in this case, women having children later in life—was happening in ancient Israel. The headline here isn’t breaking news; it’s

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figure 6. Riddle of Life #1, 2007. © Bible Society. Used with permission.

ancient history. So paying attention to history (or at least one’s cultural heritage) might help shed light on the things that concern us today. The other indexical traces of the design were equally important. Hot pink, electric blue, lime green—these were today’s colors. They gave the creatives what the Society hoped to be a contemporary, even postmodern feel. And the placement of the creatives also mattered. The Society might well have been able to get local congregations to hang them up as banners on church buildings and lawns. The point, though, was to locate the campaign (and hence the Bible) within the formally demarcated spaces of advertising, where one expects to find pitches for Coca-Cola and the latest Hollywood blockbusters, not the Word of God. Bible Society chose to operate in the open market, to pay for ad space just as Coca-Cola might. This was work in the Culture. By placing the creatives on beer mats and washroom panels, the Society was even toying with a fine line between the sacred and the profane, purity and danger. In all of these respects, the feel mattered. The style and aesthetics mattered. Bible Society was trying to work within what we can call the semiotic ideology of the Culture: the way certain mediums of communication, typefaces, colors, and even a sign’s physical placement encode secularity. These extralinguistic, material dimensions to an understanding of relevance were central to the campaign’s design. Yet although these elements of packaging and placement were important, so too, of course, was the language being used. Bible Society used phrases to deliberately evoke something common and colloquial: “wrinkly mum” and, in another of the riddle headlines, “two-timing wife” and “sneak peek.” The headlines were tabloid newspaper headlines (“red top,” as the British would say), the kind of language you find in

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such publications as the Sun and the Daily Mirror, not the Guardian or the Daily Telegraph. The riddle element in the creatives was also an allusion to the “caption challenge” in the popular and long-running BBC television show, Have I Got News for You. But it was in the online text, at www.riddleoflife.org, in which the staff glossed the biblical stories in question, that the Society was really able to drive home this point about contemporaneity. Consider this gloss, for instance, which was prepared by David Ashford and another member of the Advocacy Team as a summary of the story behind Riddle of Life #3, “Gold Digger’s Sneak Peek at Farmer’s XXXX,” drawn from the Book of Ruth 3:1–8: It wasn’t the best of times for Ruth. Her husband had died and although she had moved to a new town with her mother-in-law Naomi, they were broke. Fortunately, Naomi had hit on an idea to solve their cash-flow crisis. She told Ruth to slap on some perfume and target an older, wealthy farmer who apparently, had already taken quite a shine to her. So one night, Ruth crept into where he was sleeping and peeled back the covers to reveal a certain part of his body. In different cultures, lovers have different ways of showing their interest in each other. This was Ruth’s way—and as it turned out, it worked a treat. Her farmer was really chuffed that Ruth had shown interest in him rather than in any of his younger employees. Did that really make her a gold digger, or was she just a good girl who did what her mother-in-law told her to? It’s debatable. In any case, they ended up getting married and Ruth became the great-grandmother of Israel’s most famous king—David (as in the one who beat Goliath).

In KSBR’s findings, part of the “graveyard feel” of the Bible had to do with its “dead” language; the Bible meant the King James Bible in its focus groups. I came across similar attitudes and understandings in my own focus group research. One man who participated was especially straightforward. “The Bible itself, as it is, is boring,” he said. “If you tell a kid the story of Noah’s ark in plain language, yeah. But if you use Bible language . . . So many people begat so many other people, you can’t get to the bottom of the page!” In another group there was this exchange among three of the participants: Stacey: The Bible needs rewriting. . . . Paul: Would that happen, in years to come? Would they change the Bible? Estelle: I doubt it.

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figure 7. Riddle of Life #3, after the “big reveal,” on the street in Greater Manchester, 2007. © Bible Society. Used with permission.

Stacey: Only the wording. . . . Estelle: No, because they’ve not changed it in two thousand years, have they? Not really, no. Stacey: How be thy name and all that? Just put it in normal language! Estelle: That’d be an idea, though. Stacey: And put pictures in it. Children as well, they like pictures. This is precisely the kind of exchange the Society was anticipating in its arguments over relevance. Here we see something of the stereotype of Christian language with which the Society felt it must contend and which staff folded into their plans of action. The Society’s choice of the Good News Bible for the online links was thus consciously considered, since it is a version of the Bible rendered in a language that, to the Society’s imagined general public, is not very Christian at all. As shown in the gloss of the story of Ruth, one could even find something of the language of the street too, the kind of colloquialisms that young Mancunians might employ: “cash-flow crisis,” being “chuffed.” This was not very Christian-like language either.

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All of this suggests that relevance is tied to a number of overlapping temporalities. In one sense, the Bible is relevant because it is being framed in relation to contemporary issues, concerns, and interests. In other words, the Riddle of Life ads were used to index what Benedict Anderson (1991), following Walter Benjamin, refers to as “homogenous, empty time.” This is the time we all share, the time of “clock and calendar” marked by “temporal coincidence” (24). As Anderson explains, there is no distinction between history and cosmology in such time, no need to invoke a grander narrative to the meaning of life. And it is not incidental that the Riddle of Life campaign was framed as a play on newspaper headlines; as Anderson (33–36) argues, it was the birth of the newspaper that helped inaugurate this sense of time, this sense of a national coeval. If we were to express this language according to Bible advocacy, we might call this “cultural time.” In another sense, of course, the Bible is relevant because it provides a template for the dramatization of life. This is the cultural heritage point: the Bible as a secular text, not the Good Book but a great book, akin to the works of Shakespeare. The temporality of heritage operates in a slightly different way from that of homogeneous, empty time, inasmuch as it plays on the idea of a “classic work” as something that transcends the time and place in which it is produced, something that speaks of an eternal truth or at least an eternally relevant issue. This is partly why the plays of Shakespeare are so often and so easily transposed into new settings. Such texts are “cultural” but also “cultured,” in the sense that Matthew Arnold might have used (with culture being the best of what humanity has produced). Tapping the general public into this temporal flow was more of an effort, though; it required going to the Riddle of Life website and working through the materials. But this, the Society thought, was something they might reasonably expect; it would certainly be more possible than getting people into a church. There is a third sense of relevance at play here, although it is not one that Bible Society could communicate—or even hoped to communicate— directly through the creatives. This is, of course, the most important sense, the sacred sense, of the Bible as Good Book more than great book. This is the drama of Scripture sense, in which time is linear and finite but also cyclical and patterned and framed by what Benjamin calls a “messianic time” or what Charles Taylor (2007, 54–61), in a more openended register, refers to as a “higher time,” in which events “are drawn close to identity in eternity” (55) in accordance with God’s plan.

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The GMC was focused squarely on the first two types of relevance. As with the Society’s other Campaigns to Culture, this one has to be seen as part of a strategic secularism (Engelke 2009), reaching out to the general public in a “cultural” rather than “Christian” register, making sure not to overload the bridge, not to move too quickly. All the same, of course, in the long run staff at the Society hope to get the general public to a point where entertaining the relevance of higher time—“Church time,” we might say—is a genuine possibility. The Society prepared for this by developing the Church-facing aspects of the campaign to a much greater degree than they had done in Nottingham and Bristol. Greater Manchester was a different campaign; the team tried to link Church and Culture to an unprecedented degree. “I have this recurring nightmare that we’ll get the Culture interested in the Bible and they’ll walk into a Church that’s not,” Ann once confessed. They didn’t want that to happen here.

Facing the Church The model of long-term relationships that so many staff at Bible Society promoted played out on a number of levels in the Campaigns to Culture. Within Greater Manchester the Society wanted to forge lasting connections with local churches, as well as facilitate these churches’ own efforts at outreach and community building. This Church-facing work was about equipping fellow Christians to engage with the Culture. As early as 2004, Bible Society started talking with key stakeholders in the Manchester area about running a campaign. This led to the creation of the GMC Liaison Group, composed of twenty-one church and lay leaders, which met regularly at a theological college in Didsbury, an affluent neighborhood of Manchester, in the year leading up to the campaign. The hope was that these local leaders, who “knew the culture,” would be able to advise on how and where to pitch the campaign, propose and help run community and church events, and marshal the grassroots to participate in the campaign and spread the word. This is one of the things that Rob Cotton, the campaign manager, was in charge of coordinating. There weren’t many times between August 2006 and July 2007 when he didn’t look like he was about to collapse from exhaustion. The Comedy Night in November 2006 was one of the first major attempts at generating a buzz for the campaign among local church activists. Jamie had booked two comedians for two nights, one of whom,

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Milton Jones, has gone on to enjoy a high-profile national reputation for his work (which, in retrospect, gave the Society event a pulse-of-theculture feel). The comedy club was in central Manchester, at a converted printing factory not far from the Victoria Train Station and Cathedral Gardens. There had been some trepidation about the venue. “Are we going to get twenty-five- to thirty-five-year-olds in central Manchester on a Friday night, if they’re church people?” Lucy had asked back in August. After Jamie’s reconnaissance trips, though, and some reassurance from John, a young member of the Liaison Group who did a lot of outreach work in central Manchester, all agreed the site was definitely right.7 Part of the idea was to get the church people out of their comfort zones. I arrived at the club about an hour before kickoff on the first night and ran into Beth and Lucy as they were coming in. Beth was really excited. Always upbeat and good-natured, she had a deeper glow about her than usual and a skip in her step. It was the first time I had seen her outside Bible House. She was dressed to the nines and gave me a kiss on each cheek in the English style (although this never happened any other time we met). “Hey!” she said. We went upstairs. Jamie and Rob were in full-swing preparation, joined by a few other colleagues from Bible House, as well as a consultant with whom they’d been working, a man named Steve. Steve knew Manchester very well and had worked with Bible Society on other projects. The club was set up with candle-lit tables, and Jamie was checking the sound system. “Rob,” Jamie asked, “Christian or secular music?” “Secular,” Rob replied, without any hesitation. Beth and Lucy were surveying the room. Eventually the would-be activists started filing in. Some got drinks at the bar; some just sat down at the tables. By the time the evening started, about seventy people had turned up, about half of whom looked to be under thirty-five. Beth was disappointed with the turnout. It was a Wednesday night, and the second evening they got about double that number, but the low numbers that first evening took the spring out of her step. The event began with a short video the Society had commissioned, an ironic take on how a “completely culture” ad firm might go about pitching the relevance of the Bible without the benefit of any Christian input. The message to the audience was: We need you church activists to help! With twelve-bar blues playing in the background, we see an ad man come into a meeting room, front-and-center of a table with six people, all of whom look slightly puzzled by his bubbly demeanor. “Hi

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figure 8. A still from the spoof film asking local church activists how to pitch the Greater Manchester Campaign, 2007. © Bible Society. Used with permission.

guys, morning! Welcome to the groovy offices of Sentinel Advertising,” says the ad man, wiggling his fingers in the air. “Okay, you’ve chosen us to show how relevant, how significant the Bible is to today’s culture. Easy peasy. So, what is the Bible about? I think it’s about adventure! You’ve got Noah’s Ark. You’ve got Moses escaping across the Red Sea from the Egyptians. Manna from Heaven. And what is the common link between all these stories, hm? Good catering! Introducing . . . the Pizza Bibliana!” Then the ad man pulls out a pizza box with Pizza Bibliana written on it, before going on to suggest that his clients—these six bewildered Christians—could have hundreds of pizza delivery boys riding around, delivering these pizzas. They could put scripture on the side of the box. “Pepperoni Prophets!” he says. “Cheeses of Nazareth, yeah! Cheeses of Nazareth! Delivering the truth hot and fresh to your door! It’s cheesebased evangelism!” The blues riffs start up again and the camera flashes to a screen: “The Bible: How should we pitch it?” The church activists were not expecting this. I counted a few wry smiles but lots of blank faces too, reflected in the candlelight. Just then, before they fully processed it, Steve bounded up on stage, welcoming

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everyone, and letting them know what was going to happen that evening and what the Greater Manchester Campaign was going to be all about: “Bible Society wants to work with local churches to connect with the wider culture about the Bible. But let me tell you what this campaign is not about. It’s not about missionizing. It’s not about trying to get people into churches. If that happens, great. But that’s not what we’re after. We just want to make a blip on people’s radar. We want them to realize the Bible might have something to say to them.” Steve promised a great evening of entertainment and then introduced the first comedian. In between the comedy routines, Steve, Rob, and John, the local outreach worker, each returned to the stage in turn, telling the audience about the “Unexpected” idea, unfolding the idea bit by bit, and reporting how much advertising space had been booked: 110 million “viewing opportunities,” Rob said. “Now, that doesn’t mean we’ll pull in 110 million people, of course. But we’re talking serious saturation.” John said he was very excited about the project and thought it could really make an impact locally. The comedians did “culture” routines, but each threw in a few Christian jokes as well. Jones, who came on second, as the main act, said to the audience at one point, “I know the whole Bible by heart! Give me a chapter and verse.” “2 Corinthians 6,” someone shouted. “Any particular verse?” Jones asked. “No.” “Well, then, halakalakum halakala,” he said, pretending to speak Greek. They liked that one. After the entertainment, Rob asked the activists to take a few minutes at their tables and talk about what they might like to do as part of the campaign. Could they think of ways to engage with their communities? What events might they be able to hold that would fit the theme of the campaign and Bible Society’s goals? How could they demonstrate the Bible’s relevance to the Culture? Jamie put on some mellow mood music—secular, of course—and, with things eventually winding down, Beth and Lucy handed out pizza boxes to people as they got up to leave. Inside each box was an information sheet on the campaign, a copy of the DVD with the ironic “Sentinel Advertising” videos, flyers on some of the flagship events that Bible Society had already planned, and handfuls of Cadbury chocolates. During the reflection time, I approached one table with two of the younger activists—I got the sense they were a couple—and told them what I was doing. “Hi,” I said. “My name’s Matthew. I’m here with the Bible Society, but I’m an anthropologist studying their outreach work. I’m hoping to write a book about their public engagement. What did

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you think of the evening?” “Yeah,” said the man, “it was all right. I liked Milton Jones.” “I think some of these people haven’t been to a place like this before,” said the woman, putting her hands up. “What brought you here?” I asked. Their pastor suggested they go, and one of them worked nearby. I asked them if they might do something for the campaign. Maybe, they said. I apologized at this point, saying I knew it was a little odd to approach them cold. But I was interested in following through with some of the local activities. I gave them my card and said I would be very happy to hear from them if they ended up doing something as part of the campaign. “Okay,” said the man, looking at the card. I don’t know if they did do anything, but I didn’t hear back. The next morning I met Rob and Sue Green, a trustee of Bible Society and a member of the GMC’s Liaison Group, at a Starbucks on Oxford Road, not far from the University of Manchester. They were meeting two pastors of black-majority churches in the area, one of whom was from Ghana. Beginning in 2006, Bible Society started to see the potential of forging relationships with immigrant communities—church communities that, a generation earlier, they would have been likely to work with only in places such as Accra and Kingston. As it happened, one of the Society’s chief fundraisers would be attending an all-night prayer vigil at the ExCel Centre in London the very same week of the comedy events in Manchester. He had told me just the week before how impressed he was with the African and Afro-Caribbean Christian communities. They have a real “can-do” attitude, he said, and he was eager to work with them—not least the many Ghanaian Pentecostals in London, since they might be interested in supporting the Society’s special edition of the Bible to commemorate Ghana’s fiftieth anniversary of independence, in 2007. Rob and Sue were equally eager in their own way to make links with black churches in Greater Manchester. Both the pastors were very enthusiastic, and the Ghanaian man said it might be an opportunity to stop his congregation from looking “inward” all the time. His congregants “closed themselves off a bit too much,” he confided. Rob and Sue demurred; they didn’t know much about the communities and didn’t pretend otherwise. But as I came to appreciate over the following months, the Ghanaian pastor’s perspective was apt in a general sense for the way it reflected related dynamics within the more “typical” Church-facing work of the campaign (that is to say, church congregations with white British members). To be sure, part of what was being highlighted at the meeting in Starbucks had to do with issues of race and culture (culture

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in a more anthropological sense). But it also touched on a difficulty hinted at the night before at the comedy club, and confirmed to me— and the Bible advocates—subsequently on several occasions: it’s not easy to get church activists active, especially when the main impetus for doing so hasn’t come from local people. Some of the GMC events were a hit, and some of the locally organized ones generated valuable links—if not always between Bible Society and local churches, then sometimes at least among churches in a given area. It was to the north of Manchester City, in boroughs such as Bolton and Bury, where the “bridge” that teams members often talked about got stronger. One particular handful of women from a Baptist church in Bolton connected with other local churches in all sorts of new ways, a fact they attributed to the campaign. One of the Liaison Group members was also quite positive and offered this testimony after the close of the campaign: In the Ramsbottom area we had eight great events (from 1940’s Big Band to Big Brother prayer tent, from an environmental exhibition and debate to a school art competition), achieving so much more as churches came together for mission, pooling resources and like-minded people, reaching new levels of co-operative activity. Through them at least 2,000 people had a meaningful engagement with God’s living Word, and often a great time too! The Bible Society’s input was invaluable in getting us going to start with and in honing some of the raw ideas; the publicity for the Riddle of Life Campaign gave a great focus and a professional touch that just said “quality events” in invisible ink all over it. . . . We have more plans for the future!

That recognition of a professional touch was important for the Society. The numbers didn’t hurt either: the claim of two thousand “meaningful engagements.” Yet within the context of Bible Society and Church relations at the local level, it was actually one of the sensitive points, exacerbated to some extent by a more general sensitivity within England about North-South divides. As Christians, the Liaison Group members did not always appreciate the implication, whether real or misconstrued, that they had been doing mission the wrong way. To be sure, there were several occasions during the Liaison Group meetings, or in the lunches that were often shared before or after, of local self-deprecation. As I found in most of my research, the default position among those Christians in Greater Manchester was “We could do better.” Much like staff at the Society, the Liaison Group members would speak disparagingly about “the Church.” In one interview, a key member was perfectly upfront about local shortcomings:

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The style of mission we’ve been used to here in Manchester is very much a twentieth-century approach, with some kind of large-scale event about proclaiming the gospel. . . . We’ve been used to that kind of approach, of big events, that you pull people together to big events, you proclaim the gospel and—boom—you expect to see results in that way. And I think for some people, even now for some people, grasping that this is not about that style of evangelistic mission—that this is about engaging the culture through the cultural drivers, engaging people who would probably never come to an event-driven type campaign—is quite challenging and still quite a new concept for some people. And I think some people didn’t get it.

But, as with much such talk, it is one thing for it to be said by a local and another for it to be said, or even implied, by an outsider. As northerners—sons and daughters of Bolton, Salford, Oldham— the Liaison Group members often fixed on the fact that Bible Society was not only a bunch of Christians from elsewhere coming in to tell them how it should be, but, more specifically, it was a bunch of Christians from an organization based in Wiltshire, anchored in so many ways to a London “elite.” Here we see how the politics of regionalism plays out at another level. In the pecking order of prestige, Swindon here becomes part of “the South,” part of the green and pleasant land below Birmingham that, for a Londoner or anyone in southeast England, would never register as such. “Just occasionally,” one of the Liaison Group members admitted, in a full and frank postcampaign session, “I got a sense that we were seen as yokels.” “But it’s been a lot of fun as well,” he immediately went on to clarify. “We were part of something together. We tried.”

The Results How do you measure the impact of 110 million opportunities to see? The short answer is that you can’t. But that didn’t stop the Society from trying. One of the ways they tried was to ask me to get some qualitative feedback on the creatives. I didn’t promise much, but I said I would take a stab at finding out whether or not they produced any blimey effect. I was glad to do it. The people I had been studying were very generous with their time and with their trust in me as an outsider with odd, anthropological notions. This was a way of giving back, producing material that would be useful to them, in the short term, in understanding their work. I was often asked, “When is your book coming out?,” even during the course of the research. Understandably—even for Catford, who had experience in the publishing world—my answer

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of “Hopefully 2011” (and even that didn’t happen) got shocked looks. And it’s debatable how useful this book will be to Bible advocates. Perhaps some focus groups would be useful to them, I thought. At the end of May 2007 I ran five focus groups at the Fairways Lodge Hotel, in the neighborhood of Prestwich, north of Manchester city center. That week was the high point of the media buy, providing the best opportunity to gauge a “live” impact of the campaign. The participants were screened out for active religious affiliations based on a questionnaire I had composed and chosen by a professional focus group recruiter based in Manchester.8 Each participant was paid £30 to attend a ninety-minute session.9 Four of the groups were made up of twentyfive- to thirty-five-year-olds; the fifth group, at the request of Bible Society, was made up of eighteen- to twenty-two-year-olds, so they could get some sense of a younger audience’s reaction. At the start of the sessions no one knew what the focus was going to be. Although it quickly became obvious to participants that I was interested in their thoughts on Christianity and the Bible, it was not until the final third of each session that the discussion shifted explicitly to the campaign and Bible Society’s creatives. No one in the groups could recall the creatives without prompting. When I passed around copies of the creatives that I had brought with me, nine out of thirty-seven people claimed to have seem them on the street, or roughly 24 percent. Five of these people were in the younger group, though, which means only four out of the twenty-nine participants in the target audience (roughly 14 percent) recognized them. (The high concentration of those eighteen to twenty-two who had seen the ad might have been down to the fact that Bible Society had space on several billboards along Oxford Street, near the University of Manchester.) On the basis of these realized opportunities only one person had registered that the posters had anything to do with religion or the Bible. Interestingly, three of the nine people who had seen the creatives thought they were ads for potato chips; the Riddle of Life logo was reminiscent to them of the logo for one particular snack brand, Walker’s. I gave each focus group a minute or two to digest the creatives before asking for their thoughts. When some people noticed the fine-print reference to biblical books, they started to wonder aloud, Is this in the Bible? On hearing these reactions, other participants admitted to not making a connection between “Genesis” or “Ruth” (or any of the other references) and the Bible itself. What most struck people was in fact the bold-faced mention of £7,000 to be won, although this was sometimes

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followed by hums and haws when it was then realized the money had to be donated. Moreover there was a lot of talk about its being such a paltry sum: What could £7,000 do these days? This was especially so since, as far as they understood from the copy on the creatives, they would have to look all over Greater Manchester to find all seven mystery headlines. Several people suggested (some more seriously than others) that if the prize was bigger—a lot bigger—and if they got to keep a percentage of the money, then the ads might have caught their attention.10 Still others found the whole idea of a competition dodgy, with one woman saying it reminded her of an email scam; she had a hard time believing it was for real. In short, the initial impression of the creatives was: We don’t get it. At best, they generated confusion; at worst, skepticism. They didn’t generate much blimey. After the initial canvassing I took about five minutes in each group to say something about Bible Society and to explain the idea behind the campaign, emphasizing that the Society didn’t want to preach to anyone but to pique interest, to make an argument about the relevance of the Bible in the twenty-first century as part of people’s cultural heritage and as a book that non-Christians could engage with profitably to understand themselves and their world. After my explanations the attitudes of many participants warmed; several even said that while this particular media campaign didn’t seem to work, the general idea was a good one, especially since the overall goal was in part about building community relations in Greater Manchester. Indeed of all the aspects of the campaign, it was the sponsoring of local cultural events that most impressed the participants. At this point in their session, the younger participants were especially impressed and open and concluded that the ads were “clever” and “intriguing.” At the same time they felt the Society had a lot of work to do to convince them or anyone else to pick up a Bible. As one participant said, the fact is that the Bible has “too many words.” “It’s too old now, innit?” another one said, and left it at that.11 The target-age participants were equally skeptical, but in less sympathetic tones, that the Society could generate any serious interest in the Bible. Some wanted to know how much the campaign cost and could that cost have been worth it?12 One man expressed the kind of ambivalence that several other participants seemed to feel: “Personally, if it helps some person who used to go out robbing, and it helps them spiritually . . . then that’s great. But I can’t help but feel there’s a cult element about it. And talking about it, the word brainwashed come into my head. I get the image of a fairground and sort of

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Jehovah’s Witnesses. That’s a side of me. But on the other side, if it helps people . . .” The winner of the Riddle of Life competition was chosen at the Bible Society’s all-staff meeting in August 2007. “Today is the big day,” said Rob Cotton to a room full of his colleagues. He reported that there had been four hundred entries to the competition; “a couple of hundred” had been correct. Cotton asked Holt to do the honors by picking the winner’s name from a bucket containing slips of paper with the details of all the eligible entrants. Holt stepped up and drew out a small sheet of yellow paper from the bucket: “Mrs. Barbara Raynor-Taylor,” she announced, and everyone applauded. Barbara Raynor-Taylor was a nurse at the Royal Oldham Hospital. As her charitable cause, she chose the Oldham Substance Misuse Project. In a statement posted on the Riddle of Life website, she said, “I enjoyed reading the Bible as part of the competition and was thrilled to be chosen as the winner. I chose the Substance Misuse Service because I wanted the money to go to a cause that was close to my heart. My son dabbled with drugs and at the time, I felt there wasn’t enough advice for teenagers and parents facing this situation. Also, as a committed Christian, I believe we should look after the wider community. Since the Oldham Substance Misuse Service is doing a great job in this area, I wanted to give them a helping hand.” Commenting on Raynor-Taylor’s choice, Sue Green said, “Our competition was designed to show that the Bible is full of everyday stories that still strike a chord today. One of the riddles was about the Good Samaritan and Barbara is certainly one of those.”13 The Bible Society is all for good Samaritans. And inasmuch as the campaign included Church-facing work, Raynor-Taylor was a perfect winner. Nevertheless staff might have liked to have seen a non-Christian win the competition. At one of the Liaison Group meetings Holt got very excited about the potential for the campaign to reach new audiences. She was thinking out loud about how wonderful it would be if, say, a group of students at a school got together and found the answers to the riddles in their local library. Whether any such children entered the competition, or indeed any non-Christians did, is impossible to say. According to the online questionnaires that some entrants filled out, the chances are not good. Of the forty-six people who provided online feedback, 100 percent defined themselves as Christian, and 85 percent said they attended church at least once a week. Seventy-four percent said they read the Bible personally at least once a week, and 40 percent

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did so on a daily basis. Even given rightful debate within church and academic circles over statistics to do with faith, these figures far outstrip any of the usual indicators of religiosity in England, one of which puts “regular” church attendance (defined as at least once a month) at 14 percent (Tearfund 2007, 11).14 Bible Society’s online questionnaires also indicated that 48 percent of entrants found the riddles directly on the website; only 4 percent indicated they had found them all in situ— that is, on actual billboards, taxi cabs, and beer mats throughout the Greater Manchester area.15

Very Cultural In his work on advertising and globalization, William Mazzarella (2003) discusses a particularly challenging job for an advertising agency in Bombay. The agency had to come up with a campaign for a mobile telephone service that was being launched by EMW, a local consumer electronics company. The challenge was that EMW’s brand was strongly local—strongly Indian—and cellular telephony didn’t fit its image; cellular telephony “demanded transcendence of place” (35) that would be difficult for the company to pull off. The problem to solve, then, was how a local company could market a global commodity. In thrashing out this problem, the ad firm and EMW went through a number of ideas, none of which seemed quite right. Then they hit upon something they thought might work: they could appeal, in a suggestive way, to the polyvalence of Bombay as a city. Bombay: thoroughly Indian, yet also a global city. EMW’s mobile phone package could be “very Bombay.” Mazzarella explains, “As a sign ‘very Bombay’ had the advantage of combining an unmistakable reference to locality with an aspirational and transcendent connotation” (50); Bombay is Bombay, but it is also “beyond India itself,” part of “an imagined field of modernity, transactions, identities, and physical forms” (51). Bible Society faced a similar challenge in Greater Manchester. The Bible brand was already strong, but not in the right sense—tied in this case not so much to a spatial identification (as with EMW) as to a temporal one. For the Society’s target audience, the Bible brand signified something old-fashioned, even out of date. It was as if the Word of God, as textualized in the King James Bible, had been a victim of its own success; for the general public, “Christian language”—how be thy name and all that—was easily identifiable, clearly marked. Bible Society’s challenge was in getting people to expand their understanding of what

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counts as the language of the Book. In trying to realign its product the Society was, in effect, trying to be something like EMW—not very Bombay, of course, but very Manchester: very cultural, in other words, as opposed to very Christian. By framing biblical stories in terms of newspaper headlines, the Society wanted to suggest that the Bible has relevance in and to the passage of empty time, the saeculum, culture time. All the same, as the Church-facing aspects of the campaign make clear, the Society did not want to foreclose access to Scripture’s other, ultimate relevance: the relevance of a higher time. The “Very Bombay” campaign did not succeed for EMW. Neither, in a sense, did the Greater Manchester Campaign for Bible Society. Not enough people on the street got the point of the Riddle of Life. Staff members of the Advocacy Team were perfectly willing to admit this, and while they certainly hoped for a genuine surge of biblical publicity, they held firm to their conviction that success in what they wanted to do would come only with long-term effort.16 But with the colors, newspaper headlines, Riddle of Life logo, competition, promotion of charity, and fine-print hints to biblical books, the creatives in this case included too many indexes pointing in too many directions. It was a series of semiotic misfires and misapprehensions—a wrongly packaged product, if you will. Perhaps if Bible Society had had more time they could have gotten further; that, at least, is what the focus groups I conducted suggest. Perhaps, like the Reverend Campbell with Susan Harding, they could have prompted some questions from the public about God. But a blimey effect has to be near instantaneous; relevance has to be experienced, not thought about. The GMC was the third Campaign to Culture; it was also the last. Some of the strategies and events they staged there have lived on, most notably the film competition. Indeed when I last saw Luke in the process of writing this book in February 2012, he showed me the winner of the Society’s most recent film initiative, “The Pitch.” Rahab, based on the story of the fall of Jericho, was directed by Rob McClellan, a lecturer and sci-fi fan and, Walton told me with satisfaction, not a Christian. The GMC was not an ambient media campaign; when you’re looking for a blimey effect you forgo that option. As with the Society’s ambient projects, though, we have seen in this chapter where and how advocacy brings God’s agents into the market. In their reading of the Culture and its publics, the Advocacy Team kept coming back to the world of commodities and brands, the dynamics of production and consumption.

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Much has been made of the shift to “selling spirituality” (Carrette and King 2005) under late capitalism. Without denying the importance of such arguments, we must at the same time recognize how such appropriations and moves often fit within other frameworks. By comparing “the Riddle of Life” to “Very Bombay” I am not arguing for a reductive reading of this kind of contemporary Christian activism. Indeed, as far as the Society is concerned, appealing to the language of the market is not a degradation of faith but a sign of Christian innovation— not a surrendering of one’s values but the incorporation of another’s as understood through a projection of how language works for that other. The Campaign to Culture was an early stage in this effort at incorporation, although it also connects back to some of the Society’s earliest concerns with the line of business. Bible Society does not control the channels of communication being deployed. But what we see here is how these Christians in England perceived themselves in relation to wider publics and how, through those perceptions, they grappled with the signs of the representational economy in which they were operating.

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Kingdom and Christendom The Houses of Parliament are classical in shape, but Christian and Gothic in execution and ornamental style. Westminster Abbey, nestling nearby to symbolize the historic closeness of Church and State, has a medieval body and an enlightened frontage. London has no “grands boulevards” like Paris (or Vienna), and the triumphal ways projected from St Paul’s to the Palace and from Regent’s Park to the Mall never materialized. Grandeur of that sort was frustrated. People who do not need constitutions do not need triumphal ways driven through the city. . . . The spirit of the English sacred as embodied in space, time and architecture is horizontal, eclectic, additive, hybrid. Facades stay in place, even as the substance of the spirit has moved. It is not necessary to renovate all the sacred scenery. —David Martin (2005, 48–49)

There are 8,000 people who work on the Parliamentary Estate. I want to get to know them all. —Dave Landrum, Bible Society parliamentary officer

Since 2005 Bible Society has had a parliamentary officer whose job is to “equip and encourage” members of Parliament, peers, and others involved in and around the Palace of Westminster to make the Bible heard in their work. As in the earlier examples we’ve considered, one of the key questions here is how explicit the Christian message should be and what form it should take. Here we get that much closer to the arena in which Alastair Campbell was operating when he made the pronouncement of such concern to publicly minded Christians. Exactly how should Christians in politics “do God”? 98

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Framing this question in relation to the Society’s most straightforward program on the “cultural driver” of politics allows us to examine a further range of ideas and concepts underlying the principles of Bible advocacy as well as the kind of Christianity that Advocacy Team members produce and promote. It was through the work in Parliament that I got the best sense of the team’s investment in two of these concepts: sincerity and freedom. In what follows I want to focus on what these terms mean, what kind of work they do, and how the context of Parliament gives them particular shape. How sincerity and freedom get imagined and enacted can tell us important things about the constitution of publicity today. Parliament helped give these concepts a very clear shape. Parliament is a highly regulated and rule-bound institution. One of the fundamental regulators is the idea of a secular settlement, of secularism as a statecraft principle. In Britain, as in other liberal democracies committed to pluralism, the general thrust of this principle is to maintain “separation of religious and political authority” in order to facilitate “the equal access of all citizens, religious as well as nonreligious, to democratic participation” (Casanova 2009, 1051). This principle is embodied in a number of formal ways—above all, the law. But it comes out as well through more informal channels, from the unspoken conventions of parliamentary debate to the ways politicians interact with each other in the daily business of politics. The Advocacy Team’s concerns with sincerity and freedom, as they related to statecraft, were often nested within a Christian vocabulary of the relationship between the Kingdom of God and the historical constitution of Christendom. The differentiation between Kingdom and Christendom allowed the team to play out and make sense of this mode of secularism in a particularly fruitful way. It is through the Kingdom, and the Kingdom alone, that sincerity and freedom can be cultivated and expressed.

Christians in Parliament For the Angels project in Swindon, Luke Walton spent important time liaising with local councilors and even reflecting on those councilors as “secular authorities.” But the Angels project was never spoken of in relation to the cultural driver of politics. By and large, politics for the Society meant Westminster. Given James Catford’s background, though, this is perhaps no surprise. James’ father, Sir Robin Catford cbe, was a

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long-time civil servant and, from 1982 until his retirement in 1993, the secretary of appointments at 10 Downing Street.1 James Catford grew up with Westminster in mind. In terms of the cultural driver, James’ first major goal was to appoint someone to the Advocacy Team who could work with politicians directly, a parliamentary officer. One of the people he approached about establishing the post was Andy Reed, the Labour MP for Loughborough. James and Andy first met at one of the National Prayer Breakfasts, an annual event in Westminster Hall that brings together parliamentarians and leading Christians from the churches, charities, business community, and elsewhere for ninety minutes of coffee and croissants, some prayer, and a few uplifting speeches by politicians and guest speakers. Andy confessed to me that he was a bit nervous about James’ agenda. Andy was chairman of the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship (PCF) at the time, and he often got requests from fellow Christians to meet. More often than not, he told me, these people wanted some kind of help. So it was “refreshing” when it turned out James was asking to help rather than be helped. Andy was intrigued by the idea of a parliamentary officer; the PCF was certainly in need of more support. “Something that we should be demonstrating as Christian MPs is outreach,” he said, “not from an evangelical conversion point of view, but just by our presence and the way that we serve.” The problem was that MPs didn’t have the time to increase that presence, and still less to coordinate themselves any better than they had. With the cooperation of Andy and the PCF, Bible Society hired Dave Landrum for the parliamentary post. Over and above his moral support, Andy made a commitment to the position by providing Dave with a desk at his office in Portcullis House, the 2001 addition to the Parliamentary Estate that houses about a third of the MPs and a host of meeting rooms. It was a generous offer; space is hard to come by in the Palace complex and the desk gave Dave an in-house base from which to work. Dave came to the Bible Society job from a background in policy research. He earned a PhD in politics and education at Edge Hill University College in Liverpool. Born and raised in Bootle, just north of Liverpool, he once described himself to me as a charismatic Pentecostal. It wasn’t always so; he grew up in a rough environment in which faith played no role whatsoever. He was no stranger to trouble but found stability in a relationship. He left home because of work, though, and ended up in Germany in the building trade. Meanwhile, back in

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Merseyside, his wife had started going to church; once, when he was home on a visit, he went with her. It wasn’t like any church experience he’d ever had. The church was full of people and full of life. “And God spoke to me,” he told me. “I mean, spoke to me on the spot and nailed me to my seat.” He has been going to church ever since. “ ‘Born again’ is the term,” he says. Dave is tall and slender. He is balding and keeps his hair very short. There is a gap between his front teeth, which is easily memorable because of how much he smiles. Working in Parliament meant that he was almost always in a suit, but he would much rather have been in a pair of shorts and an Everton Football Club jersey. (If you’re from Bootle, Dave told me, Everton FC is just part of life.) In the circle of Bible advocacy staff and Executive Team members with whom he worked most closely—the team at Theos; Luke Walton and David Ashford; James Catford and Ann Holt—Dave is the only one who could be described, or might describe himself, as a working-class lad and an unambiguous northerner. It’s a background he’s proud of, and he’s made sure not to lose sight of it. Relocating from Merseyside to the London area was, he told me, “very, very, very difficult.” He doesn’t tame his accent (“Scouse,” it’s called), and he moves his body with energy. Dave is very physical, and he invites the physicality. Well after my research finished, I realized that every time I met him I’d put my arm around him, shake his hand, pat him on the back—something physical, and in a way and to an extent that didn’t happen with any other of God’s agents. Dave was also the only one in this circle with a PhD. And while many other Advocacy Team members had intellectual passions, Dave was the only one with a taste for arcane academia. Whereas most Advocacy Team members were content to talk about postmodernism, Dave would want to talk about postmodern philosophical social constructivism. He could also get excited by the mention of, say, Zygmunt Bauman, in a way that none of the other team members did. The MPs called him “Discourse Dave.” The first time I met Dave he treated me to one of the best things a parliamentary pass-holder can provide: a private tour of the Estate. This was a valuable perk for him in his job, since an important part of what he did was liaise with Christian leaders and social campaigners outside Parliament who came for meetings with MPs and to attend talks and other events on faith-related topics. The personal tour certainly impressed me. Despite living in London for several years, I had

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never been to Parliament. And despite being an anthropologist, and therefore skeptical of most things, I found myself caught up by the regal surroundings and the lures of liberal democracy. I referred earlier to the statecraft principle in Britain as one based on the separation of religious and political authority. Something like this principle is, I would maintain, key to much of what happens in the halls of Westminster—certainly among most of the Christians in Parliament I focus on. Yet to speak of the political arrangement in Britain as secular in this way needs qualification, since it is a liberal democracy with an established church; indeed, for some critics of establishment, religious and nonreligious alike, to speak of secularism in this way might well be construed as either misinformed or misleading. Grace Davie (1994, 139–61) notes that in the British context establishment has two meanings; the first and more specific meaning has to do with what she admits are “the complicated but definable links between the Church of England and the State” (139). Those links have undergone many changes over the past two hundred years (Morris 2009, 17–33), yet they remain intact. One of the complications, or at least oddities, is that the links exist only for the Church of England, despite the fact that the business of state at Westminster (not withstanding political devolution to Edinburgh, Cardiff, and sometimes Belfast) pertains to the whole of the United Kingdom. The most notable sign of establishment in this sense is the reservation for twenty-six Church of England bishops in the House of Lords. The secretary of appointments at 10 Downing Street, the position that Catford’s father held, is another sign of establishment—not a very public and well-known sign, to be sure, but it highlights the role of a state official in ecclesiastical affairs. Establishment, of course, is expressed and embodied above all in the monarchy. The monarch is both head of state and supreme governor of the Church of England. Inasmuch as most Britons see the monarch’s role as symbolic, though, it tends to be the lords spiritual (the formal term for bishops in the House of Lords) who can actually vote on legislation, who constitute the strongest establishment bond and provoke the most criticism. Notwithstanding the power of monarchical symbolism—and as an anthropologist I would insist that coronations and royal weddings do a lot of political work—in my experience it was much more common to find secular humanists committed to reform of the House of Lords than the promotion of republicanism. The second meaning of establishment follows on from the first, and has to do with the extent to which the formal link between church and

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state signals the existence of an “exclusive club” running Britannia; friends in high places, as Davie puts it (1994, 139). For many critics of establishment, it is the informal nature of the links between ministers of church and ministers of state that provokes the most concern. At least in the House of Lords the bishops can be seen. What are they up to when they’re off the floor of the chamber? Regardless of one’s definitions or concerns, at the very least a tour of the Houses of Parliament raises questions about what constitutes separation. Declarations of faith are literally incorporated into the buildings. Much of this can be easily explained in terms of the nation’s history—to thinking about Britain, and especially England, in the context of European Christendom and, in particular, the early Victorian reconstruction of the Houses of Parliament. By Christendom I mean “a society where there were close ties between the leaders of the church and those in positions of secular power, where the laws were purported to be based on Christian principles, and where, apart from certain clearly defined outsider communities, every member of the society was assumed to be a Christian” (McLeod 2003, 1). Christendom is the syncopation of politics, law, and belief. Not surprisingly, much of the artwork in Parliament, especially the Victorian Houses, depicts Christian subjects, motifs, and themes, many pertaining to the roots of the Reformation, which are so central to the English depiction of Christendom. Dave’s tour was designed to showcase this work. We lingered for some time in St. Stephen’s Hall, for instance, and in particular in front of a painting by George Clausen, The English People Reading Wycliffe’s Bible. How apt on a tour by the Society’s parliamentary liaison officer! Dave also pointed out where a verse from Psalm 127 is inscribed in the floor of the Central Lobby— “Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it”—and how the architect (and Catholic convert, ironically) Augustus Pugin encircled the Gothic Revival Houses with an inscription of the Lord’s Prayer in Latin; Pugin wanted to ensure that God protected what went on inside. In addition to these well-established signs of establishment, the visitor to Parliament today will find, in both public corridors and the many committee rooms, pairs of television monitors (one red, for the House of Lords; one green, for the Commons), or, “annunciators,” as they’re known, displaying information about the business being conducted. (Select Committee “X” meeting in Room “Y”; Baroness “A” speaking on subject “B.”) At the bottom of the annunciators, when the Houses

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are sitting, is a sign saying, “Prayers have been read.” Indeed every morning a bishop in the House of Lords and the speaker’s chaplain in the House of Commons begin the day with prayers. In the Commons, this prayer is often the following: “Lord, the God of righteousness and truth, grant to our Queen and her government, to Members of Parliament and all in positions of responsibility, the guidance of your Spirit. May they never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals but laying aside all private interests and prejudices keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind; so may your kingdom come and your name be hallowed. Amen.” The practice of saying prayers in Parliament dates, we are told, to 1588—hardly a modern innovation.2 Yet there is something about their acknowledgment and marking on the annunciators—a technology that indexes the very modern concerns with transparency, accessibility, and immediacy—that underscores establishment’s continuing role, or perhaps the ambience of establishment. In Westminster the time of God, “Church time,” overlays the time of politics. That establishment role— that spatial and temporal presence—was further reinforced to me when I reached the highlight of Dave’s tour: stepping out onto the floor of the House of Lords. Unlike the lobbies and corridors and despite the fact that what went on in the House was wholly “public,” I felt as if we were trespassing, as if we didn’t have a right to be standing where we were. There was clearly nothing illicit in it, however, and Dave carried on, matter-of-factly, reminding me of the position of the lords spiritual in the chamber, pointing out the designated Bishop’s Bench, where the bishops sit (they have the only benches in the chamber with arm rests), and telling me a bit about some of his interactions with them and other lords. As it is embodied in the Houses of Parliament, Dave was presenting Christendom as part historical legacy and part contemporary reality— artwork and activity. It was only when we got to the House of Lords, however, that he offered his personal take on this arrangement. His shoulders had slumped, and what I came to know as his distinct radiance drained away. The tour had provided me with the closest I ever got to what might be termed spiritual uplift—a consumption of high culture and contemplation of lofty political ideas. What we saw felt alive, vibrant. But for Dave what we were looking at and where we were standing was, in an important sense, the stuff of museums. Britain carried the mantle of Christendom, but such fineries and trappings were

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ultimately inconsequential. As far as Dave was concerned they ought not to cloud what really matters. He turned to me and asked, “Is it better to have Christendom or the Kingdom?” For him, the answer was clear, and the tour was his way of introducing me to what he thought really mattered. Dave is a Kingdom-seeking Christian. Many readers may take this as a self-evident or even banal thing for a Christian to say, but the details of what it means for Dave tell us a lot about how he approaches his work in Parliament and about how his concerns with sincerity and freedom both derive from and help to constitute the work of Bible advocacy. For Dave, all historically constituted institutions—everything from parliamentary democracy to the English Premier League (in which his beloved Everton FC play)—are, at best, secondary to that which is of God, to that which reveals His grace. What a Christian must do is live life according to the Gospel, according to the promise of the Kingdom of Heaven. Where that promise can be found in history—good. Where it can be found in, say, the policy of a given political party—fine. And it can be found. Indeed, for Dave, the Kingdom is both here on earth and that which is to come, part of a “now and not yet” mentality that we find among other socially engaged evangelicals, including many in the emerging-church movement (Bialecki 2009; Bielo 2011). In this approach “the future has invaded the present. The Kingdom of God which is yet to come in power and glory has already come in a secret and hidden form to work among men and within them” (Ladd 1959, 95). All the same, Dave emphasized, “you can’t allow some sort of transient ideology or philosophy to determine your worldview.” To illustrate what this meant in terms of his work, he gave me the following example: “On Saturday, I’m doing a talk for the Conservative Christian Fellowship on Christian worldview at their leadership conference. . . . And one of the questions I’m going to posit is, ‘Can you ever envisage voting Labour?’ And if they say no, well, then, I will challenge them— I’ll tell them they have a Christendom mind-set rather than a Kingdom mind-set.” “In what sense?,” I asked. “In the sense that politics is a human construct,” he replied. “The mechanisms and processes of politics are just human constructs.” They too shall pass; they are products of humanity and are flawed. Dave had issues with all the main political parties. The Conservatives place too much emphasis on the market. Labour skirts the questions of human nature and progression. The Liberal Democrats place too much emphasis on personal freedom (which in this context has to

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be distinguished from God-given “human freedom”). Even more troublesome to Dave, though, was the idea of a “religious party”; that’s not the point of a Kingdom mind-set. Whenever fellow Christians raised the idea of a “Christian” party with Dave, he would look for the door and warn them off it on his way out. So holding fast to this Kingdom mind-set does not make participation in worldly institutions a bad idea; Dave would not have become Bible Society’s parliamentary officer otherwise. Yet it is notable here that, in line with others on the Advocacy Team, he was often deeply ambivalent about the role of the Church in this scheme. The Church is not the answer or the endpoint. Indeed what some sociologists might call “organized religion” is, for Dave, agonized religion, that which reveals the shortcomings of human sociality as much as it does signs of the Kingdom. I said earlier that Dave has been going to church ever since his wife brought him, ever since God nailed him to his seat. As human constructs, though, churches—even the Church—are subject to the same limitations as every other institution, and Dave would just as soon leave a congregation if he felt it wasn’t fostering a Kingdom mind-set. “The Church therefore is not the Kingdom of God” (Ladd 1959, 117). It is on this basis that Dave appreciates the utility of secularism as a statecraft principle. As he conceived it, secularism means a political settlement that checks ecclesiastical power; as such, it aids the Kingdom mind-set. When the institution of the Church becomes too strong, you end up with theocracies and the trampling of human freedom. “A Christendom model tends toward theocracy,” he said. “It just doesn’t work, and it was never meant to be. The Kingdom of God is what it’s all about. It’s Jesus’ message.” As a born-again Christian, it was vital to Dave that each person be given the chance and the space to hear Jesus’ message—to experience it, to live it—without the pressures and proscriptions of an institution. “Human freedom,” as Dave understands it, comes through the act of submission to the sacrifice. As one of his favorite writers puts it, “Our liberty comes through a personal relationship with Jesus who has won our freedom on the cross, nothing else” (Forster 2001, 12). A secular public square helps ensure human freedom. And that secular space, Dave emphasized, “has to be protected.” The Kingdom mindset is not about coercion in any way. And there is even a sense in which it both respects and demands pluralism. Dave says that all good things come from God, and by this he means the Christian God. He is willing to acknowledge that you do not have to be Christian to be a good person,

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“but I do operate on a maxim that all good things come from God.” Yet he insists simultaneously of the need for a “truly free public square” in which other faiths have a role and rightful place: “Love your neighbor as yourself. You can create a space at the center of your society in which you can negotiate and compromise, in which you respect the Other. Even if the Other is not like you, even if you don’t know the Other, you’re still bound by duty to God to respect them.” In this modeling, secularism as a statecraft principle becomes a means to an end. It is a tool that bornagain Christians can use to help set the political conditions of possibility for the liberation that comes with that personal relationship with Jesus. This is born-again secularism.

Coffee in Christendom Like much of my research, what I did in Parliament was organized around scheduled interviews, meetings, and events and animated by the casual conversation and informal interactions that surrounded them. I made dozens of trips to Westminster, usually to meet Dave for a coffee at the Despatch Box, the café in the atrium of Portcullis House, and often then on to a meeting or event to which he had invited me. I suppose I could have just turned up at the Palace, as I sometimes did in Swindon or at Theos. But just turning up never felt right at Westminster. Despite the fact that modern British politics is defined by the virtues of openness and accessibility, you need a good reason to go to Parliament. Portcullis House expresses this tension well. You enter via a nondescript rotating door facing onto the Victoria Embankment, opposite the River Thames, and are immediately ushered through a metal detector and x-ray machine. Before you, the business of the Estate unfolds in the spacious atrium: troops of schoolchildren being shown around; constituents turned out in their best clothes, being led up the stairs by twentysomething interns; military men; businesswomen; and lots of MPs, even ones you recognize from television and the newspapers. This is all unfolding just yards away but is, as yet, inaccessible, since you remain on the outside of a glass wall with security-controlled turnstile doors manned by police with MP5 submachine guns. After passing through security, you give your name and state your purpose to a clerk behind a desk. You then wait patiently off to the side on one of several leatherpadded benches. A portrait of the queen hangs on the wall. When your contact arrives, she buzzes you through the door, or, if you don’t know one another yet (and don’t know what each other looks like) she comes

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out to the waiting area and tries to figure out who you are: Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith? I was sometimes lucky enough to get a whole day with Dave, and shadow him from place to place or just sit around with him at his desk. But in the main I went to Parliament for specific events and meetings. I also went on separate occasions to interview three MPs with whom Dave worked closely (one of them being Andy Reed) and attend two National Prayer Breakfasts (which are held each June) and over a dozen church services (formal and informal) and Bible studies. I spoke to many other MPs as well as staffers and peers at the various events and meetings I attended, on occasion in great depth. I often saw Dave outside Parliament in Swindon or at Theos or at events around London. I saw some of the MPs with whom Dave worked outside of Parliament too—often not far outside, but on one occasion for a five-day trip to Ethiopia (which I discuss in the conclusion); this proved invaluable in terms of getting a sense of them. By chance on one occasion I was able to share a two-hour train ride with an MP down to Dorset, where he was due to speak at a Theos event at a theological college. Like it or not, though, this was anthropology by appointment, more so than any of my other work on the Society. Something of the imponderabilia of actual life nevertheless emerged, in part because those who live it in this case do so vividly, not least Dave. He did everything vividly. Dave arrived at Parliament in 2005 to a moribund Christian scene. The PCF had an administrator but not the resources or, according to MPs I spoke to about it, the scope or vision to create the kind of presence many of them wanted. As Gary Streeter, the Conservative MP for South West Devon, put it to me, things had been “slightly unshaped and chaotic.” For those such as Reed and Streeter, who come from more evangelical perspectives, Streeter’s characterization was common. Although Reed got involved in the PCF, other colleagues of his general persuasion had not. Reed was part of the 1997 New Labour victory crop, sweeping into Parliament on the back of Blair’s landslide at the polls. “When I arrived,” he told me, “the so-called Christian community was very high-church Church of England, very Lords-dominated, very highbrow.” That turned off many of his fellow Christians from the 1997 intake, who were, on the whole, relatively young and more selfconsciously evangelical. Once they got a taste of the tradition, they simply didn’t come back to the PCF for more. One of Dave’s first tasks was to reinvigorate the PCF, a process that involved its rebranding as Christians in Parliament (CIP). PCF had

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figure 9. Dave Landrum at his desk in Portcullis House, 2006. Photo by the author.

become “a little bit old, a little bit dusty,” as Dave put it to me, and the new name was meant to signal a change in attitude. “There were lists of Christian MPs and peers, but they were small lists, and very selectively constructed,” he said. He came up with much longer, more inclusive ones. “We just want people to know that they can be supported and pray [together] and [be] resourced to think Christianly if they so wish.” What does thinking “Christianly” mean to Dave? Above all it means approaching politics with the Kingdom mind-set. It means recognizing that “the central theme in the Bible is God’s redemptive work in history” (Ladd 1959, 132). It means accepting that God wants us to play a role in that work, to inscribe ourselves in the drama of Scripture. It means putting God before party and recognizing the limits of politics, even as the vocation of politics becomes a way to manifest the signs and sow further seeds of God’s work. Because of humankind’s fallen state, however, thinking Christianly also means thinking humbly and approaching others with charity. In essence, it means acknowledging that one cannot be certain about what thinking Christianly actually entails. This is not to say certainty plays no role in the Kingdom mind-set. I’ll never forget a diagram Dave once drew for me. In a series of concentric

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circles, he laid out the constitution of society. The outermost circle represented the “unchurched.” Next in were the “cultural Christians.” Then came the “nominal Christians.” Then, at the center, were the “real Christians.” Pointing to the third circle—those of nominal faith—Dave started to tap his finger and said, “They’re the worst.” Nominalism is the worst because it is based on a deceit, on pretending to be what you’re not. In his personal copy of The Gospel of the Kingdom by George Eldon Ladd (1959), a book he loaned to me so I could get a sense of his views, Dave had underlined precisely this point: “The modern man is usually quite casual about his religion. He will often undertake radical measures in pursuit of wealth, success, power; but he is unwilling to become deeply moved about the concerns of his soul. Jesus says that such a man cannot know the life of the Kingdom. It demands a response, a radical decision, an enthusiastic reception. Nominalism is the curse of modern Western Christianity. Jesus’ disciples must be radicals in their unqualified enthusiasm for the life of God’s Kingdom” (100). For Ladd, there is a clear line drawn from enthusiasm to sincerity. The moral premium placed on meaning what you say and do is a wellexplored feature of the Protestant self (Keane 2002; Trilling 1972). In the context of this study, what’s worth emphasizing is how this investment in sincerity conflicts with the demand—above all in the political arena—to keep religion private. While on one level sincerity is about minimizing the difference between thoughts and words, centering very much on the self, the articulation and enactment of one’s true thoughts are social and interactive; “sincerity,” as the foremost anthropological thinker on this concept puts it, “is a certain kind of public accountability” (Keane 2002, 75). “Real Christians,” as Dave would put it, are always public in this way, always speaking and acting in ways that are meant to align and express their innermost thoughts and feelings with signs of the Kingdom. The “we” that Dave often referred to when discussing the work in Parliament—“We just want people to know they can be supported”— referred to Bible Society in general, although it is important to underscore the fact that he was the only Advocacy Team member working on a daily basis in Parliament, and without a doubt the most influential player in shaping what went on there. All the same, James Catford, Ann Holt, and other members of the Advocacy Team, especially Paul Woolley and Paul Bickley at Theos, had ongoing relationships with various MPs and peers, and these certainly mattered. James’ work on this front, as I address in the conclusion, was often especially important.

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Dave also worked within a larger ambit of individuals and institutions within the Parliamentary Estate. He often received help from the many university graduate interns that a charity, Christian Action Research and Education (CARE), places with MPs on an annual basis. These interns, who tended also to come from evangelical backgrounds, helped out around their designated MP’s Westminster office, doing everything from making tea to providing background research on policy positions. And as I learned in my time with Dave, there were many other people who spent time in the Estate—as volunteers, guests, representatives of other organizations (such as the Evangelical Alliance), and even the spouses of politicians—with whom Dave worked in a host of capacities. Some of this was quite menial, such as setting out canapés at CIP events; Dave could be found alongside the CARE interns unwrapping party trays of cheese and sausages from Tesco. Most of it was much more substantial, of course, such as spearheading the development of major resources on Christianity and politics. When it came to working with politicians, Dave and Bible Society got regular support from and had interaction with a small core of MPs. Of these, Reed, Streeter, Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat), Andrew Selous (Conservative and chairman of CIP during most of my research), Alistair Burt (Conservative), and David Drew (Labour) were among those who attended CIP events. (Theos also held events in Parliament on occasion, but there was significant overlap between the CIP and Theos audiences and constituencies.) Beyond such a core, dozens more MPs were in the CIP ambit, and there were still others with whom Dave met and worked in more specific and sometimes individual capacities. Dave was always willing to meet with someone in the Parliamentary community to talk or to pray. He once told me—over coffee—that he spends his days “drinking gallons of coffee. A lot of what I do here—a lot of it—is just relation.” It was certainly unusual to get through a conversation with him at the Despatch Box café without an MP or staffer with whom he “relates” stopping to say hello. In addition to administering CIP and drinking coffee with MPs, Dave performed a number of other functions in his role. He met regularly with party and cross-party groups and often gave talks to them and other groups outside Parliament and at conferences and workshops. This kind of ambassadorial work was an important way to make and develop contacts as the parliamentary officer. It often kept him busy seven days a week. He also acted as a point of contact between those he knew in Parliament and those in the wider Christian community. He

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was, in this sense, an ambassador and go-between for CIP and its supporters as well. Much of this liaising was done through both informal and formal meetings—and might have included the kind of tour he took me on—but public events were also an important component. The most notable of these public events during the course of my research was a Tuesday lunchtime Bible study in St. Mary’s Undercroft, the small chapel off Westminster Hall, the oldest surviving part of the Palace complex. “Bible study” has to be taken loosely; there was always a close reading of some passage or set of passages, but the focus was on a guest speaker and resembled a lecture or sermon more than what happens in, say, Lyfe groups. CIP also sponsored worship services in St. Mary’s Undercroft. These were not church services—they followed no liturgy—but included singing, Bible readings, and, as often as not, some short testimonial from an MP or staffer. Once every three or four months, Dave also coordinated evening talks by leading Christian speakers, ordained and lay. These were by far the largest CIP events, drawing eighty to a hundred people, compared to the twenty or thirty that turned up at the Bible studies and worship services. These evening talks took place in the Speakers’ Apartments, a magnificent suite of rooms at the foot of Parliament’s iconic clock tower housing Big Ben. The talks were preceded by a buffet dinner (usually a set of those Tesco party trays), giving people a chance to socialize at some length. Finally, it is worth noting that, though Dave did not handle it, Bible Society took on part sponsorship of and coordination for the National Prayer Breakfast, the very event that brought James Catford and Andy Reed together in the first place. (Paul Bickley, who spent half his time as a Theos researcher, spent the other half coordinating the Prayer Breakfast.)

Christians, in Parliament How could we characterize the faith of the MPs and others with whom Dave worked in his various capacities? Not simply. I met a liberal Methodist at one CIP event in the Speakers’ Apartments who said the MPs involved tended to be more socially and politically conservative than she would have preferred; all the same, it hadn’t dissuaded her from participating. At another such event, I met a highbrow, highchurch Lord, the kind Andy Reed had spoken of as very much part of the ancien regime. The MP who served as speaker of the House during the majority of my research, Michael Martin, was Catholic; by allowing CIP the use of his rooms, he was sending an important message that

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CIP was not a Protestant concern. CIP even featured at its events—if never enlisted into its ranks—the nonreligious, including at least one self-defined humanist MP who cornered me at the end of one evening to ask me my opinion of one of the most well-known anthropologists of the mid-twentieth century, E. E. Evans-Pritchard. This gives some sense of the diversity of people with whom Dave worked and for whom CIP is a resource. And yet it is fair to say that, in the main, CIP attracts Protestant Christians who call themselves evangelical, even if they do not say exactly what this means and even if those definitions would differ among them. And while Andy stressed that CIP takes a broad approach—“If you want dull, we do dull,” he joked—he also acknowledged that CIP is not for everyone. He told me about one Catholic Tory MP who, pace Michael Martin, simply couldn’t handle CIP events, especially the worship services. For this Tory, hearing people pray out loud and seeing them wave their hands in the air was just too much, too charismatic. As late as 2007, ten years after becoming an MP, Andy was also discovering colleagues in his own party (including a secretary of state) who were Christian but had never said anything about it to him, still less participated in CIP. Indeed for some of these colleagues, Andy explained, the issue was not being unaware of CIP’s existence but rather having a different take on what politicians should spend their time doing. For some Christian MPs, in other words, there was a sense in which faith should be “checked at the door” (a metaphor often deployed at CIP events). Given all the political work that needed to be done, Parliament in this other Christian view should not be a venue for Bible studies and the like. Of all the networks, collaborators, and contacts, there were three MPs with whom Dave and the Society developed particularly strong ties: Reed, Streeter, and Webb. These ties only got stronger over the course of my research. It’s a notable trio of politicians, not only because each came from one of the three major parties (Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat, respectively) but also because they belonged to a slightly larger informal group of MPs that went by the moniker, tongue in cheek, of “the G-6.” The G-6 was a group of six evangelical Christians—“but not hard right,” Webb emphasized—who began meeting and praying together after the 1997 general election. The other members of this group included a Conservative MP, a Labour MP, and a Democratic Unionist MP. Webb wanted me to know this was a politically diverse bunch. And it was. Three could be seen as situated comfortably at the right end of

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the political spectrum; another was a patron of the Christian Socialist movement. Andy Reed was the first member of Blair’s government to resign in 2003 over Iraq, just a few weeks before the war began. “I have never been prepared to support war without a clear, second UN resolution,” he said. “Without a clear mandate I fear the consequences for international peace and security are too dire to contemplate.”3 It was a decision he described as based firmly on Christian values and beliefs and an instance when he felt he needed to be loyal to those values more than to the government line. As for Webb, one former CARE intern I interviewed who had gotten to know Webb, was convinced he ought to have been in the Labour Party, and he is described in a BBC profile as “more of a ‘social liberal’ than free marketeer.”4 I know as well, on information from Andy, that one of the books the G-6 read together was Marx’s Capital; Andy referred to it as Das Kapital, although I believe they read it in English. While Dave often spoke of the G-6 in general terms as an important group for him and the life of faith in Parliament, it was certainly Andy, Gary, and Steve who were most active in CIP events during the period of my research. As a shorthand, then, I will refer to them as “the Half G-6.” They drew strongly on two overlapping narratives when describing their faith in relation to their work as parliamentarians. In many ways these narratives are conventional to their backgrounds. The first of these related to “the British way” of doing things, which meant with reserve, although in many respects what they were really talking about was an English way of doing things, but in this context that would have sounded presumptive and privileging. The MPs each made something of the idea of a national way, which is reflected more generally within popular culture by the circulation of clichés (being British means “keeping a stiff upper lip”), nostalgic reflections of British resolve (the most popular being the redeployment, in the face of the post-2008 economic crisis, of the World War II propaganda “Keep Calm and Carry On”), and an aversion to standing out. As the writer E. M. Delafield (1938, 7) once put it, “Every Englishman is an average Englishman . . . [and] no true Englishman would wish it to be otherwise.” The second narrative had to do with an evangelical approach to political work, which also has several dimensions but is structured above all by a refusal to think that faith should be a private concern or play no role in shaping political visions. In some ways this narrative sits uncomfortably in relation to the more generic one of Britishness (or, to put it even more accurately, middle-class Englishness), inasmuch as being

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evangelical has to involve shedding reserve. To illustrate what this means, evangelicals invoke Wilberforce’s long campaign as an MP for the abolition of slavery (one based on “resolve,” which fits well with the first narrative, but Wilberforce was not, by many accounts, a “reserved” politician). This evangelical narrative also includes a sense of calling, of doing what one does because God asks it. To an important extent, then, it is structured by a logic that is both submissive and empowering—part of the theological model of “human freedom.” Streeter and Reed both said forthrightly that God had called them to politics. “I would not be a member of Parliament if I was not a born-again Christian,” one of the MPs told me. “I just wouldn’t. It wouldn’t have been my choice. I believe it’s God’s, not my own.” Despite the firmness of their convictions and calling to public life as evangelicals, the tradition of British reserve clearly shaped the Half G-6’s approach to an explicitly religious component to their pronouncements as politicians. It was not necessary for these three MPs to “do God” in the way Alastair Campbell’s quip was often otherwise understood—a fact that played on Dave’s conscience, as we’ll see. What the MPs emphasized, again in accordance with a certain British evangelical tradition, was exemplary action. “You don’t want to be able to inject a bit more Jesus into your public rhetoric?” I asked Gary at the end of a discussion about the role of religious language and imagery in political discourse. We had been comparing norms in the United Kingdom and United States. “Not really,” he replied. “We are understated. Americans are horribly over the top and invade your personal space all the time in that grotesque American way—yuck!” he said and shivered. Gary complemented his English reserve with an equally strong English irony. “But of course I long for there to be a spiritual revival in this country,” he went on. “I would love it if more people did have an encounter with Jesus and engaged with the Church and made a difference in their community. But whether that happens or it doesn’t, I think the British way is always for this to be understated. It’s the motivation that matters, and not the label on the tin.” The label on the tin didn’t matter much for Andy and Steve either. What one did and how one acted were more important. Andy explained this by way of an anecdote. Once he was having a chat with some fellow parliamentarians, several of whom were having a laugh at a colleague’s expense. The colleague wasn’t there to defend himself, and it gave the conversation a behind-his-back feel. “And I just intervened and said, ‘Oh, that’s just the way [so-and-so] is; that’s what makes this place

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really interesting.’ And this Tory MP leaned over and said, ‘That’s what I like about you Christians. You’ve always got something nice to say about other people.’ ” This is the kind of demonstrable impact that matters, according to Andy. “It’s those little things that bring people an understanding of faith, rather than quoting a passage from the Bible. That wouldn’t do much good at all, in fact, and I couldn’t remember anyway—my theology is a bit on the rubbish side.” Andy’s resignation from the Blair government can also be read in this way; he did not explain his decision—certainly not in his speech to the House of Commons—in an explicitly Christian language. Where I heard him link the decision to his faith was 3,600 miles away, in the conference room of a Pentecostal church in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in front of an audience of Ethiopian politicians and business leaders who had gathered for a workshop on integrity. Steve Webb conveyed a similar view. “I want people who aren’t Christians in Parliament to think, as it says in the Bible, ‘Wow, see how Christians love each other. . . .’ I would love them to say, ‘Gosh, I might not believe, but I wish I had what you had,’ or ‘I wish I had the quality of relationships I see in you.’ ” There were some MPs who did want more space for an explicitly religious language than what otherwise passed for the norm. During a June 2008 event at Parliament called “Reviving Faith in Politics,” for instance, two MPs in particular pushed against the suggestion that faith by example was sufficient.5 They were also clearly less enamored of the tradition of reserve. “How can we break into a new dimension and talk about social spirituality, not private spirituality?” asked one. This MP was responding to the remarks of three colleagues—Reed, Selous, and Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat)—serving on a panel with a guest from the United States, the well-known head of Sojourners, Jim Wallis. Sojourners was piquing interest at the time—the last months of George W. Bush’s presidency—because it advocates for the kind of “progressive” evangelical social activism that many people in Britain assume to be nonexistent in the United States. Three main issues emerged throughout the course of the discussion, each introduced by Wallis and then taken up by the MPs on the panel and in the audience. The first issue had to do with the politicization of faith, “the idea,” as Wallis put it, “that God is on one side of the aisle.” On this point, MPs I spoke to over the course of my research were all agreed that Britain had done better than America in making sure this hadn’t happened. It’s a sentiment that resonates well with what Dave referred to as the difference between a Christendom and a Kingdom

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mind-set, the former of which would place God on one side of the aisle. MPs often understood the Republican Party in the United States as particularly beholden to a Christendom mind-set—of claiming, through an excessively aggressive evangelicalism, that God was theirs. Interestingly Conservative MPs seemed the most concerned about this excess; I never heard a good word about Bush’s brand of evangelical Christianity. And Bush almost always came up in my conversations with the politicians, in part because I am American but more generally because the United States served MPs as the measure of how faith and politics should and shouldn’t be connected. At the Wallis event, this sense of relative success in keeping religion free of party politics was in strong evidence. “Thankfully we haven’t gone down the American road,” as one MP put it. The second issue raised by Wallis, in keeping with his left-of-center perspective, was that Christians needed to reconsider the balance of their agendas in public life. As far as Wallis was concerned, Christians should stop talking about “moral” issues and start raising “social justice” issues instead. His argument was that if Christians turn up the pressure on combating global poverty and turn it down on abortion rights, the perception of Christians in the newsroom and public opinion will be much improved (as well as more in line with what he clearly saw as an authentically Christian path). On this issue there were, perhaps ironically—especially given the earlier emphasis on not politicizing faith—fairly clear party-political lines drawn by the participants. Andy Reed, from his position on the Labour benches, was very enthusiastic about what Wallis was saying; Andrew Selous, in contrast, with a seat on the more conservative end of the Conservative benches, did not want to cede ground on abortion, even if it reinforced stereotypes of what Christians care about and made them out to be moralizers. All the same, Selous said, it really should be both/and rather than either/or when it came to these matters. The third issue Wallis raised, and which cinched together the various strands of discussion, was the need to understand that “God is personal but never private.”6 The panelists liked this phrase, and so did the audience (who picked up on it in the Q&A), but people wanted a better sense of what it meant. It was precisely around the other issues raised— how to avoid claiming God as one’s own, how to articulate a faithbased agenda vis-à-vis policy priorities and social commitments—that the difference between what is personal and what is private mattered. In each case, one could argue, framing God as personal had its dangers. It was unease with the idea of a personal God that, as I read it, led the

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MP in the audience to ask the panel about producing and fostering a “social spirituality”; it is precisely when people justify their actions on the basis of a personal relationship with God that we need to worry about their motivations. The MP was worried that Wallis was being too glib, dodging the real issue of God’s publicity. The other MP I have in mind from the Q&A session, who had been quite involved in CIP, expressed a curiosity similar to his colleague’s. He wanted Christian language to be publicly acceptable because then it could be publicly scrutinized, subject to the checks and balances of others. The practical issues in reaching this goal, however, were admittedly formidable. Intelligibility would be a major challenge: “How do we speak to those who are so spiritually illiterate?” For this MP the implication was that Christians ought to claim more discursive space than they had up to that point; improving the levels of general “spiritual literacy” should be complemented by creating more room for religion in public talk. What Reed had highlighted in our interview—about demonstrating the principles of one’s faith in small acts of care and respect— would not have been enough for this second MP. Well before the Wallis event it became clear to me that what I have outlined as the normative position on faith and politics among those most active in CIP was not wholly shared by the group’s executive administrator; Dave struggled with the secular settlement as it stood. On the one hand, he spoke to me with admiration for what he saw as Jesus’ expert ability to “speak the language of the culture he was in.” “That’s what we have to do,” Dave said, and that involved working without the repertoire of words that might come naturally to him as a Christian. On the other hand, though, there was a part of Dave that longed for a language of faith to be legitimate, to be at least tolerated (which, along with reserve, is a cardinal virtue in the British political imagination). In contrast with Gary, there was a part of Dave that thought the label on the tin does matter, that the packaging of politics can be as important as the content. I saw this struggle for Dave at one of the CIP evening talks, given by the archbishop of York, John Sentamu, on 26 March 2007. The theme of Sentamu’s talk was how explicitly religion should be referred to in, and even underpin, the political language and political work of the nation. He even upped the ante by linking faith and politics to the law, thus laying bare some of the most fundamental questions of secularism as a statecraft principle. It is indeed often through the law and the legislative process that we come to understand the ways religion gets defined

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and placed within any given secular settlement (Asad 2003, 205–56; Bowen 2008). The archbishop’s argument was simple: law, morality, and religion need to “mix.” Not so long ago, he said, British judges were Christian—in outlook, at the very least, but often also in faith. “They knew the story,” he said, “and it influenced their jurisprudence. Now, morals are separate.” For Sentamu, the time had come to refashion the link, and MPs had a role to play: “A time has come for parliamentarians to argue in such a way that they are aware of God, of morals.” “Not tell people to turn to God,” he clarified. “That’s not the role of MPs.” Nevertheless they should argue in such a way that they are “aware of God.” There were well over a hundred people at the talk that evening—a very strong turnout for CIP. By chance, some U.S. congressmen on business in London were also in the audience, and that added to the texture and tone of the conversation after Sentamu spoke. In the questions and answers that followed, Steve Webb was one of the first to speak. As became clear, neither he nor some others in the audience were quite sure what Sentamu was getting at. “Saying, ‘I believe in God’ is not enough of an argument to convince my colleagues,” Steve told the archbishop. “And what could we do if Scientologists organized and became a majority and passed laws according to Scientology? How could we oppose that?” Common cause, arguments that could be cast in the most accessible language and according to public reasoning, was surely, in Webb’s view, the more productive way forward. Sentamu’s reply was somewhat quizzical. “If I have a brain tumor,” he said, “I want the best surgeon. If he’s Christian, that’s comforting—but not necessary. But religion is different. This is truth. I am not arguing there should be religious language in every law. Just be honest, and see where the religious, moral, and legal intersect.” For Sentamu, the truth of religion—the truth of the Gospel— has a force and set of demands all its own. A few questions later, one of the visiting congressmen spoke up. “I don’t understand your reply to Steve,” he said. “We’re back to basic rationality. I don’t see a way around making ‘God says’ mean something different from ‘I think.’ ” This was clearly not a congressman who fit the stereotype put forward at the event with Jim Wallis. “God is not to be talked about,” the archbishop rejoined. “Because he’s not the object; he’s the subject. You can’t reduce this to rationality.” Sentamu’s talk and comments that evening have to be understood against the backdrop of a social and political debate that had been taking place over the preceding year, which had culminated just a week

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earlier in an important House of Commons vote. By the light of the archbishop’s beacon, this vote shone directly on the core of how, as he put it in his CIP talk, “the religious, moral, and legal intersect” and why it was so important for MPs to emphasize where the truths of “the story” could be found in them. On 19 March 2007 the House of Commons voted to approve the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 by a division (vote) of 309 to 99. These regulations are what are known as “secondary legislation,” a law passed in order to facilitate the enforcement of existing primary legislation in relation to a point or matter that might otherwise be ambiguous or unclear. In this case the secondary legislation addressed possible limitations to the Equality Act 2006 to address discrimination against homosexuals. Concern over the extent to which the Equality Act 2006 would cover homosexuality had been highlighted in an Early Day Motion by the Labour MP Desmond Turner as early as October 2005 but had not been explicitly set out in the 2006 legislation.7 The exclusion of an explicit acknowledgment of gay rights was reported in the media as a source of tension within Blair’s cabinet. The political editor of the Observer said that “open warfare” had erupted: The battle between what is being dubbed the government’s “Catholic tendency” and their more liberal colleagues centres on proposals to stop schools, companies and other agencies refusing services to people purely because of their sexuality. Tony Blair, who sent three of his children to Catholic schools, is said to be anxious about the impact on faith schools and faith-based adoption agencies, which are demanding to be exempt from the law.8

The Catholic bent to the characterization was shaped as well by the public stance of the Church’s leadership in England. Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Birmingham, said the move to produce secondary legislation showed how the government was “engaged in an intense and at times aggressive reshaping of our moral framework.”9 Nichols and other leading Catholic voices continued to press this line right up to and then beyond the March 2007 vote. In doing so they focused particular attention on adoption agencies; of all the various public service provisions by the Church, adoption was considered most likely to test the limits of the law. Nichols and others argued that secondary legislation on the Equalities Bill would force these agencies out of business because any refusal to assist same-sex couples to adopt could be found illegal. One such agency, Catholic Care, in Leeds, which had already

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been challenged on the basis of the primary legislation, became a symbol of the struggle and the subject of a legal battle that extended well into 2010, when the Charity Commission finally concluded that Catholic Care had to comply with the Sexual Orientation Regulations. It was a bitter defeat for supporters of the agency, not least since the Commission’s decision was a rebuttal of a High Court ruling, in which Mr. Justice Briggs had argued there were “particularly convincing and weighty reasons” for Catholic Care to discriminate.10 Briggs’s ruling was a perfect instantiation of what Sentamu had called for in his CIP talk three years earlier: the need for judges to recognize where the principles of faith and tradition could trump the principles of a more individualistic secular human rights regime. Partly as an effort to manage ongoing tensions within the Anglican communion over homosexuality, the archbishops of Canterbury and York also voiced concern with the Sexual Orientation Regulations. In a letter to the prime minister they argued, “In legislating to protect and promote the rights of particular groups the government is faced with the delicate but important challenge of not thereby creating the conditions within which others feel their rights to have been ignored or sacrificed, or in which the dictates of personal conscience are put at risk.”11 The main issue for these opponents of the legislation was the primacy of that “personal conscience,” a phrase that has occupied a central place in the British political and philosophical imagination since the Reformation.12 Conscience, of course, is private and personal, interior to the subject. It protects the subject’s freedom from the dictates of the state. In a shift from what we have been discussing as the norm in contemporary faith-based politics, it was precisely the idea of religion’s private dimensions that mattered most: the inviolability of belief and freedom of conscience.13 To this basic position, though, Sentamu, at both his CIP talk and elsewhere, began to push for recouping a connection between the law and a very specific history of the Christian moral sensibility.14 In his own speech in the House of Lords on 21 March 2007, Sentamu said “freedom of thought” was “medicine of the Gospel” and had helped give “nationhood to this nation.”15 For Sentamu, and the Christian tradition he champions, the freedom to believe what one wants cannot be divorced from the actions that manifest and instantiate those beliefs. And this much is clear to him: these beliefs have given rise to a nationhood; they map what one of his likeminded colleagues, the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali (2008, 47), called, in a related public intervention, a “national destiny.”

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As the anthropologist Talal Asad (2003, 245) notes, conscience has long been “the hidden seat of self-government” in modern Christianity, through which the believer addresses a fundamental question: “What should I do if I am to do that which is good?” (see also Asad 2012). Sentamu holds fast to this tradition, although it is important not to mistake what Asad is documenting—or Sentamu asserting—by understanding “self-governance” as a claim that the believer can believe what he or she likes. There is, as Asad stresses, a conception of the good, and it is not up for negotiation or subject to human institutions. Where this particular vision differs from that of Parliament as a legislative body is in the particular constitution of “the good.” For Sentamu, the problem with the Sexual Orientation Regulations is that they subsume the logic of the Gospel—which he sees as setting out clear lines on homosexual conduct—to the logic of rights. This is a man who believes the idea of natural law should be reintroduced into the vocabulary of politics. Dave was in a conflicted mood after Sentamu’s talk. The events of the preceding week had made him depressed. “And I don’t get depressed that often,” he told me. It wasn’t just that he disagreed with the Sexual Orientation Regulations; it was the way they were passed that bothered him, because the vote was taken on a day when many MPs were in their constituencies. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor even called the vote an “abuse of Parliamentary democracy.”16 The sting of the Commons vote on 19 March was made worse by the narrower defeat (166– 120) two days later of an amendment put forward in the Lords expressing “fears and arguments” over the Regulations, including the argument that “preventing religions discriminating against homosexuals constitutes discrimination against religions”—a more straightforward way of saying what the Anglican archbishops had written in their letter to Blair.17 Dave said the vote was a sign of the “liberal establishment” becoming “totalitarian” in its positions: hyperindividualized rights at the expense of everything else and a too narrow sense of “equality.” Too many Christians, he told me, were going soft at the wrong moments; this was one of them. But Sentamu’s talk helped Dave bounce back, helped him think that all was not lost. He liked Sentamu. He liked the way the archbishop stood up to be counted and spoke his mind. He’s the kind of Christian, Dave told me, who has “fire in his belly.” I have been emphasizing that while there is much common ground among the MPs who participate in CIP and work with Dave, we cannot lose sight of their differences in opinion—and even, we might say,

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conviction. There was certainly no “CIP position,” on, say, the Sexual Orientation Regulations. As Sentamu’s talk also makes clear, there are strong Christian voices in the public square that do not echo the normative position of reserve I found in the CIP circle about how to constitute and articulate the relationship between religion and politics—not least as it gets defined by the law. Sentamu’s talk allows us to address a related issue: how and to what extent Bible Society’s parliamentary officer makes an impact in his work—and even what impact is supposed to mean. In this instance, at least, Dave’s opinion did not match that of some of the MPs with whom he worked most closely. How did Discourse Dave shape the discourse? This question obviously ties in to the curiosity many people have about the Bible Society’s position on any given issue. As I noted in the introduction, the Society’s commitment to promoting the Bible without “note or comment” leaves many people confused. This commitment was particularly hard to fathom when it came to the job of the parliamentary officer. Those who knew about Dave, or to whom I spoke about my research on a man in Parliament trying to foster Christian community, almost always assumed that Dave was a lobbyist. They assumed he must be there in order to push a particular agenda and a particular vision of Christianity.18 Dave does have a particular vision of Christianity, and he certainly has an agenda. But the extent to which these map onto one another is open to debate. Getting MPs to “think Christianly” was not an effort at disseminating a particular theology. This is not to say that in the course of “relating” with MPs and others over those gallons of coffee, Dave’s discourse fell on deaf ears. He is a gifted conversationalist and mental sparring partner, and I was privy to many heated (if friendly) discussions between him and colleagues from both Westminster and Swindon. But there was a clear range of Christian visions on offer in the talks, Bible studies, and other events in the Palace of Westminster. Jim Wallis is not John Sentamu. And we must not forget that Dave was committed to secularism, in his born-again political scientist’s sense—a space in which human freedom is a paramount value. “You can’t lead people to the cross,” he once told me. And while he was disappointed with the vote on the Sexual Orientation Regulations, it is worth noting in this context that Andy Reed, the very MP who had taken Dave under his wing and given him a desk, voted for them.19 Even within the space of a single MP’s office we can expect different perceptions of what constitutes a sign of the Kingdom.

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The politicians I spoke to were exceedingly wary of lobbyists— especially Christian lobbyists. The Half G-6 all made a point of emphasizing that MPs do not like to be told what to do or how to think by others. (They seem to get enough of that from their party whips.) Andy and Gary were repeatedly insistent on this issue and on saying that Christian lobbyists could be the worst of all. As Andy put it, most of these Christians were from “the nutters’ brigade.” And the worst “green ink” letters he got came from Christians in his constituency.20 Gary too spoke of how “resentful” he became after his election in 1992 of Christian groups “telling me how to do my job.” That kind of thing “just doesn’t work,” he insisted. On this score, there was much appreciation for Dave and Bible Society, echoing what Andy had told me about his initial meeting with James at the National Prayer Breakfast. “The strength of having people who come along and say ‘It’s wonderful that you’re here, we want to serve you and respect you,’ almost irrespective of what you do—that’s terrific,” is how Gary put it. In July 2008 I asked Steve Webb what the parliamentary officer had achieved. “It’s a funny word, achievement,” he replied. “Clearly Bible Society is spending money, and Dave’s putting a lot of time and commitment in, so you want a return on that. But measuring and monitoring— it’s exceptionally difficult.” Steve was not fending off my question; still less was this a diplomatic way of saying the post hadn’t been worthwhile. It was a polite way of letting me know that I was asking the wrong question. One theme that came out again and again in my discussions with politicians was their sense of their uniqueness. Several MPs told me that you cannot understand what it’s like to be an MP unless you’re an MP. Despite the strong relationships he had forged with many MPs, this rule held for Dave as well. Over the course of my research, it became increasingly clear to me that Dave had become something of an insider, a Westminster animal of sorts. He never lost a sense of himself as a lad from Bootle, but he had levels of respect and sympathy for MPs that not many people outside Westminster did. When I saw him for the first time after the Daily Telegraph broke the parliamentary expense claims scandal in 2009, he was pale. Through a constant drip-feed of details, the Telegraph had exposed the outlandish (lightbulbs, rubber gloves), extravagant (duck houses, wisteria trimming, swimming pool maintenance), downright wrong (questionably judged “second homes”), and occasionally illegal (phantom mortgage) claims of MPs through the parliamentary expense claims system. Dave didn’t think the MPs had

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covered themselves in glory or had nothing to answer to, but at the same time he thought many of them were getting a rough ride. Not many other Britons seem to have felt the same way.21 Not long into his reply to my question about Dave’s “achievements,” I realized that Steve had started to think about it in relation to himself, not Dave. This is part of an impulse common in evangelical Christianity, which is so often organized around a constant striving, part of the not yet mind-set to which I have referred. Like Andy, Steve was part of the 1997 election intake. “In a way it’s a frustration to me that ten, eleven years on, I still don’t think we make the impact as Christians in this place that we could,” Steve admitted. “And I suppose I haven’t really answered your question, but, yeah, I don’t feel we’ve moved terribly far.” The argument that “you can only understand religion if you are religious” is very commonly made. This argument is often based on an understanding of religion as a matter of belief, something interior to the religious subject and inaccessible to the unknowing, insincere, or incredulous outsider. That belief is furthermore understood to be framed and made meaningful by practice—experiences and sensations that are likewise interior. The particularity of this argument is not directly relevant to what I want to highlight about Steve Webb’s response to my question (even as it brings us back to points made earlier about the Protestant self). Yet it highlights what I came to recognize as a structurally similar argument by many Christian parliamentarians about their lives and work. Much like religion for the believer, the experience of politics as an MP was constituted by a kind of transcendental core, accessible only through being an MP. And so, again, despite his enculturation, Dave was not native and this mattered in terms of how the MPs understood him. Dave, the MPs often seemed to intimate, could never instigate true inner change among the Christians in Parliament. And while this understanding of inner transformation is rooted in an evangelical, born-again sensibility, we ought to recognize that it was due at least in part to their status as politicians. A good part of what CIP managed to do over the period of my research was prompt consideration about the balance of two commitments, one to the redemptive power of God, acting in history and manifesting signs of the Kingdom, the other to the redemptive power of liberal democracy, as existing within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This was Kingdom and Christendom in some alignment—with the former more important, to be sure. And yet, and yet.

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Parliament in Christians In June 2009 the Evangelical Alliance featured Dave Landrum on its website via its “Culture Footprint” page, which showcases “people of God making a difference in the world today, aiming to be an inspiring presence and telling the story of Christ in the culture.” (Note the ChurchCulture language.) One of the questions put to Dave was, “What has been the political highlight of the year for you?” He answered, “Hearing Gary Streeter MP state in a Commons debate that our faith is relevant because Jesus is alive.”22 Two and a half years after I had asked Gary about just how important it was to him to inject Jesus into his public rhetoric, he was doing just that. The occasion in question was a Westminster Hall Debate titled “Christianity in Public Life,” organized by Andrew Selous. Westminster Hall Debates are distinct from those held in the House of Commons; they were initiated in 1999 and aim to be “constructive rather than confrontational.” MPs participate on a voluntary basis and are arranged in a U-shaped fashion rather than distinct sides; no votes are taken.23 This format offers a way to highlight a particular issue or question in a public forum that is relatively free from the strictures and party-political obligations of the House. Indeed it is a good forum to highlight where cross-party agreement exists. “Christianity in Public Life” ended up being less of a debate in this sense and more of a declaration by Christian members of Parliament, many of whom were members of CIP, to stake out their positions on religious publicity and the state of faith in the nation. There were some disagreements, notably about whether or not Christians are being discriminated against in contemporary society: David Taylor MP (Labour) suggested they were, and he was not alone; in addition to talking so passionately about Jesus, Gary Streeter suggested it was “stupid” to curb the work of Christian organizations funded by the public purse. There was no doubt he was thinking at least in part about what had happened because of the secondary legislation to the Equality Act 2006.24 Sarah Teather MP (Liberal Democrat), however, was “uncomfortable with the idea” that Christians faced discrimination, as was Andy Reed, while John Bercow MP (Conservative and soon to be speaker of the House), expressed his unease with what he understood Gary’s point to be: that Christian groups should have some kind of privilege because they are Christian. As Bercow put it, once again calling to mind the debates of March 2007 around the Sexual Orientation Regulations,

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“Christian faith cannot trump an Act of Parliament dealing with human rights, which are universal.” Beyond the discrimination question the Westminster Hall Debate also highlighted the different ways MPs can understand secularism, some of which hinged on the questions of religious decline and disappearance, while others had to do with maintaining an open public square in which all could participate without fear or favor. But even Evan Harris MP (Liberal Democrat), probably the most well-known humanist in the Commons at the time and a vice president of the British Humanist Association, was perfectly happy with the idea that Christians should play a role in public life—and even publicly so. For Harris, there was no need to leave one’s faith “at the front door when one goes out to work” (as Selous put the issue in his opening remarks), as long as that faith does not impinge on the rights and freedoms of others. Selous’s political theater captured many of the arguments, concerns, and themes that I had heard in my research over the preceding two and a half years, much of which was offstage and very occasionally off the record. What was important about the Westminster Hall Debate was precisely its being onstage and on the record. Here were the MPs being perfectly public. Members of Parliament involved in CIP played a significant role in the debate. Selous was CIP’s chairman at the time, and such group stalwarts as Andy, Gary, and David Drew participated. Sharon Hodgson MP (Labour), CIP’s secretary, made a point of acknowledging that role; she was “pleased” to serve as such and “proud,” more generally, to be a Christian. Dave was pleased and proud as well. Over and above the public declarations of faith, several MPs referred in particular to the importance of the Bible, and one, John Mason MP (Scottish National Party), even quoted directly from the Sermon on the Mount: “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Most of all, though, it was Gary’s speech that stood out for Dave. “Perhaps my most important point,” Gary said, “is that the unique thing about Christianity—the reason why it equips us to engage in public life—is that it is not about a book or a doctrine, but about a living person; it is about a journey or a walk with Jesus Christ, not about a set of rules. It cannot become oldfashioned or stuck in the past, because the person we seek to follow is alive and just as involved and aware of current events as he was 2,000 years ago.”

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Here was Gary showing a kind of fire in the belly that Dave so admired in the archbishop of York. To be sure, public talk in a Westminster Hall Debate does not have the same valence as that which takes place on the floor of the House of Commons itself, and still less what gets constituted in a news media interview or exchange. Each such context is, in important ways, a tightly circumscribed space in which the secular settlement makes different demands and has different resonances. Law, for one thing, does not get made in Westminster Hall or inside a BBC studio. But for Dave, this was a move in the right direction, one in which politicians didn’t need to shy away from their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the justification of their involvement in public life. Gary’s remark was expressing the Kingdom mind-set through and through. Inasmuch as Dave wanted to foster a publicly acceptable God talk, though, there were still many coffees to be had. Near the start of the debate, a telling exchange occurred between Selous and his Conservative Party colleague Edward Leigh MP: Edward Leigh: There is also a view, is there not, that politicians should keep out of the Church and out of religion? Was it not rather depressing when the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said that he could not talk about religion when he was the Prime Minister for fear of being called a nutter? Is that view changing? The current Prime Minister [Gordon Brown] mentioned the story of the good Samaritan in his speech to Congress, and Delia Smith is doing a blog on the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development website. Does my hon. Friend think that politicians should speak out and talk about their faith in a natural way, as he is doing? Andrew Selous: I understand where my hon. Friend is coming from. I think that he, like me, heard the Bishop of London speak yesterday, when he advocated that politicians show a degree of reticence about speaking a great deal about their personal inspiration. We lead by example and we should be open about these matters, but that tradition of British reticence has something in it.

Summary Bible Society’s work in Parliament has helped foster a space within Westminster for evangelically minded Christians to articulate and act upon a vision for the proper relationship between religion and politics. However, as Steve Webb told me, there is an outstanding problem: “We

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all have different views on what that would look like.” No single person can serve as the arbiter in determining what constitutes a sign of the Kingdom. But the politicians involved here are at least starting from the understanding of Christianity as a socially engaged religion, for which retreat from this world is not an option. The work of politics is part and parcel of the work of redemption, which, when carried out according to what Dave calls a Kingdom mind-set, helps realize God’s plan. Action on this plan is manifested at least in part through the parliamentarians’ emphasis on setting an example, of living the kind of relationships that might serve as a model for others. “Christianity is, first and foremost, a relational religion,” the Half G-6 argue in a pamphlet coauthored with two other parliamentary colleagues, “in which people exist and can only flourish in relationships” (Burt et al. 2008, 25). Yet action is only as powerful as it is authentic. As James Catford often put it— and this is a point I’ll return to at the end of the book—“You can’t externalize without internalizing.” He would also often say, “You can’t sell what you haven’t got.” Self-formation is thus a specific kind of private activity, that which is understood as interior to the subject, and necessarily precedes any public program. This is why, for Dave at least, nominal Christians are more worrisome that the self-proclaimed unchurched or even cultural Christians; insincerity is always more problematic than open apathy or even disavowal. Action, though, is also conditioned by the “British reticence” to which Selous referred and which resonates with many of the core points the Half G-6 emphasized to me. To bolster his position, Selous referred to the remarks of the bishop of London, an establishment figure. In doing so he was reinforcing what at least some Anglicans understand as agreed-upon divisions within the British church-state matrix: when it comes to faith, some public figures need to be more private than others. Dave Landrum was not of this view. Neither was the archbishop of York. And while Gary’s pronouncement urged Dave on, it also highlighted the divides that structure the world of politics. In Westminster Hall Gary was speaking reasonably; in the House of Commons what he said would have been “horribly over the top,” to invoke the phrase he used with me. As a statecraft principle, secularism held considerable sway. In all my time with Dave, he never remarked upon the Annunciators— that very interesting phrase “Prayers have been read.” As a Christian wary of establishment, especially when it is seen to operate as an end in itself, this is not surprising. Yet inasmuch as the Annunciators acknowledged the time of God overlaying the time of politics, we might expect

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them to have offered some comfort or hope. But the difference between Gary Streeter speaking in a Commons debate and a ritual beginning to the day is a significant one—not only for Dave but within the broader context of the Society’s Bible advocacy. It is the difference between an institution and an inspiration or, at another level, being born into something and being born again. The risk of the time-honored prayer is that it signals a nominal faith, that the formality of the occasion and the fixity of the words carry no sincerity. The risk is that the prayer indexes Christendom, not Kingdom. Again: selling what you haven’t got. Here the ambience sets an uninspiring scene. It’s the ambience of Christendom. What might have excited Dave even more than what Gary said in Westminster Hall would be to arrive at Parliament one morning to see the Green Annunciator read: “Prayers have been said by the honourable member for South West Devon.” That would be a Kingdom moment. For Gary or any MP to be given the opportunity to pray “from the heart” on the floor of Commons—that would be something else altogether. Such an act would shatter the establishment arrangements. It would signal a secularism born again, free from the formal constraints of ritualized speech and rote action. Because nothing should be ritual or rote in making the Bible heard or in the Kingdom. For God’s agents, the Bible is not a rule book in just this other way too.

chapter 4

Doing God Theos and Public Theology

In May 2009 Theos, the public theology think tank, hosted a debate on the motion “Did Darwin Kill God?” at Westminster Abbey. Over eight hundred people attended, and afterward there was a small reception in Cheyneygates, one of the Abbey’s many beautiful rooms, for invited guests. At one point, as I was talking to Theos’s director, Paul Woolley, and sipping on a pinot noir from New Zealand, we were approached by a member of Bible Society’s Board of Trustees. The trustee was pleased, saying, “Sitting around a table three years ago, we would have been very happy to have reached this point.” From the evening of its launch in November 2006, with a staff of just four people, from an unremarkable office on a busy London road, Theos became part of London’s think-tank scene. Within certain Christian circles it became a regular point of reference, and members of the team appeared at conferences, workshops, and other events, including sessions at the major party-political conferences. Theos received the public backing of Christian politicians and prominent church leaders. Reports and polling research by Theos featured in the broadsheets on a regular basis and in a few instances made it to the BBC’s top-of-thehour news headlines on radio and television. Paul Woolley and Nick Spencer, the director of studies, appeared on BBC News 24, Sky News, BBC One’s The Big Questions, and several other broadcast media outlets and shows. They both wrote for the broadsheet newspapers as well, and Nick became a regular contributor to the “Belief” section of 131

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the Guardian’s online feature “Comment Is Free.” In 2008 Theos began an annual lecture series, the first of which was delivered by the directorgeneral of the BBC, Mark Thompson. Others in the media, such as the Times’s religious affairs correspondent, Ruth Gledhill, and the BBC journalists Christopher Landau and Libby Purves, have covered Theos and participated in its events. Theos has also sponsored events and talks featuring other faith perspectives, including the self-styled Muslim reformer Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations. They have engaged with prominent secularists and humanists in debate and conversation, including Andrew Copson, Hanne Stinson, and Polly Toynbee. All of this has been cause for celebration at Bible House, and the team members at Theos were proud of their accomplishments. This kind of publicity is an important accomplishment in its own right, even as it raises certain challenges. More important, though, and in line with Bible Society’s vision for cultural change, the team members at Theos tried to think in decades, not news cycles. They even had a model as to what this near future might look like. In the months leading up the think tank’s launch, Paul and James Catford often referred to the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) as an important model for what Theos might become. It wasn’t the specific agenda of the IEA that mattered; rather it was the fact that the IEA became so influential in shaping the debates and issues with which it was concerned. The story of the IEA goes something like this. Although it may be difficult for some people to imagine, free-market thinking has not always been influential in modern Britain. Today we are so used to neoliberal economic policies, even if not everyone uses that term, they seem almost natural. Even after the global credit crisis and Britain’s recession, the neoliberal model looks more or less intact. Talk in the turbulent days of 2008 and 2009 of a radical change in the approach to banking and the regulation of financial markets seems to have been pretty cheap. As recently as the 1940s, however, free-market advocates were the minority voice. Such right-wing economists as Friedrich von Hayek, the Austrian émigré, were not influential in policy circles. The ideas of John Maynard Keynes, characterized by the importance of state intervention, ruled the day. For a time Keynesianism was so dominant that it was not even a party-political issue. During and after the Second World War, “the Conservative governments of [Winston] Churchill and

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[Anthony] Eden were no more receptive to right-wing economic thought than the opposition Labour and Liberal Parties” (Denham and Garnett 1998, 32). Hayek’s acolytes were afoot in the early 1950s to challenge this status quo. Chief among them was Antony Fisher, who cofounded the Institute of Economic Affairs in 1955. The purpose of the IEA was to spread the free-market message through the publication of papers and reports. Others soon became involved in the IEA, including the economists Ralph Harris and Arthur Seldon. Over the course of the next twenty years, the IEA set out a case for the overthrow of Keynesianism, slowly building its credentials and credibility among academics and, eventually, politicians. It was not easy. As Harris once said, “We were a scorned, dismissed, heretical minority. There was a preordained path for the state to regulate, to plan and to direct” (quoted in Blundell 2001, 20). By the mid-1970s, of course, free-market ideas were no longer heretical, even if they did not enjoy universal favor. Under Margaret Thatcher the Conservative Party’s economic platform looked nothing like it had in the days of Churchill and Eden. Thatcher was a free-market advocate, and her policies went on to transform not only the British economy but the landscape of what was possible in politics; even the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair is understood by many to have more or less accepted the terms of Thatcherism. As Thatcher acknowledged, Hayek’s work was a major influence on her, and much of that influence came through the channels of the IEA (Ranelagh 1992, ix). No less a source than Milton Friedman declared, “Without the IEA, I doubt very much whether there would have been a Thatcherite revolution” (quoted in Cockett 1994, 158). The point that Paul took away from this story is that a small group of dedicated people who set out their arguments systematically and in depth can help shape the climate of opinion. Such influence can take years, to be sure, and is dependent upon the course of larger historical currents. But if you set your stall in the right place at the right time, capitalizing on those historical currents is a real possibility. Like the IEA, Theos saw itself as a heretical minority, a Christian organization challenging certain aspects of the secular arrangements in public life that, until recently, had gone unquestioned. In line with others on the Bible Advocacy Team, Paul believed these arrangements were fraying, that people were starting to give faith a second look in terms of its social role. “God is back,” he often said. Theos was going to help create the conditions of

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possibility for an alternative to what Paul called the “dominant secular orthodoxies.” Where the IEA led on economic thinking, Theos wanted to lead on shaping the secular settlement. In this chapter I set out the foundations of Theos’s critique of these orthodoxies. As the team perceived them, the problem with these orthodoxies had to do with their unreflexive character, in particular on how to understand “public reason” and the principle of secular “neutrality.” In doing so, we add to discussions in chapter 3 on how Bible advocacy is meant to shape the “cultural driver” of politics. Theos’s work was an important complement to Dave Landrum’s in Parliament, and as we have seen with the discussion of the Jim Wallis event at Portcullis House, Theos was sometimes involved directly in organizing things in the Palace of Westminster. Dave and the Theos team were also of a piece in the sense that they shared the goal of getting Christians (and others) to reflect on and, where appropriate, reshape the contours of public talk. In other respects, however, there were notable differences between Dave and the Theos team, especially in the mediums of their efforts. As a think tank, much of what Theos did was produce reports. “Relating” was, to be sure, central to the agenda; getting to know the key players in and around the political and media worlds was always in the frame, especially for Paul. And yet more than the other Bible advocacy initiatives we’ve looked at, Theos traded in words. And those words circulated in written, textual form: reports, above all, but also polls, press releases, blogs, and even letters to the editors of the papers. Examining these reports and other texts will be a central task in this and the next two chapters. We cannot understand Theos without understanding the documents the team produced—without understanding the published form of the team’s thoughts. All the same, I will not limit the focus to a close reading of texts. For one thing, the relationship between a Theos report and its launch is extremely important, and it’s this relationship I want to focus on in this chapter. As an event, a launch gives meaning and shape to a report, bedeviling its apparent fixity. Events, as anthropologists have long pointed out, always put the stability of structures at risk. The potential payoff of that risk is a meaning or impact that, on its own, the text could not generate. Ideally something happens at an event that matters for the better. This was always the hope for Theos and a key element in how the team staged its efforts. No one on the team ever saw the publication of a report as complete until the animation of its launch.

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The Birth of Theos James Catford started considering the idea for a “public theology” think tank in 2004. He was inspired by the comments and musings of N. T. Wright and Lesslie Newbigin, both of whom came to recognize, over the course of the 1990s, the potentials inherent in such operations. While by the 1990s the IEA had settled into a certain place, other think tanks, such as the Institute of Public Policy Research and Demos, were coming to prominence, buoyed by the rise of New Labour in 1997. James and Paul took inspiration from them too, and in the early days Paul would almost always situate Theos by saying it was modeled on such “secular” think tanks. Theos wasn’t going to be in the church ghetto if Paul could help it. James approached Paul to put together a feasibility study in 2005, not long after the British general election in May. Paul then met with wouldbe peers in various think tanks, as well as key figures in the churches and Third Sector (civil society). In February 2006, with his study complete, he gave a presentation to Bible Society’s Board of Trustees. They liked what they heard, and funding was approved for the creation of Theos. Paul was appointed the first director. Paul had been working for the Conservative Christian Fellowship when he was approached by Bible Society.1 Having just gone through the 2005 election campaign, which brought little joy to the Tories and much fatigue, it seemed a good time to consider something new, though still centered on politics. “It’s always a slightly embarrassing reality that, when I was five, I was really interested in elections and politicians and speeches,” he told me. After graduating from the London Bible College (now the London School of Theology), Paul went to work for Gary Streeter, who was in William Hague’s Shadow Cabinet at the time. As far as Paul knows, he was the only such researcher for an MP with a theology degree, but for him politics and theology were a natural fit. In between his party-political jobs, he did policy work for CARE. What drew him to Bible Society and the Theos directorship were not only the “massive opportunities,” as he put it, for “speaking into the culture” but the chance to do so in an ecumenical register. “I suppose I’m slightly confused about where I am in terms of denomination,” he told me. From an early childhood in the Church of Scotland, he went on to attend Methodist and Baptist churches before joining St. Paul’s in Hammersmith, a well-known, influential, and vibrant Anglican congregation.

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figure 10. Paul Woolley, 2007. Photo by Charlotte Bromley Davenport. © Theos. Used with permission.

Paul set to work on establishing Theos as soon as it got board approval. The launch was scheduled for November 2006—a mere nine months away—and there was a lot to do. The most important step was to commission the inaugural report. Paul wanted something that could cause “good trouble,” a phrase he often used to sum up his approach to unsettling those dominant secular orthodoxies with which he was concerned. There was no question of his writing it himself; he did not go in for lengthy exposition, preferring to deploy himself in the letters pages of the major newspapers or with an occasional column. Even when writing short pieces he labored and sometimes didn’t finish them. “I’m going to let this sit until tomorrow,” he once said about an opinion piece he was working on, which he had been asking his colleagues and

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me about most of the day; the next day he put it off again. Paul did publish, but he preferred talking to people. He liked organizing things. He was good at directing and orchestrating, at speaking coolly and confidently to rooms full of people. Unlike Discourse Dave, Paul looked right in a suit and wrong in a T-shirt. Like Dave, Paul was funny and warm, but his humor and warmth were understated, marked by wry comments that you would miss if you weren’t paying attention. The most incongruous and notable thing about Paul was what he ate: bacon sandwiches, potato chips, and soda for lunch. At dinner once at his apartment, I was served broccoli as a side dish (for baked chicken). But he ate like a young man—and a young man he was, in his late twenties when he took the helm of this new public venture. Although there was no chance of a major report from Paul, he did have a sense of who might be able to do it: a researcher named Nick Spencer, with whom he had consulted during the feasibility study. At the time he was approached, Nick divided his work week as a social researcher between the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity and the Jubilee Centre, based in Cambridge and underpinned by many of the same principles as the LICC. Nick was already well known in Christian circles for his writings on public policy and matters of belief, having published books on Christian approaches to asylum and immigration (Spencer 2004a) and the future of English parish life (Spencer 2004b). A graduate of Jesus College, Oxford, Nick studied both modern history and English literature and later gained experience as a qualitative researcher for a strategic consulting and social research firm based in Farringdon (in London). Although they came from different political perspectives, Paul and Nick saw eye to eye on many of the bigpicture issues facing faith in the public square. As Nick said the first time we met, “God is and will be back on the public agenda. The task facing us is to try and shape that.” Paul and Nick’s approach to shaping this public agenda aligned well with one of their natural constituencies: the MPs who participated in Christians in Parliament. Paul’s former boss, Gary Streeter, said that faith in the public square should be “understated”; Paul and Nick felt much the same way. In this, as we can appreciate, they differed slightly from their friend and colleague Dave Landrum. More squarely than his, their approach was based on the idea that religious actors need to accommodate themselves to public reason. For Nick in particular, the political philosophy of John Rawls was an important point of reference. The views of CIP resonated in other ways. Andy Reed and Steve Webb

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figure 11. Nick Spencer, 2007. Photo by Charlotte Bromley Davenport. © Theos. Used with permission.

spoke of motivation and example, of a faith modeled by action as much as discourse. For the Theos team, such modeling ran up against practical problems because of how much they relied on words. All the same, Paul spoke of his approach to life as a Christian as “incarnational” and “culturally engaged.” As a Christian, he had a duty, he said, to be “speaking into the culture,” addressing the public square on issues of the greatest relevance. “We’re here to demonstrate signs of the Kingdom,” he told me. That’s what being incarnational means. Paul felt a duty to follow Christ’s example of embodiment, of participating in history. Although he did not fully embrace the emergent-style structure of Bible advocacy—or indeed its labeling as such—his own positions resonated in important ways with those of the emerging-church thinkers. Talk about such an

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“incarnational” faith is common in emerging evangelical writing. “The gospel,” writes Brian McLaren (2004, 283), “the story of God’s becoming ‘one of us’ through incarnation, propels Paul on an incarnational ministry to become ‘one of them,’ whoever ‘they’ are.” Paul was indeed following the example of Saint Paul. London was Athens for Theos, the agora in which the team had to risk opprobrium and, yes, laughter to convey the message. An incarnational approach is a culturally sensitive one, a surrendering to “them,” if you will, as part of the task of transformation. This process of surrender (or acceptance) is never whole. The Theos team wanted to challenge particularly the idea that public reason cannot have religious qualities. Its tag line as “the public theology think tank” was one way of making this point. But beyond that the moniker was left underdetermined. Among theologians, public theology can refer to quite specific intellectual traditions and sets of debates.2 For Paul, though, it could be any “intentional theological reflection in and of the public space.” The important point for him was the refusal of a certain post-Enlightenment assumption that the term itself is oxymoronic, that theology is always “private.” For Paul and Nick, that was enough to ask of “public theology.” Not all of their colleagues on the Advocacy Team, notably Dave, agreed; he didn’t like the concession it seemed to allow. In fact Dave didn’t like the term public theology at all. “I don’t know what public theology is, on lots of levels,” he said during a group interview I organized in October 2007 in an effort to gain some clarity on the various positions. We were sitting around the conference table in the Theos office—Dave, Paul, Nick, a colleague from Swindon, David Spriggs, and I. Dave was waving his hands. “I think it’s a problematic term. To me, it’s just natural that Christians should be shaping the contours of the society that they’re in. And I find all arguments against this preposterous. I really do.” Theos occupied a unique position within the Bible Advocacy Team. It operated as a separate concern, with its own boards of management and advisors. You had to look deep into its website or at the back of its promotional brochures to find the link to Bible Society. In the period from its launch through the end of 2009, Bible Society provided onethird of Theos’s annual budget, approximately £110,000, all of which was devoted to the staffing costs of three posts. The funding for reports, research, and other activities had to come from donations, grants, and income generated from consultancy work. One of the largest outside sources of support for a project that I followed, and which I’ll discuss

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further in chapter 6, came from the Templeton Foundation. It was important to James that this arrangement pertain. He wanted clear water between the Society proper and Theos; without any, Theos would have been handicapped. Whereas the Society could function well enough according to the 1804 constitutional arrangement, there was hardly any point in a think tank not offering note or comment. The staff at Theos was nevertheless integral to the Bible Advocacy Team, and Theos’s executive administrator was in regular contact with Swindon over the phone and by email. The staff was expected to attend all Bible Advocacy Team meetings in Swindon, as well as the Society’s all-staff meetings on the last Wednesday of each month. Because Theos was based in London, however, the team’s dealings were mostly with Society staff and directors who worked in and around Westminster. Ann Holt, Dave Landrum, Luke Walton, and David Ashford were regular visitors to the Theos office and often used it as a place to meet. On more than one occasion in my experience, it was Ann who closed the Theos office at night, fighting each time with the tricky alarm system that had to be armed before the door was finally shut. Paul took very seriously the freedom that Theos had. He asked Nick for a fittingly polemical report. The result, “Doing God”: A Future for Faith in the Public Square, was billed as a “rubble-clearing exercise” (Spencer 2006, 67) to create some space on which to build. “Doing God” ended up setting the template for nearly all the work Theos did over the course of my research, and it therefore deserves a close reading. “Doing God” is divided into two parts. The first considers the pros and cons of bringing religion into the public square. One of Nick’s central points is that there are downsides. For the Theos team, faith-based positions need to be handled carefully. All the same, faith-based positions are not, in their view, inimical to public reason and have even helped shaped the possibility that such reason can exist. “Reason,” as we’ll come to see, was a crucial idea for the staff members at Theos; their visions of Christianity drew heavily on the tradition of early modern English theology and philosophy that insisted reason is a gift from God, that Christians must use their minds as critical faculties and not accept arguments on the basis of others’ claims or unbridled belief. In this tradition, reason is the proper counterpoint to what really challenges faith and enlightenment: enthusiasm. Reflecting back, all the talk of “nutters” and the “green ink brigade” by politicians such as Tony Blair and Andy Reed, all the worry expressed by Gary Streeter about “the British way” or, as his colleague Andrew Selous put it (referencing

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the bishop of London), “that tradition of British reticence”—all of these public and political comments can be linked back to what the historian Roy Porter (2000, 96–129) has identified as the particularly British form of enlightenment, one in which faith and reason formed a bulwark against the fevered pitch of enthusiasm and excitement. “Keep calm and carry on” is a very British saying indeed, one I came to see reflected in the public theology of Theos too. The second part of “Doing God” appeals to the importance of three social trends to suggest why faith will play an increasingly central role in public life: (1) the reinvigoration of civil society, (2) the rise of an interest in well-being, and (3) the continuing importance of identity politics for any social critique. We will return to some of these trends later, but for now I would like to focus on Nick’s conceptual arguments. Despite the report’s title, the target of Nick’s good trouble is not Alastair Campbell but rather what Nick takes to be the creed that authorized Campbell’s diktat. Nick refers to this creed as “liberal humanism” and does the reader the favor of offering a long and fairly comprehensive definition of what he understands it to mean. We need not go over all of these details here. The two that most trouble Nick (Spencer 2006, 68) are (1) the interlocking values of personal freedom and human reason, which together might forge “a universally accepted conception of political justice”; and (2) the belief that humanity is the means and the end of any such project. In short, the problem with liberal humanism is that it takes the meaning of reason for granted and, in the process, crowds out any place for God in the realization of a just society. Political liberalism itself is not the problem. One of the core arguments of the report is that Christians cannot rely upon God-talk in political debates. God-talk can often threaten the reasonableness upon which liberals (and perhaps especially liberal humanists) rightly insist. It is incumbent upon the Christian to use a language that is open—in effect, to “endorse John Rawls’ idea that participation in the public square requires publicly accessible thinking” (Spencer 2006, 29). In this vein, Paul and Nick certainly recognized that religion can be a “conversation stopper” (Rorty 1999). Time after time, they would get frustrated by the way some fellow Christians shut down public debate and discussion. They particularly disliked it when Christians protested some cultural event or art exhibition on the grounds that it was “offensive,” forming picket lines and small protests outside some theater or gallery. Too often, in their view, these public protests were overdone and

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reinforced the idea of religion as a conversation stopper, of Christians as nutters. The Theos team was fueled by a slightly cooler fire in the belly than was John Sentamu. John Rawls, one of the most influential architects of political liberalism in the modern era, rests his philosophy on two pillars. The first concerns what he calls “reasonable pluralism, the fact that a diversity of reasonable comprehensive doctrines is a permanent feature of a democratic society” (Rawls 2001, 40); in other words, people have to agree to disagree with each other’s so-called private beliefs, especially in a multicultural and diverse nation such as Britain. The second pillar has to do with how “in a democratic regime political power is regarded as the power of free and equal citizens as a collective body” (40). Furthermore, Rawls argues, “political power is legitimate only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution (written or unwritten) the essentials of which all citizens, as reasonable and rational, can endorse in the light of their common human reason” (41). One underpinning of that reason is precisely to recognize that one’s “comprehensive doctrines”—a term that, for Rawls, includes religious beliefs—might not be shared universally and cannot be used to justify an argument for political legitimacy. It is this basic premise, as we have seen, that guided several of the MPs discussed in chapter 3 and that made Dave bristle—if just a bit. “Saying ‘I believe in God’ is not enough of an argument to convince my colleagues,” Steve Webb said to the archbishop of York. Webb, as we can now further appreciate, was appealing to the logic of political liberalism. (Fitting, perhaps, for a member of the Liberal Democrats.) The Theos team was, as I have said, generally accepting of this position. They did not think that open appeals to God would get very far in the public square. Like Dave, however, Paul and Nick did have questions about the extent to which the meaning of public reason can be taken for granted, as well as the extent to which political liberalism’s attendant version of secularism can be understood as “neutral.” For Nick, there was no such thing as a neutral language, and secular reason itself had to be understood as an ideologically loaded position. The Theos team joined others on the Bible Advocacy Team in thinking that every permutation of what is publicly accessible rests on axiomatic claims, and the only defensible forms of reason are those that recognize this and submit themselves both to internal and external critique. Whereas many liberal humanists see Christianity as inflexible and intolerant, Nick argues, many Christians see liberal humanism in the same

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way. “We deceive ourselves,” Nick (Spencer 2006, 28) writes, “if we say that public reason can be truly neutral, and it is questionable, to put it mildly, that those principles Rawls and others claim to command universal assent actually do.” In taking a middle path, “religious participation within the public square must accommodate itself to public reason, but public reason must be willing to accommodate itself to religious participation” (29). At bottom, what bothered Nick and his colleagues was the unfairness of this secular orthodoxy, the way it caused what the American legal scholar Sanford Levinson (1992, 2066) calls dignitary harm: “To force the religious to speak solely in the language of the secular is to impose a uniformity of discourse that demeans those whose ‘native language’ includes a deeply religious vocabulary.”3 One of the axioms of this secular orthodoxy most troubling to Nick was the presumed value of choice, especially as encoded in the language of “freedom.” His report highlights the conceptual link between political liberalism and the economic liberalism as articulated by such organizations as the IEA. Over time, I came to recognize something of an irony in Theos’s respect for the IEA. It was not respect for its specific policies and agendas; it was about the IEA’s ability to help shape “the climate of opinion.” Indeed, perhaps especially for Nick—and Paul Bickley, the other core researcher at Theos—neoliberal approaches to economy and society were deeply flawed. The problem with liberal paradigms in general is the emphasis they place on the individual, who is or ought to be “free”: free to speak, free to make choices unconstrained by the state or other potentially illiberal bodies. There is a connection, Nick’s analysis suggests, between the logic that underpins the normative version of public reason and the logic that underpins that of economic rationality. Should we not question the fact, Nick asks—in essence, not exactly in these words—that the public square in Britain is anchored by Tesco and the other superstores? Is a landscape dotted by spires really more unsightly? The latter, he concludes, would allow for “a more complex exploration of family and communal life, the survival of local retail ecology, and the protection of workers’ rights” (Spencer 2006, 70). Religion allows us to ask important questions about mutuality, duty, and obligation that liberalisms eclipse. “Doing God” does not dwell long on the argument that faith is inimical to reason, that to be religious is to be driven by passions that necessarily prevent clear thinking. (Rawls is not of this view either, which helps explain why the staff at Theos could see him as a resource.)

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As far as Nick was concerned, such claims are caricatures that can be easily discounted. To do so, he provides a succession of citations from Christians, Muslims, and Jews denouncing intolerance and sectarianism in modern Britain. Evidence is also drawn from the example set by Ann Widdecombe, the Conservative MP and a devout and often outspoken Catholic. Nick (Spencer 2006, 23) points out that early in her political career she compromised her stance against abortion by voting for a bill that sanctioned a woman’s right to have one. True, the bill was aimed at reducing the upper term limit on when abortions could be performed, but the caricature of Catholic reasoning would suggest that, as a Catholic, Widdecombe would never countenance such a move, that it would be impossible for her to compromise her position. In fact, she later reflected, any “absolute position” would only “guarantee failure” of one’s goals in the long term, and political pragmatism won out (quoted in Spencer 2006, 23). If a Catholic MP can vote in favor of a bill that permits abortion, surely religious logic is not inimical to a public reason that exists beyond itself. “Those who are serious about their religious beliefs tend to be serious about the need to debate, negotiate, and compromise” (Spencer 2006, 23). This is thinking that attends to the near future. This vision of Christianity—Theos’s vision of Christianity—is informed by the values of pragmatism and rationalism. It doesn’t mean resorting to cold calculation or surrendering first principles. But it does mean recognizing that change often comes about through small steps, long-term interactions and relationships, and a “realistic” attitude to how one can communicate most effectively. Where “Doing God” slows down in its treatment of arguments about mixing politics and religion is in how we should understand the relationship between fealty to the state and fidelity to God. To whom is the Christian accountable? To frame this issue, Nick cites those well-known words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things which are God’s” (22:21). One reading of this passage is that religion should never be mixed with politics in the first place—that religion’s proper focus is other-worldly or on the inner life. For Theos, this is the wrong reading. This turn to Scripture in the report is justified by the fact that it is the kind of God-talk liberal humanists use to hold the Christian to account. Here is how Nick (Spencer 2006, 31) sketches it in relation to the lateevening BBC television news program anchored by Jeremy Paxman (the BBC’s most tenacious and terrifying journalist):

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It is easy to get a sense of déjà vu when watching Newsnight. That programme, and indeed all those that share a similar format, rehearse one particular scene with such peculiar regularity that it seems almost scripted. The Church has published a report on inner city poverty or the treatment of asylum seekers or some such issue and the Bishop of Somewhere has been called up to explain and defend the conclusions. Questions are addressed and answers offered. Accusations are leveled and refuted. And then, about three-quarters of the way into the interview, the interviewer will almost invariably say something like, “There is a wider question here, isn’t there? Should the Church really be getting involved in politics in this way? Aren’t you in danger of mixing up the things of God with the things of Caesar?” There it is. The Gospel according to St Matthew, chapter 22, verse 21, hacked out of context and dragged under the studio spotlight.

For all those behind Theos, the assertion that Scripture makes an argument for the separation of politics and religion is a grave misunderstanding of the gospel message. But the greatest danger here is not the liberal humanist on Newsnight. The greatest danger is the Christians who read Matthew in the same manner and thus cut themselves off from realizing the full potential of the gospel message. To correct what is seen as this misinterpretation, Nick offers a reading of several passages from the Old and New Testaments to suggest how Jesus’ message is inherently political—although of course not party political. At each step Nick supports his readings by turning to the work of prominent theologians, most notably, in the broader context of Bible Society work, Rowan Williams and N. T. Wright. As the report emphasizes, drawing in this instance on the words of another Anglican theologian, “Rule out the political questions and you cut short the proclamation of God’s saving power” (O’Donovan quoted in Spencer 2006, 32). “Doing God” sets out the parameters of a political theology: “As every God-fearing first-century Jew would have known, ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it’ (Psalms 24:1). Caesar is entitled to collect the taxes owed to him, but they, he, and everything else were owed to God. If this makes Jesus appear indifferent to the plight of his people, it is not because he didn’t care about Roman rule. It was because he believed that in him and with the coming of the Kingdom, everything changed” (Spencer 2006, 36). In this reading of the Bible, “Doing God” claims to locate the ancient source of what has become a modern preoccupation: the very idea of a secular “public square.” The best evidence of Christianity’s reasonableness, then, is its recognition that political authority

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can never be identical to or even derived from divine authority. Despite the many historical instances of Christian powers and polities that have operated according to such identifications—despite the legacies of Christendom, harking back to the observations of chapter 3—the true Christian message is, in Theos’s reading, a politics of differentiation. “The secular was Christianity’s gift to the world, denoting a public space in which authorities should be respected but could legitimately be challenged and could never accord to themselves absolute or ultimate significance” (37). Staff at Theos operated with the understanding that Jesus was, in a way, a secularist. Within the context of debates about public religion in contemporary England, it is not enough for Christianity to be acknowledged a place in the history of ideas. The birth of the secular is not tied in an absolute sense to some late medieval separation of ecclesiastical and political powers; it is present—and therefore still living—in the message of Jesus. What “Doing God” represents, then, is a Christian effort to refashion the very terms of debate, to wrest control of a language that is associated with a liberal-humanist constituency. “The secular public square,” Nick (Spencer 2006, 38) writes, “properly understood, is a Christian legacy and one that requires an ongoing Christian presence to remain true to itself.” Here we are back to a point of Dave Landrum’s as well; he couched it in a more Pentecostal idiom of Kingdom and Christendom, but “Doing God” contributes to the same foundation of political theology shaping the larger project of Bible advocacy. Having explained the intellectual justifications as to why religion is always already public and always already political, “Doing God” continues on this more constructive line by mapping out what are seen to be three of the most important contemporary social issues and trends, the points about civil society, well-being, and the politics of identity. Taken together, these points form the basis for Theos’s argument about the course of history and the opportunities that Christianity has to play in shaping that course in ways that were not evident even as recently as a few decades ago. Again, similar to how a story about the IEA’s rise to prominence is told in relation to broader historical currents, Nick’s report sets the scene for a story about how Christians can make good on social and political trends. Let’s consider each of these trends briefly. Nick tells a story about civil society very much in sync with the master narrative of postwar British politics, of a shift from the statism of Keynes to the neoliberalism of Thatcher. In Nick’s interpretation, the postwar welfare state played a role in faith’s public demise because it

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pushed religious charities to the side; in the welfare state such voluntary organizations are obviated by government provisions. With Thatcher’s breakup of the state, however, the need for a reinvigorated civil society emerged, and faith-based groups once again took up the mantle of social provision (much encouraged by New Labour under Blair). “The sheer extent of the religious contribution to civil society . . . means that ‘faith’ cannot help but be a significant factor in the public square” (Spencer 2006, 44). I noted in chapter 1 that well-being was linked to the Angels project; it was around this time that James and others at the Society started picking up on its importance in public debate. The inaugural Theos report stakes out territory in this field by emphasizing a Christian contribution to the recognition that a market logic has to be underpinned by a moral logic. “Religious groups have long preached (and sometimes even practiced) value systems that have fostered well-being and acted as a counterbalance to the human inclinations towards greed and materialism that are so dominant in our overwhelmingly and overwhelming consumerist culture” (Spencer 2006, 56). As the discussion on wellbeing develops, Nick argues, Christianity will have a lot to contribute. Nick’s discussion on the politics of identity brings the report back to concerns about Christians who act as conversation stoppers—the nutters’ brigade, in Andy Reed’s inimitable phrase. His focus is on what became the signature event of such a politics: the January 2005 controversy surrounding the BBC’s plan to broadcast a version of the controversial West End musical, Jerry Springer: The Opera, cowritten by the comedian (and humanist) Stuart Lee. Among other things what irked some Christians was the part in the musical where Eve attempts to fondle Jesus’ genitals; another problem was that Jesus is portrayed as a man “who wants to poop in his pants.”4 The BBC showing sparked sixtythree thousand complaints, and the West End and traveling stage productions were regularly subject to demonstrations by Christians who said they were “sticking up for their religion.”5 Again, Paul and Nick got depressed by moves like this. The Opera controversy predated Theos’s launch, but during lesser storms that broke out during the period of my research, I could always tell how frustrated Nick was by such tempests by the extent to which his hair was tousled at the end of the day. In the context of “Doing God,” though, he reversed tack and connected such protestations to the sense of marginalization that many Christians feel. For Theos, the real issue here is the extent to which a human need for a coherent identity and respect has been undermined by the normative

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demands of liberal humanism. In effect, “Doing God” argues that if the kind of Christians who did not like Jerry Springer: The Opera had a stable platform in the public square, they would not feel the need to react so extremely. (In his 2008 Theos lecture, Mark Thompson actually referred to the fact that, during the Jerry Springer fracas, he had to be given added security by the BBC.) “It is public recognition and not suppression of religious beliefs, motivations and identities that contributes to social harmony,” Nick (Spencer 2006, 64) writes; the “poison of fanaticism” (63) will only grow stronger the more religion is excluded from the identity debates. When the demands of public reason cause dignitary harm, this is the resulting risk. “Doing God” aimed to cause good trouble in two ways: first, to be critical of what is seen as a liberal-humanist sense of ownership of what constitutes public reason; and second, to be critical of Christians who either have not accepted the basic requirements of reasonable public debate or, even worse, do not think that God should be brought into any such debate in the first place. It is perhaps worth noting, before moving on, that the justification for causing good trouble was presented in the inaugural report as having little to do with the opinions of Nick Spencer or Paul Woolley or anyone else associated with Theos or Bible Society. Through this intervention, Theos presented itself as simply being true to the gospel and the hand of history alike. This really struck me in my initial meetings with Paul and Nick. A public faith, they always said, is what Jesus would expect, and a public faith is what the contemporary moment demands. The report “almost wrote itself, really,” Nick told me; writing it “was fun.”

The Launch of Theos It was all well and good for Nick to be having fun. He didn’t yet work for Theos—he joined as the director of studies in January 2007—so sorting out the details of the launch were not his responsibility. Paul did have to handle the event, and he knew how important the initial impression would be. Not that he ever showed signs of stress and strain. Paul was as calm and collected that autumn as he always was. But he knew the inaugural report could only ever be as good as its launch. A lot depended on the initial burst of publicity. For the launch, Paul—working with Nick, Ann, James, and others— decided to host a panel discussion at the Lewis Media Centre, which is in Millbank Tower, just up the River Thames from Westminster. Among

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devotees of politics—political “anoraks,” as they’d be called in Britain— Millbank Tower is well known for having housed the Labour Party’s 1997 General Election headquarters. During that election campaign, the Tower became increasingly associated with New Labour’s skill for spin, and the Media Centre’s auditorium was often used for Labour campaign press conferences. The first thing to note, then, was that Theos was about to do God in the same place that gave birth to Campbell’s wedon’t-do-God politics. The Centre’s auditorium had been refurbished since the early New Labour days and was decorated with screen-print images of well-known British journalists. These were not, in other words, the kind of images with which Christians normally surround themselves. Just in terms of the space and its associations, the message of the launch was that Theos—and God—belonged in the political and media mix. (While the Labour Party has long since moved out of Millbank Tower’s expensive offices, the Conservative Party subsequently moved in, maintaining a certain continuity of associations.) This message was reinforced in the composition of the panel that was convened to discuss and debate Nick’s report. While the foreword to “Doing God” was written by Archbishop Rowan Williams and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the two most senior churchmen in England, the launch panel was given over to journalists and politicians. Edward Stourton, a presenter for the Today program, the most important radio news program in the United Kingdom, was the chair. Panelists alongside Nick included Labour MP Frank Field, Guardian columnist and associate editor Madeline Bunting, and Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby, a Liberal Democrat peer who has had a long career in politics, media, and the academy. This A-list roster in an A-list venue attracted good attention in Christian circles and even a little outside them. I arrived at the launch half an hour early—well in time, I thought, to position myself in the foyer as the anthropologist. But canapés and wine were already being served by young people in T-shirts emblazoned with the Theos logo, and the space was filling up, so much so that the catering staff had a difficult time navigating the crowd with their trays. I took a spot next to Philip Poole, who introduced me to the chairman of Bible Society’s Board of Trustees; several Bible Society staff had come in from Swindon to show their support. Before the panel discussion started I also had the chance to meet Robert Wright, the rector of St. Margaret’s Church and chaplain to the speaker of the House of Commons, and Steve Chalke, the head of Faithworks, an influential evangelical organization. At the end of the

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figure 12. At the launch of Theos, November 2006. Photo by the author.

evening, I cornered David Ashford and asked him to point out all the journalists he could spot. He ran off a list of names of people from the mainstream and church presses and also pointed out a few church media personalities, such as Giles Fraser, a vicar in Putney at that time, who could often be heard on Today’s “Thought for the Day,” a slot of just under three minutes, somewhere near 7:45 in the morning, given over to faith-based reflection. (Fraser had a penchant for talking about Umberto Eco and Ludwig Wittgenstein as much as God.) There were a handful of MPs in the audience, including Gary Streeter. Rowan Williams was there. During the panel discussion, I sat next to a woman in her late twenties who, to my surprise—this being London—introduced herself without any identifiable reason. Let’s call her Annette; she worked for a well-known Christian charity and knew Paul Woolley from his days at CARE. As I left I met another friend of Paul’s who worked for the royal household; he was wearing a very stylish threepiece suit. In composing the guest list, it is not surprising that Theos reached out in particular to leading Christians in churches and influential organizations, and friends most of all. As with all Bible advocacy work,

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Theos is partly Church-facing. This community focus was reflected in the panel as well; while all the panelists had made their names in lay professions, they were also all Christians.6 The very presence of these figures on the stage was part of Theos’s overall message for the evening: Christians are already standing tall in the public square. Having a diversity of standpoints was another considered choice. Paul had wanted to foster a sense of a Christian community but also to dispel the image of Christian homogeneity. In the course of the evening’s discussion, it became clear that the panelists did not always see eye to eye. Helpfully, as it turned out, in terms of generating debate, Bunting and Field questioned Nick’s argument that Jesus provides a good model for political action. Field, the career politician, stated plainly that “the message of the New Testament is not good as far as political action goes” and worried that Theos hadn’t made clear exactly how it would play a role in the political conversation. Bunting more or less agreed with Field on this point—giving Nick the chance to reiterate his position—but not much else. Indeed for a portion of the evening, focus shifted away from “Doing God” altogether. Bunting was gobsmacked by some of Field’s comments; most notably, she could not comprehend his claim—prompted by a question from Stourton about Islam’s place in the national culture—that only Christianity could count as an “English religion.” Islam did not count, or at least could not yet, Field observed, because it lacks sufficient historical roots. His rough cut-off point on this score was 1,500 years. Bunting and Field also disagreed about the state’s disposition toward religion and the nature of secularism. “I am a Christian,” Bunting said, “but I am also a secularist in many ways. I think the state has an important role to hold the ring. Secularism is a Christian concept and we should embrace it.” “I think the state is deeply anti-Christian,” replied Field. Nick sided with Madeline Bunting on secularism, which gave him a chance to talk about one of his key points in the report, and indeed a key Bible Advocacy Team line. Addressing Field, Nick implied that Field was overstating any institutional prejudice: the state could not be called anti-Christian, in Nick’s view. Lest Nick take any comfort from Bunting on these points, however, she interjected that, regardless of how historically minded and level-headed Nick might be, “Doing God” was not savvy enough when it came to the matter of what she called “extreme religion.” The people shouting about Jerry Springer: The Opera—not to mention radical Islamists—would continue to dominate the news headlines if Theos insisted on peddling a mild-mannered Rawlsianism. Being

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British Christian had its drawbacks; you can’t keep calm and carry on if that means ignoring wider social dynamics. The Theos team were not happy with the us/them tone of the evening; it was not entirely what they had aimed for, despite the strategy in “Doing God” of drawing lines between Christians and liberal humanists on one level, and reasonable and unreasonable Christians on another. Thus the risk in events. In the context of the launch, the Theos team found the oppositions drawn between Christianity and other religions particularly disappointing, not least because “Doing God” was not framed in relation to Islam or other faiths. Field was largely responsible for this slant, but it was also something Baroness Williams hit upon, when she said that Christianity is the only world religion with a viable model of equality. The strength and relevance of these dividing lines were reinforced toward the end of the evening when, at one point during the Q&A, Stourton asked if there were any Muslims in the audience. No hands went up. An audible ooohh rolled across the auditorium, followed by a few tsk-tsks. “It was too closed,” Paul Bickley said to me as we were leaving the hall. He was shaking his head. Annette, the woman I sat next to, felt the same. “The usual suspects,” she concluded. “But still, I’m really glad that Theos is being launched.” Over the next few years, in fact, I saw Annette at several other Theos events. Paul Woolley had invited key figures in other faith communities to the launch and told me how disappointed he was that more did not come. With hindsight, though, he admitted it was probably not so surprising. Certainly after the “Doing God” launch, Theos made more of a concerted effort to participate in and support interfaith dialogue. Paul, for example, started participating in a project called Scriptural Reasoning, which drew together followers of the three Abrahamic faiths to talk about their sacred texts in comparative perspective. More publicly Theos invited Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi, to deliver the second annual Theos lecture, in November 2009. At the start of his lecture, Sacks told the audience he was a “huge fan” of Theos, an interfaith endorsement that the team really appreciated. Paul and Nick also started to engage representatives from nonreligious groups, such as the British Humanist Association and National Secular Society, in public debate. But the feeling on the launch night for “Doing God” was that Theos had missed the balance between building solidarity and challenging community.7 The us/them tone was reinforced in media coverage of the launch. None of this coverage made much of the absence of other religions or

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specific gaffes on Islam. The Other in question was almost invariably the aggressive atheist. Michael Burleigh, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said the “inauguration of Theos is an encouraging sign that intellectual Christians in Britain are not going to flee the battle that militant secularists have long declared.”8 The Manchester Evening News and Yorkshire Post Today ran stories (adapted from Ruth Gledhill’s article in the Times) highlighting the claim by Williams and O’Connor in their foreword to the report that “public atheism is itself an intolerant faith position” (Williams and O’Connor 2006, 11).9 Martin Newland, writing in his blog for the Guardian, wished Theos well but said they “haven’t got a prayer” in a public climate where an organization such as the National Secular Society could “[dismiss] Theos’ attempts to find common ground between religious people and secular society as ‘nasty, smallminded and controlling.’ ”10 A. C. Grayling, the humanist and philosopher, called “Doing God” “confused” and said, “The phrase ‘religious thinktank’ has a certain comic quality to it: for faith at its quickly reached limit is the negation of thought.”11 In Grayling, then, Theos found its laughing Athenian. Bunting tried to help Theos out of the trenches, to clear some ground for Theos to stand apart from the opposing sides. In her online column in the Guardian the day after the launch, she wrote: I left with a gloomy sense that I had been in a holy huddle for a few hours: a group of people so tightly introverted that they have developed their own peculiar laager mentality—that odd combination of defensive insecurity which becomes overly assertive and smugly superior. With these kinds of friends on top of the vituperative enemies the infant Theos has already attracted from the likes of the National Secular Society, the thoughtful director, Paul Woolley, has a tough task ahead of him. Few (particularly on this site) will be overly concerned by that and indeed will be willing failure on him. But for those of us still interested in having an intelligent conversation in this country about a phenomenon which powerfully shapes the world, that would be a depressing outcome for a brave venture.12

There were other reasons for Theos to have expected the reaction it got. The launch of its website just a few days before the Lewis Media Centre event was organized around a posting from the theologian Alister McGrath called “The Dawkins Delusion.” McGrath’s was the first in a series of postings as part of a “Current Debate” feature and garnered 152 replies over the month of November—very high for Current Debate standards (in fact the second highest number of posts in the period 2006–9). From this perspective, it was Richard Dawkins, not

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Alastair Campbell, who served as the bête noir of public theology— indeed of theology and even religion altogether. Dawkins was, without doubt, the single most important Other for Theos. For everyone involved with the think tank, and the Bible Advocacy Team more generally, the rise of “new atheism,” heralded by the publication of The God Delusion in 2006, was greeted with a mixture of disbelief, dismissal, and invigoration. For all this, it would be a mistake to reduce Theos’s agenda to a critique of new atheism. As I will explore in chapter 6, there was a very strong commitment to such a critique, prefigured, as we have seen, in “Doing God” and Theos’s other early efforts at publicity. There is an important connection between secularism as a political ideology and its more general deployment within the new atheists’ championing of the Enlightenment. In the remainder of this chapter, however, and throughout most of the next, I want to continue to explore how Theos sought to cause good trouble for the “dominant secular orthodoxies.”

From Brave to Boring ? The second Theos report, Coming off the Bench: The Past, Present, and Future of Religious Representation in the House of Lords (2007), was written by Andrew Partington, a freelance researcher, and Paul Bickley. It offers something of a contrast to “Doing God” and can serve as a good complement to what Nick set out to do. Paul Woolley knew that a rubble-clearing exercise was the way to start but that, afterward, Theos needed to get specific. So with some rubble cleared, Theos drilled down to the matter of religious privilege and constitutional reform, some of the toughest issues in determining any future secular settlement. Coming off the Bench focuses in particular on the participation of bishops in the House of Lords since the Thatcher era, as well as what position they might occupy in a reformed Second Chamber (the term for the House of Lords). During the period of the report’s conception, late 2006 and early 2007, noises were being made that the House of Lords might undergo a further round of reforms after those introduced by Blair’s government in 1999. That initial effort, which resulted in the House of Lords Reform Act 1999, was part of the Labour Party’s 1997 General Election Manifesto pledge “to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative.”13 The Act was a step toward realizing that promise, reducing the number of hereditary peers to ninety-two—down from well over five hundred.

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Nothing changed as a result of this Act in terms of representation by the bishops, or “lords spiritual”; since 1847, there have been twenty-six Church of England bishops sitting in the Lords by right of station or seniority.14 And we might recall here, from the tour with Dave Landrum, that the bishops even have their own benches—and the only ones with arm rests. In March 2007 the House of Commons did undertake several new votes on reform, including one that got an outright majority for a fully elected Second Chamber. Coming Off the Bench was addressing directly these developments. Notwithstanding the votes and accompanying political discussion, nothing changed in Britain’s constitutional arrangement that spring. Not that anyone at Theos was certain it would, but the prominence of the debate was well timed for the team’s purposes, and there was a sense among them that it was really only a matter of time before more reform took place—reform that would certainly challenge the future existence of lords spiritual. Paul Woolley wanted to get Theos on record as to what might be the best course of action. Once again Theos was tackling an issue that had to do with perceived differences between religious and secular viewpoints about the constitution of the public square. In his foreword to the report, Paul Woolley (2007, 10) chastises “twitchy secularists” for their opposition to the bishops. Partington and Bickley (2007, 22) do likewise in their introduction, at greater length: “There are, of course, those who dream of a utopia of secularized political institutions from which the remaining vestiges of religious interference are removed. They ignore the fact that every historical attempt to create a secular political space has failed. Indeed, there is no logical connection between a secular constitution and a secular political environment—the United States is one example, Turkey another. Even here, the growing role of religion in civil society means that attempts to secularize political institutions are unlikely to succeed.” Drawing on a range of sources, including a House of Commons Paper, various White Papers, and documents from the Archbishops’ Council, what Partington and Bickley aim to show is that there is nothing to be twitchy about. The bishops are, in the end, most important as a “symbolic reminder of the spiritual and moral needs of people in general” (51). Focusing on the period of time since Thatcher came to power, in 1979, up to 2006, Partington and Bickley highlight that bishops almost never produced the kind of incendiary outbursts that twitchy secularists might associate with a religious disposition. Nor had the bishops

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seemed bent on a staging a coup d’état. Indeed, in the main, bishops had rarely turned up in the Lords en masse, and when they did individually turn up, they did not always vote and almost never spoke. It is true that when bishops voted, it tended to be on “religious” and “ethical” matters, but their numbers were so small that it never swung an outcome. What is more, when they did speak, more often than not their arguments rested on some body of material easily accessible to public reason; they cited statistics, not Scripture. In any case, their positions often ran contrary to the government’s, giving the lie to any argument that an established church works for the establishment: under both Thatcher and Blair, bishops voted against the government whip twice as often as in support (Partington and Bickley 2007, 44). While after 2000 there is some evidence that the bishops’ trend of absenteeism and ineffectuality slowed, “bishops [are] outsiders in political debate, and their Christian world-view rarely has any part in the formulation of the policies they have come to debate and vote upon” (15). The bishops, it would seem, have read their Rawls. Coming off the Bench’s recommendation in light of this record, and in light of the likelihood that future reform would diminish the bishop’s bench, is for the Church of England to embrace proactively a smaller representation. Partington and Bickley (2007) argue that the depth of twenty-six seats could easily be reduced. A smaller bench could be a more dedicated bench. Moreover the report advocates voluntary participation over rights of station and seniority on the assumption that it would draw men with an explicit interest in political and legislative work. As Paul B. put it to me, in slightly more casual language than was included in the report, “There are particular bishops who have not even made one contribution. Part of that is to do with them as individuals and what their lives are like, what their skills are. . . . It’s a bizarre system . . . [and] no account is made of whether you feel like . . . you can participate.” The report also leaves open the question of whether other faith groups ought to have representation, arguing that religious pluralism might be able to draw marginalized religious voices “into an open political conversation” (Partington and Bickley 2007, 48). And indeed, in the long run, Paul B. has said, no one should “die in a ditch” over religious representation at all. Paul B. studied politics at York University and upon graduating, headed, like Paul Woolley, to Parliament, where he worked in the office of Andy Reed as part of the CARE intern program. Like Woolley, Paul B. also then went to work at CARE. After four years in the job, he was

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laid off and spent a few months unemployed (during which he “did a lot of baking” and “went to the gym a lot too”). Although they came from different political perspectives, the two Pauls had plenty of time for each other, and Paul Woolley hired Paul B. as Theos’s first staff researcher. Officially Paul B. worked half time for Theos and half time for Bible Society; at Bible Society, as I mentioned in chapter 3, his job was organizing the annual National Prayer Breakfast. But Paul B. was a policy wonk really and always preferred political talk to gathering the great and good in “high priory” fashion. Paul B. told me constitutional reform is “dry and dusty and boring.” At the time he said this, November 2006, I had no reason not to believe him, because I had no idea what “constitutional reform” in the United Kingdom might mean (since, as an American, I had never really understood how the British could talk about having a “constitution” in the first place). But I was quickly disabused of the notion and came to realize his characterization was slightly mischievous. Reform in the House of Lords is not boring. While it may not be an issue the public wakes up worrying about, there are devoted followers of these matters in the public sphere and public square alike. Indeed by tackling the role of bishops head-on and doing so in a manner that would satisfy neither twitchy secularists nor the lords spiritual, Theos was once again aiming for some good trouble. What is interesting in this case of trouble is that, for any twitchy secularists, the message was bound to fail. For organizations such as the British Humanist Association and the National Secular Society the idea of privilege for any group in politics is anathema; it does not matter if that group is influential or not, and still less if it agrees to a smaller share of representation than it currently enjoys or abides by the normative principles of liberal democracy. Paul B. did want the report to speak to secularists and hoped that the analysis might smoke some of them out of their liberal holes; he had a sneaking suspicion that at least some secularists sounded Rawlsian not out of any commitment to liberalism but simply because it was a more convenient cover for criticizing the voices of bishops because they were bishops. All the same, it was my sense that the twitchy secularists in this context were, more than anything else, a rhetorical counterbalance to Theos’s main target: the Church of England. This report stung the establishment and those within Parliament and politics who supported the status quo. The launch for Coming off the Bench was a discrete affair, more like a seminar than the public performance for “Doing God.” Under the

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auspices of their somewhat unpredictable friend, Frank Field, Theos hosted a breakfast in the Palace of Westminster for about thirty-five people, including MPs, bishops, and “lords temporal” (the formal term for “secular” lords). The bishops who attended and spoke were, as the Theos team expected, not very happy; one in particular criticized Theos’s report on several grounds, not least that it played into what he called the “secularist agenda” that had, in his view, been gaining ground in Parliament and the country over the preceding decade. One Labour MP agreed with him. “There’s an aggressive secularism out there,” the MP said. “They’re a small group, but if you go forward with some kind of Christian line, you will get serious resistance.” As far as these two men were concerned, Theos was letting the side down. One Conservative MP, however, disagreed with their perspective. “In my constituency it’s still okay to be an Anglican,” he said. “So there are different currents operating, depending on where you’re from or where you are.” Others welcomed Theos’s proactive stance, and some wanted to push the point about pluralism, especially the young man there representing the United Synagogue (someone Paul had gotten to know through the Scriptural Reasoning group). Once more the question of an anti-Christian bent to the structures of political life became a major topic of conversation. But given the format of this event—casual, relatively intimate—Theos was able to direct the conversation in a way that had not been possible with “Doing God.” Paul, Nick, and Paul B. were working hard to prevent a holy huddle. The differences of opinion among guests as to the existence or strength of a secularist agenda was helpful in this sense, and something the Theos team wanted to impress upon its audience. The United Synagogue representative’s remarks added another dimension altogether, forcing the Anglicans present to confront the possible erasure of other positions because of their Christian-secular boundary drawing. Where necessary, Paul or Nick spoke to try to make sure a laager mentality did not develop. But for the discussion as a whole, Paul B. took the lead, since it was his report to defend. (Andrew Partington, who lived in Latin America, was not present.) Paul B.’s main aim was to reinforce the point that the absenteeism matters, regardless of whether it could be justified on the basis of the bishops’ diocesan commitments. The bishops had to be more proactive about their future, he argued. This led one baroness to say that he had a point and that it affected the ability of Anglicans in the Lords from developing links. “We never get a chance to interact with the bishops,” she said, in a disappointed tone. After this the MP

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who said it was still okay to be an Anglican in his constituency admitted that he had not even realized the bishops were around so infrequently. What slowly dawned on the parliamentarians was that they didn’t know enough about what their colleagues elsewhere in the Palace were up to. In this sense, the breakfast performed the important function of focusing minds and attention. Theos’s intervention on this constitutional issue was above all about rallying stakeholders to some action—partly to shape the future of the lords spiritual and partly just to encourage more fellowship in the halls of Westminster. By the end of breakfast the conversation had turned general, to some provisional reflections on the practical application of the conceptual challenge set out in “Doing God.” How, if at all, should the amount of God-talk in politics be limited? As Nick saw it, the lords spiritual were doomed to extinction if their argument for continued inclusion was made from tradition. Bishops could not say “This is how it’s done” or “The Church of England is part of our heritage.” For Nick, the question was: How can the Church of England, or indeed any religious institution, make the case for inclusion on the basis of public good or public reason? He was picking up directly on the most important conclusion of Coming off the Bench. “Religious representatives,” Partington and Paul Bickley (2007, 51) write, “will need to live in the tension between meeting a bar of acceptable public reason and honouring their own traditions.” Some participants in the breakfast seminar worried that ideas of “public good” and “public reason” were dangerous; they could be wooly, relativistic. As one Bible Society trustee put it, some public goods are immeasurable, and as a Christian he believed in some immutable truths. Sometimes, he said, bishops cannot use statistics to make their points and ought to use Scripture. At least one guest, a former Conservative MP and cabinet member, did not want to abandon the argument from tradition at all. “What’s wrong with tradition?” he asked. “Standing up for the status quo in this instance is a good thing.” By and large, though, the guests wanted to explore Theos’s emphasis on public reason; the payoff might be a structural role for faith based not on precedent but on persuasion, which could only strengthen the legitimacy of a public Christianity. “The underlying issue is legitimacy,” Nick argued. It was imperative for Christians in politics to get this point. In strict terms, Rawls’s philosophy does not prohibit the expression of comprehensive doctrines. He says that the introduction of “reasonable comprehensive doctrines” is often useful; “it has the advantage of

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citizens informing one another of where they come from” (2001, 90). But the principle of legitimacy in Rawls’s vision will always insist “basic institutions and public policies should be justifiable to all citizens” (89). For Rawls, though, religious belief always constitutes “nonpublic reason” (see 92–93)—it could never be justifiable to all, and if it was, it would not, by definition, be “religious”; it would be part of “the general beliefs and forms of reasoning found in common sense” (89–90). It’s on this aspect of the liberal political program that Theos wanted to force further debate. In each of the first two reports, Theos was trying to complicate the Rawlsian understanding of “political society” (92)—the public square—as something that existed apart from the rest of the social order and as something that had settled rules of play. The similarities and differences between the first and second reports tell us about the different strategies that Theos developed to advance its agenda. “Doing God” was a concerted effort to engage what Theos perceived as two sides in a lively and increasingly acrimonious debate about the legitimacy, shape, and scope of public faith. It was an announcement to the people and organizations involved in or attentive to this debate that a new participant had arrived. As Frank Field observed at the “Doing God” launch, exactly what Theos might add to the mix at that point in time was unclear, although Nick Spencer had promised only some clearing of the rubble. As Paul B. put it to me, this was an important exercise, and he thought the influence of Nick’s report would be appreciated with time. “Anybody can say, ‘Aren’t the National Secular Society bonkers?’ or ‘Isn’t Richard Dawkins a pain?,’” Paul B. said. “But having an intelligent conversation about the issues that are being raised—I think you’ve got to be a mature participant.” The basis for one such conversation was set out in Coming off the Bench, a report that continued to play off certain religious-secular divides and debates, but that was, in its details, a challenge to the Established Church to articulate its case for continued participation in political and legislative matters and to increase its impact in the process. “Doing God” was about setting the groundwork for Theos’s long-term credibility, but equally a short-term publicity exercise. Coming off the Bench was, in some respects, the more genuinely provocative report, but its provocations were aimed more toward the Church and were not intended primarily to generate headlines in the mainstream press (although Paul B. said he would have been happy if it had). Theos had been reacting to signs in the late winter of 2006 and early spring of 2007 that further reform in the House of Lords was imminent—making the report

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timely—but the real purpose was about building long-term credibility with one of Theos’s most important and influential constituencies. Theos was juggling constantly the pressures and challenges of taking faith public, many of which seem to make contradictory demands: be sweeping and yet specific; timeless and yet timely; sensational and yet sober; proactive and yet reactive; brave and yet, alas, boring. In the next chapter, we step back to look at how Theos operated as an organization and how this illuminates the demands, dangers, and rewards of publicity.

chapter 5

Good Trouble and Good Timing The Theology of Publicity

During the period of my research, Theos rented a second-story office on Buckingham Palace Road, just a two-minute walk from London Victoria train station. Like many office spaces in central London, it was not fit for purpose; it used to be residential and retained traces of an Edwardian home. There were some beautiful fireplace mantles, for instance, but it was not spacious and had been done over in a generic workplace aesthetic: fire doors to each room, square-paneled carpeting, fluorescent lights. The office comprised four rooms off a central hallway, with a staircase running up one side. Theos had to share the hallway space, since it was the only way the people who worked on the floor above them could get to their own offices. Most of the activity at Theos took place in the front room, which overlooked the busy road. Paul Woolley, Nick Spencer, and Jennie, the executive administrator, each had desks in this room, where their computers hummed away. When Theos first moved in, in the autumn of 2006, the space had been refurbished; you could smell the new carpet and freshness of the paint for a good month. But it got scruffy fairly quickly, and the decorating effort I kept expecting was never undertaken; the walls were mostly bare, except for newspaper articles and Post-it notes radiating out from the wall above Nick’s desk. Paul B. had a desk in the first of the two middle rooms; that room was much quieter but not as bright, and he had to contend with boxes and bookshelves with the back stock of Theos reports and promotional flyers. Next to this was a small galley kitchen and an even 162

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smaller bathroom off the kitchen. (The space was so tight that to get to the bathroom you needed to close the kitchen door just to open the bathroom door, and then shift yourself around, almost as if you were trying to squeeze through a fence.) The back room was actually pleasant. It overlooked a well-tended garden (unfortunately not one the Theos staff had access to) and had a small, if somewhat disheveled library of books and magazines. There was a round meeting table in the center of the room, which could fit six people, and a flat-screen television was tucked discretely in one corner. A hard-backed poster with the Theos logo graced one wall, and sometimes there were flowers on the table or television sideboard. This is the room the team used for formal meetings or to watch the news during lunch, and it also served as a workspace for an intern (if they had one) and any Bible Advocacy Team staff that happened to be in London and needed a place to set up; Luke Walton, David Ashford, and Ann Holt were all regular visitors in this regard. By and large this is where the Theos team spent their time. Paul and Nick came and went for talks and meetings, but they usually made it into the office for at least part of each day. Jennie was almost always on hand to make sure things were running smoothly and to field telephone calls. Although Paul B. worked only part time for Theos, his other parttime position, coordinating the National Prayer Breakfast, meant that he was around the Theos office a fair amount, given its proximity to the Houses of Parliament. The nature of think-tank work means that the staff could have often worked from home or otherwise remotely, but as I found out during my interning in the summer of 2007, Paul expected a more or less normal workday presence. (I was told one day, “Matthew, if you want to ‘be’ an intern, you have to be here by 10 a.m.”) The only time the office was fully closed was the last Wednesday of every month, when everyone had to go to Swindon for the all-staff meeting at Bible House; to make the most of the trip, Ann usually scheduled Bible Advocacy Team meetings on the same day. The vast majority of what the Theos team did takes place in dayto-day office life. Think-tank work is not all panel discussions and breakfast seminars. In this chapter, I consider what that daily work involves, the issues it raises, and how it connects to Theos’s agenda and public-facing activities. It is important to understand these rhythms of the workday to understand how public theology gets done. It’s in these rhythms of the workday that we get a sense of the promises and demands of publicity

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for a small organization seeking to make itself and its cause known. As we saw in chapter 4, publicity of one sort or another is a near constant need, and in the first year of Theos’s operation it sometimes seemed to be an overbearing one for the team. But from the start, Paul and the others stuck to a conviction that short-term and opportunistic media exposure could never be enough to establish their long-term credibility. Theos produced twelve reports in its first three years, and these are without doubt the most substantive, proactive pieces of work produced. Substance takes time, though—not to mention resources; even for the reports that staff did not author (seven of those twelve reports were written by external consultants), the editing and feedback the team provide are laborious processes. Moreover although the team had been relatively successful in getting the timing of major reports right, the nature of news cycles and media coverage means that it is not enough to rely on what the team perceives to be topical issues; whatever is relevant when a report is conceived may not be when it is delivered, which could be four to six months later. The reports are also not enough in the sense that Theos could not rest easy with such infrequent public interventions; they needed more regular exposure. Speaking at events was helpful in this regard, and, as we’ll see, so were media appearances and publications. Even writing letters to the editor matters and indeed was in some ways the most impactful type of intervention. The event- and story-driven commentaries quickly became an increasingly reliable staple for the team, especially after Nick started writing for the “Belief” section of the Guardian’s online feature “Comment Is Free” (CiF Belief). But in terms of published research, Theos also did smaller projects inspired by particular events, which might be called its more “reactive” work. Polls were a large part of this and a particularly good way to generate headlines. To take just one example, on 12 July 2007 Theos published a poll on British attitudes toward religion, and in particular attitudes toward Islam. The poll was not commissioned in relation to any larger project; it was prompted by the failed car bombings in London’s West End on 29 June and an allegedly linked attack the following day at Glasgow International Airport, where a medical doctor, Bilal Abdullah, and an engineering student, Kafeel Ahmed, crashed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gasoline canisters into the terminal.1 The background of the assailants, as well as the backgrounds of those suspected of being linked to the planned London attack, framed this story as one about “Islamist terrorism.” Theos used the poll to promote interfaith solidarity and to argue that, despite the fact that 71

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percent of people thought the bombings “gave Islam a bad name,” 60 percent of respondents said Islam is a “religion of peace” rather than a “religion of war.”2 In the press release, Paul urged that the results be used to “foster social cohesion and avoid any ‘clash of civilizations.’ ” This poll yielded a valuable BBC News story, one that made it to the second-story slot in the hourly radio news headlines for the full day of its release.3 The poll allowed Theos to set out its position on the importance of interfaith solidarity; because not much of Theos’s sustained work addressed the place of Islam or other non-Christian traditions, this was a particularly valuable reactive intervention. As the breakfast seminar on House of Lords reform showed, liaising with politicians was an important job for Paul, Nick, and Paul B. The more respect they built within the halls of Westminster, they reckoned, the more likely their opinions and arguments would matter. Perhaps because Paul and Paul B. had worked for MPs in the past, this kind of networking seemed to come naturally for them, and I never knew them or Nick to get particularly worried about whether they could get the ear of a politician, and still less worried about how to comport themselves. In terms of the political world of Westminster, Theos was on solid ground. The news media world, however—the world of journalists and their newspapers, of BBC reporters and presenters—was much less sure footing at first. “I’m scared of journalists,” Paul once told me. Even with an increasingly strong track record and with Theos being reported on or called upon quite regularly, this world remained difficult to navigate. Part of the issue is that having a journalist interested in what you have to say is not enough; what you have to say also has to compel the journalist’s editor. There is in addition a built-in unpredictability to media work, especially with television and radio news and programming, because a segment or interview can be cut if something unexpected comes up that an editor or producer considers more pressing. The team worked hard at developing Theos’s media coverage. The last few weeks of July 2007 give us a good sense of this, coming off the back of the 12 July poll on British attitudes toward Islam. The dominant concern in the office at the end of the month, though, was on how and when to launch the third Theos report, Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown: Citizens, Patriots, and the Prime Minister, by the consultantresearcher Stephen Backhouse (2007). Paul had met Backhouse at Oxford, after Paul had given a talk there, and it seemed a good idea to address something to do with the British politician who was, at the time

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he and Backhouse broached the topic, the politician most on the make. The report provides an analysis of how Gordon Brown, who became prime minister at the end of June 2007, had used the rhetoric of patriotism and citizenship in his speeches over the preceding twenty years. During the spring of 2007, as Brown was gearing up for the premiership, he focused increasingly on a career-long interest in how to define “Britishness” and why it is important to foster a national identity and love of country. In February he used a speech at the Commonwealth Club in London at a seminar on Britishness to argue that “more and more people are recognizing not just how important their national identity is to them but how important it is to our country”; moreover, he said, “we know that other countries have a strong sense of their national purpose, even a sense of their own destiny.”4 Brown regularly highlighted faith groups as an important source of this national destiny, and the team saw in his premiership a chance to do some God. Backhouse identified two main elements to Brown’s political vision that had emerged over the years, the “national” and the “neighborly,” and argued that the latter could make the most difference in improving people’s lives; patriotism, the “national” element, is not bad per se, but Backhouse, echoed by Woolley and Spencer in their foreword to the report, is quick to point out its dangerous excesses. Civic cohesion around neighborliness is, all three argue, a much stronger social glue. On 18 July there was a strategy session in the Theos meeting room to consider the timing of announcing the report. There was not going to be a launch event—not immediately, at least. Summer was not the best time to rally Westminster anoraks.5 But to maximize media pickup for the moment, Paul wanted to continue with what was becoming a Theos formula: commission a poll to coincide with the report’s publication and use the resulting data to help spin the report. This particular poll would focus on British attitudes to patriotism and neighborliness, with a comparative question asked about British perceptions of patriotism in the United States. The comparative question was prompted by the fact that Brown was about to go to the United States for his first visit as premier. The visit would be a major news story, not least because Brown was known to have a cooler attitude to President George W. Bush than had Tony Blair. Every detail of the visit would be scrutinized for what it said about Britain and America’s “special relationship.” Backhouse’s report played off one of the potential fault lines in this relationship: the difference in transatlantic opinion on how closely to embrace (and express) patriotism, an

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embrace that, in the opinion of some British observers, had dulled the edge of American politics after 9/11. The message of the report, which Paul hoped to augment with the polling data, was that Britons did not and should not go in for the levels of patriotic fervor that Americans are sometimes seen to possess. If there was any frisson during the first BushBrown meeting, it was hoped that Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown might get taken up by the press as a talking point with which to explore transatlantic tensions. But there was a hitch: as of 18 July, the exact date of Brown’s visit had not been announced by Downing Street (only adding to media speculation about rifts between Downing Street and the White House). Theos needed to do the poll as soon as possible and hope that Brown didn’t leave for the United States until they had the results back. Luckily for Theos, Brown did not end up going to meet Bush for what was to be a twenty-four-hour trip to Camp David, Maryland until Sunday 29 July. This gave Paul plenty of time to think through the poll’s findings and craft a story from them. The results of the poll turned out to be helpful. In sum, 43 percent of people polled agree with the statement “The United States offers a poor model of patriotism and Britain would do well not to follow it”—a good number with which to work if there were obvious strains between Brown and Bush and if journalists were looking for secondary material with which to enrich their stories. And 68 percent of people favored “a more neighbourly society,” as opposed to 16 percent who favored “a more patriotic society.”6 This figure could also help draw U.K.-U.S. distinctions, with the added benefit of fitting Theos’s public theology agenda. For there was indeed a faith element to all of this, and one that Theos believed would not be lost on its Christian constituents. As presented by Backhouse, Brown’s focus on good neighbors could encourage churches both to deepen their civic engagement and to legitimize such engagement in the first place. It was a focus that brought together all three of the social dynamics Nick Spencer had recognized in “Doing God” as shaping a future for faith in the public square; this was a story about Christianity’s role in civil society, the increasing importance of well-being, and the politics of identity—all rolled into one. The message to Christians was thoroughly biblical: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19; see also Leviticus 19:18). The report and the poll encouraged churches to participate in discussions in the public square. And the report itself deals at key junctures with the question of religion. On the positive side, Backhouse stresses the biblical values of

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community, especially as exemplified in the story of the Good Samaritan, and how these can be encouraged through a vision of the neighbor. And yet ostensibly biblical values, Backhouse (2007, 27) also suggests, when churned through the machine of patriotism, can lead to a “pseudotheology” that transfers “the absolute character of Christianity to the nation.” This, Backhouse writes, citing a string of critics of Bush’s invocations of God and Nation, is the dark side of faith that can be fostered under the guise of patriotism: “A narrative of patriotic identity might rally the troops, but it will not necessarily improve society. . . . The narrative of the neighbor, as embodied in the tale of the Good Samaritan and elaborated in subsequent Christian ethical thinking, offers a more appropriate and fruitful story for twenty-first century Britain” (61). The Bible was in this report. God was being done. And the Theos team was fully in line with Backhouse on the message. But it was unclear to Paul and the others how to fold the faith-based message of neighborliness into a press release that would interest mainstream news media. It wasn’t even clear that Theos should try. By Friday morning, 27 July, it was time to craft the story. Paul needed to get it to the newspapers that weekend, embargoed for a Monday release. David Ashford happened to be working at Theos that day, which gave Paul the opportunity to get his advice on exactly how to pitch it. “I’m worried that the research will fall between two stools,” Paul said to David. Politics or faith? If the press release for the poll and the report went out with a strong emphasis on how neighborliness is a biblical value, would the political angle still be sharp enough? Would the papers pick it up? David agreed it was a difficult situation and pressed Paul on whether he could indeed deliver two things at once. It was over lunch that Friday that Paul admitted to me his fear of journalists. (Paul’s lunch: bacon sandwich and a Coke.) And it was during this conversation that I realized just how ambivalent he could be about “the news.” At one point, we got on the subject of think tanks in general and how they operate. I had spent much of that morning trawling the web for transcripts of Brown’s speeches; Paul was hoping I might find a reference to patriotism that would play well into Theos’s message. (I didn’t.) On the basis of my interning experience, I remarked that I couldn’t imagine what think tanks did before the advent of Google. With a slight tone of regret in his voice, Paul replied it might have been more like what academics can do: dig down and get on with “proper” research. (I didn’t raise the question of whether or not academics ever do much “proper” research.) Everything in the think-tank

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world, he said, seemed to have to ride the wave of events. The headlines: that’s what mattered. Thinking for thinking’s sake was less an option than he thought it would be when he launched Theos. Paul spent that afternoon at his desk, fine-tuning the press release. At one point the phone rang. It was the producer of the Sunday program on BBC Radio 4, one of the BBC’s key “religious interest” programs. The producer wanted to know Paul’s thoughts on the religion stories that had been running over the preceding week, including a story that had been dominating the headlines over the preceding two days about Shambo, the “sacred Hindu cow,” that had been taken and destroyed— after a protracted legal battle—by the Welsh authorities, from the Skanda Vale monks, because the cow had tested positive for bovine tuberculosis. The monks had argued that destroying the cow was an infringement of their civil rights, and one brother even said the authorities would “have to desecrate the temple to get him”; Shambo was, in the end, given a lethal injection and escorted off the monks’ premises by two lines of uniformed police officers.7 Paul and the producer also discussed recent cases involving Christians in court battles, such as that of Nadia Eweida and a sixteen-year-old student, Lydia Playfoot, who was forced by her school to take off a chastity ring because it contravened the school’s no-jewelry policy. The Playfoot story is one that Theos had remarked upon at the start of July, posting a commentary on the website in which Nick argued that Playfoot did not have a good case on any faith-based grounds to protest the school’s decision; for Theos, her religious beliefs were “largely irrelevant,” and she was “courageous” “but not right.” Chastity rings, Theos argued, were not essential signs of Christian faith, and chastity itself is not an “essential article of faith.”8 The Playfoot episode was, in the team’s view, not well reasoned. Now, at the end of the month and in light of the Shambo case, Sunday wanted to host a debate on this kind of “litigious religion.” “Religious groups feel alienated, and there’s a big divide in society,” Paul told the producer. “The law is becoming the instrument for conflict resolution as a result—which is a bit heavy-handed.” The producer asked Paul if he would come on the program that Sunday and talk about the issues. Paul was hesitant; he was scheduled to give a sermon on the south coast and didn’t want to renege. He asked the producer if Nick Spencer could do it instead. The producer was fine with that. Paul said he’d have to call back: Nick wasn’t in the office, so Paul had to call him to confirm. Paul reached Nick a few minutes later. Nick was happy to do it. Paul called the producer back and set the whole thing up. Just before they

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finished their conversation, Paul mentioned that Theos had some new research he could send to the Sunday team—important work on neighborliness that raised interesting issues for faith groups. Maybe Sunday would be interested in that too? On Monday, 30 July, the main news day for Brown’s visit to America, Theos published the press release on Backhouse’s report. It read almost entirely as a “political” story: Only one in seven Brits is happy with the way society is at present and nearly seven out of ten (68%) want it to be more neighbourly, according to new research published today by Theos: the public theology think tank. Only 16% of people want to live in a more patriotic society. . . . 43% of people believe that the United States offers a poor model of patriotism which Britain would do well not to follow.

The release went on in this vein, emphasizing the political angle to the findings and its timeliness: “The publication of the poll comes as Gordon Brown makes his first visit to the United States since becoming Prime Minister and coincides with the launch of a new Theos report.” It is only in the last line of the press release that any of this is linked to faith, when, in a quote from Paul Woolley, it states, “Ultimately, it is good neighbours, not good patriots, who make the best citizens. This presents faith communities in the U.K. with a real opportunity.”9 Paul’s decision to frame Theos’s research as a political story was based on a practical calculation of how, in the end, it might have the most impact. The suggestion that the research presents faith communities in the United Kingdom with “real opportunities” was anemic, at best, at least in terms of how a mainstream news organization might read it. This would not prevent Theos from making secondary pitches to faith communities after an initial, hopefully eventful moment in the news. Indeed the panel discussion that Theos hosted later in the year drew out a faith-based message more thoroughly. But in going with the political angle for the July press release, Theos was also trying to fulfill its mission of operating outside the “religious” box. The goal of Theos, after all, as with all Bible advocacy work, is to challenge the idea that “religious matters” can be bracketed off. If the report on Brown got taken up in the political sidebars because of the light it shed on transatlantic differences in the attitude toward patriotism, so much the better. On the morning of 30 July the Theos office was thick with the air of suspense. Would there be any takers? Only two papers had picked up

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the story in their pre-workday postings: the Scotsman and the Daily Mirror. By 10 a.m., having made occasional trawls through the news websites, Paul let out a groan of disappointment. There was nothing else. A few minutes later he had to leave; he was due in Swindon for a Theos board meeting. Nick and I continued with other work. About half an hour later the phone rang. It was the BBC! Just BBC Humberside, though, one of the regional news outlets. They wanted to talk to Paul about the patriotism research. Fine, good. A little while later the phone rang again. This time it was for Nick: a producer from BBC One Television’s Heaven and Earth show. She had heard him on the Sunday program the morning before, talking about litigious religion. She and Nick spoke for about ten minutes rehearsing the general issues. Then she asked if he might do a prerecorded piece as part of a package Heaven and Earth would be doing the following Sunday. Sure, Nick said. Then he called Paul and told him the news. “I know,” Nick said. “You launch a report and nothing happens. But something unexpected picks up.” And that was it for July: nothing much on Backhouse’s report. Theos’s most notable media success in July 2007 was not the result of a major research project and accompanying poll but two phone calls about an unrelated religious-interest story. It was these phone calls— rather than the press release, rather than the carefully timed work—that gave Theos another round of exposure on two of the BBC’s national programs. In the big picture, of course, these two kinds of work— proactive and reactive—are not unrelated. Journalists and producers call Theos because of its expertise; that expertise results from research. Credibility begets publicity and vice versa; they are two sides of the coin in these efforts at producing public theology. But as the examples we’ve just discussed suggest, publicity is the product of contingency as much as credibility.

Chaplaincy Serendipity helps too. A bit of luck can make a difference. To round out this discussion of Theos’s media work, I want to consider how one such lucky break developed out of a conversation Paul Woolley had with Archbishop Rowan Williams. The particularities of this case also allow us to examine another way in which secularity gets defined in relation to matters of faith. As with the angels in Swindon, this project allowed the Bible advocates to capitalize on a certain publicly accessible and legitimate form of spirituality.

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In August 2006 the Daily Telegraph reported that the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals National Health Service (NHS) Trust was about to cut six of its seven hospital chaplains as part of an effort to rein in a projected £30 million deficit.10 The Anglican bishop of Worcester, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Birmingham, and some community groups protested the cuts, but by October it was clear the Trust still intended to implement its decision. At that point, the Church of England issued a press release in which the archbishop of Canterbury gave “his strong support to the work of hospital chaplains” and said he would be “consulting with colleagues and other Church and Faith leaders to see how best we can continue to press the importance of religious and spiritual care with the NHS, upon the Government and upon local NHS Trusts.”11 In terms of the government position, there was actually not much to worry about. The Department of Health had an in-principle policy of supporting chaplaincy, backed in large measure by a 2003 report, Caring for the Spirit, produced by the South Yorkshire NHS Trust, which commended chaplaincy provision and set out a strategy for keeping it as vibrant and effective as possible in an increasingly multifaith society. While grounded in a notion of religiosity, the nature of such provision was left open-ended and was often referred to in the report, as more widely within society (Heelas and Woodhead 2005), as part of a “holistic” approach: “Spiritual healthcare is an important aspect of healthcare and the work of chaplains has widespread support. Holistic care includes care for the physical, social, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of the person. All four elements contribute to the health and wellbeing of those we serve. At the same time, providing spiritual healthcare is not just the preserve of chaplaincy because the spiritual dimension is often expressed by the humanity of care offered by many health professions” (South Yorkshire NHS Trust 2003, 10). Hospital chaplaincy also had the support of many MPs and was the subject of an Early Day Motion by Peter Luff, the MP whose constituency was most affected. In the motion, Luff called on the Worcestershire Trust to “withdraw the proposals immediately and instead reduce chaplaincy services in line with cuts to other clinic services”; twentyfive fellow MPs signed it.12 Department of Health policy also stipulated that individual trusts should set their priorities, however, and thus whether or not resources were given to chaplains was a local matter. There were no overt suggestions by Williams or Luff that the Worcestershire Trust’s decision was antireligious; the preferred phrase was “soft target.” This may have been in part because the cause was taken

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up by the British Medical Association as well and thus got cast as bad practice from a clinical standpoint. What is more, because hospital chaplains are unionized, the chaplains in Worcestershire had the support of Unite, one of the most significant unions, which made nothing of the religious angle; for them, this was a fight about labor. All the same, state-funded chaplaincy provision has been—and still is—a particularly contentious issue precisely because of the religion question. In January 2006, several months before the Worcestershire story broke, the National Secular Society welcomed news from the trades union Amicus that chaplaincy would be under threat in the coming year as trusts started to tackle their budget deficits. “It is about time this waste of money was looked at,” said Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the NSS. “The number of people wanting the services of chaplains in hospital must be tiny, but they gobble up millions of pounds every year.”13 This was an argument against religious privilege and even an assertion of how embedding religion within state services was actually detrimental. The fact that Wood had to couch the NSS’s argument in such vague language was indicative of the more general state of affairs. Regardless of where one stood on the issue, or why, what no one seemed to know— least of all the Department of Health—was exactly what chaplains provided, how much they cost, whether they provided value for money, or anything else related to the subject, including whether the decision in Worcestershire was representative of other local-level NHS decisions (as Amicus had forewarned). Despite the “evidence-based” arguments in Caring for the Spirit, none of the stakeholders had much evidence with which to make their respective cases. The publicity surrounding Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust’s decision served as something of a catalyst in this regard. Theos stepped into the breach. For the archbishop of Canterbury, it seems, one of the first things to establish was whether or not other trusts were indeed cutting chaplaincy provision along the same lines as the one in Worcestershire. It would be irresponsible to instigate a moral panic, especially on the basis of an isolated and extreme case; the public needed figures. This was, according to Paul, a point the archbishop raised with him in conversation in early 2007; Paul had gone to the home of the archbishop, Lambeth Palace, for an event, as he did on occasion, and had a light bulb moment about chaplaincy. He saw an opportunity; Theos wasn’t asked by the archbishop to do the work, and doing something on chaplaincy hadn’t been part of Paul’s plan for the year. But it was important for

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Theos to be flexible and respond to matters arising, especially given the provenance of the curiosity in this case. Working with Paul Bickley, Paul Woolley decided to use the Freedom of Information Act to conduct a survey of all the trusts in England. Bickley’s task was to see if the cuts to chaplaincy in Worcestershire were indicative of broader trends. The Freedom of Information Act, passed in 2000 and in effect since 2005, “gives you the right to ask any public body for all the information they have on any subject you choose.”14 The Act was proposed in the Labour Party’s 1997 general election manifesto and championed by Tony Blair in the years leading up to that. In March 1996 Blair gave a speech in which he set out a model of governance based on cooperative relationships he claimed were new. “In today’s world,” he said, “I believe there is a limit to what government can do, and the power of society or community to act and to influence the lives of the individuals within it depends on a far more diverse and diffuse set of relationships than, if you like, a concept of government that would have been more natural or more easily explicable forty or fifty years ago. . . . A Freedom of Information Act is not just important in itself. It is part of bringing our politics up to date, of letting politics catch up with the aspirations of people and delivering not just more open government but more effective, more efficient, government for the future.”15 Like the Annunciators in the Palace of Westminster, here we have an expression of the modern liberal democratic commitments to transparency, accountability, and universal access. Theos was only too happy to avail itself of this new tool.16 And thus it came to be that when I wasn’t sitting in on meetings about press releases or listening attentively to other people’s phone conversations, one of the tasks that occupied my time at Theos in July 2007 was opening letters from NHS hospital trusts across England. Every morning there was a pile of actual, old-fashioned mail to go through as the trusts (or 85.7 percent of them, at any rate; some did not comply) made their legally binding reply to Theos’s Freedom of Information request questionnaire on figures for chaplaincy provision during the 2005–6 fiscal year. It had not been long at that point since Theos had sent out the requests, and so most of what came back were letters saying that Theos should expect a substantive reply in due course. There were, however, some completed questionnaires. From those I tallied, the early results didn’t suggest headline news; there were not many cuts at all. That was fine, Paul told me. As far as he was concerned, no news would be good news.

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By the end of the summer, with most of the substantive replies in, Paul B. began to crunch the numbers. Of the 198 trusts that replied, 47 (23 percent) reported a reduction in chaplaincy sessions available. This amounted to, on average, nineteen fewer hours of pastoral care per week in each of the forty-seven affected trusts. There were also a number of trusts in which some chaplaincy provisions had been suspended but not yet formally cut. In 2005–6, then, Theos calculated that 54,127 hours of health care chaplaincy had been “put beyond use.” Theos also learned that the average trust spends 0.09 percent of its annual budget on chaplaincy provision. As far as Paul Woolley was concerned, this was not the “no news” situation we had discussed in July. The end results were a major story, in his opinion. On 7 October 2007, with all the data collated, a press release went out: In light of recent media coverage about specific instances of cuts in chaplaincy provision, it was widely assumed the situation was being replicated across the board. However, up until now there has been no comprehensive data on this. Surprisingly, the Government does not collect any information on chaplaincy in the NHS. This research represents our attempt to put that right. The findings of our survey will make uncomfortable reading for those who value the unique contribution that chaplains make in the NHS. Chaplains uniquely support patients, relatives and staff, whether or not they have a religious faith commitment. The choice for NHS trusts should not be between the clinical and pastoral needs of patients. Trusts are clearly under serious financial pressure, but if they are to provide holistic care the provision of appropriate chaplaincy support must be a priority.17

It would not take long for a casual observer in England to notice just how worked up the English can get about the National Health Service. Much of the national-level media coverage of the NHS is negative, but this is almost always in an effort to stir the sentiments of loyalty both to the principle of universal health care and the actual system set up in that Keynesian heyday of the late 1940s. Indeed one could argue that the only thing the English love more than complaining about the NHS is the NHS itself. It is certainly no fluke that while all of the major political parties criticize the shortcomings of NHS services, they simultaneously express their fealty to its existence and promise to protect it. Any mention of cuts and NHS in the same breath inevitably creates worry. Inasmuch as Theos was breaking a story about cuts in the NHS, then, it was bound to garner some attention. Yet I don’t think even the Theos team was expecting this project to get as much play as it did. There was a fairly usual run of stories in the papers after the press release, with

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the Times, the Church Times, and the Jewish Chronicle all picking it up. This was decent coverage but far from outstanding. In addition, though, Channel 4 News, one of the most important television news outlets in the United Kingdom, posted the story on its website, and that helped spread the word. The real break, though, came from the BBC, which first reported it on its Sunday program but then folded the story into the main BBC news headlines—an important shift for Theos, of course, since it took the story out of the “religious interest” box. For an evening and a morning, Theos again had the second slot in the headline news, and Paul Woolley was invited onto BBC News 24 for a live television interview. Just as important as this media exposure, however, Theos’s research prompted a statement from the Department of Health, which reiterated its commitment “to the principle of ensuring that patients and staff in the NHS have access to the spiritual care that they want, whatever faith or belief system they follow.” The research was also picked up by other groups, including Ekklesia (another Christian think tank, which I discuss in the conclusion), Unite, the British Humanist Association, and— perhaps not surprisingly—the National Secular Society. Almost overnight Theos was shaping the terms of debate on NHS chaplaincy provision in the public sphere. Debate, however, may not be the best word. Of all these interested parties, only the NSS was spoiling for a fight. Even the British Humanist Association, which usually makes strong arguments for the disinvestment of religion from state institutions, instead stressed the need for humanist chaplains to work alongside faith-based professionals (albeit all from privately funded sources, not out of state coffers). In its criticisms, though, the NSS took a no-holds-barred approach. It announced in a press release, “The National Secular Society has welcomed news from the Christian ‘think tank’ Theos that the amount of money from Health Service budgets that is being spent on the salaries of vicars, priests, and imams in hospitals has been cut back.” The NSS president, Terry Sanderson, is then quoted as saying, “I’m sure if push comes to shove, most people would prefer to have two extra nurses in the hospital than another vicar. This is a service that should be provided by the churches at their own expense. As it is, chaplains are parasites on the hard-pressed resources of Health Care Trusts. These cuts should give encouragement to other hospitals and trusts to make similar savings. Few people will miss the chaplains, who like to talk up how important

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they are without producing any evidence to support such a contention.”18 Sanderson’s remarks provide another example of just how deep sentiments can run on the provenance of public religion. And in referring to state-funded chaplains as parasites with overblown senses of themselves, he was certainly spoiling for a fight. In this instance, however, the religious-secular and Church-Culture divides that often structure public discourse on matters of faith in England did not develop in the usual ways; within Christian circles, at least, any impulse to cry foul over an aggressive secularism was complicated—and, in a way, confounded—by the spectrum of support the chaplains received. As with earlier public murmurings in 2006, most of those in the wake of Theos’s research in October 2007 took it for granted that chaplaincy provision was a good thing. Theos found itself leading the charge for a much broader coalition of actors than usual, with unionists and doctors alongside a more typical phalanx of church leaders and Christian activists. Rather than being the religious oddballs, the Theos researchers were defenders of the faith, so to speak—faith in the sanctity of the NHS and a model of holistic care. The opportunities here were not lost on Theos, and by using the chaplaincy research they were able to develop the argument set out in “Doing God” about society’s increasing interest in how to define well-being. The statistics alone clearly did the work of generating concern and interest within the media, think tanks, and other NGOs: in 23 percent of trusts, over 54,000 hours per year of pastoral care were axed. These were headline-worthy numbers. But in his media appearances, Paul also tried to connect these numbers to the well-being narrative. Chaplains are important because health cannot be reduced to physical well-being. In this context, chaplains seemed to represent something “spiritual” rather than something “religious” and thus were figures with whom a broader spectrum of people were willing to identify. With the chaplaincy project, then, we see another way Bible advocacy has been used to emphasize a kind of ambient faith. Consider this exchange that Paul had with the presenter on BBC News 24, in which Paul brings out the issue of wellbeing against the backdrop of a question probing the issue of religion’s decline: Presenter: [Are these cuts] to do with the fact that trusts are being financially hard hit, or is it because, people would say, actually, you know, well, the churches aren’t as full as they once were, and in

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hospitals as well people perhaps, they go to someone else when they’ve got a problem, perhaps their doctor, or perhaps a friend or a member of the family. . . . Woolley: You’re absolutely right, trusts are being hard hit, and it’s been well reported that there’s a financial crisis within the NHS. But chaplaincy is a soft target . . . and the evidence is, there’s an overwhelming demand for chaplaincy—whether that’s from doctors or nurses who are often having to deal with very difficult situations, or wrestle with very thorny ethical issues, or whether that’s parents having to work through the fact that their child is terminally ill with leukemia. Chaplains are there to provide support. And if we are serious about giving patients holistic care, then the provision of chaplaincy needs to be an absolute priority.19 In the same interview, Paul also tried to personalize the cuts, recounting the story of a doctor with whom he had spoken at Great Ormond Street Hospital, who expressed real appreciation for chaplains, especially after one case involving a young child who needed a bone marrow transplant and for whom the chaplain was a significant help. As Paul put it, “The NHS is under such pressure that doctors and nurses, as much as they would like to, don’t always have the time to deal with the pastoral needs of patients.” Paul admitted to me that the qualitative evidence at his disposal in the autumn of 2007 was actually “far from scientific.” Caring for the Spirit offered some. And in preparation for release of Theos’s statistical research, he spoke with a handful of nurses and doctors (including the doctor at Great Ormond Street Hospital) in anticipation of the fact that he might be asked for particular examples of chaplaincy making a difference. Theos had preliminary discussions in 2008 with another organization about the possibility of conducting more systematic qualitative research within hospital trusts, but this didn’t come to fruition. Theos went on to do a project for an NHS trust in London; although this project didn’t focus on chaplaincy per se, Theos did learn something about the chaplains’ situation locally, and it gave them a broader understanding of the context in which such pastoral care takes place. Even without this fuller background knowledge, on the basis of the statistical research and Paul’s media work, Theos was able to help carry the day for chaplains. Indeed by early November 2007, the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust had reinstated its chaplains. “Robust management has

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eased our financial situation and we are delighted to affirm the work and place of chaplaincy within the organization,” said John Rostill, the chief executive of the Trust.20 Meanwhile an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Chaplaincy in the National Health Service was set up to look into the issue more broadly. Given the degree of cuts across the hospital trust system, as well as continuing opposition to the very principle of state-funded chaplains, Worcestershire’s recantation hardly settled the matter. In June 2008 the Times did a follow-up story on the “fightback” to save hospital chaplains; a month previously, at a congress of the Royal College of Nursing, a motion was passed condemning chaplaincy cuts, with the nurse who proposed the motion saying chaplains “provide invaluable spiritual guidance to patients.”21 For the NSS, however, arguments about value for money and even the invaluableness of “spiritual guidance” never cut any ice, and in the spring of 2009 they launched their own fightback on the fightback. Like Theos, the NSS made Freedom of Information requests to trusts that employ chaplains, asking them how many full- and part-time positions were on the books and the total annual cost. (Unlike Theos, the NSS’s research covered the whole of the United Kingdom; Theos, recall, restricted the focus to hospital trusts in England.) On the basis of the responses that came back, the NSS projected that throughout the NHS system over £32 million per annum was being spent on chaplains. In its report and press release, the NSS presented this figure as money that could be much better spent on front-line medical staff or other more relevant staff, such as cleaners. The NSS claimed £32 million would pay for “around 1,500 nurses, or over 2,600 cleaners,” and went on to assert that they were “confident that if patients were asked if they wanted chaplains or thousands more cleaners or nurses, the vast majority would choose the latter” (NSS 2009, 1). Soap for the secular age! For above all else in this vision, modernity must be clean. This time around, no one in the NSS referred to chaplains as “parasites.” The rhetoric was more measured, and Sanderson made a point of emphasizing to the media that the Society was not against chaplains in hospitals per se. “That’s far from what we’re saying,” he told the journalist Evan Davis during an interview on the Today program. “For a lot of people [chaplains] are important. What we’re saying is, who should pay for them?”22 Not the state; not the taxpayer. In the full report, the NSS also stresses this point but ties it to another line of reasoning in

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which religion gets casts as both intrusive and irrelevant. Like Theos, the NSS could not claim to have much qualitative evidence about chaplaincy’s “impact,” but their perception of the situation differed markedly from what Paul Woolley presented in his BBC News 24 interview: We suspect from considerable anecdotal evidence that the chaplaincy service is not much in people’s minds when they enter hospital for treatment. Their first concern is their physical health and many we spoke to were resentful of the idea of being approached by a member of the clergy. While it is undoubtedly true that the chaplaincy services are useful to and valued by some people, for many, if not most, they are an irrelevance. As Britain becomes a more secular society, clergy are way down on the list of figures that people turn to for advice and support generally, not just in hospitals. Poll after poll shows that religion is increasingly irrelevant to most people’s lives. (NSS 2009, 3)

The NSS based its case on two different kinds of arguments. One is a secularist principle of separation that could be met by the state’s financial divestment. The arrangement could be “secular,” in other words, if chaplains got their funding from their respective religious institutions. The other argument is more pragmatic and, ostensibly, populist: most people would not want chaplains around because they wouldn’t know what to do with them; so, just in terms of rationalization, chaplains ought to go. The combination of these arguments is notable, I think, and provides yet another sense of how difficult it can be to reduce our understanding of “the secular” to a single register. To have the most notable and certainly most vocal secularist organization in the United Kingdom accept that chaplains have a place in public, state-funded institution is an indication of how public-private splits can fail us as both descriptive and analytic terms. In this context, public gets reduced to “public purse,” and privilege is indexed by state funding. Chaplaincy becomes private when provision is shifted to an individual’s decision to request the presence of a religious representative (whether that be a vicar, rabbi, or, even, one supposes, a Jedi Knight).23 Bound up with the understanding of public-private is a secular rendering of what constitutes individual agency. Once again we see how the threat of religion is imagined as the extent to which it robs subjects of their freedom. Andrew Brown is the editor of the Guardian’s CiF Belief forum and a regular contributor to the site. Never hesitant to express his feelings on a subject, when it came to the NSS’s 2009 chaplaincy research he was particularly annoyed. Brown called the NSS’s proposal to withdraw NHS chaplaincy funding “totalitarian in its ambitions” and claimed, “This kind of secularism has nothing to do with evidence or rationality. . . .

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The wonderful thing about the atheist movement in this country is that it shows how all the vices that made religion repulsive can flourish in the complete absence of supernatural belief. The fruits of the movement are hypocrisy, humourlessness, meanness of spirit and triumphalist ignorance, all in the service of a determination that no one anywhere shall enjoy any pleasure or thought that is not approved by them. These tiny fringe bodies (the combined membership of the National Secular Society, the British Humanist Association and all the rest, is less than 10,000) live only in their press releases.”24 For Brown, at least, it is a secularist agenda that strips people of choice. There were 287 comments on Brown’s article—not insignificant for a CiF Belief posting in that period. As usual in such forums, this included a much smaller number of actual posters, many of whom commented multiple times. It also included a diversity of opinions (atheists defending state-funded chaplains, Christians denouncing it) and some frayed tempers. Several people called Brown on what they saw as his misrepresentative and conspiratorial stance. “It’s obvious,” Brown claimed, “that if the [NSS] got its way, its next demand would be for the abolition of all chaplaincy services, however funded.” This was too much for some readers, who duly highlighted the NSS’s insistence that the problem was the source of the funding, not chaplaincy per se. Another issue raised in the comments gets us back to the heart of the matter in this particular debate: how to understand, respect, and best support someone’s suffering. On the one hand, for several commentators, the problem with chaplains is not only structural (who funds them?) but functional (what do they do?). What does the presence of state-funded chaplains in hospitals tell us about society’s values and commitment? Those opposed to it see chaplaincy as an intrusion into what should be the private, intimate space of someone’s suffering. The very first post, by NJS1964, puts this in particularly stark terms: “When my mother died a sanctimonious piece of shit calling himself a chaplain tried to intrude on my grief—the knowledge that I paid for the bastard slightly rankles.” For NJS1964, the hospital chaplain embodies all that is wrong with the institution of the Church: its intrusiveness, its assumption of relevance— even necessity—that overrides personal, private choice. On the other hand, for several commentators, it was precisely the ineffable value of the chaplain as someone who allowed for the social recognition of suffering that mattered. Rarely for a CiF Belief publication, one of Brown’s colleagues at the Guardian, Riazat Butt, the religious affairs correspondent, posted a comment too. Butt’s sentiments more or less summed up

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the general tide of feeling among those who saw the chaplain’s function otherwise: “Basically, once you’ve spent two weeks by your dying dad’s hospital bedside, as I did, I can’t see how I can resent someone, patient or relative, from trying to eke out some comfort, some sense, well anything really, from the entire shitness of a situation that doesn’t involve staring blankly at angiograms or heart monitors.” In suffering and death, chaplains are thus seen by some as allowing for, rather than frustrating, the dynamic between publicity and privacy, intimacy and estrangement. The issue of suffering exposes further cracks in the secular encasement of a “modern” health service. As Linda Woodhead (2012, 21) notes, at its founding “the NHS represented the triumph of scientific medicine over a wider programme of social healthcare and preventative medicine . . . and of secular medicine over religious, or mixed, provision of health and healing.” The formalization and rationalization of public services in the post–Second World War era was assumed by some to eclipse not only religious voluntarism but religiosity per se; it is precisely this sentiment that comes across in the NSS’s call for the primacy of a concern with “physical health” in “a more secular society.” As Woodhead shows, however, and driven in part by a neoliberal emphasis on choice, by the 1990s it was clear that such a model of “secular medicine” had not been realized; “holistic healing then creeps back into the state-run health system” (22), not only through complementary medicine but also, as we’ve seen, by the sanction to “care for the spirit” via chaplaincy provision. One of the most important lessons of the debate over chaplaincy in the NHS is that, for the British public, suffering and well-being have not been secularized in this way. For Theos, being able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the British Medical Association, with labor unions, and with Guardian bloggers was just what they needed in order to make this point. Through this intervention the Theos team was able to help confound the divides that often otherwise structured its work. The universal elimination of suffering is a particular kind of secular promise (Asad 2003, 67–99). It is tied to a “secular idea,” writes Talal Asad, that “ ‘self-empowerment’ can progressively replace pain by pleasure” (68). What we see in Paul Woolley’s remarks, and echoed in the comments of Brown and Butt, are vestiges of a different idea, an Abrahamic idea that the way to deal with suffering is not always to “eliminate” it but rather to confirm our humanity in the face of it. In the Christian tradition this has often meant “an empowerment through the endurance of what Christ was believed to have suffered on the cross” (86). Central to that empowerment—central, I want to argue, to the

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“incarnational” approach at Theos—is the range of social relationships and modes of being made possible, at least in part, by such vehicles as chaplaincy; these are social relationships and modes of being for which the NSS’s articulation of the secular has not yet provided a compelling alternative.25 Refracted through Brown’s article, the core of the debate over hospital chaplaincy gets us back to a point I raised earlier, about Theos’s opportunity to capitalize on an issue that gets cast by many people as spiritual and not religious. Clearly for some, such as NJS1964, the human face of the chaplain is still framed by his institutional connection, and the reaction to this gets expressed as anticlericalism. And yet for observers who, like Brown and Butt (each in their different ways), see chaplains as providing a kind of social solidarity on NHS wards, the argument for chaplaincy hinges on precisely the kind of unspecified and even unspecifiable nature of what passes for “spirituality.” For Theos, however, as for Bible Society, “spirituality” needs mooring. As much as Theos benefited in this case from the ways chaplaincy could get cast as a spiritual issue, for Theos that spirituality had to link back to an understanding of Christianity. As we know, this is not to say that Christianity, as a “religion,” always has to signify an institution, despite what the language of Church and Culture might suggest. Indeed through the chaplaincy research we can gain a further sense of how religion is understood, Bible Society–style. I saw this firsthand during a workshop session Paul Woolley ran in July 2008. It was part of a conference called “Faith in Health” at St. Mary’s University College in Twickenham, a Catholic institution and the only institution in England that offers a course in hospital chaplaincy. The event was attended by delegates from across the country, many of whom worked in the NHS. It was an unusual opportunity for Paul, because he got to present the chaplaincy work to a group of people with an intimate knowledge of the NHS. As in all the talks I’ve seen him give over the years, he began his session to the delegates by rehearsing Theos’s general positions, including especially their goal of making the case for a public faith. “We reject the idea that there has to be a religioussecular divide,” he said at one point, to nods of approval all around. And yet religion, he acknowledged, picking up on many of the concerns that were aired in the chaplaincy debate, can often get pigeonholed as being incompatible with something like “care” in a hospital setting. Paul then moved on to a small-group exercise that was supposed to help his Christian audience understand what he meant. Each group had

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to imagine it was in charge of an NHS Trust and was being asked, from the perspective of management, to consider a simple question: What is religion? The groups came up with five answers. One of the participants wrote them on a whiteboard: •

It’s a barrier, it suppresses people, and it’s full of regulations.

•

It’s a system of belief.

•

It’s something I turn to when I’m sick.

•

A cause of war.

•

Happens once a week.

For these delegates, the outsider’s perspective on religion spelled trouble for the faithful. At best, they surmised, NHS managers might describe religion in the uninspired and blandly descriptive sense as a “system of belief.” The other suggestions range from cynical to downright hostile. “I remember when I was eleven years old,” Paul said to the groups as they mulled over the results, “and learning about Islam. I had to draw a mosque. But that’s not what religion is.” There’s a view out there that “religion” can be fit in a box, he was saying—a view confirmed by the groups’ own reflections and assumptions. But the kind of work that chaplains do is a good example of religion existing beyond its institutional and even embodied forms. In Twickenham, with time on his side, Paul was able to engage his audience in a way that could never happen in the broadcast media. Over the course of the following twenty minutes, he spoke passionately to the delegates about Theos’s research and agenda, emphasizing how and why doing God was making a comeback on the societal agenda. The points made in Nick’s inaugural report—the return of civil society, the emergence of well being, the politics of identity—were second nature to the team by then, and Paul rattled them off without missing a beat. Given his audience, and the theme of the conference, he dwelled longest on the nature of well-being. But he was there to listen as much as to talk. “What’s happening in your areas?” he asked the delegates. What kinds of changes were afoot, both in the religious and cultural landscape, but also the health care sector? The delegates launched into reporting mode. Things are really changing, they said. The influx of Poles to the United Kingdom, on the back of Poland’s entry into the European Union, was reinvigorating local Catholic communities, a few of the delegates said; in another area, Sikhs and more self-consciously

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born-again Christians seemed to have a greater presence than they had a generation ago. One delegate referred to the work of Grace Davie, suggesting that her sociological argument about the erosion of religion’s institutional forms carried weight; what this health care practitioner experienced in day-to-day work was believers who didn’t belong. “What are the opportunities?” Paul asked. “What are the challenges?” The discussion continued as the delegates mulled over ways to make the most of chaplaincy, from how chaplains might contribute to the national push toward well-being to how chaplaincy teams ought to negotiate an increasingly multicultural and multifaith society. Paul was invigorated. He stood there with his arms crossed and a smile on his face. It is important to recognize that for Paul, and for Theos, the fruits of publicity come as much from this kind of opportunity as from appearing in the media. As much as appearing on BBC News 24, this is how the chaplaincy work became another small advance in Theos’s goal of shaping the climate of opinion. Like all good actors in any social movement, Paul and the team at Theos never thought it was a waste of time speaking to small audiences—or even one person. For all the potential benefits of mass publicity, that didn’t mean a Christian committed to public theology should neglect the sole listener. And sometimes it was more satisfying to have an audience than to chase a public. This section began by highlighting the difference that serendipity can make to the work of a think thank. Theos joined the public discussions over hospital chaplaincy because Paul heard Rowan Williams express curiosity over what was happening on the ground; if Paul and the archbishop hadn’t had the conversation they did, the public debate might have been different. Theos surely would have added their voices at some point, but by making use of their liberal democratic rights—availing themselves of the right to make Freedom of Information requests—they ended up leading rather than following. The chaplaincy research and debate are useful for highlighting another important and more general set of points. Public understandings of the secular cannot be reduced to a single narrative. Indeed the roles that secular stories play in publicly enacted debates do not have formulaic outcomes but instead depend on how they are combined in relation to specific cases and agendas. The sense of support for state-funded chaplaincy that came across in the media, what Andrew Brown might call “the world of press releases,” speaks in particular to what sociologists have now long been calling the rise of spirituality, a space in between sacred

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and secular, articulated here in relation to holistic care—care, that is, that deals not just with the body but the entire shitness of situations.

Summary “I’m scared of journalists,” Paul said. This chapter has given us a sense of how that fear can serve as fear so often does: empowering and disempowering at the same time. Theos often sought the kind of publicity that journalists can provide. They needed it. Theos’s public theology in its early stages of articulation was as much about “being there”—being known, publicly—as anything else. To imagine voices in the public sphere asking “What’s the religious angle on this issue?” or “Where’s Theos on this?” had a special appeal as Theos was getting off the ground. For all this, however, for all the anxious moments trawling the newspapers online or waiting for the office phone to ring, I was always struck by the wash of satisfaction and ease that came over the team members when they had those face-to-face moments, be it in Westminster, Twickenham, or even farther afield. They never looked anxious about wasting their time by talking to a small room of people; that could often be public enough and generate the kind of intimate, in-depth encounter that really mattered to them. There was something about the incarnational model of faith that Paul talked about that never squared with the project of publicity. For the theologian Oliver O’Donovan (2000), publicity is something that Christianity should in fact never seek. He sees in it nothing but “intensive unreciprocated visibility” (175) and nothing of what matters in a Christian vision of the world: genuine relationships. Publicity, moreover, emerging as it does out of the modern forms of mass media, is antithetical to the nuances and subtleties of any such relationships. “Publicity thus homogenizes events,” O’Donovan argues. “Throughout the republic of publicity the platitude and the cliché hold sway, creating and reinforcing stereotypical forms that can be easily recognized” (178). Like Michael Warner (2002a)—although in most other respects, not like Michael Warner—O’Donovan emphasizes that publicity entails iconicity, charged with a surplus of eroticism. “Here,” O’Donovan (2000, 185) writes, “a theological critique finds its point of departure. For in publicity we have to do with the social communication of words and images, which Jewish and Christian teachers have held to be supremely vulnerable to the dangers of idolatry.”

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O’Donovan (2000) is not alone in his disappointment with the conditions of modernity or, for that matter, the proliferation of fetishes in the contemporary mediascape. The difference between him and someone like Habermas, though—who also decries the commoditization and commercialization of publicness—is that O’Donovan rejects the very idea that modernity could ever be the solution to the problem of social injustices in the first place. Publicity “belongs to a complex of changes which involve the break-up of deep integrities” (185). Nothing is gained and much is lost. No one at Theos held O’Donovan’s position. If anyone on the Bible Advocacy Team came close it was Dave Landrum. All the same, as we have seen, Theos’s acceptance of the liberal secular was qualified and their quest for publicity shot through with ambivalence. They nevertheless pursued “deep integrity” through the mediatization of their message: reports and report launches, press releases, television and radio show appearances—anything, really, that might secure their position within the public sphere. It was an incarnational approach, one based on the logic of encompassment so central to Bible advocacy more generally, in which the only way to shape the potentials of publicity was to enter into its maze. As we can now further appreciate, an incarnational approach clashes with the idea that the rightness of an argument should not depend on the person making it—again, the “principle of negativity”— that still shapes conceptions of the public.

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Reasonable Religion The Bible tells us how to go to heaven and not how the heavens go. —Galileo (quoted in Sorkin 2008, 14)

The main issue we’ve explored in relation to doing God has concerned the secularist argument about the need for religion to be private. The point of this argument is not to deride religion per se but rather to insist that one keep one’s faith to oneself. This is part of ensuring that no religion has a privileged position in the public square. To be sure, some secularist voices in the public sphere have articulated something stronger and more explicitly antireligious or anticlerical: think of A. C. Grayling’s comment that faith is “the negation of thought” or the CiF Belief posting by NJS1964 about the “sanctimonious piece of shit” hospital chaplain. But by and large, and even in these instances, the formal terms of the arguments have revolved around the public-private question. In this chapter we turn to a consideration of more explicitly antireligious themes within the God Debate and the ways Theos has responded to them. As I will show, the antireligious arguments in the God Debate also hinge in crucial respects on the public-private question. Participating in the God Debate has its dangers. As the Theos team learned at their November 2006 launch, talk about God often devolves quickly into us-them terms, and even hints of division can get taken up in the media and blogosphere to be further exaggerated. In working through how to minimize this danger of polarization, the team realized they would have to work even harder than they had at the launch to drive home the point that Christians do not form a unified bloc against which atheists can be pitted. They also wanted to underscore the fact 188

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that not all unbelievers are contemptuous of religion; you can not believe in God and, at the same time, not think that hospital chaplains are pieces of shit. You can balance a respect for faith with an appreciation of science. By the summer of 2007 Nick Spencer and Paul Woolley had the ideal candidate for modeling such a position: Charles Darwin. For the “new atheists” Darwin is a hero, the man who had the brilliance and the courage to articulate a theory of life on earth that flew in the face of Christian orthodoxies in early Victorian Britain. By proposing the theory of evolution by natural selection—the “preservation of favorable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious”—Darwin (1979, 54) spoke truth to power. He showed that science, which advances on the basis of evidence, not ideology or belief, holds the key to what we are and where we come from. The publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859 “thumped the Victorian solar plexus and drove the wind out of centuries” (Dawkins 2009, 403). What makes this all the more notable for his admirers is that Darwin wasn’t driven by any particular agenda; he did it because the evidence demanded it. And such a “thumping” had far-reaching effects. After Darwin the way we could think about the world changed forever. His findings resonated well beyond the natural sciences. As Daniel Dennett (1995, 62) reminds us, for instance, Karl Marx admired Darwin’s ability to provide a rational meaning for the sciences, and “if Nietzsche is the father of existentialism, then perhaps Darwin deserves the title of grandfather.” Evolution by natural selection, survival of the fittest—“Darwin’s dangerous idea”—is, according to Dennett, the ideational equivalent of a universal acid, something that “eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view” (63). Hero for some, villain for others. To certain Christians, for instance, such as some who follow “young earth creationism” (the belief that God created the universe sometime in the past ten thousand years) or “intelligent design” (the view that living organisms are too complex not to have been designed by some higher power or force), Darwin deserves ridicule, not praise. In their view his dangerous idea dragged Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and into the mud. Darwin was certainly criticized, and even mocked, by some of his contemporaries. The most widely cited example of such mockery is attributed to Samuel Wilberforce, the bishop of Oxford (and son of William). In an eventful debate in Oxford in 1860 with Darwin’s friend and colleague Thomas Huxley, Wilberforce is reported to have said to Huxley, “Tell me, Sir, are you

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descended from an ape on your mother’s side of the family, or your father’s side?” This inspired roars of laughter among Wilberforce’s supporters, underlining what they saw as the absurdity of the idea of common descent (see Hesketh 2009, 76–87). Today some young earth creationists and proponents of intelligent design variously impugn Darwin by slotting him into a line of the great and good among the arrogant godless. They link him not only to Marx, but also, for example, to Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il.1 In this design-creationist calculus, evolutionism plus atheism equals totalitarianism. Accepting evolution commits you to a philosophically and sociopolitically bankrupt vision of the world, one in which there can be no appeal to goodness and right. Darwin has even been seen as upsetting to God Himself. Not long before Theos conceived their project in the summer of 2007, the televangelist Pat Robertson warned that embracing evolutionism risked inviting God’s wrath. Robertson was responding to what became a landmark case in the debate over teaching intelligent design in science classrooms in the United States, centered around a group of parents who were suing the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, to ensure that ID could not appear on the biology curriculum. “I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If you have a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God. You just rejected Him from your city,” Robertson said, as the case was launched. “God is tolerant and loving, but we can’t keep sticking our finger in His eye forever. If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them.”2 Simply in terms of how Darwin was being cast in the drama of public debate, then, he was, as far as Nick and Paul were concerned, a perfect character for Theos to focus on. Like all good characters Darwin had come to stand for much more than himself. The debate over Darwin was a debate over the provenance of science versus the provenance of religion. And yet in Theos’s view Darwin was perfect for another reason. One of Nick and Paul’s central contentions was that Darwin would not stand with Professor Dawkins today, and he would not stand—publicly, at least—against the likes of Pat Robertson. Unlike those who quarrel over him now, Nick and Paul cast Darwin as a respectful man who went out of his way to avoid controversy. “I would as soon died as tried to answer the Bishop in such an assembly,” Darwin wrote in a letter after the clash between Wilberforce and Huxley in Oxford (quoted in Hesketh 2009, 83). Darwin did not court controversy or spectacle. The Theos team wanted to present Darwin as a reasonable man in the sense

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that he knew the limits of his own expertise (in science) and did not seek to extend it into another domain of life (religion). This respectful abstention was all the more poignant, in the Theos version of Darwin’s biography, when we consider that Darwin almost entered the Church as a young man; to be sure, he never had the spark of faith (we should not assume that ordination in the Church of England in the early nineteenth century was necessarily driven by what we would today understand as “belief”), but through his education and marriage (his wife, Emma Wedgwood, was a devout believer) at least he knew something about Christianity. In the contemporary God Debate, ignorance of the other’s standpoint is, from Theos’s perspective, the unfortunate norm. For Nick and Paul, the God Debate is driven more by passions and prejudices than by reason and rationality; almost nothing like reasonable and respectful conversations take place in the public sphere today. What is worse, as far as the Theos team were concerned, the ignorance that pervades makes it almost impossible for such conversations to be had. Nick once spoke despairingly with me about an exchange he had with Polly Toynbee on Premier Christian Radio. He did not see Toynbee as a particularly unruly other; he did not lump her with the new atheists. And yet in the radio exchange, he said with a sigh of resignation, “we talked past each other for six minutes.” Darwin could talk to people. That was clear, Nick realized, almost as soon as he buried himself in Darwin’s extensive correspondence—as he did, for months on end—in preparation for this project. So Darwin was not only reasonable about the limits of his own expertise; he was a reasonable interlocutor. He knew how to communicate effectively with people. And isn’t this really what a public sphere is all about? “Charles Darwin died an agnostic,” Nick Spencer (2009, xi) was to write. “He disliked theological speculation. He believed one could be both ‘an ardent theist & an evolutionist.’ And he hated religious controversy. ‘Why should you be so aggressive?’ he asked the atheist Edward Aveling in 1881.” Here was a brilliant and thoughtful scientist being pushed and pulled all over the public square. Theos was going to rescue Darwin. And by rescuing Darwin, the Theos team reckoned, they could get much closer to their goal of modeling a reasonable religion. In this chapter I focus on Theos’s efforts to rescue Darwin, in which the team put forth their model of reasonable religion. As we’ll see, the discussion leads us back to some of Theos’s core concerns about how to talk about and act upon faith in public—how to live up to the Rawlsian aspects of Theos’s brand of public theology. It is precisely because he

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was not a Christian that Darwin helps serve the cause of how to handle faith in public. For Theos, Darwin could be seen as an ally and a role model because he refused to use the kind of language that marks what they see as the extremes of two rival fundamentalisms—atheist fundamentalism and religious fundamentalism—that have set the tone in public debates on the question of creation. Darwin—and, just as important, Darwinism—didn’t stop conversations. Moreover, as Nick and Paul would argue, it is simply not true, as some contended, that Darwin’s work caused a crisis in the Church. Nothing annoyed Nick more than the presumption or assertion that Anglicanism started to crumble after 1859 on account of Darwin’s theories. Samuel Wilberforce’s voice was not the only critical one, but there has been a tradition within Christianity since Darwin’s day that is perfectly comfortable with the theory of evolution by natural selection. It is this tradition, called “theistic evolutionism,” that the team at Theos cultivated and that came as close to an official position as Theos had. More than how to conduct oneself thoughtfully and reasonably in the public square, however, the project on Darwin raises a number of more basic issues concerning the relationship between science and religion and what each makes possible for the flourishing of the human subject. Here we see how the God Debate connects to the Science Wars taking place in other quarters of the academy (Latour 1999) and how Theos has worked to foster a public image of Christians as rightful and respectful proponents of science. Nick would often emphasize how Christianity’s commitment to scientific inquiry was long-standing and steadfast. He and Paul got frustrated by characterizations of the Enlightenment that cut out its religious components and contributions. For them, a reasonable religion was one that recognized the need to balance faith and knowledge, not see them as antithetical or mutually exclusive. What bothered Nick and Paul about both new atheists and literalist creationists is that they each held such extreme positions. Each was blinded by the light of the fires of their own enthusiasms. Communicating the integrity of theistic evolutionism was central to the critique of such enthusiasms. A theistic evolutionist respects and even celebrates the evidence base of science. What Nick couldn’t understand about creationists was how they could be “willfully ignorant” of the facts of evolution. What did creationists think scientists spent their time doing? he wondered. As a theistic evolutionist, he told me, “you can do both. You can do God and you can do evolution.” Natural selection is “perfectly consonant with the Christian idea of God.”

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The Rescuing Darwin project also allowed Theos to focus attention on the Bible in a way that many of their other projects had not, at least in such an explicit fashion. Because the crux of creationism often comes down to how the Bible gets read, Theos could “do Bible” in an unusually straightforward manner. Cross-cutting all of these interests and agendas—supporting science, promoting respectful debate, critiquing biblical literalism—was something else too. For although it was never stated in such bald terms, Rescuing Darwin was also a project to proclaim that being Christian doesn’t mean being stupid or unthinking. At the back of all of their work was the expectation of facing critics such as Grayling, for whom faith is “the negation of thought” and “Christian think tank” an oxymoron. Those Christians who stood outside the nation’s theaters and art galleries denouncing one or another cultural production didn’t relieve their concern. Theos wanted to debunk the assumed connection between reason and rationality on the one hand and intelligence and maturity on the other. The donnish backgrounds of the new atheists and the antiintellectualism of some Christian creationists were a toxic combination in this regard.

Rescuing Darwin Writ Large Rescuing Darwin has been Theos’s largest, most elaborate, and most expensive project to date. The expense is a matter we’ll return to, and throughout the course of the chapter I will try to convey some of the project’s multiple dimensions and strands. Yet it would be impossible to consider all of the outputs, still less all of my observations of the work that went into them. Moreover to understand Nick and Paul’s perspectives, interests, and motivations, I need to present something of the others’ with whom they were concerned and from whom Darwin was to be rescued. This means especially the new atheists. I start with a sketch of the project outputs to give a sense of their diversity. Rescuing Darwin resulted in three Theos reports: an eponymous flagship report, published at the start of 2009, along with two pieces of original research carried out by external consultants. One of these projects, conducted by an ethnographic research firm, was an analysis of views on creationism and intelligent design based on over fifty in-depth interviews with key “opinion formers” (Pharoah et al. 2009). The other was an extensive set of surveys on creationism and evolutionism conducted by ComRes, the polling group with which Theos had established

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a close working relationship (Lawes 2009). In addition to these three reports, the project included an extended interview with Dawkins’s old sparring partner, the moral philosopher Mary Midgely; a trade book by Nick Spencer (2009), Darwin and God; a debate in Westminster Abbey, to which I referred briefly in chapter 4; the 2009 Charles Gore Lecture, delivered by Spencer (also held in Westminster Abbey); the commissioning of a play, Darwin’s Tree, by Murray Watts (premiered at Westminster Abbey); numerous talks, letters to the editor, newspaper articles, and blog postings (most by Nick but some by Paul); and even a competition for the best tweet summarizing On the Origin of Species. (The winning tweet? “He who dies, loses. He who reproduces, plays the game. He who produces game-playing offspring who won’t submerge parental genes, wins.”)3 Theos also commissioned a “Rescuing Darwin” cartoon with which to brand the project and a publicity stunt, streamed on video via the Daily Telegraph’s website, with the actor Andrew Harrison, who dressed up as Darwin and quizzed tourists in front of Westminster Abbey about their thoughts on evolution and religion. Nick Spencer was the main player for Theos when it came to rescuing Darwin. Paul’s work on the events, in the media, and for the overall coordination of the project was, to be sure, indispensable; Paul Bickley also helped out, but was more involved in other projects. It was Nick who found himself living and breathing Darwin for the better part of two years, a circumstance that wasn’t entirely unwelcome. He had a long-standing interesting in Darwin’s life and work, and the depth and scope of this project meant he had an even better excuse to do what he likes to do best, which is bury his nose in books. The first flurry of activity on Rescuing Darwin came in the summer of 2007, in line with the Theos maxim of good timing. But good timing in this instance involved patient preparation, not immediate publicizing. It would have been possible at that point for Theos to make their case in the usual manner: a report and a launch, maybe with a poll with findings that could be spun into a press release. The issues were certainly in the air. Dawkins’s (2006) The God Delusion had recently been published, and there was a steady trickle of media reports on creationism and intelligent design in the British press. Some of these stories came out of the United States (the Dover trial took place in 2005), but many were being precipitated by the emergence (or at least perceived emergence) of such views in the United Kingdom, especially, as with the Dover case, their emergence in schools.

figure 13. The project cartoon for Rescuing Darwin, 2009 © Phill Hatton. Used with permission.

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Over the preceding two decades and on account of changes to the state education system by Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, it had become possible for faith-based charities to found schools or take over the running of “failing” state schools in a “partnership” scheme that redefined the commonly accepted boundaries between public and private education. Part of the payoff for launching these “academies” (as many of the schools were designated) was being able to shape a school’s curriculum to an extent otherwise unheard of in the public sector; in one well-known case, involving schools funded by a charity called the Vardy Foundation, this involved teaching creationism in science classrooms and questioning evolution’s validity as a theory. In 2002 Dawkins and a host of others—including, it should be said, senior Anglican and Catholic bishops—submitted a letter to the prime minister expressing their “concern” that evolution should be approached in the Vardy Foundation’s schools as “a ‘faith position’ in the same category as the biblical account of creation” (quoted in Dawkins 2009, 5). The fact that Theos wanted to do something more than the standard report and launch is testament in part to the personal interests of Paul and Nick. They were thinking ahead. In 2009 there was going to be a double Darwin anniversary: two hundred years since his birth and 150 years since the publication of his most important work, On the Origin of Species. The Theos team knew that the closer they got to the anniversaries, the more Darwin would appear on the radar—and often, they predicted, be dragooned into the God Debate. When 2009 itself hit, there would be full-blown Darwin mania. So rather than going with a more reactive plan to something that came up at some point in the second half of 2007—waiting to see, if, say, another story broke on creationism in schools—the team decided to aim for the middle term and make their mark vis-à-vis the pending anniversaries. What started in the summer of 2007 was just the preliminary effort, including what turned out to be the most important consideration: securing funding. The public life of the project was not to begin for another year and a half, with Darwin’s birthday bicentenary in February 2009. The flagship report of the Theos project, Rescuing Darwin: God and Evolution in Britain Today (Spencer and Alexander 2009), was the first major output to appear. It presents a good overview of Theos’s core arguments and interventions. The report was coauthored by Nick and Denis Alexander, a molecular biologist and director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge. Alexander was a good friend to Theos in its formative years, and work-

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ing with him was a particularly attractive prospect to Nick, given Alexander’s professional background. Despite Nick’s admiration for Darwin, he is no scientist, and Alexander’s contribution gave Theos an imprimatur for this project they wouldn’t otherwise have had. “I can read books on genetics,” Nick told me, “but I don’t have thirty years’ experience” in the field as a professional. Alexander did. At the very outset of Rescuing Darwin, Spencer and Alexander (2009, 9) promise to dispel “the misconception that science and religion are somehow rival descriptions of the way the world works.” This was the central task of the whole project and is a central plank of theistic evolutionism. Above everything else, Theos argued, the choice between religion and science is a false one, especially when understood in the terms of either new atheists or literalist creationists. This is what Nick meant by saying you can do God and evolution. Darwin’s idea in this reading is not dangerous—at least not in the way Dennett (or Pat Robertson, for that matter) might understand. It is not a “universal acid.” It does not contain some transcendent truth that reduces all forms of knowing and experiencing the world to one register. Central to this argument is a rejection of both young earth creationism and intelligent design. Strictly speaking, neither of these perspectives has to be Christian, and the latter can even be adopted by atheists and agnostics. Given their own interests, though, and the specificity of debates within England, Spencer and Alexander confined themselves primarily to discussions of Christian views, and it became clear to me throughout the course of the project that Nick and Paul thought almost entirely in terms of Christian fundamentalism. As we’ll go on to discuss, Nick and Paul were curious about the extent to which these perspectives and theories had a hold in the United Kingdom. They found such views inexplicable, even odd—almost as much as the new atheists seemed to. Alexander, as well, was certainly not one to mince words on this point. “I’m embarrassed by creationism,” he said. Spencer and Alexander’s argument against young earth creationists is that they misread Genesis. Literalism has no place in Christian faith. Appealing to traditions of both rabbinic thought and the Church Fathers, Spencer and Alexander argue that Genesis was never meant to be read “literally.” “What man of intelligence,” writes Origen, the thirdcentury Church Father whom they cite, in his commentary on Genesis and the creation of the world, “. . . will doubt that these are figurative expressions which indicate certain mysteries through a semblance of history?” (quoted in Spencer and Alexander 2009, 47). It follows, they

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argue, that Genesis cannot be treated as an attempted contribution to the annals of scientific knowledge. Indeed, as they stress, both “literalism” and the “science” against which it is occasionally pitched are distinctly modern concepts and ought not to be used to frame our understandings of Scripture. “Those who believe otherwise are guilty of imposing upon the relevant texts a modernist mind-set alien to the world of the original authors” (51). Genesis “is a text that is not so much interested in explaining how the universe came into being as one that outlines how we should understand it, a text that, at its simplest, deals with meaning rather than fact” (48). Anthropologists who study literalism have regularly stressed that it’s a simplifying label; there are several ways the term gets used and understood within particular traditions and communities of practice (Bielo 2009b; Coleman 2006; Crapanzano 2000; Malley 2004). What often cuts across the varieties of literalism, though, is an insistence on “the single, the essential, the plain, ordinary, commonsense” meaning of a word (Crapanzano 2000, 2–3); for a literalist, “the meaning of a text is taken to be ultimately decidable, and traceable to original, authorial intention” (Coleman 2006, 42). For a literalist, cultural and historical specificities should not play a role in the determination of faith. Spencer and Alexander (2009) take what would be recognized as a more liberal Protestant approach, in which history and relational dimensions play a much greater role in the process of reading and interpretation. Theirs is also an approach that accepts modern divisions of knowledge. In what is a common division of this kind in the science versus religion debate, they argue that science deals with “how” questions, whereas theology and philosophy deal with “why” questions. How are we here? is a question for scientists; Why are we here? is a question for theologians and philosophers. It’s a split between fact and meaning, a division they link not only to theistic evolutionism but also Darwin’s own view, and which Nick in particular emphasized elsewhere in his work on the project, as well as in our many conversations. “Darwin did not claim to be a serious religious thinker,” writes Nick (Spencer 2009, 113) in Darwin and God. “Indeed, he repeatedly insisted that the issues were beyond his capabilities and that they left him terribly muddled.” Nick saw Darwin as a scientist who was getting on with his own work, unburdened by the conceit that science is a skeleton key to the treasure house of knowledge. In Rescuing Darwin the division of knowledge is reinforced and further justified by the ways Spencer and Alexander (2009) approach the

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functions of language. They work by the light of a language ideology (as linguistic anthropologists would put it) in which the relationship between a word and its meaning needs to be linked not only to “authorial intention” (as literalists often argue) but also to genre, context, and any number of cultural and historical considerations. Meaning has to be understood at least in part by the kind of text one is reading. A “religious” text, in this view, should not be read literally, which in this case means, for instance, one “day” in Genesis is not necessarily equivalent to a twenty-four-hour revolution of the Earth on its axis. Religious meanings, in other words, can be figurative meanings. A “scientific” text, on the other hand, is always necessarily governed by literalness; it is always intended to express a meaning “without metaphor, exaggeration, or inaccuracy” (as the Oxford English Dictionary defines literal). The problem with young earth creationists, they argue, has to do with their conflation of types of language use. Genesis is not only not literal; it is also not a set of “proto-scientific descriptions of the origins of life and the universe” (Spencer and Alexander 2009, 46). “It’s just basic hermeneutics,” Nick told me. “Just learn how to read texts.” The idea that you need to interpret the Bible, to read it with an eye for culture and history, was so self-evident he didn’t know what else to say to me to explain his own position. The point about proto-science aside, Spencer and Alexander (2009) present young earth creationism according to what they read as its primary function: serving as an alternative to the scientific worldview. As presented in the Rescuing Darwin project, young earth creationism rests precisely on the kind of either/or position that they feel endangers critical and productive thought. They discuss Intelligent design, on the other hand, as an alternative kind of science. For its proponents, science is not a rival; their focus is not Genesis per se but the fossil record, which they argue is riddled with “gaps” that cannot be accounted for and certain organs (the eye being an oft-cited example) that are “irreducibly complex,” such that they could not have come about through the kind of small-step changes that underpin the theory of evolution by natural selection. Their beef is with the sufficiency of Darwin. Evolution by natural selection is not enough. Here is the biologist Michael Behe (1996, 5), one of the most prominent advocates of intelligent design: Many people think that questioning Darwinian evolution must be equivalent to espousing creationism. As commonly understood, creationism involves belief in an earth formed only about ten thousand years ago, an interpretation of

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the Bible that is still very popular. For the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it. I greatly respect the work of my colleagues who study the development and behavior of organisms within an evolutionary framework, and I think that evolutionary biologists have contributed enormously to our understanding of the world. Although Darwin’s mechanism—natural selection working on variation—might explain many things, however, I do not believe it explains molecular life.

It is not enough for Spencer and Alexander (2009) that Behe wants to distance intelligent design from creationism. They dismiss intelligent design outright. It has “none of the characteristics that make it recognizable as science,” chief of which is a theory testable by “empirical evidence.” Simply “labeling a biological entity as ‘designed’ leads to no experimental programme that could be utilized to test the hypothesis, a fact which presumably explains the lack of scientific publications arising from ID writers” (42). Here Spencer and Alexander are more or less in accord with Dawkins. “Areas where there is a lack of data, or lack of understanding,” Dawkins (2006, 128) writes in his summation of the intelligent design approach, “are automatically assumed to belong, by default, to God. The speedy resort to a proclamation of ‘irreducible complexity’ represents a failure of the imagination. . . . That is no way to do science.” Spencer and Alexander couldn’t have agreed more. “I can understand why Dawkins and others get so upset by ID,” Nick told me. “Evolution by natural selection is perfectly capable of navigating around corners. It doesn’t need the active intervention of an outside designer to help it over. To believe otherwise is bad science.” As I read Rescuing Darwin for the second time in the process of writing this book, I found myself struck by a disconnect between its main focus and what I experienced during my fieldwork, and especially my time with Nick. The report is by and large about what I’ve presented here: Theos’s misgivings with what they see as fundamentalist and/or pseudo-scientific creationism. These are the perspectives they reject through step-by-step argumentation in an effort to resuscitate religion. A whole chapter of the report (chapter 3) is devoted to the presentation of young earth creationism and intelligent design ideas and includes a summary of the polling and statistical data tracking their influence and presence in the United States and United Kingdom. Again and again the writing comes back to the religion.

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The resuscitation of science, on the other hand, is often only indirectly linked to Dawkins or a new atheist position. To be sure, Dawkins is always there between the lines of Rescuing Darwin, but Spencer and Alexander (2009) accuse him of being a bad sport more than a bad scientist. It’s his tone they don’t like: unreasonably hostile and sweeping in its judgments of faith. Where Spencer and Alexander quote him or address his perspectives directly, it almost always has to do with his various slights of faith and religion, which, they feel, “express seemingly malicious sentiments” and are marked by “hostility, even spite” (36, 37). “When Darwin’s most prominent modern disciples, in contrast to their master, so openly and witheringly revile religious belief, is it any wonder that religious believers become ill disposed towards Darwinism?” (37). Another point that sticks out for me now is that, unlike the curiosity expressed for the hard numbers on creationism, neither Rescuing Darwin nor the more general project involved collecting or presenting any comparable data on atheism or even the new atheists. Inasmuch as these atheists existed for Theos, that existence served a primarily rhetorical function. My surprise at this comes from the very different balance of interest that obtained in the day-to-day life of developing and executing the project. To be sure, Nick and Paul were genuinely curious about young earth creationism and intelligent design. But what they thought about, talked about, and acted in relation to was the Anti-God Squad. I had countless conversations with them and observed countless others in which antitheistic atheism came up. They were never troubled or challenged, intellectually or otherwise, by the arguments from design or the presence of creationists. But there was something about the way the new atheists were claiming the mantle of reason that presented a threat to the very project of public theology to which they were devoting themselves.

Reason and Religion You might have thought that this was not another chapter about secularism. In a sense it’s not. Nevertheless it’s important to understand the connections between secularism as a political position and antitheism as a philosophical one. The strongest link between them is the commitment to reason. Exactly what this means, though, requires explanation. For the straightforward secularist, as long as a religious believer can base his or her arguments about some public issue in accessible, “neutral”

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terms, and as long as he or she demands no privilege on the basis of institutional or communal affiliation, he or she can participate legitimately in the public sphere. Accessible here has to be understood as reasonable and, in some cases—although not all—rational. As Rawls (2001, 6–7) puts it, “Reasonable persons are ready to propose, or to acknowledge when proposed by others, the principles needed to specify what can be seen by all as fair terms of cooperation. Reasonable persons also understand that they are to honor these principles, even at the expense of their own interests as circumstances may require, provided others likewise may be expected to honor them.” To put this in terms of an example from chapter 4, opponents of bishops sitting in the House of Lords might argue that it is not reasonable for lords spiritual to have entitlements; nor is it reasonable for the bishops or their advocates to argue for privilege, especially on the grounds of tradition. A seat by right is not a “fair term.” The slight disconnect from rationality in this context comes from the fact that, in the normative reading of political rationality (in which interest plays a constitutive role), it may be reasonable for bishops to cede their privilege but not necessarily rational, since doing so would be “at the expense of their own interests.” “Common sense views the reasonable but not, in general, the rational as a moral idea involving moral sensibility” (7). “The idea of reason,” Jon Elster (2009, 2) notes, “is intimately connected to that of the common good” in a way that rationality is not. Formally at least, this same secularist would not be concerned about any actor’s “private” beliefs—what Rawls calls “comprehensive doctrines”—as long as they do not impinge on this idea of fairness. Inasmuch as it can be marked as distinct (which is admittedly a debatable proposition), this version of secularism, and its attendant conceptions of reason and rationality, have to do with questions that can be bracketed off as “political.” For a secularist who is also an antitheist, however, these formal differentiations offer little comfort. An antitheist would argue that the comprehensive doctrines of religion are unreasonable and irrational; they cannot be bracketed off. As articulated within a strong antitheist approach, the point about any religious person, or “person of faith,” is that his or her religiosity clouds everything—even, and perhaps most especially, what should be obvious and evidential. Religion gets cast as the opposite of reason. For the antitheist, reason and rationality are understood in much more cognitively comprehensive terms than they are within the kind of Rawlsian political frame we have explored at

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length. Reason in this more comprehensive set of terms is underwritten by a particular understanding of science and the development of scientific thought. The contrast between reason and religion is often a core feature of new atheist argumentation. Grayling (2006, 43, 41) suggests that even a solid education, in which “belief must be proportional to carefully gathered and assessed evidence,” cannot resist the “cancer of unreason” that marks religious faith. Creationism is his case in point. He is incredulous in particular as to how it is that, according to one poll, “more than 30 per cent of U.K. university students believe in creationism or intelligent design” (41). As he sees it, this “shows that the non-rational mindset underlying religious belief, an essentially infantile attitude of acceptance of fairy-stories, has not been affected by the best that education can offer in the way of challenging and maturing minds to think for themselves” (43). Cancer is indeed the operative metaphor; the point is precisely that the unreason of religion can so dangerously spread. If there is even the smallest tumor of faith in an otherwise attentive and dedicated student of evolutionary biology or geology, there is rightful cause for concern. By this logic (and it is a logic, above all), bishops in the House of Lords would, in the long run, be no more resistant to the cancer of unreason than the God-addled minds of three in ten British university students. This is essentially the same specter Tony Blair invoked when he spoke of the association between doing God and being a “nutter.” For the new atheists, creationism vies only with political Islam as the best indicator that religious thought has an irrational and unreasonable core. Grayling wants to distinguish between a twenty-one-year-old university student who reads Genesis as if it were literally true and another young person who is willing to fly a plane into the side of a building; there is, he writes, “a very long way between them” (2006, 46). “But the point to register and take seriously,” he goes on to emphasize, “is that there is nevertheless a connecting thread, which is belief in antique superstitions and the non-rational basis of the putative values they represent” (46–47).4 Grayling’s position is what one generally finds in the new atheist ambit. Perhaps not surprisingly, however, neither reason nor rationality is a word that new atheists often stop to define. As Elster (2009, 7–8) notes in his important little book, Reason and Rationality—which incidentally has nothing to do with the God Debate—it is actually quite remarkable how, despite its centrality to post-Enlightenment thought, there is no canonical definition of reason. For the new atheists, though,

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reason and rationality are interchangeable terms. At a public discussion between Grayling and Dawkins, Grayling said that a good working definition of rationality would be a “belief proportionate to the evidence” (as from the Latin ratio).5 Evidence, in turn, has to be understood as a fact about the world or issue in question that can be gathered or reproduced from independently verifiable sources. Even more than this, the evidence has to be universally accessible, by which I mean it cannot be dependent upon any subjective position, experience, or contingency. Another way to put this, in terms that resonate with the main themes of this book, is that evidence cannot be private or personal. The friction this creates between religion and evidence is central to the antitheistic mind-set. To talk about religion is to talk about something subjective and private, and therefore it cannot contribute to a body of evidence in any meaningful sense. Science, in this scheme, works by its own principle of negativity. The reason new atheists—and Nick Spencer and Denis Alexander— get so upset about those who deny evolution is because of the massive and ever-expanding geological, biological, and archaeological records supporting its validity. These records are the gold standard of evidence when it comes to the question of origins. For new atheists and theistic evolutionists alike, it is rocks, genes, and bones that tell us about our origins, not words in books. Christopher Hitchens (2007), who of the core new atheists is probably most closely associated with the political rather than the scientific critique of religion, nevertheless devotes fair portions of God Is Not Great to dispensing with “ ‘intelligent design’ boobies” (269) by championing “the resistance of the rational” (253– 75). (Note the slight of intelligence here.) Dawkins too, as we might expect, invests heavily in the defense of what he sees as reason and rationality. And “invest” here has to be taken both metaphorically and literally; the charitable organization he founded in 2006 is called the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Similar to Grayling’s invocation of the cancer of unreason, Dawkins also argues that religious thought involves an equal amount of divestment—even disavowal—of reason. Dawkins (2006, 190) claims that “Martin Luther was well aware that reason was religion’s archenemy” and quotes Luther (not directly, it needs to be noted, but via a website that contains unsourced quotations) as saying, “Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has” and “Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason.” “Luther,” Dawkins concludes, working playfully on the registers of creationism, “would have no

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difficulty in intelligently designing unintelligent aspects of a religion to help it survive” (190). Just as Nick and Paul expected, in early 2009 these general arguments took shape around the Darwin double anniversary, and in particular the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth on 12 February. Theos was prepared for the anniversary with a poll from ComRes, conducted the preceding October, that found 10 percent of Britons professing young earth creationist views and a further 12 percent intelligent design.6 A press release showcasing these results went out ten days before the bicentennial, prompting a small media ripple. Theos cast the results as distressing, making it clear that they supported the science showing evolution by natural selection. Blame for the fact that nearly a quarter of the British population got it so wrong, however, was laid squarely at the feet of the new atheists and their purported abuse of Darwin. “Darwin was a truly great scientist,” Paul Woolley said. “Unfortunately, he is being used by certain atheists today to promote their cause. The result is that, given the false choice of evolution or God, people are rejecting evolution.” It might help science, Paul was saying, if some leading scientists were not so overbearing. The results of Theos’s poll piqued some new atheist interest. The evolutionary biologist Adam Rutherford used the poll as an opportunity to highlight what he called the “teleological idiocy” of creationism in its various forms and guises, and urged the public to “use this bicentennial year to promote the science of evolution. When this truth is the dominant view, I’m sure that many more people will migrate from the irrational and frankly daft fairytale views about the origin of species.”7 In the same fortnight that Theos released its ComRes poll, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor published an opinion piece in the Times in which he praised Darwin and decried the “false dichotomy” between science and religion. “Science,” he wrote, “is a good friend to my faith.”8 This prompted a number of letters to the Times’s editor, including one from a certain D. S. A. Murray in Dorking, who wrote, “There can be no rational argument between a view that rests on observation and reason, and one that rests on blind faith, ie, on its adherents’ desire to believe something, irrespective of evidence and reason. Indeed, every argument that has been offered for the existence of God necessitates an explicit rejection of the self-evident.”9 Paul seized the opportunity to get Theos’s message into the exchange (all the more since the cardinal had been supportive of Theos at its launch in 2006). As Paul and the team had come to learn, the letters pages of the broadsheets are often the most

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useful and impactful forum for publicity. In a few short lines, and drawing directly on some of Darwin’s letters, Paul presented the Darwin that he and the team were setting out to rescue. The quotes here from Darwin are those that Paul and Nick would go on to circulate throughout the year with disciplined regularity—in person, in print, and on the podium. As Paul wrote, “Sir, It is strange that your correspondents (letters, Feb 10) think that faith in God is incompatible with Darwinism, given Charles Darwin’s own position on the subject. In 1879 Darwin wrote to John Fordyce: ‘It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist. . . . In my most extreme fluctuations, I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.’ Darwin died three years later, without changing his mind. ‘You have expressed my inward conviction,” he told the author William Graham in one of this last letters, “that the Universe is not the result of chance.’ ”10 One of the terms that Theos used to describe the new atheists was fundamentalist. This had become the pat putdown by 2009, deployed regularly by critics of Dawkins and others to underscore a sense of their rigidity and myopic views. For Nick and Paul, one of the most troubling aspects of this fundamentalism was what they saw as the new atheists’ misrepresentation of the religious (and especially Christian) attitude toward reason. The kind of attitude that Dawkins attributes to Luther was unrecognizable to Theos. It flew in the face of what they saw as Christian commitments both to reason and to the emergence of the modern sciences. As I have stressed at several points, Nick and Paul saw themselves as children of the Enlightenment, as part of a tradition stretching back to the seventeenth century of Christians in England (and elsewhere in Europe) for whom faith and knowledge were not antithetical but complementary and which had to be combined in reasonable measure. As such they highlighted the fact that many of Darwin’s correspondents (upon whom he relied for information and data) were clergymen both at home and abroad and that Samuel Wilberforce’s attack on Darwin in his debate with Huxley was not the representative Anglican opinion. At several points in Rescuing Darwin, Spencer and Alexander (2009, 17, 23, 62) also highlight Darwin’s friendship with such eminent correspondents as Asa Gray, the Harvard botanist and devout Christian, and, more broadly, the commitment of such prominent twentieth-century proponents of Darwinism as Theodosius Dobzhansky, the Orthodox Christian and well-known geneticist and evolutionary biologist (24, 62). For Nick in particular, who often spoke

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of his appreciation for Enlightenment thought, representing the Age of Reason as a bloc-versus-bloc struggle between defenders of faith and defenders of knowledge was, quite simply, anathema.11 He was deeply frustrated by the extent to which new atheists railroaded the provenance and legacies of Enlightenment thinking, reducing a complex set of genealogies and ideas to the position of a particularly hostile and vocal group of philosophes. As the philosopher Charles Taylor (2011, 52–56) argues, with deliberate provocation, the view that the Enlightenment was all about the eradication of faith in the service of knowledge is a “myth” that obscures other legacies.

The Dawkins Deluge One evening in June 2008 Nick stepped to the front of the room at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity to introduce the speaker for an event that Theos was cohosting. The political theorist John Gray had come to speak on the new atheism. Gray was the latest in a growing line of God-bashing bashers, but he was distinct from most, and especially appealing to Nick and Paul, because his critique was not part of a Christian apologetics, the foundations of which had already started to build up (McGrath and McGrath 2007; Ward 2008; Wilson 2007).12 They were interested in Gray because Gray is an atheist. About ninety people came to hear the professor. Nick was a bit punchy that evening, cracking a slight smile as he began to speak. “Once,” he said, “you walked into an Asda and at the checkout line it was Delia Smith [books]. Now, it’s Richard Dawkins.”13 Dawkins has been a public-intellectual fixture since the mid-1970s, with the publication of his best-selling and hugely influential book, The Selfish Gene (1976/1989). Since then he has published voluminously for the general reader on his academic field of evolutionary biology. He has often taken issue with creationism and intelligent design, perhaps most notably and at greatest length in The Blind Watchmaker (1986), where he argues that there is neither evidence for nor reason to believe that life on earth is due to anything but natural selection. It is Charles Darwin, not God, to whom we should turn for the answer to the question of where we come from. It was Nick who suggested I read The Blind Watchmaker, which he considers one of the best books on evolution. He suggested it in part, I came to realize, because of the contrast it provides to The God Delusion. There is a side of Nick, as we’ve been discovering, that admires a side of

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Dawkins, the Dawkins of the 1970s and 1980s. Nick snapped at me once for saying something disparaging about The Selfish Gene, and we spent the following two hours, sitting across from one another at a Bible Advocacy Team dinner in Swindon, talking about Dawkins and science. As Nick pointed out, The Blind Watchmaker is very different from The God Delusion—in content, to be sure, but also in tone. Dawkins does refer to appeals to God for the origins of life in The Blind Watchmaker as “the lazy way out” and emphasizes the standards set by “rational minds” in the pursuit of such questions (1986, 141). God is never referred to as a “delusion,” however, and the discussion of atheism is confined to a few short passages in the book’s first chapter. The God Delusion, on the other hand, is a full-fledged attack on religion per se. Dawkins doesn’t want his book to produce secularists, for instance, although he maintains a commitment to secularism (2006, 20–27, 38– 46). He wants his book to produce atheists. Not even agnosticism is an acceptable compromise for him. Paraphrasing the perspective of an Anglican priest he knew in his school days, Dawkins refers to agnostics as “namby-pamby, mushy pap, weak-tea, weedy, pallid fence-sitters” (46). By 2006 it had become important for God to be recognized as a delusion, as “a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence, especially as a symptom of psychiatric disorder” (5). Dawkins (2006, 27) nevertheless promises in The God Delusion that he is not going out of his way to offend the faithful. My own sense is that he sees what he says about religion as no different from saying “the sky is blue.” By his logic, he is following a certain scientific protocol for just telling it as he sees it. If the truth hurts, so be it. But it’s still the truth, and simply stating it is in no way malicious. To imply, as he does, that people who believe in God, or any kind of supernatural force, are less intelligent than atheists (see 97–103), or that the God of the Old Testament is “the most unpleasant character in all fiction” (51), or that the doctrine of atonement is “vicious, sado-masochistic, and repellent” as well as “barking mad” (253) is simply being true to the standards of reason, rationality, and evidence by which he lives. And to be fair, for all the controversy The God Delusion has stirred, it is important to emphasize that Dawkins does have admiration for some religious figures and for some of religion’s legacies. He speaks of Richard Harries, the bishop of Oxford, as his friend (335); it was Harries, in fact, with whom Dawkins organized the 2002 letter protesting the Vardy Foundation– funded schools. Dawkins also allows for a difference between “sophisticated” and “unsophisticated Christians” (94) and says that Jesus is

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“one of the greatest ethical innovators in history” (250). While he says the Bible is no different from Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code—pure fiction (97)—he also says the Bible (by which he means the King James Version) is one of the greatest literary treasures in the world and ought to be read widely (340–44). Nick and Paul never acted offended by new atheist rhetoric, and they certainly never admitted to being hurt by it. In general their disposition moved between bemusement (Oh go on. What is he like?) and invigoration (Fight the good fight!). Nick did confide to me once, in February 2009, that his “biggest fear” at the time Rescuing Darwin was being published was that “the atheists will highjack the Darwin anniversary.” But Theos was game for the rescue mission, buoyed by their success in having the project well funded, as well as the interest and reach already in evidence by the time of Darwin’s birthday. Rescuing Darwin sold out the day after its publication in February 2009: 1,750 copies, gone, overnight. This was unique for a Theos report. Between Bible Society and Christianity Today magazine, a further fifty thousand copies were ordered and distributed free of charge to supporters and subscribers. The Theos team had never had anything like this level of interest and support, not even from Bible House. John Gray’s talk for Theos was an important moment in the process of coming to terms with the Dawkins deluge. The good turnout and good response reinforced their conviction that a project on Darwin would have legs. There was still a lot to be done to make Rescuing Darwin a reality, but it seemed worth doing. Just as much, Nick and Paul came out of the Gray event with a clarified sense of whom they needed to address and what they wanted the project to do. If Nick and Paul weren’t offended or hurt by Dawkins and the other new atheists, many Christians were, and they had good representation in Gray’s audience at LICC. “Why are atheists so angry?” one man asked Gray after he had finished his lecture. The tone in the man’s voice was of true beleaguerment. The man looked tired. But his face brightened when he heard Gray’s reply: “They see their myths as clear truths and so are baffled as to why others don’t accept them.” It was music to the audience’s ears, and the room immediately started to buzz. The audience became very upbeat. The man next to me sat up straight in his chair and started giggling, tapping his pen against the notepad he had been using. Atheists have myths, Professor Gray was saying—ha!

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Faith and Funding The blue-skies thinking on Rescuing Darwin that took place in summer 2007 was grounded by recognition of the need for funding. To do everything Paul and Nick envisioned would mean a lot of money, and they knew Bible Society wouldn’t be able to underwrite it. So not long after the project on Gordon Brown and patriotism wound up, Nick turned his attention to finding grants for Darwin. As part of my interning, I had the task of following up his leads and, in a few instances, filling in basic paperwork. I also played the more enjoyable role of anthropological sounding board, as one of the issues Theos was thinking of investigating was the application of Darwinism by Victorian anthropologists such as Herbert Spencer, a figure on whom I could say at least semiknowledgeable things. I was mindful not to become too involved in shaping the content and course of the proposals, though, as my primary commitment was to tracing the native’s point of view. (Theos didn’t end up doing anything on Herbert Spencer and social Darwinism; it was too much to tackle.) In the course of observing Nick craft the applications (with help from Paul), I learned that grant writing in a think tank is a lot like grant writing in academia. You need what one of my old professors used to call “a hook” in your proposal, something that will grab the reviewers as a distinct and memorable take. As presented in Theos’s largest and most comprehensive funding proposal, to the John Templeton Foundation, the hook was this: As we approach the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of his Origin of Species, his reputation in the U.K. is being increasingly damaged. The damage comes from two directions. Religious “fundamentalists” are pushing Creationism or Intelligent Design (ID) as alternatives to evolution. In doing so, they are not only impugning the reputation of one of history’s finest scientists but also casting unreasonable doubts over this theory, without which, in the words of the leading 20th century biologist and devout Christian, Theodosius Dobzhansky, “nothing in biology makes sense.” There are many reasons for this trend but one of the most significant is the impact of the second “direction of attack,” that of atheist “fundamentalists.” This group, of which Richard Dawkins is the best known spokesperson, has been highly successful in promoting the idea that Darwin necessitates atheism. Making an unwarranted link between the effectiveness of natural selection, the randomness within the process of evolution and the supposed meaningless of life, they have treated evolution as a philosophical rather than scientific theory, loading it with a metaphysical weight it cannot bear

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and, in the process, driving many people who might otherwise accept the truth of evolution into the arms of creationism.14

It was easy for Theos to use Dawkins as a new atheist figurehead with which to illustrate the terms of the debate. When it came to the creationist and intelligent design side of the equation, however, there was no equivalent persona. There is not a creationist “movement” in the United Kingdom, even though there are a number of organizations that promote it to schools, churches, and the general public.15 And while some figures, such as Peter Vardy, have come to embody the controversy over creationism in the media, Vardy himself has not taken up the role of spokesperson, and there is no one else in the United Kingdom with anything like the public presence or media reach of Dawkins or even Grayling. What creationist figureheads there are come from the United States and tend to include proponents more specifically of intelligent design, such as Michael Behe. The extent to which such American figures are influential in Britain is debatable, however; one reporter who did an in-depth investigation of these matters concluded that “British creationism is surprisingly independent from the far bigger, better funded, more vocal, highly politicised movement in the U.S.”16 While this lack of a symbolic focus for creationism prohibited Theos from coming up with a perfectly formed hook, it did provide other opportunities. Theos could argue that very little was known about creationists in Britain; their project, they told the Templeton Foundation, would “attempt to clarify the true nature of the situation” and get beyond the “sometimes grotesque caricatures of these people.”17 (And yet still these people.) What Theos proposed, then, was a small qualitative study with some key creationist “opinion formers.” This would be a project that other researchers might benefit from and build on. As with their project on NHS chaplaincy, Theos wanted to stake another claim in the social research market. One cold evening, as I was walking over Waterloo Bridge, I got a call from Nick. Templeton was interested in the project, he said; they wanted to take the application to the next step. There was good news and bad news, though. The good news was that Templeton liked Theos’s idea of commissioning some original qualitative research on creationist beliefs, so much so that they asked Nick to design something much more ambitious than what had initially been proposed. The team had intended to do a small qualitative study, with perhaps seven or eight people. As far as Templeton was concerned, that wasn’t detailed enough. The bad

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news was that, even though Templeton would be willing to consider giving Theos more support than initially requested, the Foundation had reservations about the research design and agenda and wanted Theos to clarify a way forward. The problem was that Theos seemed to have already reached its conclusions, and the Foundation was worried that a  small number of qualitative interviews would be used as “window dressing,” as Nick recapped it, for the quantitative work. There are hints of this in the hook presented earlier. Is it right to assume that Darwin needs rescuing? Are these distinct camps “fundamentalist”? At other points in the proposal, Theos was equally upfront about the agenda, saying that a major motivation for the project was to convince people of “the more nuanced and truer position that Darwinism is a very good scientific theory that is compatible with theistic belief (as it is with atheism or agnosticism). . . . This position needs to be articulated powerfully, cogently, and now!” Here we see a difference between think-tank and academic modes of operation: “pure” academic research—that term again—ought not to advocate a position, still less have the conclusions set out in advance. Even if an academic does have an axe to grind or an agenda to meet (certainly not unheard of), at the very least he or she ought not to go out of the way to tell a potential funder. And you cannot use exclamation points in academic funding proposals; it doesn’t come across as very scientific. While the Theos team wants to provide reliable and “robust” research (robust being a word with a lot of currency in the public square), they were taking particular stands as well. But in this they had slightly misjudged how Templeton would respond. Sir John Templeton (born in Tennessee but a naturalized British citizen) was a financial investor and philanthropist who had a longstanding commitment to uncovering “new spiritual information.”18 A Presbyterian elder and one-time board member of the American Bible Society, Sir John was also deeply committed to science, and the foundation he established aims to promote “rigorous scientific research and related scholarship.”19 In addition to funding research, the Foundation also awards a Templeton Prize each year to a religious figure or esteemed academic in recognition of an “exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.” The award is notable in part because of the people who have received it. The first prize went to Mother Teresa in 1972; in the context of this study, probably the most notable recipient was the philosopher Charles Taylor, who received it in 2007, the same year A Secular Age was published. Perhaps even

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more, though, the prize is notable because of its monetary value, currently £1 million, and always, on Sir John’s instructions, more than the Nobel prizes. This background on the Templeton Foundation is not incidental. It tells us some important things about the protocols for research in a secular age. The Templeton Foundation’s relation to the academy, and more generally to the natural and human sciences, can be hotly debated. In short, for some there is a stigma attached to Templeton money. I saw this myself when a PhD student in my department asked me whether or not participating in a Templeton-funded project on Pentecostalism would tarnish her CV, in much the same way that, when I was a student, we were suspicious of U.S. government funding that could be linked to “strategic interests.” Awarding the 2007 Templeton Prize to Taylor, a philosopher who has made his name within the context and by the rules of the secular university, was, whether intentionally or not, a shrewd move that bolstered the Foundation’s mainstream bona fides. Theos’s application was not motivated by this move, although I was in the office when Taylor’s award was announced and Nick got excited as he read it off his computer screen. (Nick wrote an enthusiastic review of A Secular Age for the Christian magazine Third Way, and we had some lively discussions about Taylor’s work.)20 All the same, it dovetailed nicely with Theos’s efforts to work outside the church ghetto. Inasmuch as the Foundation is a talking point in the God Debate, though, it is precisely so for the questions it raises around the issues of secular legitimacy and scientific authenticity. Dawkins has doubts about the Templeton Foundation on these grounds and uses them to furnish arguments in The God Delusion. He does not criticize the Foundation directly, and he confesses—“that is probably the right word,” he jokes (2006, 151)—to having once attended a conference in Cambridge on science and religion funded by them, in which he was the “token atheist” meant to engage with agnostics and believers. What stood out for Dawkins about the conference was a reflection, published some time later, by the journalist John Horgan, who reports he was given a $15,000 honorarium for his three-week tenure as a Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellow, during which the conference on science and religion was held. Horgan, who defines himself as a “skeptic,” wrestled with whether or not to accept the money; he did take it in the end, although he wrote the reflection in order to “exorcise my lingering guilt” and never got over his “ambivalence” toward the Foundation.21 For Dawkins, Horgan’s dilemma raised an important

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issue. “If I understand Horgan’s point,” Dawkins concludes, “it is that Templeton’s money corrupts science” (153). Over and above Dawkins’s carefully worded point (the libel laws in England are notoriously strict), it is important not to lose sight of the basic tension that animates his position. This has to do with the ultimate incompatibility of religion and science. In terms of Theos’s experience with the Templeton Foundation, however, there is an unexpected twist to this position, a twist that confounds the position that “religious” and “scientific” views are antithetical and fixed. The Templeton Foundation’s insistence to Nick that Theos not presume the results of qualitative research on creationist “opinion formers” amounted to a secular—or at least secular-style—disciplining of the project. The Foundation was insisting that Theos live up to one of the basic tenets of the scientific method, which amounted in this case to what some philosophers and social scientists call “methodological atheism.” In this phrase, “atheism” means something akin to neutral, objective, without appeal to first principles. For some prominent scholars in religious studies, such as Ninian Smart (1973, 59), the phrase rings hollow, as “merely a device for operating within ‘scientific’ sociology.” In the context of this chapter it is, at the very least, not only dripping with irony but pointing precisely to the normative link between godlessness and the production of scientific knowledge that undergirds a certain understanding of the secular settlement beyond the realm of politics. This was an instance of the Templeton Foundation policing religion in the service of science in the wake of enlightenment. Theos accepted the Foundation’s point, and with the benefit of hindsight Nick acknowledged that the initial application ought to have separated out the qualitative work. (The quantitative work was never going to be done by Theos anyway, as they did not have the resources or training to do it.) This was about accepting the terms of what the intellectual historian Mark Lilla (2007, 55–103) refers to as “the Great Separation,” a key term for the differentiation between politics and religion in the early modern era, the legacies of which we have been considering throughout this book. What we see here is that the separation has to do with much more than strictly political settlements; it shaped the contours of scientific inquiry. Theos duly reworked the proposal to include fifty interviews rather than the seven or eight originally proposed—a much more (social) scientific number. Templeton ended up awarding Theos $600,000 for Rescuing Darwin.

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Nick asked me to run the qualitative study. It was just what an anthropologist might do, and I was, I suppose, well placed to do it. I thought about the offer carefully and consulted a handful of colleagues as to whether I should. Despite the unparalleled connection it would have provided to the very people I was studying, in the end I decided against this form of participant observation. This would not have been like the focus groups I conducted in Prestwich, either in scale or outcome. Coordinating fifty one-to-one interviews with a representative sample of creationist “opinion formers” would have been a mammoth undertaking in its own right. That was not a disincentive in itself, but the link between such a project and my own work was not as strong as it might at first appear. I was not studying creationists; I was studying a think tank that was interested in situating creationism within an act of cultural critique. It also struck me as inappropriate to produce a Theos publication in my name; while Nick assured me of full editorial control as to how to present the findings—an assurance I did not doubt—I was particularly wary of the effects of what Michel Foucault might recognize as the “author-function” in this context, which, given my relationship with Theos, would have been to link my name to the discourse of public theology they produced. Like Nick, and in another way like Foucault, I am not a literalist, and I do not think that authorial intention always wins out; I could not have maintained the position of external consultant, and the very concerns that Templeton had highlighted vis-à-vis methodological atheism would have been realized. No matter my intention, or even Nick’s: in the public sphere concerned, the further a text circulates, the less control an author has over the meanings ascribed to it. Authored works are “objects of appropriation” (Foucault 1980, 124) all too easily appropriated. You never know what someone else might do with your words—just ask Alastair Campbell. So I suggested to Nick some alternatives, one of which won the bid, a small firm called Ethnographic Social Research Options (ESRO), one of whose directors, Robin Pharoah, was a Sinologist by training and an alumnus of the London School of Economics.

The Tiger and the Shark Theos’s willingness to submit to this instantiation of the Great Separation is of a piece with the basic presuppositions of their theistic evolutionism. It is based on recognition of and respect for different ways of

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knowing, of different domains of knowledge. We are back now to the main argument of Rescuing Darwin, which has to do with Theos’s refusal to accept that either science or religion can rightly serve as the more fundamental framework for coming to understand ourselves. In keeping with Nick and Paul’s primary concerns, in Rescuing Darwin this issue manifested itself in relation to the challenges posed by new atheism. Dawkins’s (2006) views are quite clear. He does not accept the argument that science answers how questions and religion answers why questions. “What on Earth is a why question?” he asks; the claim is nothing but a “tedious cliché” (56). What most seems to bother Dawkins on this score, though, are those scientists who are willing to accept it. He is highly critical of Martin Rees, for example, the astronomer royal, for writing, “The pre-eminent mystery is why anything exists at all. What breathes life into the equations, and actualized them in a real cosmos? Such questions lie beyond science, however: they are the province of philosophers and theologians” (quoted in Dawkins 2006, 55–56).22 “I would prefer to say that if indeed they lie beyond science, they most certainly lie beyond the province of theologians as well,” offers Dawkins. (He is also not sure if the philosophers would like to be grouped with the theologians.) “I am tempted to go further and wonder in what possible sense theologians can be said to have a province” (56). Theologians are also held to account, and none more than those Dawkins debated at the Templeton-funded conference in Cambridge. The theologians, he reports, were committed to the position that God should be thought of as “simple.” This position made no sense to Dawkins (2006, 153–54): “I challenged the theologians to answer the point that a God capable of designing a universe, or anything else, would have to be complex and statistically improbable. The strongest response I heard was that I was brutally foisting a scientific epistemology upon an unwilling theology. . . . Scientific arguments, such as those I was accustomed to deploying in my own field, were inappropriate since theologians had always maintained that God lay outside science.” This kind of separation is unacceptable to Dawkins. He sees no justification for keeping God off-limits. Within new atheism, a Grand Synthesis necessarily replaces the Great Separation, a synthesis made possible by the powers of science. For Dawkins, the exchange served as yet further proof of the believer’s rejection of reason and rationality. “The theologians of my Cambridge encounter were defining themselves into an epistemological Safe Zone where rational argument could not reach

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them because they declared by fiat that it could not,” he writes. “Who was I to say that rational argument was the only admissible kind of argument?” (154). The stakes of this question were set out with particular clarity in Theos’s headline Rescuing Darwin event, the debate in Westminster Abbey on the motion, “Did Darwin kill God?” Dawkins was not a panelist, and there was no one on the stage who identified entirely with new atheism. All the same, as the question indicates and as Paul Woolley’s moderation of questions from the audience was to make clear, Dawkins was a motivating force behind the evening. Westminster Abbey was a particularly apt venue in which to hold the debate. It is not only the symbolic center of the Church of England but also the resting place of, among many others, Darwin himself. Every day the Abbey fills with tourists who come to see the graves and other commemorations and monuments to Britain’s most illustrious sons and daughters (albeit almost all sons). These memorials are the ultimate marks of establishment and tell a story of the connection between faith and the nation’s intellectual, cultural, and scientific patrimonies (and patriarchy). When John Hall, the dean of Westminster Abbey, took the podium to welcome Theos’s guests for the debate, he noted that the Abbey’s deans are the ones who decide who can be buried there. “I approve of Darwin’s [being buried here],” he said, to a gentle roll of laughter. Hall’s joke was, of course, perfectly serious and immediately suggested that the tone of the evening should be set by the principles of theistic evolutionism. As a Christian and national custodian of sorts, Hall was at once both owning and owning up to Darwin. The “no” argument was made by Theos’s point man on science, Denis Alexander, alongside the embryologist Lord Robert Winston. Winston, an observant Jew, is probably almost as well known as Dawkins as a leading voice for science in the media and public sphere; as a member of the House of Lords, he has also been influential in shaping political debates on science and society, most notably the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, for which he earned the accolade “Peer of the Year.” As we’ll see, Winston’s inclusion allowed the debate to open up along some unexpected lines. The Theos team was glad to have a non-Christian religious perspective for just such a reason. The “yes” argument was made by the geneticist Steven Jones and the physiologist Dame Nancy Rothwell. Jones has published many popularinterest books on biology, alongside his academic work (much of which is on snails). As Jones put it at one point in the debate, “I’m not an atheist,

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I’m an un-theist,” but he was there to argue that Darwin was “passionately antireligious.” Of all the panelists, Jones had had some connection to and affinity with Dawkins. He was one of the main signatories of the 2002 letter opposing creationism in schools organized by Dawkins and Bishop Harries. Rothwell had also been involved in public outreach for science and particularly active in supporting science education. “I do not believe in God and I am not religious,” she said, although she was willing to accept that “many outstanding scientists” do believe in God. At the same time she said she could not understand how these colleagues reconciled science and religion. The crux of the “no” arguments by Alexander and Winston was that literalism is antithetical to the faith they know and plays no necessary role in the understanding of Scripture. We have already considered Alexander’s position on this, as presented in Rescuing Darwin. It was here, though, that he offered the blunt admission of being “embarrassed by creationism.” He also said, “Creationism is a real aberration from both a scientific and a theological point of view.” What Winston said underscored points made by Alexander and Spencer in their report: “Most serious Jewish commentators do not take [Genesis] literally, and indeed it is incumbent on a Jewish believer to interpret the text.” From the very start, Winston thus problematized the focus on not only literalism but also Christianity, and he went on in this vein by refusing to accept that Judaism is about “belief,” an assumption that the moderator, Sarah Montague, a presenter for the Today program on BBC Radio 4, used to frame many of her questions. “I am certainly religious,” he said, “but that for me is a construct of how I behave, and for me that’s important; it’s also a very important social tradition and an intellectual one.” Montague pushed Alexander and Winston on how they reconciled the religious side of things with the scientific side of things. She wanted Winston to clarify, for instance, that he had “found a very comfortable way of being Jewish, a practicing Jew, and being a scientist.” “No,” he replied, “it’s very uncomfortable. I think being religious is deeply uncomfortable, and the problem, of course, about science and religion, to me, is that they are both expressions of our uncertainty, and they are both important because, actually, humans are not good at living with uncertainty.” While I suspect Alexander would have agreed with this point, he took a different tack, saying, “I’ve never seen the slightest basis for some conflict between the two, and I have always been very happy with both.” He stuck closely to the Rescuing Darwin message:

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I would see them as two different types of narrative. . . . We have scientific explanations to things, we have aesthetic explanations, we have ethical explanations, and so forth. I think we have religious explanations, and I think they are not all necessarily in conflict with each other. I think they are more what I would like to call complementary. They are telling different stories about life—which actually we need to do, to do justice to the very complex reality around us. . . . Now it seems to me that religion is asking questions such as “Why is the universe, why is the world, why are we here?”—the God sort of questions. It doesn’t seem to me that science is going to tell us the answers to those questions. But science does a tremendously valuable job—I’ve spent my life in it—telling us how things work and where they are coming from, and that is why I am passionate about evolution. . . . Why would we want to try and pit them against each other?

It is worth highlighting two points here about the way religion gets understood in the God Debate, points made possible by Winston’s replies to Montague. The first is that religion is about belief, which, as numerous anthropologists and others have pointed out, is an especially Protestant approach that tends to downplay what academics would call “praxis” and what Winston refers to as behavior and tradition. There is no doubt that this Protestant approach is what shapes the new atheist understanding of religion. It is precisely because of the incomprehensibility of believing—that water can be turned into wine, that humans can be resurrected—that religion gets labeled by these particular atheists as irrational or delusional and even, on occasion, idiotic. Belief in this formulation is an enemy of reason and an enemy of science. Montague’s invocation of belief was not loaded in this way, but it highlights the hold that certain Protestant intellectual traditions and genealogies have over the very terms of the debate. The second point is related to the first, which is that belief is about certainty, and religion a form of comfort. Winston’s take was an unusual corrective to this line, all the more interesting for the extent to which it never seems to register in public consciousness—although a growing number of anthropologists, at least, are focusing on the centrality of doubt within the practice of faith (Engelke 2007; Luhrmann 2012; Pelkmans 2013). One of Montague’s colleagues on the Today program, the veteran journalist John Humphrys, published his own book in the midst of the God Debate, In God We Doubt: Confessions of a Failed Atheist (2007). In many ways one of the more interesting interventions—and certainly one by a high-profile figure—Humphrys’s book never attracted half the attention of The God Delusion or God Is Not Great. Doubt doesn’t sell.

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Neither Jones nor Rothwell were as dismissive of religion as Dawkins might have been, had he shared a place on the stage. Jones did say the problem with religion is that it is “made up,” whereas science is not. He went on to explain, “If humans had not evolved, we would still have a solar system—we would probably still have the snails I’ve wasted my life on! But we wouldn’t have religion.” Jones even agreed to a certain extent with Alexander that science and religion are incommensurable. He referred to them as like a shark and a tiger and conceded that each would prevail in its own habitat. Yet he added, “I have to tell you, it’s much, much more frequent that religion has tried to trespass on the landscape of science than the other way around.” Jones was also deeply concerned about an anti-evolutionary trend in the classroom. If in 2002, when the Vardy Foundation story broke, the battleground was secondary education, Jones apparently found his own preserve at University College London under siege soon thereafter: “The last five years, every year I’ve had petitions from my undergraduates saying (a) I should not be teaching evolution; (b) if I do teach evolution they should be allowed to leave the room; and (c) there should be no questions about evolution in the first-year biology examination. Now these are largely Islamic undergraduates, but they are of course religious, so the claim that people simply see for Darwin the biblical tale or the Koranic tale as a metaphor is simply not true. There are millions of people out there who believe in the literal truth of Genesis.”23 Rothwell’s sticking point on religion was what she saw as its inherently subjective nature; eight hundred people meant eight hundred different sets of religious beliefs, she said. We were back to belief. Science has no such problem, she went on; it is “testable by numerous people, and demonstrable.” And it is not dependent on any of those people’s individual opinions or standings; it works by a principle of negativity. All the same, there was apparently something about the idea of religious belief that Rothwell found attractive: the comfort she presumed it brought to the religious subject. She did not take up Winston’s point on that score. “I would love to believe in a god! I would very much like to believe in a god,” she said. From that point on in the evening, the terms of how to understand religion settled back into those of belief and comfort. All the panelists ended up distancing themselves from Dawkins in one or more respects. At the end of the debate, Paul Woolley read out a selection of questions that audience members had formulated over the course of the evening and submitted on note cards. One of the questions he

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chose was, “Does the panel agree with Dawkins that it’s time to confront the religious with naked contempt?” “No,” said Winston. “Richard is doing a disservice to science.” “Richard goes out of his way to shock,” said Rothwell. “This actually raises public interest, and so it has its plusses and minuses,” said Alexander, toeing the same line taken at Theos and by many at Bible Society. “Dawkins is rude and aggressive,” said Jones, “but he tells you what he thinks. I tend to agree with him, but perhaps less rudely.” At the reception after the debate, Ann Holt was beaming. This was the event that confirmed Theos’s place in the public square. That’s not to say she found the debate satisfying. Winston was the highlight for her, but she was disappointed with Rothwell’s contribution. As far as Ann could tell, Rothwell didn’t seem to know anything about religion, and Ann wasn’t sure why she accepted the invitation to come and talk about God. Overall what struck Ann was how two professors could support the motion on their authority as scientists without any significant knowledge of theology or, even more, lived religion. Jones had spoken about religion trespassing on the landscape of science; this struck Ann as the other way around. Others connected to Bible Society and Theos expressed similar incredulity and, in some cases, a wistful acceptance that the participants were never likely to have really connected with one another. “Good PR,” Paul Bickley said to me, with a little shrug, as he drank his wine. The day after the debate this incredulity got a public airing from Justin Thacker of the Evangelical Alliance in a CiF Belief posting. Thacker homed in on Jones. Why did Jones take part in the debate? “The only conclusion I can draw,” wrote Thacker, “is that he has imbibed the Dawkins rhetoric to such an extent that, like Dawkins, he is genuinely ignorant of the history of biblical interpretation and the history of Christianity’s reception of Darwinism.”24 At the start of the question-and-answer session, Montague asked the audience to give a show of hands as to their own positions. “Raise your hand if you have religious beliefs and believe in evolution,” she said. About seven hundred hands went up. “Are atheist or creationist,” she continued. About one hundred hands. “Creationist.” Most of the hands went down, and Montague counted those remaining. “About seven people,” she said, against the background of the audience’s knowing chatter. We might safely assume there were more than seven creationists in Westminster Abbey that evening. But the undeniable imbalance reflects both the cant of the debate’s composition and Theos’s overall aim in

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Rescuing Darwin. If the Gray event at LICC provided a rough sense of Theos’s interests and target audience, the debate made it clear just how much it was about providing a platform for theistic evolutionists to engage with the new atheism and, in the process, put forth a model of reasonable religion.

Summary In September 2008 there was a meeting at ESRO’s office in east London, convened by Pharoah and his colleagues to give Theos an update on the progress of the qualitative research. ESRO had invited me, along with two other anthropologists with expertise on Christianity in Britain, Fenella Cannell and Simon Coleman, to speak to them and provide feedback on how we thought the research was taking shape and what they might add to it in the final phase. It was a small-world moment. A very-small-world moment: Fenella and I are departmental colleagues (our offices were right next to each other’s at the time), and Simon is a close colleague. I did not know Robin well when he was a student at the London School of Economics, but one of the two other researchers on the project had been an undergraduate at LSE and I taught her in a core course in the final year. I will resist the temptation to engage in autoethnography of a sort, although it was interesting to me how not religious the ESRO team was; for them, this was a research project that held no special sway, interests, or agenda. I got the impression they found it interesting in its own right, but not necessarily any more so than work they did for other clients (which ranged from the NHS to Dunkin’ Donuts). One of the ESRO researchers did confess to being tickled by reaching Dawkins by phone on a cold call; the researcher simply rang his office at New College, Oxford. He was there and picked up. What I want to highlight from the meeting with ESRO is the Theos team’s reactions to and questions about the research in progress. ESRO had done twenty-nine interviews at that point, with ten more scheduled. Nick, Paul, and Paul B., who had all come, were deeply curious about “these people” and their positions. Nick most of all. “What’s the problem with evolution?” he asked. He couldn’t see it. “The chance emergence of man,” Robin offered. “And the mixing of men and animals,” Simon added; of the anthropologists present he had actually published on creationist debates (Coleman and Carlin 2004). “Is evolution an emblem for bigger battles?” Nick continued, his eyes squinted up, brow furrowed. “Some see it as the key battleground for religion

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and the future of Christianity,” Robin answered. “It’s an attack because it’s a materialist world in which God is not present.” Nick kept on: “Is the perception that, if you don’t see the Bible literally, it means you’re flaky?” “Yes,” Robin said. “So”—Nick again—“evolution equals no Adam equals no Christ. Is evolution the thread that unravels the whole tapestry?” “This is common in the United States,” Simon interjected. “I suspect those we interviewed would agree with that formula,” Robin said, sounding like an anthropologist. It was at this meeting that I got the best sense of just how foreign—just how other—creationism was to Nick and his colleagues. His position on Rescuing Darwin wasn’t overdrawn in the slightest for the sake of polemical effect. Theos’s position on literalist creationism was the strongest of the many they put forward during the course of my research. In this project as in others, the team took full advantage of their semi-independence from Bible House. James Catford would never have allowed Bible Society itself to endorse theistic evolutionism or allowed a staff member or associate to speak on behalf of the Society about the “embarrassment” of creationism. Indeed the Society had literalists and young earth creationists on staff, including an executive team member and at least one Bible Advocacy Team member. Theos’s position on creationism raised hackles outside the Society. For some time after the project concluded, Nick kept a letter he had received taped to the wall above his desk. It came from someone who had received a free copy of Rescuing Darwin as part of their subscription to Christianity Today. The letter was unsigned and written in a strong hand. “I received this copy of your Rescuing Darwin in the post by accident,” it read. “Why rescue a man who was a complete agnostic, never sure of anything? Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.” Theos received no such direct opprobrium from within the Society itself. There were, though, as one staff member put it to me, “murmurings” within Bible House about the line Theos had taken. Some staff felt patronized by these London intellectuals. Dave Landrum certainly had his reservations about the work. “I didn’t like that project,” he said. “But I wasn’t there at creation. And I can absolutely understand [Theos’s position]. Strategically it was about taking the steam out of that Darwinist stuff.” He wanted to focus on the bashing of God bashers. For him, though, the story of creation in Genesis was “far more valid than any other explanation,” but his “cop-out” was that God says a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. Even so, he said, “I don’t believe people are evolved in any way, shape, or form.”

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One legacy of the Enlightenment, and the processes of secularization that accompanied it, is the juxtaposition of categories and concepts that still govern our lives and ways of thinking. Faith and knowledge, passion and reason, science and religion: these are modern formations after the Great Separation. Rescuing Darwin was not an attempt to unseat these pairings, even if Nick and the team wanted to unsettle them a bit. In the end, though, reasonable religion works with rather than against the epistemological divisions set up in the eighteenth century. For Theos, Rescuing Darwin was a thoroughly modern project in that sense—one intended to show the antimodern attitudes of others. The crux of an antimodern attitude in this reading is extremism, a point of view that neglects the benefits of balance in any perspective, that insists on thinking in terms of black and white rather than shades of gray. By refusing to concede that science cannot wholly own why questions, that theology and philosophy might offer something distinct, Dawkins and his like-minded brethren were colonizing too much intellectual space. By refusing to recognize the evidence base of science, creationists were being willfully ignorant of humankind’s accomplishments in understanding our origins. For Theos, new atheism and literalist creationism are defined by their imbalances. In the register of Enlightenment expletives, both camps were being overly enthusiastic. In 1738 William Warburton, the bishop of Gloucester, published the first volume of his two-part study, Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated, recognized today as a key index of the “religious enlightenment” that sat between the new ideas of the philosophes and the recalcitrant demands of extant theological orthodoxy. For Warburton and his fellow travelers, being reasonable didn’t mean embracing reason alone. It “signified a balance between reason and faith. Reasonable belief meant the coordination of reason and revelation” (Sorkin 2008, 12). This is the tradition of Christian thought that made sense for Theos and that Nick and the others aimed to cultivate by rescuing Darwin.

Conclusion

In October 2006 James Catford and Paul Woolley took Andy Reed and Gary Streeter on a Bible Society trip to Ethiopia. As CEO, James routinely made an effort to take key supporters and friends of the Society along for international business. Certainly in terms of the Half G-6, it was seen as important to develop personal relationships outside the context of Westminster, to give some of the MPs with whom Dave Landrum had been working a better sense of where James was coming from and what else the Society was up to. In Parliament or London such relating was always going to have its limitations. I spent five days with the Ethiopia group in Addis Ababa. Even after boarding our flight to Addis, the grip of Westminster seemed hard for the MPs to shake. When we landed en route, as part of the two-leg flight, one of the MPs turned on his BlackBerry. It immediately started dinging, reminding him of various obligations back at the House. He looked down at the device and then turned to show it to me. “Ah, look,” he said with a smile, clearly glad to be away. There was an alarm bell on the screen alerting him about a vote taking place back in the Commons. For his part, James had been quite relieved just to have gotten the MPs on the plane; he knew that one or both of them might have canceled at the last minute because of party-political business. We rendezvoused at the Costa Coffee in Heathrow’s Terminal 4 just prior to departure. I got there after James but before the MPs; James was gripping his latte with very firm hands and only eased up on it after the MPs arrived. 225

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London faded to the background once we settled in at the Sheraton Hotel, which was to be our base in Addis. Our first full day there was left open, which gave us time to get to know one another a bit. I soon learned I wasn’t the odd one out on that score. At lunch, as we sat at a table by the pool, it became clear that Gary didn’t know James very well, and knew still less about Bible Society. Over a plate of chicken and french fries, Gary asked about the Society’s history and what it was all about. He was particularly curious about the name: Why is it called “Bible Society” and not “Christian Society”? Paul gave a brief explanation of the Society’s traditional mandate to provide Scripture—something Gary would soon be seeing firsthand. The itinerary over the following few days showcased a number of classic international Bible Society projects: a visit to the offices of Bible Society of Ethiopia (BSE); a visit to a team working on an Amharic translation of the Septuagint, which was being coordinated by the BSE and Ethiopian Orthodox Church; and visits to a Lutheran school and youth hostel, both of which were using audiocassette Bibles produced and provided by the Society. Yet, as interesting as the official itinerary was, what I want to focus on here is a pair of Bible studies arranged and led by James. It was in these informal and relatively intimate exchanges, held in my hotel room, that much of the work of relating got done. The Bible studies focused on the Sermon on the Mount, related in the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 5–7. James focused in particular on chapter 5, which contains its fair share of some of the most well-known sayings and teachings of Jesus, including several of the Beatitudes. It is in Matthew that Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (5:5), and speaks of the city on the hill (5:14), the “salt of the earth” (5:13), and “the light of the world” (5:14). Here too we are told to turn the other cheek (5:38) and love our enemies (5:43). The opening part of the Sermon also contains some of Jesus’ most challenging demands in terms of how to live. It is here, for example, that Jesus says it is a sin to lust in our hearts as much as to act upon that lust (5:28) and that if our right hand causes us to sin, we should “cut it off and throw it away” (5:30). As the last verse in the chapter reads, you should simply “be perfect . . . as your heavenly father is perfect” (5:48). James framed that evening’s comments around the idea of availability. At first, he said, the Sermon sounds like a set of conditions. If you live up to a certain standard, then you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Just be perfect! “But I know I am not any of these things,” he confided. “Or only in moments.” Meek, merciful, pure in heart: we are these things

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only in moments. Yet it would be a mistake, James reasoned, to read the Sermon as a set of absolute conditions, and still less demands. The Sermon is about striving, and it’s about who’s in the picture. “What I have come to see through my reading of it,” he said, “is that it’s about inclusivity.” Jesus is offering a new way to perceive the world, to perceive each other, and to perceive our relation to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Sermon’s profound and simple truth, James emphasized, is that the Kingdom of Heaven is open to everyone. It is available. “This has transformed my idea of faith,” he said. “There are so many people around who say, ‘We’ve got it. We have the Kingdom.’ ” This kind of thinking has to be guarded against. The Gospel is offensive, James concluded. It’s not offensive because of who it excludes, though, but rather who it includes: everyone. That is its profundity. In much of the scholarship on Matthew, what James is referring to as a message of inclusion or availability is framed in terms of the broader New Testament theme of Jesus’ relation to the Law. In Matthew 5 this relation is spelled out most fully in verses 17–48, but it is addressed in many other contexts and by several other key figures, Saint Paul being one of the most important (for example, Romans 3:28). In our Bible study, though, James was not asking us to think about the matter of the law. His immediate point was more focused and had to do with a related subtheme in Matthew about the position of the privileged—the people who say We’ve got it and the dangers this invites. As the novelist Francisco Goldman (1999, xv) notes, “One of the most controversial teachings of Jesus in Matthew is the remarkably strong stance taken against the rich, and on behalf of the poor.” “In our world, still,” says Tom Wright (2002, 36–37) in Matthew for Everyone, “most people think that wonderful news consists of success, wealth, long life, victory in battle. Jesus is offering wonderful news for the humble, the poor, the mourners, the peacemakers.” This is what James wanted to emphasize to us that evening, echoing the words of the Society’s president. That initial Bible study was held on our first full day, so we hadn’t yet seen much of Addis. Like other luxury hotels in Africa, though, the Sheraton bore no real relation to the city. Indeed even more than its counterparts in southern Africa, the region of Africa I know best, the Sheraton stands in sharp contrast to its surroundings. From my room we could look down across the glistening pools and manicured gardens of the hotel. But immediately beyond the Sheraton’s walls was a mix of worlds, blocks of modern streets interspersed with shanties and makeshift dwellings. In the former settler-colonies of southern Africa, visitors

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do not normally see the poverty from the windows of their five-star hotels; space is more strictly differentiated. James was raising issues in his reading of the Sermon on the Mount that were framed quite deliberately in relation to our physical surroundings; it was a hermeneutics geared for the trip, and part of what he was doing was setting a theological frame with which to think about the visit, to inform the scope of our experiences and discussions. Over the course of the next several days, we would be seeing some stark poverty and needed to think about the theme of availability. After that first Bible study, Yilma Gitahun, our local host and the secretary-general of BSE, took us to an Ethiopian restaurant. It was the first of many requisite global South cultural experiences, for which we sat at low tables and ate communally from massive plates on injera, the sour, spongy bread that forms the staple of Ethiopian cuisine. Not long after we had finished eating and were settling in to watch some traditional dancers—another requisite “cultural” experience— James turned to Andy in a quiet moment and began reflecting back on the Bible study. They tried to start a conversation, but then the dancing and music started up again and it became impossible. It didn’t matter; James’s invocation was enough for that moment. A signpost had been put in place that this trip was going to be a way of connecting as Christians, of thinking through the lessons and wisdom of the Bible. At the next Bible study, two days later, James moved on in focus. “Last time we spoke about availability. Let’s talk about the Kingdom.” He defined the Kingdom as “where what God wants done, is done.” This has nothing to do with kingdoms on earth, which are human affairs. Kingdoms on earth “bump into one another,” as James put it. They are part of a fallen creation. Within the scope of our world, though, humans have choice; humans have a God-given freedom. And God respects this. But in the context of these freedoms, Jesus highlights the path to something greater. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us how to live for the Kingdom. Much of Matthew 5 is given over to what living for the Kingdom means. It means that one’s thoughts ought to match one’s actions. It means that surrender and submission are the paths to righteousness. It means that we must indeed strive to be perfect. James stopped to dwell on these points in relation to Matthew 5:30: “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.” “Here, Jesus is setting the bar impossibly high,”

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James said with a little laugh. “This is reductio ad absurdum. But this is an internalization; this is about challenging your character.” The group then spent a little time reflecting on James’s points. Andy and Gary were in full agreement. And after the fact I can see how it connects so well to what Andy and Gary both told me, several months later, when we sat down for interviews back in Westminster. As Gary was to put it, the label on the tin doesn’t matter in this vision of faith. What matters is what’s inside. In the Bible study that evening, James and the others were emphasizing that one must live one’s faith—one must always strive to be better and to live up to one’s principles. But as James said at one point, “sometimes in our work for the public square, we externalize without internalizing.” In other words, we focus on the tin, not the product. It wasn’t long before Wilberforce came up. “Wilberforce can give us inspiration here,” James said. “He was intensely concerned with inner transformation.” Throughout his writings Wilberforce emphasizes this point again and again. Consider this, from one of his most impassioned works: “It is indeed true, and a truth never to be forgotten, that all pretensions to internal principles of holiness are vain when they are contradicted by the conduct; but it is no less true that the only effectual way of improving the latter, is by a vigilant attention to the former. . . . Indeed, it is the Heart which constitutes the Man; and external actions derive their whole character and meaning from the motives and dispositions of which they are indications” (Wilberforce 1798, 195–96). “The early evangelicals knew they had to transform themselves to transform others,” James went on to say. And that’s what Jesus is talking about in the Sermon on the Mount: inner transformation. It was in this context that I first heard James use a phrase that I would hear him use again and again, expressing a common evangelical concern with sincerity: You can’t sell what you haven’t got. People know a con man and they know a fake; they also know when someone isn’t speaking with conviction. Externalizing must reveal “the character of the speaker” (Keane 2002, 75). One of James’s goals that night, slowly building up the Society’s agenda for embedding the Bible in the world of politics, was to foster and reinforce the sense of common cause with two MPs who he hoped would become key supporters—and key recipients of support. For them, James was setting out the principles of a Kingdom mind-set, as informed by a Wilberforcean commitment to shaping one’s politics—a politics of availability—in accord with a fidelity to the Good News.

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Through his Bible studies James was cultivating a particular kind of relationship with the MPs. As much as Dave Landrum, he was equipping and encouraging them to embody and articulate a Kingdom mindset based on sincerity in both actions and words. Whether or not the MPs’ own views resonated with James’s is beside the point, although parallels to our earlier discussions are notable. The studies forged an intimacy that the more formal agenda and events could not. They secured for James a position of respect and even authority. “James is a visionary and an implementer,” Gary told me a couple of months after the trip. “That makes him special. He’s a spiritual man, and that’s important because there are quite a few Christian ‘doers’ who have either never had or have allowed to evaporate the spiritual dimension of life.” •

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It is helpful to conclude this book with a scene that in many ways stands in contrast to the study as a whole. The Bible-reading sessions in Ethiopia remind us of two important points. First, the majority of what the Society did took place internationally; two-thirds of the annual program budgets during the period 2006–9 were devoted to projects overseas. I have not been able to provide an account of the work in Ethiopia, but it is extensive and developed over many years; James took a particular interest in Ethiopia and has been there many, many times. Suffice it to say that he took the MPs not simply to hold Bible studies with them (although this was obviously important); he also wanted to involve them in local projects and showcase the international work. And this work, which deserves a study in its own right, was driven by a very different strategy. The second point has to do with the intimacies of faith. This book has focused on the ways in which Bible advocacy is about creating the conditions of possibility for encounters and engagements with the Word of God. Yet for God’s agents, the job of “doing Bible” does not normally involve participating with others in the process of reading and reflection. We have had glimpses of this elsewhere, most notably in Rob Hare’s Lyfe group in Surrey, but also sessions held by Christians in Parliament and, through some of its reports, at Theos. But by and large this ethnography of the Book has not been an ethnography of reading. It has been an ethnography of publicity. And publicity, we have seen, often sits at odds with intimacy. We should not forget, however, or discount the overarching vision that James Catford and his colleagues have in mind: “for a day when

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the Bible’s God-given revelation, inspiration, and wisdom is shaping the lives and communities of people everywhere.” So say the annual reports, and so the staff were reminded at that all-staff meeting in August 2007, during James and Peter Meadows’s “five-year goals for staff” presentation, where everyone had to recite the goals aloud, in unison. The efforts at publicity I have documented and explored are nearfuture goals. But publicity in itself, or even “public religion,” is not the Kingdom for these Christians. The extent to which James wanted to emphasize the processes of self-formation in his reflections on the Gospel of Matthew is testament to this. “You can’t externalize without internalizing.” Neither James nor those on the Bible Advocacy Team were willing to surrender the importance of sincerity and personal commitment that drove Wilberforce and his contemporaries. For them, “inner transformation” is still the prize. It was more a matter of the ways that sincerity and personality could be communicated and made manifest. James and his colleagues are among those Christians who have come to think that the classical evangelical emphasis on personal salvation is no longer appropriate. It doesn’t work in England. As David Ashford put it in the session with KSBR Brand Futures, “You need to get to point B before you get to point C.” Jesus is a Point C project. What Wilberforce wants to talk about, what James can discuss with Gary and Andy, what Rob Hare can discuss with his friends in Surrey, even what Paul can tell Christians who work in the NHS—that’s all Point C. This has been an ethnography of Point B, following Point B tactics and strategies in the long-term objective of making the Bible heard. It has been played out not in face-to-face encounters or even moments of solitary prayer and reflection, but rather in the daunting, demanding, and at times demeaning arena of what gets called “culture.” The very idea of a Church-Culture split is indicative of the ways the logic of secularism has shaped this strand of Christian social action in contemporary England. And the agents of God in this study have chosen to be secular. At least for now. They have given of themselves, given over their cherished Book to the projects of culture, politics, and even science. Bible advocacy approaches the task of social transformation by working with rather than against the discourse of the day. This is another meaning of availability, one of the key terms of Bible advocacy. One result of this is that the emergent-style, Wright-way, incarnational faith of God’s agents may not seem all that different from what’s currently on offer in public culture at large. With the exception perhaps of Discourse Dave, the trajectory of these evangelically minded social actors

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is only a few degrees different from the perceived norm. And as even Dave said, Jesus learned to speak the language of the culture he was in. At least the difference might not be notable in the near future. In the longer term, of course, the shopping arcades in Swindon might well be decorated with banners proclaiming, “Good News! Hope!” The shops might not be that full anyway, because people would be celebrating Christmas otherwise in their homes, communities, and churches—churches full of “real Christians” (if Dave has his way) whose hearts have been touched by the revelation, inspiration, and wisdom of the Word. Campaigns to Culture would be a thing of the past—even more so than they already are. (Greater Manchester was the last.) “The culture” would be reenchanted, wholly connected, kissed beautiful. In this longer term future, Christians wouldn’t be talking culture talk at all. Trained as an Africanist, it is difficult for me not to think of the many debates and issues raised in this book in terms more familiar. In the contemporary terrain of a postsecular England, precolonial Africa contains many insights and lessons about the tempo and temporality of “cross-cultural” conversations. For that is indeed how the kind of missional work documented in this study gets perceived: as a cross-cultural encounter. Jean and John Comaroff’s two-volume historical ethnography, Of Revelation and Revolution (1991, 1997), is one of the most influential studies in this respect. They write about what they call “the long conversation” between the missionaries and their would-be African flocks. What the missionary (and larger colonial) projects aimed for over time was “the colonization of consciousness” through which Africans would be “drawn unwittingly into the domain of European ‘civilization’ while at the same time often contesting its presence and the explicit content of its worldview” (1991, 26). The temporal framing of this colonization is, of course, crucial; it could not take place overnight. This was not a world of tipping points either. The scene that most comes to mind for me in the Comaroffs’ work is the encounter between a missionary doctor and a Kwena rainmaker, taken from the writings of the famous missionary-explorer David Livingstone. In the exchange, the missionary doctor chides the rainmaker, whom Livingstone refers to as a “rain doctor,” for claiming that he can use medicines to open the clouds. “I think that can be done by God alone,” argues the medical doctor (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991, 210). “But God told us differently,” the rain doctor replies. The further details of this exchange are beside the point; the point is that there was

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an exchange, and it got framed in terms the missionary doctor wanted them to, terms “of God and Science” (213). The rain doctor and other Africans were being “inducted, unwittingly and often unwillingly, into the forms of European discourse,” argue the Comaroffs. “To argue over who was the legitimate rainmaker or where the water came from . . . was to be seduced into the modes of rational debate, positivist knowledge, and empirical reason at the core of bourgeois culture.” The Africans “could not avoid internalizing the terms through which they were being challenged” (213). If James’s lesson, as an evangelical following in the footsteps of Wilberforce, is that you cannot externalize without internalizing, the lesson from the anthropological record is vice versa too. The historical specifics of this example remind us in another way that faith and reason have not always been antithetical. Like Darwin, Livingstone is commemorated in Westminster Abbey, and the medical doctor Livingstone portrays would have been understood in his day as modeling a perfectly “reasonable religion.” But the question this example really forces is whether or not God’s agents today occupy the position of the rainmaker or the medical doctor. In contemporary England, do public Christians have to occupy “the savage slot”?1 To what extent are these Christians being seduced into the modes of rational debate? Are they settling for the secular? The parallel with the primitive should not be so surprising. The secular is often seen to have this colonizing quality, working “something like an imperial discourse” (Foucault in Modern 2011, 8). Around the same time that Livingstone and others were starting long conversations in Africa, others were taking shape back home—in the United Kingdom, in other parts of Europe, and in the United States. John Lardas Modern (2011, 8–9), in his work on antebellum America, has recently given us a sustained set of reflections on what I’m talking about here, referring to secularism as “something monstrous” that “conjured a natural presence. The categories and sensibilities that it generated were aggressively selfevident for those who adopted them, setting the terms that all arguments about religion would have to adopt in order to become intelligible.” The secular makes demands, and in its contemporary formations often consigns faith, both explicitly and implicitly, to the savage slot. The colonization of consciousness is never total, never as expected, and never a one-way process. And seducers get seduced by the objects of their seduction. All the same, James and his colleagues often worried whether their culture-facing projects were too subtle, too ambient, too cultural. After the Greater Manchester Campaign, James and I met for

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coffee. He told me that in hindsight he wondered if not branding the creatives with the Bible Society logo was a good idea. As we have seen, the issue in Bible advocacy was often how to walk the fine line between being able to have a conversation and to shape that conversation.2 Bible advocacy is a gambit; it’s a sacrifice today to the secular in the service of tomorrow for salvation. Gary Streeter liked James’s approach. But the missional, incarnational style of Bible advocacy has not been uniformly embraced by Christian actors within the public sphere or Britain’s Christian counterpublics. One warm day in July 2009 I went to see Jonathan Bartley at his home in south London. Bartley, codirector of the think tank Ekklesia, often appeared in the media during the course of my research, offering what many would recognize as a “progressive” Christian perspective on matters of the day (although he called it “centrist”). Ekklesia was for disestablishment, spoke up for gay rights, protested the Iraq War, and was critical of faith schools. As we sat in his kitchen—in a very large and slightly run-down Victorian house, which he and his family lived in with others, intentionally and communally—Bartley made no bones about his skepticism toward the Bible advocacy approach. Bible Society was beholden to the churches and hadn’t escaped the Church-Culture matrix. It would never do anything really radical or innovative in this mode, he said. Its attempts to be “cultural” were doomed. “The problem is, you are taking the stories of Christendom and stripping them ever further of their impact.” Bible Society had given in to the logic of the other. And Bartley was happy to go on record about it. In a more theological register, we have already seen that Oliver O’Donovan, quoted in chapter 5, disavows any approach that tries to appropriate publicity. From a kindred theological and political perspective (although very different from the Anabaptist tradition of Bartley), proponents of “radical orthodoxy” also refuse to accept the terms of debate as given in the secular settlement. John Milbank (1991/2006), the most influential theologian in this area, has written at great length of his despair over the extent to which Christianity has allowed itself to be defined in relation to the secular—to be pigeonholed as private, so that theology becomes part of a larger framing that is “social.” William T. Cavanaugh (2002, 54), another theologian in this tradition, focuses even more specifically on the publicity question: under the current settlements, “being public is a game at which the church will inevitably lose.” This is because many Christians, Cavanaugh argues—including, I

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think he would say, the reasonably religious—suffer from an “inability to break decisively with the Enlightenment story of secularism” (5). As my research was ending, radical orthodoxy was gaining a foothold in the public square via the launch of another London-based think tank, ResPublica. ResPublica is not explicitly “religious,” but this is partly because of its theological positioning, which refused such language. Its director, Philip Blond (1998, 54), who studied under Milbank, has written in his academic work, “To say we should now bring an end to the secular is to say that we should reverse the dreadful consequences of the liberal erasure of God.” This isn’t quite the language he uses in public life, although he is very critical of Thatcher’s brand of conservatism, which champions models of the individual and freedom that sit at odds with his Anglo-Catholicism. ResPublica is a platform for delivering the secular reversal, and Blond’s agenda has both dovetailed with and helped shape the Conservative Party’s politics under David Cameron, who spoke at ResPublica’s launch in November 2009. Blond’s work has been recognized as an important resource for Cameron’s “Big Society” agenda, a catchphrase that signals a reworking of Thatcherism by revaluing the role of communal ties and mutualism.3 For Blond, at least, the key is to be a “Red Tory,” which means a Tory (Conservative) who cringes over the extent to which the free market has allowed chain stores to grow and local business to wither. I sat next to Nick Spencer at the ResPublica launch, which took place in an opulent central London hotel. We weren’t sitting, actually, so much as perching on a ledge at the back of the room in an effort to see what was going on. Nick was no fan of the Tesco-ization of the nation’s high streets, and yet Theos and Bible Society were not radically Orthodox; as we’ve seen, they took a very different approach to the problem of publicity. •

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Fast-forward to 2012. The London office of Bible Society, which James promised to staff back in August 2007, is now open: 77 Great Peter Street—“Number 77,” as staff call it—is just a five-minute walk from Parliament Square. Only Theos is housed there—Swindon is still the Society’s headquarters—but James has included at Great Peter Street more space for Bible Society events and meetings to be held. Theos’s office, on the top floor of the building, is decidedly more pleasant than the one I got to know so well. There is stylish furniture, better lighting, even nice carpets, and no road noise. The ground floor at Number 77

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has a glass-walled lounge, with comfortable chairs and a bookshop-like display of Bible Society Bibles and other publications. In the basement is a meeting room outfitted with a long oak table and leather boardroomstyle chairs. At one end, tucked in the alcove, is a bust of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, president of the Bible Society from 1851 to 1885. Some things have changed. James Catford is now group chief executive, after a reorganization of the Society into even more distinct “charity” and “trading” arms. Woolley is executive director of charity, “moved up” from Theos to oversee a much larger portfolio of work. Dave Landrum and David Ashford have left, the former to become director of advocacy at the Evangelical Alliance—“relating,” as he will always want to do, in a wider field. Paul Bickley and Spencer are still at Theos, Nick having served a time as acting director, after Woolley’s move—a job Nick did not want, as it would have taken him too far away from his writing and his books. (That new director is Elizabeth Oldfield, who came to the post from the BBC.) Luke Walton is still the arts officer, although he spends an increasing amount of time working as a producer for Society-backed film projects. Ann Holt is now director of external relations and spends a lot more time overseas; she thinks of retiring soon—from the job, but of course never the work. In his new role, Paul Woolley has started a series of events at Number 77 called “monthly conversations,” which run during parliamentary terms. “We’re interested in reframing the public’s perception of the Bible as surprisingly good, part of the solution to the issues confronting the world, not part of the problem,” he says in his email invitations to these events. “The conversations at Number 77 are not explicitly ‘theological’ but are for people in politics, business, education, media and the arts who are interested in ideas, people and culture change.” The subject line of his email for the June conversation stands out for me: “Invitation: An evening with Alastair Campbell.” Should we be surprised that Bible Society would one day have Campbell walking through the door? Not in the least. This is what Bible advocacy is all about. On the evening of his visit I’m extra early and spend a few minutes with Paul B. and Nick up in the Theos office. There are four hundred hardback copies of Nick’s latest book, Freedom and Order: History, Politics, and the English Bible (2011), in the entryway. I slip a copy into my bag. Nick’s next project is a history of atheism. Paul B. asks me if I know the anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann, whose important new book, When God Talks Back, on the Vineyard movement,

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is just out. He’s reading it, he tells me, because he attends a Vineyard church here in London. About twenty of us gather in the basement meeting room. When Campbell comes in, escorted by James and Paul, he acknowledges a couple of people he already knows. After sitting down he loosens his tie and puts his iPhone on the table. Paul tells us that the Chatham House Rule will apply to what’s said that evening, at which point Campbell says, “Well, I’ve just tweeted that I’m here!” Everyone laughs.4 (I later get permission to attribute remarks to Campbell, James, and Paul.) Campbell speaks effortlessly for close to half an hour. He begins, on cue from Paul, with “the whole ‘doing God’ thing” and tells us that not a day goes by that he doesn’t receive an email about it. He tells us, as well, about his position as a pro-faith atheist and, later on, that he doesn’t think the Bible Society should overplay the Bible’s marginality. “Putting the Bible at the heart of the culture?” he says, echoing James. “I don’t think you’re that far off.” “This Dawkins thing is a fad, really,” he adds. Most of what Campbell talks about, though, is what he’s been asked to talk about—which is not God but rather how to communicate a message and how he helped reshape the image of the Labour Party in the mid-1990s. “O.S.T.,” Campbell says: Objective, Strategy, Tactics. You have to stick to this formula. But in addition to this formula, he is really talking about something else as well: Time. “You can only connect to people over time,” he says at one point. “I see strategy as the painting of a picture over time. And every time you communicate or announce something, you can land a dot. They’re all just dots, but you’re trying to build a picture over time.” Campbell agreed to do this session for Bible Society as a favor to a friend, someone from the political world (who happens to be a staunch Conservative). It’s the friend who has long supported Bible Society; Campbell has only just met James and Paul. This makes the questionand-answer session all the more interesting, from my perspective as an anthropologist. Campbell doesn’t know the background to the questions, but anyone who knows the Society knows they’re motivated by and part of a metalevel discussion that has been ongoing for years. “How many people in an organization do you allow to add dots?” someone asks. “Everyone,” Campbell replies. But to the outside world, he adds, everyone in an organization has to have a clear line. They have to be saying the same thing. Another person describes the Society’s

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position of “no note or comment” and asks Campbell what he thinks of such a line. “If you’re in a high-profile position, you have to have an opinion,” he answers. Paul, ever the politics man, asks whether the Labour Party changed public opinion or public opinion changed the Labour Party. For those in tune with the Society’s agenda, this question cut straight to the heart of the matter in terms of how the Society had been approaching public culture. “A bit of both,” Campbell says. “We lost four elections and you’ve got to absorb public opinion.” Someone else asked, “How long is your game?” “Just when you’re exhausted by saying something, that’s the moment it might actually happen,” Campbell suggests. “Keep going,” he adds motivationally. “It is about O.S.T.,” Paul says to me over canapés after the talk. Campbell is sitting at a table nearby, signing copies of the book he’s just published, the fourth volume of his diaries, The Burden of Power (Campbell and Hagerty 2012), which covers the “whole ‘doing God’ thing” (alongside other things, such as the Iraq War). Back in Swindon, Paul tells me, he is trying to focus the Society’s agenda, to further hone Bible advocacy. Whether the call to do so from the man whose way with words shaped a decade’s worth of religious publicity is a sign of changing or being changed, we cannot know. But God’s agents have kept going, exhausted at times, for sure, but also exhilarated by their efforts to build for the Kingdom and still holding fast to the conviction that biblical publicity is a means of realizing the Christian proclamation. What their story suggests is the need to frame our focus on “public religion” in relation to the dynamics, desires, and directions of religious publicity. This is the age in which the conditions and qualities of being public matter as much as being public itself.

Notes

Preface 1. In addition to Canovan (1990), in recent years a number of scholars have highlighted the complicated connections between the Enlightenment and liberalism; of particular relevance to this study are the works of anthropologists such as Talal Asad (see Asad et al. 2009) and Saba Mahmood (2005). Readers interested in these anthropological-conceptual investigations and critiques of what Mahmood calls “the normative liberal assumptions about human nature” (5) will, I hope, find in the present book an ethnographic take on how these issues play out in England, one of the centers out of which those assumptions emerged. Although from a very different standpoint, the people I studied would insist, with academics such as Asad and Mahmood (or William Connolly, Charles Taylor, or John Gray), that these assumptions should be questioned and never taken for granted. 2. “Portrait: Alastair Spent Hours with Ellie in the Hospital,” Observer (London), 31 August 2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/aug/31/media .uk, accessed 12 July 2011. 3. See, for example, Colin Brown, “Campbell Interrupted Blair as He Spoke of His Faith: ‘We Don’t Do God,’ ” Daily Telegraph (London), 4 May 2003, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1429109/Campbell-interrupted-Blair -as-he-spoke-of-his-faith-We-dont-do-God.html, accessed 12 July 2011. 4. “Baroness Warsi Misses Point of ‘We Don’t Do God,’ Writes a Pro Faith Atheist,” Alastair’s Blog, 16 September 2010, http://www.alastaircampbell.org /blog/2010/09/16/baroness-warsi-misses-point-of-we-dont-do-god-writes-a-pro -faith-atheist/, accessed 12 July 2011. 239

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5. The Blair Years, episode 3, BBC 1, 2 December 2007. 6. See Simon Caldwell, “Judges Are Biased against Christians,” Catholic Herald, 9 September 2011, http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2011/09/09 /judges-are-biased-against-christians-says-archbishop/, accessed 5 January 2012. Eweida’s case went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in September 2012, and a judgment ruling in her favor was handed down in January 2013. Eweida’s feeling of “vindication,” though (and €2,000 in damages), was tempered by the fact that three other cases considered by the court in the same ruling were not seen to have infringed upon the claimants’ religious freedoms. See “British Airways Christian Employee Nadia Eweida Wins Case,” BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21025332, accessed 25 February 2013. 7. This point shouldn’t be elided to include, say, neoliberal or otherwise conservative preferences for “the private sector.” Even in such political visions, the kind of publicness I’m talking about here is a central value. 8. My apologies to the Welsh; while I did make it to Bala—a town in Wales that plays a central role in the origin story of the BFBS (see Holder 1992)—I was not able to follow the work in Wales. There was a member of the Bible Advocacy team dedicated to Wales with whom I had many engaging conversations at Bible House in Swindon. But it was too much for the lone anthropologist to cover. Introduction 1. File BSA A/1, minutes of the general meeting 7 March 1804, Archives of the British and Foreign Bible Society (hereafter ABFBS), University Library, Cambridge. 2. Ibid. 3. Files BSA A1/2, minutes of the annual meeting held 5 May 1858, ABFBS. 4. “Speeches” box, G. E. van der Merwe file, “Unveiling of plaque: Bible House Kempton Park,” 26 August 1977, Archives of the Bible Society of South Africa, Bible House, Bellville, South Africa. 5. See http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/l3.php?id=315, accessed 3 July 2006. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-bible-society /contact-us/.) 6. See “Press and Media,” Bible Society, http:// www.biblesociety.org.uk /about-bible-society/news-and-press/style-guide/, accessed 13 December 2011. 7. The Executive Team during the period of my research comprised the CEO, deputy CEO, a director of services, a director of giving and communication, a head of program, and a head of supporter development. 8. Becky Garrison, “Heavy Theological Dude Mistakenly Talks to Us,” Wittenburg Door, 17 December 2007, http://www.wittenburgdoor.com/heavy-theo logical-dude-mistakenly-talks-us, accessed 5 March 2012. 9. The best example of this is a document entitled Bible Society’s Theology of the Bible, which was the Advocacy Team’s most thorough treatment of the themes and issues discussed in this section.

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10. N. T. Wright is not an emerging evangelical, yet his ideas have clearly influenced Christians who self-identify as such. See Begbie (2011) for a good overview of Wright’s appeal. In the blogosphere, which is where many emerging voices and commentators operate, see, for example, “N. T. Wright and the Emerging Church,” Life as Mission, 21 April 2010, http://lifeasmission.com /blog/2010/04/nt-wright-and-the-emerging-church/, accessed 5 March 2012; Daniel Korol, “Emerging Church Influence: N. T. Wright,” 4 April 2008, http ://danielkorol.com/blog/archives/146, accessed 5 March 2012. 11. Barthian: after Karl Barth, the influential twentieth-century Swiss theologian much respected in Bible House. 12. McLaren’s (2004) book was the first book by a Christian writer that James suggested I read. It was at our initial meeting, some two or three months before my research began. From a shelf of books in the meeting room that doubles as his private office, James pulled that one down and left it on the coffee table in front of me as we spoke. 13. Tom Wright, “God in Public? Reflections on Faith in Society,” Fulcrum, 14 February 2008, http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=279, accessed 5 March 2012. 14. And yet we are beginning to see anthropological studies that document an even greater diversity of “conservative” evangelicalisms; Omri Elisha’s (2011) work on evangelicals in Tennessee is a particularly good case in point. The sociologist of religion Mathew Guest (2007) has also provided a finegrained qualitative study of evangelicals in the United Kingdom, looking at the ways a classically evangelical Anglican congregation in York has drawn on “emerging church” ideas. In recent years there have also been important studies of, for example, the Vineyard movement, which is often driven by a socially progressive agenda (Bialecki 2009, 2012; Luhrmann 2012). Jon Bialecki’s work on Vineyard churches in southern California adds much nuance to the picture in terms of the problem of social action; as he shows (Bialecki 2009), there are Vineyard churches that, while socially progressive and “emergent” in many respects, are theologically conservative, placing them in much the same frame as Guyer (2007) describes, evacuating the near future. 15. Guyer (2007) does not label the evangelicalism she is talking about “conservative”; she refers only to “evangelical Christianity.” But in fact what she is really talking about is a (dominant) kind of conservative evangelicalism. 16. In that very same meeting with James, where he recommend McLaren’s (2004) book. But Gladwell did come first. 17. For readers familiar with radical orthodoxy, an approach to religion and society shaped above all by the work of the theologian John Milbank (see Milbank, Pickstock, and Ward 1998), these reflections on religion and “the secular” may sound familiar. As will become clear throughout the text, though, and as I highlight in the conclusion, radical orthodoxy was not the source of inspiration for Bible advocacy.

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Chapter 1 1. See Ian Drury, “Christmas Cards Are Losing Their Religious Message,” Daily Mail, 11 December 2006, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article -421417/Christmas-cards-losing-religious-message.html, accessed 24 August 2010; Jane Merrick, Chris Brooke, and James Slack, “Brown Blasts Playgroups That Celebrate Winter, Not Christmas,” Daily Mail, 7 December 2006, http ://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-421213/Brown-blasts-playgroups-celebrate -winter-Christmas.html, accessed 24 August 2010; Colin Slee, “Face to Faith,” Guardian, 8 December 2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006 /dec/09/comment.religion, accessed 24 August 2010. 2. This example of an “Islamic” ambience is also, of course, relevant to debates in Europe and various anxieties about certain kinds of religious presence, specifically Muslim presences. Laïcité in France, as inscribed in and through the controversy of wearing the veil in schools, is a well-known recent example (see Bowen 2008); perhaps less well known, but certainly apt given this chapter’s focus, was the refusal by King’s College, London, in October 2002 to sell the site of St. Thomas’s Hospital, which is located directly across from the Houses of Parliament, to Aga Khan, who wanted to turn it into an Islamic cultural center. The Aga Khan Foundation had bid £24 million for the site—more than twice that of the hospital’s Charitable Foundation. Two years earlier the Ministry of Defense had similarly rejected an offer from the Aga Khan to purchase the Royal Army Medical College at Millbank—also quite close to Parliament. See “Aga Khan Loses Land Bid,” London Evening Standard, 9 October 2002, http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-1527009-aga-khan-loses-land-bid. do. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see http://www.standard.co.uk/news/contact -evening-standard-7185764.html.) It is worth noting, however, that the lines being drawn in this case did not necessarily conform to some stereotyped “Christendom versus Caliphate” model; the Guardian reported on “suggestions” that the outgoing archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, “had been supporting the Aga Khan in his bid.” See Jo Revill, “Aga Khan’s Dream of Art Palace Fading,” Guardian, 6 October 2002, http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/oct /06/1, accessed 11 July 2011. 3. Ruth Gledhill, who posted a video on the Times website, along with an article, expressed her dismay as a Christian: “We’re hearing a lot of complaining from Christian people that they’re being persecuted in Britain. This is absolute nonsense; Christians are not being persecuted. The victims in Britain are the poor and the deprived. The victims are Muslims, who are suffering from Islamophobia. And there is still anti-Semitism.” See her article, “It Can Only Harm Christians to Bleat about Persecution,” Times, 13 April 2010, http://www .thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article2473895.ece, accessed 14 April 2010. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see https://login.thetimes.co.uk/links/contact.) 4. Wind, of course, is a key index for the presence of the Holy Spirit in Christian traditions; we heard James Catford in the introduction refer to the “wind of the Spirit.” Wind serves more generally within many other cosmologies for the presence of spirits and as a symbol of life; see Hsu and Low 2007.

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5. As put in this case by the travel writer Paul Torpey in “The Great Swindon Getaway,” Guardian, 19 December 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel /blog/2007/dec/19/thegreatswindongetaway, accessed 24 August 2010. 6. “In Praise of . . . the Angel of the North,” Guardian, 29 January 2008, accessible at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jan/30/leader sandreply.mainsection2, accessed 24 August 2010. 7. One well-known perceived aggressor, the philosopher A. C. Grayling, has indeed been known to mock a belief in angels; see, for example, Grayling (2006, 28). 8. The aptness of Bobby McFerrin’s being spliced into the Gospel of Luke was reinforced for several of the staff at Bible Society because throughout 2006 politicians, pundits, and even academics were declaring happiness and wellbeing as the best measures of a successful society. The economist Richard Layard helped set the grounds for discussion in his best-selling book, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (2005). What most interested the staff at Bible Society was Layard’s argument that money cannot buy happiness—an old adage, of course, but one that Layard set out, in his “new science,” in what many readers apparently found a particularly compelling portrait, on the basis of an analysis of “happiness levels” in industrialized countries since the 1950s. This economist was not the only one to weigh in on the matter. Conservative Party Leader David Cameron told the Google Zeitgeist Europe conference that “there’s more to life than money” and that “improving our society’s sense of well-being is . . . the central political challenge of our time.” “Make People Happier, Says Cameron,” BBC News, 22 May 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics /5003314.stm, accessed 24 August 2010. Cameron even got the Conservatives talking about GWB, “general well-being”—a clear contrast to GDP (Gross Domestic Product), which is what voters might expect Conservatives to be more interested in. Staff at Bible Society were reading Layard and other happiologists, such as Oliver James, and they were listening to the political parties trade platitudes about well-being. What they felt was missing from these discussions was a faith element, a sense of how spirituality could serve as a counterbalance to the demands of the twenty-first-century rat race. The Angels project was part of their effort to put it into the equation. The groundwork set by Layard, Cameron, and others was ripe for the cultivation of life’s “spiritual” dimensions. 9. “At Christian Concern we have a passion to see the United Kingdom return to the Christian faith. Our nation has been shaped and defined by this faith for hundreds of years. Yet in the last few decades the nation has largely turned her back on Jesus and embraced alternative ideas such as secular liberal humanism, moral relativism and sexual licence. The fruit of this is rotten, and can be seen in widespread family breakdown, immorality and social disintegration.” See “About Christian Concern,” http://www.christianconcern.com/about, accessed 21 March 2012. 10. Lord Carey of Clifton, “I’m Not Ashamed,” http://www.notashamed.org .uk/downloads/leaflet.pdf, accessed 12 March 2011. 11. The names of the Lyfe group participants have been changed. 12. Rob Bell’s work has always been viewed as controversial, but after the publication of his 2011 book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the

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Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, it became even more so, including for those at the church in western Michigan, Mars Hill, where he made his reputation. One of the straws that broke the camel’s back seems to have been the claim that hell might not exist. For a lengthy profile of Bell, see Kelefa Sanneh, “The Hell-Raiser: A Megachurch Pastor’s Search for a More Forgiving Faith,” New Yorker, 26 November 2011, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012 /11/26/121126fa_fact_sanneh?mbid=social_tablet_t&pink=j8D8IQ, accessed 21 January 2013. 13. On the issue of sensuality, it is interesting to note that Bielo (2009a) recounts one emerging-church-style service he attended during which bread was baked, so that the congregation could appreciate and savor the smell. More generally there has been of late renewed attention to the senses in Protestant traditions of Christianity (see Meyer 2010; Pickstock 2010). 14. Quotes from Brian Eno taken from the liner notes to Music for Airports, http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/MFA-txt.html, accessed 28 May 2013. 15. David S. Joachim, “For CBS’ Fall Lineup, Check inside Your Refrigerator,” New York Times, 17 July 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/busi ness/media/17adco.html, accessed 28 May 2013. Chapter 2 1. Dawkins (2006, 5) quotes the Microsoft Word dictionary for his meaning of delusion: “a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence, especially as a symptom of psychiatric disorder.” 2. Christian Research was best known at the time for the work of Peter Brierley, its director from 1993 until the Society’s purchase of it in 2007. Brierley was well known in church circles because of the annual publication of his U.K. Christian Handbook, which contained not only contact details for churches but also attendance records and other demographic markers. Just prior to Christian Research’s sale, Brierley published an interpretive study called Pulling out of the Nosedive (2006) which, as the title suggests, provided an optimistic picture of church revival; this became a very important book in subsequent debates about the future of organized religion, at least within church circles. At Bible Society, Christian Research was headed up by Benita Hewitt, a colleague of Brierley’s and a well-known social researcher in her own right. 3. All quotes from KSBR are from the PowerPoint presentation “The Bible Society: Securing Wider Engagement with the Bible.” 4. The miners’ strike of 1984–85 was a defining moment in the decline of union power within the United Kingdom—and the consolidation of Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies and approach to industrial labor. 5. Wikipedia’s description of Greater Manchester is a perfectly good one: “Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.57 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the cities

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of Manchester and Salford. Greater Manchester was created on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater _Manchester, accessed 27 April 2010). Bible Society organized the Campaign to Culture to run in all ten boroughs, which, as I learned in my research, residents often like to see as distinct; if you are from Bolton, you do not necessarily identify with people from Wigan. The sociology of Greater Manchester, however, is beyond the scope of this chapter. 6. The Iron Army Myspace page explains, “The name Iron Army comes from a proverb in the Bible by King Solomon that reads, ‘As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.’ This verse can be found silk screened on the inside of our jeans and reminds us to value deep friendships, and to be grateful [for] the people that He put along our path which lead us here” (http://www.myspace .com/theironarmy, accessed 27 April 2010). 7. “John” is a pseudonym. 8. The extent to which this screening for religious identification worked is debatable. While I would stand by the results as representing the views of people on the street, religiosity (or more vaguely, spirituality) came in shades of gray for a handful of the participants rather than in black and white. One woman, for example, described herself as “not religious” but told us that she had been brought up (in Southeast Asia) by a Catholic mother and Buddhist father only to marry an observant Jew from Manchester with whom she attends Temple. She also keeps her house kosher. 9. These costs were split with the Bible Society; I used my research funding to pay for half, and the Society paid for the rest. I provided the Society with a report on the research as well as video copies of the sessions, which they had further analyzed by Christian Research. I did not take any payment for the work I did. 10. The ad firm’s original idea for the Riddle of Life was to give the winner £100,000 with an “all or nothing” challenge: they could either keep it all or give it all away. While this would have been much more likely to pique public interest, Bible Society did not feel it was in a position to put up so much money, financially or constitutionally. Once again we see how incorporation as a charity raises issues of operation and outlook within the organization. 11. Innit is British slang for “Isn’t it?” 12. The cost of the campaign, which I have been asked to keep confidential, was a concern within Bible House and for the Liaison Group as well. One member of the Liaison Group said, “I think the churches would shriek in horror at the costs, but media types would find it risible.” This differentiation between Church and Culture attitudes to what would be acceptable was the major justification for the cost. 13. Quotes taken from www.theriddleoflife.org.uk, accessed 28 March 2008. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online.) 14. I am using the Tearfund (2007) report because it contains figures from early 2007—about the same time the GMC ran. But there are many other sources that scholars use (and/or criticize), including the United Kingdom’s 2001 census

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and the annual British Social Attitudes surveys. (Many Christian commentators prefer the census figures, which list 72 percent of the population as Christian, about 20 percent higher than the figures arrived at in the British Social Attitudes surveys.) 15. Statistics taken from “Bible Society Greater Manchester Campaign Research Summary,” a PowerPoint presentation prepared by Benita Hewitt of Christian Research. 16. It is, of course, possible for ad campaigns to make a significant impact, even those that have to do with issues of faith. Not long after the GMC, for example, the British Humanist Association coordinated the Atheist Bus Campaign, the brainchild of the comedian (and atheist humanist) Arianne Sherine, who had been perturbed by a Christian ad campaign (not run by Bible Society) that took a particularly strong line on salvation through Jesus, suggesting that those who do not believe are damned (precisely the kind of Christian publicity that Bible Society finds anathema and counterproductive). The BHA ad, which read, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life,” was championed by Richard Dawkins and garnered not only a significant amount of media attention but also financial support; the BHA had hoped to raise £5,000 from the general public to fund the ads and ended up raising over £150,000. The Atheist Bus Campaign was copied in the United States, Australia, and other countries. Links to press coverage and more background on the BHA’s campaign can be found at http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/press/, accessed 27 April 2010. Chapter 3 1. See his obituary in “Sir Robin Catford: Secretary for Appointments under Thatcher,” Times (London), 23 June 2008, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opin ion/obituaries/article2081990.ece, accessed 28 June 2008. (Citations refer to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see https://login.thetimes.co.uk/links/contact.) A major part of Sir Robin’s role was handling ecclesiastical appointments on behalf of the prime minister. “The Secretary’s task is to find suitable candidates for deaneries, bishoprics and the two archbishoprics in the Church of England, as well as names for Regius professorships, the Poet Laureate, the Astronomer Royal and, in conjunction with the Lord Chancellor’s office, judges.” 2. See “Prayers,” Parliament, http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/business /prayers/, accessed 24 November 2010. The text of the prayer by the speaker’s chaplain can also be found on this website, as can links to prayers said in the House of Lords. 3. “Labour MP Resigns Post over Iraq,” Daily Telegraph, 9 March 2003, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1424117/Labour-MP-resigns-post-over-Iraq .html, accessed 25 November 2010. 4. “Profile: Steve Webb,” BBC News, 17 October 2007, http://news.bbc.co .uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7048460.stm, accessed 21 December 2010. 5. As it happens, “Reviving Faith in Politics” was sponsored by Theos, although this should be taken as an indication of the extent to which Landrum’s

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work as parliamentary officer was of a piece with broader Bible Society programs and agendas. The audience at this event was thoroughly CIP. 6. Here is how Wallis puts it in a post for the magazine Relevant, “Is there a politics of God?” 10 November 2010: The “personal God is never private. Restricting God to private space was the great heresy of the 20th-century American evangelicalism. Denying the public God is a denial of biblical faith itself, a rejection of the prophets, the apostles and Jesus Himself. Exclusively private faith degenerates into a narrow religion, excessively preoccupied with individual and sexual morality while almost oblivious to the biblical demands for public justice. In the end, private faith becomes a merely cultural religion providing the assurance of righteousness for people just like us.” See http://www .relevantmagazine.com/life/current-events/op-ed-blog/1474-is-there-a-politics -of-god, accessed 8 May 2013. 7. See “Early Day Motion 710,” Parliament, http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi /EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=29000&SESSION=875, accessed 21 December 2010. 8. Gaby Hinsliff, “Cabinet Split over New Rights for Gays,” Observer, 14  October 2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/15/uk.religion, accessed 4 December 2010. 9. Jonathan Petre, “Archbishop Warns of Gay Rights Backlash,” Daily Telegraph, 28 November 2006, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews /1535392/Archbishop-warns-of-gay-rights-backlash.html, accessed 4 December 2010. 10. See Anna Arco, “Last Catholic Adoption Agency Loses Appeal,” Catholic Herald, 19 August 2010, http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2010/08/19/last -catholic-adoption-agency-loses-appeal/, accessed 9 December 2010. See also “Leeds-Based Catholic Charity Wins Adoption Ruling,” BBC News, 17 March 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/8572077.stm, accessed 9 December 2010. 11. “In Full: Archbishop’s Letter to PM,” BBC News, 24 January 2007, http ://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6293875.stm, accessed 4 December 2010. 12. Although a key idea of the British political imagination for several centuries, when it comes to court cases it is Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights that serves as the legal framework for rulings on conscience questions: “1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance. 2. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others” (http://www.echr.coe.int/NR /rdonlyres/D5CC24A7-DC13-4318-B457-5C9014916D7A/0/Convention_ENG .pdf, accessed 3 February 2013). 13. The topic of religious freedom, and the extent to which our understandings of it are connected to conceptions of conscience and belief, is well explored in a series on The Immanent Frame edited by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

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and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan. See Hurd’s introductory posting at http://blogs .ssrc.org/tif/2012/03/01/believing-in-religious-freedom/, accessed 3 February 2013. 14. As Stephen Bates, the religious affairs correspondent of the Guardian argued, “Dr Williams is under pressure for his supposed liberalism, though he has taken considerable steps to appease the conservatives. A secular gay row in Britain is the last thing he needs now and his letter to the government last night was the very least that would have been demanded of him. Even so, it is uncomfortable for the archbishops, as anyone who heard the Ugandan-born Archbishop of York equivocating on the Today programme, as he tried to explain why being ‘in conscience unwelcoming to gays’ was entirely different from in conscience discriminating against black people, will have appreciated.” Stephen Bates, “Two Churches, One View, and a Question of Conscience,” Guardian, 24 January 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jan/25/religion.children, accessed 9 December 2010. 15. “Archbishop’s Speech on Sexual Orientation Regulations,” Archbishop of York, 21 March 2007, http://www.archbishopofyork.org/articles.php/1725 /archbishops-speech-on-sexual-orientation-regulations, accessed 1 November 2011. 16. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, quoted in Andy McSmith, “Gay Adoption Law Given Rubber Stamp,” Independent, 20 March 2007, http://www .independent .co .uk /news /uk /politics /gay -adoption -law -given -rubber-stamp -441011.html, accessed 30 June 2010. (Citations refer to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see http://www .independent.co.uk/service/contact-us-759589.html); see also “Blair Proud of Gay Rights Record,” BBC News, 22 March 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk _politics/6482891.stm, accessed 30 June 2010. 17. “Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007—21 Mar 2007 at 22:09,” Public Whip, http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2007 -03-21&number=1&house=lords, accessed 12 December 2010. 18. The presence of faith-based groups in Parliament has made moral-panic headlines on many occasions in recent years, cast as a sense that religion is wielding undue (and unaccountable) influence in politics. CARE has often been the focus. On 30 March 2008 the Independent on Sunday published an article on CARE stating that an “investigation” had “discovered” that “an evangelical Christian charity leading opposition to new laws on embryo research is funding interns in MPs’ offices” (not available on the Independent website but archived at Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream, http://chelmsfordanglicanmainstream. blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/independent-right-wing-christian-group.html, accessed 26 April 2012). As commentators pointed out, though (and the question of CARE’s position aside), the intern program has run since 1993 and is advertised clearly on CARE’s website; in this sense, there was not much to “discover” through “investigation.” See, for example Dave Walker, “Charity Commission Investigates Evangelical Parliamentary Interns,” 30 March 2008, http://www .churchtimes.co.uk/blog_post.asp?id=54345, accessed 26 April 2012. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/about-us/contact-us.)

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19. See the voting record at Public Whip, http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/di vision .php ?date=2007 -03 -19 & number=79 & display=allvotes & dmp=826, accessed 30 June 2010. 20. Green ink letter is a term used by the British to describe complaints and claims marked by “eccentricity or disturbed reasoning”; they are produced by “the kind of letter writer . . . who is sure that invisible rays are being beamed into his house by his next-door neighbour to cause him injury.” “Green Ink Letter,” World Wide Words, http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gre5.htm, accessed 12 December 2010. 21. See, for example, the 2 June 2009 Ipsos MORI Expenses Poll for the BBC, http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oI temId=2349, which found that 68 percent of people think MPs “make a lot of money by using public office improperly,” and 76 percent say they “do not trust MPs in general to tell the truth” (accessed 2 July 2010). 22. See Evangelical Alliance, http://www.eauk.org/forumforchange/culture -footprint-david-landrum.cfm, accessed 29 June 2010. 23. See “U.K. Parliament Hansard Debates,” They Work for You, http://www .theyworkforyou.com/whall/, accessed 7 July 2010. 24. A full transcript of the debate can be found at “Christianity in Public Life,” They Work for You, http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2009-03-11b .105.1, accessed 7 July 2010; all direct quotations here taken from that record. Chapter 4 1. The Conservative Christian Fellowship is an organization devoted to supporting Christians who are members of the Conservative Party or at least have Conservative sympathies. As stated on the “About Us” page of its website, “The Conservative Christian Fellowship is a membership organisation of Christians who support the Conservatives. Our members range from those who just vote Conservative and want to pray and encourage decision makers to MPs, Councillors and Peers. The CCF has members all over the UK and is an interdenominational fellowship,” http://www.christian-conservatives.org .uk/about-us, accessed 8 May 2013. It is perhaps worth nothing that the highest level of membership of the CCF, which entitles one access to an “exclusive drinks reception held in Parliament” with MPs and peers, is the “Wilberforce Membership.” 2. This is reflected in the launch of the International Journal of Public Theology in 2007, in which William Storrar (2007), chairman of the Editorial Board, writes of its being a “kairos moment,” an appointed or propitious time; this is an invocation that, for theologians, has the very clear mark of divine fullness. Neither Storrar nor other contributors to the first issue of the journal claim that public theology is entirely new, and the definitions they offer are not much more elaborate than to say it’s about theological reflection on issues facing general society. What does mark this strain of theological thinking, however, is a commitment to engaging with and, to an extent, accepting the realities of a pluralist world. Public theology is attuned to the ecumenical and postdenominational trends that we have discussed elsewhere in the book.

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3. The argument in question is Michael Perry’s, in his book, Love and Power (1991). Levinson (1992), as it happens, is quite skeptical of Perry’s position, which is, in many ways, a predated American analogue to Theos’s. 4. See the BBC Governors’ Programme Complaints Committee Report on Jerry Springer: The Opera, http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/appeals /govs/apps_springer.pdf, accessed 23 March 2010. 5. “Protest Held over Springer Show,” BBC News, 9 January 2005, http://news .bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/4158977.stm, accessed 9 June 2011. 6. Edward Stourton and Shirley Williams are Roman Catholics; Frank Field is an Anglican (and sometime member of the General Synod); Madeline Bunting identified herself at the Theos launch as “a Christian” but does not, in her publications or elsewhere on public record, say anything much more specific than this. 7. It is perhaps worth noting at this juncture that Theos’s position in the public square was not marked by the discourse of pluralism in any primary or sustained fashion. Within the United Kingdom the language of multiculturalism has been more influential than that of pluralism, a fact that can be seen in how Theos approached the question of other religions, especially the Abrahamic religions. 8. Michael Burleigh, “Future Generations Will Hear Far More about God and Politics,” Daily Telegraph, 7 November 2006, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/com ment/personal-view/3634004/Future-generations-will-hear-far-more-about-God -and-politics.html, accessed 13 November 2006. 9. See “God in Public Life Tops Faith Agenda,” Manchester Evening News, 7 November 2006, http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/227/227592 _god_in_public_life_tops_faith_agenda.html, accessed 14 November 2006; “Church Leaders Brand Public Atheism ‘an Intolerant Faith,’ ” Yorkshire Post, 7 November 2006, http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Church-leaders-brand -public-atheism.1862651.jp, accessed 14 November 2006; and Ruth Gledhill, Sunday Times, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article627444.ece, accessed 14 November 2006. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see https://login.thetimes.co .uk/links/contact.) 10. Martin Newland, “Why Theos will Fail,” Guardian 7 November 2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/nov/07/whytheoswillfail, accessed 14 November 2006. 11. A. C. Grayling, “Gotta Have Faith?,” Guardian 10 November 2006, http ://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/nov/10/post604, accessed 14 November 2006. 12. Madeline Bunting, “A Holy Huddle,” Guardian 8 November 2006, http ://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/nov/08/achristianthinktankyoumus, accessed 14 November 2006. 13. Quote taken from House of Lords Reform Chronology Since 1997: A Chronology by Chris Clarke and Matthew Purvis, July 2009, http://www.parlia ment.uk/documents/lords-library/hllreformchronology.pdf, accessed 22 July 2011. 14. See “Bishops in the House of Lords,” Church of England, http://www .churchofengland.org/our-views/the-church-in-parliament/bishops-in-the-house -of-lords.aspx, accessed 22 July 2011. The bishops who sit by right are the two archbishops and the bishops of Durham, London, and Winchester. The remaining bishops who sit do so according to the length of their tenure.

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Chapter 5 1. On the failed London bombings, see “Two Car Bombs Found in West End,” BBC News, 29 June 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6255960.stm; on the Glasgow attack, see “Blazing Car Crashes into Airport,” BBC News, 30 June 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6257194.stm, both accessed 3 May 2012. 2. “Failed Bomb Attacks Hurt Religion,” Theos News, 12 July 2007, http : // www.theosthinktank .co .uk /Failed _bomb _attacks _hurt _religion .aspx ?Arti cleID=643&PageID=71&RefPageID=70, accessed 5 April 2010. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see www.theosthinktank.co.uk/about/contact-us.) 3. “Failed Bomb Attacks ‘Hurt Islam,’ ” BBC News, 12 July 2007, http://news .bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6294148.stm, accessed 28 September 2011. 4. “Full text of Gordon Brown’s speech,” Guardian, 27 February 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/feb/27/immigrationpolicy.race, accessed 29 September 2011. 5. Theos hosted a panel discussion on Backhouse’s report, chaired by Libby Purves, at the Lewis Media Centre on 23 October 2007. 6. Full results of the poll are available at http://campaigndirector.moodia .com/Client/Theos/Files/Patriotism.pdf, accessed 1 April 2010. 7. Richard Alleyne, “Shambo the Bull Is Dead, Vets Confirm,” Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2007, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1558657/Shambo-the -bull-is-dead-vets-confirm.html, accessed 3 October 2011. For an earlier account of the controversy, see Simon de Bruxelles, “Infected Bull to Die, Despite Hindu Protest,” 27 June 2007, Times (London), http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto /faith/article2098447.ece, accessed 3 October 2011. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see https://login.thetimes.co.uk/links/contact.) 8. “Commentary: The Silver Ring Thing,” 1 July 2007, http://www.theos thinktank.co.uk/Commentary_The_Silver_Ring_Thing.aspx?ArticleID=619& PageID=71&RefPageID=70, accessed 5 April 2010. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see www.theosthinktank.co.uk/about/contact-us.) 9. “Good Neighbours Can Make Britain Great,” press release, 30 July 2007, http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/Good_neighbours_can_make_Britain_great. aspx?ArticleID=682&PageID=71&RefPageID=70, accessed 1 April 2010. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see www.theosthinktank.co.uk/about/contact-us.) 10. Amy Iggulden, “Hospital Trust Sacks Team of Chaplains,” Daily Telegraph, 9 August 2006, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1525904/Hospital-trust -sacks-team-of-chaplains.html, accessed 5 April 2010. 11. “Archbishop Calls for Secure Future for Hospital Chaplaincy,” press release, Church of England, 6 October 2006, http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news /abchcc.html, accessed 5 April 2010. 12. Early Day Motion 2888, 31 October 2006, by Peter Luff, MP, “Hospital Chaplaincy,” http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2005-06/2888, accessed 8 May 2013. Members of Parliament can submit Early Day Motions for debate in the

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House of Commons, although they are rarely debated and function instead as a means of drawing attention to a particular issue. 13. “At Last: Hospital Chaplains in the Line for the Chop,” press release, National Secular Society, 13 January 2006, http://www.secularism.org.uk/atlast hospitalchaplainsintheline.html, accessed 3 October 2011. 14. See “The Freedom of Information Act,” Gov.UK, http://www.direct.gov .uk/en/governmentcitizensandrights/yourrightsandresponsibilities/dg_4003239, accessed 6 October 2011. 15. “Speech by the Rt. Hon. Tony Blair MP, Leader of the Labour Party at the Campaign for Freedom of Information’s Annual Awards Ceremony, 25 March 1996,” Campaign for Freedom of Information, http://www.cfoi.org.uk /blairawards.html, accessed 6 October 2011. 16. In his memoirs Blair (2010) refers to the Freedom of Information Act as a “blunder”: “Freedom of Information. Three harmless words. I look at those words as I write them, and feel like shaking my head till it drops off my shoulders.” The “groove of ‘transparency’ ” this Act created was, he came to realize, “utterly undermining of sensible government” (516). 17. “New Research Reveals Cuts in Hospital Chaplaincy,” press release, Theos, 7 October 2007. http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/New_research_reveals _cuts _in _hospital _chaplaincy.aspx ?ArticleID=1083 & PageID=71 & Ref PageID=70, accessed 5 April 2010. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see www.theos thinktank.co.uk/about/contact-us.) 18. “At Last! Health Trusts Cut Cash for Chaplains,” press release, National Secular Society, 12 October 2007, http://www.secularism.org.uk/atlasthealthtrustscutcashforchap.html, accessed 3 October 2011. 19. Transcribed from the archived news clip, “Hospital Chaplaincy Cuts,” BBC News Health, http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7030000/newsid _7032300 /7032343 .stm ?bw=bb & mp=wm & news=1 & ms3=6 & ms _javascript=true&nol_storyid=7032343&bbcws=2 20. Quoted in Bill Bowder, “Worcester Chaplains Funded Again,” Church Times, 9 November 2007, http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2007/9-novem ber/news/worcester-chaplains-funded-again, accessed 8 May 2013. 21. See Greg Watts, “Hospital Chaplains and the Power of Positive Thinking,” Times (London), 6 June 2008, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/faith/arti cle2099288.ece, accessed 5 April 2010 (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see https://login .thetimes.co.uk/links/contact.); Richard Staines, “RCN Congress Latest: Nurses Slam Chaplaincy Cuts,” Nursing Times, 1 May 2008, http://www.nursing times .net /whats -new -in -nursing /rcn -congress -latest -nurses -slam -chaplaincy -cuts/1312540.article, accessed 5 April 2010. 22. Sanderson’s quote is taken from an audio clip from the Today program, linked via “Church Should Fund NHS Chaplains,” BBC News, 8 April 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7988476.stm, accessed 13 April 2010. 23. Jedi Knights have featured prominently at some points in debates about religion and society in the United Kingdom; in the 2001 census, over 390,000 people declared themselves to be Jedi Knights on the back of a campaign by

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Star Wars fans who wanted to express their love for the films—“or just to annoy people.” See “Census Returns of the Jedi,” BBC News, 13 February 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2757067.stm, accessed 11 February 2013. 24. Andrew Brown, “The Last Consolation: For Heaven’s Sake, Let the Dying Have Their Hospital Chaplains,” Guardian, 8 April 2009, http://www .guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/08/religion-atheism, accessed 8 April 2010. 25. The anthropologist Peter Redfield (2012, 146) has also contributed to our understandings of the ways in which secular logics push for the elimination of suffering; his study of the humanitarian medical organization Médecins Sans Frontières provides a valuable picture of the organization’s “biomorality” and definition of the human as “a being not made to suffer.” Pamela Klassen (2011) has likewise raised important questions about the relationships among religion, secularity, and modernity in her valuable study of liberal Protestants and medical science. Charles Taylor (1989, 12–14) sees the push to eliminate suffering not as secular per se but part of the “modern identity” he documents in Sources of the Self. Chapter 6 1. See the posting by Bruce Chapman, president of the Discovery Institute (a think tank in Seattle, Washington, that promotes intelligent design), on www .evolutionnews.org, in which he says Darwin is the “last remaining leg of the dangerous three-legged ideology that the nineteenth century bequeathed to the twentieth century,” the other two being provided by Marx and Freud, http ://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/04/kirk_answers_brooks003530.html, accessed 11 February 2011. 2. “Evangelist Says Voters Reject God,” BBC News, 11 November 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4427144.stm, accessed 25 May 2010. 3. See Theos News, “Darwin Tweeted,” http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk /Darwin_tweeted.aspx?ArticleID=3637&PageID=71&RefPageID=70, accessed 1 March 2010. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see www.theosthinktank.co.uk/about /contact-us.) 4. Grayling (2006, 47) concludes his essay by saying that the answer to fighting this unreason is to “return religious commitment to the private sphere,” although as I have suggested—and will elaborate below—the actual implication of this type of position is that the private sphere is not a defensible conception when it comes to the workings of reason (and unreason) in the comprehensive sense to which Grayling and others adhere. 5. Grayling is picking up here on the Enlightenment understanding of rationality documented so well by the historian of science Lorraine Daston (1988), based on approaches to probability articulated between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries; this is “a mathematical theory of rationality in an age intoxicated by reason” (xvii). 6. See “Half of Britons Sceptical about Evolution,” Theos press release, http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/Half_of_Britons_sceptical_about_evolution

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_.aspx?ArticleID=2836&PageID=71&RefPageID=70, accessed 3 March 2011. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see www.theosthinktank.co.uk/about/contact-us.) 7. Adam Rutherford, “Fools Rush In,” Guardian, 2 February 2009, http ://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/feb/02/evolution-creationism -darwin-theos, accessed 5 February 2009. 8. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, “In Praise of Darwin and the Spirit of Inquiry,” Times (London), 9 February 2009, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto /law/columnists/article2048422.ece, accessed 20 February 2009. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see https://login.thetimes.co.uk/links/contact.) 9. In “You Can’t Reconcile God with Darwinism,” Times Online, 10 February 2009, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/letters/article2067108.ece, accessed 20 February 2009. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see https://login.thetimes.co .uk/links/contact.) 10. In “God, Darwin, and Faith in Science,” Times Online, http://www.the times.co.uk/tto/opinion/letters/article2067132.ece, accessed 20 February 2009. (Citation refers to archived material that is no longer immediately available online; to request material, see https://login.thetimes.co.uk/links/contact.) 11. There is no doubt that, as the intellectual historian Peter Gay (1969, 29) put it, the eighteenth century was marked by the “prosperity of reason” and that advances in education and the scientific method helped effect a significant disenchantment of the world. At the same time, Gay (1969, 30) notes, reason “had strenuous partisans among devout Christians” and, as Amos Funkenstein (1986, 358) highlights, “salvation through knowledge only”—the motivation fueling the Enlighteners—“was not an altogether alien theme to Christianity.” 12. Not all of Dawkins’s (2006, 5) other critics are, as he puts it, “dyed-in-the -wool faith-heads.” In addition to Gray, Terry Eagleton (2009) has taken issue with what he sees as the superficiality and unoriginality of Dawkins’s arguments, critiques, and ideas. Meanwhile the philosopher and fellow atheist Julian Baggini has argued that Dawkins is “arrogant” and that his rhetoric, which lacks “balance and modesty,” is going to end up giving atheism a bad name; see Julian Baggini, “The New Atheist Movement Is Destructive,” Fritanke, 19 March 2009, http://fritanke .no/index.php?page=vis_nyhet&NyhetID=8484, accessed 18 July 2012. 13. Delia Smith is a popular cook; Asda, a supermarket and home-goods store, is owned by Walmart. 14. Rescuing Darwin proposal to the John Templeton Foundation, 17 October 2007, submitted by Nick Spencer on behalf of Theos: The Public Theology Think Tank. 15. Of these, the Creation Science Movement, Creation Research UK, Truth in Science, and Answers in Genesis in the UK are four of the best known organizations, although they do not all agree on what creationism means or entails. 16. Stephen Moss, “Defying Darwin,” Guardian, 16 February 2009, http ://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/17/evolution-versus-creationism-science, accessed 26 February 2009.

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17. Rescuing Darwin proposal. 18. Details on John Templeton in this paragraph are taken from “Sir John Templeton, 1912–2008,” http://www.templeton.org/newsroom/sir_john_tem pleton/, accessed 14 May 2010. 19. John Templeton Foundation, http://www.templeton.org/about_us/, accessed 14 May 2010. 20. Reprinted at http://theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2009/02/01/a-secular -age-by-charles-taylor, accessed 10 May 2012. 21. Horgan was actually given the honorarium for a three-week fellowship in Cambridge, as part of the Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellows in Science and Religion program; the conference in which Dawkins participated was only a part of the event calendar during the fellowship. See John Horgan, “The Templeton Foundation: A Skeptic’s Take,” Edge: The Third Culture, 5 May 2006, www.edge.org/3rd_culture/horgan06/horgan06_index.html, accessed 14 May 2010. 22. Martin Rees won the 2011 Templeton Prize. 23. No one picked up on the fact that Jones was singling out Muslim students in his classroom—not that evening and not in the media coverage of the event. I take this as further evidence of how the role of Islam in English public life gets downplayed or only selectively taken up. The God Debate is a very carefully circumscribed debate in England. To be sure, some new atheists, such as Christopher Hitchens, have a lot to say about Islam and Islamists. But that has been largely bracketed off from what has become a debate between Christians and the post-Christian new atheists. 24. Justin Thacker, “Did Darwin Kill God?,” Guardian, 13 May 2009, http ://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/13/darwin-evolutionreligion-science, accessed 26 May 2010. Conclusion 1. This is a phrase popularized by the anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot (1991). Trouillot uses it to describe what he sees as the division of labor in the modern academy: anthropology got the savages, the non-Western world. This savage slot, though, is disappearing and, of course, being simultaneously debunked— and rightly so, in Trouillot’s view, not only because of its morally suspect loadings but also because it restricts anthropology’s purview and terrain. By invoking Trouillot my point is not to do any anthropological housekeeping but to highlight how certain readings of the secular settlement in a certain vision of enlightened England put those of faith into the self-same slot. In a world without old-fashioned savages, the faithful are now made to fit the bill. 2. In a stimulating critique of this general approach, Nathaniel Roberts (2012) has questioned the aptness of the colonization metaphor, partly because he sees it as relying upon a problematic understanding of power, and partly because it suggests that there is a true self underlying the colonized self—a suggestion that Hindu nationalists, for one, have used to fuel a particularly virulent form of ethno-nationalism in India (Roberts conducts research in India among Pentecostals in Chennai’s slums). I want to leave the first objection to the side.

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In the focus on true selves and colonized selves, though, he picks up perceptively and helpfully on what has been a central point of this book, not least the concluding thoughts in this section: “The picture of the mind as a sacrosanct domain of authentic selfhood [which] has a specifically European genealogy and is foundational to the public-private distinction on which the political project of modern liberalism rests” (286). 3. I have written about ResPublica for the Immanent Frame; see Matthew Engelke, “Radical Orthodoxy’s New Home?,” Immanent Frame, 18 March 2010, http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/03/18/radical-orthodoxys-new-home/, accessed 18 July 2012. Since ResPublica’s launch, however, Blond and those around Cameron seem to have settled into a mutual dislike of one another. There is little indication, in any case, that Cameron has become a Red Tory. 4. “When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.” Definition taken from “Chatham House Rule” at http://www.chatham house.org/about-us/chathamhouserule, accessed 7 May 2013.

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Index

Abdullah, Bilal, 164 abolition movement, 1, 18, 23–24, 115 abortion rights, 17, 117, 144 Abraham (biblical figure), 80 accessibility, 104, 174, 201–2, 204 accountability, 31, 110, 144, 174 actor-network theory, 23 Adam and Eve, 189 Addis Ababa, xxvi, 116, 225–230; and poverty, 227–28; Sheraton Hotel, 226–28 adoption agencies, 120–21 advertising campaigns, xiv; ambient media advertising, 62; and British Humanist Association, 246n16; and Comedy Night, 86–88, 87fig.; and creatives (ads), 75–82, 79fig., 81fig., 83fig., 91–96, 234; and globalization, 95–96; and GMC, 32–33, 74–82, 86–88, 87fig., 90–96, 246n16; and OTS (opportunities to see), 76, 88, 90–91; “Sentinel Advertising” video, 86–88, 87fig.; and “Very Bombay,” 95–97 Advocacy White Paper 2008, 15, 23–24, 39 Africa, xxiii, xxv, 8, 232–33; apostolic church, xxiii–xxiv African Christian community, 89 Africanists, 232 Afro-Caribbean Christian community, 89 Aga Khan Foundation, 242n2 Age of Reason, xvi, 207 agnostics, 191–92, 197, 208, 212–13, 223

Ahmed, Kafeel, 164 Alexander, Denis, 196–201, 204, 217–221 Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin, 132 Allen, Lily, 73–74 ambience, 32, 40–42, 45, 49–52, 58–63, 233; ambient faith, 32, 40, 50, 60, 63, 177; ambient media advertising, 49, 62–63, 96; ambient music, 61–63; and Bible reading groups, 32, 52; in Cairo, 41, 59; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 177; of Christendom, 104, 130; and church-facing work, 51–52; and figure-ground reversal, 62; and GMC, 96; Islamic, 41, 242n2; and Lyfe, 52, 58–59; and Parliament, 50–51, 104, 130; and public-private distinctions, 40–42; and public religion, 40–41, 60–61; and site-specific compositions, 40, 61–62; and Swindon Christmas angels, 32, 40, 45, 49–50; and Theos, 177 Amharic translation, 226 Amicus (trades union), 173 Anabaptist tradition, 234 Anderson, Benedict, 84 angels, 32, 38, 243n7; angel kites, 32, 38–50, 44fig., 59, 67; Angel of the North, 45–46; “angels of the South,” 45, 49; anthropocentric forms of, 45; biblical passages about, 43; as bridges, 32, 48; compared to Concorde, 49; design of angel kites, 43, 45; Gabriel,

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angels (continued) 39; as Japanese manga, 43; not mythical, 46; physicality of, 39–40, 45, 48–49; posters for, 46–48, 50, 67; reception of, 49–50; sensory engagement with, 39–40; showcase angels, 45; as spiritual beings, 38–39, 42–43, 46–48; Swindon Christmas angels, 32, 38–50, 44fig., 59, 99 Anglicans, 1–3; Bible House employment of, 13, 16, 37; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 172; and emerging church, 241n14; grannies as, 77–78; and homosexuality, 17, 36, 121–22; and LICC, 70–71; and Parliament, 121–22, 129, 158–59; and Rescuing Darwin project, 192, 196, 206, 208; and Theos, 145, 158–59, 172, 250n6; and women bishops, 17, 36; and Woolley, Paul, 135. See also Church of England anoraks, 148–49, 166 Answers in Genesis, 255n15 anthropology, xxiii–xxvi, 232–33, 237; and actor-network theory, 23; and ambience, 40; and Christian language, 66; and Church-Culture divide, 70, 73; and ethnographic present, x; and GMC, 88–92; linguistic anthropology, 199; and literalism, 198; and monarchy, 102; and Parliament, 102, 108; and Rescuing Darwin project, 198–99, 210, 215, 219, 222–23; and “savage slot,” 233, 255n1; and stability of structures, 134; and Theos, 134, 149, 198–99, 210, 215. See also names of anthropologists antimodernism, 224 anti-Semitism, 242n3 antitheism, xvi, 35–36, 47; and Rescuing Darwin project, 201–2, 204 apathy, 11, 129; apathy, not antipathy, 35 Apocrypha, 4 Arnold, Matthew, 84 art/arts: art competition, 90; art installations, 40; artists, xiv, 15; art museums, xxvi; art projects, xiv; and Christian public protests, 141–42; as cultural driver, 12–15, 50; Swindon Christmas angels, 32, 38–50, 44fig.; and Theos, 141–42 Asad, Talal, 122, 182, 239n1 Ashford, David, 13, 231, 236; and Bible as rule book, 23; and GMC, 67, 69, 78–79, 82; and Landrum, 101; and Theos, 140, 150, 163, 168

atheists: and Atheist Bus Campaign, 246n16; atheist fundamentalism, 192, 206, 210; atheist humanists, 246n16; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 181; and “Doing God” report, 153–54; and Gray, 207, 209; history of atheism, 236; and methodological atheism, 214–15; “pro faith atheist,” xviii, 237; and Rescuing Darwin project, 188–193, 197, 201, 206–9, 212–15, 217–19, 221, 254n12; and “spiritual but not religious,” 39; and Swindon Christmas angels, 46–47; “token atheists,” 213. See also new atheists audiences, xiv, xxii; in Addis Ababa, 116; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 183–85; and GMC, 75–77, 86, 88, 92–95; and Lyfe, 55; and Parliament, 111, 116–19; and Rescuing Darwin project, 209, 217, 220–22; and short film competition, 51; small audiences, 185–86; target audience, 75–77, 92–93, 95, 222; and Theos, 111, 116–19, 150, 152, 158, 183–86; younger audiences, 77 audiocassettes: audio Bibles, 8, 226; audio cassette sermons, 41 Australia, 246n16 availability, 226–28, 231 Aveling, Edward, 191 Backhouse, Stephen, 165–68, 170–71, 251n5 Baggini, Julian, 254n12 Bala (Wales), 240n8 Bantu language, xxiii Baptists, 16, 55, 65–66, 90, 135 Barth, Karl, 23, 241n11 Bartholomew, Craig, 19–22 Bartley, Jonathan, 234 Bates, Stephen, 248n14 Bauman, Zygmunt, 101 BBC: The Big Questions (BBC One), 131; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 176–78, 185; comment boards on, 49–50; Have I Got News for You, 82; Heaven and Earth (BBC One), 171; Humberside, 171; and Jerry Springer: The Opera broadcast, 147–48, 151; late-evening television news program, 144–45; The Miracles of Jesus, 10; News 24, 131, 176–78, 180, 185; and Parliament, 114, 128; profile of Webb, 114; Radio 4, 169–171, 176, 218; Radio I, 73–74; radio news, 73–74, 165, 169–170; Sunday program (Radio 4), 169–171, 176; and

Index | 269 Theos, 131–32, 144–45, 165, 169–171, 176–78, 185, 218, 236; top-of-the-hour news headlines, 131, 176; Wiltshire Life website, 49–50 beer coasters/mats, 32–33, 74–76, 80–81, 95 Behe, Michael, 199–200, 211 belief: “believing without belonging,” 38; and conscience, 121–22; and emerging church, 19–20; personal beliefs, xiv–xv, xviii, 121–22, 142; and Rawls, 142, 160; and Rescuing Darwin project, 191, 218–220; and Theos, 142, 144, 160 Bell, Rob, 19, 57, 59, 243n12 Benjamin, Walter, 61, 84 Bercow, John, 126 Berger, Peter, 26 Bialecki, Jon, 241n14 Bible, xxii–xxiv, 2, 4–5, 231, 236–38; and African apostolic church, xxiii–xxiv; authorized version of, xix–xx, 4; in Bible House lobby, xxiv; Bible read-a-thons, 6; “the Bible reads people,” xv, 5; Biblical narratives, 51; as Book, xxii–xxiv, 2, 230–31; bringing Bible to people, 75; Contemporary English Version, 4, 69; doing Bible, 22, 26, 31, 58, 66, 193, 230; “Eat this book!,” 22, 52; and emerging church, 20, 22–24, 26; and global Christianity, 2; and GMC, 33, 67–69, 75–88, 79fig., 81fig., 83fig., 92–93; as Good Book, xiv, 50, 84; Good News Bible, 4, 55, 69, 80, 83; and graveyard imagery, 68–69, 75, 82; as key to England’s greatness, 2; King James version, xix–xx, 4, 47, 68, 82, 95, 209; letting Bible read us, 23; and LICC, 71; and literalism, 17, 28, 193; and Lyfe, xiv, 32, 40, 52–60; “making the Bible heard,” xiv, 9–10; materiality of, xxiv; in native tongues, 2; no “note or comment” on, 3–5, 8, 15, 39, 59, 123, 140, 237–38; parable of sower in, xix–xx, xxii–xxiii; and Parliament, 98, 116, 127, 130, 159; relevance of, 33, 66–70, 75, 77, 80–81, 83–88, 93, 96; and Rescuing Darwin project, 193, 197–200, 209, 218; and riddles, 79–84, 81fig., 83fig., 92–97, 245n10; as rule book, 23, 26, 68–69, 130; as script of creation drama, 18; sensory engagement with, 9, 22–23; and short film competition, 51; as spiritual story, 48;

theology of, 20, 22–24, 31, 240n9; and Theos, 145, 159, 167–68, 193, 197–99; and tipping points, 30; and trip to Addis Ababa, 226–29. See also Bibles Bible, passages from: 1 Corinthians 13, 55–57; 2 Corinthians 6, 88; Genesis 21:1–7, 80, 81fig., 92; John 3:16, 78; Leviticus 19:18, 167; Luke 2:10, 47; Luke 8, xix–xx, xxii; Mark 4:35–41, 51; Matthew 5–7, 127, 226–28, 231; Matthew 19:19, 167; Matthew 22:21, 144–45; Psalms 24:1, 145; Psalms 100, 58; Psalms 127, 103; Romans 3:28, 227; Ruth 3:1–8, 82–83, 92; 2 Samuel 11:4, 78, 79fig.; Song of Solomon 4:5, 78 Bible advocacy, xvi–xvii, xxiv–xxv, 10–32, 230–31, 234–36, 238; and ambience, 61, 63; and art as cultural driver, 50; Bible Society donors have effect on, 6, 12, 78; bringing Gospel to people, 66; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 171, 177; and Christian language, 66; and culture, 11, 25, 70, 74, 84, 134; difficult to define, 12, 15; and emerging church, 20, 25–31, 138; and Enlightenment antitheism, 35; and GMC, 75, 78, 234; incarnational approach to, 26, 138–39, 182–83, 186–87, 231, 234; as long-term project, 27, 31, 96; meaning of, 12, 15; meeting people where they are, 26–27; and missional Christians, 24–27, 31; moving people to somewhere different, 12, 15, 75; not believing all faiths are equal, 25; not proselytization, xiv, 12, 24, 75, 88; and Parliament, 99, 105, 130; and radical orthodoxy, 234–35, 241n17; temporal dynamism of, x; and Theos, 33, 35, 146, 150–51, 170, 177, 182–83, 186–87; and “we don’t do God,” xvii, 11; “What time is it?,” 18–32; “where are we?,” 10–18. See also Bible Advocacy Team Bible Advocacy Team, xiv–xx, xxiii–xxiv, 5, 9–24, 30–31, 231; Advocacy White Paper 2008, 15, 23–24, 39; arts officer, 13, 32, 37, 50; campaigns manager, 13, 68; and cultural drivers, 12–15; and doing God, xix, 41; and emerging church, 20–30; and GMC, 67–69, 75, 78–80, 82, 96; and KSBR, 67; and Lyfe, 40, 52–60; and missional Christians, 25–26; officer for Wales, 13; and Parliament, 99–101, 106, 110; sponsors for projects, 42; and Swindon Christmas

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angels, 32, 38–50, 44fig.; theological imagery of, 24, 39; and theology of Bible, 20, 22–24, 31, 240n9; and Theos, 13, 33, 133, 139–140, 142, 151, 154, 163, 187, 208, 223; and tipping points, 29–30; views on gay rights, 17; and Wales, 240n8; and “we don’t do God,” xvii–xix, 11; whites papers of, 15, 19, 23–24, 39. See also names of team members Bible-a-Month program, 6 Bible House, xiii, xvi, xxiv, xxvi, 10, 230, 235, 238, 240n8; and Christianity, 15–16; empty wings of, 30; lobby of, xiii, xxiv, 29, 31, 36; open-plan office in, xiii, xxiv; reading at, 14, 19–25; Red Letter Day, 30–31; and secularism, xvi–xvii; in Swindon, xxv, xxvi, 1, 10, 45, 240n8; television in, xiii, 29, 31, 36; warehouse in, 10 Bible reading groups, xiv, 32, 40, 52–60 Bibles: audio Bibles, 8, 226; cheap but not free, 2–3, 5–8, 226; composed of leather, glue, paper, ink, 22; distribution of, xxiii–xxiv, 3–7, 10; falling open to particular chapter/verse, xv; Ghana commemorative Bible, 6; payment for in kind as well as coin, 3; PDF printouts of, xxiv, 52, 55; promotion of, xiv–xv; provided to churches/missionary societies, xiv; provided to hospitals/ prisons, xiv, 3; that “took a bullet,” xv, xxiv. See also Bible Bible Society, x, xiii–xvi, xxii–xxvi, 1–8, 234–38; all-staff meetings at, 21, 45, 94, 140, 163, 231; Bibles provided cheap but not free, 2–3, 5–8, 226; Board of Trustees, 2–3, 12, 15, 78, 89, 131, 135, 149, 159, 171; Campaigns to Culture, 66, 74–75, 85, 96–97, 232, 244n5; as Christian charity, 1, 5–7, 12, 17, 78, 245n10; and Coming off the Bench report/launch, 157, 159; denominations employed by, 3, 16–17; and “Doing God” report, 131–32, 135, 139–140, 145, 149; and donations/donors, 1, 6, 12, 77–78, 89; and emerging church, 19–25, 28, 57; and evangelical tradition, xv, xxiv, 1–2, 4, 6–7, 9, 18; Executive Team, 7, 12, 16, 101, 223; founders of, 1–3, 11; and GMC, 32–33, 66–70, 74–97, 79fig., 81fig., 83fig., 87fig., 245n9; goals of, xx, xxii, 30–31, 88, 231, 235; graying of constituency, 77; image of sower as colophon, xx; incoming resources of, 1,

6, 8, 77–78, 230; international work of, xxiii–xxiv, 8, 10, 225, 230, 236; logo of, 234; London office of, 31, 235–37; and Lyfe, 40, 52–60; Marketing Team, 67–68, 77; and monthly conversations, 236; motto of, xiv, 9; and National Prayer Breakfasts, 100, 108, 112, 124, 157, 163; no “note or comment” commitment of, 3–5, 8, 15, 39, 59, 123, 140, 237–38; and Parliament, 99–100, 110–11, 113, 123–24, 128, 130, 236; parliamentary liaison officer, 13, 27, 33, 51, 98, 100–101, 103–18, 122–25, 246n5; as publisher/retailer, xiv, 5–6, 10–11; queen as patron of, 16; and Rescuing Darwin project, 209–10, 221, 223; and Swindon Christmas angels, 32, 37–50, 44fig.; team-building events at, 30–31; and trip to Addis Ababa, 225–26, 229; Wilberforce as inspiration for, 1, 18, 24, 231. See also Bible Advocacy Team; names of associated people Bible Society movement, xv, xx, 4–5, 10. See also United Bible Societies Bible Society of England and Wales. See Bible Society Bible Society of Ethiopia (BSE), 226, 228 Bible Society’s Theology of the Bible (in-house document), 22 Bible studies, xxiv, xxvi; in Addis Ababa, 226–230; and Parliament, 108, 112–13, 123. See also Lyfe Bible Style Guide (Ashford), 13 Bickley, Paul, 110, 143, 152, 154–160, 236–37; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 174–75; and Coming off the Bench report/launch, 154–161; early career of, 156–57; in London office, 162–63; and National Prayer Breakfasts, 112, 157, 163; and Parliament, 110, 112, 156–57, 159, 163, 165; and Rescuing Darwin project, 194, 221–22 Bielo, James, 25, 244n13 big band nights, 76, 90 “Big Story, Little Film” (short film competition), 51 billboards, xxv, 32–33, 62, 74–76, 78, 95 Birmingham, 91; archbishop of, 120, 172 Björk, 43 BlackBerry, 225 black-majority churches, 89 Blair, Tony, xvii–xix, 108, 114; and bishops in House of Lords, 154, 156; and Bush,

Index | 271 xviii, 28, 166; fear of being viewed as nutter, xix, 28, 128, 203; and Freedom of Information Act, 174, 252n16; and free-market theory, 133, 147; and Holt, 13; and Sexual Orientation Regulations, 120–22; and state education system, 196 blogs, xxv, 188; of Ashford, David, 13; Bible Style Guide for, 13; of Campbell, Alastair, xviii; of Guardian CiF Belief forum, 182; of Newland, Martin, 153; of Smith, Delia, 128; of Theos, 134, 194 Blond, Philip, 235, 256n3 Boer War, xv, xxiv Bolton, 90–91, 244n5 Bombay (India), 95–97 books, xxii–xxv; bookbinders, 5; book designers, xxiii–xxiv; book merchants, 8; and Holt, 14; production/distribution of, xxiii–xxiv; publishing of, 5; “sacred quality” of, 8 Bootle, 100–101, 124 Borneo, 26 bovine tuberculosis, 169 Brierley, Peter, 244n2 Bristol, 13–14, 74, 85 Britain: British judges as Christians, 119, 121; and Britishness, 114, 166; and British reserve, 114–16, 118, 123, 128–29, 141; as “Christian nation,” 42; debates about faith and multiculturalism in, 42; defined, ix–x, 4; and free-market theory, 132–33; High Court, 121; “innit” as slang, 93, 245n10; “Keep Calm and Carry On,” 114, 141, 152; mediascapes of, xxv; and national destiny, 121; postwar politics in, 146; and “publicity,” xx; recession in, 114, 132; Slave Trade Act (1807), 18; and “spiritual revolution,” 38; statecraft principle in, 99, 102, 106–7, 118, 129; Victorian Britain, 4, 103, 189, 210; in World War II, 114 British Airways, xviii–xix, 240n6 British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), xiii, xxiv, 1–4; and Bible sales, 6–8; and Bible Society movement, 10; evangelical flavor of cause, 6–7; image of sower as colophon, xx; origin story of, 240n8; secular logic used by, 3; sounding too colonial, 4. See also Bible Society British Empire, 2, 7, 13 British Humanist Association (BHA), 127, 152, 157, 176, 181, 246n16

British Isles, defined, ix–x British Medical Association, 173, 182 British Social Attitudes surveys, 245n14 broadcasting, xx, xxii–xxiii; Bible Style Guide for, 13; defined, xx; of seed, xx, xxiii Brown, Andrew, 180–83, 185 Brown, Dan, 209 Brown, Gordon, 39, 51, 128, 165–68, 170, 210 Bruce, Steve, 64 BSE (Bible Society of Ethiopia), 226, 228 Buddhism, 43, 245n8 Bunting, Madeline, 149, 151, 153, 250n6 Burleigh, Michael, 153 Burt, Alistair, 111 Bury, 90, 244n5 buses, 72, 74, 76; bus panels, 74; photos of headless bodies on sides of, 62 Bush, George W., xviii, 28, 36, 116–17, 166–68 business: in Addis Ababa, 116; and Bible advocacy, 12; and Bible sales, 2–3, 5–8; and GMC, 97; and philanthropy, 7; as sponsors for projects, 42–43; and Swindon Christmas angels, 42–43, 49 bus stop shelters, 32–33, 74 Butt, Riazat, 181–83 “Byte My Bible” (blog), 13 Cadbury chocolates, 88 Café Nero, 53, 55–59 Cairo (Egypt), 41, 59 Cambridge, 137, 201, 213, 216–17, 255n21 Cameron, David, 235, 243n8; “Big Society” agenda of, 235 Campaigns to Culture, 66, 74–75, 96–97, 232, 244n5. See also GMC Campbell, Alastair, xvii–xviii, 215, 236–38; diktat of (“we don’t do God”), xvii–xviii, 11, 34–35, 46, 98, 115, 141, 149, 237–38; and “O.S.T.,” 237–38; as “pro faith atheist,” xviii, 237; and Theos, 141, 149, 153–54 Campbell, Melvin, 66, 96 Canadian Bible Society, 10 Cannell, Fenella, 222 Canterbury, archbishop of, 51, 54, 121, 172–73, 185, 242n2 Capital (Marx), 114 CARE (Christian Action Research and Education), 111, 114, 135, 150, 156, 248n18

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Carey, George, 54–55, 60, 242n2 Caring for the Spirit (South Yorkshire NHS Trust), 172–73, 178 Casanova, José, 60 Castro, Fidel, 190 Catford, James, xiv, xv, 8, 9fig., 10, 230–31, 233–34, 236–37; as Anglican, 16; and Bible advocacy, 11, 14–15; “can’t externalize without internalizing,” 129, 229, 231, 233; and cultural drivers, 14–15; and emerging church, 19–21, 23, 27–29; and eschatology, 28–29; experience in publishing, 91; father of, 99–100, 102, 246n1; and GMC, 68, 78, 233–34; and goals, 30–31; and Landrum, 101; and lectio divina, 23, 27, 52; and Lyfe, 52; and Newbigin, 135; and Parliament, 99–100, 110, 112, 124, 129; and positions on controversial issues, 17; and reading, 19–21, 241n12, 241n16; and television, xiii, 36; and Theos, 132, 135, 140, 147–48, 223; and trip to Addis Ababa, 225–230; Wilberforce as inspiration for, 18, 229, 231, 233; and Willard, 19; and Wright, 19, 135 Catford, Robin, Sir, 99–100, 102, 246n1 Catholic Care (Leeds), 120–21 Catholic Fund for Overseas Development, 128; website of, 128 Catholics: and abortion rights, 144; on Advocacy Team, 13, 75; AngloCatholicism, 235; archbishop of Southwark, xix, 240n6; Bible House employment of, 13, 16–17, 75; Blair as, xvii–xix, 120; Catholic question, 4; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 172, 183–84; child abuse in Church, 36; and emerging church, 26–27; and gay rights, 120–21; and GMC, 75, 245n8; and Parliament, 112–13, 120–21, 144; and Polish immigrants, 184; Pugin as, 103; and Theos, 144, 172, 183–84, 196, 250n6 Cavanaugh, William T., 234–35 CBS television network, 62 cellular telephony, 95–96 Chalke, Steve, 149 Channel 4 News, 176; website of, 176 chaplains in state-run hospitals, xiv, 34, 171–186; examples of making a difference, 178; referred to as parasites, 177, 179; and shitness of situations, 181, 186, 188–89; as soft target,

172–73, 178; and suffering, 181–82, 253n25; surveys concerning, 174–180, 185; unionized, 173; and well-being, 177, 182, 184–86 Chapman, Bruce, 253n1 charismatic persons, 16, 100, 113 charities, 7; Bible Society as, 1, 5–7, 12, 17, 78, 245n10; faith-based charities, 196, 208; and GMC prize, 80, 92–94, 96; and Theos, 146–47, 150; and welfare state, 146–47. See also names of charities Charity Commission, 6, 121 Charles Gore Lecture (2009), 194 Chatham House Rule, 237, 256n4 chattering classes, xiv, xviii check-in clerks, xviii–xix, 240n6 Chernobyl disaster, 73 choice, individual, 11; and Bible advocacy, 24, 63; freedom of, 22–23, 143, 228; and Theos, 143 Christendom, 99, 103–6, 146; defined, 103; European, 103; and Kingdom, 99, 104–5, 116–17, 125, 130, 146; mind-set of, 105, 117; and Parliament, 103–6, 116–17; as stuff of museums, 104–5; and theocracies, 106 Christian Concern, 54, 243n9 “Christianity in Public Life” (Westminster Hall Debate), 126–130 Christianity Today magazine, 209, 223 Christian Research (social research company), 67, 244n2, 245n9 Christians, xiv–xxiii, xxvi, 1–2, 15–17, 230–31, 233–35, 238; accepted Enlightenment story, 26–27; and antitheism, xvi, 35–36, 47, 54; apathy of, 11, 129; ashamed to be, 52–55; and Bible reading groups, xiv, 32, 40, 52–60; born-again, 101, 106–7, 115, 123, 125, 130, 184–85; British judges as, 119, 121; bubble attitude of, 28, 72, 74; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 177, 181–86; Christian apologetics, 207; and conscience, 121–22; as conversation stoppers, 141–42, 147–48, 193; cultural Christians, 110, 129; and “Doing God” report, 131, 133–34, 138, 141–152, 167, 250n6; and ecumenism, 42, 135; as embattled minority, 38, 42, 242n3; and fanaticism, 50, 147–48; and global Christianity, 2; and GMC, 75–79, 83, 85–91, 94, 96–97; and “green ink” letters, 124, 141, 249n20; intimidated

Index | 273 about reading Bible, xxiii–xxiv, 52; and Jerry Springer: The Opera broadcast, 147; language of, 65–66, 95–96, 115–16, 118; and LICC, 70–74; as lobbyists, 123–24; and Lyfe, 52–54; nominal Christians, 110, 129–130; and Parliament, 33, 98–103, 105–19, 121–130; and plausibility structure, 26–27, 31; public protests by, 141–42, 147–48, 193; and radical orthodoxy, 234–35, 241n17; and Rescuing Darwin project, 189, 191–93, 197, 204, 206–9, 217–18, 221–23; sense of marginalization of, 147–48, 158; sincerity of, 99, 105, 110, 129–130, 229–231; as strangers in strange land, 24–25, 27, 71, 73–74; and Swindon Christmas angels, 38, 42, 47–50; thinking Christianly, xiv, 33, 109, 123; and Westminster Hall Debate, 126–130. See also evangelicals; names of Christian denominations and persons Christians in Parliament. See CIP Christian Socialists, 114 Christmas, 54; and “Harry Potter Christmas,” 37–38, 49; and preholiday moral panics, 38–39; and Swindon Christmas angels, xiv, 32, 37–50, 44fig., 61, 99, 232; and threat of winterval, 38–39, 42, 67 Church-Culture divide, 25–26, 231, 234; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 177, 183; and Evangelical Alliance, 126; and GMC, 33, 76–77, 81, 85, 96, 245n12; and LICC, 70–74 churches, xiv, 10, 25, 232, 234, 244n2; black-majority churches, 89; church attendance numbers, 64; church-group studies, 20–21; church halls, xxvi; and GMC, 76–77, 85, 88–90; and Lyfe, 52; and Parliament, 100, 106; and Theos, 135, 150–51, 167, 211. See also entries beginning with church or Church Church-facing work, 11; and ambience, 51–52; and black-majority churches, 89; and GMC, 74, 76–79, 81, 85–91, 87fig., 94, 96; and short film competition, 51; and Theos, 150–51 church ghetto, 43, 75–76, 135, 213 churchgoers: apathy of, 11; and GMC, 68, 86, 92, 94–95; Landrums as, 100–101, 106; and LICC, 72 Churchill, Winston, 132–33 Church of England, 1, 15–16; bishops in House of Lords, 102–4, 154–160,

202–3; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 172; Church Fathers, 197; as established church, 102–4, 129–130, 156; and Parliament, 102–4, 106, 108, 112; and Rescuing Darwin project, 191–92, 197, 217; and Theos, 149, 157–160, 172. See also Anglicans; entries beginning with Church Church of Scotland, 135 church services, xxvi, 60; in Parliament, 108, 112–13 Church Times, 175–76 CIP (Christians in Parliament), 108–9, 111–123, 125–28; chairman of, 111, 127; and evening talks, 112–13, 118–122; and Half G-6, 114–15, 124, 129, 225; no “CIP position,” 122–23; “Reviving Faith in Politics” event, 116–19, 123, 134, 246n5; secretary of, 127; and Sentamu talk, 118–123, 128–29; and Theos, 111, 137; and Wallis, 116–19, 123, 134; and Westminster Hall Debate, 126–130. See also names of CIP members citizenship, 166, 170 civil society, 141, 146–47, 155, 167, 184; as Third Sector, 135 Clapham Sect, 1, 18, 23–24 class, social, xxi, 7 Clausen, George, 103 Coca-Cola, 81 coffee shops, xiv, 32, 40–41, 52–53, 53fig., 55–59, 61, 112 Coleman, Simon, 222–23 colonialism, xxiii, 3–4, 232–33 colonization of consciousness, 232–33, 256n2 Comaroff, Jean and John, 232–33 comedy clubs/comedians, xxvi, 77–78, 85–90; and pizza, 87–88, 87fig. Coming off the Bench: The Past, Present, and Future of Religious Representation in the House of Lords (Partington and Bickley), 154–161 commercialization, xxi, 42–43, 59 ComRes polling group, 193–94, 205 Connolly, William, 239n1 conscience, 121–22 conservatism: conservative evangelicalism, 28–29, 73, 241nn14–15; and emerging church, 20, 28. See also Conservatives Conservative Christian Fellowship: and “Wilberforce Membership,” 249n1

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Conservative Christian Fellowship (CCF), 105, 135, 249n1 Conservatives, 105, 108, 111, 113, 117, 126, 128, 237, 243n8; as Catholics, 144; and Churchill/Eden, 132–33; and Millbank Tower, 149; and Thatcher, 133, 235; and Theos, 149, 158–59. See also names of Conservatives constitutions, 142, 157; constitutional reform, 34, 102, 154–161, 165 consumerism, 22–23, 38, 147; and ambient media advertising, 62, 96 conversion, 30, 100 Copernicus, xvi Copson, Andrew, 132 Cotton, Rob, 68, 85–86, 88–89, 94 counterpublics, xvii, xxvi, 41, 234 creation: as drama, 18–19, 21–22; fallen creation, 228; as figurative expression, 197; and Rescuing Darwin project, 197, 223 creationism, 189–190, 192–94, 196–201, 203–5, 207, 210–11, 214–15, 218, 220–24, 255n15; being taught in schools, 194, 196, 211, 218, 220; and Dawkins, 207; as embarrassment, 197, 218, 223; literalist creationists, 192, 197–99, 223–24; and “opinion formers” interviews, 193, 211, 214–15, 222–23; “teleological idiocy” of, 205; and “willful ignorance,” 192; young earth creationism, 189–190, 197, 199–201, 223 Creation Research UK, 255n15 Creation Science Movement, 255n15 creatives (GMC), 75, 78–84, 91–96, 234; colors of, 80–81, 96; focus groups for, 91–94; “Riddle of Life” as replacement theme, 79–84, 81fig., 83fig., 90, 92–97, 245n10; “Unexpected” as initial theme, 75, 78–79, 79fig., 88 credibility, 11–12, 70; and IEA, 133; and Theos, 160–61, 164, 171 cross: cross necklace, xviii–xix, 240n6; and GMC, 75; and Parliament, 123 culture, xiv, 231–33, 238; and Arnold, Matthew, 84; with capital C, 12, 31–32; and Christian language, 66; and Christian public protests, 141–42; Church-Culture divide, 25–26, 33, 70–77, 79, 81, 85, 231, 234; cultural Christians, 110; cultural drivers, 12–15, 50, 91, 99–100, 134; cultural engagement, 72–73, 138; cultural heritage, 81,

84, 93; cultural politics, 65; “in the culture,” 11–12, 25–27, 31, 43, 135, 138, 232; culture-facing projects, 233; and emerging church, 20, 25–27, 31; and GMC, 68–70, 75–77, 79, 81, 84–91, 93, 96; and LICC, 70–74; and missional Christians, 25–27; and Swindon Christmas angels, 43, 49; and Theos, 132, 138–39, 141–42; as “weasel word,” 70, 74; “where are we?,” 11–12 Cumberland Lodge (Windsor Great Park), xix–xx Daily Mail, 39 Daily Mirror, 82, 171 Daily Telegraph, 82, 124, 153, 172; website of, 194 Danish newspapers, 36 Darwin, Charles, xiv, xvi, 233; as agnostic, 191–92, 223; biography of, 191, 194, 206; correspondence of, 191, 206; death and burial of, 191, 206, 217; double anniversaries of, 35, 196, 205, 209–10; as reasonable man, 190–91, 197–98, 206; and Rescuing Darwin project, 35, 188–224, 253n1 Darwin and God (Spencer), 194, 198 Darwinism, xvi, 192, 201, 206, 212, 221; social Darwinism, 210 Daston, Lorraine, 253n5 David (bibical figure), 82 Davie, Grace, 38, 102, 185 The Da Vinci Code (Brown), 209 Davis, Evan, 179 Dawkins, Richard, 54, 216, 222, 237, 244n1, 254n12, 255n21; and BHA advertising campaign, 246n16; charitable organization founded by, 204; defining “delusion,” 65, 244n1; and “Doing God” report, 153–54, 160; and Rescuing Darwin project, 35, 189–190, 194, 196, 200–201, 204–11, 213–14, 217–18, 220–21, 224 “The Dawkins Delusion” (McGrath post), 153 Delafield, E. M., 114 democracy, xxii; liberal democracy, 41, 99, 102, 125, 157, 174, 185; parliamentary democracy, 105, 122; and Rawls, 142; and reasonable pluralism, 142 Democratic Unionists, 113 Demos, 135 Dennett, Daniel, 189, 197

Index | 275 Department of Health, 172–73, 176 Didsbury, xxv, 85 differentiation, theory of, 60, 63 dignity, 6; dignitary harm, 143, 147–48 disco culture, 73 “Discourse Dave”. See Landrum, Dave Discovery Institute, 253n1 discrimination, 120–23, 126–27; against Christians, 121–22, 126–27; against homosexuals, 120–23, 126 Dissenters, 2 Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated (Warburton), 224 Dobzhansky, Theodosius, 206, 210 “Doing God”: A Future for Faith in the Public Square (Spencer), 140–154, 157, 159, 167; and civil society, 141, 146–47, 167, 184; Coming off the Bench as contrast to, 154, 157–58, 160; and identity politics, 141, 146–48, 167, 184; and Jerry Springer: The Opera, 147–48, 151; launch of, 148–154, 150fig., 160; and liberal humanism, 141–46, 151–52; panel debate on, 148–152, 250n6; and Rawls, 141–43, 151; on religion in the public square, 141–48; as rubble-clearing exercise, 140, 154, 160; and well-being, 141, 146–47, 167, 177, 184 double listening, 70–71 doubt, 219 Dover (Pa.), 190, 194 Downing Street, 11, 99–100, 102, 167; secretary of appointments, 99–100, 102, 246n1 drama, 18–23, 27–29, 50; Bible tells story of, 21, 84; creation as, 18–19, 21; and emerging church, 20–23, 27–28; final act of, 21, 28–29; and GMC, 84; of now, 21–22; and Parliament, 109; penultimate act of, 21, 27–29; and suspense, 21; and Swindon Christmas angels, 50 The Drama of Scripture (Bartholomew and Goheen), 20–22 Drew, David, 111, 127 Dunkin’ Donuts, 222 Durham, bishop of, 16 Eco, Umberto, 150 economics, xiv; and capitalism, 46, 97; economic liberalism, 143; economic rationality, 143; and free-market theory, 114, 132–33, 146–47, 235; and GMC,

97; neoliberal economic policies, 132–33, 143, 146, 182; recession, 114, 132 Eden, Anthony, 132–33 Eden, Garden of, 189 Edge Hill University College, 100 Edinburgh, 4, 102 education: and Bible Advocacy Team, 13; as cultural driver, 12–15; and emerging church, 20–21. See also schools Ekklesia (Christian think tank), 176, 234 elections, 108, 113, 124–25, 135, 149, 154, 174, 238 Elisha, Omri, 241n14 Elster, Jon, 202–3 email, 19, 77, 93, 237; scams, 93 embodiment: and emerging church, 19, 22–23; tropes of, 22–23 emerging church, 18–32, 241n10, 241n14; and Bible advocacy, 20, 25–31, 138; and Catholic traditions, 27; and conservative evangelicism, 28; as “inchoate movement,” 20; and liberalism, 20, 24, 28; and Lyfe, 57, 60, 244n13; and missional Christians, 24–27; and Parliament, 105; poses question “What time is it?,” 18–32; and theology of Bible, 20, 22–24, 31, 240n9; and Theos, 138–39; writers as “self-satisfied,” 27–28 “empty nesters,” 68 EMW (consumer electronics company), 95–96 England, xv; Bible Society’s domestic projects in, xxiv–xxv, 4; defined, ix–x; as exotic/unfamiliar place, xxiv–xxv; libel laws in, 214; local action groups in, 6–7; North-South divides, 90–91; rules/ regulations for charitable organizations in, 6 The English People Reading Wycliffe’s Bible (Clausen painting), 103 English Premier League, 105 Enlightenment, xvi–xvii, 25–27, 35–36, 39–40, 235, 239n1, 253n5; and Theos, 139, 154, 192, 206–7, 224 enlightenment, xxii–xxiii, 224; British form of, 140–41; and Templeton Foundation, 214 Eno, Brian, 61–62 enthusiasms, 110, 141, 192, 224 Equality Act 2006, 126 Equality Act 2007. See Sexual Orientation Regulations

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eschatology, 28–29 ESRO (Ethnographic Social Research Options), 215, 222–23 establishment, 102–4; and bishops in House of Lords, 102–4, 154–160; defined, 102–3; and established church, 102–4, 129–130, 156, 160; and monarchy, 102; and Parliament, 102–4, 129–130, 154–59; and Westminster Abbey, 217 Ethiopia, xxv–xxvi, 10, 108, 116; trip to, 225–230 Ethiopian Orthodox Church, 226 ethnographic present, x ethnographic research firm, 193 European Convention on Human Rights, 247n12 European Court of Human Rights, 240n6 European Union, 184 Evangelical Alliance, 18, 111, 126, 221, 236; “Culture Footprint” page, 126; website of, 126 evangelicals, xv, xxii, xxiv, 1–2, 4, 231; and abolition movement, 18, 23–24; and Bush, George W., 28, 117; conservative, 28–29, 73, 241nn14–15; and culture, 20, 25–26, 70–74; drawn to local action groups, 6–7; and emerging church, 18–32, 57, 138–39; eschewing “near future,” 29; and exemplary action, 115–16, 118, 129, 137–38; and Half G-6, 114–15, 124, 129; and “label on the tin,” 115, 118, 229; and literalism, 17, 28; and missional Christians, 24–25; and Parliament, 100, 105, 108, 111, 113–17, 125, 128–130; and sense of calling, 115; sensory engagement with Word, 9; and social activism, 116; and Theos, 149; in U.S., 116–18. See also names of evangelicals Evans-Pritchard, E. E., 113 Everton Football Club, 101, 105 evidence, 189, 192, 200, 203–5; empirical evidence, 200; not private/personal, 204; and Rescuing Darwin project, 207–8, 224 evolution, 189–192, 196–200, 203–7, 210–11, 219–223; and common descent, 190, 200; and evolutionary biology, 200, 203, 205–7; and natural selection, 189–190, 192, 199–200, 205, 207, 210; theistic evolutionism, 192, 197–98, 204, 215, 217, 222–23; as “universal acid,” 189, 197 Eweida, Nadia, xviii–xix, 169, 240n6

existentialism, 189 extremism, 224 Facebook, 52 fairness, 47, 143, 202 faith, xv–xix, xxiv, 1–2, 243nn8–9; ambient faith, 32, 40, 50; being ashamed of, 52–55; of British judges, 119, 121; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 171, 175–77, 183–84; “checked at the door,” 113, 127; and Coming off the Bench report/launch, 159–161; and “Doing God” report, 133, 137–141, 143, 146–48; and emerging church, 19–20, 25–26; by example, 115–16, 118; general public thought on, 67; and knowledge, 60, 206–7, 224; and LICC, 71; and Lyfe, 52, 54, 58–60; and missional Christians, 26; as “negation of thought,” 153, 188, 193; and Parliament, 51, 101, 103, 110, 112–18, 126–28, 159; public faith, 148, 161, 183; and reason, 35, 140–41, 143–44, 202–6, 208, 216, 224, 233; and Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown report/press release, 167–170; and Rescuing Darwin project, 189, 191–93, 198, 201–6, 208, 216, 218–19; and secularism, xvi–xix, 47, 127, 188; and Swindon Christmas angels, 32, 38, 40, 42–43, 47, 50; and trip to Addis Ababa, 227, 229 “Faith in Health” conference, 183–85 Faithworks, 149 Falwell, Jerry, 65 Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, 201 Farron, Tim, 116 fashion shows, 10, 76 Fellowship for Parish Evangelists, 37 Field, Frank, 149, 151–52, 158, 160, 250n6 figurative meanings, 197–99 films, xxi, 236, 253n23; documentaries, 9–10; film competitions, 51, 76, 96; Lego animation, 51 Fisher, Antony, 133 focus groups, xxvi; for GMC, 23, 67–69, 82–83, 91–94, 96; video-recorded, xxvi football, 101, 105 Fordyce, John, 206 Foucault, Michel, 215 fractals, 41, 54, 61–63 France: and laïcité, 242n2; and “publicity,” xx Frankish clergy, 65

Index | 277 Franklin, Benjamin, xxi Fraser, Giles, 150 freedom, xxii, 235, 240n6; and abolition movement, 18, 23–24, 115; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 180–81; to choose, 22–24, 180–81, 228; of conscience, 121; and emerging church, 22–24; God-given, 22–24, 105–6, 228; human freedom, xv, 22–24, 105–6, 115, 123; and Jesus, 106; of others, 127; and Parliament, 99, 105–6, 115, 121, 123, 127; personal freedom, 105–6, 141, 143; and Theos, 141, 143, 180–81; of thought, 121 Freedom and Order (Spencer), 236 Freedom of Information Act, 174, 179, 185, 252n16 free-market theory, 114, 132–33, 146–47, 235 Freud, Sigmund, 253n1 Friedman, Milton, 133 Fulton, Rachel, 65–66 fundamentalism, 65; atheist fundamentalism, 192, 206, 210; religious fundamentalism, 192, 210; and Rescuing Darwin project, 192, 197, 200, 206, 210, 212 Funkenstein, Amos, 254n11 G-6/Half G-6, 113–15, 124, 129, 225. See also names of members Gabriel (angel), 39 Gal, Susan, 41, 61–62 Gateshead, 45–46 Gay, Peter, 254n11 gay bishops, 17 gay rights, 120–22, 234; activists, 17 Geertz, Clifford, 72 Genesis, book of, 197–99, 203, 218, 220, 223 Germany, 100; and “publicity,” xx Ghana, 6, 89; and commemorative Bibles, 6, 89; Pentecostals from, 89 Gitahun, Yilma, 228 Gladwell, Malcolm, 29–30, 241n16 Glanville, Erin G., 22 Glasgow International Airport, 164 Gledhill, Ruth, 132, 153, 242n3 global South, xxiii, 228 Gloucester, bishop of, 224 GMC (Greater Manchester Campaign), 32–33, 66–70, 74–97, 87fig., 232–34, 244n5; and blimey effect, 75, 91, 93, 96; briefing document on, 75; campaign manager for, 68, 85; Campaign Team,

67–69, 75, 78–80, 82, 96; and Church-facing work, 74, 76–79, 81, 85–91, 87fig., 94, 96; and Comedy Night, 77–78, 85–90, 87fig.; and contemporaneity, 81–82, 84; costs of, 94, 245n10, 245n12; and creatives (ads), 75–84, 79fig., 81fig., 83fig., 91–96, 234; and culture, 68–70, 75–77, 79, 81, 84–91, 96; focus groups for, 23, 67–69, 82–83, 91–94, 96, 245nn8–9; and KSBR Brand Futures, 67–70, 82; Liaison Group, 76, 78–79, 85–86, 89–91, 94, 245n12; and local events, 76–78, 85, 88–91, 93, 96; measuring success of, 75, 91–94, 96; “media buy” for, 74–76; official aim of, 75; online questionnaires for, 94–95; planning meetings of, 76–78; posters for, 75, 92; prize for riddle contest, 80, 92–94, 96, 245n10; and relevance of Bible, 33, 66–70, 75, 77, 80–81, 83–88, 93, 96; “Riddle of Life” as replacement theme, 79–84, 81fig., 83fig., 90, 92–97, 245n10; “Sentinel Advertising” video, 86–88, 87fig.; size of, 75–76; “Unexpected” as initial theme, 75, 78–79, 79fig., 88; websites of, 76, 80, 84, 94–95 God: Anti-God Squad, 201; “Did Darwin kill God?,” 217; doing God, xix, 34, 38, 41, 60, 98, 149, 166, 168, 192, 197; and emerging church, 22; erasure of, 235; existence of, 205–6; and God Debate, 35, 65, 188, 191–92, 196, 203, 213, 219, 255n23; “God is back,” 35, 133; “God is dead,” 64, 69; “God is difficult and dull,” 69; “God is not great,” 65, 69; God talk, 33, 128, 141, 144, 147, 159; and Kwena rainmaker, 232–33; and Parliament, 103–5, 107, 109, 115, 117–19, 129; “personal but never private,” 117–18, 247n6; personal relationship with, xxiii–xxiv, 101, 106–7, 117–18; and Rescuing Darwin project, 190, 192, 197, 200, 207–8, 216–18, 221–23; as subject, not object, 119; and Theos, 133, 141–42, 148–150, 166, 190, 192; and trip to Addis Ababa, 228; “we don’t do God,” xvii–xix, 11, 34–35, 65, 115, 149, 237–38 The God Delusion (Dawkins), 35, 154, 194, 207–8, 213, 219 God Is Back (Micklethwait and Wooldridge), 35 God Is Not Great (Hitchens), 204, 219

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God’s agents, xiv–xv, xvii, xix–xx, 230–31, 233, 238; Advocacy Team as, 14, 18–19, 29, 32, 101; and bad publicity, 35–36; and GMC, 96; and Parliament, 101, 130; and public religion, xix–xx, 36 Goheen, Michael, 19–22 Goldman, Francisco, 227 Good News, xix, 11, 46–47, 229, 232 Good News Bible, 4, 55, 69, 80, 83 Good Samaritan, 94, 128, 168 Gormley, Antony, 45–46 Gospel, xxii; and emerging church, 19, 24–25, 139; and GMC, 66, 69, 91; and homosexuality, 121–22; and LICC, 71; and Lyfe, 50; and Parliament, 105, 119, 121–22; relevance of, 66, 69; and Swindon Christmas angels, 48–49; and Theos, 139; and trip to Addis Ababa, 226–27. See also Bible The Gospel of the Kingdom (Ladd), 110 Graham, William, 206 grants, 1, 139, 210–15; “hooks” for, 210–12 graveyard imagery, 68–69, 75, 82 Gray, Asa, 206 Gray, John, 207, 209, 222, 239n1 Grayling, A. C., 54, 153, 188, 193, 203–4, 211, 243n7, 253nn4–5 Greater Manchester Campaign. See GMC Great Ormond Street Hospital, 178 Great Western Hospital, 42 Green, Sue, 89, 94 “green ink” letters, 124, 141, 249n20 Guardian, 46, 82, 242n2, 248n14; CiF Belief forum, 131–32, 164, 180–82, 188, 221; and Theos, 131–32, 149, 153, 164 Guest, Mathew, 241n14 Gutenberg, 2 Guyer, Jane, 29–30, 241nn14–15 Habermas, Jürgen, xx–xxii, 34, 187 Hague, William, 135 Half G-6, 114–15, 124, 129, 225. See also names of members Hall, John, 217 hanging out, xxv–xxvi Harding, Susan, 26, 65–66, 96 Hare, Rob, 52, 55, 230–31 HarperCollins, xiv Harries, Richard, 208, 218 Harris, Evan, 127 Harris, Ralph, 133 Harrison, Andrew, 194 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film), 37–38, 49

Have I Got News for You (BBC television show), 82; caption challenge, 82 Hayek, Friedrich von, 132–33 Heathrow Airport, 49, 225 hermeneutics, 199 Hewitt, Benita, 244n2 Hirschkind, Charles, 41, 59 Hitchens, Christopher, 54, 204, 255n23 Hodgson, Sharon, 127 Hollinghurst, Steve, 37–38, 48 Holt, Ann, 13–15, 14fig., 33–34, 236; and culture, 25, 70, 74, 85; and “demanualization” of Bible, 23; and emerging church, 20, 22–23, 25, 27, 30; and GMC, 68–70, 78, 94; “How are you doing Bible?,” 22, 58; and Landrum, 101; and Lyfe, 58; officer in OBE, 13; and Parliament, 110; and reading, 14, 20, 22, 30; and Rescuing Darwin project, 221; and Swindon Christmas angels, 48; on “testing” and “playing around,” 27; and Theos, 140, 148, 163; Wilberforce as inspiration for, 18 “Home” (fashion show), 76 homosexuality, 17, 36, 127; and discrimination, 120–23, 126; and Sexual Orientation Regulations, 120–23, 126–27 Horgan, John, 213–14, 255n21 hospitals: Bibles provided to, xiv, 3; chaplains in, xiv, 34, 171–184; and GMC prize, 80; patients in, 31; state-run, xiv, 34; in Swindon, 42. See also names of hospitals House of Commons, 103–4, 112–13, 116, 120–23, 126–130; Early Day Motions, 120, 172, 252n12; Reed’s speech in, 116; Sexual Orientation Regulations, 120–23, 126–27; speaker’s chaplain, 104, 149; speakers of, 112–13, 126; and trip to Addis Ababa, 225 House of Lords, 102–4, 108, 121–22; bishops (lords spiritual) in, 102–4, 154–161, 202–3; reform of, 34, 102, 154–161, 165; and Rescuing Darwin project, 217; Sentamu’s speech in, 121; and Sexual Orientation Regulations, 122 House of Lords Reform Act (1999), 154–55 Howsam, Leslie, 5 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (2008), 217 humanists: and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 176; and liberal humanism, 141–46; and Parliament, 113, 127; and

Index | 279 secular humanism, xvii, 26, 102; and Theos, 132, 141–47, 152–53, 176 human rights, 121, 126–27 human-thing entanglement, 23 Humphrys, John, 219 Huxley, Thomas, 189–190, 206 identity politics, 141, 146–48, 167, 184 idolatry, 186 IEA (Institute of Economic Affairs), 132–35, 143, 146 ignorance, 181, 191–92, 224; “willful ignorance,” 192, 224 immigration, 137; immigrant communities, 89; from Poland, 184 I’m Not Ashamed (Carey), 54–55 imponderabilia, xxvi, 108 “I’m Your Man” (Wham! song), 72–74 Independent on Sunday, 248n18 India, 7, 24, 95–96, 256n2 In God We Doubt (Humphrys), 219 inspiration, xv, 1, 18–20, 24–25, 27, 31; Bible as place of, 50; and Swindon Christmas angels, 38, 43, 50, 232 Institute of Economic Affairs. See IEA Institute of Education, 71–72 Institute of Public Policy Research, 135 intelligent design (ID), 189–190, 193–94, 197, 199–201, 204–5, 210–11, 253n1; and Dawkins, 207; and fossil record, 199; and “irreducible complexity,” 189, 199–200, 216; lawsuits against teaching of, 190, 194 interfaith groups/dialogue, 42–43; and Theos, 152, 157, 164–65. See also other faiths International Journal of Public Theology, 249n2 Internet, xxv; and GMC, 80, 83; Google, 168; and Lyfe, 52; and Theos, 168; Wikipedia, 244n5 interviews, xxvi, 16, 48; group interviews, 139; and Parliament, 108, 114–16, 118, 229; tape-recorded, xxvi intimacy, 31, 182, 230 iPhone, 237 Iraq War, xviii, 114, 234, 238 Iron Army (Christian design firm), 76, 245n6 irony, 115, 143, 214 Isaac (biblical figure), 80 Islam, 34, 41–42, 255n23; and ambience, 41, 242n2; counterpublic discourse of, 41; and evolution, 220; Islamic cultural center, 242n2; political Islam, 203; and

radical Islamists, 151, 164–65, 167, 203; and Theos, 132, 144, 151–53, 164–65, 184 Islamophobia, 42, 242n3 James, Oliver, 243n8 Japanese manga, 43 Jedi Knights, 180, 253n23 Jerry Springer: The Opera (West End musical), 147–48, 151 Jesus, xix–xx, 2, 231; born in manger, 48; “in the culture,” 27, 118, 232; and embodiment, 138; and emerging church, 19, 22, 25; and GMC, 69, 75; in Jerry Springer: The Opera, 147; and Lyfe, 54–55, 58; and missional Christians, 25, 27; and Parliament, 106, 110, 115, 118, 126–28; political message of, 145–46, 151; and Rescuing Darwin project, 208–9, 223; as secularist, 145–46; and Swindon Christmas angels, 48, 50; and Theos, 138, 144–48, 151; and trip to Addis Ababa, 226–29 Jesus Calms the Story (Lego animation film), 51 jewelry, xviii–xix, 169, 240n6 Jewish Chronicle, 175–76 John Templeton Foundation. See Templeton Foundation jokes, xix–xx, 28–29, 88 Jones, Milton, 85–86, 88–89 Jones, Steven, 217–18, 220–21, 255n23 journalists, xiv, xix–xx, 13, 34; Bible Style Guide for, 13; and “Doing God” report, 149–150; fear of, 165, 168, 186; and Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown report/press release, 165, 167–68, 171, 186; and Rescuing Darwin project, 213–14, 219; and “we don’t do God,” xvii–xviii. See also names of journalists Jubilee Centre, 137 Judaism, 132, 144–45, 152, 157, 186; keeping kosher, 245n8; and rabbinic thought, 197; and Rescuing Darwin project, 197, 217–19 judges, 119, 121 justice, xvi, 141. See also social justice Keynes, John Maynard, 132, 146; Keynesianism, 132–33, 175 Khan, Aga, 242n2 Kim Jong Il, 190

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Kingdom, xv, 19, 230–31, 238; and Christendom, 99, 104–5, 116–17, 125, 130, 146; and emerging church, 21–22, 27, 29; mind-set of, 106, 109–10, 116–17, 128–29, 229–230; and Parliament, 104–6, 109–10, 116–17, 123, 129–130; and Theos, 138, 145; and trip to Addis Ababa, 226–230 King James Bible, xix–xx, 4, 47, 68, 82, 95, 209 King’s College, 242n2 “Kiss the World Beautiful” (LICC), 70–74; “Just a Song,” 72–74 Kite Related Design, 43 kites: angel kites, 32, 38–50, 44fig., 59, 67; design of angel kites, 43, 45; imagery of, 24, 39 Klassen, Pamela, 253n25 knowledge: different domains of, 215–16; division of, 198–99; and faith, 60, 206–7, 224; positivist knowledge, 233; and Rescuing Darwin project, 198–99, 206–7, 214, 216, 221, 254n11 Koran, 220 KSBR Brand Futures, 67–70, 82, 231 Kwena rainmaker, 232–33 Labour Party, 100, 105, 111, 113–14, 117, 120, 126–27; and Churchill/Eden, 133; election headquarters of, 149; and Freedom of Information Act, 174, 252n16; and free-market theory, 133; in general election (1997), 108, 113, 125, 149, 154, 174; General Election Manifesto pledge, 154; and Millbank Tower, 149; reshaping image of, 237–38; and Theos, 149, 158 Ladd, George Eldon, 110 Lambeth Bridge, 51 Lambeth Palace, 51, 173 Landau, Christopher, 132 Landrum, Dave, 33, 100–101, 103–18, 122–27, 130, 231–32, 236; achievements of, 124–25; as ambassador and go-between, 111–12; as born-again Christian, 101, 106–7, 123; and CIP, 108–9, 111–18, 122–23, 125, 246n5; constitution of society in concentric circles, 109–10, 129–130; desk in Portcullis House, 100, 107–8, 109fig.; drinking coffee/“relating,” 107, 111, 123, 128, 134, 236; earned PhD in political science, 100–101, 123; and expense claims scandal (2009), 124–25;

featured on Evangelical Alliance website, 126; and G-6/Half G-6, 114–15, 124, 225; Kingdom mind-set of, 105–6, 109, 116–17, 128–29, 230; on nominal Christians, 110, 129–130; as parliamentary liaison officer, 33, 100–101, 103–18, 122–25, 246n5; physicality of, 101; and Rescuing Darwin project, 223; and Sentamu talk, 118, 122–23, 128–29; and Sexual Orientation Regulations, 122–23; and Theos, 101, 108, 134, 137, 139–140, 146, 187; tours of Parliament, 101–5, 112, 155; views on other faiths, 106–7; views on public theology, 139; and Westminster Hall Debate, 127–130; wife of, 100–101, 106; Woolley compared to, 137; as working-class person, 100–101 language: biblical language, 46–47, 68–69; of business, 7; of Campbell, xvii, 46; Christian language, 65–66, 95–96, 115–16, 118, 141, 143; of cultural drivers, 12–13; of the culture, 27; and GMC, 65–69, 75, 77, 81–83, 95–97; and God talk, 33, 128, 141, 144, 147, 159; and Lyfe, 54–55; of marketing, xv, 97; “native language,” 143; political language, x, 115–16, 118; sacred language, 43; secular language, 143; and Swindon Christmas angels, 43, 46–47; and Theos, 141, 143, 198–99 law, 33, 99, 103, 118–123, 128; natural law, 122; Sentamu’s views on, 118–121, 123; and trip to Addis Ababa, 227 Layard, Richard, 243n8 lectio divina, 23, 27, 52 Lee, Stuart, 147 Leeds, 120–21 Left Behind series, 29 Lego animation film, 51 Leigh, Edward, 128 Levinson, Sanford, 143, 250n3 Lewis Media Centre (Millbank Tower), 148–49, 153, 251n5 Liberal Democrats, 105–6, 111, 113, 116, 126–27; and Theos, 142, 149 Liberal Party, 133 liberals, xvi–xviii, xxiii, 235, 239n1; and abolition movement, 24; and economic liberalism, 143; and emerging church, 20, 24, 28; and liberal democracy, 41, 99, 102, 125, 157, 174, 185; and liberal humanism, 141–48, 151–52; liberal Protestants, 112, 253n25; normative

Index | 281 demands of, 47, 147–48; and Parliament, 122, 248n14; and political liberalism, 141–43, 159–160; and Rescuing Darwin project, 198; and “we don’t do God,” xvii–xviii. See also names of liberals LICC (London Institute of Contemporary Christianity), 70–74, 137, 207, 209; and Church-Culture divide, 70–74; and double listening, 70–71; and Rescuing Darwin project, 207, 209, 222; and whole life discipleship, 70–72 Lilla, Mark, 214 literalism, 17, 28; and authorial intention, 198–99, 215; and literalist creationists, 192, 197–99, 223–24; and Rescuing Darwin project, 192–93, 197–99, 203, 215, 218, 220, 223 litigious religion, 171 Livingstone, David, 232–33 Lloyd’s of London, 5 London, xxv, xxvi, 1; and Bible Society movement, 10; bishop of, 128–29, 141; Catford’s home in, 19; City of London, 5; Commonwealth Club, 166; cultural venues in, 43; ExCel Centre, 89; failed car bombings in, 164; King’s College, 242n2; and Landrum, 101; and North-South divides, 90–91; Queen Victoria Street, 1; Somerset House, 43; Victoria train station, 162; West End, 147, 164 London Bible College, 135 London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. See LICC London School of Economics, 215, 222 London School of Theology, 135 lords, 33, 102–4, 108, 112; lords spiritual, 102–4, 154–161, 202–3. See also House of Lords; names of lords Los Angeles (Calif.), 76 love, 55–58 Love and Power (Perry), 250n3 Luff, Peter, 172 Luhrmann, Tanya, 236–37 Luther, Martin, 204–6 Lutheran schools, 226 Lyfe, xiv, 32, 40, 52–60, 230; and ambience, 52, 58–59; brochures about, 53fig.; coffee shop meetings, xiv, 32, 40–41, 52–53, 53fig., 55–59, 112, 243n11, 244n13; Facebook page of, 52; pub meetings, xiv, 32, 40, 52, 54, 59; and shame of faith, 52–55; video about,

52–54, 59; viral spreading of, 52; website of, 52 Lynchburg (Va.), 65 Mahmood, Saba, 239n1 Major, John, 13 Malinowski, Bronislaw, xxvi Manchester, xxvi, 10, 31, 244n5, 245n8; Cathedral Gardens, 86; Fairways Lodge Hotel, 92; Victoria Train Station, 86. See also GMC (Greater Manchester Campaign) Manchester Evening News, 153 Manchester University, 13, 89, 92 manga (Japanese comics), 43 marketplace: and ambient media advertising, 62–63, 96; and Bible sales, 2–3, 5–8; and GMC, 81, 96; language and logic of, xv; and LICC, 71; and politics/ politicians, 105; and public-private distinctions, 61–62; and religion, 42–43 market researchers, 23, 32 Marr, Johnny, 73 Martin, Michael, 112–13 Marx, Karl, 189–190, 253n1; Capital, 114 Mason, John, 127 materiality, xxiv, 41, 63 Matthew for Everyone (Wright), 227 Mazzarella, William, 95 McClellan, Rob, 96 McFerrin, Bobby, 47, 50, 66, 243n8 McGrath, Alister, 153 McLaren, Brian, 19, 25, 139, 241n12 Meadows, Peter, 30, 68, 231 Médecins Sans Frontières, 253n25; and “biomorality,” 253n25 media, xxii, 34, 186–87; as cultural driver, 12–15; and GMC, 74–76, 81; “media buy,” 74–76, 81, 88, 92; and Theos, 134, 149–150. See also media coverage; names of newspapers and media outlets media coverage, xiv, 188; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 171, 175–182, 184–86; and “Doing God” report, 131–32, 152–53, 160; gauge of public mood, 67; of gay rights, 120; news cycle of, 34, 164; and NHS (National Health Service), 175, 178; and parable of sower, xix–xx; perception of Christians in, 117; and Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown report/press release, 164–171, 187; and Rescuing Darwin project, 194, 205–6, 211, 217, 255n23; of Swindon Christmas angels, 49; and “we don’t do

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media coverage (continued) God,” xvii–xviii; and Westminster Hall Debate, 128 mediascapes, xxv Mediterranean worlds, ancient, xix–xx Merseyside, 100–101 Methodists, 16, 68, 112, 135 Michael, George, 72, 74 Micklethwait, John, 35 Microsoft Word dictionary, 244n1 Midgely, Mary, 194 Milbank, John, 234–35, 241n17 Mill, John Stuart, xxi Millbank Tower, 148–49, 153, 251n5 millenarians, 28–30 Miller, Laura J., 8 miner’s strike, 73, 244n4 The Miracles of Jesus (BBC program), 10 mirrors in advertising, 62–63 missional Christians, 24–27, 31, 232, 234; and culture, 25–27; decoupling link with “foreign” lands, 24–26; meeting people where they are, 26–27 missionary societies, xiv, 4, 24–25, 232 mobile phones, 29–30 Modern, John Lardas, 233 modernity, xvi, 63, 253n25; and cleanliness, 179; and decline of religion, 64; and GMC, 68; and LICC, 71; and publicity, 186–87; and Rescuing Darwin project, 198; and Swindon Christmas angels, 38 Mohammed, cartoons of, 36 monarchy, 102; and royal household, 150; symbolism of, 102 monetarism, 29 Montague, Sarah, 218–19, 221 moral issues: and abortion rights, 17, 117; and Bible as rule book, 23, 68; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 173, 178; and gay rights, 120; and Parliament, 110, 117, 119–121, 202, 248n18; Sentamu’s views on, 119–121, 123; and sincerity, 110; vs. social justice, 117 “moral majority,” 65 Morrissey, 73 Moses (biblical figure), 87 movie stars, xxi, 37–38, 49 MPs (members of Parliament), 33, 98, 100–101, 107–30; and abortion rights, 117, 144; and British reserve, 114–16, 118, 123, 128–29, 141; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 172; and Christian lobbyists, 123–24; and exemplary action, 115–16, 118, 129, 137–38; and

expense claims scandal (2009), 124–25, 249n21; and G-6/Half G-6, 113–15, 124, 129, 225; and interns, 111, 114, 135, 150, 156, 248n18; and “Reviving Faith in Politics” event, 116–18; and Sexual Orientation Regulations, 120–23, 126–27; and sincerity, 99, 105, 110, 129–130, 229–230; testimonials of, 112; and Theos, 110–11, 137, 142, 144, 149–150, 158–59, 165, 172; and thinking Christianly, 123; and trip to Addis Ababa, 225, 228–230; uniqueness of, 124–25; and Westminster Hall Debate, 126–29; Wilberforce as, 1, 115. See also CIP (Christians in Parliament); names of MPs multiculturalism, 42, 54, 142, 185, 250n7 multifaith society, 172, 185 Murphy-O’Connor, Cormac, 122, 149, 153, 205 Murray, D.S.A., 205 music: ambient music, 61–63; and GMC, 77, 86–88; and LICC, 71–74; mass commodification of, 62; muzak, 61; rock bands, 77 Music for Airports (Eno record), 61 Muslims, 132, 144, 152, 242nn2–3, 255n23. See also Islam mysterium, xv Naomi (biblical figure), 82 national identity, 166 National Prayer Breakfasts, 100, 108, 112, 124, 157, 163 National Secular Society. See NSS natural selection, 189–190, 192, 199–200, 205, 207, 210 Nazir-Ali, Michael, 121 neighborhood fairs, 76 neighborliness, 34, 166–68, 170 neoliberal economic policies, 132–33, 143, 146, 182 Neuhaus, Richard John, 33 neutrality, 5; of public square, 33; secular neutrality, 47–48, 134, 142, 201–2, 214; and Swindon Christmas angels, 47–48 new atheists, 154, 224; and Grand Synthesis, 216; purported abuse of Darwin, 205; and Rescuing Darwin project, 35, 189–193, 197, 201, 203–7, 209–11, 216–17, 219, 222, 255n23 Newbigin, Lesslie, 19, 24–26, 71, 135 New Labour, 108, 135, 147

Index | 283 Newland, Martin, 153 Newsnight, 145 newspapers, xxv; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 175–76; Danish, 36; and “Doing God” report, 131, 134, 136; gauge of public mood, 67; and GMC, 79–82, 84, 96; letters to the editors, 134, 136, 164, 194, 205–6; and Parliament, 107; and Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown report/press release, 164–65, 168, 170–71; and Rescuing Darwin project, 194, 205–6; tabloid newspapers, 79–81. See also titles of newspapers New Testament, 52, 145, 151, 227. See also Bible NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), 177; quango (quasi-nongovernmental organization), 13 NHS (National Health Service) Trusts, 172–186, 222, 231; and budget deficits, 172–73, 175–76, 178–79; and “Faith in Health” conference, 183–85; and holistic healthcare, 172, 175, 177–78, 182, 185–86; and suffering, 181–82, 253n25; surveys of, 174–180, 185; and universal health care, 175 Nichols, Vincent, 120 Nietzsche, 189 Nigerians, 71–72 Noah (biblical figure), 82, 87 nominal Christians, 110, 129–130 non-Christians: and angel kites, 43; and Bible Society, 16–17, 43, 74; and film competitions, 96; and GMC, 78, 93–94, 245n8; and Parliament, 113, 116; and Rescuing Darwin project, 191–92, 217; and Theos, 152, 165, 191–92. See also other faiths Non-Conformists, 2 non-Western contexts, 41, 43 Northern Ireland, 4 North-South divides, 90–91, 101 Nottingham, 68, 74–76, 85 NSS (National Secular Society), 180; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 173, 176–77, 179–183; and Coming off the Bench report/launch, 157, 160; and “Doing God” report, 152–53; and Freedom of Information Act, 179 nutters: Blair’s fear of being viewed as, xix, 28, 128, 141, 203; nutters’ brigade, 124, 147; and Parliament, 124, 128; and Theos, 141–42, 147

OBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire), 13 Observer, 120 O’Connor, Cormac. See Murphy-O’Connor, Cormac O’Donovan, Oliver, 186–87, 234 Öffentlichkeit, 34 Of Revelation and Revolution (Comaroff and Comaroff), 232–33 Oldfield, Elizabeth, 236 Oldham, 91, 244n5 Old Testament, 52, 145, 208. See also Bible Omaar, Rageh, 10 On the Origin of Species (Darwin), 35, 189, 194, 196, 210; anniversary of, 196, 210; best tweet competition about, 194 Origen, 197 other faiths: and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 184–85; and GMC, 68; Landrum’s views on, 106–7; Sikhs, 62; and Swindon Christmas angels, 42–43; and Theos, 132, 151–53, 184–85. See also Islam; Judaism outreach, 33, 54, 75, 85–86, 100 Owen, John, 5 Oxford, 137, 165, 189–190, 222; bishop of, 189–190, 208; Jesus College, 137; New College, 222 pagans, 16, 26; Saxon pagans, 65 “Panic” (the Smiths’ song), 72–73 Parade (Swinton shopping center), 31–32, 37–50, 59, 61, 232; and angel kites, 37–50, 44fig., 59; and proposed nativity scene, 48; public toilets at, 48; windy days at, 37–39, 41, 45, 48–50 parents, 30–31; and GMC focus groups, 23, 68–69 Park, Nick, 76 Parliament, 1, 33–34, 98–130, 242n2; All-Party Group on Chaplaincy in NHS, 179; Annunciators in, 103–4, 129–130, 174; and Bible studies, 108, 112; Big Ben clock tower, 51, 112; CARE interns in, 111, 114, 135, 150, 156, 248n18; Central Lobby, 103; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 179; and Christendom, 103–6, 116–17; Christian artwork in, 103–4; and CIP, 108–9, 111–123, 125; Despatch Box café, 107, 111; and drinking coffee, 100, 107, 111; expense claims scandal (2009), 124–25; and freedom, 99, 105–6, 115; Gothic Revival Houses, 103; history of, 99, 103; interns

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Parliament (continued) in, 111, 114; Landrum as parliamentary liaison officer, 33, 100–101, 103–18, 122–25, 246n5; and National Prayer Breakfasts, 100, 108, 112, 124, 157, 163; Pentecostal-style prayer session at, 50–51; Portcullis House, 51, 101, 107–8, 109fig., 134; prayers in, 50–51, 103–4, 109, 111, 113, 129–130; Speakers’ Apartments, 112–13; St. Mary’s Undercroft, 112; St. Stephen’s Hall, 103; and Theos, 108, 110–12, 134, 137, 157–59, 165; tours of, 101–5, 112, 155; Victorian Houses, 103; Westminster Hall, 112, 126–28; and Wilberforce, 1, 115. See also House of Commons; House of Lords participant observation, xxv–xxvi, 215 Partington, Andrew, 154–56, 158–59; and Coming off the Bench report/ launch, 154–161 passion, 60, 143, 191, 224 patriarchy, 217 patriotism, 34, 166–68, 171, 210 Paul, Saint, 139, 227 Paxman, Jeremy, 144–45 PCF (Parliamentary Christian Fellowship), 100, 108–9; rebranded as CIP, 108 peers, 98, 108–10, 149, 154, 217 Pentecostals, 16, 50–51, 213; in Addis Ababa, 116; charismatic, 100; falling into tongues, 51; Ghanaian, 89; Landrum as, 100, 146; prayer session in Parliament, 50–51 Perry, Michael, 250n3 personal conscience, 121–22, 247n12 person on the street, xiv, 31–32; and GMC, 76, 80, 96 Peters, John Durham, xxii Peterson, Eugene H., 19, 22–23, 52 Pharoah, Robin, 215, 222–23 philanthropy, 7 philosophy, xvi; and “why” questions, 198, 216, 224 “The Pitch” (film initiative), 96 pizza, 87–88, 87fig. plausibility structure, 26–27, 31 Playfoot, Lydia, 169 pluralism, xvi, 11, 99, 106, 249n2; and missional Christians, 25; and Rawls, 142; reasonable pluralism, 142; and Theos, 142, 158, 250n7 Poland/Poles, 184

political correctness, 48–49, 54; and “neutrality,” 48–49 political parties: and “Christian” party (proposed), 106; and cross-party agreement, 126; Landrum’s views on, 105–6; and NHS (National Health Service), 175; party-political issues, 117, 126, 132, 135, 145; and Theos, 131–32, 135, 145; and well-being, 243n8. See also names of political parties politics/politicians, xiv, 31, 33–34, 231, 235; in Addis Ababa, 116; and anoraks, 148–49, 166; cultural politics, 65; and “Doing God” report, 131, 134–35, 141–46, 148–49, 151; and elections, 108, 113, 124–25, 135, 149, 154, 174, 238; and Freedom of Information Act, 174, 252n16; and “label on the tin,” 115, 118, 229; political devolution, ix, 102; political language, x, 115, 118; and political liberalism, 141–43; political rationality, 202; political theology, 146; politics as cultural driver, 12–15, 99–100, 134; and power, 142, 146; and Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown report/ press release, 165–171; of regionalism, 90–91; religion separate from politics, xvi–xviii, 40, 60, 99, 102–3, 117, 128, 144–46, 155, 180, 188, 214–15; and Rescuing Darwin project, 202, 204, 214–15, 217; spouses of politicians, 111; thinking Christianly, xiv, 33, 109. See also MPs (members of Parliament); Parliament; political parties; names of politicians and political parties Poole, Philip, 11–12, 21, 149 Portcullis House, 51, 101, 107–8, 109fig., 134; security in, 107–8 Porter, Roy, 141 posters: for GMC, 75, 92; for Swindon Christmas angels, 46–48, 50, 67 postmodernity: and emerging church, 27; and GMC, 80–81; and Landrum, 101 poverty, 5, 227–28; global poverty, 117 PowerPoint presentations, 21, 30, 67–68; and LICC, 72–73 pragmatism, 144 prayers, 231; all-night prayer vigil, 89; at Bible House, xiii, 4, 31; Big Brother prayer tent, 90; collective, xiii; Lord’s Prayer, 103; and Parliament, 50–51, 103–4, 109, 111, 113, 129–130; prayer walk, 51; Prayer Week, 50–51. See also National Prayer Breakfasts

Index | 285 Premier Christian Radio, 191 Presbyterians, 212 Prestwich, xxv, 215 principle of negativity, xxi–xxiii, 33, 187, 204, 220 printed word, xv, xxi, 2 printing/printers, xxiv, 2, 5, 10 privacy, xix, 11; and advertising on eggs, 62; and ambience, 41, 61–63; and Bible advocacy, 24; fractally recursive conception of, 63; invasion of, 62; and Lyfe, 54, 59; of middle-class American household, 41; stigma attached to breaking injunction, xix private religion, xiv–xix, 3–4, 234; in Cairo, 41; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 180–82; as compromised term, 36, 60; and emerging church, 26, 29; Enlightenment views on, xvi, 39; “firewall” between life and work, 16, 47; and Lyfe, 58–59; and missional Christians, 26; and Parliament, 110, 121; and Rescuing Darwin project, 204, 253n4; and Swindon Christmas angels, 39–40; and “we don’t do God,” xvii–xix privilege, 126, 154, 157, 173, 180, 188, 202, 227 Prodigal Son, 76 proselytization, xiv, 12, 24, 75, 88 Protestants, xxiii–xxiv, 2, 8, 17; and emerging church, 27; and Falwell, Jerry, 65; and Parliament, 110, 112–13, 125; Protestant self, 110, 125; and Rescuing Darwin project, 198, 219. See also evangelicals; names of denominations publicity, xv, xix–xxiii, xxv, 3, 16, 24, 31–36, 230–31, 234–35, 237–38; and ambience, 32, 41, 63; bad publicity, 35–36; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 173, 185; defined, xx; and eroticism, 186; and GMC, 32–33, 96; and iconicity, 186; and Lyfe, 59; and Parliament, 99, 118, 126; and public square, 60–61; and Rescuing Darwin project, 35, 194, 206; and Swindon Christmas angels, 40; and Theos, 34–35, 131–32, 148, 154, 160–61, 163–64, 171, 173, 185–87; unpredictability of, 34, 165, 171 public-private distinction, 16, 39–42, 59–61, 188; and ambience, 40–42, 60, 63; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 180–82; and Lyfe, 59; and state education system, 196; and Swindon Christmas angels, 39–40

public reason, xx–xxi; and Parliament, 119, 156, 159–160; and Theos, 134, 137, 139–144, 148, 152, 156, 159–160 public relations, 13; PR agents, xiv–xv, 30; and Rescuing Darwin project, 221 public religion, xiv–xxiii, xxv, 3, 35–36, 231, 234–35, 238; and ambience, 40–41; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 177, 180–82; as compromised term, 36, 60; Enlightenment views on, xvi, 39–40; and fundamentalism, 65; and Lyfe, 58–59; and Parliament, 110, 127–28; and Swindon Christmas angels, 39–40, 59; and “we don’t do God,” xvii–xix publics, xiv, xxii, xxvi, 238; and Advocacy Team, 31–32, 66; and ambience, 41, 51; general public, 33, 67–69, 75–76, 78, 83–85; and GMC, 33, 66–69, 75–76, 78, 83–85, 96–97; Harry Potter publics, 38–39, 49; and Lyfe, 52–55, 58–59. See also entries beginning with public public sphere, xvii–xviii, xx–xxii, 14–15, 42, 234; and ambience, 61–62; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 176; and constitutional reform, 157; and Habermas, xx–xxii, 34, 187; ignorance pervading, 191; and Lyfe, 58; and Rescuing Darwin project, 35, 188, 191, 202, 215, 217; and Theos, 34–35, 157, 176, 186–87 public square, xviii, 33, 235; ambience of, 52, 61; and constitutional reform, 157; and Lyfe, 52; and Neuhaus, 33; and other faiths, 106–7; and Parliament, 106–7, 123, 127; and Rawls, 141–43, 160; and Rescuing Darwin project, 192, 221; and Theos, 137–38, 141–48, 151, 155, 157, 160, 167, 192, 250n7; and trip to Addis Ababa, 229; and Wilberforce, 18 public theology: and Catford, 135; and International Journal of Public Theology, 249n2; and Neuhaus, 33; and Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown report/ press release, 167, 170–71, 185–86; and Rescuing Darwin project, 153–54, 191, 201, 215; and Theos, 13, 33–34, 131, 135, 139, 141, 163 pubs: and GMC, 76–77; and Lyfe, xiv, 32, 40, 52, 54, 59 Pugin, Augustus, 103 Purves, Libby, 132, 251n5 Putney, 150

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Al-Qaeda, 36 radical orthodoxy, 234–35, 241n17 radio, xx–xxi, xxv; and “broadcasting,” xx; and Theos, 131, 149–150, 165, 191. See also BBC; names of radio programs and outlets Rahab (film), 96 Ramsbottom, 90 rationality, xvi, 232–33; defined, 204; and “Doing God” report, 142–44; economic rationality, 143; and NSS, 180; and Parliament, 119, 202; political rationality, 202; and Rawls, 142, 202; and Rescuing Darwin project, 35, 189, 191, 193, 202–5, 208, 216–17, 253n5 Rawls, John, 137, 141–43, 151, 156–57, 159–160, 191, 202–3 Raynor-Taylor, Barbara, 94 reading, 230; of Bible, 2, 8–9, 23, 94, 230; at Bible House, 14, 19–25, 29–30, 243n8; and Catford, 19–21, 241n12, 241n16; and emerging church, 19–25, 29–30; in global South, xxiii; and Holt, 14, 20, 22, 30; on plane rides, xxvi; and Rescuing Darwin project, 198; sensory engagement of, 22 reason, 35, 140–46, 152; Catholic reasoning, 144; defined, 203–4; empirical, 233; and enthusiasm, 140–41; and faith, 35, 140–41, 143–44, 202–6, 208, 216, 224, 233; and Parliament, 119, 202; and passion, 60, 143, 191, 224; and reasonable religion, 35, 191–93, 202, 204, 222, 224, 233, 235; and Rescuing Darwin project, 190–93, 201–6, 208, 216, 219, 224, 253n4, 254n11. See also public reason Reason and Rationality (Elster), 203 Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown: Citizens, Patriots, and the Prime Minister (Backhouse), 165–171, 251n5 redemption, 2; and emerging church, 21; and Parliament, 109, 125, 129 Redfield, Peter, 253n25 Red Letter Day, 30 Reed, Andy, 100, 108, 111–18, 124–27, 231; called to politics, 115; and Christian lobbyists, 124; and exemplary action, 115–16, 118, 137–38; and “nutters’ brigade,” 124, 147; resignation from Blair government, 114, 116; and Sexual Orientation Regulations, 123; and Theos, 137–38, 141, 147, 156; and

trip to Addis Ababa, 225, 228–29; and Westminster Hall Debate, 126–27 Rees, Martin, 216, 255n22 Reformation, 40, 121 regionalism, 90–91 relevance, xiv, 12, 35, 50, 54, 65–67; of Bible, 33, 66–70, 75, 77, 80–81, 83–88, 93, 96; of Christian language, 66; and GMC, 33, 66–70, 75, 77, 80–81, 83–88, 93, 96; temporality of, 66 Relevant magazine, 247n6 religion, 3, 233; and antitheism, xvi, 35–36, 47, 54; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 172–73, 175–77, 179–185; as conversation stopper, 141–42, 147–48; decline of, xvii, 35, 64, 68–69, 127; and “Doing God” report, 140–48; and emerging church, 20, 22; and Great Separation, 214–16, 224; Habermas’s elision of, xxi; institutional, 38, 40, 59–60, 183–85; litigious religion, 169; and Parliament, 106, 110, 117–121, 123; politics separate from, xvi–xviii, 40, 60, 99, 102–3, 117, 128, 144–46, 155, 180, 188, 214–15; and privilege, 126, 154, 157, 173, 180, 188, 202; reasonable religion, 35, 191–93, 202, 204, 222, 224, 233, 235; and Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown report/press release, 169–170; and Rescuing Darwin project, 35, 190–93, 197–206, 208, 214–16, 218–224; and science, 35, 190–92, 197–99, 202–6, 208, 213–16, 218–221, 224; Sentamu’s views on, 118–121, 123; sociology of, xxv, 64–65; and Swindon Christmas angels, 32, 37–38, 42–43, 46–47, 67; that fits in box, 170, 176, 184; and “why” questions, 198, 216, 219, 224. See also names of faith groups; names of other faiths republicanism, 102 Rescuing Darwin: God the Evolution in Britain Today (Spencer and Alexander), 193, 196–201, 206, 209, 218–19, 223 Rescuing Darwin project, 35, 188–224; and actor dressed up as Darwin quizzing tourists, 194; branding of, 194; cartoon for, 194, 195fig.; and Charles Gore Lecture (2009), 194; and ComRes surveys, 193–94, 205; and creationism, 189–190, 192–94, 196–201, 203–5, 207, 210–11, 214–15, 218, 220–24, 255n15; and Darwin’s Tree play (Watts),

Index | 287 194; and Dawkins, 35, 189–190, 194, 196, 200–201, 204–7, 209–11, 213–14, 216–18, 220–22, 224, 254n12; and double anniversaries of Darwin, 34, 196, 205, 209–10; funding for, 193, 196, 209–15; grants for, 210–15; and Gray’s talk, 207, 209, 222; and intelligent design (ID), 189–190, 193–94, 197, 199–201, 205, 210–11; and Midgely interview, 194; and new atheists, 35, 189–193, 197, 201, 203–7, 209–11, 216–17, 219, 222, 224, 255n23; and “opinion formers” interviews, 193, 211, 214–15, 222–23; and polling/statistical data, 193–94, 200–201, 203, 205; and press releases, 205; and reasonable religion, 35, 191–93, 202, 204, 222, 224; and Rescuing Darwin report, 193, 196–201, 206, 209, 218–19, 223; and Westminster Abbey debate, 131, 194, 217–222 ResPublica, 235, 256n3 revelation, xv, xxii, 1, 21, 224, 232 “Reviving Faith in Politics” event, 116–19, 123, 134, 246n5 Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, 204 Richmond, Yvonne, 37–38, 48 ritual, 28, 130 Roberts, Nathaniel, 256n2 Robertshaw, Carl, 43, 45, 49 Robertson, Pat, 190, 197 Rochester, bishop of, 121 Roman Catholics. See Catholics Romantic Age, 40 Rostill, John, 179 Rothwell, Nancy, 217–18, 220–21 Royal Army Medical College, 242n2 Royal College of Nursing, 179 Royal Oldham Hospital, 94; Oldham Substance Misuse Project, 94 Ruth (biblical figure), 82–83 Rutherford, Adam, 205 Sacks, Jonathan, 132, 152 sacred, 21; and GMC, 81, 84; language on angel posters, 43; and LICC, 71; “sacred quality” of books, 8 Salford, 91, 244n5 salvation, personal, xxii, 1; and conservative evangelicism, 29, 231; and emerging church, 19–20, 22, 25, 29; and missional Christians, 25 same-sex couples, 120–21

Sanderson, Terry, 176–77, 179 São Paulo, 26 Sarah (biblical figure), 80 Saxon pagans, 65 Scandinavia: Scandinavian Bible Societies, 46; as “society without God,” 46 schools: as “academies,” 196; Bibles provided to, xiv; creationism taught in, 194, 196, 208, 211, 218, 220; faith schools, 120, 234; and GMC prize, 80; and no-jewelry policy, 169; run by faith-based charities, 196, 208 science/scientists, xvi, 31, 231; and creationism, 189–190, 192–94, 196–200; and evidence, 189, 192, 200, 203–5, 207–8, 224; and evolutionary biology, 200, 203, 205–7; and Great Separation, 214–16, 224; and “how” questions, 198, 216, 219, 224; and intelligent design (ID), 189–190, 193–94, 197, 199–200; and methodological atheism, 214–15; and overbearing scientists, 205; and proto-science, 199; and religion, 35, 190–92, 197–99, 202–6, 208, 213–16, 218–221, 224; and Rescuing Darwin project, 188–224; and Science Wars, 192; and scientific inquiry, 214; scientific materialism, xvi Scientologists, 119 Scotland: Bible societies in, 4, 6; leaving BFBS, 4; local action groups in, 6–7; Scottish Presbyterians, 4 Scotsman, 171 Scottish National Party, 127 Scriptural Reasoning project, 152 Scripture, 2; agency of, xxii; drama of, 18–23, 27–29, 50; embodiment of, 19; and emerging church, 21; particular interpretations of, 12; rejecting authority of, xxiii–xxiv; and Rescuing Darwin project, 198, 218; as rule book, 23, 26–27; sensory engagement of, 9; separation of politics and religion, 144–45; and Theos, 144, 159; wider dispersion of, 2, 5. See also Bible Second Chamber, 154–55. See also House of Lords A Secular Age (Taylor), 212–13 secularism, xvi–xix, xxiii, xxv, 3, 11, 231, 233–35; as “antireligious,” 47; in Cairo, 41; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 171, 177, 179–182, 185; as Christian concept/legacy, xvi–xvii, 146, 151; and

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secularism (continued) Coming off the Bench report/launch, 154–55, 157–58; and “Doing God” report/launch, 142–43, 145–46, 151–53; and emerging church, 20, 22, 26, 29–30; and GMC, 33, 69, 81, 84–86, 88; and human rights, 121–22; and Parliament, 99, 102–3, 106–7, 118–19, 121–23, 127–130, 154–55, 157–58; and radical orthodoxy, 234–35, 241n17; and Rescuing Darwin project, 201–2, 208, 213–14, 224; and secular authorities, xvii, 47–48, 50; and secular humanism, xvii, 26, 102; secularization theory, xxv, 35, 64; secular neutrality, 47–48, 134, 142, 201–2, 214; secular orthodoxies, 134, 136, 143, 154; secular reversal, 235; secular settlement, xvii–xviii, 33, 35–36, 99, 106, 118–19, 128, 134, 154, 234, 255n1; separation of politics and religion, 40, 60, 102–3, 145–46, 155, 180, 188, 214–15; as statecraft principle, 99, 102, 106–7, 118, 129; and suffering, 181–82, 253n25; and Swindon Christmas angels, 38–39, 46–48, 50; and Theos, 132–36, 142–43, 145–46, 151–55, 157–58, 171, 177, 179–182, 185, 187; and tipping points, 30; twitchy secularists, 155, 157. See also NSS (National Secular Society) Seldon, Arthur, 133 self-formation, xxii, 129, 231 The Selfish Gene (Dawkins), 207–8 Selous, Andrew, 111, 116–17, 126–29, 141 semiotics, 41; and angel kites, 45; and GMC, 67, 81, 96; semiotic ideology, 81; sensory semiotics, 63 sensory engagement: and ambience, 61, 63; with Bible, 9, 22–23; and emerging church, 22–23; and Lyfe, 59, 244n13; “sensational forms,” 41; “sensory environment,” 41; and short film competition, 51; and Swindon Christmas angels, 39–41, 45, 49–50 Sentamu, John, 118–123, 128–29, 142, 248n14 “Sentinel Advertising” video, 86–88, 87fig. Septuagint, 226 Sermon on the Mount, 127, 226–29 Sexual Orientation Regulations, 120–23, 126–27 Shaftesbury, 7th Earl of, 236 Shakespeare, William, 21, 84 Shambo (sacred Hindu cow), 169

shame: I’m Not Ashamed (Carey), 54–55; and Lyfe, 52–55 Sheffield children’s center, 39 Sherine, Arianne, 246n16 Shona, xxiii Sikhs, 62 sincerity, 99, 105, 110, 129–130, 229–231 Sky News, xiii, 131 slavery, 18, 23–24, 115 Slave Trade Act (1807), 18 Slee, Colin, 39 Smart, Ninian, 214 Smith, Delia, 128, 207, 254n12 the Smiths, 72–73 social action, 41, 231, 241n14 social imaginary, 32; public as n+1 of, 32 social justice, 117, 187 social researchers, 32, 37–38, 244n2, 245n9; and GMC, 23, 67–70; and Theos, 211. See also names of social research firms Socinius, 5 sociologists, xxi, xxv, 64, 106, 185, 214. See also names of sociologists Sojourners, 116 sola scriptura, 3 Solomon, King, 245n6 Sources of the Self (Taylor), 253n25 South Africa, xxv, 6; South African Bible Society, 10 Southwark: archbishop of, xix, 240n6; dean of, 39 South West Devon, 108, 130 South Yorkshire NHS Trust, 172 sower: image of, xix–xx; parable of, xix–xx, xxii–xxiii Spencer, Herbert, 210 Spencer, Nick, 131–32, 137–39, 138fig., 235–36; and Charles Gore Lecture (2009), 194; and Coming off the Bench report/launch, 158–59; contributor to Guardian, 131–32, 164; as director of studies, 148; and “Doing God” report/ launch, 140–49, 151–52, 160, 167, 184; frustration of, 147; and good trouble, 141, 148; and litigious religion, 169, 171; in London office, 162–63; and Parliament, 137, 149, 159, 165; and Rawls, 142–43; and Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown report/press release, 166, 171; and Rescuing Darwin project, 189–194, 196–201, 204–13, 215–16, 222–24; and Rescuing Darwin report, 194, 196–201

Index | 289 Spirit, wind of, xv, 31, 242n4 spirituality: and Angel of the North, 46; Bible as spiritual story, 48; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 171–72, 176–77, 179, 182–83, 185–86; and Lyfe, 59; and Parliament, 116–18; social spirituality, 116–18, 182–83; spiritual but not religious, 32, 37–39, 67, 182–83; and spiritual illiteracy, 118; and spiritual revolution, 32, 37–38, 67; and Swindon Christmas angels, 32, 37–39, 42–43, 46–48, 50, 59, 67; and Theos, 171–72, 176–77, 179, 182–83, 185–86; and trip to Addis Ababa, 230 Spriggs, David, 139 Starbucks, 52, 89 Star Wars fans, 253n23 state-run hospitals: chaplains in, xiv, 34, 171–184 St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge, 201 Stinson, Hanne, 132 St. Margaret’s Church, 149 St. Mary’s University College, 183–85 Storrar, William, 249n2 Stott, John, 70–71 Stourton, Edward, 149, 151–52, 250n6 St. Paul’s (Hammersmith), 135 Streeter, Gary, 108, 111, 113–15, 118, 124–130, 231; and Theos, 135, 137, 141, 150; and trip to Addis Ababa, 225–26, 229–230, 234; and Westminster Hall Debate, 126–130 The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Habermas), xxi St. Stephen’s Hall, 103 St. Thomas Hospital site, 242n2 students, 31; and GMC, 68, 94 suffering, 181–82, 253n25; confirming humanity in face of, 182 Sun, 82 Surrey, 55, 230–31 Swindon: abject image of, 45, 49; and “angels of the South,” 45, 49; Bible House in, xxv, xxvi, 1, 10, 45, 235, 238, 240n8; Borough Council, 38–39, 42, 46–49, 99; and Christmas angels, 32, 37–50, 44fig., 59, 61, 67, 99; and civil pride, 45; interfaith group, 42; and North-South divides, 91; Parade shopping center, 31–32, 37–50, 44fig., 59, 61, 232; schools in, 42 Taliban, 36 Tamil Nadu, 25

taxis, xxvi, 32–33, 62, 74, 76, 95 Taylor, Charles, 84, 207, 212–13, 239n1, 253n25 Taylor, David, 126 Tearfund, 245n14 Teather, Sarah, 126 television, xx–xxi, xxv; Annunciators (in Parliament), 103–4, 129–130, 174; in Bible House lobby, xiii, 29, 31, 36; and “broadcasting,” xx; CBS television network, 62; Channel 4 News, 176; and Theos, 131, 165. See also BBC Templeton, John, Sir, 212–13 Templeton Foundation, 140, 210–16; Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellow, 213–14, 216, 255n21; and Templeton Prize, 212–13, 255n22 Teresa, Mother, 212 Tesco, 111–12, 143, 235 textbooks, 9–10, 20–21 Thacker, Justin, 221 Thames, River, 51, 107, 148 Thatcher, Margaret, 133, 146–47, 154–56, 196, 235, 244n4 Thatcherism, 133, 235 The Blind Watchmaker (Dawkins), 207–8 The Burden of Power (Campbell), 238 theistic evolutionism, 192, 197–98, 204, 215, 217, 222–23 theists, 191, 206, 212 theocracies, 106 theologians, 19, 139, 145, 153, 186, 198, 216, 224, 234, 241n17, 249n2. See also names of theologians Theos, xxvi, 33–34, 131–187, 236; ability to offer “note or comment,” 34, 140; annual lecture series of, 132, 152; birth of, 135–148; blogs of, 134; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, xiv, 34, 171–186; and Coming off the Bench report/launch, 154–161; and “Current Debate” feature on website, 153; and deep integrity, 187; director of, 131, 135–37; director of studies, 131, 148; and doing God, 34, 149, 166, 168, 192; and “Doing God” report/launch, 140–154, 150fig., 160, 183–84; and donations/donors, 139–140; executive administrator of, 140, 162–63; feasibility study for, 135, 137; and Freedom of Information Act, 174, 185, 252n16; funding for, 135, 139–140; and God Debate, 35, 188, 191–92, 196, 203, 213, 219; and good timing, 164, 166,

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Theos (continued) 194; and good trouble, 136, 141, 148, 157; as heretical minority, 133; IEA as model for, 132–35, 143, 146; inaugural report of, 136–37, 140–48, 183–84; incarnational approach of, 138–39, 182–83, 186–87; and interfaith dialogue, 152, 157, 164–65; and laager mentality, 153, 158; and Landrum, 101, 134, 246n5; and laughing Athenian for, 139, 153; launch of, 34, 131–32, 136, 139, 147–154, 150fig., 205; and letters to the editors, 134, 136, 194, 205–6; logo of, 149, 163; London office of, 33, 131, 139–140, 162–63, 166, 235–36; as long-term project, 132; and Parliament, 108, 110–12, 134, 137, 157–59, 165; polling research of, 131, 134, 164–67, 170–71, 194, 200–201, 203, 205; poll on British attitudes toward religion/ Islam, 164–65; poll on British perceptions of patriotism in U.S., 166–67, 170–71; press releases of, 134, 165, 168–171, 174–75, 194, 205; and Rawls, 137, 141–43, 151, 156–57, 159–160; reactive interventions of, 161, 164–65, 171, 196; and Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown report/ press release, 165–171, 251n5; religion and science, 35; reports of, 131, 134, 136–37, 139, 164, 194; and Rescuing Darwin project, 35, 131, 188–224; surveys of, 174–78, 185; and theistic evolutionism, 192, 197–98, 204, 215, 217, 222–23; website of, 139, 153, 169. See also names of Theos team members think tanks, xiv, xxvi; “Christian think tank” as oxymoron, 139, 193. See also Theos; names of other think tanks Third Sector, 135. See also civil society Third Way magazine, 213 Thompson, Mark, 132, 148 time: always already, 20, 75, 146; “ancient-future,” 27; building picture over time, 237–38; Church time, 85, 104; of “clock and calendar,” 84; cultural time, 84, 96; cyclical/ patterned, 84; and emerging church, 18–32; future invading present, 105; and GMC, 75, 80–82, 84–85, 96; here and now, 20, 80–82; higher time, 84–85, 96; “homogenous, empty time,”

84, 96; linear/finite, 84; “messianic time,” 84; of mission, 21; near future, 29–31, 36, 132, 144, 232, 241n14; now and not yet, 105; and Parliament, 104–5, 129; sacred times, 21; teleological times, 21; temporality of heritage, 80–81, 84; temporality of relevance, 66, 84; and tipping points, 29–30; “What time is it?,” 18–32; of witness, 21 Times, 42, 132, 153, 175–76, 179, 205–6, 242n3 The Tipping Point (Gladwell), 29–30 tipping points, 29–30, 232 Today (radio news program), 149–150, 179, 218–19; “Thought for the Day,” 150 tolerance, 47, 49, 118, 144 Tories, 113, 116, 135; “Red Tory,” 235. See also Conservatives totalitarianism, 190 tourists, 51, 194, 217 Toynbee, Polly, 132, 191 train rides, xxvi, 1, 108 tram cars, 32–33, 76 translators/translations, xxiii–xxiv, 4 transparency, 104, 174, 252n16 Tribe (television show), 7 Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, 255n1 Truth in Science, 255n15 Turner, Desmond, 120 tweets, 194, 237 Twickenham, 183 U.K. Christian Handbook (Brierley), 244n2 uncertainty, 218–19 unchurched people, 60; and GMC, 23, 68, 75; and kite angels, 32; Landrum’s views on, 110, 129; meeting them where they are, 27; as parents, 23; professionals as, 43; using Bible as rule book, 23, 68 unions, 173, 176–77, 182 Unite (union), 173, 176 United Bible Societies, 10 United Hebrew Congregations, 132 United Kingdom, xxv, 4, 233, 243n9; 2001 census, 38, 245n14, 253n23; commercial publishers in, xiv; and creationism/ intelligent design ideas, 194, 196–97, 200, 203, 205, 211; Darwin’s reputation in, 210; defined, ix–x; and established church, 102–4; and missional Christians, 25; and NHS (National Health Service), 179; and radio news, 149 United Nation resolutions, 114

Index | 291 United States, 8, 20–21, 70, 115–17, 155; American Bible Society, 10, 212; American Midwest, 26; American South, 65; antebellum America, 233; and Atheist Bus Campaign, 246n16; Brown’s visit to, 166–67, 170; congressmen from, 119; and creationism/intelligent design ideas, 190, 194, 200, 211, 223; and emerging church, 28; Hollywood, xxi, 81; 9/11 terrorist attacks, 167; and patriotism, 166–68, 170; Republican Party, 117 United Synagogue, 157 University College London, 220 Vanity Fair, xvii–xviii Vardy, Peter, 211 Vardy Foundation, 196, 208, 211, 220 Velvet Elvis (Bell), 57 Victoria Tower Gardens, 51 Vineyard movement, 236–37, 241n14 Wales: Bible Advocacy Team officer for, 13; Bible Society’s domestic projects in, xxiv, 4, 240n8; rules/regulations for charitable organizations in, 6; and Shambo (sacred Hindu cow), 169; Skanda Vale monks, 169 The Walk (film), 10 Walker’s potato chips, 92 Wallace and Gromit, 76 Wallis, Jim, 116–19, 123, 134, 247n6 Walton, Luke, 236; and Church-Culture divide, 74, 76; and film competitions, 51, 96; and Landrum, Dave, 101; and Swindon Christmas angels, 37–40, 42–43, 45–50, 59, 67, 99; and Theos, 140, 163 Warburton, William, 224 Warner, Michael, xxi, 186 washroom poster panels, 75–76, 80–81 Waterloo Bridge, 211 Watts, Murray, 194 Webb, Steve, 111, 113–14, 116, 119, 124, 128–29; BBC profile of, 114; and exemplary action, 116, 137–38; and Theos, 137–38, 142 Wedgwood, Emma, 191 welfare state, 146–47 well-being, 141, 146–47, 167, 177, 182, 184–86, 243n8; GWB (“general well-being”), 243n8 Western society, xv–xvi, xxv; and missional Christians, 24–25; and relevance of Bible, 68

Westminster. See Parliament Westminster Abbey, 233; Cheyneygates, 131; dean of, 217; and Rescuing Darwin project, 131, 194, 217–222 Westminster Bridge, 51 Wham! 72–74 “What time is it?,” 18–32 Whelan, Lesley, 7, 16, 25–26 When God Talks Back (Luhrmann), 236–37 whole life discipleship, 70–72 Widdecombe, Ann, 144 Wilberforce, Samuel, 189–190, 192, 206 Wilberforce, William, 1, 10, 18, 23–24, 115, 189, 229, 231, 233 Willard, Dallas, 19 Williams, Rowan, 145, 149–150, 153, 171–72, 185, 248n14 Williams, Shirley, 149, 152, 250n6 Wiltshire, 1, 91 Windsor Great Park, xix–xx Winston, Robert, 217–221 winterval, 38–39, 42, 67 witnessing: and Bible reading group initiative, 32; language of, 66 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 150 women: in auxiliaries/local action groups, 7; as bishops in Anglican communion, 17, 36; and GMC, 90 Wood, Keith Porteous, 173 Woodhead, Linda, 182 Wooldridge, Adrian, 35 Woolley, Paul, 33, 110, 131–140, 136fig., 231, 236–38; and chaplains in state-run hospitals, 171, 173–78, 180, 182–85; and Coming off the Bench report/ launch, 155, 158; “in the culture,” 135, 138; as director of Theos, 131, 135–37, 140, 153, 157; and “Doing God” report/launch, 140–41, 148, 150–54; early career of, 135, 150, 156; eating habits of, 137, 168; fear of journalists, 165, 168, 186; and feasibility study for Theos, 135, 137; and “God is back,” 35, 133; and good trouble, 136, 148; and IEA, 133; incarnational approach to life, 138–39, 186–87; and litigious religion, 169; in London office, 162–64; and Parliament, 110, 135, 137, 150, 156, 165, 236; and Rawls, 142; and Red, White, Blue . . . and Brown report/press release, 166–171; and Rescuing Darwin project, 190–91, 193–94, 196, 201, 205–6, 209–10, 216–17, 220–22; and

292

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Woolley, Paul (continued) trip to Addis Ababa, 225; writing style of, 136–37 Worcester, bishop of, 172 Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, 172–73, 178–79 Word of God, xxiv, 4, 9, 230, 232; and double listening, 70–71; and GMC, 81, 90, 95; and LICC, 70–71; literal Word of God, 17; and Lyfe, 54 World War II, 132–33 Wright, N.T., 16, 231; and emerging church, 19–22, 26–29, 241n10; poses question

“What time is it?,” 20–22, 28–29; and Theos, 135, 145 Wright, Robert, 149 Wright, Tom, 227 York, 241n14; archbishop of, 118–122, 128–29, 142, 248n14 Yorkshire Post Today, 153 York University, 156 young earth creationism, 189–190, 197, 199–201, 223 Zimbabwe, xv, xxiii, xxv