The Salt of the Earth: religious resilience in a secular age 9781474293556, 1474293557

Table of contents :
Part 1. Church and culture --
Part 2. Christianity and popular culture --
Part 3. Ministry and mission in contemporary culture.

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The Salt of the Earth

Religious Studies: Bloomsbury Academic Collections

Focusing on the interaction between Christianity and society, this set offers ten facsimile titles from our imprints T&T Clark, The Athlone Press, Sheffield Academic Press and Cassell. This collection addresses the ways in which society and the Christian faith are linked together in all its aspects. The books cover science, history and the endurance of religion in a secular world but also the way religion can be transformed through political and social change. The collection is available both in e-book and print versions. Titles in Religious Studies are available in the following subsets: Religions of the World Comparative Religion Christianity and Society Religion, Sexuality and Gender Other titles available in Christianity and Society include:

Christ and Context: The Confrontation between Gospel and Culture edited by Hilary Regan and Alan J. Torrance Creation, Christ and Culture: Studies in Honour of T. F. Torrance edited by Richard W. A. McKinney History and Contemporary Issues: Studies in Moral Theology by Charles E. Curran Mormon Identities in Transition edited by Douglas Davies New Maps for Old: Explorations in Science and Religion by Mary Gerhart and Allan Melvin Russell Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust edited by Carol Rittner and John K. Roth Science and Theology: Questions at the Interface edited by Murray Rae, Hilary Regan and John Stenhouse Tales of Faith: Religion as Political Performance in Central Africa by V. Y. Mudimbe When God Becomes Goddess: The Transformation of American Religion by Richard Grigg

The Salt of the Earth

Religious Resilience in a Secular Age

Martyn Percy

Religious Studies: Christianity and Society BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC COLLECTIONS

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in 2001 by Sheffield Academic Press This edition published by Bloomsbury Academic 2016 © Bloomsbury Academic 2016 Martyn Percy has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-8155-3 ePDF: 978-1-4742-8154-6 Set: 978-1-4742-9298-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Series: Bloomsbury Academic Collections, ISSN 2051-0012

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THE SALT OF THE EARTH

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THE SALT OF THE EARTH Religious Resilience in a Secular Age

Martyn Percy

v\

SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS

A Continuum LONDON

•

imprint

NEW

YORK

For Emma, Ben and Joe And for my parents, Roy and Sylvia

Copyright © 2001 Sheffield Academic Press A Continuum imprint Published by Sheffield Academic Press Ltd The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 370 Lexington Avenue, N e w York, NY 10017-6550 www.SheffieldAcademicPress.com www. continuumbooks. com All rights reserved. N o part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset by Sheffield Academic Press Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by M P G Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall

ISBN 1-84127-287-6 pbk 1-84127-065-2 hbk

Contents

Acknowledgments Abbreviations Foreword Introduction

7 9 11 15

PART ONE: CHURCH AND CULTURE Chapter 1 Resistance and Accommodation: Theology and Contemporary Culture Chapter 2 A Knowledge of Angles: How Spiritual Are the English? Chapter 3 Cultural History: The Revision of Secularization Theories Chapter 4 Church-State Relations in Britain: Transforming Culture Chapter 5 A Clash of Cultures: Church Autonomy and Human Rights

36 60 81 102 125

PART TWO: CHRISTIANITY AND POPULAR CULTURE Chapter 6 The Church in the Market-Place: Advertising, Media and Religion 148 Chapter 7 Shopping for God: Production, Consumption and Globalization 171 Chapter 8 Leisure, Ecstasy and Identity: Football and Contemporary Religion 191

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Chapter 9 From Eternity to Here: Sin, Censorship and Society Chapter 10 Sympathy for the Devil: On Discerning the Demonic

211 235

PART THREE: MINISTRY AND MISSION IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE Chapter 11 Pilgrimage and Place: The Journey Within Chapter 12 Religious Power: People, Politics and Prophecy Chapter 13 Care-Taking and Health in Contemporary Culture: Exploring the Vocational Chapter 14 The Gift of Authority: Of Ministry, Morals and Money Chapter 15 Christ and Culture: The Development of Doctrine and the Meaning of Mission

345

Afterword The Perennial Need for Religion

368

Bibliography Index of Authors

375 389

258 279

300 321

Acknowledgments

There are many people to thank, without whom this book would not have been possible. First, I would like to pay particular tribute to academic friends and colleagues who have stimulated my thinking during the writing of this material. A number have commented on parts of the text at various times, including Paul Avis, Gordon Borrie, Wesley Carr, Grace Davie, Robin Gill, Graham Howes, Tim Jenkins, Gareth Jones, Ian Markham, David Martin and Andrew Walker. At the Lincoln Theological Institute, I have valued ongoing conversations with Kenneth Medhurst, Helen Orchard, Ralph Norman, Ian Jones, Clive Marsh, Simon Taylor and Mark Cobb, who have also helped to shape my thinking in myriad ways. However, I do take full responsibility for any shortcomings that this book may have. Secondly, I would like to thank those who have given me both the time and the space to write. The Trustees of the Lincoln Theological Institute have been both generous and understanding in their tolerance of my many absences. Peter Francis, the Warden of St Deiniol's at Hawarden in Flintshire, has also been munificent in extending an invitation to me to be Chaplain at the Library, which enabled me to complete the manuscript. Special thanks are also due to Georgia Litherland and Philip Davies at Sheffield Academic Press for their many kindnesses and professional advice. Thirdly, I am grateful to a number of journals, trusts and other bodies for permission to adapt and refine some of my material that has been previously published. In Part One of the book, Chapters 2 and 3 began life as the Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lectures, given at Westminster Abbey, Keble College Oxford and Sheffield Cathedral in May 2000. I am grateful to the Trustees for the opportunity to develop those lectures. Parts of Chapter 4 were originally given as a lecture at St George's College, Windsor Castle, during a consultation on church-state relations in 1999. Short sections of Chapters 5 and 7 have been adapted from brief articles published previously in Reviews in Religion and Theology. In Part Two, the material in Chapter 6 has been extensively revised from an article that originally appeared in The Journal of Contemporary Religion (15.1, 2000). The

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same is also true for Chapter 8, where material has been adapted from an article published in The Journal of Leisure Studies (January 1997). In Part Three, the material in Chapter 11 is based on an article that was originally commissioned for Religion (28.3 1998). Chapter 12 is shaped around a shorter article commissioned for the Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Science ('Religion, Mobilization and Power'), published by Elsevier Science (2001). I also wish to thank a number of publishers for their permission to quote from the following sources: T.S. Eliot, 'Choruses from the Rock', in Collected Poems 1909-1962 (London, Faber & Faber, 1963, pp. 161-62, 177-78); T.S. Eliot, 'Little Gidding', in Collected Poems 1909-1962 (London, Faber & Faber, 1963, pp. 215, 222); the estate and literary executors for R.S. Thomas, 'Play', in Frequencies (London: Macmillan, 1978, p. 16); PFD London for Roger McGough's, 'Today is not a day for adultery', in Melting into the Foreground (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986, p. 16); Peterloo Poets for U.A. Fanthorpe's, 'BC-AD' in Selected Poems (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986, p. 66); and Warner-Chappell Music for selected lyrics from the 1984 Madonna song 'Like a Virgin' (written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, and published by Billy Steinberg Music and Denise Barry Music). I also wish to thank Graham White for his 'Magnificat'— unpublished until now. Every effort has been made to contact the owners of copyright material. In the event of any appearing without due acknowledgment, the publishers will gladly correct this oversight in any reprints or future editions. Most of all, however, my thanks must go to my wife Emma, who has as usual provided unfailing encouragement and support. It is to her, our children (Ben and Joe), and to my parents, that I dedicate this volume. More than most, they know the meanings of resilience. Martyn Percy Lincoln Theological Institute for the Study of Religion and Society University of Sheffield, Ascension Day, 2001

Abbreviations

ASB ATR BCP ExpTim JAAR JCR JRE JSSR NIV NJB NRSV Rel RelSRev TNTC

Alternative Service Book Anglican Theological Review Book of Common Prayer Expository Times Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of Contemporary Religion Journal of Religious Ethics Journalfor the Scientific Study of Religion N e w International Version N e w Jerusalem Bible N e w Revised Standard Version Religion Religious Studies Review Tyndale New Testament Commentaries

Foreword

This is, in my judgment, one of the finest explorations of faith and culture that has been written in a very long time. The theme of this study is the need for religious resilience, which, Dr Percy insists, will require both resistance and accommodation. Resilience is a fine image expounded with care: our beliefs will recover their original shape while at the same time handling the pressures from outside and allowing themselves to be appropriately transformed. Hence the need for both resistance and accommodation. This study might well herald the end to the gloomy dominance of heavily ecclesiological preoccupation with disengagement with secular society. Numerous studies by British theologians during the last three decades of the twentieth century have been preoccupied with the growth of secularity that led to a stronger reaffirmation of Church, defined in opposition to secular society. Underpinning these studies were several questionable assumptions that Dr Percy sets out to destroy. The first assumption is the continuing hold of the secularization thesis on certain parts of the Church and the academy. At its most crude, this told a nice uncomplicated story about the dominance of the Church being steadily undermined over the last three hundred (if you take the very big picture) or more plausibly one hundred years. A crucial indicator in all this has been the church attendance statistics. Dr Percy complements the work of Grace Davie et al. and argues that the secularization thesis assumes a deeply religious society that never was and then compounds this by overstating the extent of the decline. The English, explains Dr Percy, were too polite to be too enthusiastic about religion; theirs was always a wider interest in what can be described as 'spirituality'. This interest in 'spirituality' pervades the requirements of the national curriculum in education and is a growing specialism in health care, illustrating the continuing religious convictions of British society. For Dr Percy the 'world' is much less hostile to Christianity than many, both in the Church and in the world, would like us to imagine.

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The second assumption is that Christian distinctiveness requires a strong ecclesiological emphasis. In other words, many books in Christian ethics during the latter part of the twentieth century worried about 'simply mouthing secular platitudes'. Instead, these volumes argued, Christians must say something distinctive and firmly rooted in theological doctrine. For some, Karl Barth's Barmen declaration became the model of Christian ethics: we expound with care our theology and in so doing identify certain ethical implications. Dr Percy undermines this approach by illustrating that Christian distinctiveness need not entail confining ourselves to the limited implications of our Trinitarian discourse. Christian distinctiveness, instead, could be seen in the manner and mode of our engagement with contemporary culture. Dr Percy's attack on these assumptions is handled with care and sensitivity. The attack on the secularization thesis is explicit and is the dominant theme of the early part of the book; the attack on the second assumption is much more implicit. Indeed the attack proceeds almost on the basis of'counter-illustration'. According to Dr Percy, we do not need to 'man the barricades' (forgive the sexist expression, although actually those who advocate a defensive theology do tend to be men). Instead the Church has much to say about establishment, human rights, popular culture, football, censorship, advertising, shopping and death. It is Dr Percy's marvellous take on many of these issues that becomes the substance of this book. At this point it might be objected: 'On what authority does Dr Percy write about such diverse matters?' Perhaps the tendency to construct highly theological approaches to Christian ethics is parasitic on a concern that theologians are not really competent to move beyond the technical details of theology. Naturally, as a priest and distinguished theologian, Dr Percy can explore the technical issues in theology as well as anyone in the UK. However, in addition, it is to Dr Percy's credit that much of the research underpinning this study is a result of his membership of numerous different worlds and communities. Dr Percy is well known for his involvement as a Council Member of the UK regulator of non-broadcast advertising, namely the Advertising Standards Authority. In addition he is a prolific contributor to the leading UK newspapers—the Independent and the Guardian. His unit in Sheffield has been a significant catalyst in several key conversations. When Dr Percy writes about the establishment of the Church of the England, he does so as the theologian who has forced the conversation on these questions with his Sheffield Consultation (see chapter 4). The result is that this book refuses any simplistic explanations

FOREWORD

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or solutions: Dr Percy is well in command of the complexities of the debate. He has absolutely no time for the 'rant' of some Christians against advertising or consumerism. He understands the role and purpose of advertising; the result is that a hard-pressed advertising executive reading Dr Percy will appreciate his insight and wisdom. On football, his authority comes from that simplest of devotions: Dr Percy follows a team; indeed, Dr Percy supports Everton Football Club—he understands entirely the pain and discipline that such support involves. Dr Percy is completely committed to 'contextual' theology, in that he admits to writing from a perspective. It is a very Anglican study; Richard Hooker, I suspect, would understand the ways in which the various sources shaping the character of the Christian thinker are woven together. It is Anglican also in its preoccupations: so the establishment debate appears prominently as well as that distinctively British phenomenon of 'folk religion'. Yet the book is constantly in touch with the rest of the world. Readers in America will find many illustrations and connections. He refers to the proposed Bush programme to work with faith groups and, inevitably, the whole treatment of globalization looks at the Americanization of the globe. In the light of the tragedy of 11 September 2001, in which 'muslim' terrorists crashed jet aircraft into the Pentagon and World Trade Centre, killing many thousands, the enquiry could not be more timely. In addition, Americans will also find fascinating the ways in which Dr Percy explodes the myth of European and British secularization. Finally, Dr Percy is advocating a form of'liberal theology'. However, it is undoubtedly a liberal theology with a significant difference. For too long, liberal theologians were identified as those Christians who were endlessly questioning the creeds or rejecting aspects of Christian doctrine. For Dr Percy the liberal spirit involves the willingness to engage with the ways in which theology relates to the wider world: it is the task of thinking through that much misunderstood phrase 'the salt of the earth'. For 'salt' here does not refer to the sodium chloride that goes into the cooking, but more probably to 'potash or phosphate' (as Dr Percy discusses in the Introduction). In other words, the image used by Jesus is suggesting that Christians are called to be a 'life-bringing force in an otherwise sterile culture'. This, argues Dr Percy, is our duty: this is also our challenge. Dr Ian Markham Dean of Hartford Seminary, Connecticut and Professor of Christian Theology and Ethics

Introduction

Just recently [the bishop] was heard in St. Paul's Cathedral proclaiming that the job of the Church of England is 'the management of decline'. Hardly the greatest sales pitch...

This is primarily a book of hope and optimism. It sets out to strike a quite different note on how to read and understand the place of religion within contemporary culture. As such, some readers will feel from the beginning— and certainly by the end—that the confidence expressed in the future of faith within today's society is perhaps misplaced, and possibly even fanciful. The book is written at a time when many within faith communities are fearful for the fate of religion, believing that sacred values and institutions face being overwhelmed by the multiple movements of modernity and the pluralism of postmodernity. It is a book written in the first year of the twenty-first century, an era that many believe, at least in the Western world, to be already post-Christian and advanced in its secularity. In contrast, I do not believe that religion is in decline. Nor do I believe that it is the 'job' of faith communities to manage the process of religious decline, or adjust to it—because I am not sure the process nearly everyone imagines actually exists anywhere or at any time, save in people's minds. This is a book that takes issue with the endemic negativity of a new century as it is directed towards religion, by looking at how religion shapes culture, and how culture shapes religion, offering a range of theologically reflective, sociologically sensitive and cultural critiques that are intended to illuminate society and faith communities alike. So I can perhaps claim no more for the book than this: to be engaging in a form of theological and counter-cultural pharmacology. This is undertaken through the administration of insightful antidotes to a widely disseminated body of belief that is diffusely infected by narratives of secularization and postmodern pluralism, which seem intent on believing in their own teleological fulfilment, and in the irreversible and inevitable decline of religion in the modern world. 1.

From 'Thirty Days', New Directions, February 2001, p. 20.

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Salt, Earth and Resilience The title of this book may seem strange to some readers, and perhaps a little provocative. Yet it has been chosen with great care, drawn as it is from a familiar English expression, as well as being derived from the Gospels. The choice of a phrase that has both a cultural and a biblical resonance, and yet whose meanings and significance are often opaque, invites us to explore afresh and ponder more deeply the relationship between religion and culture. My own translation (from the Greek) of Mt. 5.13 renders the verse thus: You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its strength, by what shall it be salted? It will be good for nothing except to be cast away and trodden underfoot by men.

In interpreting this text, most preachers and many Bible commentaries work with a false assumption: that the 'salt' in this text is the white granular chemical we know as sodium chloride, normally found in a condiment set or kitchen cupboard, where its purpose is to add flavour to foods, or occasionally to act as a purifier or preservative. Consider, for example, this interpretation of the text: Salt serves mainly to give flavour, and to prevent corruption. Disciples, if they are true to their calling, make the earth a. purer and more palatable place. But they can do so only as long as they preserve their distinctive character: unsalty salt has no more value. Strictly, pure salt cannot lose its salinity; but the impure 'salt' dug from the shore of the Dead Sea could gradually become unsalty as the actual sodium chloride dissolved... [Yet] Jesus was not teaching chemistry, but using a proverbial image...the Rabbis commonly used salt as an image for wisdom (c.f. Col. 4.6), which may explain why the Greek word represented by lost its taste actually means 'becomes foolish'...a foolish disciple has no influence on the world.

Jesus' words are interpreted as a counter-cultural statement. Christians may engage with the world, and perhaps should. However, they are not to lose their salinity in the process. In commenting on this passage, Karl Barth reads the text in exactly the same way:

2. The NRSV renders Mt. 5.13 thus: You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.' 3. R.T. France, Matthew ( T N T C ; Leicester: IVP, 1985), p. 112.

INTRODUCTION

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Secularisation is the process by which the salt loses its flavour. It is not in any sense strange that the world is secular. This is simply to say that the world is the world. It was always secular...but when the Church becomes secular, it is the greatest conceivable misfortune both for the Church and the world. And this is what takes place when it wants to be a Church for the world, the nation, culture, or the state—a world Church, a national Church, a cultural Church, or a state Church. It then loses its specific importance and meaning; the justification for its existence.

Turning aside from Barth and looking at conventional evangelical hermeneutics, the significance of the 'table-salt' metaphor is said to be twofold. The disciples of Jesus are either to add zest (flavour) to society, or to 'save' the good in society by acting as a preservative agent. For John Stott, the words of Jesus simply stress the importance of faith not being diluted or tainted, while at the same time being engaged with the world, even if that (only) means offering an alternative, Christian counter-culture. 5 Equally, we find a book from another well-known evangelical author that develops a whole thesis based on this standard supposition, as though the sense of Jesus' sentence is immediately clear and normatively established. Rebecca Manley-Pippert's Out of the Saltshaker and into the World is an influential and popular evangelical book, pleading for Christians to engage with contemporary culture, and not to be overly separatist.6 To flavour or preserve society, they must leave the saltshaker. Yet the fact that Jesus refers to 'the salt of the earth' ought to immediately alert us to another meaning for the text. Neither 'saltshaker' nor 'world' (the latter of which even Barth reads into the text) appear in the text of Mt. 5.13. Furthermore, the 'salt' (halas) mentioned in the text is hardly likely to be table salt, since it is a chemical and culinary impossibility that sodium chloride will lose its flavour. Any salt that is extracted from food, water or any other substance remains 'salty'; even if it loses its form, it retains its essence, as many a spoilt meal and frustrated chef can testify. Jesus' words are, in Greek, to halas tes ges, 'the salt of the earth\ with the word for 'earth' here not referring to the world at all, but rather to soil. In other words, the 'salt' that Jesus is referring to here is probably a kind of salt-like material or mineral such as potash or phosphate. These halas elements were available in 4. K. Barth, 'Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity', in idem, Church Dogmatics: Aids of the Preacher (Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1977), p. 525. See also Church Dogmatics, Ill.iv, p. 487; IV.ii, p 668; and IV.iii, pp. 225, 619, 773 and 816. 5. J. Stott, Christian Counter-Culture (Leicester: IVP, 1978), p. 60. 6. R. Manley-Pippert, Out of the Saltshaker and into the World: Evangelism as a Way of Life (Leicester: IVP, 1979).

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abundance in and around the Dead Sea area of Palestine, and were used for fertilizing the land and enriching the manure pile, which was then spread on the land. This way of understanding the halas of the metaphor changes the sense of the text significantly. In fact, it completely undermines the Barthian and evangelical expositions. The 'salt' is not to be kept apart from society, and nor is it to be used as a purifier or as an additive stabilizer. Disciples of Jesus are not to be simply preservers of the good society, and nor are they merely agreeable folk adding flavour to an amoral or immoral society. More powerfully and positively, religion, as salt, is a life-bringing force in an otherwise sterile culture. Thus, the 'salt' of Jesus' metaphor is a mutating but coherent agent that is both distinct yet diffusive in its selfexpenditure. As a result of individuals, communities, values, witness and presence—the halas—being literally dug into society, the earth or soil will benefit, and many forms of life can then flourish. Correspondingly, salt that loses its strength (rather than its flavour)7 is only suitable for making paths, as the biblical text confirms.8 Thus, the salt ofJesus' metaphor is not only counter-cultural; it enriches 'the earth' and many more things besides, by being spread around and within it. There is an irony here. The 'task' of the salt is not necessarily to maintain its own distinctiveness, but rather to enrich society through diffusiveness. There is a temporal dimension here: what must begin as distinct to be useful ends up being absorbed and lost. Of course, this reading of the metaphor makes sense of Jesus' own self-understanding, which in turn is reflected in his parables, teachings and other activities. On one level, this exegesis of the metaphor may not look very different to any other traditional interpretation. Yet the effect of liberating 'salt' from its domestic context and translating it to one of agriculture actually begins to transform 7. The Greek word moranthe literally means 'to become foolish'—the English word 'moron' is derived from the term. A number of translators render the word as 'tainted', but 'loses its strength' is probably the best way to translate it: loss of strength and foolishness would have been synonymous in Jesus' age. 8. Although paved paths also have their uses; Jesus' salt is arguably never 'useless'. For a fuller discussion of this passage see V.G. Shillington, 'Salt of the Earth?', ExpTim 112.4 (January 2001), pp. 120-22. Cf. Lk. 14.39. Interestingly, the NJB (1985) is the only modern translation that renders the Greek correctly with 'you are the salt for the earth'. This interpretation of the metaphor of the salt of the earth in Mt. 5.13 matches the force of the twin parable of light in the verses following, in Mt. 5.14-16. The light dispels the darkness md gives light to all in the house, as the fertilizer gives life to the soil that produces growth and food.

INTRODUCTION

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our understanding of Jesus' original meaning. If the church or the disciples of Jesus are the salt of the earth, they will begin by being a distinct yet essential component within society, but they will ultimately fulfil their vocation by self-expenditure. As one writer puts it: 'The synthesis between culture and faith is a necessity not only for culture, but also for faith. A faith that does not become a culture is a faith that is not fully received.. .' 9 This book argues that the salt of Jesus' parable continues to nourish and shape society in myriad ways, even as the substance itself is transformed in various acts of self-expenditure. In other words, religious resilience is an undeniable facet of the modern age. Moreover, it is a social nutrient. That said, however, there are many within faith communities who see their 'salt' as being contained, either through their own separatist choice, or because of their perception of the apparent marginalization of religion by contemporary culture. In contrast, I hold that many aspects of Western society remain unavoidably saturated, soaked, seasoned and affected by religious ideals, symbols, motifs and values. The task of faith communities is not, therefore, to get out of the saltshaker. It is, rather, to realize that they were never there in the first place, and to 'rediscover [religion] outside the superstitious, misconceptions and illusions through which "secular" academics have so far dismissed the subject. We need to find religion in the very fabric of the "secular"'.10 The very phrase 'salt of the earth' bears at least slight testimony to this, being an English expression that has affirmed labourers and foot soldiers alike in their resilience and strength. As a phrase, it remains in common usage, although its source is seldom articulated. Like the salt of Jesus' parable, the phrase itself has become part of the sacrificial economy of selfexpenditure. The 'goodness' of religion is pervasive within society, yet it is, at times, barely visible. However, as I have already implied, the hard (but hidden) wiring of the secular mindset, which is all too pervasive in faith communities and theologies, assumes that religion and spirituality are 'something' that is apart from much of contemporary culture. Indeed, they need to be kept apart if they are to maintain their distinctiveness and 9. V. Nichols, 'The Role of the Church College in the Mission of the Church in Education', in J. Arthur and E. Coombs (eds.), The Church Dimension in Higher Education (Canterbury: The Council of Church and Associated Colleges, 2001), p. 28. 10. Jeremy Carrette, summing up Foucault's reading of the relationship between religion and culture in Foucault and Religion: Spiritual Corporality and Political Spirituality (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 152. See also J. Carrette (ed), Religion and Culture by Michel Foucault (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999).

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strength. This observation accounts for some of the critical edge present in this book, which, although accepting that faith mutates generally as well as within society,11 nonetheless calls for theologians and churches to engage with contemporary culture, and to explore how faith shapes society, and how social realities can also shape religion. In this sense, we are close to David Brown's vision, whereby he explores the many representations of Christianity in the arts and other arenas, conceiving of tradition (in its broadest sense, as evolving and interpretative of God) as revelation.12 What, then, of resilience? Again, the word has been chosen with care, since it allows for the possibility of simultaneous critiques and affirmations, and yet is also capable of being read in two quite different ways. Substances or beliefs that are resilient can recoil from their environment; they bounce or spring back. In this sense, resilience can be understood as a form of resistance. However, resilience can also describe more malleable qualities— 'the power of resuming the original shape or position after compression', suggesting that no matter what substance, ideology or persons are bent, stretched or compacted, something like the original morphology that was under pressure can return. Put more simply, the fundamental 'shape' or identity of the original is never lost, although it may be transformed, or indeed enjoy a permanent mutative existence. Thus, resilience can also describe a process of recovery, especially after an apparent shock or trauma. Or it can describe a transformation, in which the original has become opaque. In discussing religious resilience within contemporary culture, this book issues a double invitation: first, to reflect on how religion continues and adapts within culture, especially concentrating on its mutations within modernity; secondly, to reflect on how religion sometimes attempts to resist contemporary culture, and the extent to which this is desirable. These are the two faces of religious resilience in modern times: resistance and accommodation. And they, in their turn, are easily traced in a number of contemporary theological and ecclesiological responses to modernity and postmodernity, besides many modern moral malaises. In this sense, I am happy to own an autobiographical element to the theology that is gently pursued in these pages. Many theologians have at least an implicit idea of what it is they resist and what it is they accommodate or embrace in order to craft their work. The two faces of religious resilience are reflected in the 11. See G. Davie, Religion in Modem Europe: A Memory Mutates (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000). 12. See D. Brown, Tradition and Imagination: Revelation and Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 5-105.

INTRODUCTION

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tone and tenor of most theological engagements with contemporary culture, even if that engagement is only to dismiss this agenda as trivial, and unworthy of the 'discipline' of theology. I have tried to treat this dynamic seriously. Correspondingly, this book does not emphatically side with any one response, but rather seeks to show how resistance and accommodation are not exclusive to liberal or conservative theological positions. It suggests that a discerning engagement with culture helps religious and non-religious elements alike to evaluate and appreciate their interconnectedness. Moreover, in many of the issues discussed in this book, the resilience of religion is often a delicate blend of resistance and accommodation, the synthesis sometimes representing a rather retrograde step, and at other times showing promising signs. In turn, this axis describes a pathway for theology. After Niebuhr The thinking that has gone into this volume began several years ago after I read H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture, first published in 1951.13 Readers familiar with this text will know that Niebuhr, following a number of twentieth-century missiologists and theologians, sought to describe how Christ was located within culture, and the impact that had on the construction of public theology. Niebuhr built his thesis (sketched in Chapter 1) on the works of scholars such as Baillie, Barth, Berdyaev, Eliot, Maritain, Tillich, Toynbee and others. 14 Each of these authors had wrestled with the concept of 'Christian civilization' and the best ways in which to preserve it. For some, it was a matter of resistance; for others, a matter of accommodation. This too, was Niebuhr's agenda, based on the understanding

13. H . R Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1951). 14. Some of the works cited by Niebuhr demonstrate, in his view, the necessity of churches treating the question of culture seriously (Christ and Culture, p. 230). Readers are referred to the following texts, many of which reflect a Western worldview that had little self-consciousness in relation to its imperialist tendencies. The last two books cited below are post-war, and exhibit a remarkably more humble and realistic character than their predecessors. See J. Baillie, What is Christian Civilisation? (London: Christophers, 1947); K. Barth, Church and State (London: SCM Press, 1939); N . Berdyaev, The Destiny of Man (London: Centenary Press, 1937); N . Berdyaev, The Fate of Man in the Modern World (London: SCJV1 Press, 1935); T.S. Eliot, The Idea of a Christian Society: Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (London: Faber & Faber, 1939); J. Maritain, True Humanism (London: Centenary Press, 1938); P. Tillich, The Theology of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967); A. Toynbee, Civilisation on Trial (London: Oxford University Press, 1948).

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that the arena they were addressing was fairly clear and settled. As Tylor famously put it, Culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

Fifty years on from the publication of Christ and Culture, it is something of an understatement to say that this field of study—that between Christianity and culture—has changed considerably. Many universities now engage in cultural studies, ethnic studies or various kinds of social science that interpret and critique contemporary society. It is recognized that there is no superior or neutral standpoint from which to study, for example, what used to be called 'Orientalism', or the 'inculturation' of religion in other countries, as though it was not so in one's own. 16 The shift of cultural studies from being a 'distant star on the missionary horizon...to the centre stage as a key player'17 has been one of the major revolutions in theology during recent years. However, despite occupying this space, 'culture' remains an elusive concept. It is a 'spongy' term, defying precise definition. Kroeber and Kluckhohn's work,18 published within a year of Niebuhr's, collected together 164 definitions.19 The authors then went on to admit that there were probably as many as 300, and that the count was still on. As one commentator points out, this was written half a century ago, and one need not overstrain one's power of imagination to arrive at the present state of the question. There is...a multiplicity of definitions...relating to all aspects of human life... Nothing is really left out of the purview of culture...

The relatively recent revolution in so-called 'cultural studies' hardly helps us. As a subject, let alone a discipline, it is practically impossible to define.

15. E. Tylor, Primitive Culture (2 vols.; London: John Murray, 1871), I, p. 1. 16. See B. Turner, Religion and Social Theory (London: Sage, 1991 [1983]), especially ch. 1. 17. T. Malipurathu, 'Inculturation in Focus', The Ishvani Documentation and Mission Digest 18.1 (2000), p. 1. 18. A. Kroeber and C. Kluckhohn, Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952). 19. For further reflection, see M. Carrithers, Why Humans Have Cultures: Explaining Anthropology and Social Diversity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). 20. Malipurathu, 'Inculturation', p. 1.

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It can encompass anthropology, sociology, literary criticism, art theory, linguistics, musicology, political science and more besides. Cultural studies is many things, and can even be described as an 'anti-discipline'—a mode of enquiry that 'does not subscribe to the straitjacket of institutionalised disciplines...it is a collective term for diverse and often contentious intellectual endeavours that address numerous questions and consists of many different theoretical and political positions'.21 Typically, the concerns of cultural studies revolve around modes of enquiry (e.g., Marxist, postcolonial or feminist), which in turn are concerned with cultural practices in relation to power and politics. Cultural studies is a pragmatic exercise as well as an intellectual one, which is committed to understanding and change.22 In this sense, we might say that cultural studies and theology are not unlike. As David Ford perceptively notes of theology, faced with 'the multiple overwhelmings of modernity', it considers its questions while being immersed in the changes of modernity and at same time drawing on the wisdom and insight of one or more religious traditions...it is often a daily matter of wondering, doubting, trusting, weighing up options, discussing, reading, listening, mediating, discerning, and deciding...the vast majority of this worldwide activity [takes place] in minds, homes, and larger groups unnoticed by most people.. .theology [is].. .thinking about the questions raised by and about the religions.

This is, in part, what makes the culture-theology debate so compelling: both have disciplines and subjects that are core, yet there can be no precision about boundaries. Cultural studies and theological studies, like religion itself, bind things together. Naturally, if'culture' and 'cultural studies' are nebulous concepts, inculturation, being a derivative, will hardly have any greater conceptual clarity. Indeed, even the briefest survey of Catholic and evangelical engagements with contemporary culture throws up a multitude of words that describe the missiological milieu: 'indigenization', 'interculturation', 'absorption', 'adoption', 'syncretism' and more besides. Although these words are all problematic in their own way, they nonetheless witness to a core tradition 21. Z. Sardar and B. Van Loon, Introducing Cultural Studies (Cambridge: Icon Books, 1999), p. 8. 22. O n this last point, see the works of Edward Said, especially his Orientalism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), and Culture and Imperialism (London: Chatto & Windus, 1993). 23. See D. Ford, Theology: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 10.

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within Christianity, which values the interface between the gospel and the culture or place where it is being proclaimed. As we noted earlier, the contours of engagement are often a blend of accommodation and resistance. The theological roots of this axis lie in the doctrine of the incarnation: Christ is known within a time and a place—God is located. The incarnation itself is both an act of accommodation (of humanity, culture and constraints) and an act of resistance (to sin, oppression and repressive religion).24 This simple theological point—the recognition that God is incarnate, and not separate from society, but rather irrevocably engaged—is the first of the four key foundations that have helped form and guide the discussions in this book. In my view, religion and culture, in so far as they can be distinguished, are in fact inseparable. Indeed, we should note, along with Peter Beyer, that 'religion' as a differentiated category only emerged within Europe in the seventeenth century. Culturally, what many describe as 'postmodernity' may be nothing more than religion's return to nondifferentiation.25 Nonetheless, in the minds of many today, religion and culture are 'things' that are 'apart', with religion or faith being increasingly overwhelmed and apparently marginalized by various forms of culture. 26 Yet as Tillich suggests, somewhat provocatively, religion as ultimate concern is the meaning-giving substance of culture, and culture is the totality of forms in which the basic concern of religion expresses itself. In abbreviation, religion is the substance of culture, culture is the form of religion.

The idea of writing a book that fleshes out Tillich's insight is in itself a counter-cultural exercise. Very few academics acknowledge that the shape of politics, society or popular culture owes much to religion. Ironically, such is the grip of the secularization theory on the minds of clergy and laity, few people of faith even realize that this might be a possibility. At the same time, I wish to make it clear that in drawing attention to the interrelationship of religion and culture, I am not attempting to crown theology once again as queen of academic disciplines, and the church as an ultimate 24. For a fuller discussion, see D. Brown, Tradition and Imagination: Revelation and Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 2-3, 276-321. 25. P. Beyer, 'The City and Beyond as Dialogue: Negotiating Religious Authenticity Global Society', in Social Compass 45.1 (1998), pp. 67-69. 26. Cf. R. Audi, Religious Commitment and Secular Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), especially chs 1-3. 27. P. Tillich, The Theology of Culture, p. 42.

INTRODUCTION

25

source of worldly power. What I am claiming, though, is that 'religion' cannot be extracted from society, either abstractly or concretely. As Milbank reminds us, the secular itself is a construct, not simply a neutral background on which competing ideologies are built.29 This is an insight of which cultural studies theorists and practitioners would be proud. A second and no less important foundation for the volume has been David Martin's The Breaking of the Image, one of the most significant and single-minded works of sociology in the last quarter of a century.30 Martin's fascination with religious images allows him to 'see' all kinds of connections between religious symbol systems and social worlds, even though the original meanings may be said to be 'dammed up' in reservoirs of modernity. He sees the religious, the spiritual and the sacred 'leaking' into ordinary life at every level; the salt of religion may not be immediately visible, but it is there, its capacity for self-expenditure being a natural fulfilment of its vocation. Martin shows how sacred symbols, meanings and assemblies can provide a hidden 'code' for sociality. David Docherty, commenting on Martin, notes how the genius of Breaking the Image lies not in the opposition between the symbols of natural and transcendent faiths, but in the analysis of the way the former appropriates the latter only to discover that it has swallowed something alien, something that at some stage will burst out and consume the social order that initially consumed it... Each age may be pregnant with the next... the foetus of each age has many fathers, and is the product of many seeds...

The relationship between the 'natural' and the 'transcendent' is, however, even more complex. Not only do they consume one another, they also contain 'spirals of double meaning', in which truth and counter-truth coexist. Thus, Christianity is about brokenness and wholeness, being both lost and found, control and liberation, discipline yet freedom, law and grace, communion and nothingness, and then again inertia, contiguity and hierarchy, yet also with the code of transcendence for this (underlying) structure that embodies 'intimations of change, universality and equality'. In 28. That would a role for those who identify themselves with the so called 'radical orthodoxy' of theologians such as John Milbank—but see below. 29. J. Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), p. 9. 30. D. Martin, The Breaking of the Image: A Sociology of Christian Theory and Practice (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980). 31. D. Docherty, 'Reservoir Gods', in A. Walker and M. Percy, Restoring the Image: Essays in Honour of David Martin (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), pp. 82-108. 32. Martin, Breaking of the Image, p. 170; cf. Docherty, 'Reservoir Gods', p. 85.

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other words, religious resilience. Like Martin, I am uneasy about separating religion and culture into distinct categories. As readers will discover, even in areas such as sport or consumerism, it is not always easy to tell religion and culture apart. The third foundation flows on naturally from the second, and questions the anatomies of despondency that characterize many Christian attempts to come to terms with contemporary culture. Furthermore, this is also a challenge to the fear of (institutional) death that pervades many Christian denominations. As Michael Jinkins perceptively points out, this anxiety lies at the heart of a loss of identity and responsibility that makes it almost impossible for the church to imagine its future.33 Whether we are considering the poetry of fond longing and desire of T.S. Eliot, or the missiology of Lesslie Newbigin,34 the chapters in this book regularly invite the reader to reconsider the extent to which religious resilience is either too culturally accommodating, or, alternatively, overly counter-cultural in its resistance. Much of this discussion is indicative for the church, suggesting that there is more cause for optimism than one might at first suppose. However, that agenda is partially realized through an ongoing argument with faith's secular mindset, which all too easily assumes that .. .something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where. Men have left God not for other gods, they say, but for no god; and this has never happened before... The Church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturned... 3 5

In keeping with the optimistic tone announced at the beginning of this introduction, I am suggesting that Christians should not be walking away from culture as though they were now aliens in a foreign land (as though they could be), shaking their heads in despair, but rather engaging with those apparently 'secular' places and issues more than ever, with greater attention and concentration—and perhaps even a sense of wonder. Thus, I

33. M. Jinkins, The Church Faces Death: Ecclesiology in a Postmodern Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 34. See for example L. Newbigin, The Open Secret (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978). Newbigin's work is discussed in Chapter 1. 35. T.S. Eliot, 'Choruses from the Rock', in Collected Poems 1909-1962 (London: Faber & Faber, 1963), pp. 177-78.

INTRODUCTION

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am inclined to agree with David Martin's observation about the significance of the church for communities when he says that: Not only are they [i.e. churches] markers and anchors, but also the only repositories of all-embracing meanings pointing beyond the immediate to the ultimate. They are the only institutions that deal in tears and concern themselves with the breaking points of human existence. They provide frames of reference and narratives and signs to live by and offer persistent points of reference.

The turn towards describing the church in these social and pastoral terms is quite deliberate. A number of writers in the past, including myself, have spoken of the church as a kind of'skin' for the world: it is sensate material, another kind of resilience that constantly replenishes itself in its mission of self-expenditure, accommodation and resistance—it is a 'living, breathing, sensing shape'.37 Or, as Daniel Hardy puts it, this 'social skin of the world' is 'always laid out in particular ways, ordered in such a way as to be suitable for its place. It is in this configuration that God sustains, redeems and gives it hope'. 38 The fourth foundation to declare is really more of a confession. I share something with other colleagues in the field of theology and religious studies that Timothy Jenkins describes as 'the traces of an Anglican mind'. 39 This is not surprising, given that I am an ordained priest in the Church of England, and take my pastoral and liturgical life as seriously as my academic life. However, it is important to acknowledge that this does give rise to certain assumptions in approaching theological and religious studies; how religion and politics might relate; the type of vision one might have for social flourishing; the shaping of religious identity; openness to the future; the value of variety; and more besides. This starting point also assumes a certain attitude to ecclesiology. In common with many English writers, I am more of a British empiricist than a Continental idealist. I tend

36. D. Martin, from an unpublished paper cited in G. Davie, Religion in Britain Since 1945: Believing Without Belonging (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994), p. 189. 37. See M. Percy, 'A Theology of Change', in M. Percy and G. Evans, Managing the Church? Order and Organization in a Secular Age (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), pp. 174-76. 38. D. Hardy, Ramsey Lecture, 1996, 'The Contribution of Catholicism to the Church of England', unpublished paper, and quoted in A. Rumsey, 'The Misplaced Priest?', Theology (March/April 2001), pp. 102-14. 39. T. Jenkins, Religion in English Everyday Life: An Ethnographic Approach (Oxford: Berghahn, 1999), p. 37.

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to eschew descriptions of the church in 'ideal' terms, which for some scholars border on an apotheosis of ecclesiology. Correspondingly, I seek to avoid narrating the church in a separatist language, as though its proper practice were somehow hermetically sealed by a doctrine of revelation, and therefore wholly distinct from social life. This accounts in part, for my interest in social sciences—they illuminate the shaping and practice of the church as a social institution.40 I should also add that my style of writing is characteristically eirenic, so I hope allowances will be made for apparent generalizations or oversights. Thus, when I use the term 'religion' or 'church', I am often, but not always, referring to the cultural Christianity of a given context understood through an English social and generally Anglican perspective. As readers will discover, I have also used a number of case studies drawn from English Anglican life to explore theories of secularization, church-state relations, human rights and church autonomy as well as reflections on ministry in general. At the same time, I have been mindful of North American interests, and of other countries and cultures where appropriate. Where possible, the insights and concerns of non-Christian faiths have also been reflected, but I do not claim to speak for those faiths. I have also drawn on a wide range of sources, covering academic literature, insights from popular culture and theological commentary. The Methodological Horizon In the light of these four foundations, let me to say something very brief about the methodological horizon that has helped to shape the critiques contained within these pages. Theologians are often divided on the use of social sciences in terms of providing an account of the churches and the practice of Christian life. Mention has already been made of Milbank, who is suspicious of the social sciences, and their relation to theology. However, I maintain that All forms of social science are useful, perhaps even necessary for ecclesiology, including those that are thoroughly antagonistic to the church or to religious bodies generally. However, since they examine religious bodies in a variety of ways, they cannot be useful in quite the same way, and none of them is ever normative. 41

40. See N . Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life: Practical-Prophetic Ecclesiology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 41. Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life, p. 155.

INTRODUCTION

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The fact that some social scientists are now prepared to acknowledge their disciplines as interpretative rather than complete descriptors and analyses of religion affords an opportunity for theology and the social sciences to collaborate in their readings of church and society.42 In turn, this permits some degree of honesty in naming the underlying presuppositions of methodological approach to the study of religion. Instead of pretending that the methodology being used is neutral, Byrne and Clarke suggest that there are four stances to consider when studying religion: atheistic, agnostic, religious and theological. It will already be clear to readers that the stance adopted in this book is primarily religious and theological, not atheistic or agnostic.43 However, the religious and theological study is still one that is content to use and learn from social sciences, especially sociology, as the subject is society and the 'concrete church', and not some idealist ecclesiological construction. It is my hope that this self-conscious methodological syncretism can lead to what Nicholas Healy calls 'a church-wide social practice of communal self-critical analysis [bearing] upon the issue of Christian formation'.44 In turn, this might lead to what he describes as 'practicalprophetic' ecclesiology, which may arise out of a particular way of reflecting on the church in the world: Ecclesiological forms of history, sociology and ethnography, in debate with parallel non-theological disciplines, may help the church live more truthfully by drawing critical attention back to the confusions and complexities of life within the pilgrim church. Practical-prophetic ecclesiology acknowledges that Christian existence is never stable or resolvable in terms of purely theoretical constructions, but is ever-moving, always struggling along with the theodrama. It acknowledges too that the church must engage with other traditions of enquiry not only for their sake, but for its own, in order that it may on occasion hear the Spirit of the Lord in their midst.

As readers will discover, I hold that the benefits of such reflection for the churches can only lead to a new kind of confidence in the resilience of faith and in the shape and future of religious institutions. While such confidence is not without its caveats, the primary task of this book nevertheless remains to argue for an interrogative and empathetic theological engagement 42. For further discussion see M. Percy, 'Label or Libel', in L. Francis (ed.), Sociology, Theology and the Curriculum (London: Cassell, 1999), pp. 82-92. 43. P. Clarke and P. Byrne, Religion Defined and Explained (New York: St Martin's Press, 1993). 44. N . Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life, p. 178. 45. N . Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life, p. 185.

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with contemporary culture, for the sake of culture, and for the sake of the church. Every generation that has ever existed has lived within its own modernity. The present, with all its possibilities, problems and pluralism, does not substantially challenge the churches in ways that would have been wholly unfamiliar to previous generations of Christians. The point of a new type of theological engagement with the contemporary is therefore an appreciative and missiological exercise. On the one hand, the churches need to continually receive the Holy Spirit, already present and accommodated in culture and beyond the church, and what the Spirit is saying outside the church to the body of Christ beyond its immediate distinct and bounded existence. On the other hand, there is also a task to make theology as public as possible, in order that the voice of the Spirit may be heard as the Spirit receives it. As David Tracy notes, Theology, by the very nature of the kind of fundamental existential questions it asks and because of the nature of the reality of God upon which theology reflects, must develop public, not private, criteria and discourse...all privatisation, all refusals to face action, praxis, politics, history are fatal not only to theology but to the proclamation and the manifestation of the event of Jesus Christ that empowers theology...

For Tracy, theology is not to be considered as a mode of reflection that is culturally marginal: it is, rather, fully a part of culture. Correspondingly, the particularity of theology should not be confused with the realm of the 'private': every public discourse is particular, and 'all theology is public discourse'.47 This leads Tracy to argue for an especially confident theological engagement with contemporary culture, and his work, as many will recognize, has implicitly influenced the tone and shape of this book throughout. Like Tracy's work, this book seeks to offer a vision in which many areas of human experience and understanding can be accommodated, in ways that enrich both theology and society. This involves an openness at the very heart of the theological endeavour, which in turn is secured on an understanding of the resilience of faith.48 With those horizonal limits on theological methodology outlined, and the four foundations for the study discussed, it is important also to acknowledge some of the limits placed on scope. The book is not an attempt to outline a fully-fledged theological or ecclesiological method, but rather 46. D. Tracy, The Analogical Imagination (London: SCM Press), pp. ix, 393. 47. Tracy, Analogical Imagination, p. 3. 48. For further discussion see D. Tracy, 'Defending the Public Character of Theology', in J. Wall (ed.), Theologians in Transition (New York, Crossroad, 1981), pp. 116-29.

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to identify and respond to some of the challenges facing the churches today, and in so doing develop broader forms of theological reflection. A book on religious resilience, concerned with contemporary understandings of Christ, church and culture, will inevitably omit many topics. This is a necessarily incomplete work, which is itself a witness to the open future that I believe is before us. It has some questions, and perhaps some answers. But it argues that the future of religion is far from sealed. Correspondingly, I have not, for example, spent much time discussing those things which are said to afflict religion, including postmodernity, something that I know will be a welcome source of relief for many readers.49 Equally, there is no separate treatment of other apparently inimical issues, such as economics, new technologies, global poverty, the sciences, environmental issues, sexuality, gender, new religious movements, violence, crime or inter-religious issues. Others have written and are writing in these fields, with the coverage ranging between the extensive and the intensive.50 I nonetheless hope that the chapters I have provided here do at least give an indication of how a more positive reading of faith's fate might be gained when assessing religion and culture within contemporary society. For convenience, this book is divided into three parts, each with five chapters. Part One deals with church and culture, and explores definitions of culture; church attendance, secularization theories and national identity; the shape of church-state relations; and church autonomy and human rights. Part Two looks at Christianity and popular culture, with chapters covering advertising, consumerism, sport and leisure, morality and the demonic. Part Three examines the problems and potential for mission and ministry in a third millennium. Chapters explore vocational care, authority and communion, religious power and globalization, pilgrimage and the person of Christ.51 With these reflections in mind, let me offer some closing remarks on the

49. Readers interested in a tidy summary of the ways in which religion is affected by postmodernism are referred to S. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996). 50. It is pleasing to see that an academic journal is now devoted to the area. See M. Nye (ed.), Culture and Religion: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal (London: Curzon Press, 2001). 51. In chapters three and nine, where Tudor records have been cited, the language appears to be off putting at first sight. However, readers need not be daunted, and will easily grasp the meaning of sentences if they are read out aloud.

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shape and orientation of this book. Too often, much of what passes for theological engagement with public life and contemporary culture takes on the form of a sealed cartouche—an indecipherable scribble of phonetic signs amidst an ocean of complex hieroglyphs. Culturally, like the cartouche, the name of God is embedded in the social text, and yet at the same time sealed off from it. It is present, yet it does not relate. As Edward Farley points out, a great deal of theology has become ghettoized, and is now a mode of discourse that has slipped into becoming private; an internal dialogue that only relates to faith communities. In contrast, the approach of this book assumes that theology and religious studies has a responsibility for developing a wisdom that is capable of addressing the whole of reality, including those arenas that are apparently non-religious.52 One step forward is to recognize that religion and culture relate to each other in at least four distinct ways: religion is part of culture; culture is part of religion; culture may be 'religious'; and religion and culture can undertake a variety of serious academic dialogues. In turn, there are four potential audiences for the religion-culture debate, the first two of which are mainly academic, and the second two broader. As Jeffrey Mahan suggests,53 writing on religion and popular culture: the first academic audience is interested primarily in the description and analysis of specific cultural phenomena which reveal particular relationships between religion and popular culture. A second academic audience is more concerned with reflection on the methodologies which help us to see the broader relationships between religion and popular culture. A third audience is made up of religious women and men who want to clarify the practice of the religious life. A fourth audience is made up of thinking members of the culture at large, religious and secular, who are engaged in a conversation about social or cultural reform.

It would be fair to say that this book is addressed to all four audiences, although particular attention has been paid the second type of audience in part two of the book, and to the third type of audience in part three. The project begun within these pages is necessarily unfinished, and it certainly has its own foibles, for which I take full responsibility. However, readers will understand that I have tried to begin something new here, and attempt 52. E. Farley, The Fragility of Knowledge: Theological Education in the Church and University (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), p. 180. 53. J. Mahan and B. Forbes, Introduction, in Mahan and Forbes (eds.), Religion and Popular Culture in America (Berkely: University of California Press, 2000), p. 10. 54. Mahan and Forbes, Conclusion, in Mahan and Forbes (eds.), Religion and Popular Culture, p. 295 (my emphasis).

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some different ways of making sense of theology, the church and their relation to contemporary culture, by testing and refining various kinds of practical theology—something which I have only hinted at before in previous works. I hope to return to some of the themes developed in this book on other occasions, and further refine my rough-hewn thinking, and build upon the nascent methodological insights that have begun to emerge. Relocating theology within public life—by which I mean politics, society and culture—is a constantly changing and challenging task, and what is offered in these pages can only be a beginning, albeit, one with some potential and promise. Correspondingly, this is a book written not only for an academic audience, but also for clergy and laity who are interested in the future of religion. It is my hope—and I stress that this is a hope—that the book will comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable, sometimes entertain, occasionally tease, generate more light than heat, and provide much valuable material for discussion. It is also my sincere desire that readers will find, amongst the academic analysis, general reflection and occasional persiflage, some wisdom, grace and new understandings.

Part One C H U R C H AND CULTURE

Chapter 1 Resistance and Accommodation: Theology and Contemporary Culture

Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language... This is so partly because of its intricate historical development, in several European languages, but mainly because it has now come to be used for important concepts in several distinct and incompatible systems of thought. 1

These days, the word 'culture' seems to cover anything and everything. There are cultures of shame, scapegoating and abuse, alternative cultures, political and religious cultures, cultures of ethnicity and identity, gender and sexuality, nationhood and regions, popular culture and aesthetics— there is almost nothing that is outside 'culture'. The term seems to be attached to everything and anything that touches life itself Arguably, the very elevation of the term is one of the achievements of modern anthropology.2 Attention to the 'things' that help create and maintain identity—sprouts help make a 'traditional' Christmas lunch, strawberries a 'traditional' English summer—has enabled anthropology to move from studying, for example, the eating habits of remote tribes to analysing the ordinary habits of consumers in otherwise ordinary places.3 The study of culture has become the study of the ordinary—the fabric of meanings and activities that inform and organize everyday life. Yet this is a something of a 1. Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London: Fontana, 1983 [1977]), p. 87. See also Raymond Williams, Culture and Society 1780-1950 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966). 2. For a discussion of the use of the word 'culture' and its history, see A. Kuper, Culture: The Anthropologists'Account (Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). 3. See for example D. Miller, A Theory of Shopping (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998); and J. Baudrillard, The Consumer Society (London: Sage, 1999). These works are discussed in Chapter 7.

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Pyrrhic victory, since almost everyone now uses the term, and with no precision. Thus, there are cultures of change, management, oppression, resistance, leisure, work—and more besides. In contemporary usage, the word covers an almost limitless field of enquiry, yet at the same time, it also has a tendency to atomize the very area, subject or issue it identifies, by naming 'it' as 'a' culture. So, to talk about 'the culture of the church', for example, is often shorthand for discussing only one distinct aspect of ecclesial life, while working with the assumption that it is obvious where the church begins and ends. In its original etymology the word 'culture' described a valuing, an affirmation or denigration, of distinct forms of production, behaviour or life within a given society.4 In archaeological use, it is a material record of social behaviour; in anthropology, it is a behavioural record of materiality. More precisely, it is the consistent recurrence of assemblages constrained by time and space, which may include materials (tools, homes, etc.), artefacts (symbols, ideas, etc.) and behaviour (ritual, organization, etc.), created by a people in their ongoing activities within particular life conditions, and then transmitted and translated from generation to generation. Much of what is distinctive in the Christian faith emerges from a dialogue with culture; there has never been a time when culture was not an issue for Christian faith.5 The concept of culture as posing a particular problem for theology largely has its roots in a range of reactions to the Enlightenment. The contemporary form of the problem arises from a variety of sources: the missionary experience of the Western churches, the inimical secularization thesis, and apparently declining church attendance. Correspondingly, the terms 'contextualization' and 'inculturation' quickly crept into Western theology from the field of missiology, which for decades had been questioning the relationship between concepts of truth and revelation in relation to contemporary culture, and the problem of relativism.6 4. In Germany, the word Kultur was first used in speculative histories before being used to describe cultures in the plural (i.e. dividing humanity into distinct and separate cultures) from the second half of the eighteenth century. See A. Krober, The Nature of Culture (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1952). 5. See for example Paul's debates in his first letter to the Corinthians relating to litigation before pagan courts (1 Cor. 6.1-11), meat sacrificed to idols (1 Cor. 8.1-13), and the veiling of women in public worship (1 Cor. 11.2-16). 6. T.S. Eliot's The Idea of a Christian Society: Notes Towards the Definition of Culture and George Steiner's In Bluebeard's Castle: Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture (London: Faber, 1971) demonstrate that Western Christianity has been absorbed with the way it relates to culture for some time.

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The pivotal study for theology in this field remains H.R. Niebuhr's Christ and Culture (1951). Writing after the Second World War, Niebuhr argued that Christ and culture were two complex realities, which gave the church a new mandate: 'an infinite dialogue must develop in the Christian conscience and the Christian community'. 7 Niebuhr rejected the idea that culture could be defined narrowly, and appears to have sided with Troeltsch's assertion that Christianity and Western culture are inextricably intertwined, which both bolsters and blunts its distinctive witness. Niebuhr also characterized previous theological responses to culture: some regarded culture as having neither a positive nor a negative relation to Christ; others saw culture in entirely negative terms, and believed that it needed to be resisted; others found culture to be 'solidly based on a natural, rational knowledge of God or his law'.8 In order to sketch an anatomy of how Christians might engage with culture, Niebuhr first has to define what culture actually is. For a general definition he turns to Malinowski, and describes culture as an 'artificial, secondary environment' which humanity imposes on 'the natural', comprising 'language, habits, ideas, beliefs, customs, social organization, inherited artefacts, technical processes and values'.9 This leads him to suggest that culture has four hallmarks: it is social; it is a human achievement; it is a world of values (their temporal and material realization, as well as their conservation); and it is pluralism.10 Niebuhr suggests that there are five theological responses to the complexity of a Christian faith immersed in culture. The first type stresses the opposition between Christ and culture, which Niebuhr characterizes as an almost tribal mindset: 'missionaries who require their converts to abandon wholly the customs and institutions of so-called "heathen" societies'.11 This is the Christ against culture, with Niebuhr offering Tertullian as prototypical exponent. The second type is diametrically opposed to the first: 'there is a fundamental agreement between Christ and culture'. 12 This is 7. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, p. 39. 8. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, p. 30 9. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, p. 32. Cf. B. Malinowski, 'Culture', in The Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), IV, pp. 621-24, and C. Dawson, Religion and Culture (London: Sheed & Ward, 1947), p. 47. 10. See B. Malinowski, A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1944), pp. 43-59; and R. Benedict, Patterns of Culture (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 193), chs 7 and 8. 11. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, p. 41 and ch. 2. 12. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, p. 41 and ch. 3.

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the Christ who is of or for culture—the fulfilment of cultural aspiration, with Schleiermacher and liberal Protestantism in general cited for support. These two basic types represent the resistance and accommodation we identified earlier in the Introduction, although both are related to an attitude of religious resilience. Type one sees resilience in terms of resistance, and if necessary, withdrawal. Type two understands religious resilience to be best guaranteed through forms of accommodation, including social relevance and inculturation. Niebuhr then offers three further types, all of which are related. Type three is synthetic in character, seeking to show that although culture may lead people to Christ, Christ nevertheless enters culture from without: this is the Christ above culture.13 Aquinas or Hooker would be good examples of this position, stressing as they do the laws and principles that may lead to humanity closer to God, but are not in themselves a substitute for encounter or revelation. The fourth type is something of a paradox: the claims of Christ are not to be compromised with secular society, yet God requires obedience to civil authorities. This is a more sophisticated version of type one, recognizing that Christians live in a relation ofparadox with the world which they are committed to being involved with: Luther is offered as 'the greatest representative of this type'.14 Finally, the fifth type is conversionist in outlook: the Christian neither withdraws from the world nor blends in with it. Rather, Christ transforms culture: Calvin and Augustine are cited as the chief exponents of this theological worldview.15 Niebuhr sees the last three types as being closely related, since they all accept a form of mediation in which both Christ and culture are distinguished and affirmed. However, Niebuhr was also aware that there was fluidity between these types: 'strange family resemblances may be found along the whole scale'.16 Niebuhr himself is on that scale, being a type two, with sympathies expressed for types three and four also. (It is hard to detect any Niebuhrian enthusiasm for types one or five.) Niebuhr's work was far ahead of its time in its attempt to typologize the forms of theological engagement with culture, at a point in history when pluralism was surfacing as a serious missiological issue for the churches. Niebuhr ends his analysis on a high note that typifies his particular Christian hope:

13. 14. 15. 16.

Niebuhr, Niebuhr, Niebuhr, Niebuhr,

Christ and Culture, p. 42 and ch. 4. Christ and Culture, p. 43 and ch. 5. Christ and Culture, p. 43 and ch. 6. Christ and Culture, p. 40.

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THE SALT OF THE EARTH This faith has been introduced into our history, into our culture, our church, our human community, through this person [i.e. Christ]... In that faith we seek to make decisions in our existential present, knowing that the measure of faith is so meagre that we are always combining denials with our affirmations of it. Yet in faith in the faithfulness of God we count on being corrected, forgiven, complemented, by the company of the faithful and by many others to whom He is faithful though they reject Him... To make our decisions in faith is to make them in view of the fact that no single man or group or historical time is the church; but that there is a church of faith in which we do our partial, relative work and on which we count. It is to make them in view of the fact that Christ is risen from the dead, and is not only the head of the church but the redeemer of the world. It is to make them in view of the fact that the world of culture—man's achievement—exists in the world of grace— God's kingdom.

17

It is generally recognized that, useful as Niebuhr's typologies are, the distinctions at ground level are not nearly so sharp. As I hinted in the Introduction, and shall later explore in other chapters, accommodation and resistance can be found in many expressions of Christianity: it is not the case that liberals are uniformly accommodating,18 while conservative theological positions are necessarily resistant to all that culture offers.19 With the benefit of hindsight, Niebuhr's own work is less convincing than it once was. His theology, harking back to Troeltsch, is itself grounded in liberal Protestantism, which Tillich's Theology of Culture continued—that tradition of liberal-Christian cultural engagement that is adept at adapting itself to

17. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, pp. 255-56. 18. Other significant—but not uncritical—models of accommodation include the work of Jaroslav Pelikan, especially his Jesus Through the Centuries (New York: Harper & Row, 1985). Emmanuel Levinas (Otherwise than Being [Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998 (1974)]) has approached the subject through a more philosophical-ethical framework. David Bosch (Believing in the Future [Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995]) and R. Laurence Moore (Selling God: Religion in the Marketplace of Culture [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994]) have done more careful ethnographic and theoretical work from different standpoints that have clear ecclesial implications. 19. N e w models of resistance have emerged that challenge this: Stanley Hauerwas's Resident Aliens (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989) is one of the best examples. Lesslie Newbigin remains one of the most important figures in regard to resistance. However, his work has been criticized for misrepresenting and demonizing the Enlightenment, and for doing the same to pluralism, and for generally failing to appreciate the subtlety and ambiguity of social-fiduciary frameworks. It should be noted that no good systematic critiques of any length or depth have yet appeared to test Newbigin's hypotheses. This is a task that should be undertaken, albeit in a positive way.

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modernity. Yet the study of culture has changed radically over the 50 years since the publication of Niebuhr's seminal work. As Bruce has suggested, 'the grand symphony' of Christendom is over, and is being replaced by handfuls of 'enthusiastic music makers'.20 The general cultural condition of our time seems to be one of fracture, particularity and relativity: the casualties appear to be metanarratives and any notion of universal truth. Christians are no longer deciding whether they are^br or against culture: they all too frequently experience themselves as being hopelessly lost within it, unable to navigate the ever-restless high seas of cultural change. Whether or not postmodernism is a radical break with modernism, or a revolt within it against certain types of'high modernism', many now interpret their world as postmodern, with 'its total acceptance of...ephemerality, fragmentation, discontinuity and the chaotic'.21 Many believe that they are drowning in the multiple movements of late modernity or the profusion of possibilities that come from postmodernity. Rowan Williams describes this milieu in terms of'cultural bereavement': we (i.e., society) have lost our transcendent-iconic points of reference to such a degree that realities such as charity, childhood and remorse are now threatened.22 As Bauman suggests, the age we now live in and experience is one in which there is 'widespread aversion to grand social designs, the loss of interest in absolute truths, privatisation of redemptive urges, reconciliation with the relative.. .value of all life techniques, acceptance of [the] irredeemable plurality of the world'. 23 Or, as Hall and Jefferson point out, The dominant culture of a complex society is never a homogeneous structure. It is layered, reflecting different interests within the dominant class (e.g. an aristocratic versus bourgeois outlook), containing different traces from the past (e.g. religious ideas within a largely secular society), as well as emergent elements in the present. Subordinate cultures will not always be in open conflict with it. They may, for long periods, coexist with it, negotiate the spaces and gaps in it, make inroads into it, 'warrening it from within'. However,

20. Cf. S. Bruce, Religion in Modern Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 238. 21. See D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp. 39-65. 22. R. Williams, Lost Icons: Reflections on Cultural Bereavement (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000). 23. Z. Bauman, 'Modernity and Ambivalence', in M. Featherstone (ed.), Global Culture (London: Sage, 1990), p. 97. Cf. J.F. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), p. xxiii: 'simplifying to the extreme, I definepostmodem as incredulity toward metanarratives...'

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THE SALT OF THE EARTH though the nature of this struggle over culture can never be reduced to a simple opposition, it is crucial to replace the notion of 'culture' with the more concrete, historical concept of'cultures'; a redefinition which brings out more clearly the fact that cultures always stand in relations of domination—and subordination—to one another, are always in some sense, in struggle with one another. The singular term, 'culture', can only indicate, in the most general and abstract way, the large cultural configurations at play in society at any historical moment. We must move at once to the determining relationships of domination and subordination in which these configurations stand; to the processes of incorporation and resistance which define the cultural dialectic between them; and to the institutions which transmit and reproduce 'the culture' (i.e. the dominant culture) in its dominant or hegemonic form.

Given the complexity of our subject, it will be necessary to lay some fairly simple tracks through such a dense field. Our main concern will be to sketch the shape of recent theological responses to contemporary culture. As I have already indicated, these responses are characterized either as accommodation or as resistance, but on the understanding that they represent the two faces of religious resilience within our era. This discussion will be prefaced by a brief tour of recent definitions of culture as they affect religion; readers will recognize that I am drawing on the work of Geertz, Hartman, Said, Eagleton, Adorno, Foucault and others. 25 From this discussion, the models of accommodation and resistance are examined, before a conclusion that suggests an integrated model of resilience for engaging with culture. The Cultural Web: A Brief Tour Too much ink has been spilt in defining culture, so the task before us here is to offer the briefest of sketches relating to the contours of culture and its interpretation. Broadly speaking, the journey from the Enlightenment to the present has been one of gradual realization: that it is not possible to have one 'true' or 'correct' definition of culture, and that it is improper to speak of'culture' as though it were a univocal concept. Thus, Tylor's foun-

24. J. Clark, S. Hall, T. Jefferson and B. Roberts, 'Subcultures, Cultures and Class', in S. Hall and T.Jefferson (eds.), Resistance Through Rituals (London: Hutchinson, 1976), pp.12-13. 25. There are a number of useful overviews of the field described above. See especially R. Grant 'Culture', in P. Clarke and A. Linzey (eds.), Dictionary of Ethics, Theology & Society (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 207-12.

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dational definition—'culture or civilisation...is that complex whole...' 26 — has been eclipsed by later anthropologists such as Franz Boas who preferred to speak of 'cultures' in the plural. While it is true that Tylor was aware of cultures, he nowhere uses the term in the plural since he regarded all cultures as part of one continuous evolutionary stream. Boas, on the other hand, appeared to recognize cultural plurality almost immediately, and correspondingly divided his analysis of peoples into categories such as race, language, myths and artefacts.27 For the first half of the twentieth century, American cultural anthropology and British social anthropology engaged in an important but ultimately fruitless debate on the origins, meaning and significance of culture, and the extent to which it shaped society, or was shaped by it. With notable exceptions (such as Levi-Strauss),28 the 'culture versus society' debate continued through to the 1960s, where it was arguably and abruptly halted by Clifford Geertz's highly influential The Interpretation of Cultures: 'The concept of culture I espouse...is essentially a semiotic one. Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he has himself spun, I take culture to be those webs...' 29 The move towards a symbolic and interpretative approach in cultural studies is one of the main legacies of Geertz's work.30 Moreover, his use of the 'web' metaphor is especially helpful in the context of this study, not least for its resonance with resilience. The reticulate nature of religion and society allows us to explore patterns, points of intersection, strengths and weaknesses, production and decline through this metaphor. As we have already noted, contemporary religion and contemporary culture are not 'things' apart, but are rather inextricably intertwined, representing a created and complex world of significance. If culture is indeed 'those webs', then the strands of religion will be located at many points, and running in all directions. Moreover, the 'web' is something that is a product of humanity as well as 26. Tylor, Primitive Culture, I, p. 1. 27. Boas's work was based on his surveys conducted in Canada. See F. Boas, 'Summary of the Work of the Committee in British Columbia' (1898), in G. Stocking (ed.), A Franz Boas Reader: The Shaping of American Anthropology 1893-1911 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988), pp. 81-94. Cf. G. Stocking, 'Matthew Arnold, E.B. Tylor and the Uses of Invention', in idem (ed.), Culture and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology (New York: Free Press, 1968), pp. 7-21. 28. See C. Levi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship (Boston: Beacon Press, 1949). 29. C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 12. 30. See, for example, G. Steiner, Grammars of Creation (London: Faber, 2001).

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being socially formative. And at no point is it ever completely finished; the web requires constant replenishment, and as new strands are added, new meanings are created. A further advantage of the web metaphor is that it reinforces the points already made in the Introduction, namely that the sacred and the secular are not easily divorced. From earliest times, Christians have understood themselves to be in the world but not of it, rendering to Caesar the things of Caesar, and to God the things of God. In short, the salt of the earth. The unknown author of the late-second-century Epistle to Diognetus expresses the paradoxes in this way: Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by either country, speech or customs; the fact is that they nowhere settle in cities of their own; they use no peculiar language; they cultivate no eccentric mode of life... Yet while they dwell in both Greek and non-Greek cities, as each one's lot was cast, and conform to the customs of the country in dress, food, and mode of life in general, the whole tenor of their way of living stamps it as worthy of admiration and extraordinary. They reside in their respective countries, but only as aliens. They take part in everything as citizens and put up with everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their home, and every home a foreign land... In a word: what the soul is in the body, that Christians are in the world. The soul is spread through all the members of the body, and the Christians throughout all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, but is not part and parcel of the body; so Christians dwell in the world, but are not part and parcel of the world...

Given that the strands of religion are a constituent and diffuse element within the web of culture, what do more recent theoreticians have to say about the shape of contemporary culture, and its relation to religious resilience? Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer believe that the elevation of culture has both marginalized and replaced religion: The sociological theory that the loss of support of objectively established religion, the dissolution of the last remnant of precapitalism, together with technological and social differentiation or specialisation, have led to cultural chaos is disproved every day; for culture now impresses the same stamp on everything...

31. 'The Epistle to Diognetus', cited in J. Kleist (ed.), The Ancient Christian Writers, VI (New York: Newman Press, 1948), pp. 138-40. See also, M. Warren, Communications and Cultural Analysis: A Religious View (Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1992), pp. 55-56. 32. T. Adorno and M. Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (trans. J. Cumming; N e w York: Seabury Press, 1972), p. 120.

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Hartman agrees, suggesting that the older meaning of culture—associated with civility and the free exchange of ideas—has become compressed into potentially destructive zones such as nationalism or tribalism. Thus, 'culture' in its various meanings also promises solidarity and embodiment. It provides an arena for belonging, in which the inimical and endemic forces of modernity—specialization, fragmentation and alienation—are held at bay. For Hartman, the cosmopolitan is now superseded by the multicultural, and the response to this overwhelming must be a return to the aesthetic and the development of a culture of inclusion.33 However, others are positively scornful of the suggestion that culture can become some sort of neutral ground for developing inclusion, and, as Hartman is hinting, somehow replace religion. For Terry Eagleton, culture is a lamentable alternative to religion for at least two reasons. In its narrower artistic sense it is confined to a paltry percentage of the population, and in its broader social sense it is exactly where men and women are least at one. Culture in this latter sense of religion, nationality, sexuality, ethnicity and the like is a field of ferocious contention; so that the more practical culture becomes, the less able it is to fulfil a conciliatory role, and the more conciliatory it is, the more ineffectual it grows...

Eagleton affirms that the effect of religion upon culture in the past has been unifying and decisive: 'religion is not effective because it is otherworldly, but because it incarnates its otherworldliness in a practical form of life'. For Eagleton, religion provides a binding that links 'absolute values and daily life'.35 However, he exhibits little optimism for the future of religion within culture, and subscribes uncritically to the secularization thesis, even fearing that a properly incultured religion will simply 'risk confronting the religious fundamentalism of others... which is the creed of those abandoned by modernity'.36 That said, Eagleton also follows Williams in distinguishing between the residual and the archaic when he affirms that 'community and organised religion' (as distinct from fundamentalism) are part of the residual which help maintain 'enclaves of traditionalist resistance within

33. G. Hartman, The Fateful Question of Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 155—Hartman sees T.S. Eliot as an exemplar of the English via media for maintaining a unified Christian society. 34. T. Eagleton, The Idea of Culture (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2000), p. 41. See also his ch. 5 on the development of a common culture. 35. Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, p. 69. 36. Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, p. 70.

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the present.'37 So, the fate of religion within contemporary culture is far from sealed in Eagleton's eyes: he has seen its resilience, even if he has not comprehended it. Eagleton's pessimism, touched up lightly with hints of nostalgia and optimism, is part of the shared cultural web of our age—reticulate theoretical strands that fail to comprehend adequately the nature of religious belief and activity. In this web, the widespread culture of Christianity has been confused with the more compressed culture of the church, leading most commentators to judge the influence of Christianity in contemporary life by focusing attention on explicit religious activities. In many cases, the church colludes with this mindset, taking its own temperature and assessing its health solely through the success or failure of its output. It fails to understand that its benign presence in the world, and the more widespread influence its teachings have in literature, art, education and other spheres deserve no less attention.38 In its residuality, Christianity remains a major cultural force. Yet the secular mindset prevails, and when preached from the lips of the church moves from being a prognosis about faith in a cultural milieu to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The conclusion, unsurprisingly, is that religion is in retreat, and has become just one 'culture' or strand within many cultural systems. Correspondingly, many within the field of cultural studies see no reason to address religion at all: it has been relegated to the archaic, an artefact in the modern world that is little more than a curiosity.39 There are, though, signs of revolt. William Hart's recent work on Edward Said has focused on the religious effects of culture. Although Said is not himself a religious thinker, he has questioned the religious-secular distinction in order to critique modern culture.40 Hart shows how the religious question permeates discussions of nationalism, secularism, naturalism and politics, particularly the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Equally, Roger Scruton's more polemical work is remarkably frank about the need

37. Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, p. 123; and R. Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 122. 38. See J.C. Exum and S.D. Moore, Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998). 39. See, e.g., J. Naremore and P. Bratlinger (eds.), Modernity and Mass Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991). 40. See W. Hart, Edward Said and the Religious Effects of Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Said's best-known and most accessible works on the power of ideas in modern culture are Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism.

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for religion in contemporary society: 'the core of common culture is religion', he claims.41 With barely a pause for breath, he then takes his readers on a whistlestop tour of what is wrong with contemporary culture, taking several swipes at Foucault along the way. Oddly the church itself is celebrated for its resilience, for its elasticity and inclusiveness, which Scruton traces back to the origins of Christianity: the church...has defined itself from the outset as katholike—universal. In brief, Christianity offers a membership which is available to all, which promises a new life, and which is not bound by the laws of ancestors...the Christian religion distinguishes the member from the outsider, and defines the rites of passage which safeguard social reproduction. But it differs from most religions in an important and historically decisive respect. The Christian religion permits and encourages legal organization which is purely secular, and which lays no claim to divine authority... Christianity [is] more hospitable than other faiths to the idea of secular government. The Enlightenment view of politics is already implicit in the faith which Enlightenment put in question.

That last sentence is important, for it reinforces the accommodationist tone of Niebuhr and other liberal Protestants. The claim is a bold one: the shape of 'secular' culture, with its freedom to marginalize or even reject religion, is actually given its shape by Christianity. Theologically, this also resonates with basic and normative incarnational doctrines: the word is made flesh, but the total freedom to respond to the revelation is part of God's economy of grace. To paraphrase the well-worn cliche, 'creation is dictated (by God), but not signed'. God is not insistent on self-referral. Quite incidentally, Hart agrees with this when he describes culture as 'a negotiated enterprise—a product of consent, accommodation, resistance and transformation.'43 The description would serve just as well for religion, and already fits with the two types of Christian response to culture outlined in the Introduction. To push this a little further, it is not the case that religion is 'something' that is left in culture—whether it is archaic or residual—but is rather that life which culture has emerged out of.44 Here we are close to

41. R. Scruton, An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modem Culture (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1998), p. 5. 42. Scruton, Guide, p. 109. 43. Hart, Edward Said, p. 38. 44. See, e.g., M. Danesi and P. Perron, Analysing Cultures: An Introduction and Handbook (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), pp. 31-36, where religion is treated as a 'separate' area of culture from other fields such as politics or nationalism.

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Milbank and others, who have suggested that the 'secular' social sciences are merely the estranged children of theology.45 We are also, perhaps strangely, close to Foucault, who sees power, including religious power, as a multiplicity of force relations, and 'as a sphere of force relations in the wider cultural network'.46 Power is not something that is acquired, seized, or shared, something that one holds on to or allows to slip away; power is exercised from innumerable points, in the interplay of nonegalitarian and mobile relations.

According to Carrette, Foucault's critique of religion is ultimately its servant. What Foucault does is to break down the spiritual into 'the new politics of human experience', which in turn allows him to ascribe a far greater significance to religion than cultural studies will normally allow space for. Correspondingly, religion is 'found' outside the boundaries and definitions that have been imposed upon it, and is once again identified as that which weaves its way through every fabric of secular society.48 Moving from power to language, David Martin confirms that religion and culture are inextricably linked in a web-like structure of significance and meaning: We have put off ordinary wordage and adopted a Christian mode of address. Or rather, we have been adopted by a Christian mode of address. We adopt and we are adopted...[yet] we use a counter-speech [which] creates a counter-culture. We are children inducted into a counter-culture by the power of the words we use. We use the words actively, but it is the Word that takes us into culture. We use but we are defined by usage...

This brief discussion of cultural studies and religion has, I hope, clarified the position adopted in this book. I am not claiming that secular culture is necessarily bad and that a distinct Christian or religious subculture is good. Rather, I have sought to show how religion cannot be simply defined and contained through any type of categorization within cultural studies. Moreover, I have also tried to show how culture itself is shaped by religion, although without necessarily finding its distinctiveness diluted within the society it nourishes. Like the salt of Jesus' parable, religion is both accommodating and resistant within the contexts in which it is immersed, as it

45. 46. 47. Books, 48. 49.

See Milbank, Theology and Social Theory. Carrette, Foucault and Religion, p. 148. M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality. I. An Introduction (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1990 [1976]), p. 94. Carrette, Foucalt and Religion, pp. 151-52. Martin, Breaking of the Image, p. 120.

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always was, offering a genuine form of residual resilience (of language, symbols, values, traditions, rituals and practice) within a wider cultural framework, which is itself partly constructed through religion. The cultural web is alive, and the religious strands are constantly being spun. Given these remarks, we now turn to those two main models of religious resilience within contemporary culture—resistance and accommodation—to explore the work of those theologians who are characteristic of the recent theological and missiological responses to modernity. Strategies of Resistance The Christ who is against culture—Niebuhr's first type—is most obviously manifest in recent evangelical missiology, although it can be traced in many threads of Roman Catholic doctrine and recent theological statements, and liberal responses to potentially oppressive (political or cultural) aspects of modernity, such as liberation, black or feminist theologies. Although one must be cautious about generalizing, there are three distinct hallmarks that identify a religious strategy of resistance, all of which are interlinked. The main strategies discussed here will be those that are broadly evangelical in outlook. The first hallmark involves some kind of claim made upon the past, and a narration of decline or fall in the present. Thus, for a missiologist like Newbigin, the Enlightenment methods had made firm statements about absolute values impossible; the only thing left was the will, the will to power; and all this talk of values is simply Nietzsche wrapped up in cotton wool. Values as distinct from facts, are what people want; they are a matter of the will, not of truth; the only question is, whose will dominates?

Newbigin's claim on the past, although hardly ever explicit in his writing, is that the Enlightenment has robbed the Western world of its religious certainties. Drawing heavily on the work of Polanyi, Newbigin perceives that the Western world has undergone some kind of'paradigm shift', such that what was once accepted is now questioned, while the presuppositions that generate the questions are themselves uncritically accepted.51 The un50. L. Newbigin, Mission and the Crisis of Western Culture (Edinburgh: The Handsel Press, 1989), p. 6. 51. Newbigin, Mission, pp. 7-11. See also M. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1958), pp. 238-39. A fuller discussion by Newbigin of Polanyi can be found in Newbigin, The Open Secret (Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 1978), pp. 129-34.

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derlying assumption is that 'Christendom' was largely intact prior to the Enlightenment, and that science, rationalism, philosophy and other modes of thinking have infected the minds of individuals to the extent that they now doubt 'absolute' truth, which is now replaced with relativism. For Newbigin, the casualties of modernity are truth and authority, and the task of the church is therefore to resist that same culture in order that the gospel may be proclaimed, and once again provide a suitable meta-framework for culture.52 Secondly, and linked to this first hallmark, there is a deep suspicion of accommodation as a strategy of religious resilience. Thus, Newbigin's fears for liberation theologians are these: I must insist that the Marxist epistemology, which has been thoroughly discredited in respect of the natural sciences, cannot now be consecrated as the new way of 'doing theology'... Where I think they are wrong is in the identification of this commitment [i.e. the theologians' to Marxism] with the acceptance of the Marxist analysis of society. The commitment is not to a • •

cause or to a program: it is to a person.

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It is not that Newbigin is against theology being done in praxis, or in ways that are manifestly practical. His fear is for what any kind of compromise might mean if Christianity or the gospel is in partnership with another (especially a 'secular') ideology. So, behind the idyllic pre-Enlightenment Christendom within Newbigin's construction of reality there is also a notion of a 'pure' gospel that is effectively ^cultural and transculturzl, which only risks dilution by being radically contextualized or shaped for a particular agenda.54 Correspondingly, another missiologist in the Newbigin tradition, Bruce Nichols, can write quite comfortably in these terms: The gospel brings a new and deeper dimension of alienation to those cultures which interpret alienation solely in terms of social shame, as in Buddhist society. To legalistic societies, such as Islam, which know little of love and forgiveness, to societies which fear the spirit world...the gospel offers a new

52. See L. Newbigin, 'Truth and Authority in Modernity', in P. Sampson, V. Samuel and C. Sugden (eds.), Faith and Modernity (Oxford: Regnum Books, 1994), pp. 60-62. 53. Newbigin, The Open Secret, p. 134. 54. Newbigin's thinking is somewhat divergent on the question of secularization. Most of his work assumes secularization to be true, but The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (London: SPCK, 1989) does challenge the concept as a 'myth'. However, Newbigin does not really develop the implications that arise from his instinctive doubts and returns to address society through a missiological framework. See also L. Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth (London: SPCK, 1991).

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perspective... The prophetic ministry of the gospel calls for a deculturalization in every culture of the accretions to true faith. From Moses to John the Baptist, the biblical prophets condemned elements of culture which were contrary to the Word of God...

It is interesting to see how Nichols' version of the gospel depends on caricatures of non-Christian cultures. Many Islamic scholars would be surprised to learn that their societies are 'legalistic' and 'know little of love or forgiveness'. Moreover, they could equally point to many examples within Christianity where similar observations would be apposite. That, however, is not the point. Underlying Nichols' thesis is a simple presupposition, namely that something like a pure and unadulterated gospel exists, can be known, and should be proclaimed. The third hallmark arises directly out of the previous two, and is not only concerned with the purity and identity of the church, including the gospel it proclaims, but also with its ultimate triumph against the forces of secularism.56 Here, the second hallmark (protagonist) shifts to that of antagonism as the third hallmark. Again, the church or Christian faith is defined as something that is 'against' various movements that threaten it: the discernment of the missiological vocation is constructed through a disposition of opposition. For example, Os Guinness characterizes modernity as a 'generalised secularism' and 'generalised syncretism', the latter being said to include 'science-based mysticisms, such as the New Age movement, as well as socialism and environmentalism'.57 Thus, Guinness defines the rationale of true Christian engagement with modernity in terms of 'two master principles': the protagonist principle is indispensable today because modernity renders earlier forms of Christian separatism impossible and newer forms of activism 55. B. Nichols, Contextualization: A Theology of Gospel and Culture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979), p. 61. 56. As I noted earlier, there are a range of sophisticated studies that are resistant rather than accommodationist. See especially S. Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), and Christians Among the Virtues: Theological Conversations with Ancient and Modern Ethics (Notre Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997). See also A. Walker, Telling the Story: Gospel, Mission and Culture (London: SPCK, 1996), and Enemy Territory: The Christian Struggle for the Modern World (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1987); and Berdyaev, The Fate ofMan in the Modern World (London: SCM Press, 1935). 57. O. Guinness, 'Mission Modernity: Seven Checkpoints on Mission in the Modern World' in Sampson, Samuel and Sugden (eds.), Faith and Modernity, pp. 339-47 (339-41).

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THE SALT OF THE EARTH ineffective. So our engagement, whether in work, politics, art, voluntary action, recreation, or mission, will only be faithful and effective to the degree that Christ remains lord of every part of our lives...the second master principle is the antagonist principle. It flows directly from the theme 'Christ over against all that which does not bow to him'... Modernity, in other words, is not 'the holy ground' some urban theologians proclaim. Modernity is the devil's challenge to us...

CO

Here the ground of modernity is compared to the grounding of the gospel, and it is clear that the Christian life, lived faithfully, is an embodiment of a faith which conflicts with culture, except in those places where culture acknowledges that it yields to faith. In other words, because the strategy of resistance presupposes that modernity, in general, is opposed to faith, it follows that modernity itself is characterized as resistant to the gospel. Hence for Guinness, Newbigin and others, the narration of faith in modernity depends, to a degree, on demonizing syncretism or accommodation, and highlighting the imperative of separatism, not only as the best means for preserving distinctiveness, but also to serve a more ultimate goal, namely of faith and Christ triumphing in a secular age. These three hallmarks are all dependent, to an extent, on constructing caricatures and then dealing with them somewhat aggressively. The first imagines a coherent pre-Enlightenment Christendom that offered a satisfactory and total worldview to society; Christians are to feel 'cheated' and that they have been 'robbed'. The second is suspicious of accommodationist strategies. The third is concerned with securing the ultimate triumph of true faith in an age that is characterized as faithless or wayward. Of course, these three hallmarks are not exclusive to evangelical engagements with culture. As we noted earlier, similar hallmarks of resistance can be traced in other theological and ecclesiological responses to modernity. However, it is to the other side of resilience that we now turn: models of accommodation. Models of Accommodation Generally speaking, most models of accommodation are some kind of attempt to re-state the resilience of religion with modernity. They do not see themselves as capitulating to the secular, but rather as working within it, seeking to reincarnate the gospel in ways that are relevant and accessible. To be sure, there are examples of poor practice in this regard. There are 58. Guinness, 'Mission Modernity', pp. 341-43.

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caricatures of liberals w h o strip away 'the myth from the man' Jesus, in order to re-present him as a credible teacher, rather than as a worker of miracles and a saviour of humanity. It is fair to say that some prominent liberal theologians and clergy have been so zealous in their programme of reductionism as to try to purge religion of all its mystery, transcendence, miracles and divinity. All too often, the rationale for the reductive position has been that the modern mind cannot accept or believe in the 'primitive' beliefs of previous pre-scientific generations. However, this has been to misread both modernity and religious tradition. M o d e r n minds seem to have plenty of space for the unexplained, the ineffable, the sublime, worship, awe and wonder. Furthermore, religious tradition and revelation, simply because it may have been read or interpreted literalistically in the past, need not be rejected out of hand in the present. However, most theologians and missiologists w h o adopt a position of accommodation do so for two reasons. First, they believe that religion can stand up for itself, and that God does not need defending. Second, they take cultural development seriously, believing in either a form of necessary contextualization or the ongoing incarnation of revelation. Paul Lakeland typifies the accommodationist stance, through his addressing of the apologetic task in a postmodern age. According to Lakeland, apologetical theology is the moment of theological outreach to the wider human community, and needs mediation if its message is to be heard. But at the same time it brings secular wisdom to the aid of the faithful community itself (fides quarens intellectum). Thus, the theologian taken up with this fundamental moment will be deeply immersed in the cultural and intellectual processes of the age. Cynics might consider this today to be a thankless task, but it is arguably the only way in which mediation can occur. Lakeland's work is intriguing on a n u m b e r of counts, for it rejects both the post-liberalism of scholars such as Lindbeck and the countermodernity of Milbank. 6 0 In the case of Milbank, Lakeland finds himself 'uneasy'

59. P. Lakeland, Postmodernily: Christian Identity in a Fragmented Age (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), p. 88. 60. Radical Orthodoxy is a rather uneven movement that attempts to engage theology with public life. At its best, some of the protagonists within the movement produce highly creative work which reads, critiques and embraces the postmodern whilst retaining an affection for the mediaeval and patristic periods. While at its worst, others, in their rejection of modernity (and its associated liberalism), and for their love of the pre-modern, read like latter-day disciples of

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because of 'the shaky marriage between the premodern and the postmodern' in Milbank's work, which he describes as 'dizzyingly speculative., .the worst kind of metaphysics.. .hidden away within all [Milbank's] erudition there is...a kind of ecclesial absolutism'.61 Lakeland argues for a deeply dialogical engagement with the world that is characterized by humility, salience, openness and rigour. Thus, the accommodationist apologetical task is not to proceed to extravagant claims about the exclusive superiority of the [Christian] tradition. As Christians, we can and should engage the world in all its variety of plumage, and rejoice in its multifarious ways of seeing. We should not try to convert it to what it is not. But we should simultaneously rejoice in who we are. We are what we are, in a posture of deep commitment, and 'they' are what they are. And this is just perfectly fine.

Critics of Lakeland and those he represents may protest at the rather laissez-faire attitude exhibited towards modernity. Yet the mellowness and confidence of Lakeland are born out of a particular theological vision that is characterized by optimism and trust rather than defensiveness. Kathryn Tanner puts it like this: The basic operation that theologians perform have a twofold character. First, theologians show an artisanlike inventiveness in the way they work on a variety of materials that do not dictate of themselves what theologians should do with them. Second, theologians exhibit a tactical cleverness with respect to other interpretations and organisations of such materials that are already on the ground... The materials theologians work on are incredibly diverse... theologians use a kind of tact requiring numerous ad hoc and situationspecific adjustments. In contrast to what the values of clarity, consistency and systematicity might suggest of themselves, even academic theologians do not simply follow logical deductions where they lead or the dictates of abstract principles when arriving at their conclusions. They do not construct their theological positions by applying generalities to particular cases, or emend them by trying to reproduce the same clear meanings in the terms of a new day, so as to convey them across putatively accidental differences in circumstances and vocabulary. Instead, they operate by tying things together— the Latin meaning ofreligare, after all, is to bind...

Lesslie N e w b i g i n w h o have overdosed o n metaphysics. 61. Lakeland, Postmodernity, pp. 68-76. 62. Lakeland, Postmodernity, p. 113. 63. K. Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), pp. 87-92.

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Tanner's description of theological method is one of skilled and discerning accommodation. Indeed, the description resonates with the ways in which cultural studies can describe itself, as we noted in the Introduction: 'a collective term for diverse and often contentious intellectual endeavours that address numerous questions'.64 Theology (and religious studies) is, in reality, a collection of disciplines, which ranges over vast fields of subjects. Critically, Tanner works with a concept of religion ('tying things together'), which reveals her own view about the presence of the sacred within the secular. In so doing, she eschews a narrow or protectionist definition of faith, which is at odds with 'the world'. Tanner's world is one in which theology is both part of culture and a discipline that can step outside it. Moreover, she shows no sign of capitulating to a secularization thesis; Christian culture and society are woven together, requiring creativity and diversity in theological judgment. 65 Correspondingly, Tanner displays a characteristic ease; theology becomes something that is created and shaped within each context, like a work of art or literature. Like that of a true artist, Tanner's vision for theology situated within modernity and culture is that it works with the material it is presented with, and not against it. Finally, another characteristic of the accommodationist model is its willingness to incorporate strategies of resistance in its engagement with modernity and culture. Unlike the strategies of resistance that tend to fear any serious accommodation of culture, even though it may have been unconsciously adopted in the service of evangelism or inculturation, models of accommodation recognize the value of certain types of resistance. Thus, David Kamitsuka's recipe for engagement is to seek and find the common ground between competing convictions.66 He identifies shared core values that include owning a critical distance, adequate (i.e., not overly reductive) descriptions of Christianity and solidarity with the oppressed. For Kamitsuka, this provides the basis for collaboration in apologetics, which has two distinct features. The first is the establishment and maintainance of a credible public theology, which is ensured through theological practice of 'wide reflective equilibrium' (as distinct from 'narrow'). 67 Secondly, hermeneutics, the interpretation of the Bible for the world and the church, is to be 'regulative-dialectical' in outlook, seeking 'continuity amid diverse 64. Sardar and Van Loon, Introducing Cultural Studies, p. 9. 65. Tanner, Theories of Culture, chs 5-7. 66. D. Kamitsuka, Theology and Contemporary Culture: Liberation, Postliberal and Revisionary Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), ch. 5. 67. Kamitsuka, Theology, p. 72.

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reading practices while avoiding rigidity and insularity'.68 Kamitsuka consistently opts for the middle ground—eschewing a collapse into relativism within a pluralist world, whilst also rejecting a defensive form of resistance. However, he is clearly committed to a model of accommodation rather than a strategy of resistance, as his description of theology and its tasks demonstrates: Theology in contemporary culture must be reconceived in order to make the best use of the connatural critical insights from the grassroots church. It is for this reason that I identify the virtuous mean closer to the pole of connection than detachment and tend toward a broad rather than narrow definition of theology. The insights of the theologising emerging from the Christian communities must be allowed to inform and correct professional theology...

As we have seen, the model of accommodation is characterized by its desire to see theology engage with culture, and moreover to learn from this engagement. For many accommodationists, authentic apologetics emerges from such encounters, which in turn can creates new theologies, and calls the church to take on new forms or a variety of different shapes. However, this accommodation is not some kind of vapid liberalism, or some sort of veneer of civil religion put upon society. The model of accommodation insists that there are cores, essences, values, boundaries and fundaments within the tradition, which must be applied rather than concretized. In other words, the resilience of religion will be proved by its engagement and adaptation, and not by simply maintaining the original shape of tradition. Mutation is accepted and desired as much as consistency and coherence are known to be essential. Theology for and against Culture: Modelling Integrated Resilience The work of Kamitsuka is a good foundation on which to build a tentative conclusion to this first chapter. I have been suggesting that the nature of theological, missiological and ecclesiological resilience within modernity incorporates elements of both resistance and accommodation. Although cultural resistors and accommodators can be crudely characterized as 'conservative' and 'liberal', the proponents of these positions normally have more in common than they realize. Both share a belief in addressing the

68. Kamitsuka, Theology, p. 132. 69. Kamitsuka, Theology, pp. 132-33.

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context of contemporary culture, and to some extent, making sure that the gospel is 'shaped' in order to reach its audience. Both agree that there are core elements to the faith that may not be diluted, but that equally, there are peripheral elements within the tradition that can be negotiated within distinctive cultural contexts. Both agree that resistance to culture is sometimes necessary, although the issues to be challenged will vary according to the ecclesiological tradition in question. It would seem, then, that Niebuhr's rather stark choice between a Christ for or against culture is something of a false dichotomy. Theologically, most expressions of Christianity attempt a subtle blend of the two, sometimes without realizing it. Support for this assertion comes from the contextual theologian, James Hopewell.70 In his groundbreaking work Congregation, Hopewell shows how contextual theological narrations are themselves situated within a complex cultural web. Using the work of Northrop Frye, Hopewell identifies four categories (or elements) of belief, each of which rests on an axis of rejection/acceptance. Canonic beliefs (the tragic genre) require an acceptance of 'an authoritative interpretation of a world pattern, often considered to be God's revealed word or will', and a rejection of anything that dissipates this. Charismatic beliefs (the romantic genre) accept the supernatural while rejecting the empirical. Gnostic beliefs (the comic genre) accept that the world moves from dissipation to unity, and 'alienating canonic structures' are therefore rejected. Empiric beliefs accept data that is verifiable, and tend towards rejecting the supernatural.71 Hopewell's turn towards a narrative and contextual theology shows how the 'worldview' of Christians, in their engagement with modernity, their self-understanding, ecclesial aspirations, theology and spirituality, is composed, to varying degrees, of all four elements. Thus, while it is possible to characterize liberals as empiric and conservatives as canonic, few individuals or traditions will be entirely composed of only one of Hopewell's elements. This allows us to see, from a different angle, that the expression of religious resilience is, once again, a combination of resistance and accommodation that is common to Christian tradition. All that separates the traditions is the degree of accommodation or resistance that is proposed for particular situations, and from what sources such praxis is to be consecrated. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, the issue of religious resilience is a profound issue within contemporary culture. Does contemporary culture 70. J. Hopewell, Congregation: Stories and Structures (London, SCM Press, 1987), p. 68. 71. Hopewell, Congregation, pp. 68-79.

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marginalize religion? Or is religion so embedded within culture that it continues to shape it? Is society becoming more secular? Or does it still search for the sacred? To what extent can religion and culture be separated? Is religion private or public? What happens when religion enters politics? And how can all of this be read and interpreted through theological reflection? These are some of the issues that will be explored in the next four chapters, as I seek to demonstrate how resistance and accommodation are integral to the notion of resilience. Bearing in mind what was said about methodology in the Introduction, it is perhaps worth saying just a little more about the distinctive approach these chapters will bring to the Christianity and culture debate. First, I accept that in the interface between religion and the postmodern, plural, secularized world, the religious situation of our time is one of rapid development. This is a situation that calls for good interdisciplinary understandings and critiques; it is essential to grasp and appreciate the formative forces in culture in order to comprehend religion.72 Secondly, it is essential to redress the neglect of 'problematic' areas of 'marginal' issues that bear upon religions (e.g. implicit religion, church-state relations, popular culture); theology and religious studies must increase the range and saliency of their theoretical discourse.73 Thirdly, it is important to assess the 'shape' and viability of contemporary ecclesiological frameworks, namely the study of the structure of human relationships in response to perceptions about God and the world—in short, the social form of the truth. This requires engagement with all that appears to be inimical to religion, including secularization, consumerism and pluralism.74 Fourthly and finally, in moving beyond monocausal accounts of contemporary religion and culture, I am trying to develop parameters in which informed conversations in the field of religious and cultural studies can take place. It is my view that a range of polycausal accounts, which listen to and critique contemporary religion and culture, are of vital concern.75 72. S. Gill, G. D'Costa and U. King (eds.), Religion in Europe: Contemporary Perspectives (Amsterdam: Kok Pharos, 1995), pp. 1-14. 73. Cf. T. Robbins, Cults, Converts and Charisma (London: Sage, 1988), p. 206. 74. Cf. T. Tilley (ed.), Post-modern Theologies: The Challenge of Religious Diversity (New York: Orbis Books, 1995), and P. Berry and A. Wernick, (eds.), Shadow of the Spirit: Postmodernism and Religion (London: Routledge, 1992). 75. Cf. Peter Lomas, Cultivating Intuition (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1994), on 'conversation' as a non-imposing model of inquiry, and Peter Lomas, The Limits of Interpretation (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987), on the dangers of overly dogmatic interrogation abusing a subject.

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But exactly what kind of theological approach is this? Some would call it 'practical' or 'applied'; others, like Healy, might call it 'concrete ecclesiology'. It is perhaps all of these and more. Whatever we call it, the turn towards 'practical' theology for an engagement with culture and cultural studies is quite deliberate. For too long a 'Cinderella' subject within the academy, practical theology has often been seen to be lacking depth and weight. Some of the so-called 'classic' strands within theology, such as systematic, dogmatic or philosophical theology, have often regarded the methodological pluralism of practical theology as a sign of weakness. This is not entirely without justification: in many theological colleges and universities, the research and teaching related to practical theology can be poor. However, if we start to see theology in its entirety as a collection of disciplines (which often feed off one another, and other disciplines that did not begin as theological), in which no single discipline can (or should) dominate the theological landscape, practical theology can begin to emerge as a form of deliberate methodological syncretism that is concerned with making sense of the contemporary church and culture. 76 In short, practical theology or concrete ecclesiology should be, when practised properly, an intellectual expression that is nothing short of the fullest vocation of the theologian: faith seeking understanding. The adoption of this type of theological approach for churches as they face their futures, if they are to succeed in the modelling of a deep, spiritual, integrated, firm but flexible resilience within contemporary culture, will depend on this.

76. In this sense we are close to David Ford's 'dialogical' or 'interrogative' model of theology, a combination of critique, communication and celebration. See Ford, Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 10: '[theology] considers its questions while being immersed in the changes of modernity and at same time drawing on the wisdom and insight of one or more religious traditions... it is often a daily matter of wondering, doubting, trusting, weighing up options, discussing, reading, listening, meditating, discerning, and deciding...theology [is]...thinking about the questions raised by and about the religions'.

Chapter 2 A Knowledge of Angles: How Spiritual Are the English?

The average English Christian (which is to say, the average lay person) seems always to have taken an eclectic approach in matters of belief. Perhaps that is due to the historical experience of the English people in the turmoil of the Reformation period. Today, most church-going members of the Church of England are lukewarm about apostolic succession, but look for reverence in worship. They reject the notion of a collectivist society, but believe that their life in the secular world is the proper place to work out their discipleship. They accept the need for open-mindedness in interpreting and even criticising the scriptures and formularies of religion, but continue to reverence the Bible and to accept the historic creeds, whatever private reservations they may feel about a faith once delivered to the saints and hence immutable.

The title of this chapter is not a misprint; rather it is one of the oldest historical puns we have on the origins of English identity. It refers to an incident described in Bede's History of the English Church and People2 where he tells of how the original mission to England arose out of a misconception in a Roman slave market. Children who are for sale are said to look like angels—but they are in fact Angles, resulting in a mission being conducted from Rome to Britain. The title of the chapter is also a play on a more contemporary work than Bede's, for it presupposes an acquaintance with a novel by Jill Paton Walsh, A Knowledge of Angels? This is an absorbing tale that transports the reader to a mediaeval island, where the ancient but enduring legend of the wolf-child is re-enacted—the story of a pitiful,

1. Graham Neville, Radical Churchman: Edward Lee Hicks and the New Liberalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), p. 14. 2. Bede, A History of the English Church and People (ed. Leo Sherley-Price; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, rev. edn, 1968 [1955]), p. 100. 3. J. Paton Walsh, A Knowledge of Angels (Cambridge: Colt Books, 1994).

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savage girl found by shepherds in the mountains—and set in counterpoint to that of a shipwrecked man whose knowledge of the world, whose engineering skills and whose logic far exceed those of the great and the good who come to question his beliefs. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that one of these two lives must be sacrificed, and the zealous religious character, Fra Murta, becomes the instrument of the Inquisition. It is a novel of ideas, but one in which religion emerges as either tortured or intolerant, and one in which reasoned agnostics (or atheists), and natural phenomena (personified, perhaps, by the wolf-child), are threatened by an ideology that insists on slavish correspondence to religious belief. Thus, to have no knowledge of angels is to risk either being classed as 'inhuman', or death as a godless person, charged with heresy. I cannot tell if the author bears a grudge against religion; but it emerges with little credit in the book. The real hero is the shipwrecked stranger, who seems to bring goodness and kindness to the island from non-religious sources; an act for which he must ultimately die. What is so compelling about A Knowledge of Angels is the implicit assumption that underpins the book: that there might once have existed a society in which the overwhelming majority of citizens were 'Christian'. That is to say, they derived their morality from Christian sources, worshipped regularly if not frequently, and were well versed in Scripture, tradition and articles of faith. The stranger in the novel comes from an 'Enlightened' world in every sense, in which a form of secular humanism is the dominant and acceptable mode of discourse, and furthermore, he appears to steal the moral high ground. Against the present-day background of wars and conflicts that are either caused, fanned or sustained by 'religion', and furthermore a background that can equate the secular with the humane, and religion with darker forces (intolerance, suspicion, superstition), the novel seems to speak with some authority. The work is suggestive, because it appears to promote, in dramatic form, sociological secularization theories dating from the 1960s. My purpose here will be to question how reliable those theories are as a guide to the state of religious belief in England. (Chapter 3 then looks at the historical and ecclesial data in more detail, to further the critique, as well as exploring the European context in more depth.) If one habitually believes all that can be read in the newspapers, the last few years of the second millennium were rather poor ones for English church attendance. A trickle of statistics published throughout 1999 all seemed to suggest that fewer and fewer people were going to church. In

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1979, for example, about 1.7 million people were 'usually' to be found at a Church of England service on any one Sunday. By 1999, that figure is reported to have dropped to just under one million. Ergo, the newspapers concluded, England is becoming a less religious nation.4 To any untrained eye at the end of the century, this assertion looked sound enough. After all, the empty pews are apparently there for all to see: the secularization thesis is true, so it seems. Until, that is, someone like Sir Cliff Richard dismays almost everyone by, as one commentator put it, trundling complacently past rappers, sex goddesses and head-bangers to take the N o . 1 slot with the Lord's Prayer sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne: an enterprise so mind-numbingly, unbelievably kitsch that in our kitchen, even the dog howls that the words don't fit the tune and never will... What can we make of this?... I think we have to accept that this is another magnificent flatfooted Christian footprint. Cliff warbles 'Auld Lang Our Father' and Britain buys it. True, for a lot of buyers it may be the Winter's only religious gesture: but still, they are making it. You can't get around that.

Public displays of mass religiosity—such as those noted around the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales—are a puzzle to some sociologists and newspaper editors, who believe, generally, that the world, and Western Europe in particular, is becoming more secular and less sacred. Just when the thesis looks as though it might gain some purchase, the secular canopy (or construction of reality) is punctured yet again by religion.6 At the beginning of a third millennium, religion continues to persist. The English Spirit? I suppose that, if I had to pick out one phrase or sentence that summed up the ambivalent nature of English religion, it would be these words from Paul Vallely: 'He had the gift of being able to talk to the English about God

4. See P. Brierley, The Tide is Running Out (London, Christian Research, 1999). Cf. Editorial, Church Times (3 December 1999), p. 13. 5. Libby Purves, 'Is God Still No. 1?', The Times (30 November 1999), p. 11. 6. I have inverted Peter Berger's notion of the 'sacred canopy' here, simply to show that secularization is no less a construction of reality than is religion. See P. Berger, A Rumour of Angels (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967); and P. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966). As John Milbank notes: 'sociology is only able to explain...religion, to the extent that it conceals its own theological borrowings and its own quasi-religious status' (Theology and Social Theory, p. 52).

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without making them wish they were somewhere else.'7 Vallely, writing of the late Basil Hume, captures the English attitude to religion perfectly: a mixture of embarrassment and respect, coupled to a yearning for presence and yet a fear of excess. So, just how spiritual are the English? The inquest is a timely one at the turn of a new millennium, for to address it adequately, one really needs to define what is meant by 'spiritual' and what exactly it is that encompasses being 'English'. As nearly everyone knows, the meanings of these words have shifted and expanded considerably in recent years. Clearly, definitions of spirituality abound, as do descriptions and analyses of what constitutes the 'religious' or 'religion'. Equally, there can be no straightforward answer to the question as to what now constitutes 'the English'. 'Spiritual', for instance, can no longer simply mean 'church attendance'—if it ever did. It was Bede Frost who once quipped that English people have often been obsessed with the idea that the spiritual life consists in going to church, which is 'a fond thing vainly invented by the Puritans in the seventeenth century'.8 England has never been an outwardly religious country, if church attendance is anything to go by. Adrian Hastings describes the Church of England in the eighteenth century as being 'profoundly secularised'.9 When Edward Stanley took up his family living in 1805 (at Alderley, Cheshire), the custom was that the verger waited on the path leading to the church, the vicar only being called if anyone actually turned up. It remains the case that for much of English history, vast numbers of people have stayed away from church. 10 Religious enthusiasm

7. Paul Vallely, writing of Cardinal Basil Hume, the Independent (31 December 1999), Review, p. 3. 8. John Moorman, The Anglican Spiritual Tradition (London: SCM Press, 1955), p. 222. Cf. Martin Thornton, English Spirituality (London: SPCK, 1963), where continuity of Christian living is contrasted with regularity of church attendance as competitive embodiments within English spirituality. Thornton's work provides an excellent if eclectic introduction to English spirituality, reflecting an unconscious kind of Anglican imperialism: Anselm, Hilton, Rolle, Kempe, Julian of Norwich and the Caroline Divines are all discussed—but there is little space for Thomas More or the Wesley brothers. 9. Adrian Hastings, A History of English Christianity, 1920-1985 (London: Collins, 1986), pp. 669-75. Cf. Owen Chadwick, The Secularisation of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 265. 10. See A. Russell, 'The Rise of Secularisation and the Persistence of Religion', in S. Brichto and R. Harries (eds.), Two Cheers for Secularism (Yelvertoft Manor: Pilkington Press, 1998), pp. 11-23. Cf. R. Harries, 'Christianity Soldiers Onward', the Observer (26 December 1999), p. 17.

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and revivals have occasionally held sway in the tenth, thirteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Otherwise, the English seem to have been rather lukewarm about religion—the Reformation is, arguably, the very settlement of that.11 Yet although the English may be said to prefer their religion tepid (like their beer: flat, and without much froth), their spirituality deserves closer attention. Opinion polls and surveys consistently show that anything from two-thirds to over three-quarters of the population claim to believe in God. In recent history, this has comforted many clergy, who have understood the English to be, in the words of Grace Davie, 'believing without belonging', and have worked their parish ministry within that paradigm. Davie points out, as others have done in the past, that the decline in church attendance is nothing like as steep as, for example, that of trades union membership or membership of political parties: nearly all traditional institutions and many associations have experienced a marked decline in numbers, power and prestige since the Second World War. Furthermore, the apparent success of recreational or leisure activities should be seen in perspective: cinema attendance is a fraction of what it was 50 years ago. Football, although attracting significant media coverage, can only muster one-sixth of the number of people on a Saturday who attend church on an average Sunday.12 Of course, it is not quite as simple as that. Davie's 'believing without belonging' paradigm is, in my view, not quite right. I prefer to describe the contours of English belief and its connection to institutions and associations as a matter of'relating and mutating'. Very few people choose to have absolutely no relationship with a religious body of belief or institution whatsoever. They may be close to such things or very distant from them, but they nonetheless continue to relate to them, even if only through the media or the most casual contact. Furthermore, that relating is constantly mutating, as social and religious memory is transformed through new insights and experiences.13 Correspondingly, contemporary cultural commentators are at least partly

11. See C. Marsh, Popular Religion in Sixteenth Century England (London: Macmillan, 1998). This book, in the Macmillan Social History in Perspective Series, will be discussed in Chapter 3. 12. Davie, Believing Without Belonging; Russell, 'The Rise of Secularization', p. 16. 13. The elasticity of the 'relating and mutating' paradigm makes more sense of Davie's more recent book, Religion in Modern Europe: A Memory Mutates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), which in turn draws on Daniele Hervieu-Leger's, Religion as a Chain ofMemory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000).

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right when they talk (excitedly) of'pastiche spirituality', academics (coldly) of'religious pluralism', church leaders (critically) of'syncretism'. It is true that many mainstream Christian denominations no longer enjoy the coherence of a homogeneous culture: movements within them are trying to transform them. The 'New Age', growing exposure to other religions, globalization and privatization have driven many to interrogate their faith, and then adapt it. In spite of the numbers of people who claim to believe in God, the undeniable reality of the post-Y2K era is that England is shifting from being a 'Christian nation' to a spiritually diverse society.14 Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that individuals are now beginning to be more inventive with their spiritual lives, assembling private faiths from religious bits and pieces; what is created has meaning and coherence for its creator.15 Many commentators also agree that there is now a sharp difference between previous generations and our own in terms of the transmission and reception of spirituality.16 Quite simply, the term 'spiritual' has suddenly become rather spongy: it seems to lack definition, and yet soak up virtually everything. If any verification is needed of this, one need only turn to the burgeoning appropriation of the term 'spiritual' in a plethora of public spheres. For example, as National Health Service Hospital Trusts grow into their localized subsidiarity, they can start to develop their own distinctive definitions of what it means to offer 'spiritual services' to their client communities. Beyond meeting 'traditional' religious needs and those that are

14. See J. Creedon, 'Designer Religion', Utne Reader (July/August 1998), and republished as 'The Age of the Do-It-Yourself Religion', the Guardian (5 September 1998), p. 11. Cf. G. Barna, Index of Leading Spiritual Indicators (Milton Keynes: Word, 1996), and M. Brown, The Spiritual Tourist: A Personal Odyssey Through the Outer Reaches of Belief (London: Bloomsbury, 1998). 15. See W. Clark Roof, A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco: Harper, 1994), and S. Collins, 'Faith in Young People', in M. Percy (ed.), Calling Time: Religion and Change at the Turn of the Millennium (Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 2000). 16. See N . Ammerman and W. Clark Roof (eds.), Work, Family and Religion in Contemporary Society (London: Routledge, 1995), and M. Mead, Culture and Commitment: A Study of the Generation Gap (London: Bodley Head, 1970). Mead's book, far ahead of its time, distinguished between post-figurative (elders are paramount and answer life's questions), co-figurative (elders set and define boundaries, but expect the younger generation to eventually make their own way in life) and pre-figurative societies (the younger generation establish the primacy and uniqueness of their experience of the world over and against that of the elders).

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best described as 'implicit' or 'folk', healthcare deliverers are increasingly recognizing and appreciating a deeper spiritual pulse that may permeate many areas of practice that have no obvious religious links. Some in the nursing profession argue that their work has a strong spiritual component. In examining healthcare literature, there has been a rush to baptize anything caring or vocational and re-christen it as 'spiritual'. As Ian Markham points out, our problem is that it is not clear precisely what is meant by 'spirituality'...spirituality within a religious tradition looks very different from the way medical practitioners talk about [it]...in healthcare literature it operates in a general way that [opposes] reductionist tendencies in empirical science.

Markham goes on to point out that 'spirituality' is not a term that all religious traditions recognize, and those that do may have alternative accounts of meaning: for example, in Islam, it may mean extinction of the self; in Judaism, it may mean seeking the divine in the midst of the mundane. The conclusion is that 'general' talk of spirituality is unhelpful. That said, where the term is deployed in contemporary healthcare, it tends to cluster around important humane concepts. One author describes spirituality as 'three main aspects of human experience: value, meaning and relatedness'. 18 Thus, in posing the question 'are the English spiritual?' (the links between church, state and crown notwithstanding), one is in danger of asking not very much at all.19 So what of being English? The confidence expressed in the relationship between England and spirituality in T.S. Eliot's 'Little Gidding' ('Here the intersection of the timeless moment is England and nowhere. Never and always') is not nearly so recognizable at the commencement of a new millennium. 20 This is not because England is so different, but because 17. See I. Markham, 'Spirituality in World Faiths', in M. Cobb (ed.), The Spiritual Challenge of Healthcare (London: Churchill-Livingstone, 1998), p. 61. 18. Although on this last point, one might ask how this relates to atheists or humanists, who might well be offended by having their values, meaning and relatedness appropriated by religious definitions. Another author speaks of spirituality in more existential terms: 'my inner person...it is who I am—unique and alive'. See Markham, 'Spirituality', p. 81. 19. For an interesting perspective on this, see Callan Slipper, 'The Shifting Pattern: Spirituality Reconsidered', Theology (July/August 1998), pp. 270-77. 20. Eliot, Collected Poems 1909-1962, p. 202. Of course, one should acknowledge the distinctive voice of English spirituality down the centuries; its writers and practitioners have arguably contributed more to Christianity globally than those of any other nation. Bunyan, Milton, Donne and Herbert—to choose one particular period—are world-

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English identity itself is being transformed. Gone is the 'the English, the English, the English are best' contention of Flanders and Swann (or for that matter the serious irony of Henry Root's forever unpublished spoof, The English Way of Doing Things), to be replaced by a kind of cultural perplexity—a people struggling to escape from xenophobia, and redefine themselves after generations of post-imperial ennui. Thus, we have endured a recent spate of internal enquiries. Jeremy Paxman arguing (at a popular level) that the conventions that once defined the English are dead; Norman Davies in The Isles arguing that Britain has lost its cohesive power. Roy Strong arguing in The Spirit of Britain that all was well at least until the end of the nineteenth century. Yet sometimes, apart from weights and measures, driving on the wrong side of the road, warm beer and Women's Institutes, it is hard to see what being English means at all.21 Indeed, one commentator has lately suggested that the English are 'unique amongst the home nations of the Union, insofar as they have no claim on maintaining their identity'.22 The sources of this situation are complex. The idea of English nationhood has evolved out of a farrago of assertions that look increasingly frayed at the turn of a new millennium. Devolution for the home nations clearly does alter the ethos of a United Kingdom. Subsidiarity within individual nation states, and the relation to a European Union, suggests that political power is more dispersed, interdependent and varied than it has been previously. As a nation, the English are being quietly herded away from regarding themselves as 'subjects' towards owning the title and status of 'citizen'.23 In the process, history is being re-written: Linda Colley has recently challenged the notion that English national identity has been a constant feature of our past. She argues that national identity is a necessary ideological framework that serves extant power interests. As Colley points out, this was done effectively in the eighteenth century by identifying renowned. For an exemplary compilation of writings, see P. Handley et al. (eds.), The English Spirit (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1987). 21. J. Paxman, The English (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1999); N . Davies, The Isles (London: Macmillan, 1999); R. Strong, The Spirit of Britain (London, Hutchinson, 1999). 22. Simon Heffer MP, in a BBC Radio 4 interview (11 January 2000), responding to comments of the Rt Hon. Jack Straw that the English had concretized their identity by oppressing the Welsh, Irish and Scottish, and by acts of aggression abroad. 23. See L. Colley, 'Millennium Lecture', delivered at 10 Downing Street, December 1999. The full text is available at www.number-10.gov.uk—extract reprinted in the Observer (19 December 1999), p. 12.

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English interests against those of, say, the French, and by realigning the 'home nations' into 'Great Britain'.24 It was a defensive strategy, and continues to be expressed in the Acts of Settlement, Union and the coronation oaths. In short, English nationalism has often been elided through British identity. Equally, it must be acknowledged that the England of 2000 CE is markedly different to that of 1950. It may be broadly correct to describe the attitude to mainstream middle-English religion as a matter of 'believing without belonging'. But such generalizations ignore burgeoning multiethnic inner-city districts, where the continuity and practising of faith may be a key component in maintaining ethnic and communal identity. Recent research in East London shows that, alongside the faiths that have arrived with immigration, fundamentalist proselytizing forms of religion and pluralist syncretistic faiths are also to be found, illustrating the continuing importance of religion in daily life.25 So, how are we to proceed from here? In the remainder of this chapter, it will be necessary to elucidate some key features of the secularization theory, its development, strengths and weaknesses. In Chapter 3, it will be argued that this kind of sociology is a form of poor and eclectic history, which fails to capture adequately the dual nature of religion and society. The overall conclusion, reached in Chapter 3, will look at how 'the Pelagian apathy of the average sensual Englishman'26 waxes and wanes in relation to church attendance, and ask whether or not this matters. These two chapters have limits, naturally. In using the terms 'spiritual' and 'religion', I shall mainly (but not exclusively) be referring to examples from Christianity, particularly the Church of England, which I hold is still the primary arena for the expression of the innate spiritual affections of its people.27 24. L. Colley, Britons: The Forging of a Nation 1707-1837 (London: Pimlico, 1995). Cf. Tom Nairn, After Britain (London: Granta, 1999). Efforts to unite Britain were made from the twelfth century onwards; unity under one monarch was achieved in 1603, then political union in 1801—but only until 1922. 25. G. Smith, 'Ethnicity, Religious Belonging and Inter Faith Encounter: Some Survey Findings from East London', JCR 13.3 (1998), pp. 333-47. 26. To borrow a phrase from David Martin. See Walker and Percy (eds.), Restoring the Image. 27. 'Spiritual', as a term, is necessarily more synthetic than analytic, since biblical tradition does not really divide divine-human relations into sacred-secular, or religioussocial. Similarly in England, the Book of Common Prayer and the Authorised Version of the Bible are part of the national heritage. See N . Sykes, The English Religious Tradition (London: SCM Press, rev. edn, 1961).

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An Unfinished Symphony? Some Sonatas of Secularization Theory For many observers and commentators in the Western world, it is a 'given' that society is becoming more secularized. Furthermore, there is some degree of collusion between those who regard this as a welcome development and those who, to quote Eliot, identify the moment as 'an age which advances progressively backwards': Let the Vicars retire; Men do not need the Church In the places where they work, but where they spend their Sundays. In the City, we need no bells: Let them waken the suburbs. I journeyed to the suburbs, and there I was told: We toil for six days, and on the seventh we must motor To Hindhead, or Maidenhead. If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers...

28

Whether one is pessimistic or optimistic about the future of religion, there can be no denying that the major lens through which religion is viewed in contemporary culture is sociological in origin. Secularization theories come in all shapes and sizes. Their success or failure, to a large extent, depends on prior definitions of 'society' and 'religion', their separation as distinct entities, and finally, conjecture about their subsequent relation. As with so much of life, size matters, as do relations. To function, a successful secularization theory needs a small and de-limited definition of religion, in which 'implicit' religion, 'common' spirituality or folk religion are not to be taken that seriously. The gradual decline of official or 'state' religion is then charted as part of the territory of late modernity, which, in turn, is identified as the arena for social fulfilment. In other words, a secularization hypothesis is often a kind of pseudo-psephology of church attendance, whereby the data that is collected must fit the underlying presuppositions of the theory. It is interesting to see how sociologists can deploy an analogy to stretch a point. Steve Bruce, one of a small number of sociologists who still advocate a 'classic' secularization thesis, suggests that the contemporary religious situation of England is one in which 'the grand symphony' of religion has gone, only to be replaced by 'small groups of enthusiastic music-makers'. 29

28. Eliot, 'Choruses from the Rock', in Collected Poems 1909-1962, pp. 178, 161-62. 29. S. Bruce, Religion in the Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996),

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Bruce sees 'religion' being squeezed out by the modern world; he imagines a history in which ordered adherence to sacred values was once widespread, but is now rare. Humanity gradually evolves from its dependence on divinity. 'Religion' is the land that time is rapidly forgetting. Thus, an analogy about orchestration, composition, performance, audience and attention ('the symphony') is born; this is a sweeping socio-historical narrative about the alleged former power of Christendom. Yet no sooner is the analogy plucked from the womb of sociological imagination, than it is effectively killed off by its composers. The suspects, blamed for the demise of religious power and its influence, are revealed: modernization, rationalization, globalization, individualism, privatization and the like, all of whom belong to a constructed sociological cabal known as 'secularization theorists'.30 Expressed like this, the story line here is more opera than symphony. Nonetheless, the analogy is deceptive in its simplicity, plotting as it does a sonata of ever-decreasing interest in God and the performance of 'religion' (which is hardly ever defined).31 The origins of the secularization symphony (for it surely is its own production: a kind of'intellectual history'), as an ascription and description of religious history in the West, are varied. The etymology of the word 'secular' lies in a Latin term, meaning only 'that which belongs to its own time'. 32 In the twelfth century, the term was used to differentiate parish clergy from those priests in religious orders. Only in recent times has the term been antonymous in relation to religion. For example, in 1850, the term 'secularism' was being deployed more systematically by one G.J. Holyoake, to describe 'the doctrine that morality should be based on regard to the well-being of mankind in the present life, to the exclusion of all

p. 234. Here Bruce echoes an earlier Weberian analogy. See also S. Bruce (ed.), Religion and Modernisation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982). 30. I find the linking of these terms with late modernity highly problematic. It seems to me that the idea of 'globalization' has been around since the days of Alexander the Great; rationalisation since the time of Archimedes; and secularization since Jesus asked his followers to befriend Mammon and the world, and 'render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's'. Others have made similar points. See J. Habgood, Church and Nation in a Secular Age (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983), p. 27. 31. See Ludovic Kennedy, All in the Mind: A Farewell to God (London: Sceptre, 1999), for an interesting perspective on the collusion between an apologia for atheism and theories of secularization. 32. The Oxford English Dictionary (on Historical Sources), II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 1926.

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considerations drawn from belief in God'. 3 3 In contemporary and popular usage, the term now carries a variety of meanings: modernity is eclipsing religious frames of reference; individuals are being liberated from irrational beliefs; society is either evolving or disintegrating, due to the decline of religion. T h e assertion of sociologists in the 1960s that the world was in the grip of an irreversible process of secularization, and that 'religion was in decline', is the most basic tenet of the theory. Bryan Wilson expresses the creed in these terms: Secularisation relates to the diminution in the social significance of religion. Its application covers such things as, the sequestration by political powers of the property and facilities of religious agencies; the shift from religious to secular control of various of the erstwhile activities and functions of religion; the decline in the proportion of their time, energy and resources which men devote to super-empirical concerns; the decay of religious institutions; the supplanting, in matters of behaviour, of religious precepts by demands that accord with strictly technical criteria.

Wilson is another exponent of a 'classic' secularization thesis. T h e notion of 'decline' is the principal presumption, and in looking for causes, it reaches back in history to find them, completing the circularity of argument. Marx, D u r k h e i m and Darwin are cited as persons w h o had an impact on religious thought; the Reformation is presented as a m o m e n t at which the secular state first emerged; Protestantism as the beginning of individualism; the Enlightenment as the shedding of beliefs in the supernatural, in favour of the rational. 35 In such thinking, it is a crisis in religious belief that has led to 'the plausibility structures' of religion being undermined. 3 6 Granted, this is the simplest kind of sonata in the symphony, yet its boldness is but a prelude. Thus, Berger can state that: N o human society can exist without legitimation in one form or another. If it is correct to speak of contemporary society as increasingly secularised (and we think that this is correct), one is thereby saying that the sociologically crucial

33. D. Edwards, Religion and Change (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1969), p. 15. Cf. Russell, 'The Rise of Secularisation', p. 12. 34. B. Wilson, Religion in Sociological Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 149. See also idem, Religion in Secular Society: A Sociological Comment (London: Watts & Co., 1966). 35. Russell, 'The Rise of Secularization', p. 14. 36. Berger, A Rumour ofAngels, p. 47.

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A more recent exponent of the secularization theory is Callum Brown, who writes as a historian. In The Death of Christian Britain, Brown argues that the very core of the nation's religious culture has been irrevocably eroded. More unusually, however, he argues that the process known as 'secularization', while gradual and endemic, is not the result of the industrial revolution or the Enlightenment. Rather he argues that it is the result of the catastrophic and abrupt cultural revolutions of the post-war years, and most especially those trends and movements that began in the 1960s.38 Brown's book is full of insight, and his appeal to the cultural forces of late modernity as a corrosive influence on religious adherence is more nuanced than those of Wilson or Bruce in their references to Marx, Darwin and Freud. Yet Brown also has a master key to history, when he writes that It took several centuries (in what historians used to call the Dark Ages) to convert Britain to Christianity, but it has taken less than forty years for the country to forsake it. For a thousand years, Christianity penetrated deeply into the lives of the people, enduring Reformation, Enlightenment and the industrial revolution by adapting to each new social and cultural context that arose. Then really, quite suddenly in 1963, something very profound ruptured the character of the nation and its people, sending organised Christianity on a downward spiral to the margins of social significance. In unprecedented numbers, the British people have stopped going to church...

For Brown, that 'something profound' is the fact that The cycle of intergenerational renewal of Christian affiliation, a cycle which had for so many centuries tied the people however closely or loosely to the churches and to Christian moral benchmarks, was permanently disrupted in the 'swinging sixties'. Since then, a formerly religious people have entirely forsaken organised Christianity in a sudden plunge into a truly secular condition.

To be sure, this is a gripping narrative, and with a date—1963. How long, then, before Britain becomes 'truly' and wholly secular? Brown does 37. Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, 'Sociology of Religion and Sociology of Knowledge', Sociology and Social Research 47 (1963), pp. 417-27. Reprinted in R. Robertson (ed.), Sociology of Religion (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969), p. 68. 38. C. Brown, The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000 (London: Routledge, 2000). 39. Brown, Death of Christian Britain, p. 1. 40. Brown, Death of Christian Britain, p. 1, and see also chs 8 and 9.

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not say, but the teasing question draws our attention to his rhetoric, which contain in-built vectors of decline: 'ruptured', 'downward spiral', 'disrupted', 'forsaken' and 'sudden plunge' suggest a mind already made up. While it may be true that the 1960s, with their revolutions of popular culture, social liberalism and political upheaval did more to question and shake the foundations of institutions than in previous generations, it would appear that Brown is also guilty of shaping his facts around his thesis. While it is clearly helpful to assess religious adherence down the ages through the lens of generational change, it simply does not follow that if the present generation is uninterested in religion or spirituality, then the next will be even less so. Moreover, is it not the case that many religious movements began in the 1960s? Ecumenism, charismatic renewal, the New Age movement and a variety of sects, cults and new religious movements were part and parcel of the culture of experimentation that dominated the 1960s. Would it not be fairer to say that, far from turning off religion, people were rather turned on by it, and tuned into it in new ways that simply reflected the emerging post-institutional and post-associational patterns of post-war Britain?41 Although we are wholly concerned with England in this chapter, the limits of the 'classic' secularization thesis, and of Brown's historical variant, are more easily exposed by particular reference to other countries. In Indonesia, at present, enhanced religious adherence has been a by-product of modernization and intensive urbanization. As people from outlying districts and islands have converged on new towns and cities, they have lost their previous 'settled' identity. This has been recaptured for many by identifying with a community built around a mosque or church. 42 The same is true of Korea, where religious adherence has grown in direct proportion to urbanization, and has only now become less intensive as urbanization has begun to slow down. In the USA, in theory the most advanced secular nation in the world, religion and church-going continue

41. Hugh McLeod's recent historical survey of secularization, although covering a different period, seems more balanced than Brown's. For every instance of secularization there is a counter-instance. English non-conformity rose in the late nineteenth century; Roman Catholicism has also enjoyed periods of prominence in the twentieth century. See H. McLeod, Secularisation in Western Europe 1848-1914 (London: Macmillan, 2000). 42. In the same way that historians have explored the rise of Methodism because of the industrial revolution, or noted that religious participation in the USA significantly increased during its most rapid periods of modernization. O n Indonesia, see R. Harries, 'Comment', Observer (26 December 1999).

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to be socially significant.43 Throughout the Western world, sales of religious, spiritual self-help and New Age books are booming. Secularization theorists can, at this point, defend themselves by confining their remarks to Europe—a case of 'exceptionalism', but which will nevertheless eventually influence the world through globalization.44 Larry Shiner's work, for example, further qualifies the 'classic' theory by offering six 'simple' types of the secularization concept in use today: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Decline of religion. The previously accepted symbols, doctrines and institutions lose their prestige and influence. The culmination of secularization would be a religionless society. Conformity with 'this world'. The religious group or the religiously informed society turns its attention from the supernatural and becomes more and more interested in 'this world'. Disengagement ofsocietyfrom religion. Society separates itself from the religious understanding which has previously informed it in order to constitute itself as an autonomous reality and consequently to limit religion to the sphere of private life. Transposition of religious beliefs and institutions. Knowledge, patterns of behaviour and institutional arrangements which were once understood as grounded in divine power are transformed into phenomena of purely human creation and responsibility. Desacralization of the world. The world is gradually deprived of its sacred character as humanity and nature become the object of rational-causal explanation and manipulation. Movement from a 'sacred' to a 'secular' society. For Shiner, this last qualification is a general concept of social change, emphasizing multiple variables through several stages.

Yet even here, with this cautious and carefully nuanced thesis, there are caveats to be noted. In Denmark, over 90 per cent of the population continue to be confirmed. In Greece, over 95 per cent of the population are still baptized into the Orthodox Church: they have no word that covers the term 'secularization'. That said, others have questioned the extent to which Europe could ever have claimed to be Christian: the inculturation of 43. See The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34-38 (1995-99). There is almost no issue of the journal without an article on secularization, belief and the church in the USA. 44. L. Shiner, 'The Concept of Secularisation in Empirical Research', JSSR 6 (1967), pp. 207-20.

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Christianity in the West has never been 'pure', any more than it has been in Africa or Asia.45 This renders the rather depressing trajectory of 'classic' secularization theories—decline leading to fragmentation—even more suspect. The simple sonatas of Wilson, Bruce, Brown and others have given rise to a number of variations on the theme. One of those is from David Martin, who has seen a number of factors—including dissonance in belief, the relative respect for the public role of religion and the clergy, and its continued persistence at many levels in English society—pointing towards Christianity's continuing and important role in contemporary life.47 Martin has also criticized 'classic' secularization theories on the basis of their foundations, which amount to the propagation of'master trends...rooted in an ideological view of history'.48 Commenting specifically on England, Martin has noted the continuance of quasi-religious views about life: astrologers on prime-time television, horoscopes in many national newspapers, and the like.49 None of this suggests a more secular world. In Renan's words: 'The gods only go away to make places for other gods.'50 Following David Martin, Grace Davie has taken another approach to the concept, using more subtle ideas of differentiation. While Martin's approach was partly resourced through careful historical work, Davie's is more concerned with common spirituality, in which the English religious situation is described as 'believing without belonging'. Davie's work is a partial rehabilitation of another revised thesis, found in the writings of Thomas Luckmann (and later, Peter Berger). Here, the notion of'invisible religion' is invoked, with religion acquiring a wider seat in the sociology of knowledge, rather than being simply institutionally based.51 Then there are empirical and theoretical modifications of the concept. Mention should be made of Robin Gill's work on church decline and 45. See Anton Wessels, Europe: Was it Ever Really Christian? (London: SCM Press, 1996). 46. Cf. Bruce, Religion in Modern Britain. The subtitle reveals the plot in advance: 'From Cathedrals to Cults'. 47. See D. Martin, A General Theory of Secularisation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978), and Breaking of the Image. 48. D. Martin, The Religious and the Secular (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), pp. 9-23. 49. D. Martin, A Sociology of English Religion (London: SCM Press, 1967), pp. 52-56. 50. Russell, 'The Rise of Secularisation', p. 18. 51. P. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966).

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growth. Gill's work is especially valuable, adding much to our understanding of religious attendance. Gill argues plausibly that the secularization thesis rests upon a false historical picture of the popularity of religion in past times: that the gradient has not shifted from one of ascendancy to that of decline.52 Indeed, as Russell notes: The work of recent historical research has made the intensity of the religious condition of the mediaeval past less easy to believe in... traditional society was more secular and more modern than [has] been described...commercially aggressive, self-confident and expansionist...

Recent work in the sociology of religion has attempted to put some considerable distance between itself and the 'classic theories'. For example, Jose Casanova's work offers a critical revision of the concept and the theory of secularization, embedded in a historical account of the development of Western modernity. He argues that the de-privatization of religion forces us to rethink and reformulate, but not necessarily to abandon uncritically, existing theories of secularization. The analysis shows that what passes for a single symphony of secularization is actually made up of three different sonatas: secularization as religious decline, secularization as differentiation, and secularization as privatization. The assumption that religion will tend to disappear with progressive modernization, a notion that has proven to be patently false as a general empirical proposition, is traced genealogically back to the Enlightenment critique of religion.54 Secularization: More Caveats At the beginning of the 1970s it would have taken a brave person to predict that by the turn of a new millennium religion would still prove to be resilient, and that there would be an apparent resurgence of faith and spirituality, with new places of worship being built in profusion, new religious sects emerging in greater numbers, and fundamentalisms on the 52. For example, compare Gill's essay in Bruce (ed.), Religion and Modernisation with E. Barker, J. Beckford and K. Dobbelaere (eds.), Secularisation, Rationalism and Sectarianism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). 53. Russell, 'The Rise of Secularisation', p. 17; Cf. A. Macfarlane, The Origins of English Individualism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978), p. 168. J. Maltby, Prayer Book and People in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), offers a more optimistic perspective on lay interest in the English church. 54. Jose Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

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increase. Is this 'God's revenge', in Kepel's memorable phrase?55 Sociologists such as Aldridge seem to think so; he describes the secularization theory as being 'in retreat'.56 Is it not time to cancel God's funeral? Certainly the origins of the religious efflorescence are varied. Of considerable importance, notes Jeff Haynes, is the fact that popular faith in progress— via secular modernization—has widely collapsed. Instead, the postmodern condition—the contemporary Zeitgeist—reflects a widespread undermining of the certainties by which people, especially in the West, have lived for decades.57 Haynes does not believe that it is accurate to describe what is happening as a global religious resurgence. This is because tens of millions of people—especially, but by no means exclusively, in the Third World—have been staunchly religious throughout their lives; consequently, it is inappropriate to claim that they have suddenly rediscovered religion. Millions of other people in other parts of the world also have what might be called 'the religious impulse'. This involves a quest for meaning that goes beyond the restricted empirical existence of the here and now. It is an enduring feature of humankind. 58 So far as we are concerned with the English situation, there can be no question that sociology has struggled in recent years to come to terms with its persistence. Davie warns that given the complexities of contemporary society, the classic sociological explanations of religion are faltering: new frames of reference need to be found.59 Davie points to the 'persistent undercurrents of faith', and describes the growing chasm between indices of belief (which remain fairly high), and statistics that apparently (and regularly) suggest a marked decline in religious membership and practice. It seems that religion persists, but not necessarily in its traditional forms. As I noted in the Introduction, faith is mutating rather than disappearing: 'religious values' are now an invisible part of the sociology of knowledge, because sociologists and churches have either forgotten how to look, or perhaps never learned. Yet the salt is in the earth, and religion is proving to be remarkably resilient in an apparently secular age.

55. G. Kepel, The Revenge of God (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994). 56. A. Aldridge, Religion in the Contemporary World: A Sociological Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999), ch. 5. 57. Jeff Haynes, Religion in Global Politics (London: Longman, 1997). 58. For further discussion, see the varied treatments of secularization in W. Braun and R. McCutcheon (eds.), Guide to the Study of Religion (London: Cassell, 2000). 59. Davie, Believing Without Belonging, pp. 5-9; cf. Clarke and Byrne, Religion Defined and Explained, pp. 204-206.

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Support for this narration is available empirically, both for Europe and for Britain. The surveys undertaken by the European Values Systems Group (1981 and 1990) have serious consequences for the secularisation symphony, having 'discovered' that Most Europeans maintain a belief in God and regard themselves as religious, but the Christianity they profess is 'diluted'... God remains very important... four out of five Europeans identify themselves as belonging to a Christian religious denomination, and almost three out of four claim to have been brought up religiously at home...

The British Social Attitudes Survey61 states that the British are neither devout nor irreligious: seven out often adults claim to believe in God, and almost two thirds claim affiliation to a denomination. That said, it does seem to be the case—following Casanova, and others—that theism is becoming increasingly more general, and religion more private, individual and relative. This may partly (but not wholly) account for the rise in socalled 'New Age' religion,62 although it is by no means clear that this actuality vindicates the secularization thesis, as some sociologists suggest.63 Some sociologists, in spite of these observations, still claim that contemporary church attendance patterns suggest that secularization is strengthening its grip, no matter how much religious affinity or spiritual efflorescence is claimed by those within faith communities. A narration of decline and fragmentation seems to be fundamental to the discipline. However, a more detailed understanding of church attendance patterns reveals something altogether more interesting. A number of different methods are presently being used to calculate attendance figures, and have all arrived at different results and conclusions from their surveys. For example, the Church of England contends that concentration on the 'Usual Sunday Attendance Figure' (uSa) misses vital data: those attending midweek services, occasional offices (weddings, funerals, baptisms, etc.) and services taken in residential or nursing homes are excluded. Christian Research has recently attempted to measure the frequency of church attendance, and has discovered that one quarter of 'regular' worshippers 60. See The European Values Study 1981-1990 (London: Gordon Cook Foundation, 1992), p. 10 and p. 42. 61. Ninth Report (Aldershot: Gower, 1992-93). 62. Were we more concerned with philosophy than with sociology, a treatment of postmodernity would be appropriate here. O n the fraying of innate Christian theism, see Lakeland, Postmodernity. 63. See A. Greeley, 'The Tilted Playing Field: Accounting for Religious Tastes', Journal of Contemporary Religion 14.2 (May 1999), pp. 189-204.

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only attend church between 13 and 26 times per year, and another quarter attend only around four times per year (Christmas, Easter, Remembrance Day, Mothering Sunday, etc.). Equally, some Roman Catholics point to the recent pattern of more worshippers attending Friday or Saturday evening mass (and thus missing Sunday), in order to leave more time at the weekend for family or social activity.64 Sociologically, the rise of the weekend as a phenomenon in Britain has significantly influenced church-going habits, in ways that have still to be properly studied and interpreted. Yet despite the clear evidence of the widespread tenacity of English religion, a small minority of sociologists of religion continue to try to salvage the secularization theory, by arguing that we are witnessing no more than the last, dying gasps of religion.65 (This is despite the 'classic' theory being weakened by its own unsteady evolution, hundreds of qualifications and caveats, and some first-class, even lethal critiques.66) They continue to claim that modernization does indeed secularize, and that the contemporary efforts of religion to modernize itself merely represent a last-ditch attempt to triumph in a war that will turn out to be unwinnable. Ultimately, secularization will achieve victory.67 We have been here before, of course. As Rodney Stark points out, Auguste Comte (1798-1857) took the view that 'as a result of modernisation, human society was outgrowing the 'theological stage' of social evolution'.68 Soon everything would be explained by science. Max Muller, in his 1878 lectures at Westminster Abbey, bemoaned that every day, every week, every month, every quarter, the most widely read journals seem just now to vie with each other in telling us that the time for religion is past, that faith is a hallucination or an infantile disease, that the gods have at last been exploded.

64. Cf. Brierley, The Tide is Running Out; and Church Times (3 December 1999), p. 13. 65. For an excellent summary of the discussion, see S. Hanson, 'The Secularisation Thesis: Talking at Cross Purposes', JCR 12.2 (1997), pp. 159-79. 66. See T. Jenkins, 'Two Sociological Approaches to Religion in Modern Britain', Rel 26 (1996), pp. 331-42; and Religion in English Everyday Life (Oxford: Berghahn, 1999), p. 34. See also R. Laermans and J. Billiet (eds.), Secularisation and Social Integration: Essays in Honour of Karel Dobbelaere (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1998). 67. S. Bruce, 'Religion in Britain at the Close of the Twentieth Century: A Challenge to the Silver-Lining Perspective', JCR 11.3 (1997), pp. 3-21. 68. R. Stark, 'Secularisation RIP', in R. Stark and R. Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p. 58. 69. M. Muller, Lectures on the Origin and Growth ofReligion as Illustrated by the Religions of India (London: Longmans Green, 1880).

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Yet as Stark says, 'these views are wrong in all respects'. The modern variant of this pessimism only seeks to draw our attention to a steep decline in church attendance, and to infer from this a lack of individual faith due to the shattering of beliefs.70 And yet, there is no demonstrable evidence that there is a long-term decline in European (or, particularly, American) religious participation. Moreover, levels of affinity towards religion and the spiritual remain consistently high. From the survey so far, it is clear that the 'classic' theory of secularization is in some disarray: unfinished and uncertain. Yet the theory remains strong—in public life, the media, and even the church71—partly because many (especially clergy, perhaps) believe themselves to be experiencing the process, even as Western society shifts from modernity to postmodernity. The thesis still seems a compelling one in contemporary life, when one looks at the empty churches of England. The comparatively monotone sociological 'symphony' of secularization, (while undoubtedly containing some fine movements), must be judged against history if its 'master narratives' are to be properly exposed and critiqued. It is to this exercise, concerning English religion, that we now turn.

70. Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith, p. 62. 71. See D. Lyon, The Steeple's Shadow (London: SPCK, 1985), and J. Habgood, Varieties of Unbelief (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2000): both authors seem to share the assumptions of the secularization thesis, even though their writings elsewhere have challenged them.

Chapter 3 Cultural History: The Revision of Secularization Theories

[The] Church of England is the maddening institution it is because that is how the English like their religion—pragmatic, comfortable and unobtrusive. Small wonder that so many English writers have preferred the dramatic certainties of [Roman] Catholicism. You simply couldn't write a novel like Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory about a church built on the conviction that anything can be settled over a cup of tea... [its] everyday liturgy, with its insistence upon prayers for the monarch and 'all those set in authority under her' is the voice of a church that knows its deeply conservative and semi-secular place in English society... [But] it would be a mistake to see the historical animosity towards Catholicism as proof of enthusiasm for Protestantism. You only have to look at the hostility shown towards non-conformists for taking the Bible too seriously: John Bunyan... spent the best part of twelve years in Bedford gaol for preaching without a licence.

The intentional pun in the previous chapter on Angles and angels refers us back to the incident described in Bede's History of the English Church and People. Witnessing the sale of some slaves in a Roman market, Gregory is so taken with their demeanour that he begs the Pope 'to send preachers of the word to the English people in Britain to convert them to Christ'. 2 The story is interesting on a number of counts. First, and according to Bede, Roman Christianity has already been active in England for centuries: the martyrdom of Saint Alban is dated at 301 CE.3 Secondly, it is clear from Bede that 'the English', in their genesis, are a multi-racial people, comprising Britons, Celts, Angles, Saxons and others, and that their identity 1. Paxman, The English, p. 98. 2. Bede, History, p. 100. Cf. R. Gameson (ed.), St Augustine and the Conversion of England (Stroud: Sutton Publishers, 1999). 3. Bede, History, p. 44.

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continued to evolve. Indeed, we might say that the term Anglo-Saxon confirms the English as a people whose identity is perennially hyphenated (an insight for which I am in the debt of Billy Bragg). Thirdly, there is ample evidence of religious syncretism being tolerated and fostered in England from earliest times. A copy of the letter sent by Pope Gregory to Abbot Mellitus on his departure for Britain in 601 CE states that we have been giving careful thought to the affairs of the English, and have come to the conclusion that the temples of the idols among that people should on no account be destroyed. The idols are to be destroyed, but the temples themselves are to be aspersed with holy water, altars set up in them, and relics deposited there... In this way we hope that the people, seeing their temples are not destroyed, may abandon their error and, flocking more readily to their accustomed resorts, may come to know and adore the true God. And since they have a custom of sacrificing many oxen to demons, let some other solemnity be substituted in its place such as a day of Dedication or the Festivals of holy martyrs whose relics are enshrined there... If the people are allowed some worldly pleasures in this way, they will more readily come to desire the joys of the spirit. For it is certainly impossible to eradicate all errors from obstinate minds at one stroke...

These insights tell us at least two things. First, cultural continuity is a factor in establishing and maintaining a new religion. Where familiar elements of the past are retained, there is likely to be more success in introducing the 'new'. As Rodney Stark points out, 'by thinly overlaying pagan festivals and sacred places with Christian interpretations, the [seventhcentury] missionaries made it easier [for people] to become Christian—so easy that actual conversion seldom occurred'.6 If Stark's cultural appraisal is correct—and I think it is for the most part, insofar as it is focused on European identity—then it is probably also true that people cannot easily give up what they have yet to fully embrace. In other words, 'Christianity' is not one single 'thing' that either rises or falls in popular public subscription. It is certainly not a religion that was once 'fully accepted' in England, and is now being slowly rejected—that kind of assumption represents a misreading of European cultural Christian history. Christianity is, rather, a complex bundle of memories, social affirmations, critiques, symbolic ceremonies, beliefs, and more besides, which are themselves

4. Bede, History, p. 56—Middle, East and other Angles are mentioned by Bede later. Of course, this is all before even the Normans arrive—1066 and all that. 5. Bede, History, pp. 86-87. 6. See R. Stark, 'Efforts to Christianise E u r o p e ' J C £ 16.1 (2001), pp. 105-23.

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intricately woven into the cultural fabric of regions, nations, histories and the lives of individuals. Sometimes Christianity competes with previously held beliefs or practices: at other times it complements them, or then again combines with them. 'Secularization', whatever that describes, is not some sort of virus that attacks all of this at every level, for it remains the case that cultural continuity and development continue to demand a relationality with religion, which although perhaps stopping short of a fully committed belonging, nonetheless does not give up on believing.7 Secondly, the sort of religious pragmatism described by Bede is commonplace in English history and in European culture too. For example, Queen Elizabeth I may have settled the Reformation on the English, but this did not prevent her from consulting a personal wizard for most of her life. (There is nothing particularly new about English royalty consulting astrologers.) In general, the establishment of Christianity as the religion of Europe was often done alongside but not against other religious convictions. Stark cites the example of Clovis, who, although baptized, would not forsake his ancestral gods for political reasons—'the people that followeth me will not suffer that I forsake their gods'.8 And although Christianity gradually 'trickled down' from the elite converts (the monastically based missionaries normally worked on the wives of kings, princes and rulers, converting them to Christianity first) to the masses—the process taking hundreds of years—elements of paganism continued to survive. Even today, in Iceland for example, polls consistently show that a majority of people, including religious leaders and intellectuals, claim to believe in huldufolk (hidden people), such as gnomes, trolls, elves and fairies.9 It is not the case that 'modern times' have seen the rebirth of pre-Christian beliefs and the decline of Christianity; the pagan beliefs have never been absent, and the hold of Christianity on European societies, never so full or complete as to eclipse rival systems of belief. Mixtures of folk or 'common' spirituality competing with and complementing 'official' religion are part of the tapestry that makes up English and European society, and the phenomenon is by no means confined to pre-modern times. 10 As Alan 7. For fuller discussion, see Hervieu-Leger, Religion, and Davie, A Memory Mutates. 8. Stark, 'Efforts to Christianise Europe', p. 111. 9. Stark, 'Efforts to Christianise Europe', p. 115. See also C. Nickerson, 'In Iceland, Spirits are the Material World', Seattle Post-Intelligencer (25 December 1999), p. 12. 10. For a sideways glance at this issue, see R. Brett, Faith and Doubt: Religion and Secularisation from Wordsworth to Larkin (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997). See also S. Gilley, A History ofReligion in Britain (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1997).

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Wilkinson notes, the First World War exposed many Church of England clergy for the first time to a full range of implicit religion, innate spirituality and superstition in the trenches.11 Insofar as there was a religious response to this, the more astute chaplains worked with such phenomena, rather than going against them. Sketching the Antithesis The strategy of opening up a critique of secularization through cultural history is intentionally simple. As Diarmaid MacCulloch quips, 'every academic is convinced that [his or her] own discipline forms the straightest road to enlightenment'. 12 Sociology is frequently guilty of obscuring its own production as only one arrangement of reality. Sociologists are constructionists; not naturalists, simply observing life. As Catherine Bell remarks: 'That we construct "religion" and "science" is not the main problem: that we forget we have constructed them in our own image—that is a problem.' 13 Raymond Aron goes further, and argues that At the risk of shocking sociologists, I should be inclined to say that it is their job to render sociological or historical content more intelligible than it was in the experience of those who lived it. All sociology is a reconstruction that aspires to confer intelligibility on human existence, which, like all human existences, are confused and obscure.

Mills adds that 'the sociological imagination enables [or should enable] its processor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals...' 15 And I would add that the task of the historian is the resurrection of the dead: the making of their time so real to the present that we cannot doubt that in their time they were as real as we are in our time. One of the biggest complaints about secularization theories is that they imagine a world—a Christendom—in which all knew and believed roughly the same things;

11. A. Wilkinson, The Church of England and the First World War (London: SPCK, 1978). 12. D. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), p. 46. 13. C. Bell, 'Modernism and Postmodernism', RelSRev 3 (July 1996), pp. 190-97. 14. R. Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought, II (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970), p. 207. 15. C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 5.

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decline comes with Enlightenment and industrialization. In this portrayal, the Grand Narrative frequently ignores important historical data. Any historical 'facts' that are assembled are produced in order to prove an underlying thesis that has already been determined, namely, that religious influence and affiliation are waning.16 The point is that social theorists who measure and judge 'secularity' against the success or failure of 'official' religion have failed to read the plot.17 There have been very few periods in English history when everyone went to church or Sunday school, knew right from wrong, and absolutely believed everything their parish priest said. As Keith Thomas notes, 'what is clear is that the hold of organised religion upon the people [of England] was never so complete as to leave no room for rival systems of belief'.18 As further evidence, Thomas cites an extract from one of Oliver Heywood's Diaries: One Nov 4 1681 as I travl'd towards Wakefield about Hardger moor I met with a boy who would needs be talking. I begun to ask him some questions about the principles of religion: he could not tell me how many gods there be, nor persons in the godhead, nor who made the world nor anything about Jesus Christ, nor heaven nor hell, or eternity after this life, nor for what ends he came into the world, nor for what condition he was born in—I ask't him whether he was a sinner; he told me he hop't not; yet this was a witty boy and could talk of any worldly things skillfully enough...he is 10 years of age, cannot reade and scarce ever goes to churche...

16. See S. Bruce (ed.), Religion and Modernisation: Sociologists and Historians Debate the Secularisation Thesis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992): even in this volume, the sociologists heavily outnumber the historians. Peter Glasner's The Sociology of Secularisation: A Critique of the Concept (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977) suggests that were the sociology of religion to be deprived of its secularization theories, little would remain that could provide the discipline with coherence—an implied criticism relating to the absence of proper historical research. 17. Noted exceptions such as David Martin should be explored in more detail. See D. Martin, Reflections on Sociology and Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); cf. idem, 'Sociology and the Church of England', in K. Dobbelaere (ed.), Sociologie et Religions: Des Relations Ambigues (Kadoc: Leuven University Press, 1999), pp. 131-38. 18. K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971), p. 178. This quotation is resonant with David Edwards's quip (echoing Ted Wickham's work—see below) that the Church of England 'has not lost the inner cities— it never had them'. 19. Thomas, Religion, p. 206; Cf. Oliver Heywood, Diaries (ed. J.H. Turner; London: Taylor and Hesseg, 1885), IV, p. 24.

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Granted, the Yorkshire region could be argued for as a special case. Ever since records began for the area, church attendance figures have been consistently poor, and always below any national average.20 Ted Wickham's masterly study of Sheffield religion confirms the apparently bleak prognosis, when he notes that From the emergence of the industrial towns in the eighteenth century, the working class, the labouring poor, the common people, as a class, substantially as adults, have been outside the churches. The industrial working class culture pattern has evolved lacking a tradition of practice of religion.

That said, detailed readings of parochial records from almost any age can illustrate the pragmatic, amateurish nature of 'official' English religion, and how ordinary people chose to relate to it: Clophill We present William Spellinge the 23 of Marche beinge then called Palme Sondaye in the churche & tyme of eveninge prayer, before suche maydes as then had receaved the communion, dyd in theyre seate lye upon his backe verye unreverentlye till the ende of the fyrste lesson, and also other tymes dothe seem to forgette to yeilde dewe reverence in the tyme of dyvyne service. Langford Our chancell is owte of repayre in tymber & wyndowes, at the parsons defaute. Our churche wyndowes are in decaye by reason of fowle that cometh in at the chancell wyndowes which hathe broken them. Bedford Sancti Petri [sic] There is no pulpitte in the littel churche. The x commandments are not on the walles. The chancell & churche are not paved in some places. Colmworth We have had no service on the weeke dayes not from Maye daye last tyll September & no service on Sancte Peters Eve nor Sancte Bartholemewe Eve nor Michaelmas daye at nyghte & they had iiij [sic] children christened iiij wayes, & he woold not let the parishe see his licence & one syr Brian Hayward dyd in the like case. Umphrey Austyne churche warden last yere wold not present the lead that was missing oute of the steeple. Item Nicholas Dicons, Thomas Jud, William Quarrell & his wyfe have not receaved

20. See J. Gay, The Geography of Religion in Britain (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1971). 21. E. Wickham, Church and People in an Industrial City (London: Lutterworth, 1957), p. 14. Wickham also cites a clergyman, one Mark Docker, writing in 1817, who observes that 'Sheffield is not the most irreligious town in the Kingdom', but that out of one community of residents ' y ° u perhaps see a solitary instance where a whole household of several persons are regular attendants' (pp. 84-85). See also Brown, Death of Christian Britain, p. 21.

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this xij monthes. Item the Quenes Iniunctions or the bisshoppes were not made thes iij yeres nor the catechisme taughte. Tylsworth We have had but one sermone since Michaelmas, which was the Sondaye after N e w yers daye. Farandiche The chancell & parsonage are in decaye by the parson's defalt. They have but one sermon this year. Bidham We doe present that we had no Communion but once this yeare, and that our last churchwardens dyd not make there accompt for the yere. Patnum [Pavenham] Our chansell is in decaye and redye to faule dwone, at the defaute of Trynitye College in Cambridge.

The picture painted of religion in sixteenth-century Bedfordshire is probably enough to raise Bunyan from his grave. Yet it is interesting to note how little has changed. The churchwardens are really only concerned about two things: the state of their church building, and where they are going to get their next priest from. There is no mention of the Mass or its absence, no mention of the Book of Common Prayer, and no indication that the laity care for their diocese or for their bishop. In other words, the cares and concerns of the laity in 1578 are very similar to those of today's churches. The mediaeval and Reformation periods are often characterized as ages of great faith. Certainly, individuals and communities did die for their faith. Equally, however, the scale of apathy and antipathy should not be underestimated. The eleventh-century monk, William of Malmesbury complained that the aristocracy rarely attended Mass, and even the more pious heard it at home, 'but in their bedchambers, lying in the arms of their wives'.23 At least they heard Mass, though; according to Murray, 'substantial sections of thirteenth century society hardly attended church at all'.24 Were the clergy any better? Hardly. William Tyndale complained that, in 1530, few priests could recite the Lord's Prayer or translate it into English. When the Bishop of Gloucester tested his clergy in 1551, of 311 priests, 171 could not repeat the Ten Commandments—but this is hardly surprising, as there were few seminaries.25 Did any of this matter? Hardly. 22. Archdiaconal Visitations in 1578 (Bedfordshire Historical Records Society, no. 69; Bedford, 1990). 23. R. Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity (New York: Holt, 1997), p. 476. See also Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith, p. 63. 24. A. Murray, 'Piety and Impiety in Thirteenth Century Italy', Studies in Church History 8 (1972), pp. 92-94. See also Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith, p. 63. 25. Thomas, Religion, p. 164. See also Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith, p. 66.

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It would seem that the impact of the clergy on their congregations was very slight. As Keith Thomas notes, 'members of the population jostled for pews, nudged their neighbours, hawked and spat, knitted, made coarse remarks, told jokes, fell asleep and even let off guns', with other behaviour including 'loathsome farting, striking, and scoffing speeches', which resulted in 'the great offence of the good and the great rejoicing of the bad'. 26 This haphazard, semi-secular, quiet (but occasionally rowdy and irreverent) English Christianity continues well into successive centuries.27 James Woodforde's Diary of a Country Parson provides an invaluable window into the life of the clergy and the state of English Christianity in the eighteenth century. Again, a close reading of the text suggests that whatever secularization is, it is not obviously a product of the Industrial Revolution. Woodforde is writing just before the social and economic changes; his parish is ten miles from Norwich Cathedral, yet he clearly thinks it is reasonably good to have 'two rails' (or 30 communicants) at Christmas or Easter, from 360 parishioners. His church is only ever full when there is either a war on, or a member of the royal family is gravely ill. (Again, not so different from today, except the royal family are in better health, and England doesn't go to war as much as it used to.) In this respect, Woodforde is typical of his time: few people went to church. Indeed, rates of attendance then are comparable to those of the late twentieth century.28 He carries out sundry services (especially christenings) in the warmth of his parlour and not in church, and we learn more from his Diaries about the food he eats and the company he keeps than we ever do about the Christian 29

year. Overall, his attitude to his own profession is mild, relaxed, rather lacking in zeal, and certainly exhibiting no anxiety about the small numbers of people attending his church on an ordinary Sunday. For example, his diary entry for Sunday 17 October 1758 states that 'Mr Dade read and preached this morning'—it would seem that only four attended. On 5 October 1766, he tells us that 'I entirely forgot about St Luke's Day, and therefore did not 26. Thomas, Religion, pp. 161-62. See also Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith, p. 66. 27. See, e.g., M. Spurrell (ed.), The Brightwell Parish Diaries (Oxford Record Society, vol. 62,1998). 28. The Oxford Diocesan Visitations for 1738 record that 30 parishes drew a combined total of 911 communicants for Easter, Ascension, Whitsun and Christmas—less than 5 per cent of the total population. See Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith, p. 67. 29. James Woodforde, The Diary of a Country Parson 1758-1802 (ed. John Beresford; Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1999). See the Introduction by Ronald Blythe, p. vii.

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read prayers at Castle Cary which I should have done otherwise. As it was not done wilfully, I hope God will forgive it.' On 5 September 1759— another Sunday—he takes the afternoon off to go 'to the Bear-baiting in Ansford'. Even in epochs of revival and religious fervour, such as the Reformation period, it is not possible to show that church attendance was high. Historians agree that there is a 'general lack of statistically reliable evidence'.30 Part of the burden of Keith Thomas' work is to show that 'a substantial proportion' of the population remained hostile to organized religion, resulting in paltry church attendance. On the other hand, Eamon Duffy asserts that certain Masses were very well attended in some places—but there is little evidence supplied to support this contention. Scarisbrick argues that most late mediaeval people seldom went to church, and when they did, probably only arrived for the elevation of the host.31 Mention should also be made of the 1851 census, which caused alarm in many Victorian church circles because of what it revealed about the lack of provision of space for Christian worship. Indeed, the census was widely regarded as revealing low levels of church attendance, even though these same levels would be envied by many of the modern clergy.32 Ironically, the Victorians responded to their perceived religious crisis by building numerous large churches in the second half of the nineteenth century to accommodate the new populace, who with rare exceptions then proceeded largely to ignore them. Equally, the numbers of churches being built in areas that were depopulating also rose in the same period.33 Today, many Christian denominations, it seems, have inherited far too many buildings of too great size, many of which have seldom been filled to capacity. Recent work on the 1851 census has, however, cast even clearer light on the 30. Marsh, Popular Religion, p. 41. 31. Marsh, Popular Religion, pp. 41-42. See also E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (London: HarperCollins, 1992), p. 465; J. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 163; Thomas, Religion, pp. 190, 204. 32. The standard work to consult on this is R. Currie, A. Gilbert and L. Horsley, Churches and Churchgoers: Patterns of Church Growth in the British Isles Since 1700 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977). Readers are also referred to A. Gilbert's subsequent reflections: Religion and Society in Industrial England: Church, Chapel and Social Change 1740-1914 (London: Longman, 1978) and The Making of Post-Christian Britain: A History of the Secularisation of Modern Society (London: Longman, 1980). For further primary sources, see R. MudieSmith, The Religious Life of London (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1904) and T. Chalmers, The Christian and Civic Economy ofLarge Towns (Glasgow: Collins, 1821). 33.

R. Gill, The Myth of the Empty Church (London: SCM Press, 1992).

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churchgoing habits of the Victorians. According to Snell and Ell,34 religious geography has to be factored into any equation that is attempting to assess the strength or weakness of denominations. For example, the core areas of strength for the Church of England were to be found mostly in the south. The success of the established church is, however, not only related to economic strength. Bedfordshire, a county with high rates of illiteracy and illegitimacy, enjoyed considerable Anglican support, as it did for Baptists and Wesleyans. In the north, however, the picture is different, with Free churches enjoying higher levels of support than their Anglican counterparts, arguably representing a form of dissent. The figures for Sunday school attendance are also revealing: 2.6 million children were enrolled in all denominations in 1851. Yet in 1911, with secularization, in theory, being more advanced, that figure had leapt to more than 6 million. The figures, in other words, do not reveal a standard 'decline and fall' narrative, but rather a movement—in this case the spiritual education of children—that is relatively recent within church history, and whose popularity may have already peaked.35 Similar variables in other eras need reckoning with. The population of the City of London (i.e. the square mile) in the late seventeenth century was 750,000. Yet in 1900 it was only 10,000—but the beautiful churches of Wren and others, which once served a resident population, are still there, and are mostly empty on Sundays. Thomas' work, parish records, church census data and Parson Woodforde, as any good historian knows, show that the English situation is neither a wholly sacred nor a wholly secular one. It is one in which official religion waxes and wanes against a background of innate spirituality.36 This 34. K. Snell and P. Ell, Rival Jerusalems: The Geography of Victorian England (Cambridge: Cambridge Universiy Press, 2001). 35. In my research here, I have examined a number of twentieth-century parish magazines from different parts of England. O n many occasions (say between 1920 and 1939), the clergy write to their parishioners that 'it is nice to see the children on Sunday afternoons for a few hours, but we never seem to see the parents...', implying that the Sunday schools are being used by parents to mind their children for them. Clergy write about baptisms in similar ways. Many of the parents who have their children baptized then disappear from the church until the adolescent confirmations. 36. This means, of course, that 'official religion' can become the centre of irreverent but good-natured humour. For an interesting perspective on books that out-sold the Bible in the sixteenth century, feasting, festivals and various Shrovetide rituals, see M. Screech, Laughter at the Foot of the Cross (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1997), pp. 226ff Jenkins (Religion in English Everyday Life) argues that we need better theorizations of

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may be crudely formed, but opinion polls and surveys consistently affirm that most choose to describe themselves as believers in God, even though they may not belong. There is ample enough evidence. Diana's death, Hillsborough, Heysel, Zeebrugge: a litany of'disasters' that prompt an outpouring of 'common spirituality'.37 Each of these tragic ruptures in mundane reality (or rather the rejoinders to them) is suggestive of an innate disposition—a kind of lazy-hazy theism—which occasionally bursts upon the public domain, and in turn demands a 'response' from 'official' religion. This may only be opening the church for candles and silence, but the offering does help give some articulation, shape and focus to common spirituality.38 None of this disproves the theory of the decline of official religion, but it does suggest that 'classic' secularization theories are blunt instruments. Spirituality remains common; religion can still be public; and there was no Golden Age of belief that has now been 'lost'. Furthermore, it was always thus: the angle on Angles is that things are not so very different now from in the past. The English, like many other peoples in Western Europe, are anterior in their semi-secular spiritual identity; any ulterior values may have little impact on this. So, the purpose of this somewhat eclectic history has been twofold. First, I want to underline the point made in the previous chapter, namely that the secularization symphony remains unfinished, partly due to its own uncertainty, but also because historical data suggest that English religion has often persisted in the midst of pluralism and change. The earliest and boldest of the secularization sonatas are based on suspect foundations: theses 'supported by anecdotes',39 as Jenkins describes them. Secondly, I have sought to demonstrate that the apparent English indifference to 'official' religion is not a product of secularization, modernization or the Industrial Revolution.40 rather, this coolness is culturally 'normative' for English culture, to show how it constantly co-opts and copes with the new, and with apparent antitheses. Religion persists alongside and in relation to pluralism and change. Furthermore, this phenomenon is not new: our own 'breathless view of chronology' gives undue appeal to the secularization thesis. 37. See F. Bridger, The Diana Phenomenon (Cambridge: Grove, 1998). 38. Cf. 'Popular Religion', Concilium (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986). 39. Jenkins, Religion in English Everyday Life, p. 34. 40. Nor is it a product of Protestantism. One interesting feature of Roman Catholic scholars such as Kieran Flanagan (sociology) and Eamon Duffy (history) is the way in which they use their disciplines in narrating the blame for English indifference to church attendance, attaching it to the Reformation. For further reflection, see D. Cressy, Marriage

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the English (at least), and furthermore (and paradoxically), pursued with some degree of passion.41 It is also apparent from our survey that within that very same indifference to religion, there is consistent affection.42 Moreover, the idea that an era of faith once existed and was unchallenged has been shown to be false. Religious apathy or antipathy was widespread in the Middle Ages and in other periods of English history. The proposition that the Golden Age of Faith is now lost is part of the secularization myth. Murray puts it well: 'the scientific enlightenment was tempted to conceive faith not as a virtue, but as an original sin, from which the Messiah of knowledge came to rescue it'.43 So, while it is true that the 'culture' of postmodernity may have an impact on this in the near future, there is no real case for describing religion in England in terms of a trajectory of descent, namely 'from cathedrals to cults'.44 The evidence marshalled on attitudes to church attendance—taken from previous centuries—suggests that any talk of 'decline' from the proponents of secularization theory is a particular production of the sociological imagination rather than one of reason (to paraphrase McAulay), which has failed to test itself in sustained historical research.45 Thus, the original analogy that Bruce uses to describe the grand 'symphony' of Christianity (that has allegedly crumbled into groups of 'enthusiastic music-makers') and Death: Ritual, Religion and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). 41. From a sermon by Rt Revd Lord Robert Runcie, at the Anglican Consultative Council, Durham Cathedral, 1981; quoted in A. Hastings, Robert Runcie (London: Cassell, 1991), p. 162. 42. See for example D. Jenkins, The British, their Identity and Religion (London: SCM Press, 1975). 43. Murray, 'Piety and Impiety', p. 106. 44. For two alternative perspectives, see D. Edwards, The Futures of Christianity: An Analysis of Historical, Contemporary and Future Trends within the Worldwide Church (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1987), and P. Brierley, Christian England (London: Marc Europe, 1991). 45. For example, David Martin points to periods of secularization in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and to intense periods of de-secularization such as the Romantic Movement. I suspect that one of the reasons that secularization theories emerge as rather 'thin descriptions' of reality is the failure of sociologists to develop an adequate philosophy of history in the first place. See R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1946); E.H. Carr, What is History? (London: Pelican, 1961); K. Jenkins, Re-Thinking History (London: Routledge, 1991). That said, others would see the 'thin' description as an inheritance of the detachment of sociology from anthropology, and its own research not being sufficiently grounded.

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looks rather suspect. Indeed, might not the parallel be reversed to redescribe secularization theorists? Perhaps it is more of an expression of the confines of the sociological imagination, and the limits of the secularization thesis, than a matter of fact. Peter Berger, no less, has admitted as much: I think that what I and most other sociologists of religion wrote in the 1960s about secularisation was a mistake. O u r underlying argument was that secularisation and modernity go hand in hand. With more modernisation comes more secularisation. It wasn't a crazy theory. There was some evidence for it. But I think its basically wrong. Most of the world today is certainly not secular. It's very religious.

Perhaps it is time, after several decades of failed sociological prophecies, to consign the secularization doctrine 'to the graveyard of failed theories, and there to whisper, "Requiescat in pace" \ 4 7 Rest in Peace. Back to the Future? Revisiting the English Church One of the difficulties faced by sociologists in addressing the issue and nature of innate spirituality is deciding upon what to measure and assess. A common problem with 'classic' secularization theories is their tendency to elide the cultural boundaries between 'church' and 'Christianity', and treat these areas both similarly and quite indifferently. To be sure, the two are connected. However, as we noted earlier, 'religion' is part of the wider sociology of knowledge in England, which in turn is mainly (but not wholly) formed by a type of indigenous Christianity. Semi-independent of the influence of the actual church, 'Christian memory' lives on in society, albeit with a shallow and haphazard pulse—but this has always been so. This in turn renders the classic secularization theories a kind of permanent 'false memory syndrome', replete with grand symphonies, golden ages and master trends, necessarily leading to a vector and verdict of decline in the present.48 Circumstantial evidence, a farrago of statistics, the feeling of the 46. P. Berger, 'Epistemological Modesty: An Interview with Peter Berger', Christian Century 114 (29 October 2000), pp. 972-75, 978. See also Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith, p. 79. 47. Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith, p. 80 48. For an alternative and more self-conscious view of sociology, see A. Giddens, New Rules of Sociological Method (London: Hutchinson, 1976), pp. 159-62. Cf. idem, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), p. 14: 'the pivotal position of sociology in the reflexivity of modernity comes from its role as the most generalised reflection on modern life...the discourse of sociology and the concepts, theories and findings of the other social sciences continually circulate in and out of what it is they are

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experience of living in a secular age; all combine to confirm this thesis. Yet closer attention to historical detail may suggest otherwise. One commentator suggests that English 'religion' may have recovered from its apparently terminal illness, and that 'it is [now] difficult to support the secularization hypothesis as an irreducible process in modern society'.49 This assertion of resilience is supported through the matrix of Alan Gilbert's observation that in England, commentators and social theorists have often been bewildered by the persistence of religion, coupled to an inability to distinguish between the apparent secularization of society and its de-Christianization.50 A number of recent surveys support this, and suggest, as we noted earlier, that England is moving away from being a Christian nation towards becoming a spiritually diverse society. In spite of that, church-going and Christian belief remain important features of English life. Moreover, religious experience remains common and widespread, semi-independent of this.51 However, three cautionary notes should be sounded. First, the apparent decline of English (or British) Christian beliefs— measured in surveys and statistics—has been carefully analysed by Robin Gill, among others. Lest there be any complacency about the inadequacies of the secularization thesis, it would seem that 'general' beliefs in God have declined markedly in recent times: from four-fifths of the population to two-thirds. Under one half of the population now think Jesus was the Son of God. Belief in life after death is held by about half the population, but the number of people actively not believing in life after death has risen significantly. Somewhat bizarrely, belief in the devil has climbed back to the levels of the 1960s, after polling rather poorly in the 1970s.52 Gill's observations are consistent with patterns that can be traced in Europe, about. In so doing, they reflexively restructure their subject matter...' (italics mine). See also Jenkins, Religion in English Everyday Life. 49. Russell, 'The Rise of Secularisation', p. 19. Cf. E. Bailey, Implicit Religion (London: Middlesex University Press, 1999). 50. Currie, Gilbert and Horsley, Churches and Churchgoers. This volume remains one of the most important historical surveys on church attendance. However, Robin Gill has suggested that the data collected in the 1850s may have a tendency to overestimate the numbers of people attending church. See R. Gill, The Myth of the Empty Church (London: SPCK, 1993). 51. See David Hay, Religious Experience Today: Studying the Facts (London: Mowbray, 1990). 52. R. Gill, C. Kirk Hadaway and P. Long Mather, 'Is Religious Belief Declining in Britain?', fSSR 37.3 (1998), pp. 509-20 (509).

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which point towards the gradual erosion of belief, and the rise of what he terms 'disbelief.53 Secondly, and allied to this picture of crumbling Christian belief, there also seems to be mixed news on church attendance. According to Peter Brierley, 10 per cent of the English population were in Church on a 'normal' Sunday in 1989—about 3.7 million people. Merseyside has the highest percentage of churchgoers (14 per cent), and South Yorkshire the lowest (6 per cent).54 However, these figures represent a decline on the data gathered from 1979, which in turn, led to various media headlines reporting that the churches were 'losing 1,000 members per week'.55 The underlying trend may still be said to be worrying: fewer and fewer young people seem to be from religious backgrounds, suggesting that the reservoir of religious knowledge is leaking away.56 Weekly (or frequent) church-going is in decline, although this does not mean that actual regular church-going is suffering. The only positive gloss on this is offered by Davie, who suggests that religious 'belonging' remains very popular, provided one now distinguishes between organization and denomination. Various Christian associations, activities and other forms of voluntary (religious) organizations continue to provide important outlets for many.57 However, we must also note a north-south divide in England. In the north of England, Christianity has not been 'established' in the same way that it is in the south. A combination of cultural factors need to be taken into account to understand this dynamic. The large industrial towns of the north have never been particularly well-disposed towards established religion, which has tended to emphasize the inequalities of the class system; Non-Con53. R. Gill et al, 'Is Religious Belief Declining?', pp. 510-14. 54. See P. Brierley and C. Longley, UK Christian Handbook 1992/3 (London: Marc Europe, 1991). Cf. Brierley, Christian England. 55. The weekly figure may now only be 7.5 per cent, but critics of Brierley's data have asked what 'member' means here, given that the Church of England has no real concept of membership. Electoral Roll figures are notoriously ambiguous, and the uSa figures may also be unhelpful. 56. See British Social Attitudes: Seventeenth Report (London: Sage, 2000), and B. Martin, 'Believing Less, Allowing More', Church Times (1 December 2000), p. 1; also J. Kerkhofs, 'Between "Christendom" and "Christianity" \ Journal of Empirical Theology 1.2 (1988). The data from the European Value Systems Study Group, which Gill uses to look at Britain, is in M. Abrams, D. Gerard and N . Timms (eds.), Values and Social Change in Britain: Studies in the Contemporary Values of Modern Society (London: Macmillan, 1985), and N . Timms, Family and Citizenship, Values in Contemporary Britain (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1992). 57. Davie, Believing Without Belonging, p. 71; Timms, Family and Citizenship, pp. 28-32.

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formity has also played a part, by fostering 'congregational' rather than communal-organic religion. Even in rural parts of the North, the Church of England does not usually enjoy the same kind of support it could expect in Gloucestershire or Devon. 58 Granted, there are exceptions. The northeast, with its intensive Celtic Christian roots, 'feels' imbued with religious empathy in a way that South Yorkshire has never known. 59 Thirdly, the persistence of 'non-traditional' types of belief also presents the observer with a somewhat cloudy picture. Beliefs in reincarnation, horoscopes and ghosts have remained virtually constant for the last thirty years, as has the percentage of people expressing disbelief in them. 60 While such beliefs are often carelessly disregarded as 'superstition', their prevalence indicates that a 'religion in decline' thesis is too general. Gill and Davie also suggest that the resurgence of fundamentalism and the rise of new religious movements also point towards diversification. Paul Heelas goes further, and suggests that the success of capitalism itself may provide religion with an opportunity; he partly explains the rise of some more recent New Age movements by linking their particularity to the cornmodification of religion in a consumerist world.61 There are at least three ways of interpreting these indices.62 Classic secularization theorists seize on the vectors of decline, and point towards an increasingly marginal status for religion in the lives of individuals and national affairs. In such thinking, the persistence of non-traditional religion is seen as evidence of the rise of individualism, and symptomatic of the erosion of religious values and beliefs. Others such as Davie continue to emphasize the persistence of religion. Finally, others see the picture as one of accelerating (post-war) pluralism and change, rather than decline or persistence.63 Each of these interpretations acknowledges some degree of secularization, while at the same time affirming the continuing powers and adaptability of religion.64 58. A priest of a rural parish in the diocese of Blackburn recently told me of how, in his village, a millennium tea towel was produced that illustrated the ten most significant buildings in his community, but carefully omitted a picture of the Norman church. 59. Cf. Snell and Ell, RivalJerusalems. 60. Gill et al., Is Religious Belief Declining?, p.511. 61. See P. Heelas, 'The Sacralisation of Self and N e w Age Capitalism', in N . Abercrombie and A. Warde (eds.), Social Change in Contemporary Britain (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), pp. 139-66. 62. Gill et al., Is Religious Belief Declining?, p. 514. 63. Russell, 'The Rise of Secularisation', p. 21. 64. For further exploration, see J. Beckford, Religion and Advanced Industrial Societies

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Secularization in the Church Chapters 2 and 3 have both been vigorously contesting the 'classic' secularization thesis (and its reading of the relation between religion and society), and arguing for a synthesis of the interpretations of 'persistence' and 'pluralism and change'; the earlier historical excursion, to some extent, confirmed this as 'normative' for English religion and European culture. This is, of course, by no means the end of the matter. In presenting secularization theories, the sociology of religion will increasingly have to take into consideration a fuller and proper account of national religious and cultural histories, lest it risk being dismissed as more of a death wish than a serious argument. Rodney Stark sounds a warning note, arguing that religion in Europe is in no bad state, and that attachment to religion in North America is not a case of'exceptionalism': Of course, most of my European colleagues will accept none of this, charging that American religiousness is nothing but an atavism caused by the social weakness of American intellectual elites. In contrast, they say, religion has been overcome once and for all in Europe. I find this nothing but whistling in the wind, given surveys that consistently show that overwhelming majorities in all parts of Europe say they are personally religious, that they pray, and that they believe in God. 6 5

Perhaps what is most puzzling in all of this is not the perseverance of religion in the face of modernity, so much as the persistence of secularization theories when there is so much evidence to the contrary. Moreover, the theories—a kind of lens through which many now interpret postEnlightenment history—has a peculiar grip on the public imagination. Indeed, it is tempting to say that the last two professions that really believe in secularization theories with any passion are newspaper columnists and clergy.66 With respect to the media, it can easily be excused: a story of (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989); Phillip Hammond (ed.), The Sacred in a Secular Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); T. Luckmann, The Invisible Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1967). 65. Stark, 'Efforts to Christianise Europe', p. 120. See also Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith. 66. See, e.g., David Aaronovitch, 'I'm an Atheist, But All my Friends are Religious', in the Independent (28 December 2000)—the author seems to be very surprised by this, but is not unwelcoming of it. Or Will Hutton, more typically pushing the secularization thesis, arguing that 'with the churches fighting for their lives, we must now look beyond gods to ourselves build a new moral order', in 'Faith, Hope and Clarity', the Observer (31 December 2000), p. 29.

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decline and fall is just that—a good story.67 But what of the clergy? Witness this quotation from an edition of the Modern Churchman: We are living in a post-Christian world... Christianity is an interesting cultural survival...all Christians are alike aware of the widespread nature of the belief that is a thing of the past...it is a fact that the influence of the churches has declined during the last fifty years.

One could easily be forgiven for thinking that it is part of a sermon, perhaps preached only yesterday. But in actual fact, the words hale from an article written in 1946. Yet this is a 'typical' message that many in the churches believe in, and even preach—evangelicals and liberals alike hope to gain capital from such insights. Culturally, secularization theories are 'demons' that possess the minds of clergy, bringing both comfort and torment. If nothing else, therefore, proper historical study and cultural interpretation ought to act as a mild form of exorcism. Yet it is far from easy to exorcise secularization theories from clerical minds. In Callum Brown's recent book,69 the argument is put that secularization is, comparatively, a very recent phenomenon. Charting the growth of institutional religion in Britain from 1945 to the early 1960s, Brown contends that it is the change in the role of women that has done for Christianity, rather than scientific rationalism. The apparent feminization of religion in the Victorian era led to a resurgence of family values in postwar Britain, in which various bourgeois standards rose to the surface, and were equated with 'religion' (Sabbath observance, drinking in moderation, etc.). What undid this cultural trajectory was a combination of liberalism and feminism—Brown cites the Beatles and the end of the ban on Lady Chatterley's Lover as examples. It is precisely this kind of 'half-thesis' that strikes a chord with clergy, some of whom have long been worried about the falling numbers in the Mothers' Union and the lack of young people in church. Brown appears to be right: but is he? Well, hardly. Brown's thesis simply ignores North America, where people of all ages go to church in droves. It also assumes, and here again it is morphologically similar to the work of Steve Bruce, that 67. Although as scholars such as Grace Davie point out, the decline in trades union membership, attendance at football matches or cinema-going—all of which enjoyed much higher levels of support in the 1930s than they do today—somehow does not translate into similar media stories of decline. 68. Denys Whiteley, 'The Historic Jesus and Modern Evangelism', Modem Churchman 36 (1946), pp. 271-80. 69. Brown, Death of Christian Britain.

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it is 'obvious' that Victorian religion was 'feminized', which propped up its popularity both then and in the 1950s. This is a 'fact' that would have surprised figures such as Josephine Butler or Maude Royden. Yet reviewing the book on the day of publication, Karen Armstrong, a Roman Catholic writer, concedes all points and surrenders without a struggle: 'he clearly shows that Christianity, as we have known it in this country, is in its death throes'.70 So, we are left with a problem. Churches appear to be wilfully attached to the 'glass is half empty' mindset, which allows a continual lease of life for the secularization theorists. However, as I hope I have made clear, the 'glass is half full' thesis has no less intellectual credibility. Undoubtedly, the shaping of the church and its mission has been largely undertaken, at least in the latter half of the twentieth century, by those who have been hypnotized by the secularization thesis. Leaders of the church speak all too frequently about 'managing decline' or 'rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, whilst the ship is fatally holed below the waterline'. It will be interesting to see, culturally, whether the optimists or the pessimists triumph in the shaping of the churches and their public ministries in the twentyfirst century. But where exactly does this leave an institution like the Church of England in relation to its own people? If innate spirituality continues to endure, independent of the churches, what are its priests really for? Equally, if pluralism becomes an ever more powerful driver in a post-war, postmodern age, will there be any future coherence for the idea of 'English', 'religion' and 'spiritual'? Unsurprisingly, the answers will lie with the English themselves, and I must make three observations. First, the recent proposals to reform the House of Lords contained within the Wakeham Report, suggest that a binding between religion and politics is axiomatic to English identity and its constitution: religion is part of the 'hidden wiring' within the state. The nature of religious representation is undoubtedly broadening out to reflect increasing pluralism and change, but there appears to be no appetite for removing religion from the heart of the nation.71 Indeed, despite a limited

70. K. Armstrong, 'That's Us in the Corner, Losing our Religion', the Independent (22 December 2000), Review, p. 3. 71. See M. Percy, 'Reform, Revolution or Refraction: The Church and the State', in The Church in the Future (Lincoln Studies in Theology; Sudbury: Yard Publishing, 1999), pp. 1-27; K. Medhurst and S. Moyser, Church and Politics in a Secular Age (Oxford:

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degree of religious disestablishment taking place in other parts of Europe, it would seem that religion continues to occupy civic and political space, largely by invitation, if not by right. Secondly, clergy (particularly within an established church) continue to be in demand, offering a ministry that is public, performative and pastoral. The phenomenon of 'vicarious' religion has long been acknowledged, the mechanism whereby an institution and its representatives are needed to believe in things that others are not quite so certain of.72 At times of death, birth, love and loss, the church is often there to provide focus, articulation, meaning and interpretation. It is there for the liminal moments in life, when transition and change often demand a transcendent point of reference. It remains the case that few leave church because of intellectual doubts; and few join out of conviction. Relating to the church remains a very English thing.73 Most people come to church through friendships, relationships or life-changing events; considered choices seldom play a significant part. Thirdly, religion continues to provide enchantment within the modern world; people know there is more to life than the explicable and visible. Moreover, religion is also part of the chain of social memory that enables society to cohere. Whether or not churches are well attended at Christmas, the popularity of nativity plays at school and carol singing remains significant and pervasive.74 Small wonder that church buildings—even apparently empty ones—continue to say something to the English, and something about England; that faith is not dead, and is woven into English culture, history, fabric, and identity.75 As Simon Jenkins points out, 'an English church is more than a place of denominational worship. It is the stage on which the pageant of the community has been played out for a millenClarendon Press, 1988); and R. Harries, 'A N e w Chamber', Church Times (28 January 2000), p. 8. 72. See, e.g., the treatment of English religion in W. Carr, Say One for Me (London: SPCK, 1992). 73. Russell, 'The Rise of Secularisation', p. 20. 74. Research work on children's nativity plays, their influence and significance, is currently being undertaken by Professor Elaine Graham at the University of Manchester. See E. Graham, ' "The Story" and "our stories": Narrative Theology, Vernacular Religion and the Birth of Jesus', in G. Brooke (ed.), The Birth of Jesus: Biblical and Theological Reflections (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000), pp. 89-100. 75. Witness the discussion on the importance of church buildings in rural communities in Faith in the Countryside: The Report of the Archbishops' Commission on Rural Areas (London: Church House Publishing, 1990).

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nium'. 76 The future of the nation (and indeed, of any other) lies in a deepening of its appreciation of this past, in all its cultural ambiguity, plurality, tolerance, semi-sacred and semi-secular eccentric Englishness. For England, at least, the poetry of T.S. Eliot captures the cultural-religious milieu with these words: .. .the communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living... .. .A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails O n a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel 77 History is now and England...

76. S. Jenkins, England's One Thousand Best Churches (London: Allen Lane, 1999). See also G. Howes, 'Seeing and Believing', Church Building (October 2000), pp. 30-31. 77. Eliot, 'Little Gidding', in Collected Poems 1909-1962, pp. 215, 222.

Chapter 4 Church-State Relations in Britain: Transforming Culture

Do you find the speed, with which radical changes to the British constitution are being proposed, unnerving or bewildering or both? Is the anchor working loose? Is too much being swept away? Will devolution to Scottish and Welsh assemblies weaken the coherence and cohesion of the United Kingdom, will the expulsion of hereditary peers from the House of Lords disturb the traditional make-up of parliament without there being a clear idea of who will take their place, and will a European currency together with closer European integration mean that the Germans have won the Third World War without even firing a bullet?... But isn't it typical of the Church of England to rush headlong onto the bandwagon? 'We are an evolving society' Bishop Richard Harries tells us. Speaking about the next coronation, he said: 'I do not think it is essential to the service that there should be a celebration of Holy Communion'... An unofficial group...met in Sheffield (an unlikely location) on three occasions in 1998 to discuss Church-State relationships... Dr Martyn Percy...reported that the consensus of the group had been that the coronation rites needed to be reconsidered. 'There needs to be some acknowledgment', he said, 'that a Book of Common Prayer Eucharist may not be the appropriate focal point for the coronation of the nation's monarch in the 21st century.'

Not so long ago, a person staying at Lambeth Palace, sitting in the study once occupied by Thomas Cranmer, could look across the River Thames and see, in a single sweep, the entirety of the British establishment. This particular window in the Archbishop of Canterbury's residence, facing north as it does, seems to have its view almost entirely blocked by the 1. C.A. Kilmister, 'Editorial', Faith and Heritage (The Journal of the Prayer Book Society) 46 (Spring 1999), p. 1. Kilmister's Editorial is based on a series of articles carried in the Sunday Independent (24 January 1999), written by Rachel Sylvester, Chief Political Correspondent.

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Houses of Parliament (Lords and Commons). Yet looking further, one can see some of the most important ecclesiastical buildings in the land: Westminster Abbey (a 'Royal Peculiar'); Millbank, occupied by the Church Commissioners, one of the largest landowners in the country; Church House Westminster—home to the Church of England's 'civil service'; Westminster Central Hall (Methodist); and the very top of Westminster Cathedral (Roman Catholic). For the crown, parts of Buckingham Palace are just visible. For the government, Downing Street, the Department of Education and the Foreign Office are easily spied. Not so very long ago, the internal telephone system at Lambeth Palace included direct lines to 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.2 Within contemporary culture, there can be little doubt that times are changing, and with it, definitions and perceptions of 'establishment'.3 Hereditary peers are losing their privileges in the House of Lords.4 The British nation, as a whole, is markedly less deferential to what is collectively known as 'the establishment' and its culture. In turn, this has implications for the Church of England—a church that is 'established by law', especially when it is only in one country (England) within a Union of countries that enjoy an increasing degree of devolved power.5 Central to any enquiry relating to national churches is the use of the word 'establishment': the term is somewhat imprecise, but normally highlights the intimate relationship between the church—or particular churches and their individual nation states. That relationship is expressed in markedly different ways throughout Europe, an unsurprising result of geography, history (both ecclesiastical and secular), and the general cultural diversity of Europe. And yet behind the constitutional questions, there are also a cluster of theological issues that connect with establishment (such as the relationship between the monarchy of God and the social legitimization of authority in power), not to mention the hegemonic structures present in any sociality 2. Source: Dr Graham Howes, Fellow, Trinity Hall Cambridge, and advisor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1979-89. Cf. Simon Schama, A History of Britain, I (London: BBC Books, 2000), pp. 10-17. 3. Cf. the Spectator (20 March 1999)—almost an entire issue devoted to 'Monarchy and the Millennium', with writers including Kenneth Rose, Andrew Neil, Victoria Mather and Allan Massie; see esp. pp. 42-58. 4. Cf. D. McKie and M. Parr, 'House of Cards', Guardian (27 March 1999), Magazine, pp.10-17. 5. The (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland has been the established church in Scotland since the Reformation. The Anglican church was disestablished in Ireland during the reign of Victoria, and disestablished in Wales in 1923.

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which might include class, race, gender, wealth and birthright. Quite simply, the agenda is enormous. The purpose of this chapter is to open up the agenda to some critical exploration. Culturally, theologically and constitutionally, the agenda has to be addressed precisely because the very sense of the cultural establishment in the United Kingdom is now selfconsciously subject to questioning, and is of course beginning to unravel itself and be deconstructed at a faster rate than has hitherto been known. The gradual reforms of the House of Lords, public questions about the appropriateness of the Church of England colluding with such structures, not to mention more general questions about privileged positions and their relations to a democratic national state at the turn of the century, all play their part. It is not possible here to engage in a comparative discussion of other European member states and their churchstate relations; such a detailed exercise belongs to another discussion. But we should note that there are hardly any European countries that treat religion as purely a private matter, such that it is not addressed constitutionally or even enshrined in law in one form or another. 6 Equally, it must be stressed that a comparative survey of Europe does not present a neat balance sheet of establishment and disestablishment in member states. The issues, as anyone who has studied British history will know only too well, affect many arenas of national and civic life. From England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland—the conceptualization of the 'United Kingdom' impacts on religion in myriad ways. The issues are highly complex, and interact in unexpected ways. For a start, there is an odd sense in which the legal or constitutional position is often out of step with aspects of the actual practice. The hub of the wheel turns more slowly than the rim. If there is any doubt about imperative of this enquiry, consider for a moment the arrangements surrounding the coronation of a new monarch. No sooner has the king or queen died than the Earl Marshall is supposed to collect the keys to Westminster Abbey from the Dean. The Abbey remains locked until the coronation service. Meanwhile, one of the Dean's jobs is to visit the Royal Apothecary in Bond Street, to order the oils for the anointing of the head, hands and breast of the new monarch. The coronation service itself is, or at least was, a Book of Common Prayer Eucharist, 6. Cf Norman Doe and Mark Hill, English Canon Law: Essays in Honour of Eric Kemp (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998), p. 128. See also Religions in European Union Law (Proceedings of the Colloquium, Luxembourg/Trier 21-22 November 1996, Universita Degli Studi Di Milano: Guiffre Editore).

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attended by the crowned heads of Europe and hereditary peers of the realm. At the last coronation in 1953, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland read one of the lessons from Scripture, only to find that the presiding Archbishop (Fisher) refused him communion at the altar, because he was a Presbyterian and not an Anglican. In today's multi-faith Britain, with its devolution and subsidiarity, it is hard to imagine anything so religiously exclusive and culturally elitist being repeated. That said, the profound cultural and religious resonance of the coronation is not so easily rationalized or democratized. Werner Stark, in considering Britain and its monarchy, puts it sharply: conceptions continued to hang around the king when he became the Lord's Anointed...today all this has lost its grip on the conscious thought of Englishmen, but by no manner of means on their subconscious sentiments... The scenes at the last coronation prove it... [the English] are not a profoundly religious people. A hunger for God and the extremes of religious experience are notably lacking in our history when compared with others. Yet in the coronation there is the extraordinary occasion in which a nation, once in a generation, rededicates itself...the monarch is the epitome, the human expression of society... [but] it is not the ruler alone who is regarded as endowed with sacredness: his people can enhance themselves by identifying themselves with him and with it. To the holy king corresponds a holy 7 nation...

Could it be that 'tradition', in its broadest sense, connects with latent national religious sentiment, making reform not only difficult, but possibly undesirable? One recent attempt at assessing and guiding this moment of transformation in British culture was through the Sheffield Consultation,8 which convened at the end of 1997. It began its life by anticipating a set of widespread and far-reaching governmental reforms that would impact upon the very concept of establishment, ushered in with the election of 'New Labour'. And at the same time, in anticipating these changes, the Consultation also explored how these reforms might be perceived sociologically, given that the Church of England was 'tied in'—ambiguously but 7. See W. Stark, The Sociology of Religion: A Study of Christendom. I. Established Religion (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), pp. 67-68. 8. This Consultation was convened at the Lincoln Theological Institute from 1997 to 1998. It included senior figures from the Church of England and academics, as well as individuals who had close connections with the government and the crown. Subsequently, a larger Consultation was convened at St. George's House, Windsor Castle, during April 1999, at which a shorter version of this chapter was presented.

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deeply—to the very nature and identity of establishment.9 Questions about bishops in the House of Lords (rather like questions about the next coronation) are really only iceberg tips in this type of discussion. Members of the Consultation accepted an agenda that consisted (at least implicitly) of a set of interconnected issues that demanded a clear if subtle appreciation: (1) that the Church of England's position as church of the nation is 'fixed' by history and tradition; (2) 'fixed' does not mean foreclosure on fluidity—the nature of establishment, like that of society and the state itself, is subject to constant change; (3) even though there may be faults in the current church-state arrangement could anything better be invented and should it be attempted? (4) Is there, after (the serious fiction of?) 'Christendom', any kind of theological justification for a single established church in a postmodern, pluralist age? All those who were members of the Consultation came with very particular interests in these questions. Among the concerns that united the group, in the first instance, was a commitment to the value of an established church and a hostility to the agenda of 'disestablishment'. The members of the Consultation were not and are not revolutionaries, despite the misgivings expressed by the Prayer Book Society. Yet at the same time, there was from the start a general feeling among the Consultation members that concepts and relations within the establishment would be subject to change in the near future. This raised a question as to whether the church should give a lead in such changes, or simply respond reactively? Of course in saying this, members of the Consultation were more than aware that the issues are never 'simple'. Clarity in Complex Cultures: The Principle of Theological Refraction In line with the practical theological approach that characterizes this volume, I prefer to 'read' (with potential for reshaping) the complex culture of establishment through the analogy of refraction. The idea that the truth and purposes of God are 'refracted'—spread, as it were, like a band of colour—is particularly compelling for the issue in hand, and complements the strands of culture that need to be assessed in considering the issues. Strictly speaking, 'establishment' is a nest of issues and categories, and refraction is required for the purposes of separation and illumination. For example, there are constitutional issues surrounding the monarchy: Roman 9.

See the comparative discussion in Stark, Sociology of Religion, I.

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Catholics are excluded, divorce frowned upon, with obligations to uphold the Trotestant' faith. There are ecclesial issues: how can the Church of England truly represent a nation that is plural in its beliefs? There are political issues: how far can the precedence of democracy be advanced over hereditary hegemony? There are sociological issues: how can a church be a representative national institution at high political levels, when it enjoys (apparently) little popular support? There are theological issues too: in what sense is the state ordained by God and the monarch God's anointed— and what are the implications for a national church in affirming this hegemony? Refraction—as a strategy—allows both the issues and disciplines (theology, history, political science, etc.) to pass through one another, and through so doing 'reform themselves in such a way as to manifest their capacity to mediate the primary vitality of life and understanding—that is, to manifest their capacity to integrate that through which they have passed into their truth'. 10 Put more simply, refraction is a proper dispersal of light into its constituent bands of colour, as it passes through a glass prism. In a consideration of establishment—which is rightly concerned with sociology, theology, law, constitutional matters and politics—it is vital that the whole 'issue'—in reality a complex series of interwoven strands—passes through each of these 'prisms', and that each of these then sees how its own truth is effected by the refractive process. In theological refraction, for example, theology can fulfil itself through another discipline, and in so doing enhance its own capacity to reflect and focus on its primary task. To take this a stage further, refraction is in place for the clear sight of the perceptor. Only when things are 'correctly' perceived—the whole picture taken in, as it were, and processed—can the objects of refraction be addressed, affirmed or changed. Refraction is a process that divides 'strands' and then reconfigures them into an image or an interpretation. Because 'establishment' is a complicated thing to see— and its image is often 'blurred'—it is vital that the refraction is as dense and accurate as possible.11 Refraction does not just mean 'interdisciplinary'. The dispersal of light— 10. Daniel Hardy, God's Ways with the World: Thinking and Practising Christian Faith (Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1996), pp. 1, 203, 323-26. 11. In other words, 'mere' theological reflection might take us into territory akin to that of Kipling's poem, 'The Six Blind Men of Hindustan': each was partly right, and each partly wrong. The refractive strategy, although not named as such, is outlined in Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life, pp. 155-63.

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or the sifting of elements and compounds when the term is deployed in chemistry—is about a purification and intensification of original sources. When one light is refracted, the subsequent bands of light can be dazzling. But the actual refraction is not the goal. The goal is to discover fuller ways of reflecting and focusing on life in this or that band of colour, and not only gaining understanding in it, but also from it. Refraction, then, is the transformation of light as it passes from one medium to another; as this is done, different images are formed and experienced, and light itself is seen in a different light. Although Werner Stark's work is now somewhat dated, his identification of themes or strands in discussing established religion continues to provide some illumination here, in ways that are sociologically sharp and theologically astute, and resonate with the notion of refraction. Stark identifies typologies of the Sacred Ruler as a key to established religion. This then leads him to another strand: the sacred nation. In turn, another strand emerges naturally: the sacred mission, what Stark calls the 'the double character of ethnocentric messianism'. The three strands—ruler, nationhood and church—bound together by a type of sentimental, subliminal, but nonetheless substantial notion of sacredness, make for a perceptive reading of English national life. The awe and wonder that people have for the royal family is linked to respect for God. As Stark points out: In purely theological terms, the difference and the distance between Christ and king remains preserved: it is one thing to be deus per naturam, another to be deus per gratiam. The god who is made cannot be compared to the God who is God. But from a sociological point of view, the contrast is small, if nonexistent... the power of the king is the power of God. This power, namely, is God's by nature, and the king's by grace... What is the simple sociological content of this deduction? Clearly this: that the king of England is perhaps not a god in relation to God, but that he certainly is a god in relation to men...

So, to see the issue of establishment as something that requires refraction is to rescue it from 'simply' being reflected upon. Too much theological, political or sociological reflection takes place without proper refraction, and although much of this may be worthy, intuitive and skilful, there can be no substitute for separating out the constituent issues and disciplines (as Stark has done, sociologically, with theological implications), allowing them to 12. See Stark, The Sociology of Religion: A Study of Christendom, I, pp. 59-60. (I am unsure as to why Stark refers to a king when he knows Elizabeth II is on the throne, but he seems to use masculine pronouns and generics—he, men, etc—throughout his work.)

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inter-permeate (pass through one another), and in so doing find their own proper density. Refraction also pre-empts premature questions of reform or revolution. It is not that refraction is against these two futures; rather, it is more likely that any reform or revolution will be clearer and more specific, and then carefully directed to those areas that demand that. Correspondingly, this chapter considers three contemporary strands in the debate: praxis and pluralism; 'high' and 'low' establishment; and political pragmatism. A concluding section looks at the relationship between civil religion and civil society (which is also explored in Chapter 5). The type of discussion that is offered here is what I would term 'theologically interrogative', which complements the refractive strategy, which in turn gravitates towards greater cultural clarity and finer theological perception. Praxis and Pluralism As the religious diversity of English towns and cities has grown over the past 50 years, due to the establishment in some places of sizeable ethnic communities of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, as well as other faiths, there have been important changes to local public religion. Traditional civic ceremonies, such as Remembrance Sunday, as well as new forms of civic celebration and commemoration, are now increasingly taking account of the diversity of faiths represented in Britain. In a recent article, Sophie Gilliat-Ray examines some of the consequences of religious diversity for English civic religion by looking at some of the traditions of civic ceremonies in England, and, how they have been transformed by the changing religious landscape of some towns and cities. She also explores some of the dilemmas and questions that have emerged both for the Church of England and for the other faith communities when it comes to the design and delivery of civic ceremonies.13 Gilliat-Ray's paper is based upon a two-year research project which looked at the role of Anglican clergy as 'brokers' for the inclusion of other faiths in publicly funded aspects of religion, such as hospital and prison chaplaincies, as well as in local public religious activities.14 In each case, the 13. For a fuller discussion of the ethical dimensions that emerge from an appreciation of multi-faith society, see I. Markham, Plurality and Christian Ethics (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2nd edn, 1999), chs 2, 5 and 10. 14. The Church of England and Other Faiths Project was conducted at the U n i versity of Warwick by Dr Sophie Gilliat-Ray and Professor James Beckford between 1994 and 1996. The paper on civic religion appears in the Journal of Contemporary Religion 14.2

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impetus was to find out how public funding of these activities reflects the religious diversity of English society. In order to investigate civic religion in England, interviews and site visits were carried out and questionnaires were distributed to a wide range of individuals, organizations and local authorities involved in the planning and execution of civic ceremonies. In describing the research project, the notion of civic religion was defined as: occasions on which members of the public participate in activities intended to place the life of villages, towns and cities in a religious setting. It includes such things as annual services for the local emergency services and judiciary, the recital of prayers before council meetings, the decoration of public places at times of religious festival as well as Annual Civic services and services such as Remembrance Sunday.

Civic religion, understood in this broad sense, has received little academic attention from scholars of religion, and the above definition is perhaps one of the first descriptions that has even been offered. In many ways the nature of local public religion itself is so complex and diverse that any definition struggles to encompass the wide range of religious ceremonies, commemorations and celebrations that can be subsumed under the heading 'civic religion'. As a national church, established in law, the Church of England has long played an integral role in organising, hosting and presiding over civic religious occasions. Local parish churches once dominated many rites of passage and seasonal ceremonies, and civic religion is very much a reflection of this historical hegemony. As Keith Robbins notes, there have been times when the deliberate cultivation of a British identity based upon ecclesiastical allegiance has been fostered, and at certain points of history the Church of England rarely hesitated to claim that it embodied the Englishness of English Religion. Its spokesmen referred to it with approval as 'Our National Church' based upon the intertwining of the church and state at many levels [and] consolidated over centuries.

Civic ceremonies can be considered as occasions which depict this close relationship in a particularly visible way.

(1999), pp. 233-44. I am grateful to Dr Gilliat-Ray for permission to summarize part of the paper here. 15. Paper published by the Dept of Sociology, University of Warwick, 1999. 16. K. Robbins, 'Religion and Identity in Modern British History', in S. Mews (ed.), Religion and National Identity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982), pp. 79-96.

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In her book on Religion in Britain Since 1945, Grace Davie questions the appropriateness of this at the turn of a new millennium: Are the ceremonies of civil religion becoming less and less appropriate in a society where churchgoing is no longer the norm? Or are they, conversely, more than ever necessary for precisely the same reason? H o w are such ceremonies to be constructed...?

17

As members of other faiths continue to express a wish to participate in civic religion, particularly in high-profile national events such as Commonwealth Day Observance, questions arise for the church as to how best other traditions can be included. Limits may be placed upon the church if it feels that it cannot provide the kind of ceremonies that communities want from civic religion. Churches may be reaching a point of tension between commitment to the historical Christian traditions of local public religion on the one hand, and demands for services which reflect the current makeup of society on the other.18 To some extent, this dilemma was evident in the media articles and correspondence surrounding the VJ Day commemorations in 1995. The exclusion of other faiths was seen as a 'snub' to their contribution in the war, and various members of other faiths expressed their deep regret that different faith traditions were not affirmed in the national events. Whatever difficulties are posed for the Church of England regarding the inclusion of other faiths within the tapestry of British civic religion, participation in public ceremonies is by no means straightforward for members of other faiths either. Sometimes Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim or Sikh participants in local public religious events have had to examine their attitudes to gatherings involving other traditions, perhaps set in places of worship that are unfamiliar and using a form of words or music that is alien to their own faith. The very notion of civic religion is also likely to be an unfamiliar concept, since most of its traditions and ceremonies bear little relation to any characteristic form of worship in other faiths. The tension for other religious communities in Britain arises in the question of the extent to which they can feel comfortable participating in traditional Christian forms of civic religion, and the extent to which they should be

17. Davie, Believing Without Belonging, p. 87. See also eadem, A Memory Mutates, chapter 3, and Aldridge, Religion, ch. 7. For a refreshing theological critique, see Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life. 18. Gilliat-Ray cites the practice of inter-faith worship for public ceremonies in the city of Southampton as a particularly instructive example.

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developing new ways of expressing their sense of belonging to the community in a religious or spiritual manner. The internal diversity of the various traditions now found in Britain only adds to the complexity of resolving this tension in the immediate future. 'High' and 'Low' Establishment Wesley Carr's dual taxonomy of 'establishment' is arguably of some help here.19 Distinguishing between the 'high' establishment of religion and the 'earthed' or 'low' establishment of faith enables the actual debate about church-state relations to be neatly separated out into constitutional, state and legal issues on the one hand, and issues of national coverage, theologies of place and service for the whole nation on the other. Put another way, the issue and question of establishment needs refracting: a distinction needs to be made between a national church (which may not enjoy much legal protection or constitutional recognition, but may nevertheless offer significant and meaningful national coverage),20 and a 'state' church or established church, which may enjoy many constitutional benefits, but without necessarily being able to claim to be the 'church of the nation'. 21 Naturally, rights are linked to responsibilities, which questions the desirability of a divorce between high and low (or earthed) establishment, especially on the part of the provider. Indeed, public sympathy for the linkage can be easily and immediately be found outside the realms of the Church of England. Carr, in his recent work, quotes Adrian Hastings' comments in this regard: How one may ask, can an anti-Erastian such as I have always been finally come to carry the banner of antidisestablishmentarianism it is...that while the Establishment in the past was, in principle, Erastian, today it actually functions far more as a servant of a healthy dualism, a system in which religion is accepted as not being finally subject to State authority but bearer of a kind of independent sovereignty which merits public recognition. Dualism—recognition that the things of God as not confined within the things of Caesar but, on the contrary, demand acknowledgement both privately and 22 publicly—is and always has been, central to a full and healthy Christianity.

19. See W. Carr, 'A Developing Establishment', Theology (January 1999), pp. 2-10. 20. The Church in Wales is an obvious example: Anglican, but not established, it nonetheless continues to have a significant role in the civic life of the Principality. 21. The Church of Ireland was in this position in the nineteenth century. 22. A. Hastings, 'The Case for Retaining Establishment', in T. Mohood (ed.), Church, State and Religious Minorities (London: Policy Studies Institute, 1997), p. 41.

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For Hastings, bishops in the House of Lords 'cannot really be there as Anglicans but rather as representatives of spirituality, a voice of Christianity and indeed of religion even wider than Christianity'. Granted, this is a generous assessment of the role of bishops in the House of Lords, even though it may express the wish-fulfilment of many members of the British population.23 Tariq Mohood has further explored this issue from the perspective of minority religions in Great Britain. Mohood concludes his work with this assessment: The real division of opinion is not between a conservative element in the Church of England versus the rest of the country, but between those that think religion has a place in secular public culture that religious communities are part of the state, and those who think not...the minimal nature of an Anglican Establishment, its proven openness to other denominations and faiths seeking public space, and the fact that its very existence is an ongoing recognition of the public character of religion, are all reasons why it may seem far less intimidating to the minority of faiths than a triumphal secularism.

Here Mohood shows that a practical argument for establishment remains powerful and reasonable, even for someone who doesn't share 'the faith of the nation'. This might at once start to sound like a convincing argument to keep supporting the establishment, and simply let nature and parliamentary reform take its course. However, some caution should be exercised here. In discussing establishment, it is very important to distinguish it from representation, and here it seems to me is the rub. There are difficulties with the assertion of a vapid and 'politically correct' doctrine of representationalism, and I do agree with Wesley Carr that affirmation of religion cannot come about through a series of individuals who happen to be religious. But neither, it seems to me, can it be done any more, fully and adequately, by one denomination, especially when devolution and regional parliaments have come to exist. Here, the 'earthed' model of establishment has to be properly attended to (which would recognize the value in ecumenism and pluralism), and the high forms of establishment left on one side for the moment, until it is apparent what the new engagements between religion 23. Hastings, 'Retaining Establishment', p. 46. However, Hastings is a lone voice in this volume; other leaders of religious minorities do not express his confidence, as Wesley Carr acknowledges in his own article in Theology. 24. T. Mohood, 'Introduction: Establishment, Reform and Multiculturalism', in idem (ed.), Church, State and Religious Minorities (London: Policy Studies Institute, 1997), p. 4.

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and politics are in new assemblies and parliaments and how they may percolate up to alter the actual format of high establishment. However, this will not be enough to satisfy some critics. Robert Audi has argued that there are three reasons why church and state should be separated: libertarian, equalitarian and neutrality. A 'state' religion is, in his view, an imposition, from which he develops his libertarian proposal. No state can prefer one religion to another in a plural society without discriminating; here Audi develops his equalitarian thesis. Finally, to guarantee fairness, the state should be neutral on matters of religion.25 Following this, Paul Weller has recently argued that it is unwise to claim Tariq Mohood as a defender of religious establishment, since, Weller maintains, Mohood underestimates the significance of the establishment of the Church of England in the contemporary British state. For Weller, that very establishment represents a block in the process of constructing a more equitable, inclusive and participatory society. In other words, challenging the establishment is, for him, an important though not sufficient project. Clearly, the establishment of the Church of England is at the heart of a complicated nexus of social, religious, cultural, legal and political strands which contribute to the overall ethos, fabric and constitution of the British state as it has existed since the restoration of the monarchy—what Peter Hennessey calls the 'hidden wiring' of the unwritten British constitution. Weller argues for the need to pilot multi-faith alternatives by means of 'emergent', bottom up evolutionary processes in conjunction with the managerialist creation of structures which interact with social and political life at all levels.26 Arguably, the piloting of such alternative structures in participation and consultation parallel to existing establishment arrangements could create the conditions for recognizing the benefits of potential change as well as outweighing the risks involved. In this way, he argues that the foundations can be laid for negotiating new socio-religious contracts on the basis of practically functioning alternatives rather than simply calling for a choice between the known establishment and an unknown set of purely theoretical alternatives, including outright disestablishment.27 25. Audi, Religious Commitment, pp. 31-46. 26. Paper given at the Religions and Human Rights Conference, Imperial College, London, February 1999 (unpublished). 27. Recent attention from more serious newspapers and periodicals continues to demonstrate how divisive the issue can be. See, for example, 'Monarchy in the Millennium', Spectator (20 March 1999), pp. 42-59: articles by Andrew Neil, Penny Junor,

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Arising out of these questions, we might add further ones. For example, can we be sure that we know what we mean by 'national' (in regard to 'the English')? Linda Colley and others have recently challenged (historically and politically) the notion that our national identity, that is to say English national identity, has remained largely unchanged. National identity is, of course, a construction of reality, and a necessary ideological framework that serves existing power interests. As Colley points out, this was done effectively in the eighteenth century by identifying English interests against those of the French, and by realigning the 'home nations' into 'Great Britain'. It was a defensive strategy, and is expressed as much in coronation rites as in Acts of Union. 28 If national identity is being reformed—through constructed cultures such as 'new Britain' or 'cool Britannia'—with space for pluralism and difference, then a national Church would have to ask itself whether it could really have a monopoly of this position, or only, rather, a vocation to fulfil what it deems to be its obligations. Here, it is extremely important to take up some of the lines explored by others, who distinguish between a national church in a pluralist society and an established church. 29 The present difficulty of the Church of England is that its culture of 'high establishment' does not correspond to its national position at an earthed level. Moreover, a monopoly in the House of Lords, which may or may not be fine for England, looks increasingly problematic for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Political Pragmatism Quite apart from the position of the Church of England, the preliminary reforms of the House of Lords have been widely praised. But there have also been indictments. The criticisms tend to move in slightly inconsistent directions. At one end of the spectrum are those who claim that the reforms are too wide-ranging, too radical, and verging on the revolutionary.

George Trefgarne and others; McKie and Parr, 'House of Cards', pp. 10-17; Kilmister, 'Editorial', Faith and Heritage 46 (1999), pp. 1-3(1). 28. See Colley, Britons. 29. It is interesting to note that Audi argues against established religion, but not against national churches. The former enjoys the protection of the law, irrespective of the commitment of the people. The latter is 'the people's church', and may not be formally established at all, but may nevertheless enjoy rights and privileges by popular consent. See Audi, Religious Commitment, pp. 33-52.

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At the other end, others complain that they do not represent the root and branch overhaul that is required to drag the country's constitutional arrangements into the twenty-first century. The government's own approach is somewhat middling: it is pragmatism based on principle. For example, the Labour government (1997-) appears to recognize that the diverse parts of the United Kingdom cannot simply yield to a uniform pattern of powers devolved from a centre. The continued harmony of the union of parts so diverse requires structures sensitive to place and people, not uniform structures imposed for uniformity's sake. Their corresponding political prescription falls into two parts. First, devolution is a political and cultural issue. Because the United Kingdom is an asymmetrical entity, and the government's approach reflects the different histories and contemporary circumstances of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, a differential devolution of power is being pursued instead of the promotion of a federal style of uniform devolution of powers. Secondly, there is the gradual encouragement of regional government for England that will embody the principle of subsidiarity30 (i.e. 30. As Jonathan Caplin notes in 'Subsidiarity', Ethical Perspectives: Journal of the European Ethics Network 4.2 (July 1997), pp. 117-29: 'It has always been the fate of centrally important concepts in public debate to be used promiscuously. "Democracy", for instance, has long been assigned multiple contested meanings; its meaning is univocal only in the minds of passionate advocates of a single political project seeking to monopolise usage of the term, whether Liberals or Leninists. Theorists tend to worry about this conceptual promiscuity more than practitioners, who, firing off loaded concepts in the heat of political battle are impatient of reminders that perhaps this or that concept is not being consistently used as originally intended. However, when rhetorical skirmishes cease and the concept gets to be embedded in public policy or legislation, clarity is indispensable.' This is as true with a word like 'establishment' as it is with concepts such as 'subsidiarity', which has recently been nominated as possibly 'the most contentious abstract noun to have entered European politics since 1789'. Advocates of both centralization and decentralization invoke it with some firmness of conviction. Its inclusion in the Maastricht Treaty, far from having generated firm guidelines on how to determine the proper balance between European and national competencies, has only served to highlight the competing interpretations which it can apparently bear. 'Subsidiarity', is suffering from clarity deficit. Caplin continues: 'Subsidiarity takes its meaning from an elaborate social theory which is personalist, pluralist and communitarian. Charges of vacuity against subsidiarity are only to be expected when the concept is treated in isolation from this background theory. The current debate about subsidiarity has concentrated almost exclusively on its significance for the distribution of competencies between different levels of political authority. But this is only one specific application of a wider sense governing the distribution of functions between the State and

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decision-making at the most appropriate level, be it family, community, region, nation or parliament), but at the same time enable and empower direct relations between the regions and Europe. The implementing of proposals for the city of London and other major metropolitan areas are part of this dynamic. This political project—two tracks—has profound implications for the nature of earthed and high establishment for the Church of England. On the one hand, regionalization of England is likely to deliver yet more power into earthed or low establishment—the practice of civic religion that stretches back through the centuries. Already, churches are seeing the first fruits of this, with denominations and dioceses actively involved in highlevel regional development, creating wealth, opportunity, employment and identity for deprived areas of our country. Yet at exactly the same time, the general agenda of devolution necessarily questions the limits of English power, and in particular, the power of the House of Lords, of which the Bishops of the Church of England are part. What will this mean in relation to the future of established religion?31 To date, all the signs are that the government does not need much persuading to recognize the value of a national church, including the presence of the Lords Spiritual in a reformed, meritocratic second chamber. The church's good standing, plus the diversity and representational skills of the House of Bishops, has encouraged the government to set the issue to one side. But I venture to suggest that the Church of England cannot afford to be complacent. A chief requirement of a reformed chamber is that it has credibility. The Bishop of Guildford (the Rt Revd John Gladwin) has recently argued that if a second chamber is to have credibility in the light of democratic principles, there might be three things that the Church of England needs to say 'no' to: a wholly elected chamber; a chamber wholly nominated by the Commons; a chamber wholly nominated by the govern-

any other communities, requiring that the State not assume tasks which other communities can perform adequately for themselves. Although the use of subsidiarity in theological and political dialogue has its origins in the early 30s (between Roman Catholic concerns and totalitarian states) its present use in state/civil society relationships is now very important and relevant for this discussion. Subsidiarity turns out to be only one application of an even more comprehensive principle governing the fundamental relationship between the individual and any community at all, or society in general' 31. See The Role of Bishops in the Second Chamber: A Submission by the Church of England (GS Misc 558; London: The Archbishops' Council, London, May 1999) for a fuller discussion of how the Church of England might respond to the Wakeham Report.

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ment.32 Such a stance is, arguably, paradoxical: the voicing of the prophetic from a position of privilege. Yet isn't this type of paradox at the heart being an established faith? There are cost and benefit in equal measure. For Gladwin, an Upper House has to be different from the elected chamber. It has to have its own integrity over and against both the House of Commons and the government. That, in all probability, leads in the direction of a chamber formed in a balanced way: to bring together a wider range of interests and skills; to have the confidence of the people; and to build up strength and parliamentary democracy.33 The problem with the House of Lords is that although it might have done this job very well in practice, it lacked the credibility in a democratic context.34 Reform became absolutely necessary for the Labour government if the British constitution was to evolve in ways that build confidence in the overall work of Parliament. In ecclesial terms, the present system, which includes 26 bishops in the Lords, has its roots in a history that goes back long before the divisions of Christendom as they have affected the British churches. Its workings have been influenced by past battles and controversies between the churches (e.g. Protestant and Catholic) and over establishment (e.g. Ireland). But its constitutional roots are not in these struggles: they belong to a different era, one that accepted the 'sacred canopy' of Christendom as normative for regular social functioning. Correspondingly, the government can happily acknowledge the worth of the contribution made by the bishops and the Lords. These seats are not a sinecure: the bishops have, time and time again, made strong, independent contributions rooted in Christian faith, but also linked to the concerns of specific (and sometimes under-represented) places. And these have had a beneficial effect in many different contexts; education is an obvious example, but much other legislation has also benefited from their eye. Bishops represent interests across the national spectrum, which even in a parlia-

32. Church Times (2 February 1999), p. 8. John Gladwin has become a spokesperson for the House of Bishops on the House of Lords. 33. The Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd Richard Harries, has become part of the Royal Commission, under the Chairmanship of Lord Wakeham, exploring the future of the House of Lords. The Commission began its work in February 1999, and reported in early 2000. 34. As Keith Porteous Wood notes, 'Britain is the only Western democracy to have religious representatives in its parliament, as of right' ('Podium', Independent section 2 [10 December 1999], p. 3; from a speech given by the General Secretary to the National Secular Society to the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords).

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mentary democracy can be forgotten or neglected. The recommendations of the Wakeham Report, published in January 2000, appear to reflect the concerns that have so far been mentioned. Hereditary peers will lose their voting rights (eventually), and the number of peers in the second chamber will be reduced to around six hundred. Appointments would take account of regional needs, ethnic minorities, women and other groups that are under-represented in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister would lose the power of appointment for Lords. In addition to this, it was recommended that there would be a spiritual 'bench' in the Lords, with 26 seats for the Christian churches, including 16 seats for the Church of England, and 5 for non-Christian faiths.36 So far, the bishops in the Lords have resisted this proposal.37 Moreover, it is not yet clear to what extent the government will adopt the recommendations made by Lord Wakeham's Report. It would seem, following this, that as with the whole issue of reform, so with the specific matter of the role and place of bishops: it must be pragmatism based on principle. The contribution of the Church of England in Parliament will arguably be enhanced if ways can be found to ensure that it is the voice of the whole church in the United Kingdom, and certainly in England. In a multi-faith country, the principle extends to other faith communities as well. A reformed second chamber ought to give a voice to those who will not so easily be able to find a voice in the Commons. It is, of course, for the country and individual communities to decide. But if it is thought that the voice of the church is going to help build confidence in parliamentary institutions, the Church of England should be ready to enable this—but the loss of some of its power will have to be carefully

35. Cf. Archbishops' Council, The Role of the Bishops in the Second Chamber. Section 8 (p. 15) emphasizes the particular regional role that the Bishop of Durham may have. Annex B (pp. 17-22) of the report list contributions made by bishops in the Lords from March 1997—almost 180 speeches covering subjects such as crime, housing, healthcare, prisons, the Human Rights Bill, education, transport, foreign affairs and social regeneration. The Report also defends the role of the crown in choosing and appointing bishops. 36. Cf. the intriguing report of Lord Wakeham's work in the Independent (21 January 2000), p. 7. One of the recommendations made in the Report which was missed by most commentators, was that the 16 representatives of the Church of England in the Lords need not be bishops. 37. The opposition is being led by the present Bishop of Durham, the Rt Revd Michael Turnbull.

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weighed against its desire to maintain political influence.38 Correspondingly, many now argue that the future needs to be as inclusive in structure and style as possible. This is not to accede to a vapid representationalism. Rather, it is to engage the church in the task of enabling society to defend particular interests, and to remind society and its legislators of the importance of faith to our convergent and divergent histories. In an earthed way, in localities throughout the country, churches and other faiths are already working with local political and public bodies for the good of the community. The Upper Chamber, in its reformed state, probably ought to reflect this, and the presence of bishops in the House of Lords provides good precedence for this. 39 Civic Religion in a Civil Society At the heart of an argument for a public religion and a civic church, lies a theological desire for the church to function as a community which bears witness to the kingdom of God within society. Under these conditions, a doctrine of the state is necessary. In terms of refraction, one might say that the church (or faiths) demands (or demand) space from the civil community in which it (or they) can practise: toleration, social consensus and freedom are therefore necessary. (For this reason, some of the Reformers were able to argue that the state was ordained by God: it created boundaries within which religion could be practised.) On the other hand, the church's affirmation of the state was provisional, and essentially amounted to 'critical support'.40 The doctrine of'critical support' always risks either assimilation or separatism, but its heart lies in engagement, a commitment to shape society, while accepting that this will be a civic and social partnership with the state. For this reason, Jeffrey Stout describes the situation as a kind of 'moral bricolage', a kind of being in which Christians accept consensus, compromise and pragmatism—but only because the alternatives are probably

38. For a reform-minded but conservative perspective, see D. Rogers, Politics, Prayer and Parliament (London: Continuum, 2000), chs 11-14. 39. In other words, the 'equalitarian' thesis of Audi should be developed. Instead of separating church and state, the two should inculcate more representatives from other faiths. See Audi, Religious Commitment and Secular Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 35-43. 40. See D. Fergusson, 'Communitarianism and Liberalism', Studies in Christian Ethics 10.1 (1998), pp. 44-57.

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worse.41 To believe in this is to accept the partial nature of the church, and also that of the state. Both are partly an idea, partly people, partly structures, and partly complete. Their fulfilment lies beyond, and theology has a vested interest in guiding both to their mutual and inter-related futures.42 The idea that Christians should seek to inhabit conditions that allow qualified support and criticism of the state is not new. For all the accusations of fideism and imperialism levelled at Karl Barth, he turns out, ironically, to be a rather doughty defender of the links between church and state: The only possibility that remains—and it suggests itself compellingly—is to regard the existence of the state as a parable, as a correspondence and an analogue to the Kingdom of God which the church preaches and believes in. Since the state forms the outer circle, within which the church, with its mystery of faith and gospel, is the inner circle, since it shares a common centre with the church, it is inevitable that, although its presuppositions and its tasks are its own and different, it is nevertheless capable of reflecting indirectly the truth and reality which constitute the Christian community'.

All of which is another way of saying that the church does have an interest in keeping a positive stake in the articulation of the social consensus, and that neutrality towards the state is undesirable. However, any partnership with the state comes at a cost—perhaps even, temporarily, that of being the church of the nation. 44 It is in precisely this vein, then, that many British governments have often seemed to be looking for a church which provides critical support, social vision and prescience, and which is wholly embedded in civic life.45

41. Jeffrey Stout, Ethics After Babel (Cambridge, MA: James Clarke, 1988). 42. For an excellent perspective on the possibilities of Britain in Europe, see L. Seidentrop, Democracy in Europe (London: Allen Lane, 1999). 43. Karl Barth, 'The Christian Community and the Civil Community', in idem, Against the Stream (London: SCM Press, 1954), ch. 14. 44. O n this, see Oliver O'Donovan's The Desire of Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). O'Donovan contends that, to pass beyond suspicion and the totalized criticism of politics, and to achieve a positive reconstruction of thought, theology must reach back behind the modern tradition, achieving a fuller, less selective reading of scripture, and learning from an older politico-theological discourse which flourished in the patristic, mediaeval and Reformation periods. Central to that discourse was a series of questions about authority, generated by Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God. 45.

See, e.g., Brian McHenry, 'Working Backwards from the Vision', Church Times (6

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To be 'established' cannot be simply about history and privilege: Anglicans must continually earn (not just own) the right to be the church for all people. This does not necessarily entail compromise, but rather an agenda on which Christians strive to participate in the flux and flow of civil life at its very centre. This requires the church to risk being deeply embedded in society. Increasingly, the demand for plural representation in a range of representative and constitutional bodies calls not for one denomination to symbolize this, but for a range of them, including some account being taken of other faiths. Arguably, this new cultural and political agenda is not the short road to outright disestablishment, but rather a form of re-establishment in which there is some considerable recognition of the vital role that public religion can play in the enterprise of human and social flourishing. Undoubtedly, the Church of England will undertake a major role in this, but it must be one whereby it enables the formation of a theological, moral and spiritual federalism that will complement the emerging social and political federalism at home, and in Europe. 46 While this may be fine for the church and nation, it does not address the place of the monarchy and establishment. Is there a role for a symbolic person, anointed by God, who unifies both church and state? Oliver O'Donovan's Desire of Nations appears to think there is. O'Donovan's work invests much significance in political authority and its relation to theology, especially in tracing the lineage of kingly power and the authority of God in Old Testament Israelite thinking: prophets and theologians 'checked' that the power of the then 'state' was being wielded in ways that were consonant with the (partial) reign of God. However, political theology might not just be about authority, as Andrew Shanks points out, but also (or rather) about solidarity. This is no less a political theology, but it does press questions on how far religion, particularly Christianity, should be willing to see itself as implicated in the state, even if that is deemed to be the chosen arena for God's rule and practice, revelation and salvation. The debate is particularly acute in Britain, as the sovereign is, in some sense, sacred, and therefore the established church has a duty to maintain a sacred December 1997). See also Helen Saxbee, 'Church Safe as Long as it Modernises', Church Times (28 November 1997). 46. See A. Shanks, 'Response to The Desire of Nations', Studies in Christian Ethics 11.2 (1998) pp. 86-90. The whole edition is devoted to O'Donovan's book. It is a pity that Donald Nicholls had died two years before—his Deity and Domination would have formed an interesting platform from which to debate The Desire of Nations.

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nation. Within an increasingly self-conscious multi-faith society, there must be questions about the appropriateness of this. 47 The debate comes down to whether or not one thinks a partial Christendom is possible and desirable, and to what extent such a situation might speak o£ the fulfilment of politics, which might be the eschaton, as neo-orthodox thinkers such as Hauerwas48 and Milbank49 assert. Shanks, on the other hand, suggests that a whole range of trans-confessional grass-roots alliances in politics and society speak not of authority, but of political theology as solidarity.50 As Will Hutton notes in The State to Come, British people, at the turn of the millennium, 'have the chance of changing the structures of British democracy...to do this in such a conservative country would be no mean achievement—and there is already a seismic shift underway which is not commonly recognised'.51 If religion has a role in civilizing society, and society in civilizing religion, the debate about the governance of our country and the future of the monarchy is actually more than just about coronations and bishops in the House of Lords. It is a debate about the kind of society a church might envisage, and the form of citizenship the churches wish to encourage.52 None of this represents a fundamental revolution in church-state thinking; nor does it presuppose an aggressive reformation of the establishment culture in all is depth and complexity, although the gradualism of evolution is an inevitable fact of political and ecclesial life. Ultimately, to ponder the church-state and establishment questions is to invite some deeper reflection on how the purposes of God can be explored through theology in a political culture, one that is more participative and inclusive, and has space for others who do not share the Christian faith, but nevertheless wish to work in partnership, and to establish sacred boundaries, norms and roots

47. See Stark, Sociology of Religion, pp. 56-68, 91-98. 48. See S. Hauerwas, Christian Existence Today: Essays on Church, World and Living in Between (Durham, N C : Labyrinth Press, 1988). 49. Milbank, Theology and Social Theory. 50. As I have already hinted, Audi would prefer Milbank and Hauerwas to Shanks. See Religious Commitment, and his argument for separating church and state in the interests of the common good and civil society. 51. Will Hutton, The State to Come (London: Vintage, 1997), p. 52. 52. For a Catholic and European perspective on this, see the deliberations in The Common Christian Roots of the European Nations: An International Colloquium of the Vatican (Lublin: Pontifical Lateran University, 1982).

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for a secular state and a consumerist society.53 Equally, it also acknowledges that the church-state axis will probably remain a powerful form of religious resilience in an apparently secular age. The question for the established church, though, is how to move from a position of being resistant to change to one of inclusivity and accommodation. And this question has to be pondered, increasingly, against a background of fluidity. As we have seen throughout this chapter, neither 'the church' nor 'the state', at least as far as Britain is concerned, is quite the settled and stable concept or body that it once was. Rowan Williams thinks this may be an opportunity: the more we are preoccupied with the theoretical definition of two kinds of human institution, the church and the state, the more we lose sight of primitive Christian conviction that the gospel is capable of forming a new human community of unrestricted scope, characterised by mutual valuation and nurture ('communion')...the church is as likely to be as uncomfortable as it is to be a constructive presence in any human political context. Its first loyalty will not be to the state, in abstract or concrete, through it will not be simply anarchist or Utopian either.

As Healy argues, we may now be entering an era in which the prophetic and particular can only thrive if an inclusivist and earthed ecclesiology has first been established.55 To achieve that, it may be necessary to abandon the culture of 'high' establishment in order to retain and redeem the actual conceptualization of an actively established church. To pursue such an agenda would not only be an act of faith; it would also be a new form of theological reflection, and deeper still, some integrated theological refraction on the nature of society. In the end, such an exercise might result in a truer transformation of contemporary culture.

53. Audi (Religious Commitment, chs 4-6), suggest that established religion needs to move beyond its convictions to a place of civil commitment, and from there to a place of deep integration, in order that its political and religious activism can be inculcated within the structures of society. 54. R. Williams, 'Church and State', in P. Clarke and A. Linzey (eds.), Dictionary of Ethics, Theology and Society (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 140. 55. Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life, especially chs 6 and 7.

Chapter 5 A Clash of Cultures: Church Autonomy and Human Rights

It is true that we did not consult the Churches about being regarded as a public authority or, indeed, any of the many other organisations which will be affected by the Bill. I have to confess that it did not occur to anyone in government that the churches would have any particular difficulty in playing their proper part in the enforcement of human rights in Britain. I therefore make no secret at all of the fact that, when this subject was raised in Committee, I was surprised by the suggestion that Churches and religious bodies should wish to be exempted from a Bill designed to enable people to assert before the courts of this country the basic rights and freedoms which they have enjoyed under the convention since 1953. I would have expected them to be as enthusiastic as any other body for the incorporation of the European Convention...

The roots of democracy lie buried in the past. It is commonplace to imagine that the foundations of modern democratic states owe their shaping to modernity itself; that without continental revolutions, industrialization and the Enlightenment, many people would still be living under feudal regimes or carefully ordered hierarchies of aristocracy. Yet the shaping of states and the emergence of democracy is often a tortuous and evolving process. In the USA, that narrative of history may be fairly obvious to many. The same might be true for other countries that have moved from a colonial past to a position of independence. Yet for many countries in Western Europe, the history is more ambiguous. Monarchies live side by side with democracies. More recent histories of fascism and communism also muddy the waters. In the case of Britain, it is far from clear when democracy first began, and it certainly could not be said to be complete, in 1. Lord Irving, the Lord Chancellor, Speech to the House of Lords, Hansard, London, 19 January 1998.

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spite of its proud boast to possess 'the mother of parliaments'. Claims for the origins of democracy can be attached to Henry II, and his elevation of the law above the day-to-day power of monarchs. Others would point to Magna Carta, Simon de Montfort, or even Oliver Cromwell. The shift of power from aristocracy to democracy and the emergence of the modern state has been a gradual process.2 In the midst of these debates, the autonomy of the church has been an issue for several hundred years. In Britain, Magna Carta (1215) gave the church the authority to regulate its own affairs, with its own courts and disciplinary procedures. At a stroke, the Reformation under Henry VIII took those powers back to the crown, the sovereign becoming the head of the Church of England. In the rest of Europe, the Reformation affected the alliances of church and state, from Calvin's Geneva to Luther's Germany. In the eighteenth century, revolutions curbed papal powers further still, forcing some countries to alienate their 'national religion' in favour of a democratic or revolutionary state. In the twentieth century, successive popes have had to come to terms with (or condemn) socialism, communism, fascism, liberalism, pluralism, consumerism or the internet3— anything, in fact, which has threatened to undermine the theocracy of the Vatican.4 At first sight, a debate about church autonomy and human rights might seem unnecessary. After all, are churches not in favour of human rights? They are. Do they not campaign for justice and peace? They do. Are they not against racism and other kinds of discrimination? Generally, yes. Yet it is in this last area that the real problem can be located for churches in America, Western Europe and other parts of the world. Fundamentally, there is often a clash of cultures, between the values espoused by modern democratic states and those held by religious groups who are attempting to present theocratic standards within a public domain. 5 For example, some 2. See Schama, History of Britain, I, for a general introduction. For a more specific treatment of the foundations of nation states, see Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978, 1980). 3. See, e.g., 'The Syllabus of Errors' (1864)—a papal condemnation of liberalism, cited in H. Bettenson (ed), Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 272-74. 4. For a succinct summary of church-state relations in Europe, see G. Moyser (ed.), Religion and Politics in the Modern World (London: Routledge, 1991). 5. It is taken as read that Bonhoeffer's resistance to the German state during the Second World War, or the tireless campaigning of many against the Apartheid regime in South Africa—both of which required opposition to a church that lent support to an

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Baltic countries, in which Christianity is the national and established religion, and is funded by the state, have not been able meaningfully to debate the theological pros and cons of women priests or bishops, since the law of the land forbids discrimination on the grounds of gender. The issue of women's rights within the church is, in effect, determined by the state, not the church: the latter is 'forced' to accommodate. Similarly, in the Church of England, there are 'guidelines' on how a bishop or diocese may treat a clergyperson who is living in a homosexual relationship. Yet if that clergyperson is serving as a hospital chaplain, a position that is funded by the taxpayer, the National Health Service, as the employer of the chaplain, has a policy of non-discrimination in respect of sexuality, gender and the like. In other words, the employment rights of a gay or lesbian priest are arguably better protected by the NHS than they are by an individual bishop, who may decide that a priest living an 'active' homosexual life is incompatible with the teachings of the church. 6 Here, there is resistance.7 As with the previous chapter on establishment, a consideration of theology, human rights and ecclesial distinctiveness is an intricate interweaving of issues and disciplines that interconnect. To acquire any degree of clarity requires some understanding of law, established religion and Christian culture. In this chapter, I shall consider three issues in turn. abusive statecraft—are fine examples of individuals or church groups opposing a theologically legitimized state of affairs or social goal. 6. The clash of cultures becomes even more complex when competing religious convictions can be identified within debates about public space and the role of faith. For example, at one Northern English hospital, the N H S Trust has a policy of encouraging mothers to breastfeed on the wards after giving birth. A nearby Muslim community, a significant client of the same hospital, objected on the grounds that this is 'immodest' and potentially offensive to other Muslim patients and their visitors. They would prefer all women—not just Muslim women—to be screened from view when breastfeeding. However, Islam is not necessarily anti-democratic and pro-theocratic. For further discussion see, J. Haynes, Religion in Global Politics (London: Longman, 1998), p. 128, and Daedalus (The Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences) 129.4 (2000), 'The End of Tolerance: Engaging Cultural Differences'; several essays in this issue are of relevance. 7. At the time of writing, there is an unresolved legal dispute in the Diocese of York, where a hospital chaplain is refusing to work with his newly appointed gay colleague, because he believes that a 'homosexual lifestyle' is incompatible with the teachings of the church, and, therefore, holding office within it. The N H S Trust, on the other hand, does not permit members of staff who are homosexual to be discriminated against. The diocese, which employs neither priest, is virtually powerless in terms of policing the dispute.

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First, there is an interrogative exploration of the issues for British churches and their relation to the Human Rights Act. Secondly, there is a further examination of civil religion, following on from the previous chapter. Thirdly, there is a brief sketch of how religion can continue to offer some shape in a pluralist culture, in which the guarantee of 'rights' may be competitive and conflictual. The Church and the Human Rights Act: An Interrogative Discussion In order to investigate the potential tensions between ecclesial traditions and the culture of human rights, we now turn to a brief (and deliberately interrogative) discussion of the Human Rights Act (HRA) and the role of the churches. During 1998, representatives from British churches met with Home Office officials to secure an exemption for churches from the Human Rights Bill.8 The Bill, adopted by the Labour government, became law in October 2000. The Human Rights Act (HRA) is concerned with making 'public' authorities accountable to the European Convention on Human Rights. The Act seeks to bring about equality and justice for all: it is an Act that gives 'further effect' to the 1953 Convention on Human Rights. So why would churches have been seeking exemptions from the Act? What would have been the effect of succeeding in securing such exemptions? Did members of churches understand sufficiently how they were being represented in this matter? The pro-exemption voice appeared to be mostly inspired by a strong but small conservative lobby. In the case of the Church of England, it was alleged that one prominent conservative evangelical churchman has been quick to galvanize like-minded lawyers into action, lobbying for exemption left, right and centre. Grist was added to the mill when it was suggested that a right-wing USA-based Christian pressure group was part-funding the legal costs of fighting the HRA and its incorporation into British law.9 8. The arguments for exemption were widely seen as reflecting the concerns of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, although he was publicly 'committed' to the HRA. An ecumenical group of academics, clergy and laity met with the Home Office Minister, Lord Williams of Mostyn, in October 1998, to put the case for the churches accepting the Bill, and giving the initiative more vocal support in public. 9. It may also be the case that this same USA-based Christian group helped to fund Kenneth Starr's investigations into the Clinton—Lewinsky affair—widely seen in America as an attempt by the Christian right to destabilize the more liberal programme of Clinton and Gore. These allegations have proved to be difficult to substantiate.

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Typically, the concern of the Christian right over the legislation was that it might have meant churches being 'forced' to recognize (or even conduct!) homosexual marriages, or Anglo-Catholic parishes 'compelled' to include women on short-lists for vacant posts. Such scenarios are, of course, the stuff of scare tactics. Clearly, whatever form the Bill was going to be adopted in, statute law in England still only recognizes marriage between a man and a woman: no additional European legislation can change that. Equally, the rights of Forward in Faith10 parishes would always have remained protected, with the preferred particularity of an exclusively male priesthood for a small minority of churchgoers unaltered by an Act, Convention or the Bill. The Bill has its origins in the United Nations Charter (10 December, 1948) which was a 'universal declaration' promoting freedom, justice and peace for all 'regardless of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status'. The European Convention on Human Rights was signed in 1950, and came into force in 1953. The Human Rights Bill is, in fact, more about social aspiration and orientation than about specific prescriptions. The Bill states of itself that it is intended to 'give further effect to the rights and freedoms guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights'.11 For political and theological conservatives, the devil is in the detail. For example, Article 14 of the Convention states that 'the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, natural or social origin, association with minority, property, birth or other status'. Yet the Convention is careful to avoid legislating for employment practice. (It protects a limited range of rights. For example, Article 4 prohibits 'slavery', but recognizes that 'forced or compulsory labour' does not prohibit military service or 'normal civic duties'.) Forward in Faith parishes will not find themselves guilty of sexual discrimination under law for refusing the ministrations of a woman priest (even if they are actually being sexist), and nor will religious schools be forced to appoint well-qualified teachers who are not sympathetic to the ethos of the education on offer. Such scruples are protected under Article 9 of the Convention, which guarantees freedom of thought, conscience and 10. i.e., 'traditionalist' clergy, laity or parishes opposed to the ordination of women as priests within the Church of England. Forward in Faith is 'catholic' in its culture. The evangelical equivalent within the Church of England is an organization known as 'Reform'. 11. Human Rights: A Bill (London: H M S O , 23 October 1997).

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religion, whereby the liberty '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'. Equally, Article 12 (Right to Marry) checks itself by offering it 'according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right'. It looks as though the conservative voice may be too reactionary, with fears based on a false and exaggerated reading of the Bill. Indeed, it is hard to see what churches might ever have had to fear from such a Bill. Yet there was a move to amend Clause 6, which is concerned with the definition of 'public authority', by adding churches, religious charities and religious schools to the list of exemptions. The effect of this would have been to excuse religious bodies from a clause that states that 'it is unlawful for a public authority to act in a way which is incompatible with one or more of the Convention rights'.12 There is a further issue with Clause 10, which may eventually allow a Minister of State to challenge the General Synod, although assurances by the Lord Chancellor have been given on this. (However, concerned churches may still need to consider the wider and long-term implications of the Amsterdam Treaty, especially as it effects legislation on discrimination.) Once again, it appears that conservative voices feared a 'liberal whitewash' here. However, closer attention to the Bill (in the same clause) reveals that the clause does not apply if 'as the result of one or more provisions of primary legislation, the authority could have acted differently'.13 What the Bill offered to the churches and religious bodies was to include them as part of the public domain, while continuing to respect their particularities. At the same time, the Bill acts as a benchmark for public standards which religious bodies must at least correspond with, but not necessarily conform to, most especially if they are already protected by primary legislation. The difference is crucial. The Bill invites all religious organizations to participate in a civil society by virtue of being public authorities. While this makes them accountable to the public they serve, it also protects their freedom of expression. u Therefore, to press for exemp12. Cf. the amendment tabled by Baroness Young, Lord Kingsland and Lord Henley in Second Marshalled List ofAmendments (London: H M S O , 21 November 1997), paragraph 40. 13. For a discussion of how the Courts would work to enact the Bill in cases of discrimination, see The Council of Europe and the Protection of Human Rights (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1993). 14. For further discussion see D. Westerlund (ed.), Questioning the Secular State: The Worldwide Resurgence of Religion in Politics (London: Hurst & Co., 1996). The authors in

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tion is effectively to argue for religion being a private matter and not accountable to the public. Naturally, it is hard to see the missiological advantage in such a course of action for any church, let alone one established by law. If the maintenance of church identity is dependent upon decent public standards being excluded, then it is surely time to reconsider an established church claiming to exercise a public theology.15 One of the greatest challenges that faces the United Kingdom (not just the church) is how to modernize and adapt as a body in a third millennium that is more public and plural, globalized yet individualized, democratized yet privatized. The watchwords for a more forward-looking culture are now emerging: participation, modernity, opportunity, quality of life, radicalism, communication, possibility and flexibility. The public domain is deemed to be the crucible of a caring society. Correspondingly, churches are being invited to participate afresh in the making of society, not just healing its brokenness or protecting its own interests.16 One of the dangers the church faced, in attempting to turn its back on the legislation, is that it would no longer be classed—at least in rhetoric rather than legal terminology—as a 'public authority'. Therefore, by definition, it could be perceived as a private and unaccountaole body, at a distance from the centre of being in society. In the case of the two established churches in Britain (Anglican in England, Presbyterian in Scotland), there were and are manifest risks involved in adopting this position. Loss of 'public' status is an unintended but self-marginalizing strategy that might mean vacating the socio-ethical arena. How, then, could churches speak with integrity on justice, discrimination and parity if they chose to be exempt from the very laws that bind the rest of society? Only, it seems to me, if they can claim that their morals are superior.17 this volume suggest various models of church-state interaction, which they refer to as 'policies of religion'. 15. See M. Hill, 'Church Autonomy in the United Kingdom', paper presented to the Second European/American Conference on Religious Freedom, 'Church Autonomy and Religious Liberty', University of Trier, Germany, 27-30 May 1999. 16. For a refreshing perspective and critique, see R. Furbey, 'Urban Regeneration', Critical Social Policy: A Journal of Theory and Practice and Social Welfare 61 (November 1999), pp. 419-45. 17. See the discussion in Audi, Religious Commitment, pp. 81-144, where the author argues for the separation of church and state. Religious convictions, according to Audi, cannot translate easily into secular seasons for laws and moral codes. Religious values, therefore, must become subsumed as part of ethics if faith groups wish to share in the shaping of a civil society.

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And any moral claim of this sort would necessarily be open to public scrutiny. When the Roman Catholic Church report The Common Good18 appeared in 1997, it was praised by media and churches, and was perceived as a significant contribution to public and political life. Yet it did not take long for politicians and other public figures to point out that the Roman Catholic Church itself was not adopting the standards and measures for its employees that it was prescribing for the rest of society. If trades union representation and the rights of 'ordinary' workers are to be flagged up as concerns of the church for the common good of society, then presumably these same standards of justice and fairness are already being practised by the church in relation to its clergy? Actually, they are not. Prescriptions for democracy from the churches do not always translate into descriptions of their own theocracies. A case for moral superiority requires the churches to be already living by standards they regard as better than, not just different from, those of society. Conservative Christians may well object to homosexual unions or gender equality in ecclesial office. Yet no one is compelled to marry or bless a gay union, or employ a woman or a man against their better judgment. So, rather than the churches resisting socio-legal engagement, it is arguably wiser to focus on participation, even if that risks greater public accountability and change. The fear for some is that this may ultimately disclose that the 'morals' of the churches on some issues may not in fact be superior, but rather different and particular, or even backward.19 Yet they would still be respected in a plural society, even as they are appropriately challenged.20 It is probable that the adoption of the legislation by the government—now enshrined in the Human Rights Act of October 2000— will indeed eventually marginalize such particularities, and dislodge a significant conservative minority from the centre of the political, ecclesial and social ground, placing them on the periphery. To put it another way, the Church of England will take another small step away from being the 'Conservative Party at prayer'. 18. The Common Good (London: Catholic Information Office, 1997). 19. For some earlier perspectives on the churches and human rights, see Human Rights and Christian Responsibilities, I—III (Geneva: W C C , 1975); A. Miller (ed.), A Christian Declaration on Human Rights (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977); and H. Todt and W. Huber (eds.), Theological Perspectives on Human Rights (Geneva: W C C , 1977). 20. Readers interested in comparisons with other countries will find J. Thierstein and Y. Kamalipour (eds.), Religion, Law and Freedom: A Global Perspective (Westport, C T : Praeger, 2000) very illuminating. Essays cover press freedom, advertising and ethical issues, human rights and politics.

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Naturally, it was the fear of marginalization that drove the pro-exemption lobby in the first place. If society and the majority of churchgoers embraced the Bill and its spirit as it did (the spirit arguably being the more important of the two), then objectors are left out in the cold. Yet had they succeeded, the vast majority of ordinary, civil-minded churchgoers would have been lumbered with defending a conservative agenda in the interests of protecting overall ecclesial particularity. And, ironically, the marginalization would still have occurred, since the churches would have effectively voted not to be 'public' authorities. (Indeed, ecclesiastical courts were exempted from the Act in its final form.) For the Church of England, 'establishment' would mean morphological ties to a monarchy, while a connection with the sociality engendered by the democratic and elected state would at the same time wither.21 To be sure, there were and are grounds for churches being cautious about embracing legislation that ties them into society as 'public' and 'accountable'. Bonhoeffer would doubtless have had plenty to say about this, as would Desmond Tutu on the Dutch Reformed Church in the Apartheid era.22 (Having said that, the South African churches played a significant role in peacekeeping and monitoring in the transition from Apartheid to democracy, and through the subsequent administration of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, are offering a visionary model for 'public' theology.) Any church closely identified with society risks obviating its 'difference', and therefore the very point of belonging to what should be an alternative community. Pulling down all the social and moral frontiers of the church would be a mistake: the unbounded is soon the empty. People do not flood into bodies without definition: they flood out. But nonetheless, the situation of the churches in Britiain with regard to the Act was different to those that churches once faced in Germany or South Africa. They were not being asked to sanction crude nationalism, and nor were they being asked to keep silence in the face of anti-Semitism, racism or its modern-day equivalents. Nor were the churches being asked to lose their identity, or entirely conflate it with the 'public' realm under some kind of utilitarian principle. On the contrary, the distinctiveness the churches can offer is being 21. For a fuller discussion, see P. Edge and G. Harvey (eds.), Law and Religion in Contemporary Society (Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2000). 22. For a very different perspective on Christian opposition to the state in another African nation, see M. Schoffeleers, In Search of Truth and Justice: Confrontations Between Church and State in Malawi 1960-1994 (Blantyre: Chrstian Literature Association, 1999).

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invited afresh to participate in society as salt and yeast. The Human Rights Act offers the opportunity for churches to recover their public role, and rediscover their prophetic voice in the political realm. In this sense, churches need to move beyond a simplistic dichotomy in which they either say an uncritical 'y e s ' to the Act, or seek to secure a potentially damaging legal exemption. A wiser approach to the culture of rights enshrined in the Act would be to go with the flow of the legislation, with a combination of passion and coolness, recognizing that it is only when public participation has been assented to that the prophetic can flourish where it is needed. In other words, I am suggesting that churches can only be the social form of the truth (or the social transcendent body) if they ensure that they remain public bodies.23 This form of engagement is of course a risk, but no more so than the incarnation itself. While some would argue that this is an invitation to weld together secular liberalism with select Christian doctrines, my argument nonetheless stands. Pursuing this agenda is about being prepared to see Truth being embodied socially, contextually and temporally, in order that grace may abound. In such a situation, the church cannot guarantee its own power absolutely, nor be sure of entirely protecting truth, nor be certain of the outcomes of its intercourse with society. But it can at least be there, and continue to speak as of right as a public body, and as a social incarnation of transcendence, mystery and morality. Put another way, the task of Christians is not to guard an empty tomb, but rather follow a risen Lord, and serve society.24 Conflating Secular and Sacred Cultures: Paradigms of Civil Religion Bhikhu Parekh—the first Hindu peer in the House of Lords—outlines a new paradigm for a relationship between religion and the state.25 First, he 23. For a fuller discussion, see Markham, Plurality and Christian Ethics, chs 8-10. 24. Of course, how this is done will vary from one Christian tradition to another. For a critical and theological perspective on the human rights agenda, see J. Lockwood O'Donovan, 'Historical Prolegomena to a Theological Review of Human Rights', Studies in Christian Ethics 9.2 (1998), pp. 52-65. O'Donovan identifies three dominant conceptual elements in the tradition of rights theory: property right, contract, and freedom of choice. For O'Donovan, there is a question as to why Christian thinkers have been willing to 'adopt a child of such questionable parentage as the concept of human rights'. 25. B. Parekh, 'When Religion Meets Polities', in Keeping the Faiths: The New Covenant Between Religious Belief and Secular Power (London: Demos, 1997), pp. 7-12.

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argues that instead of religion being marginalized (as many secularists might wish), its distinct contribution to public life should be recognized, and faith given a stake in maintenance of a free and open society. He is aware that religion can sometimes do the opposite of this, but suggests that the more openly dialogical a religion becomes, the more it is able to foster moderation and respect within itself: society can 'civilize' the church. Secondly, when religion enters politics, it has to accept the constraints of political life. This includes speaking in a 'public' language that is intelligible to all citizens, and accepting 'the burden of public judgment' which sometimes requires people to live with deep disagreements. Thirdly, religion plays an important and direct role in moral life, and the community therefore has a deep and collective interest in the well-being of churches and their beliefs. For this reason, religion should be taught in school in the same way that children should be politically educated. The teacher is neither to subvert nor to convert, but to discuss beliefs in an open, respectful, comparative and analytical manner, recognizing that religion is a distinct form of human consciousness and experience. To give Parekh's arguments a slightly different turn, it could be argued that being a Christian in the twenty-first century cannot simply be about belonging to a church, but should equally be seen in terms of being a certain type of citizen within society.26 'Civil religion' therefore becomes something significantly more than 'social glue' or 'the spiritual dimension' to society. It also becomes bound up in the actual aspirations of society which are themselves related to the common good. Andrew Shanks takes this a stage further, when he argues that A genuinely 'open' church...would be an open forum: reproducing within itself the full range of (thoughtful) moral conflict characteristic of the surrounding world; excluding nothing except intolerance; and differing from the world only in the exemplary manner in which it tried to process these conflicts...

Shanks continues by contending that the church must move beyond simply providing pastoral remedies for personal sin, which he says can no longer make the church, priest or pastor a focus for communal unity. Instead, the clergy need to be gifted in tackling the phenomenon of structural sin on behalf of the community: they need to be issue-raisers, prophets and protagonists. In this respect, he sees the Christian Spirit as being invested in a new form of mission: 26. C f P. Clarke, Citizenship (London: Pluto Press, 1994). 27. A. Shanks, Civil Religion Civil Society (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), p. 90.

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Yet Shanks, like Parekh, knows that churches need to be maintained as distinctive bodies, independent of the state and the public, if they are to be the yeast and salt of the Kingdom of God. The church is there to help fund civilizing strands within society. But it does not own society, and nor does it entirely own all the moral strands that might guide and make sociality.29 As Coleridge suggested almost two centuries ago, the church of the nation is not quite the same as the church of Christ, yet it is there to secure and improve the moral cultivation of its people, 'without which the nation could be neither permanent or progressive'.30 The church is therefore not a world to come, but another world that now is, whose role is to combat political evil, not just institutional defects. While this may be true of churches in Britain,31 and perhaps more generally of Western Europe, 32 the parameters of civic religion within civil society follow some very different contours in the USA. The fundamental breach between the ruled and the ruler, coupled with the need of large 28. Shanks, Civil Religion, p. 114. 29. Recent research on Sector ministry in England (i.e. prisons, hospitals, the armed services and higher education) has shown a modest expansion in the number of nonChristian chaplains that institutions are employing, although the situation remains far from perfect. See J. Beckford and S. Gilliat, Religion in Prison: Equal Rites in a Multi-Faith Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1998; S. Gilliat-Ray, Religion in Higher Education: The Politics of a Multi-Faith Campus (Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2001); and H. Orchard, Hospital Chaplaincy: Modern, Dependable? (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000). 30. S.T. Coleridge, On the Constitution of Church and State (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976 [1823]), p. 44. 31. More accurately, it is the 'Christian culture' of a society rather than simply specific churches that produces civil society, although the two are normally closely related. It is also worth noting that many societies, guilds, companies and other associations, with Christian or other religious roots, also help to produce a civil religion and civil society culture. The Freemasons are, in Britain at least, one obvious example. See P. Clark, British Clubs and Societies 1550-1800: The Origin of an Associational World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 32. See D. Herbert, Religion and Civil Society: Multiculturalism, Democracy and Spirituality (Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2001).

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post-Enlightenment states to win the willing assent of the governed, and achieve a degree of consensus on the normative foundations for legitimizing authority, have always posed a problem for nations where religion is not established. Writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) argued that religion should play a key part in the legitimization of the state, but at the same time, it does not follow that this leads to a re-established church. For Rousseau, Christianity was a religion of inward devotion—a spirituality that was vital for individuals, but which had no obvious or organized political shape, except insofar as it could contribute to what he famously dubbed 'civil religion': Now, it matters very much to the community that each citizen should have a religion... Each man may have, over and above, what opinions he pleases, without its being the Sovereigns business to take cognisance of them; for, as the Sovereign has no authority in the other world, whatever the lot of its subjects may be in the life to come, that is not its business, provided they are good citizens in this life... The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary. The existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws: these are its positive dogmas. Its negative dogmas I confine to one, intolerance...

IT

It is not difficult to recognize these idealized seedlings—of religion embedded in American civil society—within Rousseau's words. Indeed, the notion that a form of religion somehow shapes modern American life in a non-controlling way is a thesis with a long track record. Ernst Troeltsch has argued that liberal democracy is a product of religious forces.34 Similarly, Talcott Parsons affirms liberal American democracy, not as a secular creation, but rather as the institutionalization of Protestant values. For Parsons, American democracy is a child of Protestantism, not a secular competitor.35 George Jellinek has further argued that the American concept of inalienable rights (and toleration) is traceable to the radical religious movements that

33. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses (London: Dent, 1973), pp. 307-308. 34. E. Troeltsch, Protestantism and Progress: A Historical Study of the Relations of Protestantism to the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966). 35. T. Parsons, 'Christianity and Modern Industrialised Society', in E. Tiryakian (ed.), Sociological Theory, Values and Sociological Change (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1963), pp. 33-70.

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were expelled from Europe, and were early settlers in America. To an extent, many Americans have derived a degree of comfort from the creation and sustaining of such a culture. However, this picture of almost benign support—civil society and civil religion living off one another in gentle symbiosis—has changed markedly as American culture has rapidly developed in the post-war years. In America, as in many Western European countries, the supposedly inclusive nature of a civil society has been challenged by religious groups that claim their spiritual or cultural rights are not being respected. This challenge may range from pressing for legal exemptions in respect of attire (e.g., Muslim girls wearing headscarves to school in France, or British Sikhs wearing turbans but not crash helmets), to defending female genital mutilation.37 At the extreme, religious groups may resort to terrorism, such as the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in September 2001. Equally, Roof and McKinney point to the influence of black churches on American politics, and the advancement of civil rights through appealing to the white Christian conscience.38 Far from being benign, religious values are now commodities that are very definitely mobilized. Similarly, the New Christian Right has also gained prominence, becoming increasingly active in politics.39 In recent years, the New Christian Right has become suspicious of 'tolerance' as a general principle of civil religion. Indeed, there are now in the USA many religious lobbying groups, highly organized and well funded, which seek directly to influence the shaping of American life as well as the foreign policy of the USA. Writing in 1967, Robert Bellah noted how 'pluralized' civil religion was being made up of an eclectic mix of symbols, beliefs and ideals. Granted, these performed a similar legitimizing 36. G. Jellinek (ed.), The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Westport, C T : Hyperion Press, 1979). 37. See U. Menon, 'Does Feminism Have Universal Relevance? The Challenges Posed by Oriya Hindu Family Practices', pp. 77-100; K. Pratt-Ewing, 'Legislating Religious Freedom: Muslim Challenges to "Church" and "State" in Germany and France', pp. 31-54; and R. Shweder, 'What About Female Genital Mutilation? Why Understanding Culture Matters', Daedalus 129.4 (2000), pp. 209-33. Shweder shows that female genital mutilation actually empowers the Kono girls of Sierra Leone (p. 212), which offends American feminists. 38. Wade Clark Roof and W. McKinney American Mainline Religion: Its Changing Shape and Future (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987). 39. Cf. R. Wuthnow, 'The Political Rebirth of American Evangelicals', in R. Wuthnow and R. Liebman (eds.), The New Christian Right: Mobilization and Legitimation (New York: Aldine Publishing, 1983), pp. 167-85.

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function to the one Rousseau had in mind, insofar as they provided a fairly simple creed that supported civil society. Yet Bellah has also observed how the very foundations of post-war American civil religion are themselves now threatened by vapid individualism.40 The present parameters of the debate are perhaps best described by Richard John Neuhaus. On the one hand, Neuhaus maintains that an American civil society cannot exclude religion from shaping public life and discourse. On the other hand, he also argues that religious traditions can only inhabit such space on the condition that they respect the rules of open public debate, and do not themselves become tyrannical and autocratic.41 In other words, we are back with Parekh: religion being offered to society, rather than imposed upon it. Mindful of Bellah's championing of civil religion, of Neuhaus's 'public philosophy', and of the improbability of Christendom, Ian Markham agrees with these insights when he affirms that there are now only three ways in which religion can properly enable a process of what he describes as 'cultural enrichment' within 'secular' society: Instead of a unitary culture in which one language, one religion, one history and one set of images dominate, we need a diverse culture in which different languages, many religions, and several narratives and images coexist in stimulating tension... Cultural enrichment requires three different processes. First, we must develop the separateness of each community. We should empower communities to create the space for their tradition to be affirmed... The second process within cultural enrichment is that of community engagement, implying dialogue, disagreement, and a mutual exploration of truth... The third process is that of faith communities discovering their voice within the public square. Public policy requires a moral dimension...

This is the new paradigm of civil religion within so-called secular cultures: a subtle blend of prophetic resistance and respectful accommodation, based on the overall resilience of religious tradition within a culture that may, at first sight, not appear to welcome religious insights at all. However, there are a number of ways of following the recipe described above. Christian social thought is hardly new, and the faith-based contours that are sometimes offered to help society shape itself can have markedly 40. See R. Bellah, 'Civil Religion in America', Daedalus 96.1 (1967), pp. 1-21, and The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in a Time of Trial (New York: Seabury Press, 1975). 41. R. Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 1984), pp. 258-60. 42. See Markham, Plurality and Christian Ethics, p. 151.

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different outcomes.43 For example, the transition from the Clinton-Gore years to the presidency of George W. Bush will test Neuhaus' thesis as much as it confirms it. Within weeks of assuming power, Bush launched an initiative that encouraged 'faith-based' social programmes to supplement or replace government social welfare programmes. In Britain, collaboration between churches and government in urban renewal programmes is well established. However, the American equivalent—the Office of Faith-Based Welfare—has an entirely different feel to it. Marvin Olasky is, arguably, its guru—an ex-communist who espouses a philosophy of 'compassionate conservatism',44 a less than subtle blend of politico-religious concerns, which has been partly responsible for shaping the moral tone of Bush's presidency. No less influential has been Myron Magnet and his work, 45 with Bush describing his bestseller as 'the book which influenced me the most, second only to the Bible'.46 The triumvirate of Bush's religious advisors is completed by Chuck Colson, the former assistant to Richard Nixon, jailed for his part in the Watergate scandal. Colson is known for his dramatic conversion to Christianity during his seven-month prison sentence,47 and for his subsequent advocacy of prayer ministry in prisons as an aid to correction and transformation. Colson is the founder of the Innerchange Freedom Initiative Charity, which actually runs some prison wings in American jails, and claims that the rates of recidivism are lower in those that the charity manages.48 This development arguably represents a stage beyond civil religion, at least in the sense that Rousseau might have meant it. 'Civil' has become elided with 'public', and in the process, and correspondingly, faith is now 43. From a North American perspective, see A. Fitzgibbon, In the World But Not of the World: Christian Social Thinking at the End of the Twentieth Century (Lanham, M D : Lexington Books, 2000). For more general perspectives, see A. Walsh, Religion, Economics and Public Policy: Ironies, Tragedies and Absurdities of the Contemporary Culture Wars (Westport, C T : Praeger, 2000), and R.J. Elford and I. Markham (eds.), The Middle Way: Politics and Economics in the Late Thought ofR.H. Preston (London: SCM Press, 2000). 44. M. Olasky (with a Foreword by George W. Bush), Compassionate Conservatism: What it is, What it Does and How it Can Transform America (New York: The Free Press, 1996). 45. M. Magnet, The Tragedy ofAmerican Compassion: The Sixties Legacy to the Underclass (Dallas: Prodigal Press, 1997). 46. E. Vulliamy, 'The Power of Prayer: America's Moral Crusaders', in the Observer (4 February 2001), p. 17. 47. See C. Colson, Born Again (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1984). 48. Vulliamy, 'Power of Prayer', p. 17.

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more sharply defined and narrower in its outlook. But what does this mean? In essence, it suggests that the very 'public space' that religion once nestled within is now deemed to be empty of values, or, alternatively, full of competing convictions that need policing. Thus, religious groups that are so minded no longer see their values as 'private' or as individual, but rather as qualities that may transform an allegedly vacuous and over-liberalized democracy into something more like a theocracy. It is perhaps an inevitable consequence of the individualism identified by Bellah, coupled to the pluralism and modernity of the post-war years, which has eroded the original concept of civil religion and led to this loss of confidence in the generous and inclusive shaping of public space.49 And that moment is full of ironies. For example, ultra-right-wing Christian Republicans can campaign against abortion 'for the sanctity of life', while at the same time presiding over legislature that sends record numbers of black prisoners to death row, while at the same time arguing for 'liberal' gun laws that enable individuals to protect themselves. The moral incoherence is staggering,50 yet at the same time makes perfect sense in a culture in which crimes and their punishments are based on highly selective hermeneutics that in turn reflect the federal and frontier preference for the values of the Old Testament and with which the actual founder of Christianity would never have been comfortable.51 Casanova is probably right when he asserts that religion in modern times is differentiated, but not privatized. It continues to have an influence on the public and political landscape, even though it may now mainly consist of protests—either against secularism, consumerism or liberalism, or more generally against the excesses of the modern state.52 Paradoxically, Bush's turn towards faith-based charities, and away from 'big government', represents a retreat from the dream of Rousseau, and the vision of America's founders. 'One nation under God' is a civil, cultural 49. O n the transition from civil to public religion, see W. Swatos, Jr, and J. Wellman, Jr, The Power of Religious Publics: Staking Claims in American Society (Westport, C T : Praeger, 1999). In a way the subtitle says it all. The fact that 'claims' are now 'staked' shows how the implicit religious values of America—'invisible religion', to borrow from Thomas Luckmann—have been transformed into a much narrower set of explicit claims, which will divide as much as they ever unite. Many of the essays in the volume reflect these concerns from a confessional perspective. 50. For a comparative discussion of Bellah and Neuhaus, see Markham, Plurality and Christian Ethic, chs 6 and 7, especially pp. 94-95. 51. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (London: Virago, 1987), is set in a postapocalyptic America, where states are governed according to Old Testament principles. 52. Casanova, Public Religions.

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and unifying affirmation with a long and august history, which still serves an increasingly complex and diverse society. In the rapid descent from an inclusive sentiment to an electioneering slogan, the words are in danger of evolving into a politically and socially divisive instrument in the hands of those who want to bring religion to bear directly upon select aspects of public life. In turn, this will mean that the shaping of civil religion will have an increasing impact on the definition—and eventual limitation—of human rights. Commonweal in Uncommon Cultures The collapse in civic confidence, coupled to the identification of 'social space' as something 'public' that can be filled by various interest groups (including the religious), does seem to confirm Nazila Ghanea-Hercock's thesis that 'no ultimate solution can be found to this question of on what to basis to resolve all conflicts that are ever to emerge between human rights and the endless wealth and diversity of religious or other beliefs'.53 However, there may be hope. She notes that religious and secular cultures can change; worldviews are not 'frozen'. This fact alone, she argues, ought to encourage dialogue between religions and the proponents of human rights upon the areas where they do not see eye to eye. It may be that seemingly intractable disagreements about sexuality, gender or personhood can be resolved. She suggests two interim understandings that may help this process along. First, mutual respect between the traditions of human rights and religious traditions must recognize that 'all traditions and practices have to pass the test of some sort of universal moral code'. She cites An-Na'im in support of this contention: Traditional culture is not a substitute for human rights; it is a cultural context in which human rights must be established, integrated, promoted and protected. Human rights must be approached in a way that is relevant and meaningful in diverse cultural contexts...

The second interim understanding recognizes that human rights are a 'manmade' code. As such, they can do no more than register the highest moral 53. N . Ghanea-Hercock, 'Faith in Human Rights: Human Rights in Faith', in Thierstein and Kamalipour (eds.), Religion, Law and Freedom, p. 221. 54. A. An-Na'im, 'Towards a Cross-Cultural Approach to Defining International Standards of Human Rights: The Meaning of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading punishment', in idem (ed.), Human Rights in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Quest for Consensus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), p. xiii.

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values that any society presently perceives. Again, this suggests that religions may have a part to play in contesting or supporting such values, even as they are themselves supported and contested. This is an important insight, for it recognizes that churches, if they wish to argue for a particular stance on gender or sexuality, must do so in a way that renders them accountable to civil society, if indeed a religion wants to be regarded as public, or to make public claims. This dynamic affects all faiths. The Church of England's stance on women bishops may look credible within its own ecclesial culture, but it looks like an archaic form of discrimination in the eyes of the general public. Equally, the treatment of homosexuality in some faiths may be internally coherent, but may at the same time turn out to be a worldview that denies that faith a public voice. The challenge then, is to observe human rights within cultural circumstances.55 The tolerance of liberal societies (which may be linked to liberalism)56 may have an important role to play in the future, if the particularity of church autonomy is to co-exist with a meta-culture of human rights. In Alec Vidler's Essays in Liberality,57 he suggests that the patron saint of theologians ought to be the person who is tolerant; not because they regard all opinions as doubtful, but because they know that God alone is true. Such a person is ready to learn from all people, not because they have no creed of their own, but because their creed assures them that God is teaching and chastening all people. Behind Vidler stands the deeper liberalism of scholars such as Isaiah Berlin. Berlin is conscious of the tension between liberty and equality, which is frequently at the heart of ethical dilemmas, or contested valuesystems that may emerge between faith groups and human rights proponents. 58 Equality may demand the restraint of liberty. Equally, liberty may prevent degrees of equality: in a liberal society, there is always a collision of values, which reflects the very essence of what we are as individual human beings, and as collective society. Berlin is clear that the primary task of pursuing the ideal of liberalism is to avoid extremes, particularly extremes of suffering. Yet in order to do that, Berlin states, it becomes necessary to live with tensions. Of course, one does not opt for 55. Ghanea-Hercock, 'Faith in Human Rights', pp. 222-23. 56. I accept that liberalism does not have a monopoly on tolerance, only that tolerance is a particular hallmark of liberal societies. 57. A. Vidler, Essays in Liberality (London: SCM Press, 1970). 58. I. Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity (London: HarperCollins, 1991), pp. 12-18.

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intolerable choices—but one is often left with a precarious equilibrium. A primary task of liberalism must therefore be to maintain a kind of peaceful openness, which will be the foundation of a civil society. The prospect of church autonomy and human rights co-existing within a culture depends upon this.59 However, this may still be perceived as alienating by some cultures and religious groups within society. Laurence Sager argues wisely for civil society when he states that 'the regime of liberty is premised on protection rather than privilege'.60 In other words, a civil society does not attempt to dole out advantages or exemptions to groups or individuals on the basis of their beliefs. Rather, it aims at parity, and therefore takes an interest in religions or cultural practices only when the rights of individuals or groups are being impeded or eroded. Four centuries ago, Richard Hooker committed himself to a vision of church and society that prefigures this. That is to say, he saw civil society and civil religion as a matter of progressive growth and mutual interdependence, with church and society providing one another with life and health. Organic approaches to ecclesiology recognize the heterogeneity of congregations and churches, and their deep need to be reconciled in a common, if complicated, life. For Hooker, the church was a living body that was rooted in society, and sometimes in their operations the two could not be distinguished: The stateliness of houses, the goodlines of trees, when we behold them delighteth the eye; but that foundation which beareth up the one, that root which ministereth unto the other nourishment and life, is in the bosom of the earth concealed: and if there be at any time occasion to search into it, such labour is then more necessary than pleasant, both to them which undertake it, and for lookers-on. In like manner the use and benefit of good laws, all that live under them may enjoy with delight and comfort, albeit the grounds and first original causes from whence they have sprung be unknown, as to the greatest part of men they are.

59. Berlin, Crooked Timber, p. 17. See also I. Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). 60. L. Sager, 'The Free Exercise of Culture: Some Doubts and Distinctions', Daedalus 129.4 (2000), pp. 193-208. The quotation is from p. 206. 61. See R. Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (London: J.M. Dent, 1907 [Everyman Edition], Book I.I.2. For a modern rendering of Hooker's seventeenth-century English, see A.S. McGrade, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). For a short introduction to Hooker, see M. Percy, Introducing Richard Hooker and the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1999).

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In Hooker's mind, sociality is supported by two foundations (or perhaps exists under two overlapping 'sacred canopies'): 'a natural inclination, whereby all men desire sociable life and fellowship', and 'an order expressly or secretly agreed upon, touching the manner of their union in living together'.62 Thus, the ideal order is described by Hooker as 'the law of a Commonweal'. Significantly, the concept of an original agreement makes the order similar to a social contract. Just as all types of law derive from divine laws, all authority derives from ultimate authority, which is from God. And yet Hooker does not abuse this lineage by demanding slavish obedience. For Hooker, laws are public, and all truth is in a kind of common trusteeship. The use of Hooker—only alluded to here very briefly—suggests that the tension between church autonomy and human rights need not be so sharp. Hooker argues for the upholding of a civil society, because he sees this as a guarantor of both humanity and religion. Moreover, a public religion, even if it had to be compromised in certain of its aspects to become and remain public, was better than a private faith. Or, put another way, an extensive and intensive private religion—even one whose adherents may be growing in number all the time—does not offer the same benefits to society as an open civil religion.63 Hooker understood that the images of God contained within a civil religion may both subvert and legitimate political authority or the values within a prevailing culture.64 If churches are prepared to be public and accountable, that card can still be played, as and when necessary.

62. Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book I, X 1 . 63. For a contemporary discussion, see R. Shweder, M. Minow and M. Markus (eds.), The Free Exercise of Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2001). 64. Cf. D. Nicholls, Deity and Domination: Images of God and the State in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (London: Routledge, 1989).

Part Two CHRISTIANITY AND POPULAR CULTURE

Chapter 6 The Church in the Market-Place: Advertising, Media and Religion

The codfish lays ten thousand eggs. The homely hen lays one. The codfish never cackles To tell you what she's done. And so we scorn the codfish— While the humble hen we prize. It only goes to show you That it pays to advertise.

This chapter is mainly concerned with an area that is seldom addressed by academics: advertising. Specifically, it is a reflection on the problems encountered by Christian churches as they have sought to engage with this particular medium of communication, as an example of their encounter with the media 'culture' in general. The case studies are primarily drawn from Britain, but attention has also been paid to the USA, the Middle East and the Far East. At the same time, the chapter also tilts in another direction, and sketches the issues that might be posed by reflecting on the phenomenon of religious advertising in an apparently secular age. When churches advertise, exactly to whom are they talking? Then again, are the gaps between religion, media culture and society in general really as chasmic as many suppose? As we noted in the Introduction, Peter Beyer argues that religion as a 'differentiated category' only emerged within seventeenthcentury Europe. Culturally, what many describe as 'postmodernity' may be nothing more than religion's return to non-differentiation.2 David Martin's The Breaking of the Image argues that there are all kinds of connections 1. 172. 2.

Anonymous, and cited in D. Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising (London: Pan, 1983), p. Beyer, 'The City and Beyond', pp. 67-69.

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between symbol systems and social worlds, even though the original meanings may be said to be 'dammed-up' in reservoirs of modernity. He sees the religious, the spiritual and the sacred 'leaking' into ordinary life at many levels. He shows how sacred symbols, meanings and assemblies can often provide a hidden 'code' for sociality. What I shall be arguing here is that this is true in many areas of the media, including advertising. In turn this touches on markets and commerce (although this is dealt with in more depth in the next chapter). It is not easy to separate the sacred from the secular.3 We should perhaps begin by noting that the relationship between churches and the contemporary media is characteristically uneasy.4 This is in part due to the conservative nature of the established churches in their attitude towards radio and television generally. It is not so long ago that the Church of England Bishops questioned the first radio broadcast of Dorothy L. Sayers's The Man Born to be King, because it involved listeners, as it were, hearing the voice of Christ. Recently, Pope John Paul II condemned the internet; the Archbishop of Canterbury has also expressed reservations. It is also useful to recall that the church once had reservations about printing presses, and about making the Bible available in vernacular languages and not just in Latin. All this may seem puzzling to modern readers, but it is far from surprising, for behind the tensions there are quite different philosophies related to the purposes of communication. 5

3. For example, in 1999 a number of Church of England bishops complained about the lack of religious output on TV and radio during Holy Week. Being a sociologically curious person, I added up the number of hours devoted to religion during the week, and came to a rather different conclusion. While it was true that the religious broadcasting department of the BBC had few programmes, and at unsociable hours, there were many programmes in which religion featured prominently. For example, there was a major BBC TV programme on Christian art, much sacred music on Radio 3 and Classic FM, and three religious histories on Channel 4, to name but a few. 4. Of course, advertisements in tracts and booklets have long been a feature of nonconformist and established churches, but the churches are more reconciled to the printed word as an appropriate medium for apologetics. The uneasiness is more to do with the present advertising 'industry', the 'media', and their power. Recently, the Vatican has published a number of controversial documents in this field, the most notable being the Pontifical Council for Social Communication's 'Ethics in Advertising', L'Ossevatore Romano (English Weekly Edition), 16 April 1997. 5. For an overview, see J. Eldridge (ed.), Getting the Message: News, Truth and Power (London: Routledge, 1993), and J. Phelan, 'Media', in Clarke and Linzey (eds.), Dictionary of Ethics, Theology and Society, pp. 557-62.

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In Christianity (perhaps especially due to Protestantism), communication has gradually moved away from the parabolic, symbolic and pictorial to the didactic. This is, in part, a legacy of the Reformation, but it is also a response to the Enlightenment. The media, in contrast, are creatures of the Enlightenment. They aspire to emancipation. The invention of printing was, literally, liberating, enabling a form of cheap mass communication that could challenge political, religious or monarchical establishments on every continent. The very act of publishing any information, from the apparently trivial or titillating through to the investigative and analytical, is a subversive form of communication in the service of offering new and liberating perspectives. One thing that Christians and the media agree on is this: 'the truth will set you free' (Jn 8.32). What they do not agree on, however, is the nature of the material that should be shaping individual lives and culture, and helping form the future.6 There are tensions between the value systems that, roughly speaking, can be characterized as 'ideational' (beliefs and values shape life, and the attitude to material interests is relaxed) and 'sensate' (beliefs and values are marginalized, and pleasure and the senses become the arbiters of taste, decency and value).7 Michael Warren helpfully identifies the horns of the dilemma: the media may be either a form of cultural oppression or a form of cultural agency. Agencies are cast as informative or emancipatory; oppression is manifest in a variety of guises, such as 'the tyranny of images',8 the lowering of public standards, the distortion of truth,

6. See J. Phelan, Disenchantment: Meaning and Morality in the Media (New York: Hastings House, 1980); idem, 'Affinity and Conflict between Theology and Communication', Media Development 4 (1981), pp. 26-38; N . Garnham, Emancipation, the Media and Modernity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); and P. Borsook, Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian World of High-Tech (London: Little, Brown & Co., 1999). While acknowledging the attempts of churches to resist forms of communication and media that they cannot control, it should be noted that many cultural commentators are aware of the 'tyranny' that media can impose. Two useful discussions can be found in H. Giroux, The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), and idem, Stealing Innocence: Youth, Corporate Power and the Politics of Culture (London: St Martin's Press, 1999). For a general overview of advertising see J. Phelan, 'Advertising', in Clarke and Linzey (eds.), Dictionary of Ethics, Theology and Society, pp. 6-8. 7. See J. Habgood, 'Seeing Ourselves', in S. Platten (ed.), Seeing Ourselves: Interpreting Contemporary Society (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1998), p. 99. 8. Warren, Seeing Through the Media: A Religious View of Communications and Cultural Analysis (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), p. 13.

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propaganda, or abusive and oppressive types of communication, such as pornography. Warren draws on the work of Raymond Williams and Paulo Freire to develop his own theories of culture, including the notion that churches and faiths may offer a form of resistance to contemporary culture, either through protest, or by developing an alternative culture, or both. 9 However, even a brief global survey shows how complex the tensions can be. It is not clear, for instance, that all cultures will agree on what constitutes a 'freedom of expression'. In a liberal climate within the USA or Europe, say, this may appear to be obvious. There are public standards of taste and decency that reflect sensate values.10 That said, it is invariably the case that the rights of individuals are also upheld. Yet that fundamental presupposition may seem anti-social in other cultural climes. For example, Kazem Motamed-Nejad and Naiim Badii describe how press freedom has evolved in post-revolution Iran, in such a way as to 'critically support' the state and the aspirations of the Islamic leaders.11 From a different perspective, Hamid Mowlana explores the responsibilities of Muslim journalists in terms of Islamic tradition. Resistance to material culture, upholding the family and the maintenance of Islamic civilisation are just some of the areas he identifies.12 Western cultural assumptions concerning the freedom that the media offers society, are however, not only a problem for Islam. All societies may have interests in controlling or policing the media, for particular cultural, political or religious reasons. The state of Israel has engaged in religious censorship relating to archaeological discoveries. Indeed, the 'culture' it exhibits through museums and publications does its level best to establish the land as the rightful home of the Jewish people, and not as a country with a complex history, a land to which many different peoples, tribes and races may also have rights.13 In other states where there is religious tension 9. Warren, Seeing Through the Media, pp. 51-52. 10. Cf. H. Lane, 'fcuk me!', Observer Magazine, pp. 10-14, and J. Lloyd, We're All in Bed with the Ad Men', Observer, Arts Review (28 January 2001), p. 7. 'fcuk' is the advertised trademark of French Connection UK. Its advertisements have prompted a variety of responses from the public. 11. K. Motamed-Nejad and N . Badii, 'The Problems of Press Freedom in Iran: From the Constitutional Revolution to the Islamic Revolution', in Thierstein and Kamalipour (eds.), Religion, Law and Freedom, pp. 47-62. 12. H. Mowlana, 'Professional Ethics and Sociopolitical Mobilization of Muslim Journalists: A Study of Communication, Ethics and the Islamic Tradition', in Thierstein and Kamalipour (eds.), Religion, Law and Freedom pp. 123-40. 13. Y. Limor and H. Nossek, 'Modern Techniques of Religious Censorship—The

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between competing convictions, the state may also exercise censorship of religious communication. In Nigeria, for example, this may prohibit the practice of tolling church bells or public calls to prayer broadcast from minarets.14 The publication of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses15 in 1988 caused a series of international incidents, many of which raised the spectre of the conflict between freedom and religion, especially in European countries where Islam was a minority faith.16 Even in apparently progressive pluralist countries such as Singapore, where modernity, consumerism and globalization are much in evidence, the ongoing Wonder-bra' advertising campaign has caused major cultural difficulties with respect to Confucianism and conservative Christians.17 The growth of the media throughout the twentieth century has sometimes seemed poised to threaten an overwhelming of faiths. It is no surprise, therefore, to see religions offering a culture of resistance to the images, words and sounds that seem to dominate our senses on a daily basis. However, the relationship between religion and the media is far more complex than a simple opposition. The media do not only communicate; they appropriate, interpret and re-traditionalize our religious memories. The media can create new and persuasive images of religion, simultaneously softening and sharpening identities.18 Churches and other faith traditions may have access to the instruments of broadcasting, but they are seldom the sole purveyors of religiously inclined output. The sentiments broadcast through British television programmes such as Stars on Sunday or

Case Study of Israel', in Thierstein and Y. Kamalipour (eds.), Religion, Law and Freedom, pp. 63-80. 14. Cf. B. Musa, 'Pluralism and Prior Restraint on Religious Communication in Nigeria: Policy versus Praxis', in Thierstein and Kamalipour (eds.), Religion, Law and Freedom, pp. 98-111. 15. S. Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (London: Viking, 1988). 16. See Markham, Plurality and Christian Ethics, pp. 52-56, and Davie, A Memory Mutates, pp. 115-37. Cf. K. Hafez, 'Transcultural Communication and the Antinomy Between Freedom and Religion', in Thierstein and Kamalipour, (eds.), Religion, Law and Freedom, pp. 177-92. 17. L. Fuller, 'Confucian Conflicts in Singaporean Advertising', in Thierstein and Kamalipour, (eds.), Religion, Law and Freedom, pp. 141-58. This may not be so surprising, since Singapore is politically and religiously conservative. The original ads, designed by Trevor Beattie, featured Eva Herzegova in a 'push-up' bra, with the caption 'Hello Boys'. For further discussion of this advertisement, see M. Timmers, The Power of the Poster (London: V. & A. Publishing, 1998), p. 231. 18. Cf. Davie, A Memory Mutates, pp. 98-114.

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even Songs of Praise may not immediately correspond to 'official' Christian teaching, yet the programmes carry a variety of stories, images and messages that reflect a lighter, more bathetically sentient Christian culture. 19 Advertising Christianity: An Overview In the United Kingdom, the British Codes of Advertising and Sales Promotion 20 carefully sets out what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in religious advertising. For example, both radio and television are excluded from promoting faith healing or miracles, and asking for money; specific appeals to those under the age of 18 are also banned.21 Indeed, most codes of practice for the media in Britain appear to be consciously working against the kind of fare that is readily available in the USA from 'televangelists' and a wide variety of Christian channels, although the advent of satellite broadcasting and digital television in the United Kingdom is challenging these boundaries. In Britain, 'Specialized Religious Channels' are now covered under the 1990 Broadcasting Act, and the ITC (Independent Television Commission) will permit 'the expounding of religious doctrine' and the announcing of'the times and venues of healing services'. Besides the specific issue of religious advertising, churches have also been host to a culture of suspicion concerning the general (alleged) power of advertising. Eric Clark's classic The Want Makers22 reflects some of these concerns, such as 'the exploitation of human inadequacy', deprivation of 'the will to choose' and 'degradation of the people it appeals to'. More specifically, churches have raised ethical questions about advertising, ranging from their (apparent) encouragement of 'undesirable characteristics in human beings' (sloth, envy, lechery and gluttony are singled out), through 19. For an enlightening discussion of Christian engagement with the media, see W. Can, Ministry and the Media (London: SPCK, 1990). 20. British Codes ofAdvertising and Sales Promotion (London: The Advertising Standards Authority, 10th edn, 1999). These codes are part of the self-regulation of the advertising industry, over which the ASA presides. The ASA was set up in 1962, and the shape of its regulation has influenced many countries throughout the world. The codes police claims and images in terms of decency, truthfulness and honesty. The codes cover all nonbroadcast advertising (cinema, newspapers, magazines, the internet, mail-shots, etc.). Other regulating authorities police standards in the press, TV and radio adverts, and standards in broadcasting. 21. See Paying the Piper: Advertising and the Church (London: Church Information Office, 1994), p. 51. 22. E. Clark, The Want Makers (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1988).

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to deregulation in Third World countries (tobacco or, perhaps more famously, Nestle and its marketing of powdered baby milk) and gender stereotyping. However, these concerns are more to do with the use and abuse of materialism than a critique of the medium of advertising. Advertisements can inspire, evoke affection and impart useful public information. Indeed from this perspective, there are plenty of signs that Christians are increasingly embracing advertisements as an effective means of communicating the particularity of the gospel in a pluralist age.23 Advertising works because there are markets for goods, which in turn contain a measure of freedom and competition. In this construction of (capitalist) reality, the consumer is the centre of the world, and the focus of production. The task of advertising is to reach that person, to inform them, and ultimately to begin to persuade them. The habitual nature of an advertisement that sells rather than just informs is therefore 'tantalizing': the information about and the benefits of a product are presented in such a way as to evoke, maintain or expand an existing customer base, or begin a new one. 24 To be fair to advertising, although it can both tantalize and tease, creating want and fomenting desire, it is bound by codes and rules actually to deliver what it offers. Yet it does this by creating a world of ideal scenarios, or caricatures and 'mini-dramas' of normal-ideal life. Thus, the themes that consistently emerge include good friendship, the warmth of family ties, success in working life, pride in personal appearance, the possibility of improvement or empowerment. Yet in spite of all this, it is important to distinguish advertising from selling. Advertising might lead a consumer to a product, but it cannot compel purchase. Put more sharply, the medium is not usually the message, although they are closely related. 25 Loosely translated into theological language, advertising cannot convert people, nor does it bring them to faith. It can, however, persuade the public to take a second look (i.e., to think again), or possibly even stimulate desire. Some of the most successful religious advertisements of recent years have operated within this genre. In Britain, the 1990 Christian Aid poster and

23. Paying the Piper, pp. 12-15. 24. The word 'tantalize' is derived from the ancient Greek legend of Tantalus. His name describes the punishment that was meted out to him for offending the gods. Tantalus was placed in a cool stream of running water, with a vine ripe with grapes suspended just over his head. Every time he bent down to drink the water to quench his thirst, the water would drain away; when he reached for the grapes to sate his hunger, a breeze would waft them from his grasp. 25. Cf. Timmers, The Power of the Poster.

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television campaign ('We believe in life before death') raised the profile of the charity, and also significantly increased income collected in door-todoor collection. The 1989 campaign for the Billy Graham Mission ('Life means what?') successfully created curiosity and stimulated awareness of the mission, resulting in saturation media coverage and substantial attendance at the rallies. (It was named Campaign of the Year by Campaign Magazine.) In the USA, the ground-breaking work of the Fallon McElligott agency for the Anglican church (ECUSA) still functions as a benchmark for church advertising. One of the more memorable of these press advertisements included a picture of Christ with the caption 'He died to take away your sins. Not your mind', followed by some copy that presents the Episcopal church as a place for exploring issues and pursuing a questing faith. Another from the same agency for the same client showed a churchgoer whose mouth was gagged, with the caption above stating that 'There's only one problem with religions that have all the answers. They don't allow questions'. While these pithy campaigns have left their mark as successful 'persuaders', there are other campaigns that are remembered for different reasons. Morris Cerullo's 1994 Mission to London campaign attracted negative publicity for the advertising that promoted it. Posters picturing discarded wheelchairs and crutches (promoting his healing ministry) offended people with disabilities, who claimed it demeaned them. The Christian Advertising Network (CAN) 'Bad Hair Day' 26 campaign seemed to amuse the media far more than it ever appealed to the youthful constituency it was aimed at; but even this was achieved at the cost of alienating some within the churches who felt it trivialized the Christmas story. Subsequent work from CAN has played safer by attempting to appeal both to those inside and those outside the church (e.g., 'Christmas— Copyright'). Despite the increased interest in church advertising, the work of the CAN, and the energy and enthusiasm of diocesan communication officers, the field remains something of a Cinderella in terms of investment and resources. Unlike the USA, where focused campaigns are a regular feature of apologetics and ecclesiology, British churches remain surprisingly reticent about the benefits of advertising. There are doubtless many reasons for this, which include habitual hostility towards the media. Churches seem to see themselves more in the role of 'watchdog' rather than as a body 26. A rather postmodern, almost surreal picture of the Madonna, with the caption 'You'vejust given birth, and three kings turn up...'

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that might profit from utilizing a medium that many large organizations take for granted. This tends to result in the churches engaging in tame or lame advertising: under-resourced, unclear about their focus, and overconcerned not to offend their existing constituency. At a more local level, most of the public exposure to church advertising is likely to be of a billboard outside the church, with an accompanying notice board densely packed with information.27 The billboard invariably offers a rather passe 'pun' (e.g., 'Ch--ch. What's missing? UR!', or 'Carpenter seeks Joiners'), or simply a biblical text or doctrinal statement. There is little attempt at subtlety or a more arresting form of engagement. From this brief survey, church or Christian advertising (posters and press)28—at least in Britain— might be classified in the following ways: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Literalistic: proclamation of biblical texts or doctrinal statements. The Public Transport Scripture Text Mission provide many of the posters seen in British railway stations. No illustrations; pure text. Evangelistic: linked to a place of worship. Phrase or text designed to have an impact on bypassers; unlikely to be humorous or arresting for non-churchgoers. Modern: Christian Aid campaign ('we believe in life before death'), appealing to an ethical metanarrative. The appeal is universal (life), the issue is particular (current debates, such as Third World debt or a particular disaster). Postmodern: 'Bad Hair Day' remains the best example; comic and contemporary reflection on well-known story. The humour is particular, with the universal story sublimated. It might be slightly 'Pythonesque'. Ironic: Fallon-McElligott's work—wry, witty and (normally) liberal: conveys some information and a simple message. The advertisements work by caricaturing spiritual competition, and subtly celebrating communitarian values.

In each case, the task of advertising is to reach a target audience. The literalistic and evangelistic are, in fact, almost entirely directed at those who 27. The notice board is actually a separate issue. It often has to reflect the character of the building, and necessarily contains information for enquiries, legal purposes and the like. 28. While there is some TV and radio advertising, the focus here is on press and poster work, which forms the overwhelming majority of Christian advertising in the UK.

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already belong to faith communities. Their function in public space is one of presence and proclamation, but their particularity limits their appeal. The modern, ironic and postmodern are however, attempts to engage with culture, recognizing that churches are part of the 'market place'. Correspondingly, they need to catch the eye in an environment that is saturated with images that compete for attention.29 What follows now is a consideration of this context through the work of Peter Berger, and specifically his image of the church as being a 'unit' in a 'spiritual market'. Peter Berger and the Theological Construction of Reality In a recently published essay, Peter Berger returns to one of his most enduring analogies, first coined in 1963:30 namely, a 'market model' for ecclesiology in relation to secularized society. For those not familiar with the argument, the rough contours are as follows. In a secular society where state and church are largely separate, churches can no longer rely on the body politic to enforce their claims of loyalty. Consequently, new religions are tolerated by the state, which leads to a pluralistic situation. In turn, this creates a religious 'free market', where all religions are pushed into a competitive situation: what previously could be authoritatively imposed, now has to be marketed. It must be sold to a clientele that is no longer constrained to 'buy'. A pluralistic situation is, above all, a market situation. In it, the religious institutions become market agencies and the religious traditions become consumer commodities.

My examination is in debt to the analogy, but against the background of another enduring phrase of Berger's, and his more general theory of 'the social construction of reality'. For Berger, this means the totality of'everything that passes for knowledge in society', especially the common-sensical, that which constitutes the reality of everyday life for the ordinary member of society. The work is thoroughly humanistic, but with substantial implications for the study of religion and how its own sense of revelation

29. John Berger, Ways of Seeing (Harmonds worth: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 129. 30. P. Berger, A Market Model for the Analysis of Ecumenicity', Social Research 30 (1963), pp. 75-90. 31. Peter Berger, 'Social Sources of Secularisation', in J.C. Alexander and S. Seidman (eds.), Culture and Society: Contemporary Debates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 96-114. C£idem,The Sacred Canopy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967),p. 138.

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might be weighed against any charge of projection. Three other essays are also of interest, and relate to the use of the 'market' analogy.32 It is my contention that these show that while it is useful to regard religion as being in a market-orientated situation, the boot may also be on the other foot. Market-orientated situations can sit squarely within the context of the religious situation. In a religious monopoly, according to Berger, the content of religion is determined in line with the dominant and established theology or religious leadership. In a pluralistic situation, religion becomes more susceptible to mundane influences and consumer preferences. The principle of changeability is introduced and the content of religions become subject to what we might deem 'fashion'. Correspondingly, it becomes increasingly difficult to defend and maintain religious traditions that are supposed to be based on 'absolute' truth. 33 Thus, traditional religions can suddenly find themselves accused of being 'narrow' or even 'sectarian', while new or more adaptable religious groups are valued for their ability to inculcate and reflect contemporary trends and movements. 34 Even so, consumer pressure cannot, per se, be said to be the sole determinant in religious content. What is being suggested, however, is that religions are subject to change, even if they choose to position themselves in the religious market by virtue of being opposed to it. This might be true of our own situation: it is certainly a valid social 32. P. Berger, 'Religion and the American Future', in S. Lipset (ed.), The Third Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), pp. 27-51; idem, 'Secular Theology and the Rejection of the Supernatural: Reflections on recent Trends', Theological Studies 38 (1977), pp. 39-56; idem, 'New Attack on the Legitimacy of Business', Harvard Business Review (October 1981), pp. 82-89. 33. Except of course when they enjoy a brief phase of popularity. The youth attendance at the Pope's Youth Mass (August 1997) in Paris is a good example. The numbers turning up—perhaps 300,000—signify anything from curiosity to respect, but they obviously do not translate into an increase in vocations or Mass attendance. 34. One could ponder the problematic oxymoron of the 'House Church Movement'. Popular in the 1970s because it was a movement, and not a new denomination (i.e., deliberately self-styled as not being a church), it acquired an identity crisis in the mid1990s. H o w can a 'movement', with a fluid, adaptable and contemporary message, be meaningfully reconciled with the demands of being a church, which might include the establishment of creeds, traditions, boundaries and norms? At present, the 'movement' seems to be slipping into a church-type mould, while struggling to maintain its movement identity. Membership in the U K has declined to under 250,000, with some charismatic consumers deserting the fold for more established churches, and others leaving the movement in search of something original and fresh.

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analogy that 'reads' religion, even if it does not interpret and critique it. Yet Berger's original intention in using the market analogy in 1963 was to provide an account of ecumenism. Churches were still regarded as being in a competitive battle, but the gradual secularization of society meant a cutback in the size and scope of the religious market. Consequently, denominational particularities were de-emphasized, and the religious product 'standardized' in the interests of providing a simpler market format for potential consumers. Thus, unity is stressed above difference, connectedness over division, and uniformity of purpose against schism. In short, ecumenism is cast as a marketing strategy—a response to the process of secularization.35 Yet Berger is careful to maintain that the denominations will continue to exist through a process of 'marginal differentiation'. This guarantees that rivalry does not get out of hand between competing denominations, yet at the same time keeps the game alive for all the participants. I must point out that Berger is also careful to avoid addressing the role of theologians in the process of legitimization here36—a skilful piece of marketing itself. Berger's treatment of institutions and identities is rooted in his discussion of knowledge or worldviews. In the broadest sense, knowledge makes human beings and society; we are orientated by 'pre-theoretical' concepts, or 'common knowledge'. Knowledge itself here is 'shared meanings', which are in turn funded by ideology as a form of social legitimization. 'Ideology' does not mean a broad sweep of beliefs, or a narrow political agenda, but rather a set of ideas that legitimizes vested interests and is linked to a larger, symbolic universe. The secularization thesis and the idea of the marketability of religion rest on these presuppositions. Western society and culture are deemed to be undergoing a process whereby the dominating symbols are losing their power and profile.37 Furthermore, because (religious) plausibility is linked to legitimization, and because the Enlightenment, modernity and rationalism are, to an extent, products of Protestantism, Christianity has become 'its own gravedigger'.38 Yet Berger is quick to acknowledge that secularization does not mean that religious belief disappears altogether. Secularization occurs at different 35. Berger, 'Market Model', p. 85. See also Robert Lee, The Social Sources of Church Unity (New York: Abingdon Press, 1960), and Johannes van der Ven, Ecdesiology in Context (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 450-67. 36. Berger, 'Market Model', p. 90. 37. Berger, The Sacred Canopy, p. 10. 38. Berger, The Sacred Canopy, p. 129.

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levels. It might weaken the religious 'plausibility structures' amongst individuals, but it does not follow that this agenda becomes established in society as an accomplished fact.39 Moreover, modernity can still create conditions that favour religious resurgence; strong religious impulses still exist.40 Revivals are episodic in character, spontaneous and unpredictable reactions to secularization. Ecumenism is a more organized response to the loss of power vested in common symbols, and Berger may be right to dub the ecumenical movement as a market-led response. Yet times have changed since the advent of this original thesis. In Britain at least, ecumenism has been transformed from a process that was crawling towards standardization to one in which difference is celebrated. The British Council of Churches no longer exists: regional devolution has replaced that body with organizations such as ACTS (Action of Churches Together in Scotland) or CTE (Churches Together in England). Working together in spite of differences has replaced the agenda of working towards 'oneness'. The creation of a single modernist super-church—a metanarrative—has not occurred. Presumably this is partly because certain particular truth-claims in churches and denominations could not be standardized or negotiated away in the interests of public unity. But it must also be because of the postmodern celebration of difference, which treats the metanarrative with incredulity. Berger could still argue here that the denominations are only responding to the market flow: standardization has given way to specialization. Moreover, brand loyalty has all but gone, with consumers committed to a range of different services and products rather than just one. 41 Yet the problem that remains for Berger is the relationship between the willingness of churches to be adaptable, and the truth-claims that many believe they are founded on. To an extent, all churches have dimensions to 39. See R. Wuthnow, J. Hunter, A. Bergesen and E. Kurzwell (eds.), Cultural Analysis: The Work of Peter Berger, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault and Jurgen Habermas (London: Routledge, 1984), p. 64. 40. The creation of 'shrines'—candles, flowers, notes—to remember and pray for victims of tragedies is but one example. From Hillsborough to Diana, Princess of Wales, 'folk' religion wells up in times of national grief, and is given voice, focus and direction by the established churches. 41. A.S. Ehrenberg in Ogilvy (ed.), Ogilvy on Advertising: 'consumers do not buy one brand of soap or coffee or detergent. They have a repertory of four or five brands, and move from one to another' (p. 172). In charismatic churches I have studied, 'consumers' do seem to vary their attendance at churches, according to the types of worship, healing or deliverance on offer. Some are members of one, but frequent visitors to one or two others.

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them that are theologically non-negotiable, and are with them irrespective of any prevailing fashions. Johannes van der Ven levels two further criticisms at the 'market model'. In summary, he suggests that 'market' is an inadequate term for describing the basic face-to-face interaction in various sectors of the church. In turn, he points out that 'markets' are not pure entities beyond society, but a partial by-product of social relations.42 There is still praise for the 'market model', as an account of the relationship between association, people and movements. But van der Ven fears that it relativizes the church, and ascribes too much power to individual choice. Even in trade and industry, competition is not the be-all and end-all—there is no perfect realm of competition. Thus, van der Ven concludes that while the church is influenced by marketability, the mechanisms of supply and demand and the like, it does not follow that it merges into a dominant mode of marketability. It bears the features of a community, a movement and a distinct body, which at times is attractive precisely because it is unmarketable and seemingly unappealing. It is not just a 'product', but also a 'service' with a distinct identity that does not necessarily have an interest in buying or selling itself, or being concerned with its market position.43 Berger's arguments and the critique ofJohannes van der Ven are actually quite mismatched. Berger, as a sociologist with theological interests, assesses contemporary ecclesiology from a height. His analogies provide a 'map' of the cultural situation in which churches find themselves. In his work he talks of'symbols', 'levels' and 'units'; this is a form of social cartography—a detailed description of the 'big picture'. For Berger, religion is a 'social' construction of reality that borrowed sacred ideas to enforce existing plausibility structures. When the religious ideas lose their power, the social construction of reality shifts from being founded on the sacred to being founded on the secular. This is a sociological approach to religion, in which any form of revelation is necessarily cast in the role of ideological projection, albeit for the prevailing common good. Antithesis: Advertising as Religion We know that churches do advertise and market themselves, and are to an extent bonded together in a form of regulated competitive framework. But 42. Van der Ven, Ecclesiology in Context, pp. 454-55. 43. The obvious example of this is the religious community—perhaps a monastery or convent—that does not primarily seek to attract members. The orientation of the community is prayer, work and contemplation.

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suppose for a moment we see the market as an extension of religion? Suppose the chief features of advertising and marketing start to lend themselves to a religious interpretation, in which we could meaningfully speak of a theological construction of reality providing us with our sociality? In short, if religion is commercially minded, why can't commerce be deemed to be religiously minded? Furthermore, if this is so, what might the implications of this be for churches that do want to advertise now? Some specific examples might help illustrate how Berger's thesis can, in fact, be a double bind. Whether it is washing powders, beer or a new spread for bread, television advertising frequently offers motifs that are more at home in religious usage. Typically, the uninitiated consumer is portrayed as ignorant or unconvinced of the new product on offer. The advertisement shows how they are converted—often in a moment of taste, touch or experience—from blandness, nothingness or scepticism to being a believer. Adverts that preach brand loyalty appeal to the motif of conversion because of its religious resonance. The new consumer is shown as enlightened, and joins an elite of brand-believers who have discovered the truth. Products, in their competitive strategies, deploy a theological construction of reality, in which enlightenment, conversion, believing and belonging matter. To be in any market requires a degree of faith and hope, and an appeal to the possibility of perfection. These themes are obvious in many commercials. Yet the borrowing of religious ideas is even more apparent in the service industry. In telecommunications advertising, Ionica mixed ideas of heaven (not earth-bound) and angels (messengers) to convey the concept of a wireless phone network. Mercury and Orange advertise mobile phones, but the message is that while they give the consumer freedom to roam, the deeper purpose of the product is to bring people together, so that they can always stay in touch.44 In other words, freedom, properly exercised, can enable deeper relational bonds. This is a non-religious spirituality of connectedness. Mobile phones are a divine instrument for combating the evils of modernity: over-crowding, traffic jams and insufficient time. Developing this several stages further, British Telecom preach that 'it's good to talk', and run all manner of advertisements which offer tips on how to improve relationships. If only people talked more (on the phone), lovers' tiffs could be healed, distant fathers could relate to their children, siblings could get 44. Orange have recently gone further, and used the image of stigmata (the Orange symbol in the palm of the hand) to convey the connectedness of their network.

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along better, and everybody could feel more valued and included in society. Making the effort to talk to your neighbour is a way of showing regard for them, limiting loneliness and misunderstanding. The comparisons do not end here. Insurance advertisements offer peace of mind and security. Corporate companies sell an image that is flecked with ecclesial themes: the assurance of presence, the benefits of belonging and the size of the body are meant to tell a story of social salvation, but they cannot do that without resorting to religious ideology. Of course, it is not the case that religion once had the monopoly on these concepts and has now lost it. My purpose in highlighting these common motifs is to remind us that 'market' and 'religion' cannot be easily divided, any more than the secular and the sacred can be divorced from each other. One of the problems with secularization theories, in my view, is that many continue to miss the myriad ways in which life is constantly sacralized. By the same token, 'secularizing' the church through cultural syncretism or churchstate alliances was an established part of Christian identity, long before the Enlightenment, the Reformation or the Renaissance. Furthermore, even if there is something called a 'secular society' now, it still has its 'gods', shrines and idols, even if they were never connected to divinity. Modern atheism has its altars. Berger, naturally enough, is alive to this. In his essay 'Secular Theology and the Rejection of the Supernatural', he recognizes that much theological language has been translated into and reduced to (psycho) therapy and emancipatory political movements. Not only that, just as 'supernaturalistic forms of religion' were once imposed on people, so now is the new 'assertive and arrogant' secularism, which Berger interestingly classes as a type of 'fundamentalism'. Berger concludes this 1977 essay by suggesting, humorously, that 'secular theologians' such as Schubert Ogden, Langdon Gilkey and David Tracy, although laudable for addressing the apologetic task of reaching those beyond the community of faith, nonetheless represent 'musicology for the deaf. There are signs that the categories of secular, sacred, divine and human are now more fluid in Berger's thinking. A more devastating critique of competition emerges in 1981, in an essay in the Harvard Business Review. Here, Berger questions the concept of legitimacy in commerce, and identifies 'class' as a principal but hidden determinant in economic affairs. Because of this, he urges the business community to go beyond economics and politics, and address 'meaning and value', recognizing that inter- and co-dependency need fostering. In other words, the market is to be at least

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partly subject to society if society is to continue as a humane enterprise; if the market dominates, humanity suffers through its subsequent alienation. Markets tend to be rampant and ravenous rather than ethical and selfregulating. They need to be chastened, controlled and put to good use, rather than being the principal determinant in business life. The essay resonates with the conclusion of an article published in 1979 on 'Religion and the American Future'. Here Berger pleads for the revitalization of the American political community: the hope of success is not the final motive for our efforts on the stage of history. Rather, it is obedience to the moral imperatives of our situation. I believe that the revitalisation of the American political community is such an imperative... an awesome number of human values ride today on the survival of the American experiment. The revitalisation of the religious community is an even deeper imperative, for it points beyond America and indeed beyond history...

The trajectory of these writings reveals a suspicion about the autonomy and power of markets. They also suggest that religion should no longer be commodified as units within secular-led 'market forces'. Instead, churches should stand with humanity, and share in the common task of infusing society with meaning and values, that will in turn check alienation and relativization. We have therefore come almost full circle. Secularization, when pressed, ensures that religion and churches survive and succeed (or something like this), since true human value cannot be derived from the market alone, which may turn out to be a 'god'. In the meantime, society uses religious motifs in the market-place as a means of arousing a higher individual and communal consciousness, which seeks the possibility of change and the benefits of fraternity, equality and liberty. It is a secular gospel, but it is still a gospel of sorts. True, one can speak of a social construction of reality in religion that is legitimized by ideological projection. Yet at the same time, there can be no full exorcism of the theological construction of reality that imbues much of our sociality. In truth, the modernist metanarrative remains a child of liberal Protestantism, which is itself descended from Christendom. Secularization, as Berger acknowledges, is a child of Christian development: part of the family in a long, if declining, dynastic line.

45.

Berger, 'Religion and the American Future', p. 77.

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The Speechless Word: Ideologies in Religious Advertising Launcelot Andrewes, in his Christmas Day sermon of 1620, describes the incarnation of Christ as 'the Word that cannot speak'.46 In using this phrase, he meant to draw his listeners' attention to the powerlessness of Christ, as well as to the profundity of the revelation. There is an irony here for religious advertising. The power of the image in contemporary life is undoubted; but religion, and particularly Christianity, is primarily a religion of words rather than images. It is aural and oral rather than visual; cognitive rather than expressive. All of the five types of religious advertising referred to earlier are dominated by text as a means of communication. Apart from the cross or a crucifix, Christianity has no logo for its Logos', little that appears to communicate effectively in the public domain. And yet I want to argue that potentially the most effective forms of Christian advertising are visual. While there is some truth in the maxim that 'the camera is a blunt instrument compared to a pen and the imagination', the relationship between words and images has changed in contemporary culture. In a post-foundational world, it is the power of the image that takes us to the text. The Bible is no longer a principal source of morality, functioning as a rule book. The gradualism of postmodernity has transformed the text into a guide, a source of spirituality, in which the power of story as but one potential moral reference point has superseded the didactic. Thus, the meaning of the Good Samaritan is more important than the Ten Commandments—even assuming that the latter could be remembered in any detail by anyone. Into this milieu the image speaks with power. Ironically, it is 'secular' advertising that effectively adopts the religious imagery that could still be said to belong to the churches. Benetton, the clothes manufacturer, has run controversial advertisements for many years that use no text, but deliberately explore religious themes to convey the 'United Colours of Benetton' global message. This controversial work, executed by Bartle, Bogle Sc Hegarty—for posters—has included a range of provocative religious images that utilise symbols that are part of the cultural furniture of society: •

A grieving family gathering around an emaciated and dying man. The picture, by Therese Frare (1990), appears to be deliberately

46. See Brother Kenneth GCA, From the Fathers to the Churches (London: Collins, 1983), p. 129.

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• • •

resonant of Andrea Mategna's The Dead Christ (1465, Milan). A monk and a nun, both dressed in black and white habit or robes, exchanging a chaste or 'holy kiss'. A military cemetery of white crosses, with a green grass background. A newly born child, still unwashed and attached to its umbilical cord, being held in adult hands; the use of different skin colours carries an explicit message of racial unity and common human experience.

The Benetton images are striking for their simplicity: they cover themes such as the commonality of humanity, peace, reconciliation, life and death. The pictures speak, yet without using text (although they relate to the words 'united' and 'colour'). The images convey a moral message, arresting the viewer and inviting reflection.47 The question beckons: if a clothes manufacturer and its advertising agency can achieve this, why can't the churches? One answer to this must lie in the iconoclasm that has bedevilled Western Christian traditions for so long. As with 'story', the image has no controllable meaning: the response is aesthetic rather than cognitive. People participate in stories and images at their own level: there is an inbuilt multiplicity of meaning; truth is plural. In their desire to delimit doctrine, reform and rule, Protestant and Catholic churches have frequently sought the sanctuary of words at the expense of the image. In pre- and post-Enlightenment times, this has been advantageous to the extent that it has deposited power in semantics. But the advent of a more visual age, post-war and postmodern, has questioned the whole enterprise. What would it be like, then, if churches were to take Berger's 'market model' seriously, and then re-advertise in the light of this? To move forward with this question, it is essential to have some purchase on the ideologies of advertising.48 Judith Williamson, in her thoughtful analysis Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning,49 suggests that advertisements create structures of meaning that transform the language of objects to that of people, and vice versa. Thus, symbols of exchange emerge, and she cites 47. However, we should note that in the USA, a fundamentalist-led campaign against these images has recently forced the advertisers to alter their approach. 48. There are a number of key texts to note here which provide valuable insights. See especially Gillian Dyer, Advertising as Communication (London: Routledge, 1982), and Greg Myers, Words in Ads (London: Edward Arnold, 1995). 49. J. Williamson, Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising (London: Marion Boyars, 1976).

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the example of diamonds. The mineral means nothing in its own terms, but likened to endurance and beauty, its identity becomes linked to love and longevity. The key is in the linkage. Flowers say nothing, yet 'Say it with flowers' says something. And once we get into the realm of 'products' such as drinks, cigarettes, cars or clothes, classes of people, communities and overlays of meaning are created by the sociality implied in the use and benefit of the product. The symbols deployed become simultaneously subtle and absorbing, their meaning impacting on the consumer in ways too deep to measure. They are subliminal, appealing to instincts below the immediate levels of consciousness. What, then, might the churches do to give focus and voice to their own presence in this particular milieu? In relation to the options discussed so far that have concerned Christmas, we can make a number of observations. First, the 'Christmas—Copyright' advertisements appear to completely misread the relationship between 'secular' and 'sacred' in society. The widespread 'culture' of Christianity is larger and more dispersed than the teachings or members of the churches. Furthermore, secularization is a contested concept. Throughout history, churches have seldom owned or controlled any one holy day/holiday within a culture; celebrations are public, and mix 'folk religion' with Christian teachings and practice.50 Time is not something that the churches 'own', either in form or meaning: the day and the season are gifted to society by faith-traditions (the plural is intentional)—churches make a dubious claim in 'asking for it back' as ttieirs.51

Secondly, the 'Bad Hair Day' campaign is much more in keeping with the festive spirit of the season, and is therefore more likely to retain a place in public affection. In true postmodern style, a story is at the centre of the campaign which belongs to the public domain—many people still know who the Wise Men are. However, as I have already noted, it was considered 50. See Jenkins, Religion in English Everyday Life. 51. The debate amongst some churches over the millennium, and indeed over the contents of the Dome at Greenwich, and how to 'claim' it, was similar. However, in respect to Christmas, this observation suggests that poster advertising ought perhaps to be simultaneously more subtle and more sharp. For example, one way forward might be to advertise not the church at Christmas, but rather the central message of the Christmas story. Following the 'Benetton tradition', I suggest a simple black-and-white photograph of a mother breastfeeding a child, situated in a slum or hovel, with perhaps a shadowy (father) figure in the background, trying to make a fire to keep them all warm. The resonances are obvious, and no text would be needed, save a simple and unambiguous label saying 'First Christmas'.

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so avant garde as to alienate its main sponsors, namely the churches. Add to this the media chiding of the CAN for failing to provide something 'traditional', and the scale of the problem seems insurmountable for future campaigns. So, is there a third way? Probably; at least a number of pointers for the future could be noted. First, secularization and consumerism are fluid concepts that do not necessarily 'compete' with religion; as we have seen, they can complement sacred seasons, be by-products of religion, or be seasoned by faith. Secondly, while the 'market-place' analogy is useful for the churches to consider, its main function is as a reminder of the risks involved in identifying with and participating in any public sphere. Thirdly, image is at least as important as text, if not more so. In advertising culture, pictures draw readers in, unless the copy is so outstanding as to enable the text to stand alone. In view of this, churches may need to consider what images they can use that appeal and are authentic. Finally, religious vocabulary and imagery are widely disseminated, challenged and utilized in society, which raises a question over the degree to which churches can use them as an effective medium. If they try to simply reclaim them (e.g. Christmas— Copyright) it may look small-minded. A more worthwhile strategy might be either to extend their use even more (e.g. Bad Hair Day), or, perhaps more controversially, to abandon them altogether, and appeal to more humane themes. Postscript The church in the market-place remains a powerful and enduring image for sociologists and theologians. As a general analogy, it offers some insight into models of churches in relation to one another, and in relation to secularization. By definition, it also offers a mirror to society, showing how religious motifs are used for secular purposes, as well as exploring the limits of secular and materialist ascendancy in relation to moral and religious principles that might offer deeper points of reference in the construction of sociality. The wide dissemination of religious symbols in society—including marketing and advertising—suggests that the embers of Christian belief still glow in an apparently secular society. Indeed, to repeat the phrase of David Martin, they are 'embodied and incarnate... there is an open texture about religious signs that will not allow us to make just one translation'.52 Moreover, this may point to the strength of religion and its 52. Martin, Breaking of the Image, p. 127.

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capacity for self-gift, even in a secular society that often fails to see it. Equally, this form of implicit religion may be said to point to the weakness of secularity, and its failure to find moral frames of reference that provide cohesion, balance and direction, without going through religious motifs. That said, there are serious problems with Berger's analogy. 'Market', like all metaphors, is an imperfect description. The market metaphor misses the fact that the sociologist of religion is also constructing reality, and is in competition with the 'units' it describes. In short, Berger is framed by his own metaphor. Indeed, the metaphor can be turned inside out, read backwards, or simply be allowed to swallow itself in its own narration. The trajectory of Berger's thinking about economic markets suggests that he is probably in favour of regulation (or subjugation to higher goals) in the case of the market economy, but apparently not in relation to religious pluralism. This raises all kinds of questions about why Berger is prepared to treat religions in relation to secularization in one way, but economic pluralism in another. Still more serious are the deeper questions of the media and religion as either cultural agency or cultural oppression. Oppression, as we saw earlier, is a contested concept measured against notions of freedom. But what of agency? Sociologists and theologians are both familiar with the term 'agent', and can share insights into their evaluation. However, sociologists (whether constructionist or realist) do not normally address the resourcing of agency, unless it is done with reference to other agents (ideology, legitimization, etc.). Sociologists too easily assume that the medium is the message, and that churches are essentially selling what they are, and nothing else. The humanist and projectionist presuppositions of sociology guarantee this. Ecclesiologies are only defined in relation to one another, and to the world. Thus, the point of being a Presbyterian or an Anglican is apparently about competition and differentiation from Methodists, Pentecostals or Catholics. In contrast, theologians would see that a marketing strategy or advertising agent (or even product) is not the same as the message or essence behind the agent. Ecclesiology is not just ideology, competition and legitimization. It is also a biased account of God, around which a sociality is constructed. This is both the strength and weakness of the market model for churches. It has plenty to say about style, content and social expression, but little can be said about theology when using the model. Some forms of ecclesiology undoubtedly do invest in the agencies of marketing and advertising, and regard themselves as being in competition with other churches

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and with secular society. Yet many churches are not just 'units' in a market, but are rather part of a widespread religious culture, in which signs, values and symbols are disseminated as the yeast in the bread or the salt in the earth; a simple flickering light of the world that many still see by, yet strangely take for granted.

Chapter 7 Shopping for God: Production, Consumption and Globalization

Max Weber once commented that one effect of the rise of Protestantism was that religion strode confidently into the public square of worldly affairs, slamming shut the monastery door behind it. As modernity developed further, however, one might say that religion kept moving. It may now be found in the consumer marketplace, the shopping mall, the TV screen, and the website—even in Disneyland... Religion has expanded into spheres less visible than the institutional and public ones it occupied in Weber's day. Thus, it takes its place alongside other meaning clusters available in the socalled private sphere. There, people are free to choose on their own what to do with their time, their homes, their bodies and their gods...

In a world of globalized markets, consumerism and technology, it is no surprise that religious culture is increasingly conflated with the materialities of life. The rise of the consumer (tesco ergo sum—T shop, therefore I am') 2 is a form of eleutheromania, in which the very exercise of choice is a sign of freedom, enabling the establishment of individual or group identity. It may be accurate to state that 'you are what you eat', or then again that, to paraphrase Alfred Gell, 'homes are the distributed personhood of their makers'. People can be defined, or at least interpreted, by their materiality; what they consume or produce, save or waste, says something about who they are. Our homes are concrete configurations of meaning; as they are defined, so they set about defining the definer.3 If this is true, though, how 1. D. Lyon, Jesus in Disneyland: Religion in Postmodern Times (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), p. 81. 2. This parody of postmodernism in a single phrase is often cited by evangelical authors who comment on contemporary culture. The original source of the phrase is, however, not known. 3. Cf. D. Birdwell-Pheasant and D. Lawrence-Zuniga (eds.), House Life: Space, Place

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might spiritual choices be indicative of consumption and production within contemporary culture? The purpose of this chapter is not to consider the material objects of religion, and what these may say about the lives of their adherents. There are plenty of fine studies that have interpreted the accidental artefacts of religious culture—from tableware featuring famous revivalists such as Wesley, or ornaments commemorating a shrine or event, through to the more commonplace bumper stickers, posters and fridge magnets, conveying romanticized sentiments about the closeness of God, so beloved of contemporary evangelicalism.4 Rather, in this chapter, we are concerned with what apparently cannot be seen so easily: spirituality. It is my contention that an understanding of the exercise of spiritual choice by religious consumers has the capacity to illuminate the study of contemporary culture. Seeing consumerism as an issue for or of religion is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Alan Aldridge, a sociologist of religion, interprets a variety of religious events through consumerist themes. For example, he sees the debate in the Church of England over the relation between The Book of Common Prayer (1662, BCP) and The Alternative Service Book (1980, ASB) as containing consumerist and anti-consumerist elements. The consumerist element is that the ASB is what it says it is—'alternative'. Only by being an alternative could it gain the necessary support of Parliament, Synod with the public. Supporters of the BCP could therefore develop a number of lines of argument that were anti-consumerist: (1) the ASB lacks the poetic and aesthetic language of the BCP; (2) continuing to support the BCP defends high culture and 'legitimate taste'; (3) the cultural resonance of the BCP, rather like that of the King James (Authorised) Version of the Bible, appeals to an organic community—it is 'common' prayer or language.5 It would not surprise Aldridge, therefore, that the successor to the ASB (its licence expired in 2000) is simply called Common Worship,6 and that instead of one single volume, there are several, covering many eventualities. There are no less than eight eucharistic prayers to choose from (the BCP had just one), and the appointed readings for those services run and Family in Europe (London: Berg, 1999), and M. Kwint, C. Breward and J. Aynsley, Material Memories (London: Berg, 1999). 4. For a fuller discussion, see D. Morgan, Protestants and Pictures: Visual Culture, and the Age ofAmerican Mass Production (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 5. Aldridge, Religion, pp. 192-94. 6. The Archbishops' Council, Common Worship (London: Church House Publishing, 2000).

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in three year cycles, rather than the BCP's own annual cycle. There is choice as never before. Common Worship can be purchased on CD-ROM, downloaded from the internet, and adapted to suit every need and every occasion. It even includes the main liturgical texts from the BCP, so traditionalists can no longer complain; the new alternative now incorporates the traditional, and in so doing, will surely eventually replace it. The relationship between religion and consumerism is ambivalent.7 Like the media or advertising, it is normally regarded as a culture that is to be resisted by the churches. Bocock, somewhat crudely, defines consumerism as 'the active ideology that the meaning of life is to be found in buying things and pre-packaged experiences'.8 One of Bryan Wilson's early assertions about American religion was that it did not respect the 'pedigree in Christianity', but rather offered 'the religion of your choice'—differentiated brands, but essentially the same commodity.9 Yet as we saw in the previous chapter, there are elements in consumerism that support the sacred realm rather than undermining it. Then again, the unmistakable vitality and vigour of religion in certain contexts—perhaps especially America—suggests that the religious market-place is hotly contested. These diametrically opposed views of consumerism are two sides of the same coin. One the one hand, consumerism can be all about the sating of appetites, which then drives markets, desires and social life. On the other hand, consumerism provides a format for social intercourse, and produces a degree of individual and social satisfaction. As Aldridge points out, religious consumers also share a double identity. Are they active searchers in the spiritual market-place, exercising their autonomy? Or are they prey to every passing religious fad, at the mercy of cults, sects and new religious movements and the latest spiritual fashion? Or can the consumer be both? 10 The contours of the cultural milieu are far from clear. Yet for Aldridge, the customer is already emerging as king, with religious practices and beliefs becoming increasingly pliable to 'fit' the lives of the hoped-for adherents.11 Citing Beckford, Aldridge notes that religion is now

7. Davie, Believing Without Belonging, pp. 39-41. 8. R. Bocock, Consumption (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 50. 9. Wilson, Religion in Secular Society, p. 117. 10. Aldridge, Religion, pp. 187-90, 207-208. 11. Aldridge doesn't offer examples, but recent traits in English Roman Catholicism bear out his thesis. Many parishes now offer Mass on Saturdays and Fridays, in order to accommodate the needs of families, and their working or leisure activities. An eclectic approach to the teachings of the church in respect of contraception is taken as read.

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not so much a social institution as a 'cultural resource'.12 The firmness and anchorage of religion is lost in the waves and currents of modernity; the sea of faith has become the ocean of doubt, and faiths are struggling to keep afloat. That said, Aldridge has enough historical knowledge of churchgoing habits to know that consumerism may not be inimical to religion. True, consumerism is now very much part of the sacred realm, insofar as there is now a consciousness of choice. (At conferences, I regularly meet post-evangelicals, ex-Catholics or former Anglicans who have all 'found something else', be it alternative liturgies, meditation, or even part of another religion, yet remain as part of their original faith.) Thus, Aldridge claims that the contemporary consumer culture does not only enable people to make their own faith—people frequently demand the right to choose. Adherents to religions often do not see their faith-related practices as mandatory or obligatory, but rather as vocation, voluntarism or simply a matter of selection.13 Aldridge's insights owe much to the anthropologist of contemporary culture and mass consumption, Daniel Miller.14 Much of Miller's work concentrates on the apparently mundane matters of modernity such as shopping; yet he 'reads' such activity in a way that opens up the possibilities of seeing consumerism and religion as inextricably linked. For Miller, shopping is not a form of 'hedonistic materialism that we enjoy abusing', 12. Aldridge, Religion, p. 212. Cf. Beckford, Religion pp. 170-72. 13. Aldridge, Religion, p. 213. However, as I noted in Chapter 3, this rather 'ad hoc' attitude to the totality of Christian tradition is historically normative for the English. Davie's (1994) rough 'believing without belonging' paradigm fits many periods of English church history. More accurately, though, a sizeable number of English people continue to relate to Christian tradition on an extensive basis; yet that relationality has seldom been intensive, except during periods of revival and church growth. As an example of consumerism being embraced within religion, Aldridge cites the example of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a Japanese Buddhist movement that 'expresses the values and lifestyles of contemporary consumerism' (pp. 192-94). This is a good choice, although it tends to suggest that the issue we are dealing with here is exclusively modern, which is why new religious movements (NRMs) are the preferred material for sociologists of religion, who are of course themselves a product of modernity. It might be more rewarding to test Aldridge's claims against another historical period: for example, what we know of Luther's complaints relating to the sale of Indulgences in the sixteenth century; or then again, and perhaps more interestingly, the relationship between sacrifice and consumerism embodied in Lk. 2.22-24. 14. See D. Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987). Capitalism: An Ethnographic Approach (Oxford: Berg, 1997), andv4 Theory of Shopping (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998).

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but 'a vicarious journey through sacrifice'. How can this be? Miller uses the concept of 'the treat' to explore how shoppers reward themselves, and the groups or individuals they are buying for. Anthropology is frequently concerned with how boundaries and borders are developed (e.g., soil in the garden, but 'dirt' on the carpet), and how activities are differentiated. The 'treat', therefore, is what allows the rest of this consumer activity to be defined as 'shopping'. Miller develops this further by exploring theories of sacrifice, arguing that shopping itself may be viewed as sacrifice in three stages. In stage one, the vision and rhetoric of excess are explored: 'both the discourse of shopping and that of sacrifice represent a fantasy of extreme expenditure and consumption as dissipation'.16 The second stage is a more explicitly religious interpretation, focusing on ritual: the core of this ritual is a splitting of the objects of sacrifice between that which is given to the deity and that which is retained for human consumption. An equivalent central ritual to shopping expeditions is found to be that which transforms a vision of spending into a vision of saving...

17

This leads Miller to conclude that the third stage is directed towards expressing the real benefits of the ritual through relationships and love. This is the 'dissemination' of the sacrifice, which for Miller arises out of modernity being 'under the pressure of secularisation [where] the romantic ideal of love comes to substitute for religious devotion'.18 Miller's argument is certainly novel, and to some readers may seem far-fetched. Yet underneath the narration, his presuppositions appear to be sound. Commodities are used to constitute the complexity of social relations. Religion and shopping share a common practice, whereby the practice of sacrifice is intended to create desiring subjects. Shoppers do not merely 'buy' goods. They buy in the hope of shaping the lives of the recipients, maintaining the community, and creating new patterns of meaning that can be shared. As we shall see shortly, when exploring the Alpha course as a paradigm of 'consumer-led' religion, Miller's insights go some way to explaining the success (and limitations) of this type of evangelism. The rhetoric of consumption and sacrifice opens up important new vistas in the debate about religion in contemporary culture. For David Lyon, 'religious consumers' are now a fact of modern life, although he

15. 16. 17. 18.

A A A A

Theory of Shopping, p. 5. Theory of Shopping, p. 7. Theory of Shopping, p. 7; cf. his ch. 2. Theory of Shopping, p. 8; cf. his ch. 3.

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acknowledges that 'the privatising of religion antedates the consumer society'.19 This, he claims, is in part due to the gradual disappearance of institutional religion from social life, which in turn has led to a situation in which competing convictions (to borrow a phrase from Robin Gill) now vie for religious consumers. The 'market', then, can actually 'lead' religions, or at least shape what they offer to the public, assuming that they are interested in acquiring more adherents.20 Lyon reflects on how the 'frequently caricatured Puritan ideals of asceticism, self-denial and fixed boundaries... are clearly out of kilter with [today's] culture'. 21 Yet I suspect he is only partly right. The irony of the 'market' is that it also spawns radical alternatives.22 For example, the holiday industry largely trades on offering a carefree, relaxing time in sunnier climes. Yet the rise of the rugged trek or holiday in difficult terrain as a viable form of 'relaxation' cannot be ignored. The consumer-led 'soft' religions of late modernity will lead to an alternative or counter-cultural movement. More convincingly, Lyon aligns himself with the insights of Daniel Bell and Michael Featherstone, and argues that consumerism is: no longer about utilities that address fixed needs, but about constructing an expressive lifestyle in which 'individuals are encouraged to adopt a nonutilitarian attitude towards commodities and carefully choose, arrange, adapt and display goods—whether furnishings, house, car, clothing, the body or leisure pursuits' to make a complete statement.

For some, this necessarily leads to the creation of 'religious enclaves', of religious traditions simply offering their spiritual 'provisions' to hungry consumers who will, characteristically, shop around. In other words, the danger may be that 'religion' will no longer function as social glue; it will no longer 'bind together'. Rather, it will find itself as just one more commodity within a market, which is itself a form of binding. This realization may not be surprising, and, indeed, some regard it as a blessing. 19. Lyon, Jesus in Disneyland, p. 81. 20. Cf. J. Esposito and M. Watson, Religion and Global Order (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000); R. McCutcheon, Manufacturing Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). 21. Lyon, Jesus in Disneyland, p. 82. 22. For a general overview of markets and their relation to religion and theology, see the previous chapter, and also T. Torrance, 'Markets', in Clarke and Linzey (eds.), Dictionary of Ethics, Theology and Society, pp. 546-48. 23. Lyon, Jesus in Disneyland, p. 82; cf. M. Featherstone, Postmodernism and Consumer Culture (London: Sage, 1991), p. 114.

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R. Laurence Moore in Selling God observes that American religion, and especially Protestantism, has an inbuilt commercial bias: 'religion, with the various ways it has entered the cultural marketplace, has been more inventive than its detractors imagined...as a commodity, it [has] satisfied many buyers'.24 For Moore, American religion, devoid of established faith with legal privilege, has had to become relevant to consumers, reflecting popular taste and culture where possible. This 'supply' fits the 'demand' of American life, and, increasingly, much of life throughout the 'First World'. Because the customer is king, religion no longer imposes, but invites. Thus, Reginald Bibby, commenting on his native Canada, notes the phenomenon of a la carte religion, of religion as a consumer item, and of how religious consumers are highly selective in what they consume. 25 In other words, the husk of religion is increasingly discarded in favour of the kernel of spirituality.26 For many religious adherents, this may seem a parlous state of affairs. Yet, as I noted in Chapters 2 and 3, it is important to separate the 'culture' of Christianity from the church. In Britain, religion retains a strong pulse through what scholars variously term 'common' or 'folk' religion. In North America, it is simply the case that the equivalent phenomenon has a particular commercial edge to it, which is itself culturally normative.27 Moreover, the global domination of American culture now impacts upon many other cultures and their own inculturation of religion or spirituality. It cannot be surprising that many peoples in Europe, Asia and the Pacific now find their innate spiritualities evolving at a rapid rate. Or, as Davie notes, religious memory is constantly 'mutating', but possibly faster now than at any time before. Believers, she notes, 'select at will from the package of religious goods on offer...and mould these into a variety of packages that suit a variety of lifestyles and subcultures'.28 It is to such a 24. R.L. Moore, Selling God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 10. 25. R. Bibby, Unknown Gods: The Ongoing Story of Religion in Canada (Toronto: Stoddart, 1993), p. 169; and idem, Fragmented Gods: The Poverty and Potential of Religion in Canada (Toronto: Stoddart, 1987). 26. O n a personal note, when I teach the sociology of religion to final-year undergraduates, I normally begin the course by asking how many of them are religious. Normally, not more than 10 per cent respond. However, if I ask how many of them would describe themselves as 'spiritual', I seldom get a response rate of less than 80 per cent. 27. Cf. W. Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 11. 28. Davie, A Memory Mutates, p. 199.

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'package' that we now turn; an example of a commodified, globalized, contextualized presentation of the Christian faith, that is marketed, copyrighted and consumed throughout the world: Alpha. What follows is a form of cultural and critical-theological reflection, which explores both the strengths and the weaknesses of a religion that is both sold and bought within the postmodern spiritual marketplace. The Consumer's Choice? Assessing Alpha Alpha courses appear to be a phenomenal success. Their own publicity suggests that hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in a course in the UK, the Commonwealth and beyond. Alpha News is full of good reports and self-publicity, smattered with quotes from 'academics', bishops and the like.29 The Alpha course itself has now become a business operation, with its own staff, teaching materials, sweatshirts, videos and books. Of its type, it is one of the slickest commodifications of the gospel. The books and videos are available in dozens of languages.30 Moreover, there are signs that the success of the course has broken through into mainstream culture, with a major national advertising campaign during the millennium celebrations, and David Frost, erstwhile TV presenter, hosting a range of programmes that feature Alpha.31 I ought to state that I have not attended an Alpha course; but I have read and seen much of the Alpha material. To my mind, it has a number of features that commend it to the postmodern consumer-led spiritual marketplace. First, it is a course, not a 'hit and run' exercise in evangelism. For evangelicals, reaching the unchurched has, during two centuries or more, been largely a matter of creating 'alternative gatherings' in which the gospel is preached and people respond. Nineteenth-century revivalists used large tents or open fields; latterly, their successors have used stadiums and conference halls. The environment has been deliberately defined as a 'non-

29. Cf. Alpha News (Holy Trinity Brompton, London), a quarterly newspaper that appears as an 'insert' in mainstream denominational newspapers. The academics who support Alpha tend to be lecturers at theological colleges of an evangelical persuasion. 30. The majority of these are written and presented by the Revd Nicky Gumbel, a staff member at Holy Trinity Brompton, London. 31. Celebrity presenters are highly prized by evangelical initiatives, since they underline the cultural relevance of their message. Alpha has also attracted celebrity converts such as Jonathan Aitken, a former minister under the Conservative government, but jailed for perjury.

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churchy' context so that the 'pure' gospel can be preached and received. From Billy Graham to Billy Sunday, this is how evangelism has been; an 'event' at which non-Christians are sufficiently disturbed or moved to get out of their seats, and come to the front. The sheer scale of the event is a cipher for the sheer scale of the encounter (with God) that the unbeliever should come to know. In contrast, Alpha is local and relational. It is not embarrassed by the church; it claims to build on it. Thus, the course offers local ministers or laity a number of evenings, a weekend away and a final supper, which they organize, which clearly can facilitate the building up of community relationships.32 Secondly, because it is designed to be locally based, and connected to the church, it avoids the pitfalls of some itinerant evangelists who might not relate easily to local contexts and churches. Typically, a course is run through a series of twelve meetings, with people often being personally invited. Meetings often begin with a meal, followed by a presentation (a mixture of video and lecture), followed by discussion. The atmosphere is intentionally relaxed. Thirdly, there is a wealth of supportive literature to aid enquirers. It is well marketed, and written and presented in a 'light', chatty and apologetic style, on an evangelical-charismatic basis—a sort of David Watson Jesus Then and Now33 for the new millenium, but with much more emphasis on the individual, the therapeutic, and a very personable Holy Spirit. Unlike Watson, however, internationally known preacher though he was, Alpha claims to have converted 'millions' to Christianity, and its author, Nicky Gumbel, has allegedly amassed a personal tally of converts exceeding 250,000.34 People who attend an Alpha course seem to enjoy the fellowship and find their faith refreshed.35 Among charismatic-evangelical churches, the Alpha course has now become almost obligatory; a logo that makes a 32. For an account of one person's involvement with the Alpha course, see J. Ronson, 'Catch Me ifYou Can', Guardian Weekend (21 October 2000), pp. 10-23. 33. D. Watson, Jesus Then and Now (Tring: Lion, 1980). 34. Ronson, 'Catch Me ifYou Can', p. 15. 35. Some fairly straightforward critiques are now beginning to appear, most notably S. Hunt, Anyone for Alpha? Evangelism in a Post-Christian Society (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2001). See also J. Freeman, 'Christian Evangelism and Nurture in Contemporary Britain' (BD dissertation, University of Birmingham, 2000); and M. Ireland, 'A Study of the Effectiveness of Process Evangelism Courses in the Diocese of Lichfield with Special Reference to Alpha' (MA dissertation, University of Sheffield, Cliff College, 2001).

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statement about being in the vanguard of fashionable evangelistic techniques. Yet there are some who have serious reservations about the style, content, approach and results of Alpha. How, though, can something apparently so successful be flawed? Three theological reasons immediately come to mind. First, there is very little attempt to present the church as the body of Christ which is the initial repository for the gospel. The assumption Alpha appears to make—common to a good deal of evangelical apologetics—is that people become Christians first, then think about joining a church. The dissociation is highly problematic. While individual evangelists and various agencies target the millions beyond church structures, the majority of conversions fail to be properly inculcated into the church. This is, in part, because these same people are embarrassed by the church, and offer a gospel that barely mentions it, if at all. Evangelicals tend to have little theology of place, or appreciation of directional plurality (i.e., a place of collegiality where differing opinions are held together by the tensions, bonds and love of communion), regarding the church as a collection of people who are in agreement with one another. A focus on the church and sacraments would deepen the course, and ensure the material was more firmly rooted as an arm from within the church, rather than an external agent being used as a go-between. Some Roman Catholic and liberal Anglican churches have 'tailored' the course in this way, although the authors forbid this.36 Secondly, the genius of Christianity lies in its contestability. In the relentless appeal to 'basics', the course obviates the implicit and explicit paradoxes in the gospel, as well as its breadth. It offers Christianity as a simple, uncontextual, boundless project that is 'learned' through a course offering certain types of knowledge and experience. Any group that offers a course on 'Basic Christianity' needs to address who chose the basics, and why certain 'basics' were selected and not others. In Alpha, the basics turn out to be an appeal to a largely inerrant Bible, a homely and powerful Holy Spirit, and expression of an evangelical atonement theory. They are not, interestingly, the Trinity, baptism, communion or community, which might be more appropriate for other groups. Moreover, the authors apparently do not like the course being adapted or inculturated. This suggests that a 'package' of truth is being sold. (Yet Christianity is arguably not something we 'possess'; like God, it possesses us, but is beyond us too.)

36. The course and the trademark are protected by copyright law in Britain.

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Thirdly, the focus on the Holy Spirit is both extensive and intensive. The Spirit on offer obviously arises from a personable, therapeutic, 'HomeCounties' context that is concerned with the individual.37 The dynamics of the Spirit's work in creation, justice, peace, reconciliation and the wider church receive scant attention. This is because the authors of the course reflect their origins: an elite, upper-middle-class outlook (Eton, Cambridge, Brompton), which, quite naturally, has also inculturated the gospel. In introducing the gospel from here, there is inevitably no real social mandate, no prophetic witness and no serious appreciation of theology or ecclesiological breadth and depth. Alpha plays to the 'I—Thou' encounter; it does not seek to elucidate the political or social implications that might emerge from spirituality.38 In this regard, it can be seen as a typical form of popular piety that is resonant with previous evangelical constructions of Christian faith. Alpha trades on the fact that the gospel is free for all, and correspondingly offers a highly successful 'trial pack' (a 'nice' version of Christianity), yet one that does not actually relate to what is ultimately on offer, namely the complexity of salvation from within the church. It does recognize that 'lasting conversions' are made through local church connections and friendships, with fewer coming from hyped-up rallies or events that are outside the church. But the weaknesses lie in its theological foundations. It sets its own 'questions', and then offers the 'answers' to them: a classic technique in apologetics—caricaturing 'objections' to faith, then demolishing them. There is little space for people to actually reflect on and vent their own serious social, personal, moral or theological concerns. The appeal to 'basics' seems to assume that all Christians are more or less the same underneath, and that their ecclesial expressions are merely cosmetic. They are not: for many they are matters of theological and aesthetic substance. As a course, Alpha is therefore somewhat prescriptive, a package rather than a pilgrimage. Participants are locked into a hermetically sealed hermeneutical circle, which keeps more issues out than it actually addresses. It 37. The course includes a mandatory weekend away for participants, which introduces them to 'encounters' with the Holy Spirit. This may be done through worship, teaching, the laying on of hands, or through 'power encounters', such as speaking in tongues, words of knowledge, deliverance or healing. 38. In this sense, Alpha represents the kind of 'tame' and 'domesticated' religion and view of God that Brueggemann critiques when encountering elements within the Old Testament tradition. See Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, ch. 2.

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is a confident but narrow expression of Christianity. As we shall see in a moment, it represents a trend that some scholars now define as 'McDonaldization'—global yet local; a franchise on every street corner, which offers a very limited and tightly controlled range of products. 39 The secret of the success is that the menu is reliable, and the diet unvaried. In the case of Alpha, the mixture of the didactic with the relational and the existential 'encounter' is a perfect postmodern recipe. The teaching is not intrusive. The stress on the personal experience of the Spirit over the Spirit in the whole church, in all its plurality and depth, is highly individualistic. It attempts to transform course members into converts, and then again into church members. Converts become consumers, buying into the 'Alpha world'.40 Ironically, the skeleton of the course does provide a good template that parishes could adapt and deepen according to need and context. (A number of parishes I know have adapted the middle-class presuppositions of the course for their own situations, in which 'supper parties' are not easy formats in which to discuss life and faith. It is odd, then, that the authors of the course are allegedly against this. Presumably, this is because there is a real bias in the material that is not to be ignored, and is to be protected from dilution. So here we have a technique with fundaments, Patent Pending.) My instincts suggest that Alpha ultimately does to churches what any revival does. Mostly, it excites and galvanizes existing believers, and encourages them to ponder (briefly) the world outside the church, and then to engage with it more openly (albeit temporarily) than they might otherwise have done. However, although this form of apologetics is to be preferred to some itinerant evangelism or mass rallies, insofar as it is locally based, it has still done little to address the theological vacuity of its parent missiological models. It is still more monologue than dialogue. People are still mostly 'sold' a gospel that is independent of the church—and then the course organizers wonder why the attendees do not translate into

39. See P. Ward, 'Alpha—the McDonaldization of Religion', Anvil 15.4 (1999), pp. 279-86. Ward bases his approach on G. Ritzer's The McDonaldization of Society (1993) and The McDonaldization Thesis (1998), both published by Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks, CA. See also J. Drane, The McDonaldization of the Church: Spirituality, Creativity and the Future (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1999). 40. Some parishes report that they have not been able to inculcate Alpha converts into the mainstream church. The converts have remained within their original Alpha nurture groups, where they continue to meet and discuss.

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members. 4 It also offers a version of the gospel that is weak on sin, suffering, atonement, sacraments and sacrifice. True, people have to start somewhere with the claims of the gospel: milk precedes meat (1 Cor. 3.2), and you learn to walk before you run. But does the presentation have to be so sugar-coated, simplistic and narrow?42 Well, with a consumer-based religious product, the answer is 'yes'. People's previous experience of the church is deemed to be peripheral, and the selected 'basics' presented as central: Alpha is something 'new'. Thus, one cannot imagine receiving any reasonable answer to a question such as: 'What did God do for me when I was baptized as a child?' Such issues are omitted from the agenda. They are just too complex to form the basis for a discussion about divine action and the graciousness of God. Arguably, the danger of a therapeutically tuned version of the gospel that is intentionally socially relevant is that it will itself become a fashion-victim. The course comes from the same church—Holy Trinity, Brompton—that introduced John Wimber's 'Signs and Wonders' (miracles are the best form of evangelism: 1984-86), the 'Kansas City Six' (1988-90: a group of strange American 'prophets' who predicted global revival: now widely discredited) and the 'Toronto Blessing' (RIP, 1994-96—see Chapter 11). In their own way, all these phenomena were rather ordinary within the context of revivalism and enthusiastic religion, yet they were marketed and sold well, particularly by Holy Trinity, Brompton. They have a shelf-life of 18-24 months, and in spite of some of the same bishops and 'academics' who promote Alpha (one is placed in this category by virtue of being a principal of an anglican theological College) giving each of these movements their full imprimatur, they fizzled out. So what they actually point to, ironically, is the lack of a deeply formed ecclesial identity and enduring spirituality in these faith-expressions. Without something new to sing about, punters in the pew eventually become bored. 'Success' is therefore about being at the forefront of spiritual fashion, riding along on the crest of the latest wave. A key to this is the singling out of the spiritual as an 'event' which can be transformed into a commodity. This means that miracles and blessings 41. Steve Hunt, a sociologist of religion, notes that in Wokingham, a prosperous suburban town in the south of England, 22,000 Alpha invitations were issued to the population. However, only five new members of the church resulted from this extensive exercise. See Hunt, Anyone for Alpha?, p. 114. 42. For a further reflection on dietary metaphors as a way of reading contemporary religion see M. Percy, 'A Place at High Table? Charismatic Renewal in Perspective', in L. Woodhead and G. Davie (eds.), Prophets and Predictions (Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2001).

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suddenly acquire an identity that makes them stand out from the crowd, like a designer label on a handbag or a pair of trainers. An ordinary blessing will no longer do: it must be the 'Toronto Blessing'. Prayer for healing is old hat: 'Signs and Wonders' is where the action is, and where God is deemed to be. Prophecy is interesting, but have you seen the Kansas City Six perform?43 So it is with Alpha. An ordinary catechetical course will no longer suffice—evangelical-charismatic consumers are buying a name and an identity. And the Alpha authors will not tolerate imitations or adaptations of their gospel: it is salvation by copyright. It will be interesting to see how many attending the courses, then 'making a decision', or having a numinous experience, are actually members of their local church in two years' time. My guess is that for all the hype, triumphalism and talk, this course is mainly about 'refreshing' charismatic-evangelical identity. It does not address the world in all its pain, ambiguity and profusion—so it will not actually change it, in spite of the claims. Mention was made earlier of the relationship between Alpha and what sociologists and cultural theorists term 'McDonaldization'. Ritzer describes this as the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world...the emergence of what [Weber] called Formal Rationality, that is, a collection of rules, regulations and procedures, and the growth of the bureaucratic systems necessary to ensure the smooth operation of such practices...

For Ritzer, the parallels between religion and consumerism lie in the notion of enchantment. Ritzer describes shopping malls as 'cathedrals of consumption'—places where people make 'pilgrimages' to practise 'consumer religion'.45 That religion includes meals, socializing, communing, festivals and more besides. Moreover, their hallmarks are efficiency, predictability, calculability, control through technology and disenchantment with rationality. This last hallmark sets up a circular motion that is at the heart of consumer culture: rationalization leads to disenchantment, but rationalized consumption can lead to re-enchantment, which in turn brings disenchantment. Consequently, the cathedrals of consumption must be 43. Cf. M. Percy, Power and the Church: Ecclesiology in an Age of Transition (London: Cassell, 1998). 44. Ritzer, McDonaldization of Society, pp. 28-29. 45. G. Ritzer, Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Revolutionising the Means of Consumption (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1999), p. x.

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constantly re-enchanted if they are to continue to draw in consumers. The parallels with Alpha or any other consumer-led religious discourses are not difficult to spot. A course such as Alpha needs a regular output of new products to keep people interested in the original concept. The constant stream of books, videos, teaching materials and more peripheral merchandise represents a virtual cathedral of consumption, to which the customer may return, sure of finding something familiar and something new. In a similar vein, Pete Ward sees five similarities between Alpha and McDonald's. First, and as we have already seen, Alpha is a simplification of religion. Secondly, it represents an 'iron cage', creating systems that bind and stifle; it is initially 'novel', but ultimately suppressing. Thirdly, it is a form of imperialism, spreading a uniform spirituality across the globe. Fourthly, lit is an 'illusion'—what Baudrillard calls a 'simulacrum', a copy of a copy of which there is no original. Fifthly, it is 'convenience' mission, in which the relationship between production and consumption is transparent. While Alpha, as a product, should clearly not be identified with hamburgers and French fries, Ward's point is that the productive processes are similar. How, then, would Miller's thesis on shopping as sacrifice fit within this analysis? Three points need making. First, for Miller, the concept of 'the treat' is closely related to the virtue of 'thrift'. Alpha is a deliberate 'economizing' of the gospel, in which only the 'basics' are offered. However, the religious shopper or consumer may also acquire benefits that relate to this thrift: food and friendship as part of the course, or extra merchandise that will enable them to appreciate what they are being offered. Miller writes of the 'splitting of the objects of sacrifice between that which is given to the deity and that which is retained for human consumption. An equivalent central ritual to shopping expeditions is found to be that which transforms a vision of spending into a vision of saving'.47 Secondly, the religious consumer must sacrifice his or her time to achieve consumption. It is in the very act of giving themselves that the course participants learn to receive. In turn, the consumer of Alpha can also turn into the provider for others, providing further opportunity for sacrifice. This is made possible because 'salvation' has become an 'object' in Alpha,

46. Ward, 'Alpha', pp. 285-86. Since the writing of this article, Ward has revised his views, noting that the McDonaldization thesis does not work so well within ecclesiology (private correspondence, 29 January 2001). 47. A Theory of Shopping, p. 7; cf. his ch. 2.

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which characterizes and defines subsequent relationships in terms of who has 'bought' it, 'sold' it, or is still waiting to be reached by the commodity: As in the anthropological concept of The Gift...the object constitutes the relationship, transcending the separate identity of both parties. Commodities have replaced the gift because under modernity a relationship is no longer understood as existing between people as signs of social categories. Rather the ideal is that as characters in a good novel we explore ourselves and develop each other in terms of the potential of the relationship...

Thirdly, the 'dissemination' of the sacrifice, which for Miller, as I noted earlier, arises out of modernity being 'under the pressure of secularisation [where] the romantic ideal of love comes to substitute for religious devotion',49 turns out to be one of the main benefits for Alpha course participants. In this regard, there is something ironic about Alpha. It is, in one sense, 'conservative' in its theology and overall outlook. And yet it is also profoundly liberal, being predicated on encounter—both spiritually inner and existential—as well as relationality. Thus, religious consumers do not merely 'buy' the goods on offer. They purchase in the hope of shaping the lives of the recipients (including their own), maintaining the community, and creating new patterns of meaning that can be shared. In other words, it is in the very act of enduring Alpha that the consumer is rewarded; what is spent will most likely correlate with what is saved. For believer and unbeliever alike, it is a case of reaping what you sow. There is a further irony for Alpha, alluded to earlier, insofar as it is a form of global imperialism and de-contextualized, while also being perceived as local and neighbourly. This is, of course, the achievement of Coca-Cola or KFC; though global, they are known locally, and the franchisee plays a significant part in establishing this axiom. Here it may be important to understand globalization as a process of compression rather than oppression.50 This takes us beyond the notion of capitalism or organized commerce as being necessarily imperialistic (suggested by Ward), and suggests that globalization is better viewed as 'the compression of the world' in which increasing socio-cultural density is linked to rapidly expanding consciousness.51 There are pluses and minuses to be noted here, which relate to my earlier remarks. 48. 49. 50. 51. house

A Theory of Shopping, p. 7; cf. his ch. 2. A Theory of Shopping, p. 151. Cf. M. Waters, Globalisation (London: Routledge, 1995), for a fuller discussion. See R. Robertson, 'The Globalisation of "Traditional Religion"', in M. Stackand P. Paris (eds.), God and Globalisation. I. Religion and the Powers of Common Life

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On the plus side, this means that religion, as a commodity, may be now be viewed as or manufactured to be handy, compact, portable and adaptable. Like any other 'global' product, its minimalism guarantees that it can be placed almost anywhere, and used by almost anyone. On the other hand, the very fact of compression is problematic. It can feel oppressive, lacking the space in which to grow and develop. Moreover, the very size of the compressed product might also make it vulnerable to competition. In this respect, John Drane's critique of the 'McDonaldization' of Christianity may stand: 'too bland, dull and safely predictable'.52 Thus, a weakness of Alpha may be that 'someone else does the thinking for you, predigests it and serves it up in an efficient manner... [Christians should] fulfil their calling by guarding the integrity of the right questions, rather than handing out slick answers'.53 For Alpha, the danger of a course that claims to be global and introductory is that it can tend towards trivializing the totality and breadth of Christianity. To pursue the McDonald's metaphor for the last time, there are no bad foods, only bad diets. The compression of the menu and the marketing of 'basics' in the interests of maximizing the volume of consumers is a substantial achievement. However, maintaining the customer base requires both innovation from the producer and loyalty from the customer. At the moment, nobody knows if Alpha will have the longevity to continue to be the staple fare for religious consumers in the years to come. Modernity's Spiritual Market-Place? It is perhaps not surprising that scholars are divided on the likely implications of globalization for the churches, Christian culture and other faiths. For the phenomenon has a variety of effects that seem to run in contradictory directions. On the one hand, it is possible to conceive of an organization or product that comes to dominate a market, and thereby gains global recognition. On the other hand, that which is 'local' may offer a form of cultural resistance. However, in both cases, compression is a key.

(Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), pp. 53-68. Anthony Giddens describes globalization in similar terms, speaking of the process as 'the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events happening many miles away and vice versa'. See Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, p. 64. 52. Drane, McDonaldization of the Church, p. 28. 53. Drane, McDonaldization of the Church, pp. 36-38.

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The local is compressed by the global; the global achieves its glorious reification by being compressed in the first place. From an evangelical perspective, Max Stackhouse sees this phenomenon as a challenge to the ministry of churches, fearing that faith will itself be subject to forces of reductionism. Where liberalism arguably failed (or at least could be resisted), globalization threatens to conquer. The shrinking of the world will necessarily shrink faiths within it, and the only 'winners' in the competition will be consumer-shaped religions that 'work'. And the arbiter of the winner can only be the market itself, which now assumes a passive but nonetheless dominant role. At least one other problem that may arise out of this dynamic is that 'charity', be it local, national or international, becomes a matter of'balancing interests', rather than an un-negotiated gift.54 Stackhouse calls for prophetic resistance and a critical public theology.55 That said, the reality of the spiritual market-place is undeniable. David Lyon describes the situation in America and Europe as one in which there is 'a vague, inchoate, but seemingly serious religious quest...in evidence', and notes how, following Wuthnow, religious appetites have shifted from 'dwelling' to 'seeking'.56 The modern spiritual consumer is a shopper, not a loyal stay-at-home settler. Lyon cites Wade Clark Roof in support: Many within the baby-boomers generation who dropped out of churches and synagogues years ago are now shopping around for a congregation. They move freely in and out, across religious boundaries [combining] elements from various traditions to create their own personal tailor-made meaning systems. 57

Roofs insights look to be a good 'fit' for our modern and postmodern eras, and they certainly confirm what many in faith communities fear. Roofs narration takes account of the rise of'self-help' culture, the glorying of the self as the centre of consumerism, the triumph of spirituality over religion, of 'reflexive' faith, of communities of memory losing out to individualism, and more besides.58 54. See Williams, Lost Icons, pp. 1-12. 55. See M. Stackhouse, Apologia: Contextualisation, Globalisation and Mission in Theological Education (Grand Rapids: Eerdamans, 1988); cf. idem, 'If Globalisation is True, What Shall We Do?', St Mark's Review 180 (2000), pp. 25-32. 56. Lyon, Jesus in Disneyland, p. 88; cf. R. Wuthnow, After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950s (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988). 57. Clark Roof, A Generation of Seekers, p. 5. 58. Clark Roof, Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).

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However, it is important to get things in perspective, and to ask what is really so different about today. Is it really true that people have never had religious choice before, but that now they are subject to what David Ford terms 'the multiple overwhelmings of modernity'? 59 As with our observations about sociology and secularization in Chapters 2 and 3, so we should be equally concerned about alarmist cultural critiques driven by confessional antipathies or sympathies. Historically, it is not safe to assume that previous generations did not experiment with alternative religious and spiritual beliefs, even at those points when Christendom was at its highest float. Keith Thomas states that 'what is clear is that the hold of organised religion upon the people was never so complete as to leave no room for rival systems of belief'.60 Any examination of the veneration of saints in mediaeval times, or of post-Enlightenment esoteric religion, or indeed of almost any period in history, can demonstrate a spiritual efflorescence that is beyond the immediate control of the church. People have always adapted religious tradition, privatizing it, inculturating it and reshaping it around their needs, desires and contexts. It may be the case that the only things that are unique about our times are these: individualism is on the increase; in turn, that is closely related to the capacities of production, which are shaping consumption; globalization has led to a consciousness of choice, which people feel it is their right to exercise; spirituality is evolving into a credo which is more materially concerned;61 and religions are increasingly enduring a tension, between becoming more democratized and becoming more centralized, as globalization and consumerism demand. However, the biggest paradigm shift in late modernity is the way in which mass consumption and production is 'squeezing' religion into new shapes. Alpha is but one example of a beginners' guide to Christianity for people who are already too busy, which offers a 'light touch' in terms of the demands of the gospel, in exchange for a network of new relationships. The product is a good fit for consumers, offering a subtle blend of affirmation and challenge. Yet it is the development of technology that will

59. See Ford, Theology, pp. 7-11. 60. Thomas, Religion, p. 178. 61. See S. Collins, 'Spirituality and Youth', in Percy (ed.), Calling Time, pp. 221-37. In saying 'materially concerned', I am alluding to the transference of spirituality into either hedonistic interests or environmental concerns. However, the spiritualities that emerge do not necessarily become politicized, or develop into variants of liberation theology, although this may happen. Where it does not occur, the tendency is to sacralize the object of desire, be it the forests, the earth, crystals or whatever.

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have the greatest effect on spirituality in the years to come. Sylvia Collins suggests that cybernetics and virtual technologies will have a significant impact on spirituality. These technologies offer young people an experience, if not the reality, of intimacy. Paradoxically, they seem to offer postmodern youth both increased uncertainty and ultimate control...however, this spirituality does not come at the expense of consumerism. There is very little to suggest that young people will be spiritually sensitive...rather, the spirituality of intimacy of the millennial generation will be deeply bound up with the consumerism that has increasingly concerned youth throughout the postwar period.

If Collins is right, then we would expect to see the churches developing a complex portfolio of events, networks and systems that allow believers a high degree of reflexivity within a comparatively well-defined compressed context. All the signs are that this is already happening. For many churches, the stage ofjudging their success by Sunday attendance figures is long past. Instead, they can be assessed on the totality of their output various groups for various ages; special events; new networks to explore new ideas; traditionalism affirmed and radicalism embraced; the new mixed with the old; reflexive teaching on issues of concern, but little sign of a systematic theology. Most, if not all of this, can be found at the average parish church. Consumer-led religion has already arrived. Dare one say it? It may not be such a bad thing.

62. Collins, 'Spirituality and Youth', p. 235. Collins notes that virtual chat rooms create virtual communities of intimacy. Unlike Clark Roof, she differentiates strongly between 'baby boomers' (children born between 1940 and 1965), and 'baby busters' (children born from 1965), who are more postmodern in outlook.

Chapter 8 Leisure, Ecstasy and Identity: Football and Contemporary Religion*

Your move I would have said, but he was not playing; my game a dilemma that was without horns. As though one can sit at table with God! His mind shines on the black and white squares. We stake our all on the capture of the one queen, as though to hold life to ransom. He, if he plays, plays unconcernedly among the pawns.

According to one recent survey, roughly the same number of people are members of a church on a Sunday as attend a soccer game on a Saturday.2 It is perhaps odd to link football and religion together, but their bond with each other is actually quite strong. Some of the biggest football clubs in the country have Roman Catholic or Protestant roots: Liverpool, Everton, Celtic and Rangers, to name but a few. Not long ago, when a leading striker from one Catholic club joined a neighbouring Protestant club, T-shirts were printed with the slogan, 'Forgive me father, for I have signed'.3 * Written with Rogan Taylor, Director of the Football Studies Unit, Liverpool University. 1. R.S. Thomas, 'Play', in idem, Frequencies (London: Macmillan, 1978), p. 16. 2. P. Brierley and C. Longley (eds.), The UK Christian Handbook (London: Marc Europe). But Brierley counts members, a much smaller issue than church attenders—who number many more than those who support football games. 3. O n the subject of the sharp tension between Protestant and Catholic football

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Desmond Morris has pointed to the 'religious' and 'primitive' phenomenology of football supporters in their devotion to their teams.4 These worlds are connected. The purpose of this chapter will be to explore the connections, and especially to look at what form the phenomena of play and following take in groups of supporters, audiences or worshippers. We shall also be asking questions about 'tribalism' in religion and culture in contemporary Britain. We shall not be arguing that football is a religion nor indeed that religion is reducible to a set of socio-cultural processes similar to these that might drive football. Yet we shall be suggesting that football can work like a religion for individuals and groups, and that football in some sense is a metaphor for religion. Naturally, this is a chapter which is a little more exploratory than usual, but we should begin by noting that this is by no means the first foray into this territory: besides Morris in the field of anthropology, Hervieu-Leger, Davie and others in the discipline of sociology have also seen connections.5 R.W. Coles has highlighted the parallels between football and revivalist meetings.6 Robert Higgs has written on religion in American college and professional sport, as has Shirl Hoffman.7 Then there are intriguing historical appraisals, such as J.A. Mangan's work on Christian 'athletic' missionaries, and their attempts to indoctrinate the peoples of lands conquered or occupied by the British.8 Mangan has also drawn some

clubs, see J. O'Brien, 'Pitch Battle: Blowing the Whistle on Glasgow's Football War', in the Independent Magazine (10 February 2001), pp. 12-16. O'Brien records several instances of death and serious violence, mostly perpetrated by Rangers fans (Protestant) on Celtic fans (Catholic). In 1998, Donald Findlay, a leading Scottish barrister and board member at Rangers, was secretly filmed singing anti-Catholic songs at a party for his team: 'Hullo, Hullo, we are the Billyboys...we're up to our knees in Fenian blood, surrender or you'll die...' Findlay had previously defended two Rangers fans in court for the separate killings of two Celtic fans. 4. D. Morris, The Soccer Tribe (London: Jonathan Cape, 1981). 5. Hervieu-Leger, Religion, and Davie, A Memory Mutates. 6. R.W. Coles, 'Football as a Surrogate Religion', in M. Hill (ed.), A Sociological Yearbook in Britain, VIII, (London: SCM Press, 1975), pp. 20-39. 7. R. Higgs, God and the Stadium (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1995); S. Hoffman, Sport and Religion (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Press, 1992). 8. See J.A. Mangan, 'Christ and the Imperial Games Field: Evangelical Athletes of the Empire', British Journal of Sports Science 1.2 (1984); and idem (ed.), Pleasure, Profit and Proselytism: British Culture and Sport at Home and Abroad, 1100-1914 (London: Frank Cass, 1988).

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attention to the role of religion and sport in the formation of cohesion, identity, patriotism and morality in Victorian and Edwardian public schools,9 as has the work by Tony Money.10 Similarly, Dennis Brailsford argues that the influence of the Puritans on the development of English sport and games was not wholly negative. Although the Puritans frowned upon many aspects of sporting excess, their policing of sport enabled a more professional approach to games to be developed after the Restoration of 1660.11 A recent book by Tara Magdalinski and Timothy Chandler 12 follows in Mangan's wake, arguing that sport has never really operated independently of political, social and economic factors, but that cultural analysts often miss the influence that religion has on sport—whether it is nineteenth-century 'muscular Christianity' in the service of evangelism, or the influence of Christian religion on sports professionals in the USA. They argue that religion and sport, in the USA and many other countries, integrative in nature, sometimes serving to maintain and advance minority ethnic identities, or operating as a form of resistance.13 There are also some attempts to decipher the theological or confessional significance of sport, and perhaps especially its impact on institutional faith.14 Michael Novak, in The Joy of Sports, argues that sport is a type of humanist sacrament, in which, through the players, ordinary life is raised to

9. J. Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 10. T. Money, Manly and Muscular Diversions: Public Schools and the Nineteenth Century Sporting Revival (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1997). 11. D. Brailsford, Sport and Society: From Elizabeth to Anne (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969). As Brailsford notes, the majority of English people protested against Puritan attempts to keep Sunday or the Sabbath, and prohibit the playing of sport: ' [A] Declaration, issued on May 24 th , 1618, argued that the prohibition of sports on Sunday bred discontent...and deprived the commoner and meaner sort of people of their only opportunity to exercise...no lawful recreation should be hindered [such as] dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting...bear and bull-baiting...[and] bowling' (p. 102). 12. T. Magdalinski and T. Chandler (eds.), With God on Their Side: Sport in the Service of Religion (London: Routledge, 2001). 13. As examples, the authors cite sports in Northern Ireland (competition between Catholics and Protestants), sport and Jewish identity in Shanghai during the Second World War, and the relationship between boxing, Muhammad Ali and the Nation of Islam in the USA. 14. For two evangelical perspectives, see R. Johnston, The Christian at Play (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983); and L. Ryken, Work and Leisure in Christian Perspective (Leicester: IVP, 1989).

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a new status: sport is a catalyst, a pivotal point of instrumentality, vested with symbolic meaning, ritual, a search for perfection—all arising from a deep natural impulse—that raises the expectations and hopes of the fans, who are there to be both stimulated and transformed.15 In an important essay by Iwan Russell-Jones, there are some strong links made between contemporary charismatic religion, with the playful participation and profile that it gives to all believers when they gather together, and the 'Mexican waves' at soccer games, which are as much an event as the game itself16 The implication is that charismatic religious rallies and large sports events do share characteristics in terms of crowd behaviour. The performance of the 'key players' is valued, but the crowd can still participate on its own terms. The crowd can 'play' as much as the players. The circularity of the stadium is often copied in charismatic religious celebrations, as is the encouragement and response to 'waves' of support or the Spirit. Crowds also often model themselves on the players or preachers, dressing in the same way to signify their identity and approval.17 More critically, Peter Ballantine examines the extent to which sport is the 'opiate of the people' (to borrow from Marx), or, rather, is a place where Christian witness can be incarnate.18 In other words, an important task for the church might be to 'leaven and sanctify the amusements of the people'.19 Alternatively, participation in sport may just be a further opportunity for innovative evangelism, in which the hallowing and exalting of the body and its achievements ultimately point to its maker.20 Correspondingly, Leonard Browne calls for a theological framework for sport and evangelism that would enable a form of inculturated evangelism.21 The function and behaviour of crowds give the key to understanding

15. M. Novak, The Joy of Sports: The Consecration of the American Spirit (New York: Hamilton, 1988). 16. I. Russell-Jones, 'Circle of the Gods', Leading Light 2.2 (1995), p. 16. 17. See M. Percy, Words, Wonders and Power: Understanding Contemporary Fundamentalism and Revivalism (London: SPCK, 1996), p. 59. 18. P. Ballantine, Sport: The Opiate of the People? (Nottingham: Grove, 1988). 19. E. Yeo and S. Yeo, Popular Culture and Class Conflict, 1590-1914 (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1981), p. 115. 20. See S. Hoffman, 'The Athletae Dei: Missing the Meaning of Sport', Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 3 (1976), pp. 111-32. 21. L. Browne, Sport and Recreation, and Evangelism in the Local Church (Nottingham: Grove, 1991). Browne endorses the evangelical organization 'Christians in Sport', founded by the Revd Andrew Wingfield-Digby, a prominent cricketer.

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what goes on in religious revivals and soccer games. Some of the most influential work in this field has been undertaken by Serge Moscovici, from a sociological and psychological perspective, and especially his work The Age of the Crowd?2 Moscovici's work examines the social and psychological sources of crowd behaviour. He is alive to the issues of power, charisma and suggestion, of the balance between leaders of various types and those who are led, and the paradoxes that crowds present us with. This analysis extends well into the territory shared by religion and sport. For example, noting the hypnotic phenomena characteristic of many crowds, Moscovici claims that mass hypnosis comes through 'fascination', 'mesmerisation', '[reduced] contact with the outside world', 'suggestive atmosphere', with the imagination allowed to 'reign supreme'. All these conditions are met in the contexts of stadiums and religious revivals: hopes, fears, belief and reality-suspension are all permitted free entry to the corporate human psyche. Consequently, the mental life of crowds is often that of'automatic thinking', usually created by a grammar of assent or possibility, in which the context then makes it happen.23 Yet all this is too passive for Moscovici: crowds are pro-active, as we have already suggested—they don't just watch, they also make their own action. Here Moscovici neatly subverts the Marxist slogan 'religion is the opium of the people' into something that works for the emotivated group: 'Communication is the Valium of the people'.24 Communication is seen as a social process, a form of ideology in which the ability to dialogue has broken down, and has collapsed into monologue. Thus, the function of communication in the crowd is stimulation, in which the message is the medium. This leads Moscovici to conclude that crowd behaviour is a form of secret-secular religion in its own right. Indeed, the very etymology of the word 'religion' simply means 'to bind'. This 'binding' comes about through conflations of 'ordinary' and 'transcendent' qualities such as power, charisma, order and hope. This reaches its ultimate context in the form of celebration, whether it is of a religious nature, or simply a famous win in a local derby. Followers become transformed into 'fans', derived from 'fanatics'—a word often associated with religious enthusiasts, revealing a recognition of some of the psychological similarities between the 22. S. Moscovici, The Age of the Crowd: A Historical Treatise on Mass Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). See also his Perspectives on Minority Influence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 23. Moscovici, The Age of the Crowd, pp. 81-106. 24. The Age of the Crowd, pp. 183-84.

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former and the latter.25 In Italy, football fans are the tifosi, those suffering from typhus-like sickness; in other words, the 'fevered ones'. The question naturally arises: how does this binding-leading-to-enthusiasm take place? Standing together on a freezing terrace does not turn you into a homogeneous crowd, any more than standing together in a freezing church does. Moscovici is in debt to the French tradition of sociology here, in that he sees the culture of communication as the principal form of ideology. Following writers such as Claude Levi-Strauss and Clifford Geertz, we tend to see religious or sporting affiliation as a matter of a 'cultural system' in which language plays a key part in the establishment of identity and ideology for the believers.26 One way forward, therefore, is to look at what binds crowds together. There are a number of obvious things to consider: scarves or shirts that indicate support; being enclosed together; knowledge of the team; and a shared sense of history. In contemporary revivalism and other forms of religion, these all have their equivalents. Certain Christian groups dress similarly; proximity is important; knowledge of a tradition and agreeing on the sources for this are important. There can also be learned behavioural movements, such as 'Mexican waves' or numerous people being 'slain in the Spirit', all falling on their backs, allegedly under the power of the Spirit. However, it is probable that it is in the act of chanting or singing (communicating) that much of the initial binding is done. As Durkheim said, The very act of congregating is an exceptionally powerful stimulant. Once the individuals are gathered together, a sort of electricity is generated from their closeness and quickly launches them to extraordinary heights of exaltation...

The songs used in contemporary religion or in football increasingly belong to an 'oral tradition', and act as verbal 'cues' for certain moods. In con25. Cf. E. Doss, Elvis Culture: Fans, Faith and Image (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1999). As Doss points out, the word 'fan' comes from the Latin fanum, which the Romans used to designate the various temples of the religious cults that they encountered. The Laimfanaticus described the excessive devotions of cult enthusiasts. 26. See C. Geertz, 'Ideology as a Cultural System', in D. Apter (ed.), Ideology and Discontent (New York: Free Press, 1964), p. 64. O n ideology as a closed 'system' in primitive cultures, see C. Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), p. 269. 27. E. Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (New York: Free Press, 1995), p. 217.

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temporary revivalism, there are 'battle' songs that are directed against unbelievers and spiritual forces of oppression. There are also songs about the celebrating community: the equivalent of'we'll support you evermore'. There are also songs that proclaim and celebrate victory. There are movements and gestures which underline the rhetoric, from genuflecting to 'star' players to clapping and the raising of hands. It would be a mistake to make too much of this. Clearly, the objects of the songs or chants in football are quite different from those in religion. While some footballers may be acclaimed as 'God' or as able to 'walk on water', there can be no suggestion that these attributions should be read literally. Nonetheless, the songs share a function in their effects, namely binding believers or fans together in their appreciation of their God or side, and against whatever assails them. 28 Football is like a religion to its devotees. It binds and divides, shapes and delimits, providing a critical identity for a given group and individuals. The scarf, the ground, the songs and the ritual activity have a sacred quality about them; football is at least like a secular religion here. Wagg's study, quoting a fan, puts it well: 'It's atmosphere really, it's sort of electric, it gets you going... when you look back over and think about it you can feel the atmosphere.'29 Yet do these songs or chants provide the 'complete' system that Geertz and Levi-Strauss alluded to? Can football be seen as a religion, in the Durkheimian sense, whereby society is constantly creating sacred things out of ordinary life, through ritual gatherings and the like?30 Well, partly. It does seem, in the case of football, that there are a number of different categories of song or chant. First, there is the sublime 'anthem' of the team, such as 'I'm forever blowing bubbles' (West Ham United). Secondly, there are emotive songs that serve an overt, quasi-religious function: 'You'll Never Walk Alone' (at Liverpool) reminds many of the Hillsborough disaster, and of Heysel, although the song and the club motto predate both events. We should note that the song itself originates from the musical Carousel, in which it is sung to accompany a funeral. (Somewhat surprisingly, the anthem featured strongly during Euro '96, making a bid to become a national anthem.) Equally, 'Abide with Me', which was first sung 28. For further discussion of this in contemporary fundamentalism and revivalism, see Percy, Words, Wonders and Power, pp. 60-67. 29. S. Wagg, The Football World: A Contemporary Social History (Brighton: Harvester, 1984), p. 214. 30. Cf. J. Lehmann, Deconstructing Durkheim: A Post-Structuralist Critique, (London: Routledge, 1993).

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at the 1923 FA Cup Final, during the dreadful overcrowding and crushing that occurred, remains the obligatory prelude at today's Cup Finals. Then there are three different types of chant. There are some 'battle' chants, although less chaste than their religious equivalents: 'You're gonna get your fuckin' head kicked in.' Other declamatory chants can also heard that insult the team and not their supporters: 'You're so shit it's unbelievable.' There is also a wide body of proclamatory chants and songs that celebrate the success of the team. Often, this can be just a chanted catchphrase that anticipates the future, such as 'Here we go, here we go, here we go', 'We're goin' to Wember-ley', and so forth. Finally, there are also some self-mocking and ironic chants that provide a nice postmodern touch of humour. 31 One of the best examples of this comes from the mid-1980s, when Newcastle United signed a South American player, not long after the Falklands War: His name is Mirandina— He's not from Argentina; He's from Brazil, He's fucking brill.

The variations of chanting and singing provide their own form of ritual exchange, in which the team remains the focus, but the crowd also have an active role to play in affirming their beliefs, hopes and ambitions. More than that, being part of the crowd is being part of the result. As many contemporary religions affirm, they are no longer 'spectator events' in which believers come simply to observe a priest or listen to a preacher: contemporary religion demands interaction, with the believer contributing to the overall reification of their credo.32 There is therefore an emerging sense in which football and contemporary religion resemble a profoundly 'tribal' culture. In a fairly basic way, Morris has identified some of the more obvious common features. Speaking of the football game itself as a 'ritual', Morris identifies taboos, punishments, rewards, ritual climaxes and celebrations. The game can be seen as a delicate combination of hunting, ceremony, status display, stylized battle and form of social cohesion. The belief is in a god, or in a team: both

31. Some of the humour is proclaimed in banners as well. For example, 'Chelsea are magic—watch them disappear from the First Division', or, 'Joe Jordan strikes faster than British Leyland'. 32. Cf. D. Morris, The Soccer Tribe, pp. 298-315. Morris sees the chanting, songs and banter as 'the tribal tongue'.

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are there to perform, bless, lead and bring victory to the believer. Consequently, tribal heroes emerge—those with the greatest sporting or charismatic abilities—who can orchestrate and fulfil the desires of the audience. Often, these heroes are especially revered for their 'magical' qualities, and their charisma is therefore further enhanced. Beyond the actual game itself, there is the whole question of structure, order and identity. Identity is often signified through emblems, scarves, similar clothes. The football club or church is often 'structured' by a group of elders or directors, who are responsible for resourcing, order and values. Then there are the fans themselves—the believers, who affirm their assent and dissent through their own distinctive rhetoric and non-verbal communication. Morris's work might sound a bit far-fetched at times, but its appropriateness lies in its simplicity. Morris is quite close to Novak in signalling that sport—especially something like football—is a type of quasi-religion which fulfils powerful social-psychological needs: to be together in large groups, to voice support, to experience catharsis, provide abreaction,33 and so on. It is not difficult to find more avowedly religious contemporary rituals that self-consciously attempt to re-sacralize the (alleged) religious void that sport has now filled. Contemporary revivalism in the USA has been quick to invent a whole variety of new religious rituals that will appeal to men in the same way that sport might. For example, one of the most prominent movements at the moment is Promise Keepers (PK), which aims to 'develop Christian men'. Founded by Californian Bill McCartney in the early 1990s, it aims at offering a sacralized version of 'Iron John' culture. Thus, one of its most interesting features as a movement is its celebration of maleness in a religious and sporting context. PK holds rallies all over the USA which gather men in their tens of thousands in sports stadiums to affirm their phallic, warrior 33. Abreaction is 'a process of reviving the memory of a repressed experience, and expressing in speech and action the emotions related to it, thereby relieving the personality of its influence' (Ian Cotton, The Hallelujah Revolution [London: Little, Brown & Co., 1995], pp. 114-15). Some caution must be expressed in reducing religious behaviour to psychological processes. While it is true that religious consciousness may be said, to some extent, to be a function of the brain's temporal lobe, it cannot fully describe or define religious experience, any more than the process of falling in love can be meaningfully seen as a biochemical reaction. The mind as a processor of ecstasy is not always its source. Nor indeed is the 'mind' always one conscious homogeneous unit; psychological and social deconstructors of enthusiasm in religion and football need to remember that it is a brain of two halves.

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and fathering instincts. All this is set alongside the usual rhetoric and culture that would be conducive to Neo-Pentecostal religion. Socially, the men are bonded together beyond the large celebrations through adhering to 'twelve promises', in which small groups of men hold each other to mutual accountability, although there is a 'point man' to whom the small group are all ultimately accountable.35 At the heart of the movement, there seems to be a reverence for the 'tribal' man, the primitive-religious male who has somehow been emasculated by the forces of modernity and postmodernity, and whose identity has been distorted and wounded by allegedly alienating concepts such as feminism.36 It is a powerful base from which to recreate a patriarchal religious identity, which is further empowered by notions of spiritual fulfilment. That said, Davie points out that populations in Western Europe no longer gather for entertainment in the ways that they used to. 37 While football teams in the top divisions may flourish, those in lower divisions often struggle. Moreover, people belong to football in different ways— support can be through television, reading newspapers or fanzines, logging on to the web, or being part of a supporters' club (perhaps even in China, who have more followers of Manchester United than Britain)—none of which actually involves ever turning up to see your team play. I have been a lifelong supporter of Everton Football Club, but have only seen them play five times—a fact strangely reminiscent of Lord Melbourne's infamous remark in response to a clergyman's criticism of his sparse attendance at church: 'I could not really be regarded as a pillar of the church, but am more of a buttress, insofar as I support it from the outside.' The recent work of Daniele Hervieu-Leger offers a different perspective on the relationship between religion and sport. Although she has reservations about any analogical relationship between the two, she nevertheless concedes that 'the religious nature of sport consists in its offering of a spectacle'.38 Her argument, at its simplest, is that the relationship between religion and sport is akin to the relationship between religions and the religious. In other words, sport can be 'something' that is between religion and the sacred; being religious or acting religiously does not necessarily 34. See R. Hicks and D. Gruen, The Masculine Journey: The Six Stages of Manhood (Dallas, TX: Navpress, 1992). 35. 36. 37. 38.

Cf. J. Gardner, Promise Keepers (Cambridge: St Matthew Publications, 1996). Cf. R. Bly, Iron John: A Book about Men (Augsburg, T N : Addison-Wesley, 1990). Davie, A Memory Mutates, pp. 112-14. Hervieu-Leger, Religion p. 102.

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mean that the activity began or will end in religion—but there are morphological similarities that are worthy of cultural analysis and interpretation. Thus, she agrees with Marc Auge when he writes: Western time is becoming organised—one can even say structured—around activities which serve to give meaning to human life, inasmuch as they give perceptible social significance to the individual expectations they help create. Football is not alone in the matter and an authentic ethnography of the western world would have to establish its place in relation to other institutions... In these places [stadiums], large scale rituals are still performed, rehearsals which are also new beginnings... In the ritual of sport, expectation is fulfilled with the celebration itself...

It is this type of observation that allows Hervieu-Leger to discuss mass events as a sacred-secular balance, in which new meanings are produced from new events. However, she is careful to distinguish between function, operation and meaning. While there are undoubtedly many similarities, the differences are important too. Moreover, transmutation between the world of religion and sport can easily occur, as in the case of the ninety-six Liverpool football fans who lost their lives in the crowd crush at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, on 15 April 1989. Liverpool Football Club's motto—You'll Never Walk Alone' (a phrase in any case derived from a spiritual song)—took on new meaning. Anfield, the club's stadium, became a 'shrine', especially at the Kop end, and the fans were dubbed 'the Anfield pilgrims'. Quite suddenly, remembrance became infused with religious hope, which in turn became indistinguishable from support for the team. Grace Davie, in interpreting this, states that what was being celebrated here was not a new cult, nor strictly speaking only football as a competitor to religion.40 Rather, the events surrounding the Hillsborough disaster illustrate the value attached to belonging, and, in the case of Liverpool as a city, all manner of events that harbour 'religious potentialities' which can even find expression in major sporting events. These observations are important because they begin to get to the heart of the dynamic we are discussing: namely, primitive secularity in a given group, which may enjoy the privilege of sacralization. Berel Dov Lerner argues that the 'magic' that sport or religion might celebrate is simply an irrational form of technology, a reaction to the metanarratives of modernist 39. See Marcus Auge, 'Football: De l'histoire sociale a Panthropologique religieuse', Le Debat (19 February 1982), pp. 66-67; Hervieu-Leger, Religion, p. 102. 40. G. Davie, You'll Never Walk Alone: The Anfield Pilgrimage', in L. Reader and J. Walter (eds.), Pilgrimage in Popular Culture (London: Macmillan, 1993), pp. 201-209.

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sociality.41 Consequently, 'primitive' or 'tribal' sociality, whether it is religious or secular, is its own form of working out issues to do with health, prosperity, security and preservation. Indeed, one of the effects of globalism is to reinforce tribalism: the 'televisualing' of sport or religion can only report diversity, not decrease it. In this respect, Lerner is close to Mary Douglas in her plea for a recognition that all societies contain and celebrate their 'primitive' instincts, not matter how civilized they have become.42 Thus, the question we now pose is this: in terms of contemporary religion and sport, what is actually going on at the weekend? What needs are being met, and what is being made in celebrations? Something for the Weekend? It might be fruitful to recall what religion can be, at least according to the range of disparate nineteenth- and twentieth-century disciplines that have attempted to describe it and define it. Within its most basic form of selfunderstanding, religion is an interpretation of history, a sense of God's will and unfolding nature. We say 'sense' here, since the value of that word has been challenged by both Freud and Jung, who saw religion as means-tocoherence. In Freud's case, it was 'obsessional neurosis', 43 a form of 'projection' which permitted the believer to 'weave a cocoon of illusory comfort and assurance around themselves...confirmed by providential coincidences'.44 Jung, perhaps more kindly, but certainly no less reductive ly, saw religion as a form of 'therapy', providing, among other things, the opportunity for catharsis, wholeness and abreaction.45 Moving from the personal to the social, Durkheim saw religion as a way of belonging: 'a unified system...which units into one single moral community...all those who adhere'. 46 Mircea Eliade, the historical phenomenologist, viewed religion as a technique of ecstasy, a method of transcendence, a vehicle for

41. Berel Dov Lerner, 'Understanding a (Secular) Primitive Society', Religious Studies 31 (1995), pp. 303-309. 42. M. Douglas, Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology (London: Routledge, 1975), pp. 73-82. 43. See S. Freud, Civilisation and its Discontents (1929) in Peter Gay (ed.), The Freud Reader (London: Vintage, 1995), p. 713. 44. P. Avis, Faith in the Fires of Criticism: Christianity in Modern Thought, (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1997), p. 75. 45. C.G. Jung, Collected Works, V (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1954), p. 368. 46. Durkheim, Religious Life, p. 62.

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magic or shamanism, and a performative art that inspired. All these descriptions or definitions share (loosely) a conceptuality of myth, morals and magic, acknowledging that the beliefs and doctrines give meaning and coherence to life, the hope of some 'victory', while accounting for death, defeat and disappointment. Religion is a way of binding a number of elements together for the purposes of achieving and coping, along with a sense of being able to receive and reify the infinite. So how does football overlap with these definitions? Structurally, or rather phenomenologically, the similarities, once reduced to their social or individual form, are quite apparent. Durkheim and Eliade are both alive to the quality of 'effervescence' in groups; football has its shamanistic, even ecstatic elements. This can be manifest in pre-match rituals, 'lucky' shirts, the praise of players, the magic of performance. As Robert Torrance points out, quasi-religious behaviour helps followers to 'dance towards the unknown', taking victory and defeat in their stride.48 Hence, the shaman is the magical priest, pastor, player or manager, who has knowledge of heaven and hell, who guides believers in their quests, possesses the vision to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, arrests decline, 'cures' the 'sickness', and elevates the followers to new heights of expectancy and ecstasy. A further way of testing the similarities is to compare texts that celebrate football or religion. Three retrospective accounts that reflect and enthuse have been chosen here: Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, Adrian Plass's Sacred Diary and Guy Chevreau's Catch the Fire. The first is an apologia for following football passionately, the second an ironic look at religious fervour, the third an anecdotal history that argues for embracing revivalism with fervour.49 In Fever Pitch, Hornby awakens his readers with immediate attention to reverie and ecstasy: 'It's in there all the time, looking for a way out' (p. 9). Strong elements of obsession (p. 10) combine with metaphors for love and empowerment, suggesting that following football in a certain kind of way is a way of being. Football involves pilgrimage (p. 52), it is therapeutic (p. 100: 'my comforter, security...a way of coping'), abreaction 47. M. Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane (trans. W. Trask; N e w York, Harcourt Brace, 1959). 48. R. Torrance, The Spiritual Quest: Transcendence in Myth, Science and Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 124-26. 49. N . Hornby, Fever Pitch (London: Victor Gollancz, 1992); A. Plass, The Sacred Diary ofAdrian Plass (Basingstoke: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1987); G. Chevreau, Catch the Fire (London: Marshall Pickering, 1994).

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(p. 64: 'I wake up sweating, but the sweat serves as the first anticipatory moment of the day...') and cathartic (pp. 179, 227-31: 'I became a bornagain member of the Church of the Latter-day Championship Believers... the communal ecstasy... unexpected delirium'). Yet for Hornby, football is also a form of theodicy, a suffering experience which is in the end a mystery (p. 20). Consequently, its ritualized forms are routinized in time: the high days and holy days of pre-industrial life have been transferred in modernity from religion to sport. The sacred celebration has given way to the secular, while retaining many similar phenomenological functions. Adrian Plass's Sacred Diary is a work of fiction. Well, sort of. It is possible that most of what Plass describes is familiar to him, if not personal. Plass writes with inventive humour about the warmth, misery, triumph and tragedy of belonging to a charismatic church. Plass, rather like Hornby, has a tendency to 'send up' his own expectations. He has an ironic love-hate relationship with that which he holds most dear—his church. Like Hornby with Arsenal Football Club, Plass is mystified at times by his own support for them, in spite of their mediocrity. Plass tries to be a good supporter, but in reality his condition is far worse: he is an addict. He suffers hours of average, dull and disappointing services, in the hope that there will be some alleviation. When this eventually happens, this then becomes the incentive for staying on as a fan. Meanwhile, he tries to test his faith by praying for his legs to lengthen,50 to move a paper clip by prayer alone (pp. 19-21), and to be as faithful as he can be (pp. 137-38). At times, the irony is almost mockingly cruel. The book was a best-seller for a while in evangelical and charismatic circles. Yet the humour is for a 'home crowd': few outside his Christian culture would find Plass's mischievous wit amusing. Yet the book inspires the same affection that Hornby's does. Both writers succeed in questioning their support, deconstructing their beliefs, analysing their motives...and still make the reader feel warm about their belonging, and being a supporter or believer. Chevreau's Catch the Fire expresses remarkably similar, warm sentiments, although this time focused on revival. Although this kind of religious testimony is clearly a different genre of literature to football writing, and has none of the humour of Plass, it is nonetheless worthwhile attending to 50. This is an 'in-joke' for evangelical-charismatics. Californian evangelist John Wimber made 'miracle' leg-lengthening a feature of his ministry in the early 1980s. He argued that many back, posture and neck problems were associated with people not realizing that they had one leg shorter than the other, or fallen arches in the feet. There is, of course, no empirical evidence to back up claims of miracles.

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its commonality. The community of celebration is questing for 'omnipotent joy' (p. 85). The path of pilgrimage is historical, but as with Hornby's work, the function of pilgrimage is to recover identity and capture some ecstasy (p. 212) in order to re-engage with the world (pp. 70-72). Experiences of catharsis and abreaction are prevalent in testimony (pp. 14546), as are warnings to opponents or the uncommitted (p. 33). Like Hornby, Chevreau stresses the experience of following, which is ideally and above all a deeply passionate affair in which one is transformed through participation in performance. Chevreau attempts to show that revivalist faith is historically grounded: there has been 'success' in the past, which can be repeated. All that is necessary is the faithful support of 'fans' who work together to achieve the right goals. The primary function of the rhetoric is to excite, galvanize and anticipate the new community of faith.51 Any similarities between religion and football are, of course, matters for phenomenology and taxonomy: the subject and object of these two worlds remain different. Yet we want to suggest that there are pulses of commonality that are relevant to any discussion about the shape of contemporary society, including its religious and secular forms. A number of observations can be made here. First, football can, like some forms of charismatic religion, serve to deliver an episodic charismatic or ecstatic experience. Yet this experience does not take people permanently out of the world: any dispositional ecstasy is secondary. Functionally, it alleviates the mundane secularity of human experience through moments of adventure and drama, yet does not seriously disrupt its routine domination, which is material. Thus, contemporary charismatic religion, like sport, although communally expressed, is primarily a personal affair which is located within 'leisure' activity, and therefore mainly confined to the created modernist 'space' for leisure, namely the weekend.52 Secondly, the tribalism of following—songs, body gestures, dancing, chanting and the embracing of the charismatic—although in no way corresponding to the sociological concept of a 'total institution',53 does nonetheless issue identity, hope, meaning and symbolic narratives of possibility to followers. As Hornby states, 'the fans closed ranks and overcame, with a magnificently single-minded sense of purpose, almost insurmountable difficulties all of their own making... it was a triumph not only for the team, but for what the team has come to represent...' (p. 242). 51. There is a fuller discussion of this in Chapter 11. 52. See Percy, Words, Wonders and Power, ch. 8. 53. See E. Goffman, Asylums (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1961), p. xiii.

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Thirdly, the hero-worship and witnessing of performances—especially involving the spectacular and thrilling—are common to ecstatic religion and sport. Crucially, the possession and demonstration of charisma, indicating intimacy with other powers, is valued in secular and sacred groups.54 The simple desire to worship or follow something, especially since the advent of seculariztion that has come through modernism, has created a space for charismatic leaders (or shamans) who can bring a little 'magic' to the rational world that has lost sight of mystery and transcendence, and has relativized morality, aesthetics and the sublime. As Eliade says: Magic does not dominate the spiritual life of 'primitive' societies everywhere by any means; it is, on the contrary, in the more developed societies that it becomes so prevalent.

Fourthly, the religious or football fans' passionate identification with a club or church is a way of delimiting a group and regulating it, a form of 'tribalism' that competes with other types of support, other clubs or churches, or globalism. Delimitation often makes provision for expressive and tactile support that is its own form of culture, especially among men, who do perceive that they have somehow lost 'touch' with each other in modern society, further compounding their sense of identity as a certain type of fan or believer. Contemporary religion and football provide alibis for men to be close to one another, and watch other men perform. Finally, the fluidity of charismatic religion, and of football, in which much is new, uncertain, yet hopeful, where rituals of exchange permit fans or believers to be 'part of the action', does provide a dynamic form of sociality in which improvisation is possible, without core identities ever really being lost. Charismatic religion, like other forms of contemporary religion, and like football, is a credo for a third millennium. Before concluding this section, we should draw some attention to the darker side of our comparative analysis. Reference has already been made to the anti-feminist stance of Promise Keepers, and to the imagined and created 'male' ambience of football supporting. Following Jeffrey Weeks, it seems appropriate to point out that identity (which includes gender) is as much a matter of choice as destiny. 0£ course, few have the power to alter their basic biology, but Weeks is arguing that the specific form of sexual 54. See M. Weber, 'The Social Psychology of World Religions', in H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds.), From Max Weber (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 295. 55. Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (New York: Free Press, 1958), p. xiii.

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identity is not predetermined. Thus, opting for a certain type of masculinity is opting for a certain type of socio-political power.56 The question arises, what kind of power do men gain from the arenas we have been discussing? Briefly, there are three points to note. First, Sylvia Walby suggests that the answer lies in the reconfiguration of patriarchy. She distinguishes between its public and private forms.57 Private patriarchy is linked to households, marital relationships and the like. But public patriarchy is more subtle: it admits women to spheres it can safely dominate—football and religion are both examples. They can be controlled through violence, performance, ideology and anthropology. Ironically, the more private patriarchy is threatened, the more subtle public patriarchy becomes. In our assessment of Promise Keepers, the subtlety is somewhat lost, since the patriarchal agenda ('righteous, emotive, but sensitive domination') is all too obvious.58 But sport is capable of the same, especially when it turns violent. Secondly, the conditions of postmodernity may actually necessitate a search for sacred space in which core 'identity' can be rediscovered. The absence of metanarratives or comprehensive ideologies leads many to seek out temporary release from the mundane urbanity of ordinary sociality. This involves the taking on of new ideologies, cultural systems, grammars of assent and fixations that can provide some reorientation. The popularity of football and the rekindling of enthusiastic religion represent a search for communitas, in which the principles of belonging are caught, not taught. The ideology is deliberately subjective, and beyond modernist rationalization or postmodern deconstruction. It is something in a world of nothingness; belief in a cosmos of relativity.59 Thirdly, and linked to the above point, the worlds of football and religion provide a counter-knowledge and a power that is contra-society.60 In the new worlds, certain forms of violence become legitimate in the 56. J. Weeks, Against Nature: Essays on History, Sexuality and Identity (London: Rivers Oram Press, 1991), pp. 79-85. 57. S. Walby, Theorizing Patriarchy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), pp. 178-79. 58. Cf. Carlton Pearson, 'Promise Keepers', King's Church, Newport, Wales, August 1995 (taped talk): 'Men were born first', 'midwives take our children away from us', 'feminists disempower us'. See also Roger Ellis, 'After the Rain', 7-10 March 1996, unpublished sermon, Pioneer Conference, Surrey. 59. For an accessible discussion of ideology, see David McLellan's Ideology (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1995). 60. See M. Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977 (New York: Pantheon, 1980), p. 131.

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service of the cause. On and off the field, 'normal' rules are suspended: insults, punches, fouls and kicks may be exchanged, because aggression is deemed to be constituent to the economy. In religion, the legitimization of violence is virtually without limit, provided the cause can be shown to be righteous. Oppression is also sacralized and elevated, whether it is racial or gender-based, and it almost certainly arises from particular social conditions. The perceived oppression of the city of Liverpool under Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government was arguably a factor in the Heysel Stadium disaster, which is easily overlooked. The social rebellion and anarchy within football support is merely an overspill of frustration from other areas of economic and social neglect. The rise and fall of power in a given community is part of an overall 'strategic situation'.61 Typically, symbols, heroes and communitas give some sort of grounds for ensuring that a particular group does not entirely lose out in society. The Final Whistle? Comparative analyses are methodologically problematic, even in the most promiscuous types of cultural studies. To an extent, they all suffer from a disputable a priori assumption that like can be compared to like. We are well aware of this problem, and are more than conscious that a thesis comparing contemporary religion with football can feel a bit 'stretched' in places. Nonetheless, there do appear to be genuine similarities in notions of support, community, needs being met, and the bonding and communities that are formed through the 'fan(atic)'. Moreover, the cultural similarities in North America are even more striking. Attending a large 'mega'-church in Toronto recently, I could not help being struck by just how similar it was to a sporting event. Coca-Cola, coffee and light meals were served, and could be eaten anywhere. People came in and out as they pleased, and only focused on the parts of the 'service' that interested them. It was an 'event' more than it was an act of worship. 62 Historically, revivals have been similarly compared in the past to a circus, trade fair or fete. Enthusiastic religion takes on all the attributes of fanaticism, as much as following football can become a virtually religious matter. Because this chapter is comparative, a conclusion would be inappropriate. However, we do wish to summarize our thinking thus far. 61. See Foucault, The History of Sexuality, I, p. 93: '[power] is the complex name we give to a complex strategic situation in a particular society'. 62. For further discussion, see Chapter 11.

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'Postmodernity' and 'culture' are two highly contentious words to focus on in a summary. Yet a fuller explication is necessary if we are to finish what we began. 'Postmodernity', as the term implies, is beyond modernism. It recognizes that the anatomy of society (at any rate Western society) has changed: production has given way to consumption, industry to technology, knowledge to information, the universal to the specific. At its heart, the emerging postmodern culture is one of 'play', which values differance, and attends to surface meanings and symbolic-visual identity.63 'Culture' is also a concept with a career.64 At its most basic, however, it is used to describe 'social relations', 'patterns', 'shapes', 'maps of meaning' and interpretation.65 A postmodern culture, therefore, will be expressive, flexible, dynamic and experiential, eschewing the modernist debt to Enlightenment rationality and the hope of universal truth. 66 The question is, what does a study of contemporary religion and football actually point to in the future? Beyond the phenomenological similarities, are there shared socio-cultural functions that need articulating? The immediate response to that last question would depend, to some extent, on what kind of theory of culture was adopted. We have already mentioned Geertz, who modified his theories of culture to take account of control and the impact of hegemonic ideology. For Geertz, culture might not just be 'patterns' and 'shapes', but 'plans', 'recipes', 'rules' and 'instructions' that governed behaviour.67 This thrusts the question of social control to the front of our agenda, especially in relation to concepts of leisure, ecstasy and identity in a postmodern society. Could it be that football, like some aspects of contemporary religion, is really a consensual method of social control, even if it is self-control? That in spite of the apparent freedom the combination of ecstasy and leisure brings, they are ways of deflecting any potential challenge to society? That they avoid confronting 63. For a good introduction, see S. Connor, Postmodernist Culture (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992). 64. See Kroeber and Kluckhohn, Culture. 65. Hall and Jefferson (eds.), Resistance Through Rituals, p. 10. 66. Cf Davie, Believing Without Belonging, especially the last two chapters on modernism and its futures. 67. See C. Geertz, 'The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man', in J. Piatt (ed.), New Views of the Nature of Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), pp. 93-118. Geertz is thus close to Marx here, in asserting that 'social being determines consciousness', not the other way round. See Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy (ed. T. Bottomore and M. Rubel; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963), p. 67.

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hopeless and meaningless states, and are 'opiates', to borrow from Marx?68 Certainly, social and cultural historians of both religion and football have 'read' their past popularity as a form of manipulation, a distraction from social dis-ease. The idea of religion or football being used as a social regulator is not new, and we should also note that both are increasingly bourgeois in their appeal. In view of this, it might be reasonable to suggest that in both contemporary religion, especially in its charismatic forms, and in football, we are observing a well cultivated set of 'symbols' which function synthetically,69 keeping many people together when everything else appears to be falling apart, in a postmodern era in which universal narratives appear to be losing their power. As Paul Clarke points out, if language is at the heart of human sociality, then so is play... rule-governed behaviour is behaviour that takes place in a game-like manner. Social institutions and social structures are then constituted and held in place by collective play. Play, it seems, goes not only to the foundation of how we see the world but also to the foundation of the social world in which we live. The world and life is mediated by play...

Perhaps, under these circumstances, the only thing to do, as a worshipper or as a fan, is to pay-and-view, participate—and perhaps play?

68. Cf. J. Hargreaves, Sport, Culture and Ideology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982). Hargreaves argues that sport is a bourgeois method of social control. 69. Cf. C. Geertz, 'Religion as a Cultural System', in M. Bainton (ed.), Anthropological Approaches to the Study ofReligion (London: Tavistock, 1966). 70. P. Clarke, 'Play', in Clarke and Linzey (eds.), Dictionary of Ethics, Theology and Society, pp. 641-44. Clarke acknowledges his debt to Peter Winch's The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958).

Chapter 9 From Eternity to Here: Sin, Censorship and Society

Today is not a day for adultery. The sky is a wet blanket Being shaken in anger. Thunder Rumbles through the streets Like malicious gossip. Take my advice: braving The storm will not impress your lover When you turn up at the house In an anorak. Wellingtons Even coloured, seldom arouse. Your umbrella will leave a tell-tale Puddle in the hall. Another stain To be explained away. Stay in, Keep your mucus to yourself. Today is not a day for sin. Best pick up the phone and cancel. Postpone until the weather clears. N o point in getting soaked through. At your age, a fuck's not worth The chance of catching 'flu.

Conceptualizations of sin are deeply embedded within cultures. What is taboo among one group of people may be quite commonplace in another. Our identification of what is and what is not a sin can be temporal and relative rather than necessary and absolute.2 For example, there are new 1. Roger McGough, 'Today is Not a Day for Adultery', in Melting into the Foreground (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986), p. 16. 2. A classic cultural history is J. Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of

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debates about 'choice', 'cultural practice' and 'nature' in relation to sexuality, which further cloud the picture. The expression of our sexual behaviour may turn out to be a mixture of nature and nurture, although the location of any genetic drivers in this respect remains contentious. 3 'Sin', in the English language, simply means 'transgression of the divine law, and an offence against God, or a violation, especially wilful or deliberate, of some religious or moral principle'. But the Oxford English Dictionary4 also suggests that 'it is a violation of some standard of taste or propriety', implying that sin is as much related to constructions of reality (such as decency and desire) as it is to revealed truth. In this chapter, I shall be exploring a range of issues around sin and censorship that have presented a series of cultural and theological challenges for Christianity. The issues to be discussed here include adultery, the policing of promiscuity, nudity, popular music and dancing. As with previous chapters, the discussion cannot be exhaustive, yet it is intended to be indicative, suggesting for the churches a more accommodating attitude to areas of moral disagreement and ethical enquiry. If it is correct to describe one of the effects of globalization as 'compression',5 then the moral and social 'norms' within any given culture will find themselves being squeezed and hardened through increasing exposure to other standards of taste, decency and morality. The issue is raised sharply in Tom Stoppard's memorable play, Jumpers, in a speech by a fictional

Sexuality Since 1800 (London: Longman, 2nd edn, 1989 [1981]). Readers are also referred to R. Bleys, The Geography of Perversion (London: Cassell, 1996). Bleys argues that there is a close connection between the rise of imperialist, colonialist and racist ideologies and of the homophobic attitudes that were espoused by many Christian colonizers, who were horrified by the same-sex behaviour they witnessed in Africa, even though it was widespread and normative. One of the ironies of post-colonial Africa is its rejection of homosexuality—both by governments and in the churches—to embrace a 'true' African morality of pristine heterosexuality, which is, in fact, a white European construct imposed on 'the noble savage'. See also D. Constance-Simms (ed.), The Greatest Taboo: Homosexuality in Black Communities (London: Alyson Press, 2000). 3. Two recent sociobiological studies are worthy of note. See L. Rogers, Sexing the Brain (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999), and B. Bagemihl, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity (London: Profile Books, 1999), the latter of which advances a new theory of ethology. 4. The Oxford English Dictionary: On Historical Sources (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978). 5. See M. Stackhouse and P. Paris (eds.), God and Globalisation, I (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), pp. 53-68.

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professor of philosophy, who is troubled by relativism and a new kind of radical liberalism that is being espoused: The tribe which kills its sickly infants, the tribe which eats its aged parents, without pausing to wonder whether the conditions of group survival, the notion of filial homage might be one thing among the nomads of the Atlas Mountains, or in a Brazilian rain forest, and quite another in the Home Counties. Certainly a tribe which believes it confers honour on its elders by eating them is going to be viewed askance by another which prefers to buy them a little bungalow somewhere... What is better? The savage who elects to honour his father by eating him as opposed to disposing of the body in some—to him—ignominious way, for example by burying him in a teak box, is making an ethical choice in that he believes himself to be acting as a good savage ought to act...

The musings of Professor Moore are hardly answered by Stoppard's work; all normative moral boundaries are challenged by a new political rhetoric that re-narrates standard principles of justice as well as social and religious practice. Adultery: Preliminary Remarks On the face of it, the issue of adultery seems fairly clear cut. After all, you would not expect to find any church or minister condoning the practice. It seems to be a pretty straightforward sin, something that nobody would contest. However, sober scholarship situated within the context of modernity,7 plus more popular reflection within the contemporary context of postmodernity, have both challenged and queried our conventional definitions of'sin'. 8 One might say that situational ethics pioneered in the 1960s represents the beginning of a particular postmodern stream. Equally, new cultural histories from feminists, gays, lesbians and other groups have also recovered 'traditions' and re-read religious history in more favourable and equitable terms. Stoppard's words (the musings of Professor Moore) takes us to a parable, or at least a parable re-described in the form of a joke by the poet Andrew 6. T. Stoppard,Jumpers (London: Faber, 1974), p. 54. 7. See A. Thatcher, Marriage after Modernity: Christian Marriage in Postmodern Times (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000). 8. See A Farquarson, Adultery Saved My Marriage', Independent (17 April 2000), Review, p. 7; and D. Orr, I s Adultery Acceptable These Days?', Independent (24 October 2000), Review, p. 5.

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Hudgins. 9 Hudgins retells the story of the woman caught in adultery cited in John 8. The story is faithfully recounted up to the point ofJesus inviting 'any who are without sin to cast the first stone'. Gradually, people drop their stones and begin to melt away. (The Bible helpfully adds 'the oldest first', an implied suggestion about the wisdom that age brings.) But before the crowd has dispersed a large brick is lobbed from its midst, which hits the woman on the head, knocking her to the ground. 'Who threw that?' Jesus asks sternly, his intense gaze seeming to engage every eye in the crowd. No one owns up, and the crowd soon begins to look distinctly shifty. But then Jesus spots a small, sheepish face at the back of the crowd. He sighs, and then says, 'Mother, please go home'. Of course the joke is not really aimed at the theotokos: it is directed at those who see themselves as beyond reproach, and those whose self-perception is tied up with perfection, rather than the humble and meek. It is interesting to note that in Hudgins's original poem, the brick actually kills the woman, and is thrown by her fellow adulterer to silence her. In the Gospel ofJohn we also encounter a woman who is a serial wedder and may have been married four or five times. We do not know why. But what is more interesting to discover about her is that Jesus spends time with her. Moreover, we should be alerted to our own lazy and traditional way of reading this Gospel text. The woman is habitually presented as promiscuous. But there is no suggestion in the text that she has been anything other than unlucky. She may have married her men one after the other, for perfectly legitimate reasons (and possibly out of economic necessity) and yet the church continues to interpret this woman's circumstances, like those of Chaucer's Wife of Bath, as primarily adulterous. One of the reasons why it is important for the church to be reconsidering adultery is precisely because the categories of sin and exclusion have become so fluid.10 I remember the wife of a prominent bishop explaining that she could not understand how the average wife in a marriage with an average bishop could possibly survive without a discreet affair here and there. Once you have got over the surprise, her point is actually very interesting. She is simply expressing what many people in court and upperclass circles have known for many years, namely that certain kinds of affairs can actually keep marriages going, and can adequately compensate for the gaps in married life. I say this in all seriousness: I believe that a number of 9. A. Hudgins, 'An Old Joke', in The Never-Ending (London: Houghton-Mifflin, 1991). 10. Cf. Marriage in Church After Divorce (London: Church House Publishing, 2000).

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people who embark on affairs do so to keep their marriages together and to ensure the longevity of their relationship, rather than intending to betray trust or undermine their partner or their relationship. While I am sure that some people may be deluding themselves in this respect, I nevertheless believe that there are those who embark on this path with considerable integrity. Moreover, we might ask whether adultery is sinful if both partners consent to an open kind of relationship? Anthony Giddens has recently pointed out, in his work on the transformation of intimacy, that relationality has become democratized in postmodernity.11 That is to say, rights in relationships have been replaced by a more contractual element. Culturally, this means that partners may well agree to have a certain kind of open relationship in which what we might call 'affairs' are actually tolerated or encouraged. Not only that, but in other cultures marriage does not necessarily mean monogamy. Some cultures still promote polygamy, or arrangements that are derived from that in which sexual fidelity is maintained, but within a wider framework. This is not good news for those who want to call a spade a spade and a sin a sin, even though, clearly, it is vital to acknowledge the pain and family fracture that adultery can bring.12 Ironically, however, it is the very blurring of constructions of reality that polarize sacred and sinful that lies at the heart of Jesus' ministry. His encounters with the women recorded in John's Gospel suggest that he is more ready to query people's ready assumptions about sin than he is to condemn a sinner. Policing Promiscuity The twentieth century tended to eroticize the body, with people defining themselves by the nature of their sexuality. But did people do so in the past? Caroline Walker Bynum urges caution: mediaeval people did not define themselves by their sexuality—there may not even have been such a concept. For mediaeval theologians, lawyers and devotional writers, there were just different kinds of sexual acts that each carried its own taint or weight—between people of the same or different sex, with animals, or with objects. Walker Bynum argues that we must be wary of reading too many morals into the Bible, and of reading too much (or too little) sex into our pasts. Bare breasts may be sexual in the twentieth century; but for a 11. See A. Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992). 12. Y. Alibhai-Brown, 'Family Life is in Crisis', Independent (21 June 2000), p. 9.

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thousand years in Christian art, breasts were ciphers for food, the Eucharist and nourishment. 13 Sexual licence is also far from being a modern moral problem. Instances of bastardy, infidelity and pre-marital sex have been culturally 'normal' for hundreds if not thousands of years, as these parish records witness: Turvey: Adre Cooper was gotten with childe in Turvey by Thomas Parkins of Hygham. Kempstone: Joanes A Hewe is suspected to lyve incontynentlye with a wydowe, she is called by the name of Williamsonne's daughter, as the common fame goeth within the parish. Eaton: ij women went awaye from John Godyn of Eaton at Michaelmas or there aboutes with childe as the common fame is. Risleye: John Make is suspected to lyve incontynentlye with Elizabeth Lystlowe, as the common fame goeth in the parishe. Agnes Jonson is a common sower of discorde & a slanderer of hir neyghbors. Blunham: Anne Trouton hath had ij children at one byrthe by Francis Bearde hir brother by the mothers syde. Olde Warden: Anne Wood came to our towne from London & there delyvered of a child, the father we knowe not. Camelton cum Shefford: Agnes Spratte for keepinge hir daughter Alice Spratte beinge begotten with childe at Shefford as we think. Henloo: Thomas Underwood the younger is suspected to lyve incontynentlye with the wyfe of Thomas Fare, as the common fame goeth in the parishe. Houghton Regis: We present that one Barbara Dicons is with child gotten by one John Stringer, as the reporte is, who is deade, beinge not maryd lawfullye. Fletweeke: We present Elizabeth Sondon to be broughte in child bed in Flyghtweeke, the father wee knowe not, the brute [rumour] is that the father is John Beele of Maiden. Shitlington: Creeke the scholemaster kepeth a suspected person in his house who is with childe.

13. C. Walker Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone Books, 1992).

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Amptill: We present Jone Bates which lyveth in Amptill and her husbande in Hardfordsheere, and we knowe not the cause of theyre seperation. Item we suspecte one Laurence Wryghtes wyfe of Amptill to lead an incontynent lyfe in the house of Henry Crouche of Amptill. Item there were certayne blowes geven in the churche yarde betwene Thomas Inones and Lawrence Wryghte. Clophill: We present: Symon Brewer dyd receave & kepe in his house a woman greate with childe, & hath so kepte hir and divers tymes answered that he wyll do hit in spite of our tethe, thes wordes he hath spoken to Giles Mathewe. Item Harrye Worsley dyd keepe in his house in thr yere 1577 a woman greate with childe which we suspected, but synthens she hathe been conveyed from us. Item this yere 1578 the same Henry Worsley hathe kepte an other woman which we suspecte for that she dyd change hir name & is nowe conveyed from us. Item William Spylinge hathe not receaved the holy communion sence Easter anno domini 1577. Item Richard Oxenbowe hathe dealte with Alice Hucknell by carnal knowledge but sence is toward maryage with hir, so that we desyre respecte that they be not called before marriage, leaste he forsake her. Bedford Pauli: William Capere is suspected of naughtye companye with John Drawesworthes wyfe. Bidnam: Jone Bawdwyne is with childe, the father we knowe not.

These reports of the churchwardens—which read at times like an ecclesiastical neighbourhood watch scheme—suggest that 'ordinary' infidelity was widespread, and that what is so remarkable about the reports is that they are so unremarkable. If anything, parishes are probably better behaved now than in 'traditional olde Englande'. None of these examples, of course, tells us what might be right or wrong. Yet these pericopae perform another helpful form of exorcism on the clerical imagination, possessed as it is by the demon of secularization, which whispers 'things are only getting worse; your influence is declining'.15 One of the great benefits of recent histories of sexuality is that people are now paying more attention to contemporary standards of taste and decency, and then re-evaluating the past. Indeed, the revision of our sexual history

14. Extracts from The Archdiaconal Visitations of 1578 (Bedforshire Historical Records Society, no. 69; Bedford: 1990). 15. Once again, it is possible to find Christian critiques of contemporary society that collude with the secularization mindset rather than critique it. See H. Blamires, The PostChristian Mind (London: SPCK, 2000) for a truly pessimistic account of the present, and a Utopian vision of the past.

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has now become mainstream, touching the work of historians such as Simon Schama's A History of Britain: An English spy caught in Madrid in 1587 told King Philip's English secretary that he really was one Arthur Dudley, the illegitimate son of Robert and Elizabeth. At least one country priest was reported to have called Elizabeth a whore because she was a dancer and as far as he was concerned one was the same as the other. Their intimacy was all the more shocking given that it seemed to pay no account to Dudley's marriage to Amy Robsart. Elizabeth, of course, was well aware of Amy, but she also knew that Dudley's wife was very ill, probably of breast cancer, and unlikely to survive for much longer. Sleeping with your intended was not unusual in Tudor England. Close to one in five brides were pregnant on their wedding day, and given low rates of conception this suggests that a lot more than 20% of engaged couples were having premarital sex. And of course it was not only common but expected for male sovereigns to keep themselves healthy by regular expulsion of sperm, c

•

courtesy or a mistress.

16

Contemporary commentators have not been slow to recognize that marriage is more a part of cultural practice than the exclusive province of the church. Weeks' study carefully charts the gradual reforms and controls that were introduced during the Victorian period, in order to deal with vice, legal anomalies and inequalities.17 It is popular to regard Victorians as repressed and conservative;18 yet the Victorian era was also an age of radicalism in which child prostitution, incest, the rights of women, the age of consent, divorce and marriage received proper and decent socio-legal attention, in some cases, for the very first time. There is a real sense in which the progressive cultural agenda of the Victorians has continued through to the present.19 Clifford Longley, 16. Schama, A History of Britain, I, p. 347. 17. Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, 1981, especially chs 2 and 5. 18. For example, see Sylvanus Stall's advice to a man contemplating having sex with his fiance: 'If you were capable of such a crime how could you expect a woman to respect and love her own seducer, even though he should subsequently marry her? H o w could you in the after years, without profound regret, look into the faces of your children and remember that you were the criminal despoiler of their mother's virtue?' (S. Stall, What a Young Man Ought to Know [Philadelphia: Vir, 1897], p. 47). See also P. Mantegazza, The Art of Taking a Wife (London: Gay & Bird, 1894), p. 51: 'Woe to us if in every family the newly born could proclaim aloud the name of their father... human and civilised society would appear all at one like a band of false coiners, and the woman's womb nothing but a mint of false money...' 19. One of the best discussions is to be found in Simon Szreter's Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain: 1860-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), where the

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commenting on the present dilemma of the churches in relation to 'cohabitation', states that What is needed [now] is not a mere defence of the status quo. It is important to acknowledge the extent to which marriage as we receive it is a man made institution (man made rather than woman made, incidentally). It requires a grasp of the history of marriage to distinguish between what is essential and what is accidental, so as to adapt the latter as circumstances change. For instance, not every marriage needs a wedding. There is scope for new thinking about pathways into marriage.

20

Longley, like Weeks before him, points out that customary or common-law marriage was legal in England until 1753. The decision that year to change the practice and to make the Church of England clergy the sole registrars of marriages was very unpopular (not least because it boosted clergy incomes at the expense of the poor). The old dispensation continued for another century in Scotland, the eventual change was bitterly resented there too. As in England, customary marriage took a long time to die out. 21 Moreover, author shows how, for example, Anglican clergy moved from encouraging large families to advocating smaller ones, from being against contraception to affirming it (at the 1930 Lambeth Conference), depending on the socio-economic groups they were ministering in. 20. C. Longley, 'Resurrect the Old Paths into Marriage', The Times (10 September 1999), p. 31. 21. Longley continues: 'Common Law marriage is quite compatible with the Christian theology of marriage, so there is no need to joke about "partners" or "living in sin"—all couples who live together sexually for a year or more can regard themselves, and be regarded by others, as married. Indeed, it is arguable that the Council of Trent in the 16th century (which first sought to abolish customary or clandestine marriage) and the Hardwicke Act of 1753 (which brought England into line with the Continent) were both at odds with the Christian theology of marriage. They made the validity of marriage depend on the presence of Church or State witnesses, which is nowhere demanded by scripture or church doctrine. The major reason for recognising (and incidentally criminalising) customary marriage, apart from increasing the income of the clergy and their control over the lives of the people, was to end uncertainty over who was responsible for which offspring. But that uncertainty has now returned anyway: it is part of the raison d'etre of the Child Support Agency. So, in a totally pragmatic way, society has been reinventing common-law marriage by making all sorts of arrangements to control the legal relationship between unmarried partners living together, for instance over property, violence and rights over children. These ad hoc measures need to be absorbed into a wide strategy for marriage, for instance so that cohabitation becomes not an alternative to marriage but an alternative pathway into marriage (as it was before Trent and Hardwicke, and as Christian theology still allows).'

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there were sharp differences in attitudes to premarital sex in the nineteenth century, both in terms of class and between cities and rural communities. Charles Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, observed that 'with the lowest classes, premarital relations are very common, perhaps even usual'.22 Havelock Ellis praised 'the advantage for women of free sexual unions over compulsory marriage in the case of the working classes'.23 Weeks notes that far from being 'immoral' or promiscuous, there is plentiful evidence that in fact the working class, partly inheriting structures from their rural predecessors, had a very clear set of ethics of their own which survived for a considerable period of time. Ancient customs such as 'bundling', intimate but fully clothed and ritualistic forms of petting, cuddling and courtship in bed, which had been policed by local traditions in rural society, continued into industrial society.

In Britain today at least two-thirds of people now live together before they marry.25 Of the 65,869 marriages that took place in the Church of England (in 1997—one-quarter of all marriages) in 47 per cent of cases the bride and groom gave an identical address, an indicator of cohabitation. The figure for other Christian denominations was even higher, including 62 per cent for Roman Catholics.26 More than one in three marriages ends in divorce, although this figure is for all marriages—including second, third and fourth marriages—and we should note that the figure for first marriages ending in divorce is still less than 20 per cent. Christian theories of marriage and sexual relationships are not new. However, what is noteworthy since the industrial age are the attempts by religious and political leaders, along with practitioners of social welfare and reform, to police promiscuity. Particularly within the Christian church, the works that address sexual behaviour have grown so numerous that it could be described as a minor industry. Essentially, there are three theological traditions that dominate this

22. C. Booth, Life and Labour in the People of London (London: Williams & Norgate, 1892), I, pp. 55-56. 23. H. Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex. VI. Sex in Relation to Society (Philadelphia: F.A. Davis, 1920), p. 388. 24. Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, p. 60. 25. B. Martin, 'New Trends in Marriage and Divorce', Church Times (4 August 2000), p.i. 26. The figures, published in Marriage, Divorce and Adoption Statistics by the Office for National Statistics, London, also reveal that 12 per cent of all Anglican marriages in 1998 involved a divorcee.

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'industry', conservative, liberal and Roman Catholic. Conservative approaches to contemporary sexual culture are mainly led by evangelical writers and speakers, with names such as Lewis Smedes or John White featuring prominently.27 Their contributions are distinctive in their theological orientation, reflecting a particular narrowness in biblical hermeneutics when it comes to deducing appropriate 'Christian' behaviour from specific biblical texts. Moreover, the books are 'counter-cultural', aimed at Christians only, in order to enable them to resist contemporary culture rather than engage with it.28 The liberal tradition takes culture more seriously, and is also inclined to regard Scripture as reflecting a certain amount of cultural practice, rather than each biblical text that touches on sexuality being a matter of non-negotiable revelation. Characteristically, evangelicals are suspicious of liberals at this point, because they cannot see how promiscuity can be adequately policed without the aid of moral or biblical absolutes. Liberals, in contrast, seek to apply a range of moral principles (the distinction is important) to sexual behaviour, which allows for a degree of pragmatism and inclusivity.29 The Roman Catholic tradition is more complex, since it can incorporate many elements of the previous two traditions, while at the same time aspiring to support fidelity. Thus, Riley's Civilizing Sex presents a theological and cultural case for chastity, arguing that European civilization was built upon learned codes of social and moral behaviour that enshrined abstention.30 More pragmatically, Jack Dominian 31 and other authors deal with the reality of sexual love, rather than trying to make marriage into an absolute ideology through a process of apotheosis.32 27. For a selection of views, see L. Smedes, Sex in the Real World (Tring: Lion, 1979); M. Evelyn and S. Duvall, Sense and Nonsense About Sex (London: Lutterworth, 1967); B. Burbidge, The Sex Thing (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1972); M. Lawson, Sex and That (Tring: Lion, 1985); and S. Goddard (ed.), 20th Century Sex (Milton Keynes: Word, 1986). 28. See, e.g., J. White, Eros Defiled (Leicester: IVP, 1977). 29. The best example of a scholarly exponent is L.W. Countryman, Dirt, Greed and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and their Implications for Today (London: SCM Press, 1989). 30. P. Riley, Civilizing Sex: On Chastity and the Common Good (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000). 31. See J. Dominian, Marriage, Faith and Love (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1981). 32. It is interesting to note that there are few mainstream Anglican authors who write about marriage; most of the books concentrate on either divorce, or marriage preparation. See A. Harvey, Marriage, Divorce and the Church (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1997); and P. Chambers, Made in Heaven? (London: SPCK, 1988).

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Breaking out of all three of these traditions, and offering a postmodern perspective, Adrian Thatcher offers a treatise on marriage that argues that it should be seen as a process, not an event. To endorse this cultural and theological recasting, he points out that there are five cases of couples being married in the Bible, and all of them were betrothed first. Betrothal was traditional in the church until the sixteenth century, and indeed extended, occasionally, to same-sex couples.33 The practice of betrothal was probably discontinued by the church because too many people were having sex before they got married—for example, rates of illegitimate births in Elizabethan England exceeded one in three children. Having said that, marriage, perhaps especially Christian marriage, was also a huge step forward in the revolution of relationships in the early world. Early Christian notions of marriage required men to renounce their prerogatives over female slaves and young boys, and Christianity also took a stand against infanticide and the restrictions on divorce. It is a mistake to read Christian marriage as necessarily restrictive: for many people down the centuries, it has been profoundly liberating when compared to the alternatives. It is possible that Thatcher's theorizing on marriage and relationships may yet help churches to come to terms with the present marital milieu, and turn faith from a position of policing into an agent of affirmation. Nudity, Censorship and Popular Music Readers of the first three chapters of Genesis will be familiar with the idea of nudity evoking shame among human beings. Taboos, prohibitions and reservations about nudity are in fact strongly linked to culture and ethnic identity. The Victorians had a tendency to cover things up, fearing the moral decline that nakedness would breed: The custom of exposing the upper part of the female form not only involves much physical suffering in the shape of consumption handed down through many generations but, by exciting a passion in the opposite sex, frequently a long list of moral evils follows in the train.

33. Thatcher, Marriage after Modernity, especially chs 3 and 4. The memorial to Sir John Finche and Sir Thomas Baines at Christ's College Cambridge, dated 1684, is testimony to the church's tacit recognition that two people—even two men—were now no longer considered single, but in modern terminology 'an item'. The memorial describes their relationship as animorum connubium, a marriage of souls. 34. S. Churchill, Forbidden Fruit for Young Men (London: Nisbet, 1887), p. 54. For

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Other eras have seen nudity in an altogether different light. The sixteenthcentury Adamite sect, with its strong Puritan roots, reasoned that because they were saved and part of the elect, part of the curse of Adam was removed. Correspondingly, they returned to a pre-Fall state of nakedness, since Adam and Eve had worn nothing prior to their highly original act of sin. Although the Adamites were ridiculed and persecuted, even by other Puritan sects, the shape of their theological outlook was surprisingly modern. The Adamites were conscious that bodies had become sites of loathing and shame, simply because humanity had sought knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Correspondingly, the only proper response could be to proclaim one's salvation through demonstrations of nakedness.35 The fashion for 'streaking' in the 1970s is arguably a distant secular relation. The theological heart that was beating in the Adamites has manifested itself in the twentieth century in a number of other secular forms. For example, if we consider the history of nudity in the twentieth century, it is interesting to note that in Europe the first naturist resort was opened by Paul Zimmerman, near Hamburg in 1903. In 1905 the first British nudist organization was formed. In 1929 Kirk Barthel founded the American League of Physical Culture. In the 1930s, thousands of men on Long Island disobeyed the law and went topless. (Please note, this was men only.) Only in 1936 was the law changed in the USA to decriminalize topless bathing among men. In Europe, topless bathing among women is fairly normal, but in America it remains illegal in all but two states.36 In Third World countries it is normal for women to breastfeed their children in public, yet in many First World countries this is still considered to be indecent, with special rooms sometimes being set aside in public spaces. Indeed, the whole history of photography and the nude is as much about censorship as it is about exposure. Quite simply, nudity and concepts of decency are fluid within cultures, and in spite of what Genesis says, are clearly not nonnegotiable conditions of the Fall. In contemporary culture, the image of the nude is familiar and pervasive, and concern about this dynamic amongst faith groups closely parallels concerns about standards of taste and decency in the public portrayal of some commentary on such views, see M. Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexual Attitudes (Oxford Oxford University Press, 1994). 35. D. Cressy, Travesties and Transgressions in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 251-80. 36. See M. Miles, Carnal Knowledge: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West (London: Vintage, 1991).

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sexuality.37 For example, the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association was formed in 1964 by Mary Whitehouse, with the specific remit of policing the media, and monitoring standards of taste and decency.38 The NVLA have campaigned against swearing, nudity and the portrayal of sex, as well as broadcast material that could be deemed to be offensive prior to the 9 pm 'watershed' (i.e., the time when children supposedly go to bed). It is not only religious bodies, though, that attempt to police the public sphere. The British Board of Film Classification was not established due to religious lobbying, but is the product of a liberal society that is aware of the limits that need to be placed on freedom of expression.39 Similarly, the Advertising Standards Authority, established in 1962, looks after the concerns of consumers, and does not represent any specific or particular moral outlook. There is considerable tension over the freedom that is allowed by the internet (and the right to information), and the abuse of that freedom in pornography. Equally, there is an acceptance that public standards are subject to change, even within a relatively short period.41 Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable appeared in their pyjamas for a bedroom scene in the 1934 film It Happened One Night.42 Two decades on, Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster were widely regarding as pushing those boundaries during a kissing romp on a beach in From Here to Eternity (1953).43 Ken Russell's Women in Love (1969) was probably the first British film in which the actors appeared naked.44 In mainstream films, full nakedness is now commonplace, although there are still restrictions for films on general release as to what else may be shown or suggested.45 37. For a brief but perceptive treatment of the underlying issues, see A. Dworkin, 'Liberty and Pornography', New York Review of Books 38.14 (1991), pp. 12-15. 38. In 2001, the organization became MediaWatchUK. 39. See V. Cohen, 'Sense and Censorship', Observer (21 May 2000), p. 22, and G. Greer, 'Gluttons for Porn', Observer (24 September 2000), Review, pp. 1-2. 40. At the time of writing, Wonderland', an international child pornography 'club', has just seen several members convicted for storing and disseminating images. 41. Recent research by the BBC, the Independent Television Commission and the Advertising Standards Authority shows that terms of racist abuse are considered more offensive now than a decade ago. Certain sexual swear-words are less so. See Expletives Deleted: A Report (London: Advertising Standards Authority, 2000). 42. It Happened One Night, produced by Frank Capra, Columbia, 1934. 43. From Here to Eternity, produced by Buddy Alder, Columbia, 1953. 44. Women in Love, produced by Larry Kramer, UA/Brandywine, 1969. 45. The 1929 Hays Code in the USA specified that married couples shown in

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Off the screen, similar patterns of development can be traced. Hubert Selby's collection of short stories about gritty urban American life, Last Exit to Brooklyn, was published in 1966, and in Britain quickly gained a similar notoriety to that of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.46 The publishers of Selby's work, Calder and Boyars, found themselves successfully prosecuted on two occasions for 'possessing an obscene article for gain'. The publishers ignored the verdict and the fine following the first trial; in the second trial (13-22 November 1967), the judge directed that the jury be all male so as to 'spare any ladies embarrassment'. The jury found against the publishers, fining them £100, but awarding costs against them of nearly £16,000. It was only on appeal that the publishers were able to have the verdict quashed, amid, by this time, much public relief. Many clergy, academics and public figures had expressed dismay at the original court verdicts.47 In other arenas, nude calendars, nude public art and naturism are now socially 'acceptable', if alternative. In 1968 the Lord Chamberlain's office relinquished its power to censor stage productions. London's West End was subsequently treated to Hair and Oh Calcutta!48 Television nudity was slower in developing, and tended to involve drama (Z Claudius, for example), long before nudity became part of light entertainment. (The recent game show Naked Jungle, and the 'serious' US cable channel Naked News, are just two examples.) Yet in spite of a general paradigm shift in public standards of taste and decency, there would still appear to be limits. On advertising billboards, the Opium perfume poster campaign, which featured a naked model, Sophie Dahl, was the subject of a record number of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority.49 The poster—but not the same image in targeted media such as magazines—was found to be bedroom scenes must be shown in rooms with twin beds, and that one foot must stay on the floor during love scenes, lest the nation's collective moral values be damaged. 46. It is doubtful if Selby's short stories would have come to the attention of the public, but for the excessive campaigning of Sir Cyril Black and Sir Cyril Taylor MP, who were both prominent anti-liberal figures. 47. See the discussion of the two British Obscene Publications Acts of 1857 and 1959, in Weeks, Sex Politics and Society, pp. 84 and 264. 48. For a treatment of censorship in English theatre, see N . De Jongh, Politics, Prudery and Perversions: The Censoring of the English Stage 1901-1968 (London: Methuen, 2000), and I. Hunter, On Pornography: Literature, Sexuality and Obscenity (London: Macmillan, 1993). See also I. Torrance, 'Censorship', and C. Crowder, 'Obscenity', in Clarke and. Linzey (eds.), Dictionary of Ethics, Theology and Society, pp. 119-21 and 619-23. 49. See I. Murray, 'Comment', Marketing Week (22 February 2001), p. 150.

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in breach of the codes. Then again, a simple picture of two lesbians embracing on a bed—a billboard advertisement for a website (Queercompany. com)—was found not to be in breach of the codes, and attracted relatively few complaints.50 Why, though, is any of this of any concern to the churches as they seek to engage with contemporary culture? A number of reasons come to mind. First, it is clear from our survey of promiscuity that it has been, at least since the Industrial Revolution, and in all probability long before that, extremely difficult for the churches to bring their moral teachings to bear on the general population. Sexual practices have varied widely, and what some churches regard as 'sin' others may regard as culturally normative. Secondly, the churches themselves do not always agree on what the relevant moral teachings actually are, and what weight they might carry in creating a public theology. The Bible is unclear or even silent on many of the issues we have been discussing. Thirdly, the transition from what Habgood calls an idealist society to a sensate culture^ further erodes the possibility of creating and offering a coherent public theology. If the moral foundations for judgments are standards of taste and decency, the churches will find themselves relativized as only one voice among many, and not in a position of privilege.52 Fourthly, the tone and level of sophistication of engagement with contemporary popular culture is something that churches have been poor at for decades. Theologically, the area has been almost entirely neglected, and dismissed as trivial. (How then, can theology be public if it has nothing to say about so many of the things that dominate public spheres?) Ecclesiologically, too much has been left to reactionary voices, who have often been quick to condemn, but slow to understand and to appreciate how portrayals of gender, along with subversive and sexualized elements within popular culture, often contain serious sediments of religious sentiment. This last point is arguably the most important, for it calls the church back to an empathetic and critical reading of popular culture, and into a

50. For a fuller discussion of obscenity and censorship, see Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, pp. 19-21, 216-17 and 280-81. 51. Habgood, Seeing Ourselves, p. 99. 52. For example, more people watch The Vicar ofDibley each week on the BBC than go to church. Dawn French is arguably the most recognized female religious figure in the UK. Theological debates over whether or not women should be ordained as priests do not make any sense to a sensate culture; they only have meaning in an idealist society.

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process of genuine discernment.53 As we have noted in previous chapters, Callum Brown's distinctive secularization theory, besides drawing our attention to the ways in which society has become more liberal (or, more accurately, how legislation on issues such as divorce now corresponds with the needs of the population), also places a great deal of emphasis on the role of recent popular culture in eroding religious belief.54 Although I have queried his sweeping narration, there is enough truth in it to merit a response. Correspondingly, a serious theological engagement with popular culture is vital, if churches are to comprehend and challenge their alleged competition. Jeremy Carrette, summing up Foucault's reading of the relationship between religion and culture, offers an invitation and a challenge to churches: Religion needs to be rediscovered outside the superstitious, misconceptions and illusions through which 'secular' academics have so far dismissed the subject. We need to find religion in the very fabric of the 'secular'—in the absence... Foucault's 'religious question' finally rests on an 'absence' [in the fourth volume of The History of Sexuality]... of a transcendent and normative religious ideal. In this 'absence' we are left with questions of how to create new forms of embodied subjectivity through a 'spiritual corpora1 ity' and a 'political spirituality'. From 'absence' a new 'religious space' will emerge...

Ironically, some of the most serious theology of the Reformers was engaged in such tasks, yet this is quickly forgotten by contemporary theologians and church leaders, who prefer to focus on doctrine and church order, and ignore the (alleged) non-religious space, unless it is a sphere of morality. Yet for the Reformers, nothing was outside 'religion', so their theology ranged freely over what to many modern theologians must seem trivial areas, such as fashion, music, games, food and companionship. Consider, for example, the time spent by Luther and other Reformers on the subject of dancing and revelry. Some of the Reformers wanted to condemn dancing on the basis that it led to immorality. Calvin saw dancing as 'a preamble to fornication', Baxter regarded it as 'a sinful sport', Stubbs condemned it as 'an unwholesome exercise that induceth lust'. (Similar 53. This has begun to happen with films. See C. Marsh and G. Oritz (eds.), Theology through Film (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1997), and M. Percy (ed.), Intimate Affairs (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1997), in which a number of the authors give alternative theological readings to well-known films such as The Graduate. 54. See Brown, Death of Christian Britain, especially chs 8 and 9. 55. J. Carrette, Foucault and Religion: Spiritual Corporality and Political Spirituality (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 152. See also idem (ed.), Religion and Culture by Michel Foucault (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999).

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views can still be expressed within contemporary fundamentalist and conservative Christian churches.) In contrast, Hooker thought dancing to be 'fine' for Anglicans—not that many Anglicans are dancers.56 Luther's response though, is telling: because it is the custom of the country, just like inviting guests, dressing up, drinking and making merry, I can't bring myself to condemn it, unless it gets out of hand and causes immoralities or excess. And though sin has taken place in this way, it is not the fault of dancing alone.. .and I dance, anyway!

What these writings tell us is that the Reformers were seriously engaged in critiquing the culture of their day, and in so doing were manifestly concerned with popular culture, especially where the body, sin and censorship were issues. Public theology was to be concerned with ordinary, public life. What separates Luther and Hooker from Calvin, Stubbs and Baxter is their theological anthropology—their assumptions about the proper context for bodily expression. One tradition is, on the whole, moderate and trusting; the other, suspicious and severe. Quite recently, North American and Continental theologians have once again begun to take popular culture seriously. In the USA, and perhaps at the more extreme end of our thesis, the focus has been on 'Elvis Studies': a number of scholars within the field of religious studies have noted the iconic religiosity of 'Elvis culture', and associated phenomena such as 'domestic altars' and 'death week' (like Holy Week)58—a whole constellation of social practices that have been given religious meaning: Religion constitutes those practices and attitudes that imbue a person's life with meaning by linking him or her to a transcendent reality: that which is beyond purely immanent, or secular, experience and understanding. Assertions of affinity between religion and the generally privatised spiritual beliefs and practices of Elvis fans stem from their similarly supernatural, and inexplicable, character and authority. Collecting Elvis stuff, creating Elvis shrines, and going to Graceland are not, in and of themselves, religious acts

56. D. Tripp, 'The Image of the Body in the Protestant Reformation', in S. Coakley (eds.), Religion and the Body (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 139 and 143-45. 57. M. Luther, 'Sermon for Epiphany', cited in Tripp, 'The Image of the Body', p. 135. 58. See, e.g., C. Albanese, America: Religions and Religion (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1992); Greil Marcus, Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession (New York: Doubleday, 1991); and G. Rodman, Elvis after Elvis: The Posthumous Career of a Living Legend (New York: Routledge, 1996).

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and practices. But they become religious if they affect a transcendent and allpowerful order that can influence human affairs and is not inherently apprehensible.

As Girardot points out, the rise of Elvis Studies in the USA and beyond now questions the boundaries of theology and religious studies, rather in the way that the study of so-called implicit religion has done in the United Kingdom for more than a quarter of a century: to some extent, it was the potent bourgeois linkage of Enlightenment rationality with an evangelical and Victorian Protestant sobriety that led to the hard barriers between the serious and the non-serious (irrational/superstitious) in academic life. For religionists in the academy, therefore, it has been preferable to follow a programme that did not easily lend itself to fatuous irrelevance. Best then, to avoid Elvis and his ilk altogether and to study the ancient texts, classical belief systems, and elevated moral precepts of the really serious religions, what were once called the 'high' or 'world religions'. And to the degree that aspects of popular culture and religion were admitted into this agenda, then at least let them not appear too immediately silly...this is unfortunate, since it could be said that religion by its very nature always dwells incongruously and simultaneously within the realms of the serious and the silly... 60

Girardot advocates, I we have already argued, that attention to the apparently trivial is an opportunity for theology to recover its nerve, as well as its voice in public discourse. If theology and religious studies can move beyond their immediate (and apparently central) concerns, they can begin to emerge out of their self-imposed exile, and once again participate in studying the meaning and interpretation of everyday life. So, the study of popular culture assumes a new importance; it has a bearing on how individuals and society express the sacred. In a different vein, Ola Sigurdson has argued that a significant number of pop songs are religious expressions of desire, resonating with Augustine's'restless heart' (from the Confessions).61 Her readings of the lyrics of U2 and other popular music groups may be 59. Doss, Elvis Culture, p. 76. O n my own visit to Graceland, I was struck by how quiet, simple and moving the shrine to Elvis was. There is no sign of hysteria; people walk around the house and grounds as they would in a cathedral or museum. 60. N . Girardot, lEcce Elvis: "Elvis Studies" as a Postmodern Paradigm for the Academic Study of Religions', JAAR 68.3 (2000), p. 612. 61. O. Sigurdson, 'Songs of Desire: O n Pop-Music and the Question of God', in W. Jeanrod and C. Theobald (eds.), Concilium: God—Experience and Mystery (London: SCM Press, 2000), pp. 34-42. C f idem, The Way of Hunger: On God, Church and Plurality (Lund: Arcus, 2000).

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somewhat pedestrian, but the agenda she opens up is an intriguing one. 62 Here again is the beginning of a theology that is concerned with the practice of everyday life, in which openness to the future, intensity of feeling, yearning and searching are interpreted thoughtfully.63 Some final thoughts, then, on icons of modernity from the world of popular music. What do they mean? Is it the case, echoing Callum Brown, that popular culture has ushered in the ultimate and unconquerable genes of secularization, and in so doing has marginalized the church to purely censorious roles? Or does popular culture reflect religious sentiments, showing once more that religious symbols and ideas continue to permeate culture at every level? One of the most prominent icons to emerge in recent years has been Madonna. Regarded by many from within the USA's New religious right as an archetypal whore of Babylon, she has evoked a good deal of criticism for her sexualised song lyrics and erotic pop videos. Yet as an icon, she is far from being a champion of secularism; a closer look at her work suggests a fascination with religion. Her 1998 album Ray of Light uses associations with several religions. In the songs 'Nothing Really Matters' and 'The Power of Goodbye', Sigurdson detects shades of Augustine in the lyrics.64 As Fiske points out, Madonna is 'a provoker of meanings whose cultural effects can only be studied only in her multiple and often contradictory meanings'.65 In the video that accompanies the song 'Like a Prayer', Madonna stretches and intensifies religious symbols. The video was controversial when it first appeared, on two counts. First, Pepsi, the drinks manufacturer, was unhappy with the array of burning crosses that appear at the end of the video with its apparent klu-klux clan overtones. Secondly, 62. The use of U2 and their lyrics in this way is fairly straightforward—see especially 'Desire', 'I Still Haven't Found what I'm Looking For' and 'God Part IF from Rattle and Hum (Island Records, 1998). However, it may be more rewarding to explore the contemporary dance music of artists such as Moby, with songs such as 'Anthem', 'Memory Gospel', 'God Moving Over the Face of the Waters' and 'Everloving', from Play (2000) and Everything is Wrong (1999, both Warner Music). Equally, Enigma, with their meditative-rave music from MCMXC a.D. (Virgin Records, 1991), along with many other groups, show that the music of the contemporary club scene has a strong religious flavour. 63. Cf. M. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 15-42. 64. Madonna, Ray of Light (Maverick, 1998). See Sigurdson, 'Songs of Desire', pp. 3839. 65. J. Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), p. 124.

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the Roman Catholic church objected to the scene in which Madonna is praying in a church before a life-size crucifix, set somewhere in the Deep South of America. As the song progresses, the black Christ figure begins to weep, and eventually comes down from the cross to join in the dance, caressing Madonna as she sings that she is 'called by name'. To the untrained eye, the video at first sight appears blasphemous. The use of a black Christ in the Deep South coupled to burning crosses also has an obvious political and social message. Yet the song and video are full of subtle and profound theological nuances beyond the immediately controversial. The burning crosses, for example, can be read not as a reference to the Klu Klux Clan, but to mediaeval mysticism, and the intensity of feminine religious desire.66 The scene with the weeping Christ is a sign of suffering solidarity with the intercessor. The dancing Christ and the scenes of intimacy also contain theological resonances.67 Musically, the presence of a black gospel choir, and the movement in the song from pleading intercession to praise, make this a powerful performance, redolent with spiritual meanings.68 The careful religious and cultural subversion does not end here. Fiske shows how Madonna's playful use of her own religious name carries a powerful counter-cultural message. On the one hand, Madonna is (or rather was) a sign of feminine excess—jewellery and make-up are 'overspills' of ideological control and offer scope for resistance to patriarchy, and the role of Christianity within that.69 Fiske also detects religious sentiments, puns and discourses in some of Madonna's apparently most secular songs. For example, 'Like a Virgin' opens with: I made it through the wilderness Somehow I made it through D i d n ' t k n o w how lost I was U n t i l I found you I was beat Incomplete 66. Cf. G. Jantzen, Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), and Walker Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption. 67. Cf. Sydney Carter's hymn, 'Lord of the Dance': 'They cut me down and I leapt up high, I am the life that will never, never die; I'll live in you if you live in me—I am the Lord of the Dance said he.' New English Hymnal (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1986), pp. 545-46. 68. For further reflection, see Naremore and Bratlinger (eds.), Modernity and Mass Culture. 69. J. Fiske, Reading the Popular (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), p. 105.

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More traditionally, fragments of Christian stories can also be found in other arenas of popular music, just as they are in 'high culture'. Wellknown biblical stories and phrases, rather like Christian festivals, are part of the 'cultural furniture' of society, and have meanings and significance well beyond those proscribed by the churches. Consider, for example, the most popular song of all time in the USA, 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow', penned in 1939 by Yip' Harburg and Harold Aren71 for the film The Wizard ofOz, and sung by a young Judy Garland.72 The film is based on the allegorical fairytale by Frank Baum (1903), which was originally a critique of American society and its appetite for 'gold rushes'. Thus, 'Oz' means ounce ('oz'), and the 'yellow brick road' is, as in the English folktale of Dick Whittington ('the streets of London are paved with gold'), a road that lures the foolish, who in turn are represented by the scarecrow (poor rural farmers), the tin man (greedy industrialists), the lion (those lacking moral courage) and Dorothy (the gullible and innocent), to the 'holy grail of personal wealth'.73 The film reflects Baum's original allegory. When the party reach Oz, the journey proves to have been worthless. The dreamy quality of the song combines elements of lullaby and almost heavenly aspiration, a world where troubles 'melt away'. The song yearns for homecoming, yet also puts the old world behind the singer: a new future opens up, one tinged with regret, but also with promise.74 In part, the popularity of the song owes much to its adoption by American soldiers during the Second World War as it does to the film; the song became an anthem for those departing overseas. In interpreting this cultural history theologically, a number of observa70. Written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly; published by Billy Steinberg Music & Denise Barry Music, and released with Warner-Chappell Music, 1984. 71. Musicologically, the dreamy ballad resonates with Aren's other compositions, such as 'Brother Can You Spare a Dime', from 1932, a song that lamented the Great Depression, and 'Stormy Weather'. 72. The Wizard of Oz (MGM, 1939), produced by Mervyn Le Roy. Judy Garland's performance earned the Academy Award for best song that year. 73. Cf. A. Lewens, Walk on By: The Most Influential Songs of the Last One Hundred Years (London: BBC Books, 2001), p. 80. 74. The song has been covered by many artists, but Eva Cassidy's version, from the album Songbird (1996), captures the promise and pain of the song more than most.

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tions can be made. First, the film and the song have a strong 'prodigal' theme. Just as the character of Jesus' parable in Luke 15 takes a decision to venture away from home, so do the characters in The Wizard ofOz, most especially Dorothy. Secondly, the resolution for restlessness and adventure is homecoming, with elements of repentance and forgiveness. Dorothy's lines towards the close of the film might easily be spoken by the younger son of Jesus' parable: Tf I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look further than my own back yard, because if it isn't there, I never really lost it.' Thirdly, the morphic resonance of the prodigal theme takes on a life of its own within popular culture, which begins to exist quite independently of any religious reference. For example, Elton John's song 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road', from the album of the same name, picks up where Dorothy left off: 'I should have stayed on the farm, I should have listened to my old man.' 75 The religious origins in the song are opaque for most listeners, but they are present, and demonstrate the extent to which popular culture continues to feed off religious ideas and images. In reading popular culture like this, we are able to see how strongly religious stories, themes and images live on in popular culture, even though the original religious memory may mutate. 76 As we observed before, following David Martin, broken or semi-structured religious symbols and meanings find their way into contemporary culture at almost every level. Or, following Hervieu-Leger, we can argue that the 'religious chain of memory' survives in post-traditional societies and post-institutional religion.77 It may be true that contemporary culture is awash with many competing moral currencies. However, as I have argued, this has been so since the Industrial Revolution, and was probably true long before that, even though there can be no doubt that pluralism and globalization have added to the moral mazes in which churches and religious groups now find themselves, struggling for a voice. Nonetheless, society remains saturated with religious symbols, ideals and sentiments. One of the problems that churches face today in relation to nearly all aspects of popular culture, whether behavioural, social, or as a production, is that their instinctive response is invariably one of fight, flight or fright. One of the tasks of theology in the future must be to place less stress on 75. Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, words and music by E. John and B. Taupin (Mercury Records, 1973). 76. The same could be said of religious music. Jazz, blues and pop can all be traced to nineteenth-century gospel music, and all the genres continue to draw on that source. 77. See Hervieu-Leger, Religion, pp. 163-75.

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fleeing or trying to police popular culture, and more on discernment and understanding, and thereby in rediscovering religion in the very fabric of the apparently secular. This is, ironically, a task that was probably all too familiar to earlier generations of Christians, and there is no reason to suppose that theologians need fear today's cultural complexities more than those of yesterday. While it is true that the past is a foreign country, the cultures that other Christians have had to engage with were never any less complex than our own. The more the churches can do to offer focus, articulation and meaning to the innate spiritual yearnings that are present in everyday life, including an apparently secular popular culture, the greater the possibility of a genuinely emergent and broadly supported public theology. Only then can there be a serious public discourse of sin, and a consensual form of social censorship. The task of practical theology then—perhaps especially under the auspices of faith communities—must be to first understand and interpret sexuality rather than trying to simply define and delimit it. Truly, it is better to light a match than to curse the darkness.

Chapter 10 Sympathy for the Devil: On Discerning the Demonic

[The belief] that there is a devil is obviously a powerful one and common to many different cultures that I think our Founder is right in emphasising the free nature of our faith. We have no need of bogey men to frighten our children with, and do not believe in giving adults any excuse for their own faults; ours is a modern faith, born after the wars' great blood letting in the midst of our century of pain, when humanity finally revealed itself as the ultimate devil. Just as there is both fear and comfort to be drawn from devils—the fear speaks for itself, the comfort comes from being able to absolve oneself of responsibility for one's actions—so there is, inversely, both comfort and fear to be drawn from the realisation that there are no such things after all.

In Christian tradition the name Judas Iscariot is synonymous with betrayal and possession. In Dante's Inferno Judas belongs in the inner ring of hell along with Cassius and Brutus, the arch-traitors. Judas, through his actions, has an assured place in Western European cultural history: to be 'a Judas' is to be a betrayer. Ironically, the New Testament tells us almost nothing about Judas. No one really knows who he was, why he betrayed Jesus and what on earth possessed him. There is a very old tradition that claims Judas was the nephew of Caiaphas the high priest, who was determined to be rid of Jesus. In this narration, Judas was persuaded to become a secret agent to plot the downfall of Jesus.2 But all this is speculation. In the Gospel according to John we are told that Judas betrayed Jesus for the money, and that Judas was a thief (Jn 12.6). But this may be a retrospective judgment. Again, we can't be sure. In the other three Gospels the name 'Iscariot' 1. Iain Banks, Whit: Isis Among the Unsaved (London: Abacus Books, 1995), p. 227. 2. R. Holloway, The Killing: Meditations on the Death of Christ (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1984), pp. 7-10.

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might be linked to a fanatical set of first-century Jewish nationalists, professional revolutionaries who were determined to overthrow their Roman oppressors. According to this tradition of possession, Judas is gripped by the spirit of Zealotism, and when he realizes that Jesus is not going to be the new political messiah he had hoped for, he hands him over for betrayal. Two gospels, Luke and John, also suggest that Judas is 'possessed': 'Satan entered him' (Lk. 22.3; Jn 13.27). There are three conspiracy theories all bundled up here. Judas was swayed by financial considerations; or he was politically disaffected; or he was possessed by the Devil, or perhaps another malign spirit. Of course these are not in themselves competitive theories about Judas's betrayal of Jesus; they may in fact turn out to be complementary. The point, though, is this. When a gross and evil act is committed, even the Gospel writers are not above the language of possession, scapegoating and blame-apportioning. The last four chapters have been concerned with religion and consumerism, the media, censorship and various types of socio-religious cultures and behavioural patterns. The chapters have explored how religion shapes society, or in turn is shaped by popular culture, with some comment on the sociological manifestations of those inter-relationships. Correspondingly, a chapter on possession and the Devil may seem an odd bedfellow with which to conclude this section. Yet how evil is described and discerned in modern cultures is an area of intense academic interest. Social constructions of reality relating to evil cut across the territory of popular culture and contemporary religion with almost bewildering frequency, often feeding a media frenzy, which in turn creates a spiral of intensity and interest in the 'reality' of the demonic or satanic. In this chapter, we shall be exploring how such powerful religious and cultural sediments retain their influence within contemporary culture. An obvious place to begin is with the infamous film The Exorcist,3 William Peter Blatty's bizarre story about a young girl who is unaccountably possessed by the Devil. Her possession results in several violent deaths, before she is eventually cured. With the benefit of hindsight, one critic now describes the film as a 'spectacularly ludicrous mishmash with uncomfortable attention to detail and no talent for narrative or verisimilitude. Its sensational aspects, taken together with a sudden worldwide need

3. The film (1973, Metrocolour) was directed by William Friedkin, with the screenplay written by William Peter Blatty based on his original novel (W.P. Blatty, The Exorcist [New York, Harper & Row, 1971]).

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for the supernatural, assured its enormous commercial success...' 4 Yet despite such critiques, there is no sign of the 'sudden worldwide need for the supernatural' abating; the market is as insatiable as it was 30 years ago. Recently re-released, the film has prompted a marked rise in the number of people reporting that they too have been possessed by the Devil.5 The cultural impact of the film generally, coupled with its dark religious resonance and apparent socio-psychological effects, suggests that portrayals of evil, the satanic and the demonic continue to carry significant weight in apparently secular societies. There may be a number of reasons for this. The North American folklorist Bill Ellis, for example, suggests that the decline in ritualistic practices in the Roman Catholic church (following Vatican II) is a factor. The excesses of The Exorcist partially fill a cultural void that has been left by the church. 6 Others have suggested that the responsibility for the intensification of interest lies with Pentecostal churches and the charismatic movement; these churches are actually feeding the very 'thing' they oppose. Then again, perhaps attention to the area simply leads to a kind of socio-psychological autosuggestion. In a recent study, Loftus and Mazzoni have demonstrated how easily people change their minds about possession. Two hundred Italian students were questioned and interviewed about their views on the demonic; most indicated a high degree of scepticism. A trial then followed in which the students were given a number of articles to read, some of which suggested that exorcism and possession were quite common, and that many children may have witnessed such things, but only later 'remember' them. The interviews were then repeated with the students, and many moved from a position of scepticism, with 20 per cent now claiming that they had either witnessed possession, or had themselves been possessed. The psychological key that popular culture enables is the 'vivid visualization' of 'the past' coupled to a contemporary phenomenon, which can then make a 'false' memory credible.7

4. J. Walker (ed.), HalliweU's Film Guide (London: HarperCollins, 8th edn, 1992), p. 358. 5. S. O'Connell, 'I've Been Possessed by the Devil', Independent (15 December 2000), Review, p. 8. 6. B. Ellis, Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions and the Media (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2000), p. 109. See also D. Torevell, Losing the Sacred (Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 2000). 7. E. Loftus and G. Mazzoni, 'Possession', Journal of Experimental Psychology (forthcoming).

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There is, though, a darker side to society's dabbling with the demonic. For centuries, the externalization of evil and its projection onto individuals or groups has led to some profound and perplexing problems. Often, the individual or group that has been singled out as 'dark', 'of the Devil' or 'demonic' actually turns out to be nothing more than 'different', or possibly slightly 'difficult'. Occasionally this may be less of a conspiracy and more of a misunderstanding. For example, many illustrated scenes from the 1483 Nuremberg Bible depict Moses with horns on his head, looking like a devil. This was due to a mistranslation of the Latin word for 'ray' (in Exod. 34.29), which the German translation rendered 'horn'. Yet the irony of such depictions was that they led to centuries of anti-Semitism, and eventually found their way into Nazi propaganda. Many studies of fundamentalist communities demonstrate how individuals who 'don't fit in' with groups can quickly find themselves labelled 'possessed', which in turn justifies the administration of correction, deliverance or ostracization.8 Ellis cites the disturbing (but not unique) case of a Pentecostal minister in Washington State who attempted to exorcise 'a demon of rebelliousness' from a three-year-old child, the symptoms of possession being 'a silly laugh' and bed-wetting: To drive it [the demon] out, he [Pastor Cunningham] devised a rite of exorcism that involved ceremonial beatings administered by himself, the child's mother, his wife and his daughter-in-law and her mother...these ritual beatings continued twice daily for several months, with the exorcist convinced he could see the demon in the child's eyes.

In this case, the child (David Weilbacher) was eventually killed during one of the exorcisms. The police were called, and discovered the decomposing body of the child, as the death had not been reported. The pastor had 'mistaken' the stillness of the child for a 'dispossessed state', and was awaiting God's call to waken the child. Fortunately, such extreme instances are rare, yet the grammar of possibility relating to possession remains remarkably stubborn within secular contexts. Arthur Miller's play The Crucible (written in the context of the anti-Communist 'witch-hunts' in America in the mid-1950s) demonstrates how easily paranoia about satanic rituals, witches, possession and 8. See Percy, Power and the Church, especially ch. 2, and S. Parsons, Ungodly Fear (Oxford: Lion, 2000). Jeanette Winterson's Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (London: Pandora, 1985), and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (London: Jonathan Cape, 1986), are two works of literature that pursue these themes. 9. Ellis, Raising the Devil, pp. 112-14.

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deliverance can grip the public mind. As I noted in Chapter 3, general belief in the devil has risen in the last few decades, which can fuel conspiracy theories and urban myths that are often attached to 'the unexplained'. The case of Brandi Blackbear further illustrates how non-religious bodies treat the apparently 'demonic'. A teenager at Broken Arrow High School in Oklahoma, Brandi was suspended by the school authorities for 'casting a spell' on a teacher which made him ill. There is, of course, no evidence that Brandi Blackbear is a witch of any kind, but the circumstantial 'evidence' that led to her exclusion from school for over a year included an interest in the novels of Stephen King, having a Catholic mother and Native American father, being quiet and keeping herself to herself, and looking 'different' from other young women. The school claims she 'confessed' to being part of a Wiccan coven.11 The conflation of endemic religious and episodic cultural paranoia is probably one of the main causes of this occurrence. Television programmes such as Sabrina the Teenage Witch will simply amuse most viewers, but in communities that are deeply influenced by fundamentalist mindsets, the programme-makers are deemed to be making light of something that is very real, yet mostly hidden. Correspondingly, puzzling and tragic events such as the Columbine School massacre of 1999 can easily lead the media and churches alike to speculate on the source of such evil—'satanic rock music' is often cited. Thus, when one year earlier, on Wednesday 25 March 1998, two young boys from a fairly average town in North America— Andrew Golden, aged 11, and Mitchell Johnson, aged 13—deliberately opened fire on a group of schoolchildren and their teacher, a complex tragedy had clearly occurred. Yet it took only four days for national American newspapers, Time Magazine, and a number of British Sunday newspapers to report that there were 'occult influences' in the school. The possibility that satanism and other evil influences were hard at work in this tragic scenario suddenly became plausible. Thus far, every single one of these accusations has proved to be entirely unfounded.12

10. A. Gumbel, 'Brandi the Teenage Witch', Independent (5 January 2001), Review, pp. 1,7. 11. See 'Witchcraft', in F. Gettings (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of the Occult (London: Hutchinson, 1986), p. 243. 12. See Time Magazine (UK edition), 2 April 1998. We know that the boys took approximately three minutes to discharge their ammunition. The police easily apprehended the boys—within ten minutes. They took them down to the local police station, where both boys allegedly burst into tears and asked for their mothers: when they

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For Ellis, the 'evil' that is projected on to students such as Brandi Blackbear, Andrew Golden and Mitchell Johnson is unsurprising. In his detailed study, he explores how Christian Pentecostal and charismatic movements, coupled to right-wing conspiracy theories and opportunistic media, have turned grassroots folk traditions into 'cultural panic'. Moreover, this is a relatively recent phenomenon. During the mid-twentieth century, devil-worship was seen as an isolated and esoteric practice mainly confined to mediaeval times. Yet by the 1980s, many therapists, social workers, the police and other professional groups were acknowledging the phenomenon as widespread. 'Satanic ritual abuse' became a recognized term, describing children and adults who had suffered at the hands of satanists. For Ellis, the roots of this lie in the 1970s, with Christian groups beginning to 'blame' a number of physical and mental afflictions on demonic activity, while at the same time there was renewed interest in alternative religions, and a cultural fascination with manifestations of evil. For Christians who were inclined to believe in a personal evil being (Satan/the Devil/Lucifer) who had small armies of demons at his disposal, the manifestations of evil could take many forms. Individuals could be afflicted by demons, which either made them ill or accounted for their allegedly anti-social behaviour. Demons could afflict nations, and influence governments. They could cast a shadow over entire communities, causing depression and dysfunctionality.13 For some of the Penecostals, charismatics and fundamentalists who subscribed to this worldview, the increase in demonic activity was not surprising, since it was obvious to them that society was living in the 'end times', and that Christ would soon return, and that the Antichrist would be revealed before the elect were saved.14 were told they needed an attorney and they were read their rights both boys asked if they could have pizza for lunch. This request was denied. It is alleged that after the first interview, the younger of the two, Andrew Golden, asked if he could go home now. The older of the two boys, Mitchell Johnson, allegedly asked for a Bible and some Scripture memory verses and the presence of a pastor. It is perhaps even stranger to note that both these boys had allegedly given their lives to Christ at a summer camp 2 years before the shooting, the local pastor reporting in Time Magazine that Mitchell had made a full profession of faith and was 'going on strong with the Lord'. 13. For a discussion of the apocalyptic motifs that dominated Koresh's community in Waco, see K. Newport, Apocalypse and Millennium: Studies in Biblical Exegesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) and J. Stone (ed.), Expecting Armageddon: Essential Readings in Failed Prophecy (London: Routledge, 2000). 14. See Hal Lindsay, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan 1981); this has sold over 25 million copies worldwide. See also idem, The 1980s: Countdown to

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The candidates for being revealed as the Antichrist have generally followed the contours of popular cultural suspicions and obsessions. Various American and Russian presidents have been named, as have a number of popes, the Vatican, the European Union, the World Council of Churches, international figures such as Henry Kissinger or Anwar Sadat, and occasionally some celebrities.15 Supermarket barcodes ('the eye of the Antichrist') and multi-national companies such as Proctor and Gamble have also been the focus of attention for some fundamentalist readings of the 'end times'. 16 The novels of Frank Peretti have also fed this mindset within fundamentalist and charismatic Christian communities. 17 Peretti's novels portray angelic and demonic powers at war over communities and individuals in small-town America. As works of fiction, they are not unlike a conflation of Hal Lindsay's work with the novels of Stephen King. Peretti portrays sizeable, tangible demons who really can be encountered. The theologian Walter Wink, noting the coerciveness of Peretti's work, comments: We have here a case of the total projection of evil out on to others. The view of evil is scary but finally trivial; his demons are simply imaginary bad people with wings, and the really mammoth evils of our day—racism, sexism, political oppression, ecological degradation, militarism, patriarchy, homelessness, economic greed—are not even mentioned. It is simply Pentecostal naivete writ large on the universe...

18

If Wink is correct, and it is possible for religious groups to popularize and 'project' evil onto others in such a way that the naming of evil gains significant cultural purchase, we have yet another example of resilient Armageddon (New York: Bantam Books, 1981): 'the decade of the 1980's could be the last decade of history as we know it' (p. 8). 15. See B. McGinn, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil (New York, Columbia University Press, 2000), and R. Fuller, Naming the Antichrist: A History ofan American Obsession (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). 16. I have met personally a number of Christians on a number of occassions who informed me that the 'Toronto Blessing' was a Nazi conspiracy that was set to usher in the age of the Antichrist, by causing some kind of economic collapse in the West. 17. F. Perreti, This Present Darkness (1986) and Piercing the Darkness (1989) (both Westchester, IL: Crossway Books), have sold in their millions to charismatics and Pentecostals all over the world. 18. W. Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Augsburg: Fortress Press, 1992), p. 9. See also idem, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Augsburg: Fortress Press, 1984) and Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence (Augsburg: Fortress Press, 1986).

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religion flourishing within modernity. It operates simultaneously with codes of resistance and accommodation, partly because cultural relevance coupled to counter-cultural beliefs is something of a trademark among fundamentalist communities. Yet the sources of those original doctrines are obscure to say the least, for here is a body of religious belief that has fascinated and saturated many cultures, shaping religion as the culture itself is shaped by such beliefs. It would appear that in contemporary society, the three elements identified by Ellis earlier—Christian interests, conspiracy theories and then the media (i.e., popular culture)—are feeding off one another in their pursuit of the demonic. How is it possible, then, to discern the demonic? The issue is an acute one for the field of cultural and religious studies, since the social construction of reality in relation to evil cuts across many arenas of contemporary concern: therapy, politics, personhood and community life, to name but a few. In short, a grasp of how the demonic is constructed within contemporary culture will show how society continues to be overlaid with religious stories, myths, beliefs and images which still enjoy an unusual profile of meaning and significance. In order to discern the demonic, then, it will first be necessary to see how it has been constructed in the past. The Demonic and the Devil: Two Concepts with a Career To believe in demons is to believe in superhuman beings or spirits that can be either beneficent or malevolent. In theological studies, it is recognized that conceptualizations of the demonic are widely dispersed, with a variety of histories.19 Originally, 'demon' derived from the Greek word daimon, meaning power, although its origins may also be traced in the Sanskrit root div (meaning 'to shine'). In the early Greek worldview, there were no devils or demons; daimon, as a notion, was linked either to an attribute of God (an unidentified force), or to the fortune and character of an individual, whether good or bad. In the fourth century BCE, Plato began the process of reconstituting daimon into demon, by suggesting that what affected people's character was not just internal or given, but could be a particular category of beings that were between gods and humankind. 20 19. For fuller discussion readers are referred to M. Lurker, A Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons (London: Routledge, 1987), and K. Van der Toorn, B. Becking and P. van der Horst (eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1999). 20. See Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.3; S. Clark, Thinking with Demons; The Idea of

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Acceptance of demons occurs in virtually all religions. Some of the earliest literate cultures, such as those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, reveal belief in supernatural beings who are feared as hostile and intrusive. However, recognition of demons does not always lead to a personification of evil in one supreme being, such as the Devil or Satan.21 In Taoism, Mesopotamian and some primal cultures, evil spirits are said to exist without a supreme archetypal Devil, and may be linked to natural objects such as rivers, rocks, animals and trees, or possibly ancestors. These spirits may be malevolent or beneficent. In Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Zoroastrianism, demons are regarded as a separate class of beings, and minions of the Devil. As such, they provide an account of evil that is neither the direct responsibility of God, nor under immediate human control. Conceptualization of the demonic in Christian cultures has varied, as has the practice of exorcism. The early church had to respond to an overemphasis on evil spirits from Manichaeism. In mediaeval Christendom, demons began to be featured in Christian paintings and sculptures, symbolizing all types of evil and disaster. During the Reformation, and subsequently, demons were more personalized, and linked to heresy, witchcraft and sorcery. The number of trials, purges and witch-hunts rose correspondingly. The Enlightenment, with its emphasis on empiricism and rationality, signalled a period of decline for the stress on the demonic. However, as we have already noted, the latter half of the twentieth century (a modern and postmodern era) saw a resurgence of interest in demons, evil spirits and angels. In the last 50 years, charismatic renewal has absorbed many Western contemporary cultural obsessions with evil spirits and demons. Some deliverance ministries can be dualist, and propose novel hierarchies of demons, including 'territorial spirits' and demons linked to certain conditions, or charged with certain responsibilities.22 Other revivalists suggest long lists of activities that expose Christians and non-

Witchcraft in Early Modem Europe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); M. Eliade, 'Demons: An Overview', in eadem (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1987); J. Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977); and P. Tillich, Systematic Theology, III (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963). 21. See E. Pagels, The Origin of Satan (London: Allen Lane, 1996); Russell, The Devil P. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967); and P. Stanford, The Devil: A Biography (London: Arrow, 1996). 22. See J. Wimber, Power Healing (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1986), and for a critique Percy, Words, Wonders and Power.

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Christians to demonic affliction;23 men with pierced ears and women engaged in oral sex are among the more bizarre suggestions.24 The Old Testament inherits some of its demonology from pre-Judaic religion. Bel and Leviathan are probably of Canaanite origin. Generally, the Old Testament expresses very little interest in the demonic. In Deut. 4.35 and 2 Sam. 24.16-17, demonic powers are placed under the sovereignty of Yahweh. In Job 1.6-12 and 2.1-7, even Satan is 'sent' by God to test faith. Here, the demonic may be an instrument of punishment or prosecution within the divine economy. However, there is also an undeveloped Jewish tradition of sedim (evil spirits) that seems to relate to foreign gods (Deut. 32.17; Isa. 34.14), who are not under the control of Yahweh. Jesus, Paul and other writers in the New Testament seem to regard demons as sources of both physical and psychological disorders (Mt. 12.28; Lk. 11.20). In keeping with his Jewish background, Paul sees the demonic as operating within a cosmology that is ultimately subject to God (Eph. 2.2). The book of Revelation is more in debt to an aspect of Middle Eastern culture that was once steeped in apocalyptic motifs.25 Few theologians in the last century paid much attention to the demonic. Barth was an exception, as was Tillich. More generally, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Rollo May and others have tended to treat the demonic seriously without necessarily assenting to its reality. They saw it as either deeply repressed evil wishes or desires, and as a good metaphor for the struggle between good and evil, or perhaps as psychosis. However, some serious mental illnesses (such as Multiple Personality Disorder—MPD) lend themselves to the vocabulary of possession, with the sufferer feeling that they have been taken over by an alien force that is compelling them to do evil.26 Studies of the demonic show that, whether real or imaginary, the naming and embodiment of evil is an evolving concept in the history of religion and human consciousness.27 Theologians and experts in religious 23. F. Hammond and I. Hammond, F., Pigs in the Parlour (Texas: Impact Books, 1975). 24. B. Surbritzky, Demons Defeated (Milton Keynes: Sovereign, 1986). 25. See W. Carr, Angels and Principalities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 26. See the discussion of M P D in Ellis, Rasing the Devil, pp. 97-104 and 285-86. 27. See, e.g., J. Middleton, Magic, Witchcraft and Curing (New York: Natural History Press, 1969); D. Westerlund and A. Jacobson-Widding, Culture, Experience and Pluralism: Essays on African Ideas of Health and Healing (Uppsala: Uppsala University Press, 1989); E. Bourguignon, Possession (San Francisco: Chandler-Sharp, 1976); and idem, Religion, Altered States of Consciousness and Social Change (Springfield, O H : Ohio State University Press, 1973).

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studies can show that the actual 'experience' of the demonic is often a combination of artefact, projection and contemporary cultural constructs, as well as mental illness. Equally, when we turn to the Devil (or Satan) in Christian tradition, the picture is no less opaque. Satan is, according to the Old Testament, a created being or fallen angel held to be the personification and instigator of evil (Isa. 14.12). The name 'Satan' has sometimes been connected with the Hebrew verb sut, meaning 'to roam', implying that Satan is somehow God's spy. More commonly, the etymology is linked to concepts of plotting and opposition. The term 'devil' is derived from the Septuagint translation of 'Satan' as 'diabolic'. The terms are used synonymously, although devils, in the plural, can be linked to the demonic. In the Old Testament, Satan is an adversary of humanity charged with testing faith and with prosecution (1 Sam. 24.4; Ps 109.6; and Job 1-2), but specific connections with evil are tenuous. Christianity synthesized Greek, Persian and Jewish concepts of the Devil.28 In the New Testament, the character and personality of Satan are developed into the personification of evil. Two of the Gospels show Satan as opposed to Christ and the intentions of God from the outset (Mt. 4.1-11 and Lk. 4.1-13). The New Testament also theorizes about Satan's origins (2 Pet 2.4; Jude 6; Rev. 12.7-9) and discusses his decisive eschatological defeat (Rev. 20.2, 7-10). However, Christianity is generally imprecise in its identification of the Devil and his tasks. 'Satan' may simply be a metaphor for evil and rebellion against God that has been personalized and mythologized. Moreover, it is not clear from Scripture to what extent the world, the cosmos or hell (Hades) are under (his) control.29 Satan, Lucifer ('prince'), Beelzebub ('lord of dung') and Beelzebul ('lord of flies') are competing concepts resourced from a mixed pedigree.30 In mediaeval Christianity, Satan started to become a popular figure in folklore.31 His acquired visual identity (horns, cloven feet, tail and threepronged fork) seems to be linked to antipathy towards paganism and gods

28. See 'Demonic' and 'Devil' in Clarke and Linzey, Dictionary of Ethics, Theology and Society, pp. 231-32 and 243-44. 29. The Bible does not provide a neat narration of hell either. Is it the place of annihilation, or of eternal torment? See A. Turner, A History of Hell (Orlando: Harcourt & Brace, 1993). 30. For concurrence with this historical description from non-Christian sources, see 'Demons' and 'Devil' in Gettings (ed.), Encyclopaedia of the Occult, pp. 65-67 and 69-71. 31. Cf. McGinn, Antichrist.

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of fertility. But as early as 1218, Gervase of Tilbury argued that our knowledge of the Devil may be hallucinatory, linked to ordinary fears. Many modern scholars now suggest that humanity 'manufactures' the Devil out of personal and collective neurosis. For Foucault the power of the Devil is 'limited to the space of the imagination', and is therefore 'redoubled in depth'. 32 In general, contemporary anthropological and psychological studies tend to cast the demonic and possession as genres that have a liminoid function. Deliverance becomes a rite of passage, in which the dysfunctional or anti-social person is restored to the community. 33 Discerning the Demonic We have begun to see how complex the beliefs that make up our constructions of the devil and demonic actually are. Beliefs about the devil, Hell, evil spirits, the paranormal, exorcism and the demonic are a veritable spaghetti of stories, myths, doctrines and folklore, becoming ever more entangled within the edifices of contemporary culture. Ellis suggests that one key to discerning the demonic is to locate and identify the underlying or non-presenting 'issue' that is being scapegoated. More often than not, this will simply be something that is deemed to be 'deviant', yet cannot easily be explained. It may be individuals, groups, whole communities, or patterns of behaviour that disrupt and interfere with normal social boundaries. Thus, what is often most interesting about the persons that Jesus exorcises is not so much their affliction, as that the surface manifestation of their affliction has already led them to be socially excluded.34 Invariably, Jesus returns them to the community from which they were ostracized, questioning the religious and social authenticity of boundaries that are used to exclude 'deviants'. Ellis, though, goes further than this when interpreting the function of contemporary stories about the demonic. The key, he says, is in revealing 'a hidden source of social evil' which will explain what is really going on. In other words, the attraction of the media towards accounts of the demonic, whether it be received in sexual abuse, random shootings or other crimes, is primarily interpretative. It is in the disclosure of something hidden and 32. Carrette (ed.), Religion and Culture by Michel Foucault, p. 54. 33. M. McGuire, Ritual Healing in Suburban America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989); M J . Neitz, Charisma and Community (Oxford: Transaction, 1987); and S. Davies Jew*5 the Healer (London: SCM Press, 1995). 34. See Percy, Power and the Church, ch. 2.

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underlying that appeals to a base instinct, for the discovery of a lost' pattern, code, map or systematic and organized trait can apparently explain the unexplainable.35 Ellis points to the panics over the Great Plains cattle mutilations 1973-82, the Highgate Cemetery vampire hunts of 1970, and earlier examples of media-fed rumour-based panics, such as 'spring-heeled Jack', a Victorian account of a jumping or vaulting London-based devil carried in The Times of 1883, the same legend later appearing in Sheffield.36 Ellis identifies seven hallmarks of what he terms 'subversion myths', whereby something like 'spiritual warfare' is suddenly transferred onto the secular arena. Subversion myths are underlying religious accounts of social or behavioural problems (e.g. crime, 'deviance') that are adopted by the secular authorities (e.g. police, social workers), and then become fused or shared alternative narrative accounts of why those problems may have occurred, and what is to be done about them. For Ellis, these hallmarks are interlinked. First, subversion myths are cultural grammars that link together distinct bodies of information that are difficult to comprehend. Secondly, the emerging narrative cannot be proved; it depends on an act of faith. It may be the case that some facts can be established (e.g. someone was sexually abused), but the reasons for the actions are non-verifiable. Thirdly, the power of the myth lies in what is constructed from the facts, not in any systematic methodology. Fourthly, few if any facts will be able to undermine the subversive myth; such 'facts' will simply be identified as further evidence that is yet to be made sense of. Fifthly, widespread belief in the subversion myth is held to be proof in itself of its veracity. Thus, disbelief is taken as further evidence for the 'hidden' agenda. Any attempt to disprove the theory therefore demonstrates that what is now being said is really true. Sixthly, subversion myths can, in any case, seldom be disproved. Seventhly, subversion myths are resilient, and change their features and targets with ease.37 Ellis's observations allow us to reflect on how stories about the demonic or the devil closely parallel other urban myths. 38 Many people prefer to believe in conspiracy theories, since that kind of 'ordered', underlying and 35. Ellis, Raising the Devil, p. 123. 36. Ellis, Raising the Devil, pp. 202-78. 37. Ellis, Raising the Devil, pp. 124-25. 38. In contemporary charismatic renewal, the myth of the angel-hitchhiker who promises revival, before being assumed back into heaven, has been affirming Christian groups for more than a quarter of a century. For everyone who repeats the story, it always happened somewhere else, some other time—but is 'true'.

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alternative account of a disaster makes more sense, and is perhaps more comforting than randomness. Thus, J.F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963 is 'unresolved' for many Americans. Rumours about UFOs at Roswell, or of other government secrets being closely guarded lest they cause panic, are always very near to the surface within contemporary culture. It is not surprising, therefore, that powerful religious artefacts that are related to evil should so easily surface in the media when there is a tragedy that defies immediate rational explanation. In short, religiously resonant stories can suddenly appear to be removing a blindfold from society, opening people's eyes for the first time to what is really going on. Equally, certain types of religious revelation can also operate within faith communities. The socalled 'Bayside Prophecies' of Veronica Lueken warn the church about the dangers of modernism, humanism and liberalism, all of which are revealed as the handiwork of Satan and a network of underground satanic groups.39 Ellis's seven hallmarks do not only work for societies and communities; they also shed some light on how individuals fare when they are gripped by a myth, or perhaps said to be possessed. Parsons's work has shown how certain individuals within charismatic Christian contexts are unable to prove, either to themselves or to others, that they are not in fact possessed.40 Similarly, individuals may become convinced that they are the victim of some form of oppression, the narrative of the demonic or ritual abuse only 'surfacing' when the suppressed memories have been recovered during some kind of therapy. Ellis cites several case studies to support his thesis, including individuals who 'remember' being ritually abused, even though no evidence can be found to corroborate the stories.41 This is wonderfully explored in Nicci French's novel, The Memory Game. An adult 'remembers' the details of a murder and abuse under hypnotherapy, and the accused confesses. However, subsequent reflection reveals the confessor to be a guilty liar, covering up for someone else, and the actual 'memory' of the crime turns out to be false, or at best inaccurate.42 Nonetheless, the recovered memory—some would call it 'false memory syndrome'—has served its purpose, and revealed an underlying structure that interprets events that were previously a puzzle. This feature of certain types of therapy is something that exorcists and 39. V. Lueken, The Incredible Bayside Prophecies in the United States and Canada (Lowell, MI: These Last Days Ministries, 1991). 40. See Parsons, Ungodly Fear. 41. Ellis, Rasing the Devil, pp. 105-107. 42. N . French, The Memory Game (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1997).

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their clients can share. The hunt for underlying causes and hidden codes of transcendence that can make sense of and solve complex problems is common enough. But why should a resort to the demonic complicate rather than explicate? The sociologist Ikuya Sato suggests that play theory can be of help here. Sato maintains that play provides groups and individuals with loosely constructed rules for generating excitement. These rules create a space in which chaotic action and conformity to norms can interact, and create an alternative reality.43 Thus, films such as The Blair Witch Project create an atmosphere of fear, but through a trip that is in itself an exciting event. The film is also based on a number of common legends relating to journeys, darkness and remote places. Yet the film is clearly a form of play; it is not a real story. Sato's observations help us to understand what might be going on in some of the more extreme deliverance ministries that can be encountered in churches. The names given to demons by exorcists, and the colourful world of satanism and demonology that is painted by the exorcists is a form of play. At times, it is little more than a spiritualized form of Dungeons and Dragons, the crucial difference being that players in that game know the game is only a game. In deliverance ministry, the world of play is held to be more real than the visible world, for what is being revealed are the invisible forces that control human nature. This interpretation may seem highly speculative to some, but many will recognize that drama and play are integral to some of the more colourful and excessive deliverance ministries that are on offer. One of the bestknown and more recent exponents on demonology was the Californian evangelist and revivalist, John Wimber. It was Wimber, following in that tradition of American revivalism, who categorized demons into low and high levels, those that could afflict Christians, those that could possess them, those that only angels could fight, and those that ordinary mortals were to pray against. A detailed examination of his works reveals a complex cosmology, replete with hierarchies of demons and grades of possession. When writing about a failed evangelistic campaign in Australia, Wimber noted that a member of one of his teams had a vision in which he saw that 'all Australians were afflicted by a spirit of bitterness and defeat', that they had low self-esteem and consequently were routinely used to a sense of failure and rejection.44 (I am bound to say that as an English person, this is not something I have noted in their rugby or cricket teams. But Wimber 43. I.Sato, 'Play Theory of Delinquency', Symbolic Interaction 11.2 (1988), pp. 191-212. 44. See Percy, Words, Wonders and Power.

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was an American, and probably not used to losing to the Australians on a regular basis.) Another exponent of deliverance ministry, Bill Surbritzky, cites numerous causes of demonic affliction: apparently innocuous activities are singled out as potential demonic entry points. 45 Wimber and Surbritzky, although they have very different constructions of the demonic, are linked by common concerns. Both make efforts to identify the presenting symptoms of liberalism and post-Enlightenment scepticism, which they claim hold back the church, and impede apostolic ministry. Both appeal to dramatic and playful scenarios that require believers to use their imaginations extensively in order to reimagine the defeat of all forces—mostly invisible, but operating all that is to do with modernity— that oppose the church and their ministries. As usual, the Devil gets blamed for nearly everything. Fascination with the satanic is, as I have already noted, not only confined to certain types of church. Locating the satanic or the demonic as an underlying malaise is a more general phenomenon. In Britain during the 1980s there was a spate of allegations that a satanic cult (or cults) was performing rites that involved the torture and sometimes the killing of children. The rumours had started at Congleton in Cheshire and in Liverpool in 1987, and they were followed by a number of high-profile cases at Rochdale and Nottingham in 1988, by a case in Epping Forest in 1991, and by the most publicized case of all in the Orkneys, also in 1991, which led to a judicial enquiry. These stories involved allegations of sacrifice of babies or foetuses of women, forced or persuaded to breed ('brood mares') in order to provide victims, and of the ingestion of human blood, flesh and urine at 46

perverse ceremonies. On the basis of these allegations, children were taken from their homes and put into care for long periods and they were interviewed at great length. Advice was taken from the United States, where it was alleged that similar atrocities had taken place. At the same time we should note that a number of new therapies were now practising regressive methods in order to recover some 'hidden' or 'buried' memories of ritual abuse. All of this amounted to a media feeding frenzy, newspapers giving credence to the sensational idea that murderous cults were at work in Britain. Despite the information given by children, and later by adult 'survivors', the police have failed to come up with anything that could be regarded as evidence.47 45. Surbritzky, Demons Defeated. 46. For a brief description see Ellis, Raising the Devil, pp. 237-39. 47. For fuller discussion, see M. Aldridge, 'Poor Relations: State Social Work and

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Jean La Fontaine, a French social anthropologist, carefully collected the data throughout the media furore and public clamour during this period. Was there satanic ritual abuse going on in ordinary homes up and down Britain? Was there a serious conspiracy to keep child sacrifice quiet? The principal feature of her conclusion is that she has moved beyond simply noting what sort of 'evidence' was presented, to constructing a theory of epidemic, noting its irrationality and comparing it to the witch-hunting cults of the early modern period that were endemic in Europe. She became interested in this question, namely: 'How can so many educated people, social workers, therapists, journalists and others respond with so little scepticism to a belief apparently embedded in an old and passe Christian Theology which believes that Satan and his Armies walk around the land eating children for pleasure and engaging in systematic sexual abuse?'48 Of course, she offers theories, one of which is what social biologists call 'moral panic'. In the context of changes in the nuclear family, and a sharp rise in rates of domestic and sexual violence, society has become sceptical and turns towards media and various interest groups, who in turn exaggerate the problems that society experiences. Fontaine quotes the sociologist Peter Jenkins, who defines moral panic as 'the social construction of certain events as a danger that is out of proportion to the actual threat offered'.49 For Fontaine, the relevant interest group is Christian. She sees fundamentalist Christian revivalist movements which began in the 1970s as the chief proponents of the moral panic that engulfed society for nearly a decade. She points out, quite correctly, that this movement identified Satan as their own chief enemy, and sees evidence of this in organizations such as the Reach Out Trust, founded in 1985 to work among people involved in New Age religions and the occult. She also lists Child Watch, founded by Diane Core, which went on to talk in terms of the war against Satan. Core herself was in trouble with the police in the Rochdale case, who claimed that she 'coached' a witness. In terms of evidence, it would appear that American groups belonging to Press in the UK', in B. Franklin (ed.), Social Policy, the Media and Misrepresentation (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 89-103 (93-94), and J. Kitzinger, T h e Ultimate Neighbour from Hell: Stranger Danger and the Media Framing of Paedophiles' in the same volume, pp. 89-103. 48. J. La Fontaine, The Extent and Nature of Organised Ritual Abuse (London: Department of Health, 1994); and idem, Speak of the Devil: Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 49. P. Jenkins, Intimate Enemies: Moral Panics in Contemporary Great Britain (Hawthorne, NY: A. de Gruyter, 1992).

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fundamentalist and revivalist networks had given concerned people lists of signs that revealed that children or others were suffering from satanic abuse. These lists have sinister overtones of the signs by which witchfinders would recognize witches in the seventeenth century. Yet as Fontaine notes, in our own time, it was not the alleged perpetrators who were identified, but rather their victims who were interrogated for signs. Yet under police and social workers' scrutiny, substantial doubts began to arise about the children's evidence. Again, oddly, almost exactly at that point a small army of adults began to appear as though they had been waiting in the wings, telling hair-raising stories of rituals suffered in childhood and adolescence—many of these being 'recovered memories'. Yet what appears so bizarre in both cases is that names were not named and legal redress not sought. Many people involved showed no desire to talk to the police, and the police could find absolutely no evidence of the rituals described, even when it seems that they actually set out to infiltrate the cults said to exist. Much of this represents what Stanley Cohen describes as 'moral panic': Societies appear to be subject every now and then to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or...resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges and deteriorates and becomes more visible. Sometimes the subject of the panic is quite novel and at other times it is something which has been in existence long enough, but suddenly appears in the limelight. Sometimes the panic passes over and is forgotten, except in folklore and collective memory; at other times it has more serious and long-lasting repercussions and might produce such changes as those in legal and social policy in the way society conceives itself.

Like Cohen, Jean La Fontaine does not find the phenomenon I have so far described to be particularly surprising. She supports Ellis's argument that the evangelical suspicion of the occult confused the issue, and then promoted it. She points out that those interested in the occult nowadays tend to be middle-class people, whereas a large proportion of those abused could be described as socially disadvantaged. Both abused and abusers were deprived economically, the abusers maltreating children grossly as they had apparently been maltreated themselves, though without knowledge or 50. S. Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 9.

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interest in any kind of satanic law. In the witch-hunting era, many of the accused were poor, destitute, and, in some cases, slightly mad. In the present, the accused were not well-heeled occultists playing with a little magic in their spare time, but amongst the most disadvantaged people of our society. La Fontaine's study, Speak of the Devil, is therefore a record of how the bourgeoisie—at least those who are disaffected by liberalism and secularization—quickly find scapegoats among the poorer classes, which then serve to indict the existing moral standards of our world.51 Furthermore, the constructions of evil in popular culture, coupled to right-wing conspiracy theories and the emergence of Pentecostal and charismatic Christian groups, create a lively and germane context in which the demonic can be construed as the architect of all manner of social evil. Stories of the Devil and demons provide what Victor Jeffrey terms 'symbolically true emotional messages' through 'contemporary legends'.52 The context for this has emerged, in part, due to the rise of religion and the decline of magic; constructions of the demonic are, in part, the dark side of tradition and imagination mutating within modernity. The 'reality' of the demonic allows individuals to participate in myth, and to discover a world that is not random, but can nonetheless evoke fear. The response to the random is ritual, which presents itself as the method for regaining control over the invisible forces that determine human life and social existence. With these reflections in mind it seems appropriate to summarize with three points. First, the Devil and demons are concepts with a career. The Devil of the Old Testament is not the same kind of being as the Devil of the New Testament; the New Testament is interested in demons differently to the Old. Moreover it is quite clear that, even taking the Bible as a whole, the use of the word 'demon' or 'devil' is a cipher for describing an unknown source of evil which is named and personified. In saying this, I am not suggesting that I do not believe that evil exists, or that Christian groups are misguided in their appeals to Satan and demons. I am simply suggesting that great caution should be exercised in using names and concepts that are culturally fluid, and have potentially dangerous consequences if they are deployed uncritically. Furthermore, all constructions of the demonic are culturally relative and constructed, even though the construction is built upon a serious tradition of religious artefact. In that

51. See Ellis, Raising the Devil, pp. 120-21. 52. V. Jeffrey, Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend (Chicago: Open Court, 1993).

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sense, the idea of the demonic carries a hidden code of transcendence which is temporally indicative. Secondly, it seems entirely appropriate to suggest that the groups that do use demons and devils in literalistic ways tend to be small or contained communities—churches, sects, or even villages with a strong sense of identity. In other words, they tend towards sectarianism, and constructions of the demonic can capitalize on this. Metaphors tend to be converted and reified literalistically. Out of context, they quickly become credo and dogma. This is no accident, since the conversion of parable, analogy and metaphor into something credal is actually a device for controlling or destroying hermeneutical pluralism, while at the same time constructing a new reality and hegemony. Where it occurs in society, it is further indicative of a smallmindedness or fear that is not prepared to adequately explore the proper and broad origins of serious social or mental health problems. Small religious groups take particular comfort from their belief in devils or demons, because it gives them a larger enemy than society. Demons and devils simultaneously provide an account of failure and of defeat, and yet also serve as agents and catalysts to galvanize the support of the faithful in their fight against evil. Linguistically, behaviourally and theologically, demons demarcate group identity and make it easy to exclude and include individuals and identify antisocial traits that would corrupt or threaten group identity. Belief in demons can be an essential component in faith that is committed to ridding individuals, society and the church of 'opposition'.53 Thirdly, conceptualizations of devils and demons are always culturally relative, just as they were in New and Old Testament times. The Devil that we can imagine can only be related to the evil that we can imagine, and it is therefore no surprise that evangelists, healers, prophets and exorcists can only describe the Devil in terms that make sense to their present audiences. Christian exorcists living in Texas will not be concerned about a Devil that

53. Established churches tend to take a more mellow and reasoned line on demonology. The seminal report in the Church of England is still Dom. R. Peitpierre (ed.), Exorcism: The Report of a Commission Convened by the Bishop of Exeter (London: SPCK, 1972). See also J. Richards, But Deliver Us from Evil (New York: Seabury Press, 1974); G. Twelftree, Christ Triumphant: Exorcism Now and Then (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985); M. Perry, Deliverance (London: SPCK, 1996); and idem, A Time to Heal: The Development of Good Practice in Healing Ministry (London: Church House Publishing, 1999). For a review of recent literature, see L. Malia, 'A Fresh Look at a Remarkable Document', ATR 83.1 (2001), pp. 65-81.

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forces the faithful to eat bacon. But a Hasidic Jewish exorcist living in Golders Green may be precisely concerned with such a thing. There is no escaping the social anthropological realms of purity, boundaries, defilement and group identity; the Devil is, in effect, largely created in the wake of our own shadow—a massive projection of all that we find distasteful and would wish to exorcise from our lives and communities. Moreover, the Devil also has his uses for communities in instilling fear and submission among the faithful, safeguarding a conservative and sectarian community dimension. As John Warwick Montgomery warns, 'the devil achieved more through the witch trials than he could possibly have gained by demonic activity apart from them'. 54 The general cultural interest in underlying causes that may explain complex problems is, as I have noted, a typical feature of modern societies. The stress on the demonic is arguably not so much a fascination with evil as a desire for myth, transcendence, play and magic, coupled to a perception that there is an absence of ritual, which a dalliance with the Devil invites. If religion is returning to non-differentiation within culture, then it can hardly be surprising that an interest in the magical should be seen to increase.55 Modernity's absorption with the Devil is yet another sign that the secular society has not yet arrived; people continue to look for religious cause and effect, in spite of the advances of science. While this absorption with the demonic and the magical competes with more mainstream religious beliefs, the efflorescence and resilience of religion, even with its darker side, is all too apparent.

54. J.W. Montgomery (ed.), Demon Possession: A Medical, Historical, Anthropological and Theological Symposium (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1976), p. 103. For further historical perspectives, readers are referred to the works of Jeffrey Burton Russell. See The Devil (1977), A History of Witchcraft (1980), Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages (1984), Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World (1986), The Prince of Darkness (1986) and Satan: The Early Christian Tradition (1981), all published by Cornell University Press in Ithaca, NY. 55.

Cf. Thomas, Religion.

Part Three MINISTRY AND MISSION IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

Chapter 11 Pilgrimage and Place: The Journey Within

There's no discouragement Shall make him once relent His first avow'd intent To be a pilgrim.

In the previous chapter, we explored an area of popular spirituality located at the intersection of superstition, 'folk religion' and religious tradition. In this chapter, we shall examine an arena of popular piety, but with a novel twist. Pilgrimage is a traditional spiritual discipline, and the journey to a shrine or sacred place is common to many faith traditions; conceptually, it predates not only Christianity, but early Judaism too. Journeying to meet a God who is located, or whose presence is especially concentrated in one place, is a phenomenon common to many religions. In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus embarks on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem when he has reached the age of 12 (Lk. 2.41). The Evangelist tells us that 'he was lost for three days', but was eventually recovered by his parents who found him 'sitting with the wise men'. At the end of the Gospels, some women disciples discover that after an absence of three days, Jesus' body is again 'lost', possibly stolen. His grave, which is already assuming the mantle of a shrine, is empty. The Evangelists describe a resurrection, and, once more, the actuality of recovering Jesus leads to a deeper revelation. Jesus was lost, but now he is found—and found in a new, more wonderful form, just as his parents met his wisdom at the age of 12. The followers and family ofJesus were blind, but now they see. Michel de Certeau reminds us that Christianity was 'founded on the loss of

1. John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress (1678), reprinted as a hymn in The New English Hymnal (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1986), no. 372, p. 375.

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something—a body'.2 While this is true, it is perhaps more apposite to suggest that Christianity is a narrative of pilgrimage, in which at least one fundamental loss is deemed to be both necessary and realized, in the hope of something new being found, which in turn redeems the memory and experience of loss. The function of a pilgrimage is transformation: deliberate abrogation and sacrifice are offered in the hope of gain.3 Within Christian tradition, pilgrimages have assumed many different phenomenological forms, according to the desired spiritual, theological or therapeutic goals of the pilgrim. Using a retreat, Ignatian spirituality offers an interior journey of reflection that offers the prospect of discovering a narrative of the 'Christ within'. A pilgrimage to Lourdes or Knock may be specifically concerned with healing or penance. A pilgrimage with friends or a group to a shrine such as Walsingham can have a ritualistic, liminal goal, enabling the disparate travelling community to reconfigure themselves as a social body. As an activity, pilgrimage is an event within a religion that is dispositionally minded, shaped by a discourse of journeying and striving. For Christians, the concepts of travel and place have an apologetic resonance that encourages a belief in a God who meets believers transcendentally at a point or focus of reference (a place), yet at the same time is immanently present in the very spirit of the journey. 4 Most pilgrimages require something to be lost or sacrificed, in order to be of benefit and blessing to the believer. In saying 'most', we are immediately alive to the ways in which the term 'pilgrimage' and its practice have become transformed: pilgrimage is more widespread yet less easily definable in late modernity. Davie draws attention to the rise in popularity of pilgrimage sites in post-war Europe, with traditional shrines including Santiago and Lourdes, and more recent centres of spirituality such as Taize, Knock and Iona.5 Moreover, increased 2. See Michel de Certeau, Mystic Fable (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 81. See also the discussion in N . Lash, The Beginning and End of 'Religion' (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1996), p. 72, and ch. 10, 'Hollow Centres and Holy Places', pp. 183-98, originally delivered at the West of Ireland Research Association, Galway, 1993. For further reflections on de Certeau's notion of theology and place, see G. Ward (ed.), The Certeau Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2000), pp. 101-18. 3. Readers interested in the more general dynamics of pilgrimage from the perspective of cultural studies are referred to Said, Orientalism, pp. 166-70. 4. There are a number of fine treatments of Christian pilgrimage in the past, but see especially D. Webb, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in the Medieval West (New York: LB. Tauris, 2001). 5. Davie, A Memory Mutates, pp. 36 and 157-62.

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mobility and modernity now combine to produce an explicit link between tourism and pilgrimage, in ways that are reminiscent of the link between consumerism and pilgrimage in pre-Reformation Europe. Thus, there are holiday companies organizing cathedral tours, tourist trails that identify a series of sacred sites for visitors within a given area, and all manner of interactive, arts-based and educational programmes in which the identity of the visitor has now become a complex conflation. The pilgrim, consumer, learner and tourist are all in there somewhere.6 Cathedrals themselves have shown their resilience by carefully managed processes of resistance and accommodation. They manage to be both museums and places of prayer, learning resource centres and embodiments of religious and civic memory, a place for the aesthetic and a focus for the transcendent. There are other ways, though, in which pilgrimage has been transformed in late modern and postmodern times. Davie points to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, as an example of individual shrines being created in a variety of places, some of them very unexpected.7 It has now become fashionable to mark places where there have been tragedies with flowers or other symbols of grief and bewilderment. Sometimes, as in the case of Diana, the place of death or the home of the deceased becomes a place of pilgrimage. Similarly, places where disaster has struck can also become a focus for national mourning. The memorialization of war has increased significantly in recent years, with pilgrimages to war graves, memorials and former battle sites.8 Equally, following the deaths of almost one hundred Liverpool football fans in 1989 at Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield, the football ground and Liverpool's own stadium at Anfield became carpeted in flowers and scarves. There is a sense in which this 'generalization' of pilgrimage within modernity has a certain appropriateness. 'Pilgrimage' no longer necessarily describes a physical journey. It can now be taken to mean a journey within, in which some travel may be involved, but the sacrifices of time and journey have been replaced with demands to satisfy other needs. These may include the expression of grief, getting in touch with the transcendent, exploring sacred places, or experiencing mystery and ritual in the midst of the mundane. As travel has become easier—the compression of the world 6. Cf. J. Urry, The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies (London: Sage, 1990). 7. Although similar phenomena could be observed following the death of Elvis Presley at his Memphis home. 8. Davie, A Memory Mutates, p. 79 and 162.

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through globalization—so have the contours of pilgrimage altered. Today's pilgrim travels as much within as abroad; it has become a journey of inwardness. As Martin Robinson notes, Pilgrimage acts as a metaphor for the whole Christian journey. But it is also true that pilgrimage is in turn used as a metaphor within the Christian experience. Some who have been missionaries refer to their whole missionary experience as a pilgrimage. Others use the term to describe their ecumenical journey or their work for peace and pilgrimage.

This is essentially what is explored in this chapter—how the pilgrimage of exteriority has been transformed into a more general journey of interiority. This will be explored through an analysis of pilgrimage to the 'Toronto Blessing', a place of focus for popular evangelical-charismatic piety in the 1990s, which specialized in charismatic renewal, healing and deliverance, and which was the subject of some field-work study undertaken in 1996 and 1997. Locating the 'Toronto Blessing' Since 1994, the Toronto Blessing' has been attracting 'pilgrims' in their hundreds of thousands; indeed, the total number of visitors already exceeds a million.10 Yet the host church for the Blessing—a converted trade centre adjacent to Pearson Airport, Toronto—does not fit into any of the usual phenomenological categories as a centre for pilgrimage. As a church, it is birthed in a fundamentalist and revivalist tradition, strongly emphasizing pneumasomatic phenomena such as 'being slain in the Spirit', 'anointings of power', ecstatic experiences of God, prophecy, dreams and the like. In this respect, it is more akin to the tradition of rallies, crusades and revivals that is so endemic to North American culture. A rally is, typically, 'a way of introducing excitement into a message that may have palled by repetition'; it harnesses novelty, fashion and cultural relevance in the service of revitalization. As an 'industry', it offers a critique of the limitations of parochial and organized religion, delighting in excitability over routinization. The 9. M. Robinson, Sacred Places, Pilgrim Paths: An Anthology of Pilgrimage (London: HarperCollins, 1997), p. 10. 10. See M. Poloma, By Their Fruits: A Sociological Assessment of the Toronto Blessing (Toronto: TACF Publishing, 1994); M. Mitton, The Heart of Toronto (Grove Spirituality Series, 55; Nottingham: Grove, 1996). 11. See Bryan Wilson, 'New Images of Christian Community', in John McManners (ed.), The Oxford History of Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 589.

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Toronto Airport Christian fellowship, however, see themselves as a place to which pilgrims come. In what sense, though, are those who go there to be regarded as 'pilgrims'? There is no shrine, no holy relics or aesthetic building to observe. Nor is there any set ritual, or specific promise of healing. Meetings at the 'host church' of the Blessing more closely resemble revival rallies or festivals, such as Keswick, New Wine or Spring Harvest. How, then, can it be helpful to see the experience of the 'Toronto Blessing' as a form of pilgrimage? Recent work on pilgrimage has largely ignored the dynamics of the charismatic renewal movement. This is strange when one considers that it is very obvious that the culture of rallies, crusades and camp revivals is composed of similar phenomenological material to 'classic' pilgrimages:12 namely, a journey to a place that is beyond 'ordinary' religious control, in order to gain an extraordinary religious experience; or, as Miri Rubin suggests (referring to a different era), the creation of 'a pre-political, undifferentiated human affinity, which dissolves tensions and binds people together in the non-ritual space and time'. 13 Yet many scholars ignore the importance of forms of pilgrimage in Protestant, evangelical, fundamentalist and revivalist traditions.14 For example, Victor Turner's otherwise exemplary studies fail to note any significant morphological semblance.15 Just as culpable is the long-standing, multi-disciplinary Dutch research programme on Christian pilgrimage, which, although doing valuable work on postmodernity and pilgrims, tends towards seeing the phenomenon as a broadly Catholic activity within Christianity, subsequently dispersed as a tradition among all other religions.16 Surprisingly, even Mircea Eliade's Encyclopaedia of Religion fails to assess the phenomenon. In spite of elucidating some generally sound statements about pilgrimage—'separation', 'the 12. For fuller discussion, see G. Neville, Kinship and Pilgrimage: Rituals of Reunion in American Protestant Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); R. Cawardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978); W. McCloughlin, Revivals, Awakenings and Reform (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1978). 13. M. Rubin, Corpus Christi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 2. 14. See, e.g., Richard Barber, Pilgrimages (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 1991); J. Fiennes, On Pilgrimage (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1991); S. Coleman and J. Eisner, Pilgrimage (London: British Museum Press, 1995). 15. V. Turner, Dramas, Fields and Metaphors (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974); idem, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978). 16. See Paul Post, 'Pelgremsverslagen: Verkenning van een Genre', Jaarboek voor Liturgie-onderzvook 8 (1992), pp. 285-331; idem, 'The Modern Pilgrim: A Study of Contemporary Pilgrim's Accounts', Ethnologia Europaea 24 (1994), pp. 85-100.

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liminal stage', 'reaggregation', along with the freedom from social structure and the creation of communitas—a Protestant conceptualization of pilgrimage is absent.17 In a more perceptive study of contemporary pilgrimages, Ian Reader and Tony Walter do recognize that pilgrimage sites, 'whether categorized as sacred places or not...provide a tabula rasa upon which the visitor can decipher or inscribe his or her own perceptions'.18 Following Eade and Sallnow, they argue that shrines and holy places acquire their power through their 'ability to reflect and absorb a multiplicity of religious discourses, to be able to offer a variety of clients what each of them desires'.19 In a similar vein, pilgrimage has also been the focus for a recent collection of very brief essays in Concilium] some of the critiques could be extended to Protestant movements, although none of the authors actually attempts this.20 More recently, Philip Richter has attempted to describe the 'Toronto Blessing' in terms of pilgrimage from a sociological perspective. His work, however, is primarily concerned with the (self-described) pilgrims and their resources, coupled with a culture of globalization, rather than with the deeper morphology of what might constitute Protestant pilgrimage.21 Clearly, Protestant Christians of various types do engage in activities that are akin to pilgrimage. Azusa Street was visited from all over the world, and may be said to be a 'shrine' to Pentecostalism, as much as Toronto is to postmodern revivalism. Rallies, festivals and revivals seem to fulfil a function as centres or moments for Protestant pilgrims. So, at first sight, it might appear that the absence of serious discussion about the dynamics of Protestant pilgrimage is a serious omission. Yet as I shall show later, the exclusion of fundamentalists and revivalists from the category of'pilgrim' is partly correct, even if the reasons are mostly unarticulated by scholars. What now follows is a description of the kind of pilgrimage the 'Toronto Blessing' might induce in a believer. From subsequent discussion and analysis, it may be possible to gain some purchase on how the word 'pilgrim' is used by contemporary revivalists. 17. See Edith Turner, 'Pilgrimage: An Overview', in Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Religion, pp. 327-30. 18. Reader and Walter (eds.), Pilgrimage in Popular Culture, p. 241. 19. J. Eade and M. Sallnow (eds.), 'Introduction', in Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 15. 20. V. Elizondo and S. Freyne (eds.), Pilgrimage (London: SCM Press, 1996). 21. See P. Richter, ' " T h e Toronto Blessing": Charismatic-Evangelical Global Warming', in T. Walter, S. Hunt and B. Hamilton (eds.), Charismatic Christianity: Sociological Perspectives (London: Macmillan, 1997), pp. 97-119.

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The 'Toronto Blessing' Observed In the summer of 1996 I visited the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, spending more than 50 hours at their meetings. The church organizes meetings for 'pilgrims' around the clock: a seminar in the morning, a prayer meeting in the afternoon and a revival meeting in the evening. The last of these is most popular, with people attending in their several hundreds. Meetings consist of an hour or more of what is termed 'intimate praise', followed by testimonies from worshippers, a talk, and then finally ministry. A meeting may last from 7.30 pm up to 11 pm without a break. Those who attend are mostly drawn from North America, but a percentage make the journey from Britain, Europe, Commonwealth countries and South Korea. According to the church, the average 'profile' of an attendee is someone in their mid-40s, married, with some higher education, middleclass, Caucasian, and a member of an independent charismatic church. 22 They must also be a car-driver, or be able to afford flights and hotels, since the church is not easily reached by any form of public transport, occupying a site on an industrial estate adjacent to the main airport. In my own journey to the church, I had chosen to stay at a hotel that I knew would be used by other international pilgrims, which was a short five-minute walk from the church. However, one of the first things that struck me was the absence of communitas among believers sharing the same facilities. People readily acknowledged that they were here 'for themselves', 'for their church back home' or as enquiring individuals. There were small clusters of people who had made the journey as a group, but they too tended to be there for themselves, resolved to 'take home' their experiences and the 'blessing' and pass it on. The absence of community at the heart of the church does trouble the leadership of the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. In spite of up to a million visitors in just over three years, the church only boasts 1200 'members', who are widely dispersed across Toronto. Many attend infrequently, and may be committed to other churches as well. Attempts to knit these people together into local cells and groups that might relate to the church were proving difficult. In this sense, one of the first observations to be made about the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship is that it has a critical

22. See Poloma, By Their Fruits. For a fuller analysis of the profile, see M. Percy, Catching the Fire: The Sociology of Exchange, Power and Charisma in the Toronto Blessing (Oxford: Latimer House, 1997).

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identity problem that is common to all bodies at the forefront of revivalist dynamics, namely that what began as a movement has lapsed into becoming a church: its ecclesial identity is problematic primarily because it is accidental, as well as incidental to the aims of revivalism. In other words, as I have suggested before, the Fellowship is better understood as a 'charismatic shrine' that imparts a particular type of religious experience (shaped by a unusual discourse), which is then transferable back into more localized ecclesial contexts.23 In this sense, it is more accurate, following Nicholas Lash, to describe the Toronto Fellowship as a 'hollow space' rather than a 'holy place'. Naturally enough, however, that space is filled with a sense of God's manifest presence, at least as far as the believers are concerned. What exactly is it, though, that fills the space? Three things are especially worth noting that relate to the Toronto Fellowship as a participatory space. First, the grammar of assent in worship that describes, ascribes and communicates perceptions about God to believers is decidedly romantic. Worship songs are 'smoochy', and celebrate, in soft, melodious and rhythmic form, the physical nearness of Christ. Jesus is deemed to be a person who can be felt, touched and embraced. Moreover, the songs especially emphasize the desire of Christ for the individual, the desire of the individual for intimacy with Christ. Songs speak of marriage, consummation and fulfilment. All major meetings are begun by up to an hour of this type of worship, which seems to engender a trance-like state of passivity in believers, in order that they might receive a new and passionate experience of God. The worship songs used in meetings rarely, if ever, contain anything that might be deemed to be doctrinal, credal, seasonal or confessional. They simply describe an ideal state of feeling, of blissful encounter. 24 Secondly, the associated rhetoric of religious experience compounds what has already been 'learnt' in the activity of worship. Jesus is presented as a groom who longs to be one with his church. The church, in turn, is called to be a 'passionate bride' who is 'wet with renewal' in anticipation at his coming. Revival is described as a burning heat: the experience of the Spirit is one of shaking, panting and 'orgasmic' mysticism. Believers are to be 'open' to the heat and wetness of revival (rain, waves, rivers), which is thrusting itself into the church. The gospel is likened to a fairy-tale such as Cinderella—Jesus is 'our Prince Charming'. Believers are encouraged to 23. Percy, Catching the Fire, p. 69. 24. Percy, Catching the Fire, pp. 23-28. See also Carl Turtle, 'Why We Worship', in 'Isn't He' and 'Eternity': Intimate Songs of Praise and Worship (Anaheim: Vineyard Publications, 1995), pp. 90-92.

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regress in their imagination and in analogy, and to recall the 'experience of being in (obsessional) love for the first time as teenagers'. The idea is that cultivating this type of (uncritical) human intimacy will lead, eventually, to a spiritual marriage, in which Christ and the believer melt together as one. Correspondingly, participants at the Toronto Fellowship are invited to 'stop rationalizing and just let go', to 'fall backwards' in states of ecstasy, and to remain lying down, experiencing the caresses of Christ and his allconsuming love. The rhetoric of religious experience closely maps the 'pneumasomatic' phenomena: shaking, quivering, ecstatic cries and yelps, tears ofjoy and laughter.25 Thirdly, there is the novelty and non-control that one would conventionally associate with a 'classic' religious rally. The denominational affiliation of pilgrims is unimportant, since no specific counter-creed or ritual is demanded of participants. The Toronto experience is a suprareligious dynamic that does not engage with any specific social situation. It is other-worldly, yet at the same time culturally relevant. To receive the 'blessing', believers are encouraged to lie back in carefully arranged spaces in order to maximize the impact of the therapeutic. The metaphors and analogies of religious experience are carefully chosen for their homely, romantic and adventurous redolence. Thus, believers are invited to 'marinate' or soak in the Spirit, know 'the kisses of Christ's mouth' and his embrace, or imagine that revival is 'surfing' on a giant wave, or white-water rafting in a mighty river. On one evening I attended a meeting, 20 or so pastors lined up to form a 'tunnel' with their outstretched arms, through which the congregation were invited to walk. It was explained that this was a 'spiritual car-wash', and that believers could be sprayed, brushed and soaked with the anointing power of God as they passed through. Hundreds went forward to receive this ministry.26 It is quite fair to suggest that the Toronto Fellowship do not see their actual physical location as a 'holy place'. The Christian body that has hosted the blessing over the last three years has actually changed its address three times during this period, in order to accommodate the growing numbers of visitors. Thus, the 'Toronto Blessing' is, in reality, the name of a particular experience rather than a term of holy association with respect to a locality.27 25. Percy, Catching the Fire, pp. 15-18 and 30-34. See also my '"Sweet Rapture": Subliminal Eroticism in Contemporary Charismatic Worship', Theology and Sexuality 6 (1997), pp. 70-105. 26. Catching the Fire, p. 28. 27. Partly for this reason, John Arnott, the leader of the movement, prefers the title

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For this reason, many may experience the 'Toronto Blessing' without ever going near Canada, instead going to 'satellite' host churches in London, Sunderland, Chorleywood or any local congregation where similar experiences are on offer. The Social Context of Urban Revivalism It is probable that much of Christian charismatic healing, along with phenomena such as the 'Toronto Blessing', represents a sophisticated and multifarious response from fundamentalist, revivalists and neo-Pentecostal groupings to the challenges of pluralism, modernism, postmodernism and secularization. This was especially true as the millennium drew to a close, with deep-seated fears about the marginalization of Christianity, its powerlessness and its failure to move from being a particular religion to a universal one. There has been a profound sense of pre- and post-millennial tension within 'charismatic renewal' for some time, and congregations are increasingly looking for ever-more-certain demonstrations of God's power to convince themselves and the world of their truth-claims. This search in itself accounts for phenomena such the 'Toronto Blessing': to those inside the movement, it appears to be a revival that is likened to 'refreshing rain from heaven'. To those outside the movement, it appears as a perplexing puzzle. Either way, the analogy is unfortunate, since rain does not come from heaven, but from the earth, and what creates it is hot air and rather complex climatic conditions. Ironically, the metaphor implies that (claims of) healing and revival, far from being from God, are in fact primarily socially and subconsciously self-generated, in response to anxieties about the function of religion in contemporary society. The historical and social reasons for the rise of the Pentecostal movement, charismatic renewal and 'events' such as the 'Toronto Blessing' are bound up with this search for religious identity going on in urban-industrial America and Europe during the early days of the twentieth century. Martin Marty notes that not only have Americans been on a religious quest, their religion has been changing as well, so that no establishment can be expected to last much past the generation of those who created it, and sometimes not even that long. Yet, as Marty has pointed out, this restlessness has become an essential part of the definition of American religion. Americans are becoming less religious (but not necessarily less spiritual) of'The Father's Blessing' to describe the pneumasomatic phenomena of Toronto. See his The Father's Blessing (Orlando, FL: Creation House, 1995).

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and more secular—a process linked closely to modernity. Religious groups are responding to the modernization of society by accommodating it within religion.28 The trend towards secularization (while apparently resisting it) has several explanations. First, as Durkheim noted, as specialization and division of labour increase in society, so too will religious groups, so that persons with different religious needs can find groups that specialize in that need. Thus the new religious consciousness, including the neo-Pentecostal and healing movements, is a specialized responses to specialized needs that other groups either were not meeting or could not meet. Secondly, the new religious consciousness, like the earlier Pentecostal movement, is seen as a reaction to the strain produced by the changes incurred by modernization and the realization of the conditions of postmodernity (i.e., playful pluralism). Authors such as Robert Bellah, for example, argue (following Weber) that as the dominant social institutions lose their traditional authority, people search for alternative sources of certainty and absoluteness.30 Family life, social relations and attitudes to health and wholeness are all touched by this. This idea has also been advanced by Kelley in explaining the growth of conservative churches and the numerical increase of Protestant neo-Pentecostal groups.31 Thirdly, a new religious consciousness can be explained as an adjustment to modern society by people who are unhappy about traditional religion's resistance to modernity. Thus the new religious consciousness is seen as an attempt to integrate science, individualism, personal growth, and other aspects of modern culture, such as the arts, music and literature. Thus, some religious movements move into the healing business with cheerful optimism, believing that they offer a better or more sacred service than their secular counterparts. Meredith McGuire's work is acutely conscious of the power-relatedness of modern healing movements in response to the perceived powerlessness of the church.32 In a carefully constructed study, attending to rhetoric, belief systems and behaviour, she offers a sociological explanation of 28. M. Marty, Pilgrims in Their Own Land (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). 29. E. Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method (New York: Free Press, 5th edn, 1964 [1895]). 30. Bellah, 'Civil Religion in America', Daedalus 96 (Winter 1967), pp. 1-21. 31. D. Kelley, Why Conservative Churches are Growing: A Study in the Sociology of Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1972). 32. See McGuire, Ritual Healing, pp. 1-10.

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charismatic renewal that effectively casts it, reductively, as a response to modernity. She sees the healing ministry as an area of specialization that leads to privatization, a retreat from the ambiguity of a secular society that is searching for meaning, salvation and wholeness. The thrust of this argument is to suggest that charismatic renewal, most especially in its healing ministry, is a focused concentration of (reified) power that is contrapluralist. Thus, the sociological function of faith-healing is twofold. First, it establishes normative rules or orders, the very channels through which God might work. Secondly, it reasserts power against disorder, by giving meaning and integration through healing processes. McGuire's thesis is especially persuasive in her later work, where she argues that the symbolism of healing rituals has special resonances for middle-class Americans in their search for identity and certainty in a restless, alienating culture. As far as any 'monocausaP account of healing ministries can go, McGuire's sociological work remains unsurpassed. So, in charismatic renewal, power, both divine and human, is a key in at least three important ways. First, those within the movement believe themselves to have direct access to divine power: they are able to 'tap into' an omnipotent God who is able to do all things. Secondly, that power is celebrated in dynamic acts of worship and praise. Those within the movement delight in the sense of knowing God and of being held in [his] power. Thirdly, revivalists dispose of that power in their body (personal, ecclesial and social) and beyond it, by acts of healing, bold preaching or 'signs and wonders'. What now follows is a reductive reading of these spiritual experiences as they frame the lives of pilgrims on their inward journey. The interpretations offered here are clearly inadequate on their own, and are not, for example, superior to theological or personal accounts. They are, however, intended as a complementary form of analysis, and will enable readers to appreciate that the 'pilgrimage within' is capable of being read in other ways apart from the spiritual. As I noted earlier in the introduction to this book, it is sometimes necessary to employ social sciences within ecclesiology, even when they are apparently inimical to the subject, in order to gain a greater perception of the issue under scrutiny.33 The Inward Journey: A Reductive Reading To observe that someone's spiritual life is changed or even revolutionized by experiences such as the 'Toronto Blessing' is actually to prove nothing. 33. Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life, p. 155.

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We are all aware that it is perfectly possible to have an experience which is simultaneously real, life-changing and entirely grounded in error. For example, you might mistakenly imagine that someone is in love with you, and suddenly the whole world seems different: you feel better about yourself, and your perceptions change in such a way that your life is fundamentally altered. The experience is real enough, but unfortunately the whole thing is a mistake. Equally, if participants in the 'Toronto Blessing', or recipients of (apparent) divine healing sense that something has happened, it is not surprising that their spiritual life radically alters, even perhaps inducing psychosomatic changes. Yet the key to change lies in interpreting the phenomenon in a certain way: those who interpret it differently tend to remain unchanged. But this observation needs developing: if an apparent religious experience that is interpreted in a certain way produces some change in a person, even though it may be 'false', what are the implications of this for evaluating the spiritual pilgrimage? Do 'false' experiences lead to 'real' results? Four points need to be made here, albeit briefly. First, the kind of altered state of consciousness that a sense of divine healing produces in an individual can be 'copied' in drug-induced experiences.34 Certain drugs give rise to mystical experiences, heightened psychic awareness and consequent physical well-being. Some of these drugs can produce a manic type of behaviour that eventually gives rise to what appears to be a religious experience. Other drugs, sometimes known as 'psychedelic stimulants', can produce visions and dreams, mimicking encounters with God. There is no suggestion that these drugs are agents for revival; but their effects suggest that religious experiences may be a way of interpreting natural or induced phenomena. Secondly, and related to the above, hypnosis and other forms of therapy may do the same. Once it is recognized that the 'mind-body' dichotomy is in some sense false, then it is possible to see how positive feelings and socio-religious conditioning can lead to what many would describe as the 'psychosomatic healing' of certain conditions.35 Some neuropsychological approaches have gone even further, suggesting that an assortment of mechanisms can be designed to simulate religious experiences, by stimulat34. See E. Morse, 'Faith Development out of the Religious and Drug Experiences of Prisoners', Modem Believing 36.3 (1995), pp. 22-27, and I. Cotton, The Hallelujah Revolution: The Rise of New Christians (London: Little, Brown 1995), pp. 136-37. 35. E. Rossi, The Psychobiology of Mind-Body Healing: New Concepts of Therapeutic Hypnosis (London: W.W. Norton, 1986), pp. 57-67.

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ing the brain through hypnosis, or physical and chemical intervention.36 Thirdly, as has already been suggested, this socio-religious conditioning may be significant due to its power-relatedness. Charismatic renewal offers an environment of dynamism, adventure, charisma and power (in the form of force), which is present in worship, doctrine, experiential phenomena and the general 'social construction of reality'. Underlying this is the vision of a God of complete omnipotence: there is nothing that God cannot do— some charismatic Christians even believe that a recently deceased person on the way to the crematorium might be raised from the dead.37 While this distorted view of omnipotence is rare, it is also residual, underpinning a theological culture in which one can believe that anything and everything can be controlled and directed by God, subverting normality and reality. This has radical implications for consciousness. It can easily lead to a 'loss of ego-boundaries', in which a person loses the sense of what is reasonable: their experience of God, conditioned by socio-religious perceptions of omnipotence, leads them to believe that 'anything is possible' for those who believe. In short, 'reality testing' is grossly impaired, and in the midst of this there emerges a feeling of revelation and mastery: loss of egoboundaries ultimately leads to the delusion of ego-omnipotence.38 Fourthly, neuro-psychologists such as Michael Persinger would argue that many of the religious experiences that we have so far discussed arise out of a sense of anxiety: the religious experiences that occur in individuals and groups are part of a subconscious process that is orientated towards resolving anguish. Although Persinger does not work with an explicit notion of consciousness, his work as a neuro-psychologist leads him to conclude that most 'God experiences' are a function of the temporal lobe system of the brain.39 Naturally, this reductive approach implicitly denies the reality of God while affirming the power of religious motifs and behaviour that can condition consciousness. A more subtle approach might recognize the place of emotion, projection and psychological mechanisms, yet still affirm the reality of religious experience, especially in prayer, as a 'perpetually difficult symbiosis' or a 'mutation of attitudes' between God and the individual, in which a genuine and mature transformation may be 36. See M. Persinger, Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs (New York: Praeger, 1987). 37. Cotton, Hallelujah Revolution, pp. ix-xiii. 38. Davies, Jesus the Healer, p. 58. 39. M. Persinger, 'Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artefacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis', Perceptual and Motor Skills 57 (1983), pp. 125-62.

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found.40 This in turn implies that the revivalism we have so far discussed is at best an immature form of faith, but with the potential for its ontological distortedness to lead to dangerous consequences: group hysteria, manic behaviour, delusion and mental breakdown become possibilities. So it does seem that one of the hallmarks of revivalist religion is the phenomenonologically power-related expectation that God will intervene routinely in the mundane affairs of individuals. God is a counter-power, prevailing against the secular forces that undermine religion, and (allegedly) against the spiritual 'powers and principalities' that can control anything from problem housing estates to the health and wealth of individuals, even perhaps helping to break satanic child sexual abuse.41 This 'morphic resonance' of God has powerful and far-reaching consequences for the religious consciousness of individuals and groups within revivalism. Following Persinger, Ian Cotton's popular-level account of revivalism—written from a perspective of phenomenological psychology—suggests that stress is the key to understanding the source of dreams, visions and the sense of healing.42 A phenomenon such as the 'Toronto Blessing' is therefore about resolving individual and group anxiety. This conversion process is generally known as 'abreaction': the trauma of revival is intended to transform the real traumas that individuals and groups are already experiencing; but revival offers a route to this that generally eschews genuine catharsis in favour of myths and religious motifs. Thus, we are almost back where we began, namely suggesting that contemporary revivalism, especially in forms of expression such as the 'Toronto Blessing', is subconsciously induced by deep-seated anxieties: in turn, the associated phenomena are transformed (or interpreted) into conscious experiences of an immanent, powerful God. This suggests that many of the phenomena that occur in revivalism— such as the sense of healing, or the touch of God—are arguably selfgenerated by complex congregational dynamics and the yearnings of individuals to resolve conscious and subconscious anxieties. To those within charismatic renewal, occurrences such as the 'Toronto Blessing' seem like yet another moment of divine intervention in a bewildering world that is starved of direction: God's way of saying 'I'm still here'. To those outside the movement, however, the phenomenon presents itself as a rather peripheral puzzle; it seems to have little to say to that same world, and its 40. F. Watts and M. Williams, The Psychology of Religious Knowing (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1988), p. 126. 41. Cotton, Hallelujah Revolution, pp. 95-97. 42. Cotton, Hallelujah Revolution, p. 110.

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specious particularity feels escapist and self-indulgent. Yet in spite of all that has been said, the question of consciousness and healing in relation to contemporary Christian revivalism remains an open one. Many will still claim that they have been healed by God, and proof or the lack of it does not seem to be of great significance to the believer: what usually counts for them is their sense of God's intervention, or of being touched.43 Those within revivalism know that God is with them: the totality of their feelings, impressions and thoughts tells them so—their belief is thus a self-validating phenomenon. Their consciousness informs them that healing comes from God who is above, even though it actually comes from within themselves; that revival is falling like rain from heaven, even though rain begins its journey from the earth. In terms of the religious consciousness of the believer, this way of being may, of course, be enough to bring about the physical or spiritual changes required. But it inevitably depends on some socio-religious conditioning in relation to power. The perceptions about healing and illness inevitably depend on 'naive' or 'nonrealistic' ways of seeing problems,44 which then allow the subconscious to work: for example, the source of malaise is always deemed to be individualistic or demonic, seldom social or complex. This can then allow for a form of 'reflective hallucination' to take place, in which the consequent perceptions can make a real psychosomatic difference. This means that the agency of'divine healing', the 'Toronto Blessing', hypnosis, or any kind of charismatic faith-healer may ultimately have little or nothing to do with any physical change in a person's condition. To put it another way, religious pilgrimage has moved from being something done in the exterior world, to being something in the interior world of the pilgrim. Physical or emotional healing following prayer may not be a religious experience: it may just be an event that is given a religious interpretation. If phenomenology dispenses with mind-body dichotomies, as it tends to do, then psychosomatic cures and 'physical' manifestations of the Spirit such as falling over or laughing hysterically are to be expected. Claims of spiritual experiences and miracles, which are after all an interpretation of an event, cannot therefore be surprising. However, it does seem that the individual believers' conscious and subconscious sense of what needs changing—the deep wells of unresolved stress and anxiety within those attracted to charismatic renewal and revivalism, the hoped-for 43. D. Lewis, Healing: Fiction, Fantasy or Fact? (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989). 44. T. Natsoulas, 'Reflective Seeing: An Exploration in the Company of Edmund Husserl and James Gibson\ Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 21.1 (1990), pp. 25-40.

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abreaction, and what the new future might be—hold the real key to this debate. The Morphology of Protestant-Charismatic Pilgrimage: Disassociation and the Journey Within An important key in understanding modern and postmodern Protestantcharismatic revivals is to identify the level of debt owed to the realm of feeling in place of the rational. However, it is a mistake to assume that this ends in rank subjectivity: it doesn't. Theories of liminality from scholars such as Victor Turner help us see that certain metaphors, codes and genres enable religious movements to balance themselves between the rational and the emotional, between the objective and the subjective.45 Liminal theories of religion recognize that some words and concepts have an 'orectic' quality about them—they are experienced in the body; words open up beyond themselves into intractable physicality. Thus, to sing of the 'harbour of the soul' is to balance the risk of the open sea with the safety of shelter. Moreover, it engenders a certain type of 'homeliness' in the believer who shares in the sentiments of the ascription.46 In a charismatic religious movement such as the 'Toronto Blessing', the excessive dependence on the romantic genre has a liminal function. Dwelling on romance addresses certain needs—stability in relationships, the importance of intimacy and the celebration and reconfiguration of love and union, to name but a few. Yet romance also flirts with serious risks—of being consumed by the erotic,47 and of losing oneself in rapt ecstasy. As a liminal genre in this type of religion, it embraces both power and powerlessness, passion and passivity, desire and delight, domination and lib(ido)eration. In short, romance provides safety and adventure, bringing a variety of disparate elements into a focus of significance. The erotic, for the believer, largely remains unacknowledged, just as the attenuation of

45. See V. Turner, The Forest of Symbols (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1967), and idem, The Ritual Process (Chicago: Aldine Press, 1969). 46. For a fuller discussion of 'domestic' metaphors in pietistic and enthusiastic hymnography, see M. Bendroth, Fundamentalism and Gender: 1875 to the Present (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). See also my Words, Wonders and Power, ch. 5, and Power and the Church, chs 6 and 8. 47. Percy, 'Sweet Rapture', p. 79. For a discussion of Eros as a force of destruction, see Bruce Thornton's Eros: The Myth ofAncient Greek Sexuality (London: Westview Press, 1996).

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dominating power is the same. It is the romance with Jesus, its benefits and directionality that primarily define the 'Toronto Blessing' movement. In their own words, they wish to 'walk in this love, and then give it away': but it is a definitively romantic love that is focused on the I-Thou relationship.48 As such, it is socially abrogate, deeply personal and fully individualistic: this is partly why 'pilgrims' are more like personal visitors.49 In view of these remarks, it is appropriate to describe the phenomenon of the 'Toronto Blessing' as pilgrimage of the 'inward journey' type. The antecedents for this within mainstream mystical traditions are certainly there. As Paul Philibert suggests, 'the goal of the "inward journey" is to seek intimacy with God through contemplation and mystical surrender... this means a pre-reflective awareness of the fullness of reality beyond words' capacity to symbolise'. It is connected with techniques of ecstasy such as 'the control of breathing, repetition of a mantra that calls upon the Holy, or visualisation exercises...'50 So, the 'Toronto Blessing' could be seen as a form of mass-market mysticism, provided it is understood that it caters for individuals, yet is dependent on sizeable groups for its operational context and success. Moreover, the actual journey to Toronto is unimportant: what is prized is the interior journey, and the affective reflections upon it. This may still sound similar to other forms of pilgrimage, but significant differences remain, of which three stand out for mention. First, Eliade and others are partly correct in excluding Protestant, charismatic and fundamentalist religion from their discussions of pilgrimage. This is because the ecclesiology of Protestantism contains no theology of 'place'. For Protestants, God is within, or in the midst of, the praises of his people. Linking God to a place is too constraining and routinized, and represents the very opposite of being a 'movement'. God is a mind-heartbody experience in most strands of Protestantism; little value is put on buildings, aesthetics or 'shrines'.51 The church is people, not places. Thus, 48. The motto adorns the gallery of the main auditorium of the Fellowship's meeting centre. 49. For a fuller discussion of the romantic genre in ecclesiology, see Hopewell, Congregation. 50. P. Philibert, 'Pilgrimage to Wholeness: An Image of Christian Life', Concilium 4 (1996), pp. 78-88. 51. Ecclesiologically, therefore, house churches that meet in schools or halls do not just do so because they cannot afford a proper religious building. The non-permanence of renting a secular building for worship feeds the idea that the gathering is mobile—a movement. There are also unarticulated fears about linking God to places that are outside the self, and can dictate to individuals. This is a partial account of the anti-aesthetic

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you can have the 'Toronto Blessing' any time, any place, anywhere. Indeed, we should note that John Wesley, as a proto-revivalist, had his heart warmed by God. It was this, and not a building filled with God's presence, that converted him. Thus, 'pilgrims' to Toronto do not in fact exist in any conventional sense. The 'blessing' of Toronto is offering a discourse and experience that can be packed up and taken home. In the end, 'Toronto' is name of an experience, not a place. All subsequent theological reflection is profoundly dislocated, displaced, and relocated in the self. Yet this is not only a modern phenomenon. As Harvey Cox points out, the 'mobility' of God is part of the original Old Testament tradition. God is not confined to one space, or defined by one place. The 'Toronto Blessing' is a religion of the secular city.52 Secondly, what is lost and found in visiting Toronto can partially distinguish it from a pilgrimage or a form of 'classical' mysticism. Spiritual 'burdens' are not really brought to the shrine and offered: believers are respectfully asked to leave them behind. Visitors who attend a 'blessing' meeting are often invited to desist from rationalizing and to 'simply let go'. But the majority who attend are not from churches with significant backgrounds in theology or historic denominations. Thus, a paucity of theological tradition is being exchanged for a perceived richness of experience. Critical questioning of the blessing, or knowledge of Christian tradition, are to be abandoned in favour of an individualistically centred encounter. This, then, is more about therapy than about theology: believers are being offered an inward journey that will negate the real difficulty of any outward journey. God is not discovered in the actual act of pilgrimage, and certainly not in any place, or shared corpus of tradition, but only in the deep interiority of experience that is socially abrogate and centred on the self. Thus, the body-social is abandoned for the individualistic and supraspiritual. In contrast 'classical' mysticism, although it has an individualistic turn, is generally radically engaged with sociality, and well earthed in ecclesial traditions and disciplines. Thus, just like a rally, crusade or conventional revival, in the 'Toronto Blessing' we appear to be dealing with an 'eschatologically justified, power-added experiential enhancement' that is mainly personal, and is beyond conventional clerical or parochial norms. 53 tradition in Protestant fundamentalism and the 'bareness' of its churches. See the essay entitled 'Protestant' by Garrison Keillor, in Lake Wobegon Days (New York: Viking Penguin, 1985). 52. H. Cox, The Secular City (London, SCM Press, 1967), pp. 49-54. 53. R. Spittler, 'Are Pentecostals and Charismatics Fundamentalists?', in K. Poewe

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Thirdly, the nature of divine power that is appealed to in the 'Toronto Blessing' also sets it slightly apart from the category of pilgrimage, and places it more in the genre of a revival meeting. In pilgrimage, there is a subtle mixture of the immanent and the transcendent: God is deemed to be dispersed in the journey and in the fellow-travellers, as well as located in a place or moment. There is thus a good balance between the episodic and the dispositional forms of power that might affect a pilgrim. In the Toronto Blessing', the significance of episodes, in the form of personal experience, is over-played, such that the presence of God in the dispositional is ignored. The only apparent exception to this would be the activity of charismatic worship, but the sole function of that, as we have already noted, is to converge at a point of intimacy and consummation. Thus, 'pilgrims' to Toronto do not have their horizons or minds expanded, but, rather, are asked to narrow them for the specific intention of receiving a prescriptive and individually centred blessing. A journey that could be liberating, (and indeed may appear so to participants) in fact turns out to be constraining and compressed. All this is partly achieved through the forms of intimacy being so 'codified' by the grammar of assent. Visitors are harmonized through feelings and subjectivity, which makes remote the possibility of serious social reaggregation later. In the 'Toronto Blessing', believers basically separate from the rational self, only to rediscover themselves again in a reinvigorated emotional state, which has been achieved by buying into a rhetoric of passion, intimacy and fulfilment.54 Thus, in conclusion, if Toronto is a place for pilgrims, and has become a type of charismatic shrine where place is significant, then its longevity is assured. If, on the other hand, it is just a different 'spin' on yet another preand post-millennial outbreak of revival, one would expect the success of Toronto to be relatively short-lived; in other words, just one more fashionable episode in the cultural history of postmodern revivalism. All the indications are that it is the latter. Fewer and fewer visitors are attending as (ed.), Charismatic Community as a Global Culture (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), pp. 99-120. Spittler concludes that Pentecostals and charismatics are 'fundamentalistic'. For a discussion of individualism in the context of a group pilgrimage, see M. McGuire, Religion: The Social Context (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1992), pp. 13436, and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage, p. 32. 54. For a deeper discussion of intimacy, see N . Luhman, Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986), and Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy, p. 19: 'Sex is not driven underground in modern society. On the contrary, it has become...part of the "Great Sermon"...of theological preaching...of transcendence... Has any other society.. .been so persistently and pervasively preoccupied with sex?'

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the months go by. As a phenomenon, it is now rarely discussed or even acknowledged by some of the major British 'host' churches. The excess of the 'Toronto Blessing' seems to be an embarrassment to the very people who once so enthusiastically commended it. To borrow a phrase from Michael Scott Peck, the road that was once all too frequently travelled has now been quietly forgotten. 55 Yet to read the blessing too critically is to miss the point, for the events at Toronto represent a deliberate turn to the therapeutic and the intimate, which in turn interrogates the other churches, and their more cognitive responses to modernity. As a means to spiritual growth, the Blessing represents an important work; the pilgrimage outwards has become integrated and inward, like so much else in postmodern spirituality—and therein lies its resilience. Meanwhile, the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship is trying to convert an insecure and narrowly based charismatic movement into some sort of settled and hard ecclesial currency. The shrine that never really was is attempting to become a church-that-might-be. The journey outwards has exhausted itself; but how visitors and members fare as they continue to journey inwardly remains to be seen.

55. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978).

Chapter 12 Religious Power: People, Politics and Prophecy

Every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral. I don't think about it in a morbid sense. Every now and then I ask myself, *What is it that I would want said?' And I leave the word to you this morning. If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don't want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize. That isn't important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards. That's not important... I'd like someone to mention that day, that Martin Luther King Jr tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that I did try to clothe the naked...that I tried to love and serve humanity...all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say...

As we saw in the previous chapter, the enduring power of religion through popular piety is one of the more intriguing features of modernity. Religious leaders, places and rituals retain the capacity to evoke the Utopian amidst the secular, and, in so doing, continue to offer a different voice in the shaping of the social landscape. In this chapter, we move away from the dreams of spiritual revival explored in Chapter 11, and to the visions of prophets and preachers relating to social renewal. Specifically, we shall be 1. An extract from Martin Luther King's sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Sunday 4 February 1968, and quoted in S. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther Kingfr (New York: HarperCollins, 1982), p. 458. Exactly two months later, on 4 April, King was shot dead on the balcony of Room 307 of the Lorraine Motel, Memphis.

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exploring what it is about religion that mobilizes people, either in politics or in cultural resistance. Furthermore, we shall look at how power can be understood within religion and culture, and the place of the prophetic within contemporary culture. And, as with so many seminal moments in religious history, we begin not with a programme or a doctrine, but with a revelatory dream. Martin Luther King Jr had a dream. Not a dream in the ordinary sense of the word; nor, indeed, a dream on a par with those contained in many biblical epics. It was a more straightforward dream, one deeply rooted in the American dream, that 'all men are created equal' in the sight of God. It was a dream that began on a bus on 2 December 1955. Rosa Parks, a black woman from Montgomery, Alabama, was asked to vacate her seat so a white person could sit down. The bus regulations in the city—devised by the invidious Jim Crow—segregated seating on buses between whites and blacks, and required a black person to give up their seat to a white person upon request. Rosa Parks was tired, and refused. The police were called, and she was arrested and booked for violating the city bus ordinances. What would have been a nightmare for most people became a historic opportunity for black people in the Deep South: 'all men are created equal before God', a foundation of the American Constitution, could be tested in the Supreme Court against the segregationist ordinances of a city. King's dream ofjustice and equality for blacks had begun. It was a dream that was birthed within quite particular and essentialist theological foundations: a prophetic appeal to a nation that echoes down the ages, calling for an end to oppression and injustice.2 King drew on the great liberation dramas of the Old Testament, especially the Exodus. He drew inspiration from Moses, from the resistance and accommodation of Jesus, from the non-violent stance of Mohandas Gandhi, and from theologians such as Rauschenbusch. But for King, a trained Baptist pastor with a PhD in theology from Boston University, the bedrock of his theological and political life came not from his intellectual grooming, but from his own experiences of powerlessness. As James Evans notes, Most intellectual treatments of King's thought focus on the influence which white thinkers had on him, but neglect the most important formative factor in his life, the Afro-American Baptist Church. Liberal theology failed him. Gandhi's non-violent method had been confined to personal relations and was incapable, without modification, of addressing the structural misuse of 2. For a discussion of King's theology, see N . Erskine, King Among the Theologians (Cleveland, O H : Pilgrim Press, 1994), especially ch. 5.

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power; Thoreau's civil disobedience only worked in a situation of moral and political equality, which did not exist between white Americans and AfroAmericans. The bedrock of King's theology was not laid at Crozer Theological Seminary or at Boston University, but in the Afro-American Baptist church of his youth, and at Morehouse College... King's dream grew out of the spirituality of the Afro-American tradition.

Even today, if one drives through the southern states of the USA, from Atlanta, Georgia, through Birmingham, Alabama, to Memphis, Tennessee, hard up against the banks of the Mississippi, it is not difficult to imagine the power of King's words against a background of powerlessness. The urban decay and poverty that King's communities knew so well is still much in evidence; states 'sweltering with the heat of oppression' still wait to be transformed into oases of freedom and justice. For many, the dream lives on; it is not yet fulfilled: one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood... I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character... that one day, right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers... .

King's commitment to reconciliation is perhaps surprising. Why should the powerless preach forgiveness of the oppressors in the face of ongoing injustice? King's answer was that the restoration of fractured communities depended on further sacrificial acts: 'In our quest to make neighbourly love a reality, we have, in addition to the inspiring example of the Good Samaritan, the magnanimous life of our Christ to guide us...his altruism was excessive, for he chose to die on Calvary.'5 It is interesting to note that King did not see emancipation for the black community coming through any particular ideology, from capitalism or even through some kind of general political liberation: true freedom lay in reconciliation. For King, it was love that was at the centre of the reconciling community—but it was also closely linked to justice. In fact, the two are inseparable, since 'power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power

3. J. Evans, 'Keepers of the Dream: The Black Church and Martin Luther Kingjr', American Baptist Quarterly 5 (1986), p. 82; Erskine, King Among the Theologians, p. 3. 4. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound, p. 261. The 'I have a dream' speech of Martin Luther King was delivered at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, 28 August 1963. 5. M. Luther Kingjr, Strength to Love (Cleveland: Collins, 1963), p. 35.

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correcting everything that stands against love'.6 Thus, King can write that on the one hand that 'the problem of transforming the ghetto... is a problem of power—confrontation of the forces of power demanding change and the forces of power dedicated to preserving the status quo'. 7 On the other hand, he insists that love provides a moral horizon for power; 'power without love is reckless, and love without power is anemic. When love is joined with power they demand justice'. 8 In saying this, it is also clear that King drew heavily on the social gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch,9 and the tone of his theology is often reminiscent of the German writer. For example, in an article published in Playboy Magazine in 1964, King states that 'white America must recognise that justice for black people cannot be changed without radical changes in the structure of our society',10 changes that would redistribute economic and political power, and even question the Vietnam War. Martin Luther King is only one of a number of twentieth-century religious thinkers, who have paid specific attention to the relationship between theological concepts of power and those that are common to social or political contexts. In common with other figures (such as Desmond Tutu) and movements (such as Liberation theology), he links the two together. The love, power and justice of God are not only eschatological; they also work themselves out in contemporary life, and perhaps most especially through practical-prophetic ecclesiology along with political and civil action.11 King's life is a remarkable and prescient sign of religious resilience within the modern age. He has become a cultural icon in his own right, yet that status cannot be fully understood without reference to his religious

6. M. Luther King Jr, 'Where Do We Go from Here?', in J. Washington (ed.), A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986), p. 247. For a perspective on Luther King and his relating of love, power and justice, see P. Williams, 'An Analysis of the Conception of Love and its Influence on Justice in the Thought of Martin Luther King ]r\JRE 18.2 (1987) pp. 15-31. See also Erskine, Ring, pp. 149-52. 7. M. Luther King, 'Where Do We Go from Here?', p. 246. 8. Erskine, King, p. 152. 9. W. Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: Harper & Row, 1907). 10. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound, p. 462. 11. For a more general guide to Black theology, see L. Cohn-Sherbok, 'Black Theology', in Clarke and Linzey (eds.), Dictionary of Ethics, Theology and Society, pp. 80-86.

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convictions, which determined the particular stances that he took, as well as influencing the timbre of his stirring and charismatic polemic. His actions exhibit the two faces of resilience we identified earlier. On the one hand, we note his resistance to alienating political structures and cultures (witness his rejection of violence as a means to emancipation, in contrast to Malcolm X). On the other hand, we note his engaging (at times potentially risky) accommodation of various ideologies, theologies (witness his embracing of Gandhi) and society in order to achieve a measure of reconciliation. King's theological and political methodologies were often pragmatism based upon principle, in which negotiation and engagement with culture—in King's case, an often hostile and violent white supremacist culture—required imaginative and reflexive responses. King was, in other words, not only a significant black theologian: he can also be claimed as a pre-eminent practical theologian, set within perhaps the earliest traditions of Liberation theology. Moreover, this is not the tame Liberation theology of the Western bourgeois church; King's theology was part of a struggle, and to succeed it needed to mobilize believers and non-believers alike to resist the very real alienating political structures and cultures that oppressed them. Religious Power and Mobilization: An Overview The purpose of beginning this chapter with a short discussion of King is to open up a 'second front' on the complex questions of power, people and religion, and their inter-relationship. As we saw in the previous chapter, significance that is vested in places and rituals can create new frameworks of power for individuals, helping to recreate both their social world and their spiritual lives. Clearly, power is a key subject for cultural studies, political science, history and theology. So, in what ways might religion mobilize believers? How are they empowered by their beliefs, and to what end? What powers do religions possess that affect culture or politics, either positively or negatively? Religion, as a phenomenon, has always contributed to both social conflict and social cohesion. In short, religion has the power to mobilize individuals, communities and nations. Within religious institutions, power is as inevitable and ubiquitous as anywhere else. It can be the power of good, or morally ambiguous potency. Equally, it can come vested or masked as unction or inspiration. To speak of religion is always to speak of some notion of power, whether it be attributed to divine, human, elemental or cosmic sources. Relations of power are among the most

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significant aspects of any religion, especially when considering its context and cultural intercourse.12 The study of power and mobilization in relation to religion must be rooted in theory, history and praxis.13 As we saw in Chapter 4, any consideration of church-state relations is inevitably concerned with control, legitimacy and authority. It is impossible to conceive of a discussion concerning the origins of the Church of England that does not involve power-relations: those between the Pope and King Henry VIII; between the Reformers and Roman Catholicism; between competing powers at court; between competing ideological and political convictions on the nature of individual salvation and the centrality of the church; vernacular liturgies and scriptures, and their overall hermeneutical control and its centralization; between individual states and their subjects, and their right to any kind of religious choice, including that of dissent.14 The Church of England—'by law established'—is a form and exercise of power in nearly every era of its history and at every level of society, from government to parish, from individual to state. To study the church is to study power, in periodic, dispositional, episodic and latent forms. Globally, religion has operated as a form of power and mobilization almost everywhere: even in an apparently secular culture, it can be a force to be reckoned with. In the USA, although no religion is established (the Constitution separates church and state), the outcome of increasing pluralism and secularization has seen, among other phenomena, the mobilization of the New Right, and the movement of Roman Catholicism from a private to a 'public' denomination, both on a select range of moral issues.15 As a number of scholars have shown, this is a form of counter-power: the secularization theories (so prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s) have had to capitulate to the rise of a new religious consciousness in industrialized nations. Theorists such as Haynes and Casanova see modernity not as the harbinger of secularization, but rather of privatization, a by-product of late

12. Some of the insights in this section have been developed from my earlier work. See Percy, Power and the Church. 13. Readers interested in Foucault's treatment of power in relation to sex and death, not considered in this chapter, are referred to M. Foucault, Power: The Essential Works (Harmonsworth: Penguin Books, 2000); and idem, 'Space, Knowledge and Power', in P. Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon-Random, 1984). 14. For an overview (comparative), see Stark, Sociology of Religion. 15. For a fuller discussion of the dynamics, see Markham, Plurality and Christian Ethics.

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capitalism.16 Religion finds it own space, yet equally has fought against being squeezed into the private and subjective realm by recovering and reconstituting a public role. It is now a potent force for mobilization on a range of public issues in the political and social spheres. The example of the USA shows that the forces of pluralism, industrialization and secularization can be combated by religious power at many levels. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, the competition and association of powers between religion and society (e.g. Bosnia), church and state (e.g. Northern Ireland) operated differently but no less dynamically in Europe. In Eastern Europe, religion (mostly Christianity and Islam) played an important role in the diffusion of the Communist monopoly. The vociferous activity of some Muslims in Western Europe has questioned the limits of liberalism in politics and education;17 in Northern Ireland, religious polarization has attempted to hold out against political reconciliation;18 the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia suggest that the purity of religious and ethnic enclaves is prized above any peaceable settlement. Added to this, there is a discernible rise in new religions, sectarian movements, and a patchy but popular inculcation of'ordinary' spiritual ideology, indicating, as I have noted in previous chapters, that religion remains a perennial public force.19 To an extent, we can say that aspects of society are driven by conflicts based on, among other things, religion and its cultural furniture: religion is not private—it is a constituent part of national, regional or individual identity.20 In Africa, the Middle East, South America, Central Asia, the Indian sub-continent and South East Asia, religion has found itself harnessed to many nationalist causes. The symbiosis has often been so intricate as to make the political power-play indistinguishable from the religious: Lebanon, Israel, Sikh nationalism in India and Buddhism in Burma 16. See Casanova, Public Religions, and Haynes, Religion in Global Politics. 17. See Ian Markham, 'Salman Rushdie and Tolerance', in idem, Plurality and Christian Ethics, pp. 52-59. Cf. G. D'Costa, 'Secular Discourse and the Clash of Faiths: The Satanic Verses in British Society', New Blackfriars (October 1990), pp. 21-33. 18. For a useful treatment of the dynamics in Northern Ireland, see A. Megahey, The Irish Protestant Churches in the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan, 2000), and N . Frayling, Pardon and Peace: A Reflection on the Making of Peace in Ireland (London: SPCK, 1996). 19. See W. Stark, 'The Perennial Need for religion', in idem, The Sociology of Religion: A Study of Christendom. V. Types of Religious Culture (London: Routledge, Kegan & Paul, 1972), pp. 402-418. 20. Sardar and Van Loon, Introducing Cultural Studies, p. 38.

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are perhaps the most notable examples. The origins of Pakistan lie in religious conflict and differentiation, as do those of the civil war in Rwanda. Equally, it is important to note that the resurgence of religious identity threatens existing religious powers, especially those allied to the state. Islamic movements in Turkey, Algeria and Egypt demonstrate that religious fundamentalism is a powerful and popular force for social mobilization. In South Africa, religion has played a vital role in securing peace and democracy following the end of Apartheid; the 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' was birthed in Christian theology, and chaired by an Anglican archbishop (Desmond Tutu). 21 Theories of Power and Mobilization How then are we to understand the nature and role of religious power within contemporary cultures? Sociologically, distinctions between authority and force, violence and resistance, will and desire often cluster around the study of power. In political science, power is usually configured in terms of the ability of its holders to carry out their will, exact compliance, exert force and compel obedience. To touch on authority, as part of power, is to study relations, rules and regulations. To focus on force, as another arm of power, is to consider compulsion, threats and violence. In any consideration of politics, religion or society, the subject of power (and its legitimacy) is never far from the surface. The concept of power in social sciences interfaced with any confessional theology has no unity of discourse. Social scientists assess the 'power of God' through its social and observable outcomes: constructions of reality, rhetoric, sociality and activity. On the other hand, believers claim to know and experience this same power personally and communally, in ways that appear to be either inaccessible to or immeasurable for social scientists. Part of the problem is this: 'power' is what we call 'something': it is primarily a noun, not a verb.22 Although the verb does exist in the sense that we may speak of empowering, the fact that it is mainly a noun has implications for the way in which 'power' is described and studied. All too commonly, 21. See especially D. Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (London: Rider Books, 1999), for a moving account of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission; and Williams, Lost Icons, pp. 121-22 and 138. For a fuller account of the struggles under Apartheid, see D. Tutu, Hope and Suffering (London: Fount, 1983). 22. P. Morriss, Power: A Philosophical Analysis (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), p. 9.

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power is run together with verbs that are deemed to be its associates. For example, from a sociological perspective, a theoretician such as Dahl describes power by using near-synonyms such as 'influence', so that power becomes like influence.23 This becomes more obvious in Rollo May's Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence, in which the noun again assumes the characters of the nearest relevant verbs. For May, power is exploitative, manipulative, competitive, nutrient or integrative.24 Each of these types of power represents a different level of threat, force or coercion, ranging from the mutually empowering (integrative) to the potentially violent (exploitative). Thus, 'power'—at least so far as religious believers are concerned—loses its reality in some sense here, precisely because the verbs are allowed to project onto a passive noun. Perhaps this is why deconstructors of power such as Foucault have looked at power and seen 'nothing'—only reciprocal relations.25 On the other hand, 'realists' such as Weber have seen the concept of power as a 'highly comprehensive' schema within sociology for the analysis of circumstances and situations.26 Gerhardus Van der Leeuw's phenomenology of power also recognizes that one cannot prove there is such a 'thing'. He suggests that sensitivity to power has been largely forgotten in 'modern' society, but in primitive society, power developed into religious monism, which reached its climax in monotheism. In contemporary society, power is not encountered in nature or personality, but in the dispersed forms of social organization.27 However, the essence of religion is power, driven towards monism, which has a tendency to conflate the psychological with the cosmological, the sociological with the theological: religion, like culture itself, is a description of concepts of power and their use. More recently, and from an anthropological viewpoint, I.M. Lewis has also argued that although religious power assumes many different forms (which may appear to be unrelated or mutually exclusive), it is an appropriate 'theme' through which to approach religion holistically.28 For Lewis, 23. R. Dahl, 'The Concept of Power', Behavioural Science 12.2 (1957), pp. 321-41. 24. R. May, Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence (Glasgow: Collins, 1976), pp. 99-110. 25. Foucault, 'Space, Knowledge and Power', p. 257. 26. M. Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organisation (New York: Free Press, 1957), p. 152. 27. G. van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation (trans. J. Turner; London: George Allen & Unwin, 2nd edn, 1969 [1938]), pp. 56-74. 28. I.M. Lewis, Religion in Context: Cults and Charisma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

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religious power is best understood as a negative force that opposes malign spiritual powers. Thus, the shaman assumes the charismatic role par excellence—being able to exorcise the evil and prepare the way for blessing. In effect, the shaman stands between negative and positive power as a broker, a fixed point of passage and determinacy that both creates and obviates power. Like Van der Leeuw, Lewis cannot 'see' power, except in the way that it is related to, and in the social and ritual structures that are based on its assumption. Thus, sociologically speaking, the conceptions of power can be divided into two very broad categories. On the one hand, there are those that are asymmetrical, stressing conflict, will, resistance and the like: social relations are assumed to be competitive, conflictual and dialectical. The work of Martin Luther King or the concept of an Islamic Jihad ('fighting against unbelievers') may be understood in this way.29 On the other hand, there are conceptualizations of power that imply that all may make some gain through power. Here, power is a collective capacity or achievement, born not out of conflict, but out of communal welfare.30 As McGuire argues, many forms of Christian nationalism offer a more invisible kind of 'social cohesion' that is clearly a form of power, but not an obvious or sharp one. 31 Although it is helpful to be mindful of these two broad categories, it should be noted that they are somewhat inadequate in the analysis of religion. To an extent, all religious movements have elements of both categories within them. This must be because the religious-social system itself is one of exchange as well as one of power, which therefore allows for conflictual and communal action together. Beyond this, however, there is no account of subliminal power, which is so critical for an understanding of religious behaviour. Power is not just attached to structures and positional personality, but also to non-structural interaction and roles. Talcott Parsons therefore eschews 'canonically correct' definitions of power: power actually covers more than can be defined in this way.32 It must take account of magnitude, distribution, scope, domain and outcomes. Moreover, power must consider resources, skills and motivations. In considering power and mobilization in religion, the investigator is always close to the 29. Cf. R. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton: Marcus Wiener, 1996). 30. S. Lukes, 'Power and Authority', in T. Bottomore and R. Nisbet (eds.), A History of Sociological Analysis (New York: Basic Books, 1978), pp. 636-42 (636). 31. McGuire, Religion, pp. 181-83. 32. T. Parsons, Structure and Process in Modern Society (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1956).

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analyses of causality, which in turn refers to power—its measurement, exercise, distribution, and impact. Morriss suggests that careful attention to the etymology of power reveals its own diversity, prior to any linkage to verbs. Power is 'ability to do or effect something or anything...energy, force, effect...an active property, capacity of producing...possession of control or command over others... dominion, rule, legal ability, commission, faculty.. .political or national strength'.33 That there is an overlap with verbs about power is clear: but that there is not complete synonymity is also clear. Morriss argues for a dispositional understanding of power. That is to say, power is seen as a relatively enduring capacity within any given object. Dispositional views of power are held in contrast (but not necessarily in opposition) to episodic ideas, which see occurrences or events as specific exercises of power. Morriss does point out that this power is not something that can be observed.34 Power is known only in its reification, which is ultimately an indirect but material way of inferring what power might be at work. This conclusion underlines his plea for power not to be studied in isolation: the subjects and objects of power require a methodological tolerance in the spheres of theory and evidence. Stewart Clegg syncretizes the work of the previous theorists discussed, and effectively constructs an 'open' theory of power based on the concept of circuits, nodal points and agency: it has political, organizational and theological resonance.35 Clegg begins his work with an overview of earlier theoreticians such as Hobbes and Machiavelli. This is followed by discussion and critiques of Dahl, Russell, Bachrach, Baratz, Weber and Wrong, revolving around the 'two faces' of power, namely the relationship between 'intention' and 'structure', and the question of which enjoys supremacy in society. According to Clegg, these debates, naturally enough, were eclipsed by more substantial models. Steven Lukes proposed a threedimensional model of power by identifying the centrality of 'interests'; Habermas focused on ideal speech situations, ideology and hegemony; Giddens on the relationship between agency and structure in terms of power. Each of these speaks to the religion-mobilization axis. But Clegg moves beyond each of these explications, working Parsons, Foucault and Mann (among others) into an overall integration that respects the dispositional and facilitative approaches to power, besides stressing the 33. Morriss, Power, p. 10. 34. Morriss, Power, p. 145. 35. S. Clegg, Frameworks of Power (London: Sage, 1989).

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vital role of strategic agency. As he states, 'a theory of power must examine how the field of force in which power is arranged has been fixed, coupled and constituted in such a way that, intentionally or not, certain 'nodal points' of practice are privileged in this unstable and shifting terrain'.36 This is a critical observation in the field of mobilization, religion and power, for change is neither predictable or necessary, yet its occurrence is beyond question. Any discussion about the true nature of power and where it lies will be at the heart of all religious belief. Liberation theology, feminist theology and other new 'disciplines' within religion could be read by some as being mainly concerned with reconstituting the balance of power in ecclesial and social structures. The Nation of Islam has done the same within a North American context, although this is still developing.37 These theologies are effectively a form of revolution and resistance. The effect of the stress on power has led to more self-conscious questioning by some writers, who are beginning to question the nature of the power that would generally be uncritically appealed to. With respect to Clegg and Morriss, one of the difficulties of studying 'pure' power is that it is not one 'thing' to be observed. For example, a nationalist uprising in India may have a religious dimension functioning at many different levels: provision of identity, ideology, legitimation, coupled with notions of sacrifice, taboo and salvation. Equally, an examination of the origins of Methodism would need to consider the power of mass meetings, the appeal of hymns, testimonies and religious experience, not to mention the mobilization of displaced rural and agrarian populations in their search for meaning and community. Discerning power in such scenarios is a complex task. As we have already seen, Martin Luther King's religious convictions and civil rights work are not easily separated: they are irrevocably intertwined. Given the myriad studies on power and attendant methods, the most practical way forward, especially given the multifarious nature of 'power' that occurs within religious movements, is to return to the agents or 'nodal points' of power identified by Clegg, and focus on their relationality. The advantage of Clegg's conceptualizing of power in terms of circuits, flow and agency is that one can often identify the delimited 'field' of power

36. Clegg, Frameworks of Power, p. 17. 37. Similarly, for a discussion of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), see Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound, pp. 19-91.

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(such as an organization), the directionality of power within the structure ('flow' or hegemony) and the specific nodal points of power such as a guru, infallible text or law, or episode (e.g. 'flashpoint'), as well as the latent forms of power embedded in culture, ethnic identity and political situations. This theory of circuits of power does not attempt to marry the 'nonrealist' tendencies of Foucault with the 'realist' or 'identification' trends of someone like Weber or C. Wright Mills (although a focus on relations steers a middle course between realist and non-realist accounts of power). 38 Instead, it describes power in terms of circuits, which are organized through agencies. However, it does allow that the agencies cannot be seen as 'effortlessly rational or powerful', since their 'carrying capacity is itself opened up for scrutiny in power terms'. This view of power is more contingent than monolithic. It has space for dispositional, facilitative and episodic power within the same or overlapping frameworks. This also has implications for the study of mobilization. Dispositional power, as its description suggests, is the tendency or habit of an individual or group: in many religious movements, this is reflected in the 'grammar of power as a concept' that helps form the social and religious community, possibly even the state (its identity and constitution). Appeals to an 'almighty' God, or the 'monarche' of God, or to a 'Lord', or to more specified concepts of omnipotence, have direct social and political consequences. Kings, queens, dictators and rulers in many faiths, past and present, have depended on such conflations. Any present socio-political governance can be a divine instrument and referrent that is used in the furtherance of subjugation and legitimation.39 'Facilitative power' describes the points of access through which power can be reached, reified and exchanged. 'Episodic power' can be used to describe the 'surges' or 'events' of power that may alter the shape, perceptions or behaviour of individuals and groups. Central to these three 'circuits' is organization, and many religious movements are able to demonstrate systematic configuration in each field. For example, the ideology present in postmodern charismatic worship could be said to be dispositional; the

38. See M. Weber, Economy and Society, I (New York: Bedminster Press, 1946); idem, The Sociology of Religion (London: Methuen, 1965); idem, Social and Economic Organisation; C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956); and idem, 'The Structure of Power in American Society', The British Journal of Sociology 9.1 (1958), pp. 40-61. 39. See Nicholls, Deity and Domination, pp. 1-9.

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charismatic leaders are facilitative; the 'invocation' of the Holy Spirit a 'cue' for episodic manifestations of power to be unleashed.40 Episodic power is less easy to identity as a factor within mobilization. Any seminal moment can turn an ordinary crowd into a passionate army. A martyrdom, miracle or the raising up of a messiah can provide a single moment from which power flows. The declaration of Jihad, the proclamation of a fast, the boycotting of buses in Montgomery, Alabama, or the threat of heresy to authority can do the same. The very genesis of religious mobilization can be traced back by believers to an event that revealed, defined and motivated a new community to hold, channel and disperse power in new and particular forms. Charisma is also a factor within religious and social mobilization. One way of understanding the place of agencies in circuits is to see them as a process of power-exchange, a mechanism whereby power is given up or received, or raw material transformed into a type of 'power'. In other words, John Wesley may have been a charismatic religious leader, but he also functioned within a charismatic situation, which he could not entirely control, although he might have directed and shaped it. The speeches of Martin Luther King Jr lend themselves to a similar analysis. Some of his keynote addresses are, in every respect, charismatic and stirring, but they also require a dynamic and charismatic situation in which to be embedded, if the words are to be reified and to achieve their spiritual or social effects. Stephen Oates narrates the relationship between King, his very last public speech, and the clamour of the audience within the electrifying and charismatic atmosphere of Mason Temple, Memphis: it doesn't matter [Go ahead! go ahead! sounding from the audience]. It really doesn't matter what happens now.. .we've got some difficult days ahead [yeah! oh yes!]... But I have been to the mountaintop [cries and applause]. Like anyone I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain [go ahead]. And I have looked over [yes, doctor]. And I have seen the Promised Land [go ahead, doctor]. And I may not get there with you [yes sir, go ahead]. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land [applause, cries, go ahead, go ahead]. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord [cries, applause]... With this faith, we will be able to achieve this new day, when all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and

40. See Percy, Words, Wonders and Power.

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Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing with the Negroes in the spiritual of old, 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty we are free at last. 41

Speeches of this type are at the very epicentre of religious mobilization, combining as they do power, persuasion and prophecy. King's words and their effects are close to what Brueggemann describes as the task of prophetic ministry: 'to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us'. 42 Yet King's words do so without alienating anyone: to the last, they remain reconciling in outlook. There are no real enemies in King's speeches: his rhetoric is inviting and inclusive, and opens up new realms of possibilities, even to the most hardened opponent. In this regard, Martin Luther King exhibits something not unlike the 'authentic charisma' that Craig Smith identifies in his exemplary study of charisma, power and spirituality: authentic charisma is difficult to achieve. [But] once it is achieved, it demonstrates itself in moving rhetoric, calls of conscience, responsible action, the creation of art, and spirituality. If climbing to the top of the mountain is a metaphor for achieving authentic charisma, then we ought to bless those who come back and help others start the climb...

Yet as Brueggemann confirms, 'I suggest that the prophetic ministry has to do not with addressing specific public crises but with addressing, in season and out of season, the dominant crisis that is enduring and resilient, of having our alternative vocation co-opted and domesticated'.44 Resilient religion, then, can emerge as a major force within modernity— for counter-cultural reasons, or connected to issues of justice and peace— through the intervention of a charismatic and prophetic agent. King, as we have seen, is a particular exemplar of the powerful and the prophetic combined with the charismatic, political and spiritual. One account of the resurrection of the charismatic religious leader within contemporary culture is found in Weber's own writings (which in turn are indebted to Nietzsche's notion of 'will to power'). Weber differentiated between 'religion' and 'magic' in the way that he differentiated between ancient and

41. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound, p. 486. King was shot dead the following day. 42. Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, p. 13. 43. C. Smith, The Quest for Charisma: Christianity and Persuasion (Westport, C T : Praeger, 2000), p. 203. 44. Brueggemann, TTie Prophetic Imagination, p. 13.

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modern. Religion was rational, organized and functional. Magic was primitive, a legitimate form of domination, and placed power outside ordinary temporal spheres.45 Within magic, there were prophets, magicians and shamans. Weber saw the prophet as the most significant bearer of charisma, since his or her claims were based on personal revelations that ultimately developed a personal following.46 Yet these distinctions are to be understood as fluid: priests and prophets practised magic, and there was routinization in the prophetic as much as in the religious. As nearly every preacher knows, propaganda is the highest form of political authority: aims and objectives are seldom met by organization or negotiation, but rather by power and mobilization. King's rhetoric then is all the more remarkable for its prescient attention to those places that laboured under the 'sweltering heat of oppression'. His words, still sublime and evocative, continue to inspire, convict and mobilize: prophecy lives on. Power, Prophecy and Hope As I noted earlier in this chapter, religious power is as inevitable and ubiquitous in contemporary culture as anywhere else. It can be a power for good, or one of morally ambiguous potency; it can mobilize, but it can also paralyze. It can be dramatically episodic, or heroically resilient, immune from reformation or transformation, sometimes to its credit, and sometimes, stubbornly, to its shame. The civil strife in Northern Ireland illustrates religion's capacity to promote both social cohesion (e.g. the Corrymeela Community) and conflict (e.g. Ian Paisley's anti-Roman Catholic rhetoric). Behind these aspects of sociality there lies a complex history of the struggle for power and factors in mobilization—both for war and for peace. In terms of power, the divisions between Protestant and Catholic are simultaneously elementary and complex. The 'two traditions' do not just represent different religions, but also different politics, histories and ideologies. In terms of mobilization, the preservation and flourishing of Protestant and Catholic communities has often been cultivated through episodic and dispositional conflict, which has seen many casualties and fatalities. Power and mobilization are deeply intertwined through armed hostility, marches of protest or ritual (e.g. Orange Parades), sectarian division and political aspiration. Two 'civil religions' have effectively promoted civil division. 45. Weber, Social and Economic Organisation, p. 358. 46. Weber, The Sociology of Religion, p. 46.

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Yet the apparent hopelessness and deep despair of this situation, in which two forms of'civil religion' (in terms of their power and mobilization) have failed to cancel each other out, has given rise to a third option: a peace process. Here, religion has been no less involved, although the forces for power and mobilization have recognized that a political solution should bring a degree of peaceable co-existence between competing religious-sectarian convictions. The underlying religious pulses that have helped produce the peace process are less ardent than the passions they seek to police, for in Northern Ireland, the stance of the accommodationist is despised by emphatic religious resistors such as Ian Paisley. As Frayling points out, In December 1993 the two leaders [then Prime Minister John Major and the Taoiseach Albert Reynolds] issued the 'Downing Street Declaration'. John Major declared on television that it was time for the people of Ireland to 'put the poison of history behind them'. The agreement cleared the way for allparty talks, which would include Sinn Fein if they ceased violence. It opened the possibility of parallel referenda on the border, North and South, and stated that a united Ireland would not be resisted if achieved by peaceful means. Ian Paisley, before he had read the document, said to Major, T o u have sold Ulster to buy off the fiendish republican scum'... it remains to be seen whether the unhealed wounds of eight centuries will form the heart of the agenda. If so, there may be grounds for optimism as well as hope. If not, the present euphoria may turn again to yet further grief.

The emerging and fragile detente serves to remind us that the goal for many who first engage in hostilities is actually to end conflict; whether they succeed or not, power and mobilization often end in some kind of settlement or accommodation. In religious wars, all victories are pyrrhic, and conflict, like death itself, can give rise to new beginnings. Martin Marty follows in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr when he writes: Conflict is to be overcome, not by suppressing differences, stomping on freedom, dishonouring will or refusing to listen to voice. Conflict is used to stimulate the imagination, quicken pulses for adventure and force the persons and parties to take on ideas and tasks that they become newly reliant on God... 4 8

Marty's words are close to the sentiments expressed by Markham: 'instead of viewing plurality as a threat to be overcome, it should be viewed as a

47. Frayling, Pardon and Peace, pp. 160-61. 48. M. Marty, 'Conflict and Conflict Resolution', The Living Pulpit 3.3 (1993), pp. 3-10.

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challenge that requires engagement'.49 But what kind of engagement, exactly? Markham does not suggest an 'each to their own' recipe for a postmodern and pluralist society. Rather, he suggests those classic liberal qualities of respect, tolerance, accommodation and learning that are the distinctive hallmarks of liberal theology. However, liberal theology must also, to be faithful to the liber (i.e., freedom) in its etymology, remain capable of becoming a theology of liberation, one which resists injustice and can fight against culture where necessary. In this sense, we may regard a figure like Martin Luther King as an embodiment not only of authentic charisma, but also of true liberalism. Yet at the turn of the twenty-first century, it still remains the case that some of the bloodiest conflicts known to humanity have been inspired by or have utilized powerful religious symbols and ideas, which in turn have often been invested in places. As David Harvey remarks, the creation of symbolic places is not given in the stars, but painstakingly nurtured and fought over, precisely because of the hold that place can have over the hold of the imagination. I think it correct to argue that the social preservation of religion as a major institution within secular societies has been in part won through the successful creation, protection and nurturing of symbolic places.

One immediately thinks of state-registered tourist guides in Israel, who speak only ofJewish and Christian histories in relation to the places that are being visited. The Palestinian history is buried; it is as though no one else has ever occupied the land.51 Keeping the faith 'pure' and protecting the sacredness of the Koran has given rise to Jihad and fatwa.52 Promised lands and sacred sites continue to call communities and nations to arms, from Judaism to Hinduism, and from Ulster to Amritsar. Equally, faith and fear in the shadow of the millennium remain potential sources of violence and violation, from Jonestown to Waco, from Aum Shinrikyo to the Manson murders, and from the Solar Temple and Cargo Cults through to Heaven's 49. Markham, Plurality and Christian Ethics, p. 144. 50. D. Harvey, 'From Space to Place and Back Again', in J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam, G. Robertson and L. Tickner (eds.), Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Changes (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 1-29 (23). 51. At the time of writing, it remains the case that all official tour parties in Israel visiting sacred sites may only be accompanied by a registered Israeli tour guide. Unofficial parties and their guides are often refused access to sites of significance. 52. O n fatwa and Salman Rushdie, see Markham, Plurality and Christian Ethics, pp. 55-58.

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Gate. In the midst of this, national or regional religions continue to war in regions such as the Balkans, at great human cost. The history of power and mobilization in religion is, all too often, a litany of tragic events, a requiem for human being. Yet to see religion like this is only to view it from the dark side. Religion remains a vital force in much of the world. Millions, if not billions, of the world's population have a 'religious impulse'; this involves a quest for meaning 'that goes beyond the restricted empirical existence of the here and now'. 53 Religion inspires; it binds together, creating communities of affinity and affectivity. It offers revival, revolution and surprise; and then again respect for the past, remembrance and ritual. Gandhi, Pope John Paul II and Martin Luther King have been instrumental in turning back tides of nationalism, communism and racism (even though they have all used a reconfigured form of nationalism or ethnicity and religion to achieve political and social ends). Religion can be an irresistible force that can move the apparently unmoveable. For many, religion remains a viable form of liberation; some hope in the midst of despair. In spite of the attempts of some sociologists of religion to retain substantial elements of a secularization thesis (cf, Wilson, Bruce, etc.), religion stands, in many parts of the world, as a protest against and an alternative to 'secular' life. Will American Christian fundamentalists, Islamic Egyptian militants or Hindu nationalists someday become non-religious? It seems unlikely. Religion retains its power, and is a significant counter-cultural agent within modernity, with its capacity to mobilize, evangelize and scandalize. Any discussion of power and mobilization in religion must take account of the following dynamics. First, religious groups and communities will perceive themselves as vessels or bodies that somehow hold, manifest or reify divine power in a particular way, distinguishing themselves from 'society', or perhaps their enemies, or other groups deemed to pose a threat or competition. Secondly, the structure of the group or community will most likely 'mirror' a proposed divine order; there will invariably be a conflation between the offices of leadership and the concepts of deity. Leaders of religious communities are supposed to resemble their gods. Many social communities attempt to correspond to a higher order that has theistic resonance. And yet, no democracy is immune from theocratic comparison; no theocracy can escape the process of routinization, as well as a degree of secularization. 53.

Haynes, Religion in Global Politics, p. 214.

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Thirdly, there will be some sort of theology of power that will account for how divine power is to be reified and passed on: this is a key determinant in mobilization. Here, leadership, sacred texts, rituals, symbols or stories play a vital part in moving believers from passivity to passion, and then to power. Every form of transcendence, no matter how 'other', is received individually and communally, and worked out in social and political spheres. Fourthly, the power that is witnessed to will be anti-social or suprasocial, requiring believers to be mobilized for change and social transformation whenever they perceive their own sense of divine order to be under threat, or require a new order to be imposed. It is against this background that an Islamic nationalist uprising, or Catholic and evangelical picketing of abortion clinics, or the work of reconciliation and peace in South Africa and Northern Ireland, are to be ultimately understood. Finally, then, what is the hope of religious power within contemporary culture? In many ways, the issue of religious resilience has been avoided or taken for granted in this chapter. I have taken it as read that religious power will continue to help shape (or distort) the political landscape of the future. On balance, religion performs better, by which I mean it is an agent for moral goodness, when it is concerned with people rather than places. However, sometimes the histories of people and places are so intertwined—as in Palestine or Northern Ireland—that acting purely and with good intent is virtually impossible. Perhaps the key to the future lies with prophecy itself. Brueggemann suggests that there may be several stages to creating the New Order that many may dream of The constituent features of his thesis make space for dismantling and grief—expressing dissatisfaction for the way things are; resisting the cultural status quo and energizing for a new order, and refusing to be silenced by the criticism of the old order; and finally, practising radical criticism, including self-criticism.54 For Brueggemann, prophetic ministry has four hallmarks. First, it is about evoking an alternative community that 'knows it is about different things in different ways'. Secondly, prophetic ministry is dispositional, not ad hoc or episodic—it is about the totality of life and the whole hermeneutic of the church. Thirdly, prophetic ministry seeks to penetrate numbness, and to enable people to face reality, and then share the pain of that, including death. Fourthly, prophetic ministry seeks to break through the despair of communities, and imagine, create and embrace new futures.55 54. Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, p. 109. 55. Brueggemann, TJie Prophetic Imagination, p. 110.

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Of course, this life-cycle of the prophetic closely corresponds to the life, death and resurrection of Christ. There is a theological shape to the programme discussed here, which is an antidote to the misuse of religious power, either through vapid accommodation (collusion with corrupt elements within culture), or the excessive forms of religious resistance that can sometimes develop into something worse than the phenomenon being opposed. And as we have seen from the beginning of this chapter, starting with Martin Luther King Jr, the power of religion within politics and contemporary culture is at its best when it is birthed in a deep and integrated spirituality, which in turn is alive to the prophetic, and exhibits both faces of resilience.56 an ability to resist, and an ability to accommodate, and the wisdom to know the difference.

56. O n this point, see R. Burrow Jr, 'Martin Luther King Jr. and the Objective Moral Order', Encounter 62. 2 (Spring 2000), pp. 219-44.

Chapter 13 Care-Taking and Health in Contemporary Culture: Exploring the Vocational*

I was called to a ward to see a 96 year old female patient who the nurse told me was having a 'spiritual crisis' and had asked to see a chaplain. When I arrived, I met what I call a 'fluffy' lady—you know, the sort with the fluffy turquoise dressing grown and smelling of talc rather than urine. We had a lovely long chat and eventually I said to her: Well I understand you wanted to see me about something in particular...for some reason?' She said, 'Ah yes. Well, you see I've lived in my own house for fifty years and I've had a very long and happy life. But I was told when I came into hospital that when I leave I won't be able to go back home—I'll have to go into care. Well, I don't want to go into care so I said to God "I've had a good life and I'd rather go now, please".' I said, 'I see.' She carried on: Well, the problem is, I've been in here a week now and nothing's happened yet—what do you think about that?' I replied, Well, that's the National Health Service for you—there's a waiting list for everything these days!' We had a bit of a laugh about that, but it led into a conversation about the deeper concerns she had over losing her home, her independence and so on.

The word 'care' has come to us from a variety of sources. It may be derived from the Gaelic word cam, meaning 'to cherish'. The word also refers to 'anxiety', 'regard arising from desire', and comforting the sick. The contours of care are complex to narrate at the best of times, but the notions of cherishing, regard and desire all suggest holding something delicate, a * I am grateful to Dr Helen Orchard and the Revd Mark Cobb for their help and conversation in the preparation of this chapter. 1. The extract is a quotation from a hospital chaplain, working in London, and quoted in H. Orchard, 'Spiritual Care in God's Waiting Room: A Review of the Questions', Progress in Palliative Care, forthcoming.

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valuing of a person or object, protection, love and concern. To be cared for is to be cherished 'as you are'.2 Yet for the woman in question, cited in the above quotation, it would appear that death is preferable to being discharged 'into care'. She perceives being 'put into care' as representing a significant deterioration in her life situation, and, being satisfied with her 'lot' thus far, opts for quality rather than compromise. Whether her request to God reflects a genuine desire, or functions more as a way of introducing her underlying anxieties about the change, she has clearly translated her practical situation into a spiritual need, although the two are closely related. To assist her in addressing these anxieties she requests a chaplain, rather than one of the healthcare professionals—nurses, social workers, counsellors—who may be available to her. As it so happens, a hospital chaplain had the time and experience to talk through the spiritual, emotional and practical aspects of her situation, but when she is finally discharged, it is unlikely that the chaplain will be available to help her manage the change. It is also unlikely that there will be a chaplain associated with her new home to help her to adjust. There may be more 'spiritual crises' which may in turn have consequences for her mental health, and perhaps result in depression. She may lose the will to comply with treatment, and rehabilitation may slow down or cease altogether. While the scenario outlined above is obviously a speculative illustration, it contains more than a germ of truth. Many older people are forced to make life-changing decisions in hospital within a short space of time. Following perhaps a fall or a medical admission, they are no longer selfreliant or cannot be assisted in their own home, meaning that discharge to a nursing or residential home is necessary. For most people, this will generate considerable anxiety and distress as they are faced with choosing and adapting to a new environment, with varying degrees of support from staff, carers and the voluntary sector. The care for older people living in nursing and residential homes has become an area of increasing concern in the United Kingdom in recent times. This is due in part to the significant increase in the number of people living and dying in this environment, with the residential sector almost doubling in 1980-2000.3 At the turn of the millennium, 2. See The Shorter Oxford Dictionary on Historical Sources (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 285. 3. C. Komaromy, M. Sidell and J. Katz, 'The Quality of Terminal Care in Residential and Nursing Homes', InternationalJournal of Palliative Nursing 6 (2000), pp. 192-200. See also D. Laing, Laing's Review of Private Healthcare (London: Laing & Buisson, 1995).

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approximately one quarter of all people aged 85 and above now live in some kind of institutional environment. 4 In England, between 1986 and 1996, private and voluntary nursing home places increased from 47,900 to 217,800, with a similar level of growth occurring in the residential sector.5 Consequently, an increasing proportion of the population is dying in care homes. In 1995, 18 per cent of all deaths in England and Wales occurred in nursing and residential homes—a rise of nearly 5 per cent over 5 years.6 Not for nothing are the homes dubbed 'God's waiting-rooms'. Yet it is not only a matter of waiting; there are profound issues around the quality of life and care. Depression is a common experience for people living in residential care, with a recent study suggesting that 42 per cent of nursing-home residents feel depressed.7 A number of the issues which face older people in this situation are of a directly spiritual nature—mortality, bereavement, acute loneliness and low self-esteem. These needs are likely to go unrecognized and unmet under current arrangements for care. If they are identified, those who have the greatest level of contact with residents, the care assistants, are likely to be the least well prepared to deal with them and may have to field questions about death and dying which they find very difficult. In homes where there are nurses, time constraints imposed by low staffing levels often mean that they find it difficult to respond. Given that many residents of care homes may have pressing basic physical, nutritional and psychosocial needs, spiritual issues may seem to be of secondary importance but in truth they are no less vital.8 This chapter, therefore, sets out to examine how spiritual needs are

4. Cf. The Royal Commission on Long Term Care: With Respect to Old Age (London: H M S O , 1999). See also J. Seymour and E. Hanson, 'Palliative Care and Older People', in M. Nolan, S. Davies and G. Grant (eds.), Working with Older People and Their Families: Key Issues in Policy and Practice (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000), pp. 1-21. 5. H. Bartlett and S. Burnip, 'Quality of Care in Nursing Homes for Older People: Providers' Perspectives and Priorities', Nursing Times 3 (1998), pp. 257-68. (There are about 450,000 people in residential/nursing care homes in the United Kingdom. These homes employ approximately 300,000 people, mostly part-time.) 6. Office for National Statistics. Series D H 1 (28) Mortality Statistics: General 1993, 1994, 1995 (London: H M S O , 1997). 7. M. Commerford and M. Reznikoff, 'The Relationship of Religion and Perceived Social Support to Self-Esteem and Depression in Nursing Home Residents', Journal of Psychology 130 (1996), pp. 35-50. 8. For a brief overview of this field, see D. Blane, 'Elderly People and Health', in G. Scambler (ed.), Sociology as Applied to Medicine (London: Bailliere Tindall, 1991), pp. 160-71.

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addressed. It does so by exploring the concept of vocation within contemporary culture, and looks at the relationship between spirituality and the discipline and practice of care in the wider context of healthcare. I also examine the provision for the dead and the bereaved, as a further means of exploring the face of care within contemporary culture, and its location within the religion-society debate. Spiritual Care In recent years, two dominant approaches to spiritual care have taken root within the medical profession. One has been to associate it closely with religion, and to assume that anyone articulating an explicit spirituality requires a religious resource. The other has been largely to detach 'spirituality' from religion, and to re-describe many forms of care delivery, education and healthcare as having a 'spiritual dimension'. Both approaches have their problems, perhaps best (though coarsely) summarized as being 'too narrow' and 'too broad'. Yet this chasm of definition and delivery has opened up precisely because of the small revolution that has taken place in healthcare in the last half-century. The hospice movement, particularly through Dame Cicely Saunders, borrowed its initial concept of spirituality from Victor Frankl. It was Frankl who had sought 'meaning-centred' contexts for care: patients would address life as it slowly turned to death, not simply stave off death with whatever medicine was to hand.9 Similarly, some within the nursing profession have also come to adopt echoes of Frankl's ideology, developing a more holistic approach to care alongside prevention and cure. 10 Correspondingly, the demand in The Patient's Charter for 'spiritual' needs to be met can no longer be read as simply belonging to the portfolio of the chaplain: 'all health services should make provision so that proper personal consideration is shown to you, for example, by ensuring that your privacy, dignity and religious and cultural needs are respected'.11 Increasingly, as National 9. For a useful article comparing hospitals and hospices, see C. Parkes, 'Hospice versus Hospital Care: A Re-Evaluation', Postgraduate Medicine 50 (1984), pp. 120-24. 10. For a general discussion, see M. Cobb and V. Robshaw (eds.), The Spiritual Dimension of Health Care (London: Churchill Livingstone, 1998). See also V. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1964) and The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973). 11. The Patient's Charter (London: H M S O , 1991). See also Spiritual Care in the NHS: A Guide for Purchasers and Providers (London: National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts, 1996).

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Health Service Trusts grow into their localized subsidiarity, they come to own their distinctive definitions of what it means to offer 'spiritual services' to their client communities. Beyond meeting 'traditional' religious needs and those that are best described as 'implicit' or 'folk', healthcare deliverers are increasingly recognizing and appreciating a deeper spiritual pulse that may permeate many areas of practice that have no obvious religious connection.12 But what does it mean to talk of spiritual or religious care within contemporary culture? What has happened to the notion of 'vocation' in postmodern times? If spirituality is shaping public institutions and their care for the living and dying, what definitions of spirituality are in operation in such contexts, and who determines them? Do the definitions relate directly to the religious practice of persons, or are they more general, a kind of secular collation of bathetic-sentient sentiments that are primarily existential in character? The sharpness of the question is quite intentional, since sometimes, in examining healthcare literature, one cannot help feeling that there has been a rush to identify almost anything caring or vocational and re-christen it as 'spiritual'. It is perhaps worth recalling some of the observations that are made in Chapter 2. For example, Ian Markham points out that the problem is more that it is not clear precisely what is meant by 'spirituality'...spirituality within a religious tradition looks very different from the way medical practitioners talk about [it]... in healthcare literature it operates in a general way that [opposes] reductionist tendencies in empirical science.

Markham goes on to point out that 'spirituality' is not a term all religious traditions recognize, and those that do may have alternative accounts of its meaning. For example, in Islam, it may mean extinction of the self; in Judaism, it may mean seeking the divine in the midst of the mundane. The 12. A plethora of academic literature is now emerging that addresses and 'measures' spiritual or religious needs. See, e.g., J. Buryska, 'Assessing the Ethical Weight of Cultural, Religious and Spiritual Claims in the Clinical Context', Journal of Medical Ethics, 27 (2001), pp. 118-22; M. King, P. Speck and A. Thomas, 'The Royal Free Interview for Religious and Spiritual Beliefs: Development and Standardisation', Psychological Medicine 25 (1995), pp. 1125-34; and M. Hay, 'Principles in Building Spiritual Assessment Tools', American Journal of Psychiatry 147 (1989), pp. 758-60. For a fuller list of similar resources, see P. Speck, 'The Meaning of Spirituality in Illness', in Cobb and Robshaw (eds.), The Spiritual Dimension of Health Care, pp. 30-39. 13. I. Markham, 'Spirituality and the World Faiths', in Cobb and Robshaw (eds.), The Spiritual Dimension of Health Care, pp. 73ff

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conclusion is that 'general' talk of spirituality is unhelpful. Of course, one would have to acknowledge that we may not find any greater conceptual clarity within religious tradition itself. Spirituality can be any number of things, as these authors suggest: a certain symbolic way of hearing and living the Gospel... the Spirit at work in persons...culture...tradition...in the light of contemporary events, hopes, sufferings and promises... a living relationship with God's spirit...

17

These are of course, all theological definitions of spirituality, but their imprecision begins to make some sense of the collation of concepts that exist beyond religious faith traditions. Where the term 'spirituality' is deployed in healthcare, it tends to cluster around important humane notions. One author describes spirituality as 'three main aspects of human experience': value, meaning and relatedness. But how does this relate to atheists or humanists, who might well be offended, justifiably, by having their values, meaning and relatedness appropriated by 'religious' definitions? Another author speaks of spirituality in more existential terms: 'my inner person...it is who I am—unique and alive'.18 One can have no quarrel with these insights, on one level. But on another, one might regret their generality, no matter how well motivated. The lack of precision does present problems, of which three are worth brief mention. First, in attempting to identify an all-embracing definition of 'spirituality' for healthcare contexts, individual religious traditions and sensitivities can inevitably feel compromised: the particularities of faiths are sacrificed for the generalities of religion. While it is true that the realm of the 'spiritual' encompasses a larger behavioural field than the religious, the two cannot be

14. Markham, 'Spirituality', pp. 70-79. See also A. Sheikh and A. Rashid Gatrad (eds.), Caring for Muslim Patients (Oxford: Radcliffe Medical Press, 2000); and C. Lamb, 'The Pastoral Care of People of Other Faiths', in G. Evans (ed.), A History of Pastoral Care (London: Cassell, 2000), pp. 454-64. 15. R. Deville, The French School of Spirituality (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquense University Press, 1994), p. 153. 16. M. Downey, 'Jean Vanier: Recovering the Heart', Spirituality Today 38 (1986), p. 339. 17. J. Moltmann, The Spirit of Life (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), p. 83. 18. Speck, 'The Meaning of Spirituality in Illness', pp. 18-27. Speck describes spirituality as 'a search for existential meaning within a life experience, with reference to a power other than the self, which may not necessarily be called "God"' (p. 22).

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neatly separated; they inform and shape each other. Moreover, attempts to separate them may result in an individual belief experiencing oppression from a 'secular' or general spirituality. Secondly, in trying to identify and practise a meta-spirituality within a caring context, professions are pursuing a modernist line, whereas a postmodernist line would explore difference, otherness and the importance of reflexivity. Thirdly, spirituality is inherently political. It is concerned with the body, with space, with time, and with futures. In this sense, it is a mistake to assume that an existential approach to spiritual care can be left with the individual and their internal world. Spiritual care is reified in the political, the aesthetic, the material, and also in practice. It is, ultimately, more to do with what is done than with what is said. As we saw in the previous chapter, to leave the spiritual bound to the ineffable and the individual is to emasculate its true Utopian power, which is nothing less than social transformation. Correspondingly, the publication in 1999 by the British government of Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation represents an intriguing development in the delivery of healthcare: here was a document that explicitly acknowledged the relationship between longevity, location and occupation.19 The root causes of ill health often remain stubbornly 'social', and it therefore follows that the task of caring for the health of the nation should not fall entirely on the National Health Service. The NHS ministers primarily to casualties, not causes. One should therefore be cautious about deploying a term such as 'spiritual' in relation to health, since it cannot be long before it becomes a political issue, after its sociality has been more widely acknowledged. Sociologists and theologians alike have understood that care is a political issue beyond the simple provider-receiver equation.20 Care raises profound questions of power that cut across one another in the political, social and religious sphere. To take a local example (from my perspective), let us see how Simon Charlesworth describes one South Yorkshire town: In October 1980 the unemployment rate was estimated to be 8% in Rotherham, compared to the national rate of 5.5%. The highest levels of unemployment were recorded in January 1986, when 24,580 people were registered as unemployed, an unemployment rate of 23.5%. At that point the national un-

19. Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation (London: N H S / H M S O , 1999). 20. See especially S. Pattison, Alive and Kicking: Towards a Practical Theology of Health and Illness (London: SCM Press, 1989); A Critique of Pastoral Care (London: SCM Press, 1993); and Pastoral Care and Liberation Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

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employment rate was 13.9%... Rotherham [still] has one of the highest rates of long-term unemployment in the country. The links between high unemployment and a low wage economy are clear...families in Rotherham are struggling to give their children three meals a day...

Charlesworth observes that the poverty of the town is marked in the people; their privation is embodied, and then becomes manifest in their health. The poverty gives rise to debt, which in turn affects basic amenities such as sanitation and nutrition. For example, Rotherham Environmental Health reported that one in five of its clients was in debt to Yorkshire Water, who in turn had increased their charges in the space of a few years by an average of 20 per cent.22 As Bourdieu notes of the 'working class', '[they bear] the stigmata...in their very bodies...as the chosen people bore in their features the sign that they were the property of Jehovah, so the division of labour brands the manufacturing worker as the property of capital'.23 The link between poverty and health is an obvious one, and the same the world over; but there is no obvious and immediate panacea that might break the equation. However, if one examines the (miraculous) healings of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, what is most striking about them are the political implications that flow from the spirituality that offered the healing.25 Of the forty or so healing miracles recorded in the Gospels, readers hardly ever learn the name of the person who is healed. Those who are healed are to all intents and purposes unknown and unnamed. Moreover, what is probably even more revealing about the nature of the miracles is the Gospel writers' willingness to tease (or collude with?) the reader by naming the category of affliction: leprosy, mental illness, single mothers with dead children, orphans, people of other faiths, the elderly, the handicapped. People were then, as they are often now, identified by and with their affliction, rather than by name. Thus, as it was 'the leper' or 'the demoniac' in Jesus' day, so 21. S. Charlesworth, 'Bourdieu, Social Suffering and Working Class Life', in B. Fowler (ed.), Reading Bourdieu on Society and Culture (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2000), pp. 49-64 (49). 22. Charlesworth, 'Bourdieu', p. 50. 23. P. Bourdieu, Distinction (London: Routledge, 1984), p. 178. 24. For an overview on health and social class, see D. Blane, 'Inequality and Social Class', in Scambler (ed.), Sociology as Applied to Medicine, pp. 109-130. For an intriguing perspective on the relationship between poverty and mental health, see N . ScheperHughes, 'Nervoso: Medicine, Sickness and Human Needs', in C. Samson (ed.), Health Studies: A Critical and Cross-Cultural Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1999), pp. 338-50. 25.

For a fuller discussion see Percy, Power and the Church, ch. 2.

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it is now 'the coronary in Bay 2', or 'the amputees on Ward 5'. What afflicts the body soon consumes the person's identity; they become known by what they have 'got' or what they 'carry', not for who they are or want to be. 26 They become 'framed' by their illness and the potential for curing it. In nearly every case recorded in the Gospels, the healings of Jesus are directed towards those who are self-evidently on the margins of society, or who have been excluded in one way or another from the centre of social, political, moral or religious life. Not only that, the friendships that Jesus made also suggest that he was more than willing to share his time and abundance with this same group of people. This observation is not particularly interesting in itself, but it does start to raise a question about what the healing miracles were for if they were in effect 'wasted' on groups of people who appear to be unable to make a significant response in terms of faith, or otherwise. In each of these healing encounters, we can observe several remarkable things about Jesus' ministry. First, each of the healings seems to indict witnesses, crowds and others who appear to have colluded with the categories of sin and sickness which have demonized individuals and groups. Jesus' healing ministry is decisive in that it interrogates these categories ('Who told you this person is unclean?'; 'He who is without sin may cast the first stone', etc.). Jesus appears here to be a barrier-breaker, eschewing the normal categories that dumped people in 'sin bins'. In effect, he turns the tables on his audience on almost every occasion, and asks: in whose interests is this person being categorized as ill or evil? Secondly, and correspondingly, Jesus often insists that a person returns to the centre of the community from which they were originally excluded. One of the best examples of this is the demon-possessed (or mentally ill) man who has been chained up in a graveyard, and whom nobody visits. Jesus' healing of the person is extraordinary, precisely because he insists on returning him to the community that expelled him from their midst in the first place (Lk. 8.26-39). Thirdly, touching is also an extraordinary feature of Jesus' healing ministry insofar as he seems willing and able to take on the associated stains, stigmas and taboos of his society by getting his own body and soul 'dirty'. Social anthropologists such as Mary Douglas have shown how societies that categorize ordinary materials can then develop a rhetoric of 26. O n this, see N . Fox, Beyond Health: Postmodernism and Embodiment (London: Free Association Books, 1999), chs 1-3. See also J. Lyotard, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), p. 9.

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'clean' and 'unclean'.27 Notions of'pollution' and 'cleanliness' soon surface, particularly in relation to our bodies, which she identifies as a matter of politics. Correspondingly, what flows into and out of bodies, particularly at orifices, assumes a special character in nearly all societies, from the most 'primitive' to the most 'sophisticated'. Yet Jesus seems to have no fear of healing a woman who is haemorrhaging, of touching lepers, and of generally embracing people whose bodies are leaking 'sin' and pollution, for which they were excluded from the mainstream of society. The spiritual 'cara' of Jesus is, then, a cherishing of those who are despised and rejected; it is regard arising from desire, which is rooted in the generosity of God. Thus, the healings recorded in the Gospels are virtually all counter-cultural, since they confound the prevailing wisdom of the day, by raising and restoring individuals. This is done through a mixture of concern, commitment, communication, involvement and identification, each of which is expressed through love and is an expression of love.28 Whereas society may have sifted the 'good' from the 'bad' and separated the sick and the polluted from the healthy and the clean, Jesus confounds his audiences by stepping across normal social boundaries, and then discarding those boundaries to create a new order. As I have already suggested, Jesus' healing ministry is something that has social and political implications, and is directed beyond the suffering individual to a wider audience within the community. Equally, spirituality is not simply an individual's collection of feelings, sentiments, aspirations and religious desires. Therefore, spirituality needs to be treated not just as something that flows from the individual, but also as something that has prophetic implications for the community and the wider body politic. The Vocational Life Traditionally, vocations are associated with caring professions or religious life. The etymology of the word 'vocation' is, unsurprisingly, concerned with 'calling', and the response to a call is 'a profession' of either faith or practice, or both. 29 In this sense, pursuing vocational work is not quite like other kinds of profession or career. Indeed, the word 'career' is derived from the mediaeval French term meaning 'to joust' at a tournament; it

27. M. Douglas, Purity and Danger (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966). 28. Cf. J. Mclntyre, On the Love of God (London: Collins, 1962). 29. See The Shorter Oxford Dictionary on Historical Sources, p. 2486.

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implies competition and working against others, not for them. 30 Thus, for the nineteenth-century writer Sir William Osier, 'the practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head'.31 These may be fine sentiments, but as Margaret Whipp observes, Today, the sense of 'calling' or 'vocation' has become taboo. The spirituality of health care professionals is deemed to be a private matter which should not interfere with the objectivity or impartiality with which they practice their profession. The concept of 'vocation' is regarded by many young doctors as at best old-fashioned, and at worst either patronising, naive, hypocritical or downright exploitative. It is no longer a popular ideal...

This is ironic, for, as Whipp notes, the enlargement of the concept of vocation was one of the bolder features of the Protestant reformation. Instead of vocation being restricted to the religious life, all work became vocational: the salt became 'of the earth'. In time, this would give rise to the Protestant work ethic (Weber), in which the primary call of the faithful (to believe in God) was closely related to the secondary call, which 'embraced all that was to be undertaken in the world in response to faith, harnessing each particular gift and opportunity for the service of others and the fulfilment of God-given potential'.33 Thus, all life and work were consecrated to God. Correspondingly, medicine, law, politics and a range of other professions were seen as part of the economy of God in the service of humanity and for the improvement of society. Yet the story does not end there, for the professions have evolved to a point at which there is a tension at the heart of their praxis. Renee Fox understands something of the paradox of care that has now arisen in contemporary society: O n the one hand, [care] is based in intimate human relations which value giving, love and concern. O n the other, it is a set of practices—and theories about those practices—which are codified by the 'caring professions' as an occupation and the basis for disciplinary power and authority. 30. See The Shorter Oxford Dictionary on Historical Sources, p. 285. 31. W. Osier, The Principles and Practice of Medicine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1892), p. 1. see also. M. Whipp, 'Spirituality and the Scientific Mind: A Dilemma for Doctors', in Cobb and Robshaw, (eds.), The Spiritual Dimension of Health Care, p. 142. 32. Whipp, 'Spirituality', p. 142. 33. Whipp, 'Spirituality', p. 143. Cf. Col 3.23: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men...since you know it is the Lord Christ you are serving' (NFV). 34. Fox, Beyond Health, p. 77 (emphasis mine). See also, K. Gardner, 'The Historical

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Fox, following Foucault, believes that vocations have undergone a metamorphosis in late modernity, in which 'care-as-discipline' or the 'vigil of care', as he calls it, have fabricated their identities around power and knowledge, to the detriment of the recipients of care. But what exactly does this mean? Three simple observations can be made. First, there is a phenomenon that Renee Fox describes as the 'overmedicalization' of individuals. For Fox, the continuing expansion of the conception of sickness in society can lead to the coercive labelling of illnesses. Hospitals become 'total institutions' in which power and knowledge define and delimit categories such as 'sick', 'abnormal' or 'insane', even though such categories are, self-evidently, not universal, objective or necessarily reliable. According to Fox, this leads to an 'imperialist' outlook that can stigmatize and dehumanize the patients.36 Secondly, there is an 'over-technologization' of medicine at the expense of the vocational. Some social theorists have identified the arena of women's health as a particularly egregious example. Anne Witz notes how 'aspects of patriarchal strategies of demarcation are demonstrated most vividly by examining the relationship between female midwifery practices and male medical practice'. Witz sees medical practice fragmenting and marginalizing midwifery (in the USA), such that certain aspects of midwifery are incorporated into 'obstetrics', midwives are restricted to working on 'normal' labours and required to seek medical assistance for 'abnormal' deliveries. These strategies, claims Witz, are a form of 'preemptive de-skilling', such that the vocational sphere of competence has been narrowed and restricted by the medical.37 Thirdly, the idea of vocation reintroduces that sense of 'calling' that many in the medical and nursing professions have experienced and may still value, yet is now at odds with other values. The care-as-discipline theory suggests that vocations themselves start to become professionalized; Conflict between Caring and Professionalisation: A Dilemma for Nursing', in D. Gaut (ed.), The Presence of Caring (New York: National League for Nursing Press, 1992), pp. 71-91. 35. M. Foucault, 'The Eye of Power', in C. Gordon, Power/Knowledge (Brighton: Harvester, 1980). 36. R. Fox, 'The Medicalization and Demedicalization of American Society', Daedalus 104 (Winter 1977), and cited in P. Conrad and K. Rochelle (eds.), The Sociology of Health and Illness (New York: St Martin's Press, 1981), pp. 527-28. 37. A. Witz, 'Patriarchy and the Labour Market: Occupational Control Strategies and the Medical Divisions of Labour', in D. Knights and H. Wilmott (eds.), Gender and the Labour Process (Aldershot: Gower, 1986), p. 27.

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in becoming organized and rationalized to combat the forces that are inimical to them, the core concept implodes. Thus, more time is now spent on protecting the integrity of the emerging profession, often against the interests of the client—and, in the end, at their expense. Inglesby cites the advice given to nurses that 'the value placed upon care remains high, but care is no longer tender and loving...it is a specifiable commodity...a nurse no longer has a vocation; [she or he] has a profession'.38 The problem with Foucaultian care-as-discipline theory is that it is probably true: vocations become professions, and the vigil of caring lapses back to the family or friends, but is no longer the principal province of the profession. In the public eye, the profession therefore shifts from being something that might be worthy of idolizing to that which is worth rationalizing. The primary care-deliverers are, in effect, squeezed: on the one hand by a faithless public, and on the other, by rationalizing forces. Loss of morale quickly creeps in, and, before you know it, something as valuable (and holy, spiritual, worthy) as a 'bedside manner' is either ridiculed, or seen as old-fashioned and quaint. To take another example, consider an older person in a nursing or residential home who complains of loneliness at mealtimes. He or she is probably asking for that home to re-evaluate what a meal is: namely, turning it from a nutritional exercise into some kind of social event. This is much more demanding than it first appears, for it requires the reordering of space, time, priorities and resources and that the spiritual meaning of a word like 'home' is takeb seriously. The desire, articulated by the resident or community, for social intercourse and familiarity (for belonging—the opposite of loneliness?) is, a spiritual and pastoral request, which has a social answer, and not necessarily a religious one. The request is, in effect, an invitation to understand the totality of care as a matter of vocation. Fox suggests that the only way to resist the tyranny of care (as a discipline) is to reclaim care as a gift, which is marked by 'love, generosity, trust and delight'.39 Fox's recourse to the language of gift resists the rationalization of careas-discipline, and allows for the rehabilitation of the vocational, which is grounded in generosity and relationship. Thus, True caring involves growth, mutual growth of the carer and the cared-for; and it is this ability to grow, to change from pain and disintegration to 38. E. Inglesby, 'Values and Philosophy in Nursing', in M. Jolley and G. Brykczynsa (eds.), Nursing Care: The Challenge to Change (London: Edward Arnold, 1992), pp. 19-30 (27, emphasis mine). 39. Fox, Beyond Health, pp. 78-79.

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purpose and equilibrium that gives the caring phenomenon its impetus and rationale.

In turning to the vocational here, I do not mean 'vocations' in the individualistic sense—the priest, teacher, or altruistic General Practitioners of a bygone era. What I mean is that any system of care, whether it is a hospital, church or charity, needs to recover a sense of vocation and gift in order to pay proper attention to the people and contexts in which it operates. This is not only physically and spatially demanding; it is also a work that is situated in the realm of feelings or emotions. It is a matter of the heart, not just the head.41 But before we can recover a sense of vocation in healthcare and spirituality, we need to acknowledge that many who may have once begun with that sense may now have lost it. The ontological has given way to the functional: a sense of'calling' has been subjugated to forces of bureaucracy, capitalism and professionalization. (These forces are normally benign, but can act as a cancer within an under-resourced healthcare system.) Thus, what is at issue for society (including the churches) is the way in which a 'sense' of vocation is so fearfully under siege. Ideas of vocation are often muddled and uncertain. Frequently, there is no unifying or overarching sense of the values that are at stake within a profession that is strongly committed to a service ethos. Yet 'vocation' is a powerful 'trigger' word. One of the dubious gifts of late capitalism and postmodernity is to deliver a post-vocational condition to our society. The idea of vocation is still valued, and even cherished; but the content of that ideal has become hopelessly fragmented and attenuated. As Alasdair Maclntyre notes in After Virtue, we are handling the fragments of a broken pot that we cannot remake. While the echo of vocation is still strong enough to evoke all kinds of wistful memories, it appears to be too weak and diffuse to suggest any clear way forward.42 Perhaps the only way forward will be to reinstate the notion of gift, with all its promise of relationality and mutuality in the practice of care. Eric Fuchs, commenting on theology, healthcare and vocation, suggests four conditions that might preface the restoration of vocational life. First, he argues that a new society requires new definitions of sickness and health. Sickness, he argues, cannot only be seen as a challenge to medicine, but 40. G. Brykczynsa, 'Caring: A Dying Art?', in Jolley and Brykczynsa (eds.), Nursing Care: The Challenge to Change, pp. 237-50 (237). 41. Cf. N . James, 'Emotional Labour: Skill and Work in the Social Regulation of Feelings', Sociological Review 37 (1989), pp. 15-42. 42. A. Maclntyre, After Virtue (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1984).

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must also be something that reminds us of fragility, which calls for compassion, respect and support. Secondly, and on the basis of a broader understanding of health and sickness, he argues for a more communitarian view of healthcare professions. Care-taking belongs to social work or the church, or any other caring profession, as much as it does to medicines and is of course a fundamental principal of Benedictine spirituality and other monastic traditions.43 Thirdly, Fuchs argues that there must be a fundamental break with consumerist logic, which drives sick persons 'to get their money's worth'. Consumerist logic penalizes and demonizes those who are already deemed to cost the state too much. Such people are made to feel guilty for their frailties, and may ultimately start to feel useless. Fourthly, Fuchs argues that social justice and healthcare require access to needed care, in which consideration of the real need of the patient not only becomes paramount, but becomes resituated within a more socially and spiritually aware context.44 Vocations, then, are to be understood in terms of calling and gift, which we might say, theologically speaking, are extensions of the generosity of God. Yet as I have hinted throughout this chapter, there can be no avoidance of the political and social implications of even the most spiritualized vocation, and certainly not of those vocations that are related (more generally) to caring for persons. An apparently simple term such as 'National Health Service' requires constant elucidation as definitions of nationhood, health and service rapidly mutate. And as they do so, they invite questions: 'what is health?', 'who serves?', and 'who is excluded from these gifts?'. In pre-modern Britain, healing and alms-giving were closely related ministries that flowed out of monastic infirmaries, long before the days of hospitals. St Benedict knew that poverty and welfare were linked to healing and spirituality, and that these in turn were addressed vocationally. Today, there is a real need to understand that spirituality must become vocational and political, if it is to engage properly with the social causes of dis-ease. Arguably, a key task for theology and the churches at the turn of the millennium is to underline the imperative of vocations as an essential fundament in the proper ordering of a humane society.45 This does not necessarily return society to religion, or to some kind of spirituality, 43. See B. Ward, 'Pastoral Care and the Monks: Whose Feet Do You Wash?', in G. Evans (ed.), A History of Pastoral Care (London: Cassell, 2000), pp. 77-92. 44. E. Fuchs, 'Social Justice and Healthcare', Theology Digest 45.3 (1998), pp. 3-15. 45. For fuller discussion see Davie, A Memory Mutates, pp. 50-59; and R. Gill, Churchgoing and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

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whether specific, collaborative or general. Yet such a move might at least prevent the ethos and ethic of service from becoming overwhelmed by inimical market forces. The restoration of the vocational holds out some real possibilities for the reconstitution of society, not only in terms of gift, offering and love, but also in terms of a thorough and prophetic critique of the prevailing cultural powers.46 Making Space for Death Before offering a brief conclusion to this chapter, it is worth reflecting further on the relationship between care, vocation and professionalization. In terms of pastoral care, working with the dying and the bereaved remains one of the core areas of expertise within the churches, especially among the clergy.47 As we noted earlier, David Martin suggests that, churches are the only repositories of all-embracing meanings pointing beyond the immediate to the ultimate. They are the only institutions that deal in tears and concern themselves with the breaking points of human existence... they offer spaces in which solemnly to gather, to sing, to lay flowers, and light candles. They are—in Philip Larkin's phrase—serious places on serious earth.

There are 600,000 deaths per year in Britain. Over 70 per cent of the population will have some sort of Christian funeral, many of which (in England) will be taken by a Church of England minister. The Church of England derives 6 per cent of its annual income from weddings and funerals. Yet modern society has done some peculiar things to the inevitability and commonality of death. As Tony Walter points out in The Revival of Death, few people now experience a death in their home. Death occurs in hospitals, hospices, residential or nursing homes. Death has become something for specialists, and has ceased to be 'ordinary'.49 Thus, even the (relatively modern) terms 'undertaker' and 'funeral director' tell a story. Whereas death was once a fact of life, few now 'see' it. In making arrangements for the dead, power is normally ceded to a professional body. What was once a vocation has now become a business.50 46. See Pattison, Pastoral Care and Liberation Theology, especially chs 13-16. 47. See especially I. Ainsworth-Smith and P. Speck, Letting Go: Caring for the Dying and the Bereaved (London: SPCK, 2nd edn, 1999 [1982]). 48. D. Martin, unpublished talk given at St George's House, Windsor, 1991, and quoted in Davie, Believing Without Belonging, pp. 189-90. 49. T. Walter, The Revival of Death (London: Macmillan, 1994). 50. Cf. J. Mitford, The American Way of Death (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963);

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Furthermore, in many towns and cities, the remembrance of death and its centrality to life has been pushed to the periphery, with new civic crematoria springing up on the edges of communities, away from where people live. Out of sight means out of mind. There are fewer graves to visit; with little to see, society can quickly forget the value of remembrance. Many communities no longer live alongside the reality of death: graveyards are uncommon in modern sprawling suburbia.51 As Kamerman suggests, modernity has witnessed a process of 'deritualization' accompanied by a process of rationalization.52 Thus, death has increasingly come to be subsumed under conventions or routines which render it non-intrusive. Responses to death have become more 'businesslike'.. .epitomised by the growing preference for cremation over burial.

Coupled to this rationalization of death, clergy have also seen their prominence in relation to death begin to deteriorate. Britain has one of the highest cremation rates in Europe. As more and more people choose to be cremated, clergy find themselves conducting services in less familiar civic settings (instead of their churches), with the time allotted to them controlled not by the church, but by the demands of undertakers and the constraints that crematoria are under. It may be true that not much can be done about this drift, but churches perhaps need to work harder to make death more central to society. It is, arguably, a prophetic-vocational task. How we commemorate the dead, and where we place them, tells an important story about the living. If you give death physical space, you also create a climate in which there can be emotional space. Death and bereavement are natural, not dysfunctional, and churches need to consider again how they can offer better spaces for the dead, if only for the sake of the bereaved. As James Mather suggests, Somehow we have to persuade our doctors, and ourselves, to treat death not as an enemy...death education will [eventually] be as important as sex education is thought to be now: both are basic facts of life. We will teach our R. Harmer, The High Cost of Dying (New York: Harper and Row, 1963); and E. Waugh, The Loved One (New York: Dell, 1948). 51. This may, in part, account for the rise in the popularity of Remembrance Sunday, or for the public expressions of grief surrounding funerals such as that for Diana, Princess of Wales. See Davie, A Memory Mutates, pp. 78-80. 52. J. Kamerman, Death in the Midst of Life: Social and Cultural Influences on Death, Grief and Mourning (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1988). 53. G. Scambler, 'Death, Dying and Bereavement', in idem (ed.), Sociology as Applied to Medicine, pp. 104-118 (104).

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children that the pain of bereavement is the price we have to pay for loving; and that, although it is costly, it is not too dear...

I would argue that part of that education lies in making better and more substantial space for death. Gardens of Rest are multiplying in British churches at an alarming rate. Most are very small, neat, tidy, and designed to be easy to maintain. The tenants are of the assured long-term variety, so little is given to them in return for the little they offer. Many such gardens are bland and anodyne; their proliferation reflects an unspoken English habit that is inclined to sweep death up and put it away. We rarely see it, and we seldom talk about it. Our Continental neighbours, in contrast, are usually more expressive. A trip abroad reveals gloriously untidy and disordered graveyards. There are photographs pinned to wooden crosses and headstones, messages left and candles lit, the poignancy of an unmarked plot next to the grotesque flamboyance of a marble mausoleum. There is a cacophony of stone and wood, sometimes tasteless (to English eyes)—and often tacky. And there are visitors, the living moving among the dead, in silent symphonies of tribute. In creating good physical space for the dead—which is undoubtedly a costly and vocational task—churches can also create the right emotional space for the bereaved. This would be an invaluable service in a society that has forgotten how to remember the deceased. Investing in beautiful gardens of rest might start to stem the flow of religious burials being lost to civic places. In turn, this might give some of the power back to the bereaved, many of whom can often feel profoundly de-skilled in the face of death, and starved of voice and choice in funerals and their aftermath. Many also feel pressed into 'safe' middle-class aesthetics when it comes to tombs or plaques—if they are allowed them at all. The bereaved, meanwhile, vote with their feet. In the woods near to where I live, it is a common sight to see flowers tied to trees, near the places where ashes have been secretly scattered. Some benches have also been bequeathed, often with heartfelt inscriptions. The use of 'natural woodland' burial sites is also on the increase. It is not unusual to see flowers left at the scene of a fatal accident; they fade, but the memory doesn't. At the local children's cemetery, teddy bears and gifts sit snuggling up to simple gravestones, signs of cherished memories and unfulfilled

54. J. Mather, 'A Healthy Society?', in D. Willows and J. Swinton (eds.), Spiritual Dimensions of Pastoral Care: Practical Theology in a Multidisciplinary Context (London: Jessica Kingsley, 2000), pp. 157-67 (157).

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dreams.55 If the churches cannot make space for death, people will find their own spaces for spiritual reflection. This turn towards exploring the culture of death is quite deliberate. As we have seen in the second part of this book, churches and theology have arguably spent far too much time attempting to police people's beliefs, and insufficient energy in engaging with contemporary culture. Although much of pastoral theology operates a successful bridge between the two, there has been a failure to appreciate the wider cultural streams that shape concepts of living and dying. Yet care-taking may require a more empathetic appreciation of the spiritual and cultural expressions that are given to grief and death, which may not always sit comfortably alongside the meanings of death that are proscribed by religious dogma.56 The true vocation for the churches then, in the face of death, may be to offer some substantial sign of accommodation in response to the end of life, as further evidence not only of the generosity of God, but also of the resilience of religion.57 This would amount not only to good pastoral theology, but also to good public theology, in which the searing human expressions arising out of serious situations can be vented in serious places. As Mark Cobb says, In answer to the question "What is death?'...we encounter the religious, artistic and philosophical imaginations which seek to make sense of our mortal human condition and of the unknown in which lies our destiny. For some, death represents a horizon over which there is a continuation of the self; for others death represents a complete end to self save for that which persists in their legacy. Whatever is believed about death refers back to life and to what is to be considered fundamentally important and meaningful. Therefore death can be understood as a focus for the spiritual because it brings the living to reflect upon what they believe about the nature of personhood and the experiences of being in the world, of being in relationship with others and of the intangible, the numinous and the sacred.

55. O n woodland burial sites, see G. Downing et ai, 'A Matter of Life and Death', Modern Believing 42.2 (2001), pp. 15-27. 56. O n this, see J. Bowker, The Meanings of Death (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Bowker's treatment of different faiths and their 'official' attitudes to death is exemplary. However, he gives little space to the cultures of burial and bereavement that grow up around such faiths, and may become, eventually, only distantly related to official dogma. 57. Cf. T. Walter, On Bereavement: The Culture of Grief (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999). 58. M. Cobb, The Dying Soul: Spiritual Care at the End of Life (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2001), p. 122.

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Postscript This chapter has attempted to illustrate some ways in which care-taking within healthcare situations can be explored within contemporary culture, and how they might be related to spirituality. It has been suggested that the restoration of the concept of vocation, as a counter-cultural shift, offers a promising path for the development of a practical and prophetic spirituality. Moreover, there has also been the suggestion that the setting aside of space can prevent the practice of care from being rationalized and marginalized: a move from discipline to gift. In all of this, I have assumed throughout that 'the material, social, and political dimensions of existence are of fundamental theological concern', and that 'the social and political realm is the primary area of divine concern and Christian response'.59 Professions, vocations, care-taking and health issues are vital areas of spiritual and theological interest. As Jenkins suggests, this is part of theology's task and its contribution to public life: to revive a proper priestliness right across our society, we [need to] persuade one another widely that the time is ripe not only for the rehabilitation of the caring professions but also for a readiness to speak up in the form of a caring confession...quality of life is more important than consumption of goods... cherishing people and sustaining the earth is more important than growth... and belonging and finding meaning and enjoyment together is more important than competition...

Much of what has been said here has wider practical implications for hospice and hospital chaplaincy, and, more generally, for the mission and ministry of the church and the shaping of its structures.61 Making time for people (the living and the dead), fashioning space in society for reflection (including creating proper central physical space for the spiritual and the sacred in our cities),62 using the imagination prophetically to conceive of new futures, challenging and affirming institutions—all are valid ingredients in a collated practical theology. Correspondingly, it is important to recall that the task of pastoral theology itself is not simply to provide sympathy with a well-meaning and articulate theological gloss. It is, rather,

59. Pattison, Pastoral Care and Liberation Theology, p. 65. 60. D.Jenkins, Still Living with Questions (London: SCM Press, 1990), p. 76. 61. O n hospital chaplaincy, see Orchard, Hospital Chaplaincy, chs 8-10. 62. On this, see P. Sheldrake, Spaces for the Sacred (London: SCM Press, 2001), especially chs 1 and 6.

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more serious and costly: 'constructive statements about God's relation to human experience which lead to strategies of liberating action... [and] the analysis of experience and culture through the use of critical [theory]'. 63 Only when this is done, can the moments of constructive religious and theological interpretation of contemporary culture finally arrive.

63. E. Graham and J. Poling, 'Some Expressive Dimensions of a Liberation Practical Theology', International Journal of Practical Theology 4 (2000), pp. 163-83.

Chapter 14 The Gift of Authority: Of Ministry, Morals and Money

The via media is the spirit of Anglicanism... in its persistence in finding a mean between Papacy and Presbytery the English church under Elizabeth became something representative of the finest spirit of England...

Can a gift be given? The question is not as odd as it sounds. In a sermon preached before Edward VI in 1549, Archbishop Hugh Latimer meditates on the problem of magistrates who take bribes: 'Somewhat was given to them before, and they must nedes give somewhat again, for giffe-gaffe was a good fellow, this giffe-gaffe led them down from justice. They follow gifts'. John Milbank, commenting on these words, cites Latimer as an example of 'archaic human wisdom' whereby the power-relations between gifts (and the giver) and the obligation of the receivers are properly exposed.2 For every gift, there is a receiver—who is ultimately obliged to the donor. If there is to be any talk of authority as a gift—in any ecclesial context — some questions necessarily arise. Is the gift demanded or offered? By whom, and to what ends? Does the nature of the gift (in this case, authority) oblige or enable the church? How can the donor of authority protect the identity of that authority if it is a gift to another? What about the relationship between the suitability of the gift, and the imperfect intentions of the giver? The subtleties of such dynamics are well known in anthropological and sociological exchange theories: Mauss, Derrida and Elster are some of the names that immediately spring to mind. 3 In such works, it is often the

1. T.S. Eliot, 'Launcelot Andrewes', in idem, Essays on Style and Content (London: Faber, 1928), p. 14. 2. See John Milbank, 'Can a Gift be Given? Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic', Modern Theology 11.1 (January 1995), pp. 126-41. 3. For a fuller discussion on their use in ecclesiology, see Percy, Power and the Church.

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implicit power-relations between the gift, giver and receiver that are explored, which in turn can then be used to re-describe the actual nature of sociality. Such readings enable Milbank, for example, to suggest that Christian agape can never be 'pure gift', but rather, only a form of 'purified giftexchange'.4 This chapter explores the question of authority in Anglicanism with reference to two recent documents: the ARCIC (Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission) report The Gift of Authority? and To Mend the Net, a manifesto authored by two Anglican bishops.6 There is also some further reflection on the relationship between power, authority and gift, specifically looking at how Church of England parishes and dioceses are now being funded, and how that is transforming the 'concrete reality' of the church in relation to its identity and authority. This chapter will be, in the words of Nicholas Healy, an exercise that focuses 'theological attention on the church's actual rather than theoretical identity', in order to reflect more fully on the shaping of ministry within modernity: Effective critical self-reflection by the church is often episodic, done only when things obviously get bad, when discipleship and witness have suffered and reforms have to be drastic. Practical-prophetic ecclesiology upon the concrete church seeks to anticipate and forestall the need for such drastic measures, seeking out error and sin as early as possible, as well as discerning •• 7 new opportunities.

To be specific, if the responsibility for funding ministry is being increasingly borne directly by parishes, how will that affect the tension within a synodically governed church that is at the same time episcopally led? Will more power accrue to the laity (through synods and other structures of accountability), who are now becoming increasingly conscious that it is their voluntary gifts (of time and money) that mostly fund their local church? Or will the increasing emphasis on episcopal authority and centralized leadership in the church carry the day?8 And will that be through consent, or with dissent? The debate, centred on authority, can already be 4. Milbank, 'Can a Gift be Given?', p. 131. 5. Jointly published by the Catholic Truth Society (London), the Anglican Book Centre (Toronto) and Church Publishing Incorporated (New York), in 1999. 6. Drexel Gomez and Maurice Sinclair (eds.), To Mend the Net: Anglican Faith and Orderfor Renewed Mission (Carrollton, TX: The Ekklesia Society, 2001). 7. Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life, pp. 3, 185. 8. Cf. Working as One Body (London: Church House Publishing, 1995), and Percy, Power and the Church, ch. 7.

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characterized as a clash between a true synodality and a kyriearchy,9 and readers will detect throughout this chapter a gentle hermeneutic of suspicion designed to encourage caution and further reflection. At the same time I argue for proper attention to the 'give and take' politics that underpin so much of our current ecclesial life. As with previous chapters, we will see that much of the theology that is being produced to 'help' the church in its 'crisis', although well intentioned, is often quite erroneous in diagnosis, prognosis and prescription. To tackle the agenda in depth would require a book in its own right, so this chapter can only offer the briefest sketch of the problems that will accompany an appropriate practical-prophetic critique. First of all, the ecclesiology found in the ARCIC and Sinclair-Gomez documents will be described, with some preliminary comments noting its strengths and weaknesses. Secondly, the emerging ecclesiology will be contrasted with specifically Anglican doctrines of the church, with special reference to the legally authorized structure of authority in the Church of England. Here it will be argued that any kind of imposed will upon the authority structures within the church risks distorting a complex and reticulate set of power relations, which does not sit easily within the actual nature and context of English religion, as it is particularly embodied within the established church. Thirdly, some additional comments will be made, indicating further areas of concern, with particular reference to parish funding and leadership. An epilogue meditates on the vocation of bishops in the midst of those same complex and reticulate power structures: how can they be servants and leaders, pastors and managers, prophets and protectors? Ministry and Morals: Finding Authority in a Divergent Communion 10 The Gift ofAuthority is the first ARCIC agreed statement on authority since 1981. A key concept of the report is 'synodality—walking together in the way', which, ARCIC states, find different expressions in each church. The Commission stresses the significance of recent trends, and in so doing, presumably approves them. Indeed, the identification of these trends may be seen as the particular nomination of a context (a socio-theological con9. Nicholls, Deity and Domination, p. 30. 10. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Dr Ralph Norman, Stephenson Fellow at the University of Sheffield, for his conversation and thoughts in this section, and also to members of the Archbishops' Faith and Order Advisory Group.

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struction of reality might be a better way of putting it), into which the report then 'fits'. These trends are: (1) a reaching towards universal structures that promote koinonia (for Anglicans); (2) the strengthening of local and intermediate structures (for Roman Catholics); (3) situating the church between globalization and localization; (4) the reality of ecclesial subsidiarity. The Commission states that if its new agreed statement is accepted and acted upon, the issue of authority would no longer need to be a cause of breach of communion between the two churches. The Gift of Authority also claims to have deepened and extended its agreement on a range of issues, including: how the authority of Christ is present and active in the church; the role of the whole people of God in the church, within which the bishops have distinctive voices as teachers in forming and expressing the mind of the church; synodality, and its implications for the communion of the whole people of God; the possibility, in certain circumstances, of the church's teaching infallibly at the service of the church's indefectibility; a universal primacy, extended collegially in the context of synodality, as an integral to all episcope,n The heart of The Gift of Authority statement is ultimately a justification for the primacy of the Pope. However, the case for the primacy of the Bishop of Rome is made only on the basis of the document's fundamental ecclesiological presuppositions. According to Ralph Norman, 12 the actual structure of the argument is therefore this: ecclesiology leads to the justification of episcopacy, which in turn, naturally, leads to the idea of papal primacy. The infallible primacy of the Pope is, then, only a feature of the broader argument of The Gift of Authority, a particular focus for and expression of the ecclesiology that the document assumes. Norman expands on this by pointing out that The Gift ofAuthority defines the church with reference to 'all those elements that are constitutive of ecclesial communion: baptism, confession of the apostolic faith, celebration of the Eucharist, leadership by an apostolic ministry'. These elements are together referred to as Tradition, that is, 'the Gospel itself, transmitted from generation to generation in and by the Church'. 13 There is one universal Tradition expressed in the Scriptures and administered by the episcopate. It is complete, untainted by sin, and remains the same across time and space. Tradition is therefore equated with Truth, that is, God's own Truth, not human truth. 'In the economy...of God's love for humanity, the Word 11. The Gift of Authority, p. 39, section 52. 12. Ralph Norman, 'Notes on ARCIC III' (unpublished paper, 1999), pp. 1-3. 13. The Gift ofAuthority, p. 14.

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who became flesh and dwelt among us is at the centre of what was transmitted from the beginning and what will be transmitted until the end.' Here, it would appear, rests the remainder of the argument. As such, its characteristics should be outlined in greater detail.14 Critically, the substance of Tradition does not change, but is (re-)received selectively for particular purposes: Tradition makes the witness of the apostolic community present in the Church today through its corporate memory. Through the proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the sacraments the Holy Spirit opens the hearts of believers and manifests the Risen Lord to them. The Spirit, active in the once for all events of the ministry of Jesus, continues to teach the Church, bringing to remembrance what Christ did and said, making present the fruits of his redemptive work and the foretaste of the kingdom (cf. John 2.22; 14.26). The purpose of Tradition is fulfilled when, through the Spirit, the Word is received and lived out in faith and hope. The witness of proclamation, sacraments and life in communion is at one and the same time the content of tradition and its result. Thus memory bears fruit in the faithful life of believers within the communion of their local church.

Norman's reflections on this type of theological musing illuminate the principal ecclesial problem: 'the ecclesiology described here is not primarily concerned with the concrete church, in our empirical and temporal world'. 16 The assumption in The Gift of Authority is that a doctrinal proposition (the idea of church) is formative and prescriptive of the concrete church. Truth comes from above a priori; it does not arise from below a posteriori. In other words, the thesis directs the facts. As such, this ecclesiology cannot itself be demonstrated to be true by testing it with the facts of Christian life and liturgy. The method used to settle the question of the church is an appeal to authority rather than persuasive theological argument. In an interesting circularity, the authority of Tradition is therefore established with an appeal to authority—and little else. The best we can say here is that method reflects content. At worst, we can say that what we are presented with is a hermetically sealed ecclesiology or ideology that bears little relation to socio-ecclesial reality. The concerns of Sinclair and Gomez in their volume are, at first sight, quite different. They write against a background of apprehension relating to church discipline, and are especially anxious about the alleged irregu14. The Gift ofAuthority, pp. 14, 17, 20-26. 15. The Gift ofAuthority, p. 18. 16. Norman, 'Notes', p. 4. Witness the argument from silence in paragraph 24.

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larities of North American Anglicanism (ECUSA), which is often caught up in controversy on matters relating to gender or sexuality. The authors state that the purpose of their book is to offer a response to a crisis in the Anglican Communion in respect of its authority, coherence and integrity: In the Gospel account, the sons of Zebedee were mending fishing nets when Jesus called them to follow him. A net forms part of the imagery Jesus used in his teaching on the Kingdom...but nets can be torn. This book is an attempt on the part of a team of bishops and scholars to address the problem of a tear in the fabric of the Anglican Communion. If not mended in time the tear can get worse... Central to the purpose of this book is the presentation of a proposal for the exercise of the enhanced responsibility that successive Lambeth Conferences have asked the Primates Meeting to fulfil. The Primates are not singled out as the only instrument of unity nor with the idea that they have a monopoly of responsibility or authority. Rather it is because their meeting provides an authoritative and intimate centre, in touch with the full circle of Anglican membership across the world. The proposal challenges some approaches to the practice of provincial autonomy. It contemplates more active decision making at international level: even hard decisions.

17

It is interesting to note how the rhetoric used here is already shaping an ecclesial narrative. Nets are full of holes, and one of their virtues is that they let things in and let things out. The Anglican Communion, which might be favourably compared to a net, with all that this implies about resilience, in terms of flexibility, strength, space, connectedness, resistance and accommodation, is now being described as something that has 'the problem of a tear in the fabric'. (Where has 'fabric' suddenly come from?) The authors are re-telling a story about a weak and fragile Communion that cannot accommodate too much diversity, and re-imaging the 'net' metaphor as they write. Stranger still is the conflation between the Gospel stories that involve nets, and the attempt to use the image in a persuasive, positive and prescriptive manner. In Mt. 4.18-22, Jesus calls the disciples away from their nets. Sinclair and Gomez seem to be implying that the Primates should return to them. In Mt. 13.47-50, the image of the net is used in the context of eschatology and judgment. The net will catch both good and bad alike, and then the angels will separate the catch, throwing the unrighteous into hell. Yet the net of Sinclair and Gomez only seems to have caught Christians. In John 21.1-14, a re-enactment of the first call of the disciples elicits a catch of 153 fish, 'yet even with so many, the net was not torn'. Yet

17. Gomez and Sinclair (eds.), To Mend the Net, p. 9.

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the net of Gomez and Sinclair can be torn, and appears to show little sign of the strength and elasticity that the Gospel writer had in mind for the church and the kingdom of God. Perhaps more disturbingly, the metaphor ignores the fact that nets are woven for the purposes of trapping, hunting and ensnaring. Sinclair and Gomez, quite unconsciously, I'm sure, use a violent metaphor (with implied threats) in the interests of maintaining the Communion, with the Primates arguably casting themselves as the fishermen, and the laity and clergy as the fish. The totality of the metaphor, used in this way, is hardly flattering for anyone who isn't a Primate. Moreover, the suggestion that Primates themselves somehow hold the net together is itself a peculiar construction of reality that ultimately disempowers the laity, the liturgy, the commonality of faith and more besides, and ultimately does no favours to the net either. It is important to understand that documents like To Mend the Net have evolved out of a sense of frustration within conservative Anglican traditions. There is anger at the ordination of practising homosexuals and lesbians, the remarriage of divorcees, 'homosexual marriages', the consecration of women as bishops, and a range of other issues that are held to be corrosive of Anglican identity. Sinclair and Gomez genuinely believe that such practices inhibit the mission of the church, and prevent it from being a viable counter-culture. 18 Furthermore, they have reservations about the concept of dispersed authority, enshrined at the 1948 Lambeth Conference. Again, Sinclair and Gomez are concerned about the confusion between structures of authority and sources of authority, between process and politics. Dispersed authority is inevitably characterized as weak, rendering the episcopal task of oversight and the exercise of authority in matters of faith and order problematic. Correspondingly, Sinclair and Gomez propose a more enhanced role for the Primates and for the Archbishop of Canterbury, which would give guidance on 'doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters' and, 'while positively affirming the comprehensive nature of Anglicanism... exercise a responsibility to specify the limits of Anglican diversity', including the power to intervene in provinces where necessary.19 The foundations for the emerging ecclesiology are complex. A number of recent statements about the church have tended to Platonize the koinonia of the church 18. However, recent empirical work does not support their assertion. See C. Dudley and D. Roozen, Faith Communities Today: A Report on Religion in the USA (Hartford, CT: Hartford Institute for Religion Research, 2001). 19. Gomez and Sinclair (eds.), To Mend the Net, p. 21.

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(concrete reality), identifying it as a parallel reflection of the koinonia of the Holy Trinity (ideal form).20 Correspondingly, a deep, integrated and ultimately harmonious ecclesial life becomes 'deified', since the life of the church must reflect the inner life of the Trinity. Yet the effect of this is ironic, for it demonizes all conflict and division as inimical to the life of the church. Cultural and theological diversity, partiality and incompleteness are cast as ultimate impairments within a Communion, whereas they may be strengths.21 Inevitably, the agenda of Sinclair and Gomez raises important questions about the gospel in relation to cultural diversity. The authors are presumably unhappy about some dioceses explicitly rejecting, for example, the Lambeth Conference Resolution on Human Sexuality (1998), and either tolerating or promoting the ordination of practising homosexuals: they believe this impairs communion, or has perhaps already broken the net. Their response is to clarify and intensify episcopal authority, in order to be able to proscribe the 'true' church from those 'in error'. To be sure, the question of how to maintain communion amidst considerable cultural and theological diversity is complex. Anglicanism is spread over 50 countries, 36 provinces and hundreds of dioceses. Proscribing the 'limits' of diversity will be problematic, to say the least. Moreover, a further debate that lies behind To Mend the Net is the contested nature of Anglican resilience, and here again we return to the familiar division between those who stress accommodation in the cause of the church and its mission, and those who stress resistance to culture. This problem is compounded by there being no agreement on what constitutes 'fundamentals' in certain areas of debate, a wide body of opinion on what 'core doctrine' might be, and no agreement on the ordering of the hierarchy of truths. For some, attitudes to homosexuality have become a litmus test of orthodoxy; for others, the issue is peripheral. What, then, are the connections between The Gift of Authority and To Mend the Net? There are several, but three brief points will suffice. First, both attempt to intensify episcopal power as an instrument of unity, and as a guarantor of authority and identity. Secondly, both attempt to re-define and clarify the nature of episcopacy in order to achieve unity. Thirdly, both exhibit a marked lack of tolerance towards cultural and theological diversity, and therefore see the guarantee of ongoing ecclesial resilience 20. See the discussion of the Virginia Report (1995) in Gomez and Sinclair (eds.), To Mend the Net, p. 11. 21. See N . Sagovsky, Christian Origins and the Practice of Ecumenism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

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being largely achieved through a strategy of resistance rather than accommodation. Thus, the approach to mission and ministry within contemporary culture is now held to depend on re-defining the ministry of the church to combat the moral milieu that it experiences within itself. In view of these remarks, we now turn to a more in-depth discussion of Anglican ecclesiology and its Tit' with the two reports in question. Anglicanism and Ecclesiology In Stephen Platten's recent Augustine's Legacy: Authority and Leadership in the Anglican Communion22, the author offers a significant and scholarly reflection on the nature of Anglican identity upon the occasion of the fourteen hundredth anniversary of Augustine's arrival at Canterbury. How the story of Anglicanism is told varies according to where the author is standing. Platten stands within a tradition that is broad, respectful of the past, yet looking forward. His principal concern is to address the nature of Anglican authority, and its relationship to individual freedom, place and the wider Christian context. As with many studies on Anglican polity, Platten's narration of the history of the Communion is the vehicle for theological reflection, and provides the reader with a step-by-step ecclesiology. It is simple, but effective: Anglicans have been engaging in this type of apologia for centuries. Thus, we have chapters on the local and universal, the model of commonwealth, authority (naturally), and communion. Amongst the best work here is the suggestion that Anglicanism is moving from an appreciation of the Archbishop of Canterbury as Primus inter pares to new federalism of Primates inter pares. This is presumably the next phase in ecclesiological subsidiarity for Anglicans, yet with the Chair of St Augustine remaining a symbolic focus. In offering this model, Platten sounds a note of caution against too much centralized power, or any attempt to transform the office of Archbishop of Canterbury into a pale shadow of the Papacy. It is no surprise to see interdependence advocated as the successor to autonomy, and that the inductive theological model (with its capacity for cultural and theological particularity) is singled out for praise.23 The thesis of The Gift of Authority and To Mend the Net sits uneasily with 22. S. Platten, Augustine's Legacy: Authority and Leadership in the Anglican Communion (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1997). 23. See P. Berger, The Heretical Imperative (New York: Collins, 1984), for a fuller discussion of the inductive theological strategy.

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the kind of Anglicanism described by Platten, one in which it is difficult to identify confessional documents that describe core beliefs. The Church of England is a catholic and Reformed church that includes Anglo-Catholics, conservative evangelicals, liberals—and many who don't aspire to any of these labels. As a church, it has traditionally practised its authority through a trilateral of Scripture, tradition and reason, which has increasingly become a quadrilateral, encompassing culture (or experience), to take account of the Communion as a commonwealth that encircles considerable cultural diversity. Authority, as such, is often uneasily balanced. There is diversity within Communion, with no strong centralized authority to enforce dogma. The Anglican Communion glories (perhaps a little uneasily at times?) in limited doctrinal liberty and liability. As a church, it is best understood as a method—a way of apprehending and comprehending, of looking—rather than the ownership of any essence. Indeed, one could go further here, and say (following Hooker and others) that means are often more important than ends to Anglicans. Anglicanism is a peculiar schooling in manners—learning how to agree and disagree with one another, while remaining in deep communion. The 'centre' of Anglicanism is seldom found in doctrine, but, rather, in the manner in which that doctrine is held. As Paul Avis notes: interpreters of Anglicanism are sometimes compelled to resort to an appeal to its spirit or 'ethos'. This necessity is often regarded as the Achilles heel of Anglicanism, especially by those- Anglicans or Roman Catholics as the case may be—who require a cut-and-dried propositional statement of Christian truth. But to those who hold to a 'personalist' understanding of truth as a reality that is open to discovery through praxis rather than theory, through Christian life and liturgy, it is certainly not something to be defensive about...Fundamental differences there are—but the apparently insuperable ones are not of a doctrinal nature. There are differences of 'horizon', of ultimate assumptions regarding the approach to truth and the methods, norms and sources of theology.

In short, Anglicanism recognizes that 'a theological question can only be settled by theological work, and not by appeal to authority, in the form of either the magisterium or the consensus jidei, that would short-cut the process of truth-seeking and enquiry'.25 What Anglicans mean by the term 'authority' is naturally different what Roman Catholics mean by it. This is 24. P. Avis, Ecumenical Theology and the Elusiveness of Doctrine (London: SPCK, 1986), pp. x-xii. 25. Avis, Ecumenical Theology, p. 77.

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because what Anglicans mean by truth is different to what Roman Catholics mean by truth. It is probable that the essential underlying methodological difference here is an expression of the difference between British empiricism (with an inbuilt regard for scepticism) and Continental idealism.26 For example, empiricism rooted in English spirituality tends to recognize (or even glory in) the limits of human discourse. Miles Smith, Bishop of Gloucester in 1612-24, puts it well: 'Man hath but a shallow sound, and a short reach, and dealeth only by probabilities and likelyhoods.' Norman makes two points in relation to this. First, there is a danger of building on unresolved theological disputes, and ignoring quite distinctive and different theological cultures—something that The Gift of Authority seems consistently to overlook. For example, the claim that Tradition is eschatologically completed, leading, in turn, to the assumption that the episcopate, at all times, possesses the entirety of Tradition, sounds a little odd to Anglican ears. So too does a phrase such as 'the charism and function of episcope are specifically connected to the ministry of memory... Through such ministry the Holy Spirit keeps alive in the Church the memory of what God did and revealed.'27 Again, Anglicans would be surprised by the notion, that the bishops, acting collegially over time and space, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are infallible, and part of a church that is spoken of as 'indefectible'; and that their judgment is preserved from error because it is an aspect of the eternal, static indefectibility of Tradition (i.e., the ontological incorruptibility of something that is eschatologically complete is expressed in the infallibility of the bishops). The point of this language is to establish a foundation: because the bishops guard the Tradition (which is complete), their judgment must necessarily be complete if they are to fulfil the function of episcope. But how 'Anglican' is this, exactly? Such political patois, even in the Church of England, is utterly foreign.28 Secondly, Norman shows that further difficulties arise from this. Primacy is presented as a particular expression of the ministry of episcope, which in turn reflects and interprets the censusfidelium.29In summary, the argument is informed by its methodological presumptions about the quality of Truth. Thus, for example, Truth is assumed to be single, static, and universal: not plural, dynamic and particular. So, The Gift of Authority displays 26. 27. 28. 29.

Norman, 'Notes', pp. 3-5. The Gift ofAuthority, p. 30. The Gift ofAuthority, p. 42. Cf. Norman, 'Notes', pp. 4-5. The Gift ofAuthority, pp. 45-47.

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what may be described as an idealistic, theoretical ecclesiology 'from above'—a form of serious fiction? Methodologically, it assumes that the task of theology is to seek to understand a conceptual revelation of informative propositions that describe an objective Truth. 30 It assumes that 'appeal to a detailed magisterium is the best way of sifting truth from falsity'.31 This is undoubtedly a coherent Roman Catholic ecclesiology and a clear theological exposition of authority.32 However, it is not easy to see how this particular 'gift' could be understood or accepted within the wider Church of England, without, for example, Article 37 of the 39 Articles rearing its ugly (but important) nationalist head.33 What, then, does this discussion mean for To Mend the Net? Several points need making. First, enhanced responsibility for the Primates would need defining and clarifying. How would that authority be mediated in churches, especially in the case of the Church of England, which is established by law? Secondly, although complaints may be made about ECUSA's failure to discipline a variety of alleged deviances (by individuals or in practices), and its toleration of more liberal theological and ecclesial practices, this is not so much a matter of material heresy as it is of canonical negligence. The instruments for dealing with deviation from doctrine or prescribed ecclesial practice exist in every Anglican Province and are posited in Canon Law, so it is hard to see what extra weight the Primates could bring by attempting to intervene in individual Provinces. Thirdly, individuals or Provinces can surely only be excluded from Communion if they dissent from the historic formularies of faith, such as the Trinitarian formulae in baptism, the requirement to have an ordained person presiding at the Eucharist, or Scripture and tradition as the basis for faith. Having said that, the Church of England has no formal method for excommunicating individuals or groups. The shape of Anglicanism is (and nearly always has been) flexible and accommodationist in ethos.

30. Cf. G. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), p. 16. 31. J. Macquarrie, 'Structures for Unity', in M. Santer (ed.), Their Lord and Ours: Approaches to Authority, Community and the Unity of the Church (London: SPCK, 1982), p. 119. 32. Norman, 'Notes', p. 4. 33. Although we should note that the petition to be delivered from 'the tyranny of Rome and all his detestable enormities', included in the Litany of the 1549 Prayer Book, did not survive the Elizabethan Settlement. Equally, it is clear that the Pope does have some jurisdiction in England, and that Article 37 should not be read literally.

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Culture, Context and Ecclesial Power In the context of any serious dispute, finding the right words to reach a political settlement is never an easy task. Words must be found that form the basis of an agreement, even if it is clear to both sides that they mean slightly different things in using the same words. Equally, the architects of such political settlements must be sure that the basis of agreement is acceptable at grassroots level—that where the politicians can agree, so might the people. The real difficulty with documents such as To Mend the Net and The Gift ofAuthority, as I have hinted throughout, is that although a form of laudable, top-level ecclesial consensus has been reached, it has been done without wider consent and grassroots support. This might not matter a jot in the Roman Catholic Church; but it is a more serious issue for Anglicans. Besides this, the Church of England is a special case within the Anglican Communion. It is an established church, and this places it under particular constraints, as well as affording it opportunities through a binding to certain obligations.34 Within the Church of England, it has become fashionable (recently) to emphasize the gift of a threefold order of ministry to the church: deacons, priests and bishops. This is a Petrine (rather than Pauline) theory of power: authority continues to flow —through lawful succession—originating from those whom Jesus anointed or ordained. This is undoubtedly a gift, to be sure. But to imagine that authority within the Church of England resides solely within these orders is to ignore the complex reality of an established church. The Queen is the supreme governor of the church—she is a laywoman. The Prime Minister has a role in key ecclesiastical appointments—he is a layman. Major legislation affecting the church must pass through the House of Commons: it is that 'house of laity', for example, that finally approves measures to ordain women. The people's voice has a decisive role in the people's church. The bishops may lead, but it is ultimately up to the elected representatives of the people (Members of Parliament in this case) to give their consent. Furthermore, it remains the case that many laity continue to act as patrons for livings, and can appoint priests to livings against the wishes of a diocesan bishop. Moreover, part of the Church of England's synodality is a General Synod (not a sacred one, or one simply composed of prelates)—a mixture of laity and clerks in holy orders. Even the newly formed 34. See M. Kennedy, 'A Paper for the Armagh Clerical Union', September 1999.

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Archbishops' Council includes lay representation. Somewhere between Erastianism and Catholicism lies the Church of England: the via media. The actual construction of the Church of England reflects another kind of catholicity, one that seeks to be a synthesis between lay and clerical power, faith and doubt, catholic and evangelical, liberal and conservative. Characteristically, this often leads to a church that is riddled with ambiguity, and is therefore instinctively suspicious of the 'gifts' of authority (whether centralized or symbolic, it is apparently capable of being absolute) and certainty which To Mend the Net and The Gift of Authority seem to offer. The Church of England is still, legally, the people's church. As a synthesis, it necessarily unites thesis and antithesis. Against this, it is hard to see under what conditions or in what situations the Church of England could deem the authority of the Pope (or of a group of Primates) to be greater than that which it already is, or regard that authority as 'indefectable'. The very character of English religion—established in law—suggests that any 'gift' of authority will be perceived and received quite differently in the Home Counties than in the cloisters of Rome or the offices of Traditionalist Anglicans in Texas. So, The Gift of Authority fails to be effectively ecumenical, because it glosses over the substantial (theological) and real (cultural) differences that remain between Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism. For example, section 61 of The Gift of Authority talks about 'a universal primacy of this style' that 'will welcome and protect theological enquiry and other forms of the search for truth'. The use of the word style here is curious, for it is personal and transient, not morphologically certain; different Popes have different styles—whose style is meant, exactly? And who says that theological enquiry needs protecting—from what, and by whom? Anglican theology could almost be said to begin by not being controlled or constrained in the same way that Roman Catholic theology may be: the very idea of an Anglican dogmatics is almost a contradiction in terms. The matter of obedience in relation to authority is also problematic. The Papal Encyclical of Pope Pius XI (1922) describes part of the priestly character as 'an obedience that binds all ranks into the harmony of the Church's hierarchy'. This form of authority is quite alien to an established church in which parish priests may enjoy the right of freehold. It remains the case that power is peculiarly dispersed in the Church of England, and that its distribution and control are tied up not in the absolute authority of

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a bishop, but in legislation and constitution. A further problem with the glossy rhetoric in The Gift of Authority arises out of its treatment of recognition and reception. The ApostoUcae Curae of 1896, in which Pope Leo XIII declared that 'ordinations performed according to the Anglican rite have been and are completely null and void' remains in force. Despite the encouraging narration of convergence that is present in The Gift of Authority, it remains the case that the document asks Anglican bishops to recognize the symbolic primacy of the Pope, while the validity of their own ordinations is, officially, denied by the same.36 Presumably, if the Church of England or Anglican Communion were allowed to choose which gifts it received from the Roman Catholic Church, recognition and reception might be higher on the list than partially buying into its ideology of authority. Then again, perhaps some peaceable clarification of Pope Leo's statement might be welcome, as a precursor to the reception of authority. Without the obstacle of non-reception and nonrecognition being removed, the price for the Church of England in accepting the 'gift' contained within The Gift of Authority is far too high.37 Indeed, does not the donor of the gift ultimately gain more than the recipient? In the act of giving, has not more been taken? So to the question: can a gift (of authority) be given? It would seem that such a gift could be offered to the Church of England, and to Anglicanism more widely, but it is likely that the gift itself, if received at all, would be heavily adapted. Indeed, the gift—if it is truly a gift—might be transformed by the receiver beyond recognition, discarded at will, or possibly rejected in the first instance. But it is not that kind of gift, is it? The right to use and interpret the gift, no matter how well ARCIC functions, will most likely remain within the power of the original donor. Graham Neville neatly 35. See N . Doe, The Legal Framework of the Church of England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), ch. 3. Cf. S. Sykes, 'Power in the Church of England', Concilium 197 (April 1988), pp. 123-31. 36. Cultural differences in Roman Catholicism should again be noted. Anglican priests from the Diocese of Lincoln (including women) have been known to concelebrate the Eucharist, for example, with a Roman Catholic bishop at his cathedral in Belgium. In England, those same Anglican priests would normally be excluded even from receiving at a Mass. 37. O n the question of eucharistic hospitality, see the correspondence between Cardinal Basil Hume and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on whether or not Blair should be allowed to receive communion with his family at his local Roman Catholic church, even though he is an Anglican. See J. Rentoul, Tony Blair: Prime Minister (London: Little, Brown & Co., 2001).

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narrates the concrete reality of the Church of England (through social history), rather than some meta-ideological ecclesiology. In so doing, he summarizes the true dilemma for the authors of The Gift of Authority and To Mend the Net in these words: The average English Christian (which is to say, the average lay person) seems always to have taken an eclectic approach in matters of belief. Perhaps that is due to the historical experience of the English people in the turmoil of the Reformation period. Today, most church-going members of the Church of England are lukewarm about apostolic succession, but look for reverence in worship. They reject the notion of a collectivist society, but believe that their life in the secular world is the proper place to work out their discipleship. They accept the need for open-mindedness in interpreting and even criticising the scriptures and formularies of religion, but continue to reverence the Bible and to accept the historic creeds, whatever private reservations they may feel about a faith once delivered to the saints and hence immutable.

While English religion continues to remain at least something like that which Neville describes, it is hard to see how the notions of gift, leadership and authority that are described in The Gift ofAuthority and To Mend the Net will be understood or accepted by the wider body of the Church of England, or the English themselves who are notoriously squeamish about ceding power (whether ecclesiastical or political) abroad. If the nature of the gifts themselves is in question, and there is a suspicion that the gift is partly an imposition, it cannot be really given, let alone truly and wholeheartedly accepted. Money and Power We have observed that part of the episcopal response to cultural and theological pluralism is an attempt to reconfigure power within the church, and to re-route the lines of authority through the episcopate itself, where it is also claimed that authority resides. However, as I indicated at the beginning, there are signs that other powers are at work in the church, especially though synodical government. Although the Church of England is Catholic, it is also Reformed, and this has always delivered a measure of power to the laity and to localities that is not easily countered. Consider, for example, this description of an eighteenth-century father's hope for a career in the church for his second son: 38. Neville, Radical Churchman, p. 14.

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Dr Darwin, a confirmed freethinker, was sensible and shrewd. He had only to look around him, recall the vicarages he had visited, and ponder the country parsons he entertained at home. One did not have to be a believer to see that an aimless son with a penchant for field sports would fit in nicely. Was the Church not a haven for dullards and dawdlers, the last resort of spendthrifts? What calling but the highest for those whose sense of calling was nil? And in what other profession were the risks of failure so low and the rewards so high? The Anglican Church, fat, complacent, and corrupt, lived luxuriously on its tithes and endowments, as it had for a century. Desirable parishes were routinely auctioned off to the highest bidder. A fine rural 'living' with a commodious rectory, a few acres to rent or farm, and perhaps a tithe barn to hold the local levy worth hundreds of pounds a year could easily be bought as an investment by a gentleman... .

Times have, however, changed. The wealth of previous centuries has all but gone, and clerical stipends are now rationalized and equalized. But perhaps more significantly, parishes (or rather congregations) within the Church of England are now being made to shoulder the burden of responsibility for funding local ministry in new ways. With that responsibility comes the gradual accrual of power, of which the laity are increasingly conscious of. As we shall now see, this may have a profound effect on the contours of power within the church, which in turn may ameliorate the emerging theologies of episcopacy and primacy that have so far been discussed. First though, it will be necessary to provide some background information that will help with the exploration.40 In the Church of England, each diocese has its own method for collecting quotas or payments from parishes, which in turn are used to pay the stipends of the clergy within that diocese, as well as to finance any necessary diocesan infrastructure. The post-war years have seen a rapid decline in the amount of income provided from central sources (i.e. the Church Commissioners) to individual dioceses, with the responsibility for financing being increasingly devolved to the dioceses, who in turn have passed on that burden to the parishes. The Church Commissioners are one of the largest landowners in the country, and their assets are currently

39. A. Desmond and J. Moore, Darwin (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1991), p. 47. 40. Although we are mainly considering the Church of England here, there are several useful studies that deal with North America. See especially L. Mead, The Once and the Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier (Washington: The Alban Institute, 1991).

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estimated to be worth £4,400 million.41 Much of the income derived from these is engaged in funding the pensions of clergy. Even as late as 1975, many dioceses within the Church of England had all the pension contributions of their clergy met from central sources, and up to three quarters of the actual stipend. By the year 2000, that situation had almost reversed, leaving individual dioceses with the bills to pay the stipends and most of the pension contributions. However, it is not a level playing field when it comes to dioceses meeting these new demands. Of the 43 dioceses42 in the Church of England, some have considerable historic financial resources, while others do not. In order to flesh out the contours of the dilemma a little more, it is perhaps useful to offer a comparison between two very different dioceses. I have anonymized these dioceses in the discussion that follows, calling the diocese pseudonyms from the Province of Canterbury 'Southbury', and the diocese from the Province of York 'Northfield'. However, the figures quoted are based on two actual dioceses.43 Southbury Diocese is close to London, and is mainly suburban in character. There are 1.8 million people living in the diocese, with the average Sunday attendance being in the region of 36,000 people per week, representing 22 people out of every 1000. The diocese enjoys an annual income of almost £10 million per year, with individuals contributing an average of £4 per week. There are sufficient historical resources to provide almost £2 million per year towards the £10 million cost of running the diocese. Northfield Diocese couldn't be more different. Created in the twentieth century and in the North of England, it is primarily urban, the region having suffered substantially from its loss of industries in the post-war years and a subsequent rise in unemployment. There are 1.2 million people living in the diocese, but weekly church attendance is almost half that of Southbury. Only 19,000 people attend church each week, which is about 16 people per 1000. Furthermore, the diocese of Northfield has almost no reserves or assets to generate income, 44 and is therefore heavily dependent

41. Report: The Church Commissioner's Accounts for 1999 (London: Church Commissioners, 2000). 42. This figure excludes the Diocese of Europe/Gibraltar. 43. Readers interested in further comparisons can refer to the statistics published annually in The Church of England Year Book (London: Church House Publishing). These figures have been drawn from those published between 1996 and 2000. 44. It manages to produce about £600,000 per year—less than a third of the sum that Southbury Diocese produces.

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on the weekly giving of those who are on the electoral roll or part of parochial stewardship schemes. As in the diocese of Southbury, the average weekly giving is £4 per individual per week; this helps produce an annual income of £5 million per year—half of the sum that Southbury can generate and spend. The lack of parity between the two dioceses has some profound effects on the ways in which they operate. Generally, Southbury has sufficient monetary resources to fund a deeper and richer diocesan infrastructure than Northfield. There are proportionally more clergy in Southbury than in Northfield, in spite of the populations being served only differing by 600,000.45 Yet the average weekly giving per member across both dioceses is virtually identical. However, Northfield, which has high rates of unemployment and a lower standard of living, is giving proportionally more from itself and getting proportionally less for its £4 per week per 'member' than Southbury. Furthermore, the two dioceses collect their money from parishes in quite different ways. In the diocese of Southbury, the individual parish quotas are worked out using a complex formula. The demographics of the parish are taken into account, the annual giving of the congregation noted, 'potential' analyzed, and the numbers attending each week also borne in mind. This type allows Southbury to operate with a sophisticated method of assessment when it comes to calculating the 'worth' of each parish, and then to identify those parishes that need subsidizing or other kinds of financial help. The diocese of Northfield, in contrast, simply bases its quota calculations on recurring income. The effect of this is that growing parishes in Northfield—more people usually means more income—pay more towards central funds and general ministerial subsidies, while the struggling parishes pay less and less. This might sound 'fair', but the effect is to penalize any growth, and to create a culture in which there is no incentive to change or thrive. Correspondingly, only 30 per cent of Northfield's parishes collect enough money to cover their ministerial costs: 70 per cent of parishes require a diocesan subsidy.46 45. 280 clergy in Southbury Diocese, 190 clergy in Northfield Diocese. 46. This means that the small band of financially solvent parishes have to provide far more income per head per week than the diocesan average. At a parish church near to me, individuals give an average of almost £10 per week, of which the diocese claims almost 85 per cent to fund fewer central costs and subsidize poorer parishes. These figures, when broken down even more, reveal 102 weekly donors who give a total of almost £40,000 per year. O f these 102, 67 are retired. Just over 50 per cent of the income comes from 25

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The changes in the financing of Church of England parishes since the 1980s have led to a profound cultural shift in parochial and ministerial selfunderstanding.47 Increasingly, it is the congregations who are now paying directly for 'their' parish priest, and correspondingly they are becoming more demanding of their ministers. The move away from the centralized funding of ministry to local funding can be likened to asking local political parties or individual constituencies to provide the funds to pay for their Member of Parliament. It does not take very long for those who engage in such benefaction to begin to exercise the power that accrues to them through financial giving. Thus, an MP might count it a privilege to be invited to serve as a junior minister in government while also sitting as an MP, but the local party or constituency could easily veto the invitation, arguing that this means they will get less value for their money, even though they might gain a degree of prestige by the elevation of their MP. Similarly, it is already becoming difficult for some dioceses to fill a range of voluntary or advisory posts, because congregations (as distinct from parishes) are demanding that they get some value for their contributions first, which are of course given voluntarily.48 So the gradual changes in funding may have led to a rather ironic result: power in the church is beginning to be delivered to the laity, because the leadership of the church are, in effect, making congregations 'own' their local ministry.49 The changes in these contours of power and in the culture of ministry are only just beginning to emerge, but it would be reasonable to assume that the revolution will be relatively profound within a decade or two. The financial policies of the Church Commissioners in respect of their relation to parish support are creating a creeping Congregationalism within the Church of England.50 Parish ministry, a bold feature of the people (giving almost £16 per week), of whom 16 are retired. 47. See R. Harden, 'Church of England: In the Red and Using U p Reserves', Church Times (16 February 2001), p. 1: 'during the past ten years...the total diocesan share from the Church Commissioners has dropped from £50 million to £15 million [per year]'. 48. The Victorians built a number of churches by levying local taxes on the entire population of the parish. When payment of the church rate was abolished in 1868, it led to the present anomaly of all residents having the right to use their parish church, but only the congregation paying for the maintenance of the building. 49. Arguably, the rapid growth of Ordained Local Ministry fits within this paradigm. Parishes that can no longer afford to pay their quotas identify a priest from among themselves. The person is usually trained at a fraction of the cost for normal theological training, and when ordained does not usually receive a stipend. 50. Cf. the correspondence on this issue in Church Times (2 February 2001), p. 9.

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church's resilience throughout the ages, is being corroded by a set of accommodationist pecuniary rationales that effectively shape congregations into units of funding who in turn are educated into 'understanding' that it is their job to support their minister. In short, the danger of the policy is that it will lead to parish ministry being neglected in favour of congregational maintenance.51 Put more bluntly, an established religion can quickly collapse into being one unit within a plural denominationalism.52 Episcopal Leadership in a Postmodern Age Having considered The Gift of Authority and To Mend the Nets, this brief focus on finance may seem irrelevant and puzzling to some. Surely the issues they present are quite separate? Of course they are not, and to reflect on them in this way enables us to develop some 'practical-prophetic reflection upon the concrete church'. 53 The actual relationship between money and definitions of ecclesial power and episcopal authority represents the very horns of the dilemma I alluded to at the beginning of this chapter. On the one hand, the move towards creating greater powers (of leadership, intervention, centralization and the like) in the Episcopate (either through eliding Anglican episcopal models with those of Roman Catholicism, or talking up enhanced roles for colleges of bishops or the Primates) has spawned a culture in which episcopal authority is being simultaneously delimited and intensified. On the other hand, local lay power is being increasingly exercised through financial policies and rationales, which may then resist various forms of episcopal authority and ecclesial centralization. As financial responsibility is devolved from central sources to the local, so power flows and follows too. It is therefore not surprising to see that some bishops can be caught between these two horns. The increasingly pecuniary demands of diocesan life have the effect of taking some bishops away from their historic calling to be pastors, teachers and symbols of unity, and of moulding them into self-styled 'managing directors' of their dioceses, with one or two even

51. Within ECUSA, new churches (or 'mission parishes') can be established within communities using grants from central or diocesan resources. However, the new church normally has five years to become self-funding, after which central subsidies are withdrawn. 52. For a perspective from the USA, see W. Swatos, Into Denominationalism: The Anglican Metamorphosis (Storrs, C T : Society for the Scientific Study of Religion 1979). 53. Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life, p. 185 (emphasis mine).

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claiming the title quite boldly.54 The polarization creates, in short, something of an identity crisis. Is a bishop the chief pastor of the diocese or the chief executive? Or can he or she be both? Clearly, bishops must be, in some sense, the leaders of their dioceses. Yet their material leadership depends to a very large extent on the voluntary gifts of the laity, who are not in any necessary relationship of obedience or obligation to those bishops. Moreover, power also remains curiously and stubbornly dispersed within a diocese. For example, the powers of patronage often reside with lay bodies or societies both within and outside a diocese. Clergy that cease to be 'in communion' with their bishop are not easily removed.55 While it is true that a bishop carries a particular type and weight of authority within a diocese, that inevitably has more effect on the clergy and the diocesan employees than it does on the laity en masse. It may be the bishop's diocese, but the laity often perceive that they own an actual locality or parish. So the bishop must lead a diocese by consent, and for all the talk of an increasingly Catholicized model of episcopacy,56 in which the bishops define the church and its doctrines, and in effect rule over the laity, prescribing what is to be believed and practised, the power of the laity and of synodical government is also growing at the same time. The 'giffe-gaffe equation' of Hugh Latimer turns out to be remarkably apposite for today: church hierarchy and laity alike 'must follow gifts'. Given the delicate and reticulate power relations that now exist within the Church of England, and bearing in mind that professional ministry needs money and resources to continue, as well as some clear authority to shape it, how is a bishop to lead a diocese in a postmodern climate? As I have hinted throughout this chapter, episcopal leadership—at least within the Church of England—is unlikely to gain more gravitas through eliding the order of bishops with Roman Catholic theologies of episcopacy and authority, nor by re-defining collegiality or primacy in the interests of

54. See S. Walrond-Skinner, 'The Pastoral Priority of the Church', Modern Believing 42.4 (2001), pp. 4-12, and idem, 'Just Managing is not Good Enough', Church Times (2 February 2001), p. 15. 55. Witness the 1983 Pastoral Measure that does give dioceses the power to merge parishes, but also provides for the rights of protesting parishes to appeal all the way to the Privy Council. This Pastoral Measure, however, had to be approved by the General Synod to take effect. See Doe, Legal Framework. 56. Cf. Bishops in Communion: Collegiality in the Service of the Koinonia of the Church (London: Church House Publishing, 2000).

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promoting authority and maintaining ecclesial faith and order. Furthermore, the Church of England itself is a curious animal when it comes to leadership. Most dioceses still operate more like mediaeval courts than efficient and rational organizations. Many decisions and appointments are still made through a courtly culture of anecdotage, not because of empirical work or research. Patronage, courtiers and kyriearchical leadership remain strong features of ecclesial life, even within the most modernized dioceses.57 Thus, a diocese is not an organization in the sense in which most people understand that term. People do not come to church on Sundays to be rationalized in the same way that they are from Monday to Friday: 'church' is not 'work'. A diocese is, rather, an antidote to organization, being capacious in its breadth and its lack of rationalizing infrastructures. It is a place to be. A diocese is partly an accommodation to prevailing and previous cultures, and partly a counter-culture. Clergy are 'professionals', but not in the sharply defined and aggressively policed way that most professions might be managed. There is a world of difference between being part of a professional organization, and fulfilling a vocation in a professional manner, in which there is some degree of accountability. So, three brief and final points need making. First, the prioritizing of pastoral work over the managerial is an essential task for the church.58 Pastoralia is just about the only 'professional' expertise that any diocese can offer, and the reputation of the church will primarily be judged on the quality of care it offers to its clergy and congregations. No matter how well structured or managed a diocese is, the pastoral life and its tasks are fundamental to clerical and ecclesial identity. To an extent, the ordained ministry requires an informed freedom that is sufficient to seek out the signs of (often unpredictable) new life in the Spirit, rather than efficiency or rationality. 57. In this sense, we might note Walter Brueggemann's perceptive critique of North American religion: 'the contemporary American church is so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or act...our consciousness has been claimed by false fields of perception and idolatrous systems of language and rhetoric' (The Prophetic Imagination, p. 11). Brueggemann sees the prophetic cry as one of pain, protest and pity directed against a church that is in the thrall of consumerism. If we were to turn Brueggemann's critique towards the Church of England, a practical-prophetic reading of contemporary Anglicanism might suggest that reverence for hierarchy occupies the space that consumerism fills in American churches, and can similarly prevent it from believing and acting. 58. For a fuller perspective, see Percy and Evans, Managing the Church?.

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Secondly, caring for the local and particular places within a diocese—the parishes and people beyond the church—is no less vital. This requires a deliberate, deep and rigorous engagement with society, and in all probability a refusal to adopt a culture that demands strategies, mission statements, audits and the like. As Michael Bardsley puts it in his satirical but prescient work on ministry: the Church urgently needs its bishops to be unhurried Fathers in God, planets with staid and predictable orbits. Reforms and adjustments are essential if a bishop is no longer to be a comet which occasionally flashes through the firmament, leaving behind a trail of clergy instituted and adolescents confirmed... .

Thirdly, bishops lead as shepherds, and their lives must be, as far as possible, an expression of the life of Christ. Dioceses do not serve programmes. They serve the person of Christ, and the task of a bishop must remain, principally, to be the servant of the servants, a disciple among disciples, and a leader by example, not executive authority: in short, an icon of Christ, the truest symbols of episcopal authority can be some water and a towel (Jn 13.1-21). I recall a much-loved bishop being introduced to an audience with these words, shortly before opening a new centre in his diocese: 'The bishop has only one ambition—to be remembered as a man of God'.

59. M. Bardsley, How to Become Archbishop (London: Anthony Blond, 1963), p. 129.

Chapter 15 Christ and Culture: The Development of Doctrine and the Meaning of Mission

Ahm reight 'appy cos God's looked after mi He remembered poar little me. Na' then, everybodies gunna say ahm blest Cus a't good things God's dun for mi An is name's right olay. He looks after them that's sceered on 'im from great grammas an grandads down t' babbys. He's reight strong, purrin t' wind up haughty so an sos An even shiftin kings offen ther thrones an all While geerin poor folk a lift. He's gen grub to t' hungry and tode rich ter get lost. He's done what he tode oad uns he's do. An he's looked after Israel wat looked out forrim. He remembered to luk after Abraham and is kids an all, Just like he said he'd do.

Christology might seem like a strange place at which to conclude a book on religious resilience in a secular age. After all, isn't Christology only for theologians and clued-up believers? Surely it is a core area of doctrine for the church, and something that contemporary culture has little interest in? In an apparently secular age, is it not arrogant, wishful and naive to assume that talk of Christ, let alone an understanding of who he is, can make any sense in today's world? In a pluralist and inclusivist world, why attend to such an apparently exclusivist and divisive concept? Yet throughout this book, I have been arguing that many core religious ideas, images, values and motifs have become part of the 'cultural furniture' of society. If Christianity is the religion of incarnation, then Christology must, in some 1. Graham White, 'Mary's Song of Praise', an unpublished version of the Magnificat (Lk. 1.46-55) in South Yorkshire dialect.

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sense, reflect the resilience of God. Like the phrase 'salt of the earth' itself, religion has been engaged in a constant and dynamic process of selfexpenditure, shaping and replenishing cultures, even as it is enriched by that same engagement. I have argued that religion, especially with Christianity in mind, possesses the capacity to be resilient within modernity, both resisting and accommodating contemporary culture in dynamic interrelationality. Like the salt of Jesus' metaphor, faith absorbs culture, and is also absorbed by it; dug into society, religion is not easily separated from it, save in the secular mindset. While the chapters in part 2 considered religious resilience within popular culture, our overall argument would be somewhat lacking if it failed to pay some attention to elements of (so-called) 'high culture', and the ways in which religious ideas and images have been adopted by that culture, and vice versa. Clearly, such a discussion could be a book in its own right, so what follows is simply a brief guide to how the resilience of faith can be understood through high culture. In this discussion, I have concentrated on paintings, and chosen not to cite plays, poems, opera, music and literature, in the interests of keeping the argument within manageable proportions.2 To begin with, consider the place of the shepherds in Luke's account of the birth of Jesus (Lk. 2.8-20). Largely through the culture of nativity plays,3 and also through centuries of Christian art, most people assume that the shepherds presented the holy family with at least one token and representative lamb. However, the Gospel account does not agree. The shepherds brought nothing but themselves to the crib. David Brown notes that In early Christian art and literature Christ and the shepherds had to some degree been set quite apart, with the former idealised as Good Shepherd and the latter sometimes criticised for their failure to bring any gifts to the crib. Whether the uniform practice of the [mystery/nativity] plays in having the shepherds present simple gifts was intended in part to answer that criticism we do not know. What, however, we can say is that such actions did make possible a deeper relation with the child. The pipes that were given were, for instance, regularly used as an excuse in Italy to play tunes for the child and the mother, and of course such tunes could quickly become symbolic of a more spiritual commitment... 2. For further reading, see Brown, Tradition and Imagination. 3. See Graham, ' " T h e Story" and "Our Stories": Narrative Theology, Vernacular Religion and the Birth of Jesus', in C. Brooke (ed.), The Birth of Jesus: Biblical and Theological Reflections (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000), pp. 89-100. 4. Brown, Tradition and Imagination, p. 96.

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Here we see how culture and religion richly inter-relate. To a few verses in Luke's Gospel are added music, gift and cultural enrichment, which in turn thickens the original faith narrative within and beyond the tradition. Through art and mystery plays, the shepherds are now redeemed by virtue of being included in the Christian story in new ways. As Brown suggests, 'the aim was...to engage...ordinary people like themselves, the audience was being told, were also present at the nativity'.5 Similarly, Matthias Grunewald's Isenheim Alterpiece, probably painted between 1512 and 1516, and described by Barth as 'the greatest German picture ever painted',6 is a work of art that both engages and identifies with its audience. Grunewald's alterpiece is of course dominated by the crucified Christ, but it also features St Anthony, as it was commissioned by Abbot Guido Guersi for the Anthonite Monastery at Isenheim, the Anthonites being an order of monks devoted to nursing.7 For Grunewald, the hospital and St Anthony were inseparable in the execution of the painting. Most especially, the hospital dealt with diseases of the skin, and these are reflected in the portrayal of the crucifixion: the body of Christ is, according to Dillenberger, 'except for the face... literally peppered with lesions of the skin'.8 Certainly, the ravages that Grunewald has visited upon the crucified Christ are excessive; but why has the artist chosen to paint the crucifixion like this? Dillenberger argues that Grunewald has given his audience a Christ who specifically identifies with their sufferings, which although bound by time and space, are nevertheless inculcated into his Christology. Put another way, the culture—in this case that of disease—has been adopted by Christ in the artistic narrative. This is the only explanation that makes any sense of the painting. As Dillenberger points out, Interpreters have had a field day in designating the diseases involved. Leprosy, the plague, syphilis, and other sexually transmitted diseases have been suggested. While these cannot be excluded, the predominant basis of the disease was caused by bread made of fermented rye, an ergot that ravaged the body...

5. Brown, Tradition and Imagination, p. 96. 6. J. Dillenberger, Images and Relics: Theological Perceptions and Visual Images in Sixteenth Century Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 25. 7. Athanasius's Life of St Anthony had a profound influence on Western Christianity. Although Anthony was an Eastern desert hermit, the hagiography maintains that he could withstand many trials, temptations and tortures. Correspondingly, he became linked with endurance in the midst of suffering, and one to whom prayers could be directed amidst physical or mental distress. 8. Dillenberger, Images and Relics, p. 31.

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The attempt to present a Christ of 'accommodation' some five hundred years ago should not surprise us. The Christology of Grunewald and the monastic order that he painted for would have understood the incarnation of Christ as a dynamic and reflexive engagement with culture. Thus, there would be no problem in reshaping Christian tradition to emphasize a theological truth. Clearly, Jesus did not suffer from St Anthony's fire, or, as far as we know, any other skin disease, but he does so in Grunewald's painting because the very act of incarnation allows cultures, past and present, to make some kind of claim on Christ as being for them. 10 At the same time, that is not to say that in making the claim the culture can own, adapt and domesticate Christ for its own purposes, although as we have seen in Part 2, this can and does happen. Sometimes the accommodation of Christ is stressed at the expense of his resistance to culture. As I have suggested, the tension between the two has to be held together through the notion of resilience; firm yet reflexive.11 If this slight excursion into the high culture of Christian art all seems a little too flighty, let us return to more concrete matters. From 26 February to 7 May 2000, the National Gallery, London, hosted an exhibition entitled Seeing Salvation—The Image of Christ. Granted, this was the millennium year, but the organizers, the public and the media could not possibly have predicted the vast numbers of people who queued for hours to see the paintings. The exhibition assembled the likes of Dali, Spencer and Hunt, and placed them alongside Raphael, Bellini and Rembrandt.12 The Christian story, this time very much part of the cultural furniture, drew people in their hundreds of thousands. Commenting on the exhibition and its audience, Christopher Liley focuses on the irony of Stanley Spencer's Christ Carrying the CrossP

9. Dillenberger, Images and Relics, p. 31. 10. For a modern literary narration of this dynamic, see Walter Wangerin, Ragman (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993). 11. For a fuller discussion, see Brown, Tradition and Imagination, especially ch. 6 on 'Divine Accommodation'. 12. See N . MacGregor (ed.), The Image of Christ: The Catalogue of the Exhibition 'Seeing Salvation' (London: National Gallery/Yale University Press, 2000). 13. Stanley Spencer, Christ Carrying the Cross (1920), Tate Gallery, London.

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Spencer presents the setting of the death of Christ amidst the everyday business of his own village of Cookham in Berkshire. There seems to be no state of drama but an atmosphere of everyday business, of people going about their ordinary work. The cross is carried amidst the crowd with a sense of celebration, in stark contrast to the portrayals of a gloomy drama. Here was something of matter of factness, of the reality of crucifixion in daily experience. Christ carrying the cross in a similar manner to the workmen carrying their ladders as they set about their tasks.

Similarly, Spencer's The Resurrection, Cookham15 is characterized by an unhurried and ordinary feel. The picture deliberately conflates the boundaries of heaven and earth, and offers a range of homely cameos: Christ cradling two babies; a woman reunited with her husband, but brushing his suit down ('Now, dear, you must look smart for the rapture'); others who look happy and finally fulfilled; another who pauses to smell a flower.16 The picture is resonant and sensate; it captures more of a sense of English tranquillity than of a Day of Judgment. But that is precisely the point. Spencer gives us a most sublime yet gentle English resurrection, which the audience cannot fail to be drawn into. This is what the day of resurrection will be like: sunshine, neighbourly chit-chat, and all in a lush well-kept English churchyard. The picture is, of course, a clear mutation of Christian tradition, but yet another example of a powerful gospel story being inculturated into contemporary society, and in so doing, reshaping the culture itself, and its sense and understanding of divinity. The phenomenon of God made ordinary—in this case, an array of paintings at an exhibition— continues to draw people; the curious, the awe-struck, the indifferent— they are all there, as they were two thousand years ago. The painting itself, then, is a kind of incarnation, a moment in which tradition is reborn as revelation through identification. As Bauckham puts it: In incarnation God is so identified with a worldly reality, Jesus, as to be identical with the worldly reality. In incarnation, self-identification with and selfidentification as coincide. God not only identifies Godself with Jesus; God identifies Godself as Jesus... This self-revelation of God with and as the one human beingjesus is precisely the way in which God's universal self-revelation and salvation occur. In identifying Godself with and as Jesus, God identifies Godself for all people (revelation) and with all people (salvation). This one human being is God's saving presence with and for all human beings. 14. 15. 16. 17.

17

C. Liley, 'Seeing Salvation?', Modern Believing 42.2 (2001), p. 27. Stanley Spencer, The Resurrection, Cookham (1924-26), Tate Gallery, London. MacGregor (ed.),The Image of Christ, pp. 204-206. R. Bauckham, Jesus the Revelation of God', in P. Avis (ed.), Divine Revelation

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For a sociologist such as Grace Davie, this type of theology is carried quite routinely in what she terms the 'aesthetic' or 'symbolic' memory within society. Elements of high culture carry or tell the stories of faith that shape sociality and offer it the points and paths of transcendence it needs. This may be done through museums, galleries and cathedrals, where the conflation between the socio-cultural and the religious is arguably at its richest. Equally, words and music also convey the ineffable, perhaps reaching a particular peak in various forms of liturgy that are as much part of cultural heritage as they are the property of the church. 18 Theologically speaking, the moment of incarnation is one of abiding and ever-continuing inculturation, in which the life of the Spirit, being both distinct and dispersed, is given as gift in self-expenditure in ways that are not always apparent. John V. Taylor tries to capture something of the infinite expansiveness of God within culture, when he writes: The missionaries of the Holy Spirit include the probation officer and the literacy worker, the research chemist and the worn-out school teacher in a remote village.. .our theology of mission will all be wrong unless we start with a song of praise about this surging diversity of creative and redemptive initiative... What, for example, should one make of the college notice-board in a theological seminary...? In a prominent position was the caption, This Week's Project in Mission, and below it the current notice: 'The chapel offertories this week will be used for the restoration of art treasures damaged in the recent floods in Florence'. I am not instancing this as a joke or an absurdity. It raises serious questions. If God is concerned for our greater sensitivity may we not see him at work in the restoration of Renaissance pictures? May we not work with him and call it mission? If we are looking for a really sound theology of mission, I think it is better to start by being too inclusive rather than too narrow.

It is at this point that we start to move away from the more restrictive and defined missiology of figures such as Lesslie Newbigin, who see the task of theology and faith, in their engagement with contemporary culture, as one of resolute resistance. In contrast, although I have reserved a respectful place for cultural resistance, especially in the face of political oppression or injustice, I have consistently drawn attention to the shape and form of God in the world, and of that as being a sign of religious

(London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1997), pp. 194-202 (194). 18. Davie, A Memory Mutates, pp. 167-75. 19. J.V. Taylor, T\ie Go-Between God: The Holy Spirit and Christian Mission (London: SCM Press, 1972), p. 38.

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resilience in a secular age. Characteristically, this is a 'liberal' approach to theology and culture, yet it is one that takes the reality and presence of God seriously, and does not seek a vapid or bathetic engagement with modernity. The very purpose of introducing this chapter with Graham White's prescient South Yorkshire Magnificat was to move away from the idea of a 'pure' faith that is ^cultural,20 and to suggest how the fuller inculturation of a text or tradition—although risking distortion—can rescue it from a traditionalist domestication, various forms of endemic ecclesial taming, or virtually numberless types of aesthetic-social control, and restore something of the original power and force in the meaning.21 Given these remarks, I now turn to two further distinct areas that will enable me to draw together some final thoughts on religious resilience, faith, mission and modernity. First, I shall examine pluralist culture and the development of doctrine, briefly exploring how theology attempts to defend itself against or accommodate insights from other faiths. Secondly, in the light of those reflections, I shall say something brief about the meaning of mission in contemporary culture. My reflections are, to some extent, in debt to the sympathies that I have with George Lindbeck's 'cultural-linguistic' model of theology: A religion can be viewed as a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought... [it] is a communal phenomenon that shapes the subjectivities of individuals...part of an outlook that stresses the degree to which human experience is shaped, moulded, and in a sense constituted by cultural and linguistic forms...a religion is above all an external word, a verhum externum, that moulds and shapes the self and its world, rather than an expression or thematization of a preexisting self or preconceptual experience.

22

In saying this, I am not adhering to the view that all religion is ultimately reducible to some kind of language game, or for that matter to cultural aspiration or anthropological ascription. It is a mistake to misconstrue Lindbeck, and make him overstate his case. Religion is social, to be sure. But this does not rule out its being revelatory as well. Equally, the suggestion that the church is 'like' a culture is not meant to suggest that Lindbeck's 'culture metaphor' is complete and conclusive. As Healy points out, 'the church is not reducible to cultural terms... [culture] cannot be a 20. For an amusing Liverpudlian perspective, see D. Williams and F. Shaw, The Gospels in Scouse (London: White Lion, 2nd edn, 1977). 21. Cf. Brown, Tradition and Imagination, pp. 322-24. 22. Lindbeck, The Nature ofDoctrine, pp. 33-34.

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model for the church in the way that 'the Body of Christ' or lCreatura Verbi' are'.23 Nonetheless, as I have suggested throughout this book, and in agreement with Healy, it is useful to regard the church as something like a culture for the purposes of illuminating theology and ecclesiology, especially in the interests of fostering and furthering truthful engagement and discernment within modernity, as the church constantly reconsiders its mission within the life of the Spirit. So, in the best traditions of liberalism, I hold to the reality of God, and to the deep and abiding truths of Christian tradition that include incarnation, redemption and resurrection, while at the same time respecting the form of God in the world that is present and encountered in cultures beyond the concrete or ideal church. What the liberal tradition does with these truths is to engage with them respectfully and interrogatively, recognizing that the traditions themselves point to truths and mysteries that are contained within fine, but nonetheless finite and fallible, linguistic vessels. This is not, in my view, a hermeneutic of suspicion. It is, rather, a questioning that is motivated by awe, wonder and trust. This is, in other words, faith seeking understanding. It is fear before the Lord; a claim that the mystery of God, though revealed, is never fully known (1 Cor. 13.12). Pluralist Culture and the Development of Doctrine In Truth is Two-Eyed, John Robinson asks a series of compelling but unanswerable questions.24 Suppose Christianity had travelled east instead of west—would the doctrines of the incarnation and the Trinity look the same as they do today? What would Christology look like if it had been birthed in the Indian sub-continent rather than the Graeco-Roman world? How much does 'central' Christian doctrine owe to the geography and culture of its genesis, rather than to 'revealed truth'? How much of our Trinitarian and christological thinking is 'Westernized', and therefore, perhaps, open to cultural-theological questioning, or in need of expansion? To be open to the insights from the East, and eventually to move from a Westernized theology to a globalized one, presents an increasingly important agenda for Christianity in the postmodern age. The issue of Trinitarian thinking in relation to other religions is no longer just a subject consigned to the margins of theological debate. The work of David Tracy, John D'Arcy 23. Healy, Church, World and Christian Life, p. 168. 24. See J. Robinson, Truth is Two-Eyed (London: SCM Press, 1979), and also The Human Face of God (London: SCM Press, 1973).

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May, Vengal Chakkarai, R.H. Boyd and J A G . van Leeuwen represents part of a new movement, bringing the issue into the centre of Westernorientated thinking on the development of doctrine.25 In any culture, there are immutable problems in imagining the Trinity. What does it mean to talk of three in relation, of one being, yet three distinct persons or modes? Art and the language of analogy have traditionally been of help here. Rublev's ikon The Hospitality ofAbraham is a rich artistic description of the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity, and of the adoption of humanity into the life of the divinity.26 Moltmann's notion of the Trinity as a 'photograph' points to the temporality of language and analogy in describing dynamic eternity.27 Outside Christian tradition, support for imagining the Trinity is often located in metaphor and analogy, but might also be found in secular works such as Adventures with Impossible Figures, in which the author, Bruno Ernst, invites his readers into the strange world of shapes that can be both imagined and drawn, yet never concretized. Many people are familiar with the work of M.C. Escher; his surreal drawings of altered perspectives, unrealizable geometry and mindbending buildings question the very nature of perception itself.28 Under 25. See James Byrne (ed.), The Christian Understanding of God Today (Dublin: Columba Press, 1993); also the work of P.T. Thomas, The Theology of Chakkarai (Madras: SPCK, 1968). Robinson's Truth is Two-Eyed, however, remains largely unchallenged. 26. Andrej Rublev's ikon was painted around 1395 and hangs in the Kremlin, Moscow. The three figures in the picture, seated around a table, are (centre) Christ, presiding over a full chalice (although looking at the Father), with the tree/cross behind him; he is robed in blue, the symbol of divinity. The figure on the right is the Holy Spirit, who is looking at the empty tomb (the 'space' for the onlooker to be adopted into), positioned immediately below the chalice. The figure on the left is the Father, who is shrouded almost completely in his blue robes to denote his mystery; he is staring at the Holy Spirit to convey the notion of 'sending', and has a house with 'many rooms' behind him. The figures form a circle (perichoresis) and hold identical staffs as symbols of their collective and equal authority. The picture is dubbed The Hospitality of Abraham, since it supposedly recounts the incident in Gen. 18 when Abraham entertained 'angels'. It was necessary for Rublev to disguise his work like this during the Iconoclastic controversies. 27. See J. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God (London: SCM Press, 1980), and idem, The History of the Triune God (London: SCM Press, 1991). Moltmann's notion of the Trinity as a photograph neatly highlights the inadequacy of doctrine for 'capturing' the dynamic. I would wish to extend Moltmann's analogy: it is seldom possible to portray the three persons of the Trinity in one 'shot', since one is always revealing the other two. This idea would echo Barth's notion of Revealer, Revealed and Imparter of revelation as being the Trinity: all three cannot be seen at once, even though they are one. 28. See M.C. Escher's painting, Belvedere (1958). Bruno Ernst's Adventures with

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these conditions, a doctrine of the Trinity is not so hard to conceive of, since the concrete modality itself is subverted. The laws of logic and geometry, as Gottlieb Frege once believed, do not govern universally after all.29 Robinson's Truth is Two-Eyed is largely concerned with an exploration of Christology in a pluralist context; there is little explicit writing on the Trinity, since Robinson thinks that it is the incarnation that is the major stumbling block to inter-faith theology and dialogue,30 although he is not especially apologetic about this. However, Robinson would surely have been sympathetic to the enterprise of Ninian Smart and Stephen Konstantine in their Christian Systematic Theology in a Pluralist World, in which the authors attempt to move from a Western view of the Trinity towards a more global vision.31 For Smart and Konstantine, the key to this move lies in recognizing the mythic background to Trinitarian ideology, owning the motivating factors in determining the doctrine, and then re-presenting the classical doctrine in a way that makes some sense of the 'divine threefoldness' as revealed in other religions. As one might expect, they have difficulties with the 'classic' formulation of the Trinity. They argue that concepts such as hypostasis (the individual subsistence of a thing), persona (face or mask), and ousia (substance) are 'culturally limited and are rather oblique to contemporary understanding', and are 'somewhat static and impersonal'.32 Although the Cappadocians (i.e., St Basil of Caesarea, St Gregory of Nazianzus and St Gregory of Nyssa, mid-late fourth century) are credited with a modern and dynamic understanding of divine personhood, the authors nonetheless feel that 'the classic formulation is not wholly satisfactory' when faced with a pluralist culture. 33 In its place, Smart and Konstantine propose a number of possibilities that may, in their view, rehabilitate Trinitarian doctrine within contemporary and pluralist culture. The centre of their argument is to propose that talk of 'substance' or 'nature' should give way to 'life'. 'Life', for Konstantine and Impossible Figures (London: Tarquin, 1986) contains a good portrait of Escher's work. 29. See A. Kenny (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Western Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 249. 30. Robinson, Truth is Two-Eyed, p. 112. 31. N . Smart and S. Konstantine, Christian Systematic Theology in a Pluralist World (London: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 149. 32. Smart and Konstantine, Systematic Theology, pp. 165-66. 33. For a fuller discussion of the merits of the Cappadocian position, see C. Gunton and C. Schwoebel (eds.), Persons, Divine and Human (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991); J. Zizoulas, Being as Communion (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985); and T. Hart and D. Thimmell (eds.), Christ in Our Place (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1989).

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Smart, allows for unity which includes plurality; all living organisms exist by unifying various constituent elements, which contribute to their being, into a single form of life. Among living forms, the higher the organism is in the genetic scale, the more complex the unity. This 'organic model', they believe, may be a way of explicating the Trinity in a way that is 'hospitable to the diversities of religious experience across the world'. Thus, 'divine threefoldness' is preferred to 'Trinity' as a description of the Godhead, since the former phrase acknowledges (Trinitarian) patterns in other religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism.34 In saying this, there is just a hint (it is just a hint, mind), that aspects of the 'classical formulation' of the doctrine of the Trinity are not so much descriptive as ascriptive. This is an important distinction. In their writing on perichoresis (the coinherence of the three persons of the Trinity), 35 the authors state their preference for concepts of love, consciousness and 'inter-permeation' over perichoresis. It is not that they find the embryonic Cappadocian ideas unsatisfactory; in many ways, they warm to them. Rather, they are seeking to move from formulations that ascribed attributes to God to solve theological and christological problems in the early church, to descriptive language that makes sense of modern life in its plural forms. Smart and Konstantine stop short of stating that the doctrine of the Trinity has political, social and ecclesial motivating factors that need overturning. However, their sympathies clearly lie with recasting the doctrine of the Trinity in such a way that 'Trinitarian' patterns in other religions are not ignored—the 'divine threefoldness'. Naturally, differing 'theories' of the Trinity are correlated with differing views of the nature of Christ, and in turn, their relation to culture. A crude example can illustrate this neatly. Many fundamentalists, and even some evangelical Christians, although ascribing the metaphor 'Lord' to Jesus, nonetheless regard the Son and Spirit, as in some sense, subject to the Father—they are 'instruments' of God, carrying out specific functions such as redemption or renewal. There are a variety of reasons for this, which cannot be explored here. 36 Yet it seems that the social and ecclesial hierarchies in some religious communities do 'map' their doctrine of the Trinity; openness and mutuality give way to clear structures of power and authority, with one ultimate source from which all proceeds.37 Put another 34. Smart and Konstantine, Systematic Theology, pp. 168-78. 35. From which we get the word 'choreography', in relation to dance. 36. Some of the reasons for this are explored in my Words, Wonders and Power. 37. For example, the 'Jesus Army' (a neo-Baptist sect), describe their communities as

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way, we might say that culture has a theological shape. Theologically speaking, this is what we might call 'external modalism': that is to say, the mode of being of God as experienced by humanity is in threefoldness, yet God is held to be one. Modalism, although classed as a heresy, sought to preserve monotheism, arguing that God is one single self-conscious identity who is manifested in three distinct modes of operation. There are some immediate problems with this view: God's immutability is undermined, and the Trinity is only one of manifestation, not economic or social, let alone one of being. The type of Christology that corresponds to this modalist view is what we could broadly characterize as 'adoptionist'. From a logical point of view, Jesus of Nazareth is a person in the midst of God's created world, chosen as God's incarnation for specific tasks. On this view, Jesus is not eternally the Son of God in his identity, but a person adopted by God at some point (usually baptism) to be his Son. Of course, this effectively puts Jesus on a par with other inspired religious leaders, although writers such as Tillich saw this danger and differentiated between Christ and others by saying that the divine Spirit was present 'without limit' in Jesus. 38 The external modalist view of the Trinity and its correlated Christology has been defended by a number of Protestant theologians, most notably John Hick. Hick rejects the classical formulation of the Trinity and the Christology that goes with it. He sees the Trinity as a sophisticated form of tritheism, inconsistent with the monotheism that Jesus knew; the Heavenly Father to whom Jesus prayed and worshipped does not suggest a Trinity. Hick, and his fellow authors in The Myth of God Incarnate, regard the incarnation and the Trinity as untenable in the light of modern scholarship, and prefer instead to treat the doctrine of the incarnation as 'myth' or 'metaphor'. 39 In other words, Jesus as God, the second person of the Trinity, is an ascriptive way of expressing the intensity of God's self-giving 'mirroring' the Trinity like an 'upside-down wedding cake': Father on top, followed by Son, then the Spirit underneath. This 'maps' men on top, then women, and finally children. The respective size of each portion of cake is indicative of the weight or authority attributed to it. The Jesus Army believe their authority structure to be Trinitarian. Other Christian groups have similar patterns. 38. See P. Tillich, Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963). 39. J. Hick (ed.), The Myth ojGod Incarnate (London: SCM Press, 1977). We should note, however, that not one of the authors ever defines the concept of 'myth' in the book—a very odd omission. Hick later developed his views more thoroughly in The Metaphor of God Incarnate (London: SCM Press, 1993).

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love as located in Jesus Christ. Hick, motivated by a desire to see religion being culturally relevant (as it was, in his view, culturally shaped in the first place), puts forward a quasi-Arian remedy. Jesus' life and death are consistent with God's continuous self-giving love, so Jesus relates to God not as homoousia, but as Piomoagape; Jesus' life reveals God's love, not his substance. The atonement is (perhaps predictably) Jesus functioning as mediator insofar as he reveals God's forgiving love, overcoming alienation; Jesus is exemplar, the one whose actions manifest divine activity. From this position, Hick's earlier theory about religions and their source ('Copernican revolution') is defended; God remains the source (sun), and the orbiting bodies (planets, some closer to the sun than others) reflect, soak up and foster the light and heat to the extent that there is constitutive benefit for other beings, yet the orbiting bodies themselves are not the source. Thus, this form of adoptionism ultimately becomes 'Unitarian universalism'. So-called process theologians such as John Cobb and Charles Hartshorne might follow this line, and it may well be a noble vision, and one to respect, but it is probably not, in the end, Christian.41 Perhaps more than most, it is Karl Barth who stands out as the most recent and notable exemplar of a theology that resisted the notion of doctrine being culturally shaped or developed. Barth is a theologian in the deductive tradition: God has revealed. Both God and Barth therefore operate as dogmatic resistors of culture, rather than the accommodators who have been desribed above. For Barth, God is a single self-conscious being who exists in three modes: he is first of all the Revealer, then the revealed, and finally the self-impartation of the revelation—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These modes are more than manifestations in a historical process; they are the eternal modes whereby God's self-knowledge, selflove and self-consciousness are known. So, as God is to himself, so he is to us. Barth's Christology is consistent with this: God's Word is God himself in revelation, and Jesus Christ is God's Word. So a 'high' Christology exists throughout Barth's Dogmatics, since Jesus is one of three divine modes of being: the doctrine of the Trinity is therefore three 'identities' in one substance.42 40. J. Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths: Essays on the Philosophy of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1973). 41. See J. Cobb,Beyond Dialogue: The Transformation of Christianity and Buddhism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982); and C. Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963). 42. See C. Braaten and R. Jenson (eds.), A Map of the Twentieth Century: Readings from

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Critics may argue that the problem for Barth is trying to determine a Christology from a Trinitarian theology, which is then imposed on culture, or at least raised above it. But why not begin instead, as John Robinson does, from below? Starting with the notion that Jesus is the 'image of the invisible God' (Col. 1.25), Robinson explores the possibility of Jesus' humanity being so transparent to God that he (i.e. Jesus) cannot but fail to reflect God: 'We see God with the face ofJesus.. .whom we call God stands behind Jesus, and it is Jesus who gives, as it were, colour, light and form to God'. 43 Robinson quotes Chakkarai approvingly, that in Jesus, the 'Painter and the picture are one'. This may be so, but Jesus has assumed a degree of 'begottenness' here which may not be quite what Robinson intended. Perhaps mindful of this, Robinson goes on to say that in Christ, God is 'defined, but not confined'. The belief that Christ is God-like is less important than the belief that God is Christ-like.44 Similarly, other theologians have preferred, in recent times, to narrate 'the Christ-like God' thesis rather than adopt the more traditional and culturally bound formularies of Chalcedon or Nicea.45 46 However, given that the Gospel of John is clear that Jesus, the Logos, or Word, is of God, and pre-existent, where does that leave theological accommodators who want to find ways of presenting a 'Christ-like' God within a pluralist world? Robinson is sure that the dilemma for contemporary Christology lies precisely here. He readily acknowledges that the problem began when the 'fore-ordination of God became translated as the preexistence of Christ'. 47 Those who rush to defend a genuine humanity in Jesus find it compromised in an eternal being who 'assumed' a human Karl Barth to Radical Pluralism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995); and G. Bromiley, An Introduction to the Theology ofKarl Barth (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1979). 43. Robinson, Truth is Two-Eyed, p. 123. 44. Robinson, Truth is Two-Eyed, p. 129. See also D. Ford and F. Young, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians (London: SPCK, 1987), for a fuller discussion of how Jesus is the image (or face) of God. 45. See J.V. Taylor, The Christlike God (London: SCM Press, 1992). 46. Rowan Williams (Arius [London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1987]), critiques the 'conservative and formulaic' doctrines of 'heretics' such as Arius, and points to Nicea and Chalcedon as signifying the possibility of theology being done on 'a higher plain'. One of the tasks of theology is to eschew reductive thinking that minimalizes its subject, namely epiphanies of transcendent mystery. Theology, although sometimes engaged in 'faithful disbelief (Christopher Morse), nonetheless aspires to 'probe the infinite expansiveness of God, which is his wisdom' (Daniel Hardy). 47. Robinson, The Human Face of God, p. 37.

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nature: 'veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity', as the Wesleyan hymn proclaims, is really docetic. Nonetheless, Robinson's exposition of 'classic' Christology is remarkable for its clarity at this point. Using insights from Barth, Bonhoeffer, Moule and Pittenger, Robinson reaches for a vision whereby 'Jesus [is] divinest when thou most art man': 'the human form divine'.48 More recently, Karl-Josef Kuschel has attempted to tease out this problem in a major work.49 Kuschel argues that pointers towards a pre-existent Christ are 'poetic rather than substantive', and that subsequent doctrinal development cannot appeal to biblical sources. Yet in a way that is similar to Robinson, Kuschel suggests that it is still possible to speak of an 'eternal Son' within contemporary culture, because there is a sense in which the (temporal) Christ event is ever-present in God, before all time: 'in the person of the crucified and risen Jesus, the eternal being of God himself is expressed'.50 So there is some sense in which Christ is 'born' before all time: ideologically, socially, morally—he is the image, the expression of God in man. Kuschel neatly develops his ideas into a social Christology from here, rather in the way that others have worked with the doctrine of the Trinity. Again, however, the compromising tendencies of the theological accommodationist strategy are apparent. Kuschel's exposition of pre-existence has been turned into an ascription, a way of speaking about the significance of Jesus within the life of God, and of soteriology. John Robinson would doubtless have agreed with these sentiments. In The Human Face of God, he regarded the language of pre-existence as 'destructive of humanity', detracting from the work of Jesus as mediator. His conclusion on the incarnation in relation to pre-existence is perhaps his boldest statement of all: the one who was totally and utterly a man—and never had been anything other than a man or more than a man—so completely embodied what was from the beginning the meaning and purpose of God's self-expression (whether conceived in terms of his Spirit, his Wisdom, his Word, or the intimately personal relationship of Sonship) that it could be said, and had to be said, of that man, 'He was God's man', or 'God was in Christ', or even that

48. Robinson, The Human Face of God, pp. 208, 242. In Barth's memorable phrase, Christology describes 'the way of the Son of God into the far country' (Church Dogmatics, IV.i, pp. 157-210). 49. Karl-Josef Kuschel, Born Before All Time? (London: SCM Press, 1992). 50. Kuschel, Born Before All Time?, p. 495. But surely Kuschel means raised here, not risen?

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THE SALT OF THE EARTH he was 'God for us'; this way of putting it clearly involves no whit less of a stupendous claim.

The accommodationist theology of Robinson, in its desire to be inclusive and culturally plural rather than exclusive and culturally imperialistic, is undoubtedly laudable. However, those theologians who see truth (and the doctrines that point to it) as being beyond or above contemporary culture would clearly have reservations about the nature and extent of doctrinal inculturation, and its desirability. So, with regard to the question of other religions, the thesis that there could be a 'non-Western' Christianity (i.e. that there is a sort of eternal content beyond its history) has been challenged by a range of theological resistors, especially in volumes such as Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered.52

For the authors of this volume, Hindu avatar stories are not the same kind of story as the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke: the dualism is simply not present in the Christian tradition, since the divorce between the divine and the human is negated by the narratives, and not enforced. Equally, they question whether the rejection of the virgin birth really poses a problem for Trinitarian belief, since the Logos tradition of John's Gospel allows for Jesus to receive an entire ordinary humanity, while at the same time, his divine persona or hypostasis is in no way an aspect of him like his soul, but is rather the entire unity of his life, that is to say something very like his total personality make-up. This personality can, in any sense, 'belong to the beginning', and as such does not need to commence at one point or another: it just is—'before Abraham was, I Am' (Jn 8.58). In this respect, we may now be close to the Barthian position in the Church Dogmatics. The Holy Spirit is not the divine Father of the man Jesus; the incarnation of the Son is a distinct mystery that is quite different from all other beginnings and human existences. It consists in a creative act of divine omnipotence, in which the will and work of man in the form of a human father is completely excluded from the basis and

51. Robinson, The Human Face of God, p. 179. David Jenkins described Jesus Christ as 'the man whom God chose to be'; a similarly pregnant yet ambiguous statement. See Jenkins, Still Living with Questions, pp. 13-19. 52. See G. D'Costa (ed.), Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered (New York: Orbis Books, 1993). But I am not sure that Hick is fully answered here. His argument that the doctrine of the incarnation is metaphorical revives his original 'Copernican theory' in a persuasive way: (a) in so far as Jesus is doing God's will, God was acting through him and in this sense his life is incarnate, (b) Jesus incarnates an ideal for human existence, and (c) Jesus is a finite, clear reflection of of God's self-giving love which he particularly incarnated.

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beginning of the human existence of the Son of God, being replaced by a divine act which is supremely unlike any human action which might arise in that connexion, and in that way characterised as an inconceivable act of grace. 53

So Barth claims that 'conceived' by the Holy Spirit does not mean 'begotten'; what it does mean is that God (or the Logos) stands at the beginning of this human existence, in order to bring about the 'new creation' that is finally manifest in the resurrection.54 This is, ultimately, neither an exclusivist nor an inclusivist claim: it is a claim that is deferred—the Kingdom has not yet fully come. In Chapter 1, I examined the two principal theological modes of engagement with contemporary culture—accommodation and resistance— and identified them as two sides of the same coin, namely resilience. In so doing, I intentionally critiqued the 'Gospel and Our Culture' project of Lesslie Newbigin, and its tendency to try to (re-?)establish a Christian 'fiduciary framework' which would constitute a 'genuinely missionary encounter with our culture'. 55 To achieve this, Newbigin proposes that society 'privilege the standards of order, coherence, stability... to return to a situation when [Christian] values are restored'. Yet as we have also seen, a plural culture is not necessarily any less of an expression of Christian mission. As Graham and Walton point out, Our vision of a God who emerges from the shadows, from the unspoken and unknown, brings us into conflict with Newbigin's perception of the Christian believer sure in faith... Indeed, we believe it is the gift of Christ the stranger, whose own knew him not, that we may encounter God through the insights of those outside the boundaries and certainties of our own faith-world...

They go on to critique Newbigin's vision of a private sectionalized knowledge elite 'who cannot dialogue with others', and whose engagement with culture is solely through evangelization, in order to restore the beloved Christendom of pre-Enlightenment Europe. (As we saw in Chapters 2 and 3, an ascendant pre-Enlightenment Christendom is a contested historical concept.) For Graham and Walton, Newbigin's agenda, if completed, represents 'a raising of the sepulchre not to be shaken... guarding an 53. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.i, pp. 207-210. Cf. IV.ii, p. 90. 54. Barth, Church Dogmatics, Il.i, p. 506. Cf. IV.i, pp. 49-56. 55. E. Graham and H. Walton, 'A Walk on the Wild Side: A Critique of "The Gospel and Our Culture"', Modern Churchman 33.1 (1991), pp. 1-7. 56. Graham and Walton, A Walk on the Wild Side, p. 7.

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empty tomb', whereas the task of the disciples is to move on, and follow the risen Lord. For Jesus will be found not only inside the church and its truth, but also outside, in the world at large, in all its cultural complexity.57 Clearly, the experience of many Christians today is one marked by interreligious encounter. Both theology and religious studies need to address this occurrence in ways which are faithful to Christian tradition, yet not without due flexibility and respect to others. From our survey so far, we can see that neither the theologies representing accommodation nor those espousing resistance are capable, on their own, of engaging adequately with contemporary culture in all its religious plurality. More than ever, the strategies of accommodation and resistance will need to work together if Christian theology is to continue to establish the resilience of faith, and the resilience of God, to which the faith itself testifies. A Note on Mission In the Introduction, I expressed the hope that the types of engagement I have sketched in this book would lead to what Nicholas Healy describes as 'a church-wide social practice of communal self-critical analysis [bearing] upon the issue of Christian formation'.58 Even as I end this book, we could only be at the beginning of such an enterprise. Healy used the notion of 'theodrama' to suggest ways in which the churches and theology might learn from culture (including secular academic disciplines) even as they witness within it. The suggestive and controlling metaphor for this praxis is one of Jesus' own suggestions: 'the salt of the earth'—something precious and substantial, but which finds its true vocation in intricate and engaging self-expenditure. For Healy, the missiological implications that flow from this are characteristic of his approach to ecclesiology and theology, and suggest that the church, in its mission, will need to be as receptive as it is communicative: truth is discerned through engagements with those who are other than 'we' are: with the Spirit, with those Christians with whom we disagree; and with those outside the church. To be a disciple and to witness to Jesus Christ requires

57. For a reply, see also L. Newbigin, 'The Gospel and Our Culture', Modern Churchman 34 (1992), pp. 1-10; and J. MacDonald Smith, 'Notes for a Paper on a Postmodern Christian Paradigm: The Gospel and Our Culture', Modem Churchman 34.3 (1993), pp. 49-51. 58. Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life, p. 178.

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one to practice engaged enquiry and responsibility to the other. The church's quest for truth is ongoing; debate cannot be ended by epic accounts of the church or the world or their relation.

In contemporary culture, it will be hard to set limits on debates and to decide on boundaries. If the disciples of Jesus are the salt of the earth, the form of their resilience within that same world will need a wisdom that allows for both resistance and accommodation as part of its mission. But why should this be necessary? The answer, surely, is that the Spirit is already ahead of the church and beyond it, and that the form of the body of Christ in the world must constantly be open to what the Spirit says and brings to it, even as the body needs to remain bounded and distinct. Again, Healy suggests that the missiological vocation of the church will need humility as well as strength, firmness as well as flexibility, if it is to make a substantial contribution to the shaping of modernity and contemporary culture: The pre-eschatological church needs the religious and non-religious bodies of the world to be genuinely different from itself, and different from one another, in order to play its own role within the theodrama and construct its concrete identity through ecclesial bricolage. But the boundaries between the church and the world are never clear. The church is sinful and 'worldly', and the Spirit acts throughout creation; so 'church' and 'world' may often be more prescriptive than descriptive categories within the theodramatic horizon.

And the mission of God will be found both at and beyond that theodramatic horizon. For example, in Vincent Donovan's moving account of his missionary work among the Masai of Africa, Donovan finds his accounts of the Christian faith profoundly challenged. There is not only the language barrier to overcome. There are also cultural and conceptual difficulties for the would-be missionary as he attempts to communicate the Christian faith. For example, the Masai insist that the whole tribe is baptized; the idea that individuals can be included or excluded from the rite offends them. Moreover, and more profoundly, tribal baptism turns out to be a radical fulfilment of the gospel. As the tribal elder, Ndnagoya, explains, the catechesis has become part of the culture: the lazy have been helped by 59. Healy, Church, World, and the Christian Life, p. 170. 60. Healy, Church, World, and the Christian Life, p. 170. As Healy notes of Aidan Kavanaugh, even such a distinctive practice as Christian baptism 'has always been a compound act absorbing cultural patterns into itself; it has taken on definite shape in various cultures, shaping those cultures in return'. See A. Kavanaugh, The Shape of Baptism: The Rite of Christian Initiation (New York: Pueblo, 1978), p. xix.

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those with energy, the stupid by supported by the intelligent, and those with faith have aided those who have little. The tribe can truly say 'we believe';61 it is just one of many epiphanies for Donovan. On another occasion, while trying to explain the concept of 'faith' to the tribal community, he likens the search for God to the way in which the lion hunts its prey. But again, the tables are turned: You told us of the High God, how we must search for him, even leave land and our people to find him. But we have not done this. We have not our land. We have not searched for him. H e has searched for us. H e searched us out and found us. All the time we think we are the lion. In end, the lion is God.

our left has the

God-as-the-lion is a suggestive metaphor with which to begin a tentative conclusion. However, the Masai image of the lion as God is not quite like the magisterial Asian of C.S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicles. True, the regal lion can pounce and overpower at any time. But the metaphor also invites us to ponder another dimension of the hunter: the lion also stalks its prey interminably, using every kind of cunning and camouflage. And, sometimes, it is useless to run, as Francis Thompson's poem The Hound of Heaven reflects: 'I fled Him down the nights and days; I fled him down the arches of the years'.63 No matter where one turns in contemporary society, one sees fresh traces of the lion in its hunting, refusing—who even in a complex and pluralist culture—to give up the search. I am reminded of Mozart's opera, he Nozze di Figaro, in which the heroine Countess, lamenting that her husband no longer loves her (because he is infatuated with another woman, Susanna), devises a plan to disguise herself as her husband's would-be mistress. Susanna and the Countess swap clothes, and for a while impersonate one another. In the final act, the Count mistakenly courts his own wife at night, in the garden of Almaviva Castle (Seville), all the while believing her to be Susanna, the woman he thinks he truly desires. Eventually the Countess steps into the light, and there is recognition, reconciliation and forgiveness. As with so many operas, disguise, cunning and courtship finally lead to reunion, and then to celebration.64 61. V. Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered: An Epistle from the Masai (London: SCM Press, 1982), p. 92. 62. Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, p. 63. 63. F. Thompson, 'The Hound of Heaven', in R.S. Thomas (ed.), The Penguin Book of Religious Verse (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963), pp. 27-28. 64. For a summary of the plot, see J. Warrack and E. West (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Opera (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 512. Mozart composed the opera in

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It is not perhaps too tendentious to suggest that there is something profoundly christological in the behaviour of the Countess. In her desire to woo back her husband, she is prepared to take on the appearance of that which he idolizes. There is something perversely incarnational about the Countess's behaviour: she empties herself, and takes on the form of a servant (Susanna). Theologically, we might say that God's own engagement with contemporary culture is, at times, not unlike this. It is a deep and passionate accommodation of culture, but also an infiltration of it, leaving enough discreet signs and symbols to point us beyond that which we idolize, and to that place of peace where our hearts cease to be restless, having found their rest in the all-encompassing love of God. For God is not apart from the world of Mammon or consumerism, as we saw in Chapters 6 and 7; and the traces of tradition can also be seen in other arenas of popular culture, even in the most apparently secular. This is, of course, a different angle on the tradition expressed in the Old Testament book of Hosea, where God instructs the prophet to 'love your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress' (Hos. 3.1-5). In my reading here, I am suggesting that God's own ongoing incarnational activity leads him to sometimes inhabit or indwell the very things we idolize and are infatuated with, in order to encounter us afresh. Thus, God's engagement with humanity in contemporary culture is, on one level, a form of calculated promiscuity, which in turn is intended to open up a pathway to salvation. As Robinson says, contemporary Christology starts to become relevant when it answers the question, 'Sir, we would like to see Jesus' (Jn. 12.21). Thus, we do Christology missiologically, not always by bringing Jesus in (as though he were outside), but by truly respecting 'the form of Christ in the world'. For Robinson, 'the Christian cannot look into man without seeing Jesus, and cannot look into Jesus without seeing God'. 65 True mission then, is dialogue, discernment, as much as it is speaking and acting: the theodrama is all in the balance between accommodation and resistance. The resilience is ultimately God's, and the missiological task of the church can therefore only be to embrace and embody the one who trusts us and is faithful to us, and asks only the same in return. So as much as the faith once delivered offers to the church, it must also be truly receptive to the Other and the new. As David Jenkins puts it,

1778; it was first performed in 1784. 65. Robinson, The Human Face of God, p. 243.

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THE SALT OF THE EARTH Jesus Christ is the man in the middle who is related to the beginning and end of things. It is impossible, therefore, on the Christian understanding of Jesus Christ, for any present understanding to have the monopoly of the reality of Jesus Christ, or indeed for it to embrace the totality of the reality of Jesus Christ. N o matter how carefully any present understanding is built up on past understandings, there must be more to discover. It therefore seems quite clear that we need the help of all men and women to learn about and to expose the reality of Jesus Christ... Loyalty to Jesus Christ requires us...to enter into fearless and faithful dialogue so that we can together learn more of what is truly involved in seeking to become really human, more of what is truly involved in the human condition and the possibilities of human condition in the world, in which Christ lived, died and rose again.

This book began with the metaphor 'salt of the earth', and challenged the view that the salt needed to remain distinctive to fulfil its purposes. Instead, it has been suggested that the self-expenditure of God and of faith within culture is what the halas is for: enrichment of God's earth. Not everyone will appreciate the ways in which religion nourishes and nurtures society; not everyone who is religious will be cheered by the thought of their beliefs and actions becoming gifts that mutate into offerings that are indistinct and unrestricted. But such is the economy of God: generous to a fault. And that is the thing with the grace of God, like Mozart's Countess— it steps out of the shadows, and takes us by complete surprise. Moreover, God is not too fussy about whom he reveals himself to, or which persons he counts among his surprisingly cosmopolitan kingdom. So I return to the nativity, with which I opened this chapter, and conclude with a short poem by U.A. Fanthorpe (she calls it 'BC-AD'), which reflects on the shepherds and the Magi, who, unaware of what they had witnessed, were nonetheless extravagantly blessed by their strange encounter: This was the moment when Before Turned into After, and the future's Uninvented time-keepers presented arms. This was the moment when nothing Happened. Only dull peace Sprawled boringly over the earth. This was the moment when energetic Romans Could find nothing better to do Than counting heads in remote provinces.

66. Jenkins, Still Living with Questions, p. 94.

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And this was the moment When a few farmworkers and three Members of an obscure Persian sect Walked haphazard by starlight straight Into the Kingdom of Heaven.

67. U.A. Fanthorpe, 'BC-AD', in idem, Selected Poems (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986), p. 23.

Afterword The Perennial Need for Religion

Those who are totally enclosed in the materialistic world-view and who equate the physical universe with the totality of being cannot admit so much as the possibility of a religious need on the part of man. Religion can only be one thing for them, namely erroneous science. Hence, with every step that science takes forward, religion must take one step back... [yet] religion does give us truth, just as reason does. It is not in this that the difference between the two prongs of exploration rests. Their dissimilarity stems rather from the fact that reason deals with that which is within our grip—which is, so to speak, smaller than us, and religion with that which is beyond our grip— which is, as is but all too certain, bigger than us. [Religion] move[s] in a world of images that point to something ineffable... For an imago mundi which aims at wholeness, and even more for a life that does so, religion is as necessary as science.

Central to the argument of this book has been the notion of religious resilience, which, understood as a phenomenon and as a theological strategy, incorporates both resistance and accommodation within contemporary culture. These qualities are the 'two faces' of religious resilience, and they are common to most of the major religious traditions, and to the various traditions within them, be they conservative, liberal, radical or orthodox. Because religion binds things together, theology, as its academic discipline, invariably locates itself within a role of mediation: between tradition and truth, between revelation and reality, theology seeks to enable individuals in their 'faith seeking understanding'. We have come some way since discussing Niebuhr's fivefold typology of theological engagements with culture in Chapter 1, and I have argued throughout for a more collective, practical, and to some extent pragmatic theology for the purposes of engaging with culture. In Part 1,1 have shown

1.

Stark, Sociology of Religion, IV, pp. 402, 415.

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how religion persists within contemporary culture, in spite of the gloomy prophecies uttered by sociologists of religion and secularization theorists. I have also tried to say something about the tenacity of the churches in their attempt to remain as public authorities and moral guides. Yet worldviews like those cited by Harvey Cox are typical of the genre that continues to grip so many religious minds, one that is dismissive of religion and its tenure within modernity and upon contemporary culture: technopolitan man...wastes little time thinking about 'ultimate' or 'religious' questions...secularization is a liberation...it is not a process that any program, ecclesiastical or otherwise, can possibly turn back. The gods and their pale children, the symbols and ciphers of metaphysics, are disappearing. The world is becoming more and more 'mere world'. It is being divested of its sacral and religious character. Man is becoming more and more 'man' and losing the mythical meanings and cultic afterglows that marked him during the 'religious' stage of history, a stage that is now coming to its end...

Forty years on, we can now see that Cox couldn't have been more wrong. Cox may have been years ahead of his time in coining phrases such as 'cybernation' and 'technopolitan', and he rightly alludes to the alienation which a post-industrial yet technologized Western culture might herald. Yet Cox is years behind the times in assuming that material progress necessarily means religious regress. As Werner Stark notes, 'technopolitan civilization...is shot through by plaguing restlessness which is due above all to its failure to achieve embeddedness in a wider, stability-providing, peace-bestowing order'. 3 To demonstrate the perennial and resilient nature of religion, the second part of the book examined how Christianity and spirituality are both shaped by popular culture while also continuing to influence it in a myriad of ways. The explorations of consumerism, advertising, leisure, music and other areas of popular culture have not only revealed that religion continues to fascinate, but can also show how religious tradition mutates within modern societies, continuing to act as a nutrient agent within a wider cultural and contextual milieu. In Part 3, I explored some of the problems and opportunities that face churches as they attempt to reconfigure their mission and ministry within contemporary culture. These chapters were deliberately more suggestive than prescriptive, and in being so invite readers to reflect on the shaping of ecclesial life within contemporary culture, where there is space for religions to participate afresh. 2. 3.

Cox, The Secular City, pp. 63, 217. Stark, Sociology of Religion, V, p. 404.

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None of this, I should say, represents a new blueprint for theology, and this has never been claimed. However, in raising the 'Christianity and culture' question fifty years after Niebuhr's work, I have been attempting to show how theology can help religious communities cope with the apparently 'unparalleled change' and 'multiple overwhelmings'4 of modernity and postmodernism that are held to be so inimical to religion. As I have argued, discerning engagement is clearly a key—an interrogative theology that is formed by wisdom, which listens as well as speaks, which is itself formed around the notion of resilience (founded on God), and its capacity to both resist and accommodate society. As David Ford points out, religious communities have been increasingly affected by the constant changes and uprootings of modernity [which] have struck especially hard... They have reacted in different ways (and each of the main religions displays the whole range within itself), from the extreme of changing past all recognition in order to 'keep up with the times' to the other extreme of trying to resist all change and conserve everything as it used to be...

Precisely: accommodation and resistance. Yet we must also acknowledge that theology cannot only be concerned with the maintenance of the church. Theology has its own imperative to reach beyond itself in the pursuit of wisdom, and, like the salt {halas) of Jesus' metaphor, seeks a degree of self-expenditure in the wider interests of social flourishing and cultural nourishment. I have already alluded to the similarities between theology and cultural studies, and suggested that understanding theology as a 'collection of disciplines', or perhaps more accurately as a collation, can free the discipline to be more engaging and adventurous. Theologies of culture and theology in culture can be critically-reflective, practical-prophetic, refractive, communicative and celebratory. These theologies can, in short, reflect the abundance, generosity and inclusivity of their subject; which is only to allude again to religion, and the reality and mystery of God, to which religion itself bears witness. Noting that contemporary culture, at least in the Western world, is a mixture of the 'high' and the 'popular'—in music, art, theatre, film and literature—Ford acknowledges that it is now much more difficult to 'draw clear boundaries' when describing the field of theology: This is very important for theology because, if it is to keep in touch with the realities of what life is like for billions of religious people and others who are

4. 5.

Ford, Theology, p. 8. Ford, Theology, p. 9.

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trying to answer theological questions, then it must continually cross boundaries between theory and practice, sophisticated methods and ordinary understanding, precise technical terms and commonsense meanings. Those judged the greatest theologians have combined intellectual sophistication with the ability to relate their thought to ordinary living. There are aspects of postmodern thought which give the impression of being lost in abstruse linguistic games; but there are other aspects which daringly cross boundaries in order to bring together levels of culture which are often alienated from each other, and these have much to teach any theology which sees itself as having responsibilities towards religious communities and public life as well as towards academic disciplines.

In a slightly different way, Ian Markham affirms this kind of theological approach—'discerning engagement', 'interrogative' and 'critical' would be my terminology—in terms of'modes'. For Markham, there are three. The first, which is the major mode, is the theological, which may be systematic, dogmatic, ethical, ideological, reflective or confessional. The second is the cultural, which Markham admits has received, up until recently, little attention and attracted only a minority of adherents. The third mode is the practical or applied, 'the area of policy or recommendations for individual, communities and nations'. Quite correctly, Markham argues that most theological engagements with culture fuse together modes one and three, but ignore mode two. Taking his cue from Niebuhr, as I have also done, Markham suggests that the theologian must work across all three modes, and must especially pay attention to the second mode. Indeed, he goes further and suggests that 'the theological reflection works within a cultural narrative, and then the emerging insights must again work within the cultural setting to generate certain suggestions about possible courses of actions...both modes one and three need to work within the second, cultural mode'. 7 Markham is advocating a type of reflexive response to modernity similar to that which has been suggested throughout this book. The foundations for this study and the methodologies employed have carefully avoided a dogmatic theological engagement (of the type advocated by figures such as Newbigin), 8 but equally have sought to avoid a vapid secular approach to the issues discussed—the kind that as Niebuhr says, 'attempts to achieve

6. 7. 8.

Ford, Theology, p. 11. Markham, Plurality and Christian Ethics, pp. 12-15. Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.

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cultural unity through the disavowal of traditional historical religions'.9 Throughout, I have preferred a religious and theological appraisal of contemporary culture, which has been in deliberate interrogative dialogue with various forms of social science. This reflexivity has made it possible to critique secularization theories on the one hand (through historical reflection and meditating on the internal coherence of the metatheory), while on the other has permitted the possibility of generating some practicalprophetic ecclesiology that might enable the churches to think about old problems in new ways. Niebuhr suggests that this type of approach to the Christianity and culture debate 'makes religious and cultural diversity possible within the presuppositions of a free society without destroying the religious depth of culture'. 10 Such an approach is often characterized by a degree of humility, charity, the acceptance of cultural and theological plurality, tolerance and respect for the other, yet a recognition that in the midst of any type of generous accommodation, there will also be space for spiritual conviction and cultural resistance.11 Before concluding, I return to David Martin's Breaking of the Image, and one of his own particular accounts of the religious-cultural conflations of modernity, about which this book has had much to say. Martin describes a visit to a US Air Force base in Colorado, and to the multi-faith chapel at the heart of the complex, 'raised, distinct and bounded'. Martin's attention is drawn to the 'strange encounter of the modern, military power of ascension with the peaceful ascension of the triumphant Christ'. 12 But how does the encounter manifest itself? Martin notes that the Christian sign of the cross has been conflated with a sword, which is also a plane in flight: Here we have the spiritual power of conversion countering the social power of reversion. The cross is once again a sword. More than that, it is a holy sword, which means not only that the cross has reverted to the sword, but that the might of the cross has been subverted by mere might. The travail of crucifixion is now the travail of war... But that is not the end of the matter. Alter your point of vision and you find the sword is also a dove, flying skywards in the spirit of peace...so the subversion of the Christian sign is not total, because the ascending and descending plane is also the ascending and descending dove... characteristic activities of the spirit... This is how it comes 9. R. Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (London: Nisbet & Co., 1945), p. 88. 10. Niebuhr, Children of Light, p. 93. 11. Markham, Plurality and Christian Ethics, p. 151. Markham affirms plurality 'because God intended it'. 12. Martin, Breaking of the Image, p. 61.

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about that the secular ascent and descent of the US Air Force can be reconceived as part of the mission of peace... The nave itself is shaped as a hangar to contain and express the upward thrust of the peaceful spirit. Go: in peace. 13

There is nothing tendentious about Martin's exposition here. He simply sees how religion is woven into everyday life, and how that can add meaning and value to some of the most (apparently) secular dimensions of life. This Christian theory of engagement is capacious in its compass, while also serving as a model of integrated socio-religious resilience, insofar as it expresses the imperative of connecting resistance and accommodation to ministry within contemporary culture. In the Introduction to this book, I remarked that 'I do not believe religion is in decline' within the context of modern culture, and that this volume is therefore one of'hope and optimism'. The argument has rested on the notion of religion as 'something' that is widespread and resilient, with an ample capacity to cope with the myriad forces that are said to be inimical to its future. In its resilience within modernity and postmodernity, religion is able to shape itself around and within contemporary culture, sometimes so as to become indistinguishable. At the same time, religion retains an extraordinary capacity to resist aspects of contemporary culture, turning the eyes and ears of the world to 'the kingdom that is to come' on matters of justice, peace, reconciliation and ethics. In this sense, there is something deeply incarnational about the God who is behind, before, above and beyond resilient religion, and yet is absolutely engaged within it. It is no wonder, then, that Werner Stark sees the future of religion in entirely perennial terms. It is not that religion imposes itself; there is, rather, a natural demand for it: When the science of sociology was founded, its first protagonist, Auguste Comte, pointed out that the needs of man point in two directions: they are partly material, partly spiritual. The former are well taken care of in modern society, the latter are not. Yet, they too, are real... Only a living faith which is as religious as it is social, and as social as it is religious...can heal the sickness of modern man... it alone can offer to him the gift which the Gospel carried in its hands: that feeling of total belonging, of contentment and of peace, which came over the Beloved Disciple when, on the night of the Last Supper, he leaned his head against the Master's breast and heard the beating of His most loving heart.

13. Martin, Breaking of the Image, pp. 62-63. 14. Stark, Sociology of Religion, V, p. 428.

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Arguably, the need for religion is as great as ever, and Stark's turn, finally, to an image of spiritual intimacy is no accident. Religion connects. Spirituality personalizes that connection, and makes communion and community possible. The salt of the earth continues to enrich the world through its distinctiveness, in its deep and abiding engagement with that same world, and in its capacity to offer its resilience where required. The slow but gradual accrual, rather like the salt of the earth, makes a difference over time. David Martin puts it all into perspective: To think in terms of a frontier separating truth and error, maleficence and beneficence, God and Mammon, is not to perceive the underlying structure. These general ideas and fundamental patterns lie latent in the mind, too close and intimate to be seen. Not only do they lie latent in the mind but they lie latent in culture. There has to be a structural opening before latent possibilities are released or potent translations made available... This will take time, but not a long time in the perspective of human history. A thousand years is 'but a day' in the story of humanity, let alone the sight of God... Consummation has to wait on a slow assemblage of potencies...

So what of the future of the church, and of Christianity, in Western and 'secular' societies? As I remarked in the Introduction, I am really only qualified to offer an English and Anglican perspective. But to my mind, it will nearly always be like the English weather itself. Mist in the morning, followed by some bright and sunny intervals. Scattered showers and some clouds later, but giving way to blue-grey skies in the early evening. Mild. To summarize. Christ is both for and against culture; he accommodates it and resists it. He is in it, below and above it, and then again beyond it. He is all of this, and more. The church, in its witness to the one who embodies the resilience of God, need be nothing less than the risk of the body of Christ for contemporary culture. The salt of the earth, the light of the world, the city on the hill—these are the Gospel metaphors that capture something of the nature of God and the essence of religion: 'raised, distinct and bounded', yet strangely earthed, indistinct and unrestricted. Here is a model of the church for practical-prophetic ecclesiology to pursue for the future. Yet as with all endings, this can only be a beginning.

15. Martin, Breaking of the Image, p. 178 (emphasis mine).

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Polanyi, M., Personal Knowledge (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1958). Rauschenbusch, W., Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: Harper & Row, 1907). Reader, I., and T. Walter (eds.), Pilgrimage in Popular Culture (London: Macmillan, 1993). Ricouer, P., The Symbolism of Evil (Boston: Beacon Books, 1967). Ritzer, G., The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1993). —The McDonaldization Thesis (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1998). —Enchanting a Disenchanted World (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1999). Robbins, T., Cults, Converts and Charisma (London: Sage, 1988). Robertson, R. (ed.), Sociology of Religion (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969). Robinson, J., The Human Face of God (London: SCM Press, 1973). —Truth is Two-Eyed (London: SCM Press, 1979). Rogers, D., Politics, Prayer and Parliament (London: Continuum, 2000). Ronson, J., 'Catch Me if You Can', Guardian Weekend magazine (21 October 2000), pp. 18-25. Rousseau, J.J., The Social Contract and Discourses (London: Dent, 1973). Russell, A , 'The Rise of Secularisation and the Persistence of Religion', in S. Brichto and R. Harries (eds.), Two Cheers for Secularism (Yelvertoft Manor: Pilkington Press, 1998). Russell, J.B., The Devil: Perceptions from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977). —A History of Witchcraft (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980). —Satan: The Early Christian Tradition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981). —Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984). —Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986). —The Prince of Darkness (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986). Sagovsky, N., Christian Origins and the Practice of Ecumenism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Said, E., Orientalism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978). —Culture and Imperialism (London: Chatto &Windus, 1993). Sardar, Z., and B. Van Loon, Introducing Cultural Studies (Cambridge: Icon Books, 1999). Saxbee, H., 'Church Safe as Long as it Modernises', Church Times (28 November 1997), p. 9. Scarisbrick,J., The Reformation and the English People (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984). Schama, S., A History of Britain, I (London: BBC Books, 2000). Schoffeleers, M., In Search of Truth and Justice: Confrontations Between Church and State in Malawi 1960-1994 (Blantyre: Christian Literature Association, 1999). Screech, M., Laughter at the Foot of the Cross (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1997). Scruton, R., An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture (London: Gerald Duckworth). Seidentrop, L., Democracy in Europe (London: Allen Lane, 1999). Shanks, A , Civil Religion Civil Society (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990). —'Response to The Desire of Nations', Studies in Christian Ethics 11.2 (1998), pp. 67-81. Shiner, L., 'The Concept of Secularisation in Empirical Research'', Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 6 (1967), pp. 207-20. Shweder, R., M. Minow, and M. Markus (eds.), The Free Exercise of Culture (New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2001). Skinner, Q., The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, I-II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978, 1980).

386

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Slipper, C , 'The Shifting Pattern: Spirituality Reconsidered', Theology (July/August 1998), pp. 270-77. Smart, N., and S. Konstantine, Christian Systematic Theology in a Pluralist World (London: HarperCollins, 1991). Smith, C , The Quest for Charisma: Christianity and Persuasion (Westport, C T : Praeger, 2000). Smith, G., 'Ethnicity, Religious Belonging and Inter Faith Encounter: Some Survey Findings from East London', JCR 13.3 (1998), pp. 333-97. Snell, K., and P. Ell, Rival Jerusalems: The Geography of Victorian England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Stanford, P., The Devil: A Biography (London: Arrow, 1996). Stark, R., 'Efforts to Christianise Europe', JCR 16.1 (2001), pp. 108-24. Stark, R., and R. Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Stark, W., The Sociology of Religion: A Study of Christendom {Established Religion) (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966). —The Sociology of Religion: A Study of Christendom (Religious Culture) (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972). Steiner, G., In Bluebeard's Castle: Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture (London: Faber & Faber, 1971). Stocking, G. (ed.), 'Matthew Arnold, E.B. Tylor and the Uses of Invention', in idem (ed.), Culture and Evolution (New York: Free Press, 1968), pp. 7-21. —A Franz Boas Reader: The Shaping ofAmerican Anthropology 1893-1911 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1982). Stone, J. (ed.), Expecting Armageddon: Essential Readings in Failed Prophecy (London: Routledge, 2000). Stott, J., Christian Counter-Culture (Leicester: IVP, 1978). Stout, J., Ethics After Babel (Cambridge, MA: James Clarke, 1988). Strong, R., The Spirit ofBritain (London: Hutchinson, 1999). Sykes, N., The English Religious Tradition (London: SCM Press, rev. edn, 1961). Swatos Jr, W., and J. Wellman Jr, The Power of Religious Publics (Westport, C T : Praeger Publishing, 1999). Tanner, K., Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Minneapolis, M N : Fortress Press, 1997). Taylor, J., The Go-Between God: The Holy Spirit and Christian Mission (London: SCM Press, 1972). —The Christlike God (London: SCM Press, 1992). Thatcher, A., Marriage After Modernity: Christian Marriage in Postmodern Times (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000). Thierstein, J., and Y Kamalipour (eds.), Religion, Law and Freedom (Westport, C T : Praeger Publishing, 2000). Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline ofMagic (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1971). Thomas, R.S., 'Play' in idem, Frequencies (London: Macmillan, 1978). Thornton, M., English Spirituality (London: SPCK, 1963). Tillich, P., Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963). —The Theology of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967).

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INDEX OF AUTHORS

Aaronovitch, D. 97 Abrams, M 95 Adorno, T. 42,44 Ainsworth-Smith, I. 315 Albanese, C. 228 Aldridge,A. 77,111,172-74 Aldridge,M. 250 Alibhai-Brown,Y. 215 Ammerman, N . 65 An-Na'im,A. 142 Armstrong, K. 99 Aron, R. 84 Atwood,M. 141,238 Audi, R. 24,114,115,120,123,124, Auge,M. 201 Avis, P. 202, 330 AynsleyJ. 172 Badii,N. 151 Bagemihl, B. 212 Bailey, E. 94 BaillieJ. 21 Ballantine, P. 194 Banks, I. 235 Barber, R. 262 Bardsley, M. 344 Barker, E. 76 Barna, G. 65 Barth, K. 17,21,121, 242, 244,353,. 59,361 Bartlett,H. 302 Bauckham, R. 349 BaudrillardJ. 36 Bauman, Z. 41 Beckford, J. 76, 96,109, 136, 173, 174 Bede 60, 81, 82 Bell,C. 84 Bell,D. 176

Bellah,R. 138,139,141,268 Bendroth,M. 274 Benedict, R. 38 Berdyaev, N . 21, 51 Berger, J. 157 Berger, P. 62, 71, 72, 75, 93, 157-64, 166, 169, 329 Bergesen, A. 160 Berlin, I. 143,144 Berry, P. 58 Bettenson, H. 126 Beyer, P. 24, 148 Bibby,R. 177 BillietJ. 79 Birdwell-Pheasant, D. 171 Blamires, H. 217 Blane, D. 302, 307 Blatty,W.P. 236 Bleys, R. 212 Bly, R. 200 Boas, F. 43 Bocock, R. 173 Bonhoeffer, D. 359 Booth, C. 220 Borsook, P. 150 Bosch, D. 40 Bourdieu, P. 307 Bourguignon, E. 244 BowkerJ. 318 Braaten, C. 357 Bragg, B. 82 Brailsford, D. 193 Bratlinger, P. 46,231 Braun,W. 77 Brett, R. 83 Breward,C. 172 Bridger,F. 91 Brierley, P. 62, 79, 92, 95, 191

390

T H E SALT O F T H E E A R T H

Bromiley, G. 358 Brown, C. 72, 73, 75, 86, 98, 227, 230 Brown, D. 20, 24, 346-48, 351 Brown, M. 65 Browne, L. 194 Bruce, S. 41, 69, 70, 72, 75, 76, 79, 85, 98, 297 Brueggemann, W. 177, 181, 293, 298, 343 Brykczynsa, G. 313 B u n y a n J . 258 Burbidge, B. 221 Burnip, S. 302 Burrow Jr, R. 299 BuryskaJ. 304 Byrne, J. 353 Byrne, P. 29,77 CaplinJ. 116 CaretteJ. 19,48,227,246 Carr,E.H. 92 Carr, W. 100,112, 113,153, 244 Carrithers, M. 22 Carter, S. 231 Casanova, J. 76, 78, 141, 284, 285 Cawardine, R. 262 Certeau, M. de 230, 258,259 Chadwick, O. 63 Chalmers, T. 89 Chambers, P. 221 Chandler, T. 193 Charlesworth, S. 306, 307 Chaucer, G. 214 Chevreau, G. 203-205 Churchill, S. 222 Clark Roof, W. 65,138,188,190 Clark, E. 153 Clark, P. 136 Clark, S. 242 Clarke, P. 29, 77, 135, 210, 245 Clegg, S. 289, 290 Cobb, J. 357 C o b b , M . 303,304,318 Cohen, S. 252 Cohen, V. 224 Cohn-Sherbok, L. 282 Coleman, S. 262 Coleridge, S T . 136

Coles, R.W. 192 Colley,L. 67,68,115 Collingwood, R.G. 92 Collins, S. 65, 189, 190 Colson,C. 140 Commerford, M. 302 Connor, S. 209 Constance-Simms, D. 212 Cotton, I. 199,270-72 Countryman, L.W. 221 Cox, H. 276, 369 Creedon,J. 65 Cressy,D. 91,223 Crowder, C. 225 Currie,R. 89,94 D'Costa,G. 58,285,360 Dahl,R. 287 Danesi, M. 47 Davie, G. 20, 64, 75, 77, 83, 95, 98, 111, 152,173,177,192, 200, 201, 209, 259,260, 314,316,350 Davies, N . 67 Davies, S. 246, 271 Desmond, A. 337 Deville, R. 305 DillenbergerJ. 347,348 Dobbelaere, K. 76 Docherty,D. 25 D o e , N . 104,335,342 Dominian,J. 221 Donovan, V. 363,364 Doss,E. 196,229 Douglas, M. 202,308,309 Downey, M. 305 Downing, G. 318 D r a n e J . 182,187 Dudley, C. 327 Duffy, E. 89,91 Durkheim, E. 196, 202, 203, 268 Duvall, S. 221 Dworkin,A 224 Dyer,G. 166 Eade,J. 263 Eagleton, T. 42,45,46 Edge, P. 133 Edwards, D. 71,85,92

INDEX OF AUTHORS Ehrenburg, A.S. 160 EldridgeJ. 149 Elford,RJ. 140 Eliade, M. 202,203, 206, 243,262, 275 Eliot, T.S. 21,26, 37, 45, 66, 69,101, 321 Elizondo,V. 263 Ell, P. 90,96 Ellis, B. 237, 238, 240, 242, 244, 246-48, 250,252,253 Ellis, H. 220 Ellis, R. 207 Eisner, J. 262 Ernst, B. 353 Erskine,N. 280-82 Esposito,J. 176 Evans, G. 343 Evans, J. 280,281 Evelyn, M. 221 Exum,J.C. 46 Fanthorpe, U.A. 366,367 Farley, E. 32 Farquarson, A. 213 Featherstone, M. 176 Fergusson, D. 120 Finke, R. 80, 87, 88, 93, 97 FiskeJ. 230,231 Fitzgibbon, A. 140 Flanagan, K. 91 Fletcher, R 87 Forbes, B. 32 Ford, D. 23, 59, 189, 358, 370, 371 Foucault, M. 42, 47, 48, 207, 208, 284, 287,289,311 Fox,N. 308,312 F o x , R 310,311 Frankl,V. 303 Frayling,N. 285,295 Freeman, J. 179 Freire, P. 151 French, N . 248 Freud, S. 202, 244 Freyne, S. 263 Frye,N. 57 Fuchs,E. 314 Fuller, L. 152 Fuller, R 241 Furbey, R 131

Gardner, J. 200 Gardner, K. 310 Garnham,N. 150 Gay, J. 86 Geertz, C. 42, 43, 196, 197, 209, 210 Gerard, D. 95 Gettings, F. 239, 245 Ghanea-Hercock, N . 142, 143 Giddens, A. 93, 187, 215, 277, 289 Gilbert, A. 89,94 Gill, R. 75, 76, 89, 94-96,176, 314 Gill, S. 58 Gilley,S. 84 Gilliat, S. 136 Gilliat-Ray, S. 109-11,136 Girardot, N . 229 Giroux,H. 150 Glasner,P. 85 Goddard, S. 221 Goffmann, E. 205 Gomez, D. 322,323, 325-28 Graham, E. 100, 320, 346, 361 Grant, R. 42 Greeley, A. 78 Greer, G. 224 Grenz, S. 31 G r u e n , D . 200 Guinness, O. 51, 52 Gumbel,A. 239 Gunton, C. 354 HabermasJ. 289 H a b g o o d J . 70,150,226 Hall, S. 41,42,209 Hammond, F. 244 Hammond, I. 244 Hammond, P. 97 Handley,P. 67 Hanson, E. 302 Hanson, S. 79 Harden, R. 340 Hardy, D. 27, 107, 358 Hargreaves,J. 210 Harmer, R. 316 Harries, R. 63, 73, 100 H a r t , T . 354 Hart,W. 46,47 Hartman, G. 42,45

391

392

T H E SALT O F T H E E A R T H

Hartshorne, C. 357 Harvey, A. 221 Harvey, D. 41,296 Harvey, G. 133 Hastings, A. 63,92,112,113 Hauerwas, S. 40, 51,123 Havez,K 152 Hay, D. 94 H a y , M . 304 Haynes, J., 77, 127, 284, 285, 297 Healy, N . 28, 29,107,124, 269,322,341, 351,352,362,363 Heelas, P. 96 Heffer,S. 67 Hennessey, P. 114 Herbert, D. 136 Hervieu-Leger, D. 64, 83, 192, 200, 201, 233 Heywood, O. 85 Hick, J. 356,357,360 Hicks, R. 200 H i g g s , R 192 Hill,M. 104,131 Hoffmann, S. 192,194 Holloway, R 235 Holyoake, G J . 70 Hooker, R 144,145 Hopewell, J. 57 Horkheimer, M. 44 Hornby, N . 203-205 Horsley,L 89,94 Horst, P. van der 242 Howes, G. 101,103 Huber,W. 132 Hudgins,A 214 H u n t , S . 179,183 Hunter, I. 225 Hunter, J. 160 Hutton,W. 97,123 Inglesby,E. 312 Ireland, M. 179 Jacobson-Widding, A 244 James, N . 313 Jantzen, G. 231 Jefferson, T. 41,42,209 Jeffrey, V. 253

Jellinek,G. 137,138 Jenkins, D. 92, 319, 360, 365, 366 Jenkins, K. 92 Jenkins, P. 251 Jenkins, S. 100,101 Jenkins, T. 27,79,90,91,167 Jenson, R. 357 Jinkins,M. 26 Johnston, R. 193 Jongh, N . de 225 Jung, C.G. 202, 244 J u n o r , P . 114 Kamalipour, Y. 132 Kamerman,J. 316 Kamitsuka, D. 55, 56 Katz,J. 301 Kavanaugh, A. 363 Keillor, G. 276 Kelley,D. 268 Kennedy, L. 70 Kennedy, M. 333 Kenny, A 354 Kepel,G. 77 KerkhofsJ. 95 Kilmister, C A . 102,115 King,M. 304 King,U. 58 Kipling, R. 107 KirkHadaway,C. 94,95 Kitzinger,J. 251 KleistJ. 44 Kluckhohn, C. 22, 209 Komaromy, C. 301 Konstantine, S. 354, 355 Krober,A 37 Kroeber,A 22,209 Kuper, A 36 Kurzwell,E. 160 Kuschel, K.-J. 359 Kwint,M. 172 La Fontaine, J. 251-53 Laermans, R. 79 Laing,D. 301 Lakeland, P. 53,54,78 Lamb, C. 305 L a n e , H 151

INDEX OF AUTHORS Lash, N . 259 Laurence Moore, R. 40,177 Lawrence, D.H. 225 Lawrence-Zuniga, D. 171 Lawson, M. 221 L e e , R 159 Leeuw, G. van der 287, 288 Lehmann,J. 197 Lerner,B.D. 201,202 Levi-Strauss, C. 43, 196, 197 Levinas, E. 40 Lewens,A. 232 Lewis, C.S. 364 Lewis, D. 273 Lewis, LM. 287, 288 Liley, C. 348, 349 Limor,Y. 151 Lindbeck,G. 53,332,351 Lindsay, H. 240 Linzey, A. 245 Lloyd, J. 151 Loftus,E. 237 Lomas, P. 58 Long Mather, P. 94,95 Longley, C. 95,191, 218, 219 Luckmann, T. 62,72,75,97 Lueken,V. 248 Luhman, N . 277 Lukes, S. 288, 289 Lurker,M. 242 Luther King Jr, M. 281,282,294,295 Luther, M. 228 Lyon, D. 80, 171, 175, 176, 188 LyotardJ.F. 41,308 MacCulloch, D. 84 MacDonaldSmithJ. 362 MacGregor,N. 348,349 MacIntyre,A. 313 Macfarlane, A. 76 Macquarrie,J. 332 Magdalinski, T. 193 Magnet, M. 140 M a h a n J . 32 Malia,L. 254 Malinowski, B. 38 Maliparathu, T. 22 MaltbyJ. 76

393

M a n g a n J A 192, 193 Manley-Pippert, R. 17 Marcus, G. 228 MaritainJ. 21 Mantegazza, P. 218 Markham, I. 66, 109,134, 139-41, 152, 284, 285, 295,296, 304,305,371, 372 Markus, M. 145 Marsh, C. 64,227 Marsh, S. 89 Martin, B. 95,220 Martin, D. 25-27, 48, 68, 75, 85, 92, 148, 168,233,315,372-74 Marty, M. 267,268,295 Mason, M. 223 Massie,A. 103 Mather, J. 316,317 Mather, V. 103 May, R. 244, 287 Mazzoni, G. 237 McCloughlin,W. 262 McCutcheon, R. 77, 176 McGinn, B. 241,245 M c G o u g h , R 211 McGrade,A.S. 144 McGuire, M. 246, 268, 269, 277, 288 McHenry,B. 121 MclntyreJ. 309 McKie,D. 103,115 McKinney,W. 138 McLellan, D. 207 McLeod,H. 73 Mead,L. 337 Mead,M. 65 Medhurst, K. 99 Megahey,A. 285 M e n o n , U . 138 MiddletonJ. 244 Milbank, J. 25, 28, 48, 53, 54, 62,123, 321,322 Miles, M. 223 Miller, A. 132,238 Miller, D. 36, 174,175, 185, 186 Minow, M. 145 MitfordJ. 315 Mitton, M. 261 Mohood,T. 113,114

394

T H E SALT O F T H E E A R T H

M o l t m a n n J . 305,353 Money, T. 193 Montgomery, J.W. 255 Moore, J. 337 Moore, S.D. 46 Moore, R.L. 177 Moorman, J. 63 Morris, D. 192, 198, 199 Morriss,P. 286,289,290 Morse, C. 358 Morse, E. 270 Moscovici, S. 195,196 Motamed-Nejad, K. 151 Mowlana, H. 151 Moyser, G. 126 Moyser, S. 99 Mudie-Smith, R. 89 Muller,M. 79 Murray, A. 92 Murray, I. 225 Musa,B. 152 Myers, G. 166 Nairn, T. 68 Naremore,J. 46,231 Natsoulas,T. 273 Neil, A. 103,114 N e i t z , M J . 246 Neuhaus,R. 139-41 Neville, G. 60, 262,335, 336 Newbigin, L. 26, 40, 49, 50, 52, 54, 350, 361,362,371 Newport, K. 240 Nicholls, D. 122,145, 291, 323 Nichols, BJ. 50,51 Nichols, V. 19 Nickerson, C. 83 Niebuhr, H.R. 21,22,38-41, 47, 49, 56, 368,370-72 Norman, R. 324,325,331,332 Nossek,H. 151 Novak, M. 193,194,199 N y e , M . 31 O'Brien, J. 192 O'Connell, S. 237 O'DonovanJ.L. 134 O'Donovan, O. 121, 122

Oates,S. 279,281,282,290,293 Ogilvy,D. 148 01asky,M. 140 Orchard, H. 136,300,319 Oritz,G. 227 O r r , D . 213 Osier, W. 310 Pagels,E. 243 Parekh,B. 134-36,139 Paris, P. 212 Parkes, C. 303 Parr,M. 103,115 Parsons, S. 238, 248 Parsons, T. 137,288,289 PatonWalshJ. 60 Pattison, S. 306, 315, 319 PaxmanJ. 67,81 Pearson, C. 207 Peck, M.S. 278 PelikanJ. 40 Percy, M. 27, 29, 68, 99,102, 144, 183, 184,194,197,205,227, 238, 243, 246, 249, 264-66, 274, 284, 292, 307,321,322,343 Perreti, F. 241 Perron, P. 47 Perry, M. 254 Persinger,M. 271,272 Peters, R. 288 PhelanJ. 149,150 Philibert,P. 275 Pietpierre, D.R. 254 Plass,A 203,204 Platten, S. 329, 330 Polanyi, M. 49 Poling, J. 320 Poloma,M. 261,264 PorteousWood,K. 118 Post, P. 262 Pratt-Ewing, K. 138 Purves, L. 62 Rashid Gatrad, A. 305 Reader, I. 263 RentoulJ. 335 Reznikoff,M. 302 Richards, J. 254

INDEX OF AUTHORS Richter,P. 263 Ricoeur, P. 243 Riley, P. 221 Ritzer,G. 182,184 Robbins,K. 110 Robbins,T. 58 Robertson, R. 72, 186 Robinson, J. 352,354,358-60,365 Robinson, M. 261 Robshaw,V. 303,304 Rodman, G. 228 Rogers, D. 120 R o n s o n J . 179 Roozen, D. 327 Rose, K. 103 Rossi, E. 270 Rousseau, J.J. 137, 140 Rubin, M. 262 Rumsey, A. 27 Rushdie, S. 152 Russell, A. 63, 71, 75, 76, 94, 96, 100 Russell, J.B. 243,255 Russell-Jones, I. 194 Sager, L. 144 Sagovsky, N . 328 Said,E. 23,42,46,259 Sallnow,M. 263 Sardar,Z. 23,55,285 Sato, I. 249 Saxbee,H. 122 Sayers, D.L. 149 Scambler, G. 316 Scarisbrick, J. 89 Schama, S. 103, 126 Scheper-Hughes, N . 307 Schoffeleers, M. 133 Schwoebel, C. 354 Screech, M. 90 Scruton, R. 46, 47 Seidentrop, L. 121 Selby,H. 225 Seymour, J. 302 Shanks, A. 122, 123, 135, 136 Shaw, F. 351 Sheikh, A. 305 Sheldrake, P. 319 Shillington, V.G. 18

395

Shiner, L. 74 Shweder,R. 138,145 Sidell,M. 301 Sigurdson,0. 229,230 Sinclair, M. 322, 323, 325, 327, 328 Skinner, Q. 126 Slipper, C. 66 Smart, N . 354, 355 Smedes, L. 221 Smith, C. 293 Smith, G. 68 Snell,K. 90,96 Speck, P. 304,305,315 Spittler,R. 276,277 Spurrell, M. 88 Stackhouse, M. 188,212 Stall, S. 218 Stanford, P. 243 Stark, R. 79, 80, 82, 83, 87, 88, 93, 97, 123 Stark, W. 105,106, 108, 284, 285, 368, 369, 373, 374 Steiner, G. 37, 43 Stocking, G. 43 Stone, J. 240 Stoppard,T. 212,213 StottJ. 17 Stout, J. 121 Strong, R. 67 Surbritzky, B. 244,250 SwatosJr,W. 141,341 Sykes, N . 68 Sykes, S. 335 Sylvester, R. 102 Szreter, S. 218 Tanner, K. 54,55 Taylor, J.V. 350,358 Thatcher, A. 213,222 Thierstein, J. 132 Thimmell, D. 354 Thomas, A. 304 Thomas, K. 85, 87-90, 189, 255 Thomas, P.T. 353 Thomas, R.S. 190 Thompson, F. 364 Thornton, B. 274 Thornton, M. 63

396

T H E SALT O F T H E E A R T H

Tilley,T. 58 Tillich, P. 21, 24, 40, 243, 244, 356 Timmers, M. 152, 154 Timms, N . 95 T o d t , H . 132 Toorn, K. Van der 242 Torevell,D. 237 Torrance, I. 225 Torrance, R. 203 Torrance, T. 176 Toynbee, A. 21 Tracy, D. 30 Trefgarne, G. 115 Tripp, D. 228 Troeltsch, E. 40, 137 Turner, A. 245 Turner, B. 22 Turner, E. 263 Turner, V. 262,274,277 Turtle, C. 265 Tutu, D. 286 Twelftree, G. 254 Tylor, E. 22, 42, 43 U r r y J . 260 Vallely,P. 63 Van Loon, B. 23, 55, 285 V e n J . v a n d e r , 159,161 Vidler,A 143 Vulliamy,E. 140 Wagg,S. 197 Walby, S. 207 Walker, A 51,68 Walker, J. 237 Walker Bynum, C. 215,216,231 Walrond-Skinner, S. 342 Walsh, A 140 Walter, T. 263,315,318 Walton, H. 361 Wangerin,W. 348 Ward,B. 314 Ward,G. 259 Ward, P. 182,185,186

WarrackJ. 364 Warren, M. 44, 150, 151 Waters, M. 186 Watson, D. 179 Watson, M. 176 Watts, F. 272 Waugh,E. 316 Webb, D. 259 Weber, M. 43, 171, 206, 287, 291, 293, 294, 310 Weeks, J. 206,207,211,218-20,226 Weller,P. 114 W e l l m a n J r J . 141 Wernick,A 58 Wessels,A 75 West, J. 364 Westerlund, D. 130,244 Whipp,M. 310 White, G. 345, 351 White, J. 221 Whiteley, D. 98 Wickham,E. 85,86 Wilkinson, A 84 Williams, D. 351 Williams, M. 272 Williams, P. 282 Williams, Raymond 36, 151 Williams, Rowan 41, 45, 46, 124, 188, 286, 358 Williamson, J. 166 Wilson, B. 71, 72, 75,173, 261, 297 W i m b e r J . 243,249 Winch, P. 210 Wink,W. 241 WintersonJ. 238 W i t z , A 311 WoodfordeJ. 88,90 Wright Mills, C. 84,291 Wuthnow, R. 138, 160, 188 Yeo,E. 194 Yeo,S. 194 Young, F. 358 Zizoulas,J. 354