A case discussed in the column to the left,
The case of Julie Morris.
Julie Morris was a primary school deputy head teacher and
the safeguarding lead at a school in Wigan.
Julie Morris and her partner were imprisoned for dozens of child sexual abuse offences,
including nine counts of rape. They had filmed themselves abusing and raping
a girl under the age of 13.
One example of a safeguarding document, the information
concerning safeguarding on the Website of the Oxford Diocese
https://www.oxford.anglican.org/safeguarding
An example of failures of safeguarding, multiple failures
rather than a single failure, also from the Oxford Diocese,
the information I provide in the second column of this page,
Action and inaction in the Diocese of
Oxford.
This claim appears on every page of the Oxford Diocese
Website:
The practice of the Oxford Diocese has been very
different in many different ways. To confine attention to the claim that the
Diocese is 'courageous' and one important aspect of courage, moral courage,
it isn't self evident that the practice has been inspiring or just about
adequate on many, many occasions. The Diocese engages in mission, like all
other dioceses, like all parishes. But in my experience, none of them make
an effort in one aspect of mission which should be vital: apologetics, that
is, defending Christian belief against objections. The non-Christians, the
lost, the 'unsaved,' are taken to be a homogeneous mass of people, in
effect, wandering in darkness, desperately in need of Christian belief, the
belief in the 'Risen Redeemer.' Next to no attempt has been made to address
the very substantial objections to Christian belief.
In many, many of the 'Christian centuries,' it was
easy - unbelievers could be tortured to convince them of 'the error of their
ways' and executed. When countries began to secularize, when these
expedients became unavailable, there was no significant increase in attempts
to defend Christianity against objections by means of the spoken or written
word, in print and later by means of the internet.
No doubt, in private prayer, Christians have
continued to send prayers thick and fast to God for the conversion of X, Y
or Z or the conversion of a whole country, including communities in distant
countries - prayers from England for the success of missionary work in a
country in Sub-Saharan Africa, perhaps. And, also prayers for the ending of
conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa and terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa.
Rational, empirical attempts to confirm the effects
of prayer have been lacking. The claim that prayer is beneficial, that
prayers are often answered, has never been subjected to honest, extensive
appraisal by believers. So believers go on praying and praying - after all,
it costs them nothing but the time taken and it enhances the believer's
self-esteem. Concrete measures to address suffering, to address wrongs in
the real world are very different - generally arduous, requiring enormous
effort and in many or most cases twith no guarantee of success - but the
successes can be overwhelmingly important and can genuinely transform lives,
or aspects of lives.
Prayer is facile, like the claim on the Oxford
Diocese Website that the diocese is 'contemplative, compassionate,
courageous.'
Do the Christian Churches deserve to be supported?
Should money be given to them?
No, for many different reasons.
Give money to good causes,
not to the Churches.
Jesus' teaching according to
Matthew 5:17 in the New Living Translation:
'Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law
of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their
purpose.'
The translation of the King James Bible
'Think not that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets ...'
Advice on parenting from 'God's Word,'
Deuteronomy, 21: 18-21,
in the English Standard Version. It too forms part of 'The Law,' and Jesus
saw no objection to it.
A Rebellious Son
18 “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the
voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline
him, will not listen to them, 19 then his father and
his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his
city at the gate of the place where he lives, 20 and
they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and
rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then
all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall
purge the evil from your midst ... '
More from Jesus on God's Law:
'I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the
smallest detail of God's law will disappear until its purpose is achieved.'
(Matthew 5:18, New Living Translation.)
Material on this site tends to be highly dispersed - a comment I make in
various pages of the site. Some of the material below is extracted from the
very varied page
Home Page Images. It illustrates one aspect of the callousness and
heartlessness of orthodox Christianity.
There are many, many Christians who may differ in
their dogmatic beliefs, with beliefs which contradict the beliefs of other
Christians - they can't possibly all be true - but in agreement about this:
orthodoxy is the way forward, conservative evangelical and Anglo-Catholic
faith. This faith is based upon a literal interpretation of the Bible, a
belief that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. Don't they see the
difficulties here? it seems that they don't. The way forward they endorse
seems to be based on complacency and worse, far worse.
Christians, not all, obviously, but a significant proportion, have
believed in every century of Christian belief that God has killed people in
natural disasters, such as earthquakes, storms at sea and on land, sending
plagues and other diseases as a punishment for 'sin' or as a warning to
'sinners.' There are still many, many Christians who prefer to believe in
God as mass killer rather than accept scientific explanations.
Jesus ('God the Son') did nothing to discourage warped views on killing.
He warned of the destruction of towns, the punishment of towns with the
punishment inflicted on Sodom and Gomorrah - more mass killing, more killing
of innocent men, women, children and babies. More on this in the Gospel
according to Matthew 10. In this Trinitarian religion the blame is equal and
shared. There's no possibility of 'God the Father' being guilty of mass
killing but the other two members of the Trinity completely innocent.
But these considerations only arise in a religion which involves
the willingness to ignore realities. Elaborate theoretical and theological
explanations intended to excuse God, to absolve him from all blame, to
put the entire blame on human agency, have failed to find excuses for the
Christian God, although the excuses generally convince the simple-minded
faithful.
2. Slaves
The poster relates to slaves on the island of St Helena, colonized in 1659.
Extract from the St Helena 'Laws and Orders, constituted for the Negro
Slaves, by the inhabitants of the island, with the approbation of the
Governor and Council,' 1670:
That no Black or Blacks, upon any pretence whatsoever, shall wander
from his master’s plantation upon Sundays, without a lawful occasion granted
by their said masters or mistresses, either by writing, or some other token
that shall be known by the neighbourhood, upon the penalty of ten lashes on
his naked body for the first offence, fifteen for the second, twenty for the
third, and so for every offence thereafter committed ...
Those that shall absent their masters’ service three days, and
three nights, shall be punished according to the last foregoing article, and
the master make satisfaction for what they have stolen as aforesaid. For the
first offence of this kind, the master or masters shall make satisfaction
for what is stolen, and repair all damages done by the slave or slaves ; so
soon as taken, shall be brought to the fort, and immediately receive, on his
naked body, one hundred lashes, then secured ; four days after that, thirty;
six days after that, twenty more, and branded in the forehead with the
letter R : for the second offence in this kind, he shall be punished as
above said, and wear, for one year, a chain and clogs of thirty pounds
weight ; and for the third offence, satisfaction shall be made as above said
to the loser or losers, and the slave or slaves shall suffer death, at the
discretion of the Governor and Council.
In case any, slave, from the age of sixteen
years and upwards, shall presume and attempt to strike or assault any white
person whatsoever, correcting him or otherwise, for any cause whatsoever,
shall, for the said offence or offences (though without weapon or dangerous
instrument) undergo and suffer the punishment of castration, that is to say,
shall have his, testicles cut out ..
In 1693, a slave called Jamy was sentenced to be burned alive for
'sorcery' in St Helena.
The Apostle Paul includes sorcery in the list of 'works of the
flesh:' “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality,
impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife . . . and things
like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such
things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians
5:19-21).
St Helena takes its name from Saint Helena, born about 250 and the mother
of the emperor Constantine. It is claimed that on a pilgrimage, she
discovered the actual cross on which Jesus was crucified. As a result of
this discovery, she is revered as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, the
Anglican Church, the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Church and the Lutheran
Church.
According to the grim theology of another Saint, 'St' Paul, the pious St
Helena has inherited the kingdom of God but the slave Jamie has not.
'St' Helena actually found three crosses, according to legend. A woman
who was very ill touched all three crosses. After touching the first and
second, nothing happened but when she touched the third cross, she suddenly
recovered, so Helena declared that this MUST be the True Cross of Jesus.
It was also claimed that Helena found the nails used in the crucifixion
of Jesus.
From the Wikipedia entry on 'Relics associated with Jesus,'
At various points in history, a number of churches in Europe have
claimed to possess the Holy Prepuce, Jesus' foreskin from his
Circumcision; tears shed by Christ when mourning Lazarus; the blood of
Christ shed during the crucifixion; a milk tooth that fell out of the mouth
of Jesus at the age of 9; beard hair, head hair, Christ's nails.
[Presumably, finger nails and toe nails.] A section of the Holy Umbilical
Cord believed to remain from the birth of Christ is currently in the
Archbasilica of St John Lateran.
Throughout its history as a slave-owning, slave flogging, slave
castrating and slave executing jurisdiction - and afterwards - St Helena was
Christian, with active churches, where the gospel was preached, prayers
offered and Holy Communion was taken. Abuses which took place in the Roman
empire were ignored by Jesus, St Paul and others in the Christian Churches -
just about all of them, not just some of them. These abuses were ignored in St Helena and carried out in St Helena, although it's likely
that the abuses in the Roman empire were worse.
The Roman doctor and writer on medicine
Galen observed slaves being kicked, beaten with fists, and having their
teeth knocked out or their eyes gouged out, witnessing the i blinding of one
slave by means of a pen.
In 56 AD, the Roman senator Lucius Pedanius Secundus
was murdered by one of his slaves. The senate approved the execution of all
of his slaves, about 400 in number - men, women, children and, it may be,
babies - in accordance with Roman law. Christians, following the example of
the founder of the religion, would not have been outraged. Their minds were
on other things, such as converting 'heathens' to belief in Jesus as Lord
and Saviour. It' likely that there will have been very few Christian
converts amongst the executed slaves, probably none, and so the destiny of
all of them, with perhaps a few exceptions, will have been eternal
separation from God, according to this deranged theology.
The institution of slavery freely permitted the
separation of baby from mother and the selling of baby and mother to
different 'owners.' For most of its recorded history, Christianity has
opposed heresy, blasphemy, 'witchcraft,' drunkenness, but not the slave
market or harsh treatment of slaves, such as flogging.
The Church of England has apologised for its
historical links to the slave trade.
Commissioners of the church, including the
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, looked into their history and
involvement in the slave trade and said its connection to it caused 'great
dismay' and was a 'shameful and horrific sin.'
Slavery was never regarded by Jesus and St Paul as a
'shameful and horrific sin.' For most of the recorded history of the
Christian churches, slavery has never been regarded as a sin at all.
St Paul's Letter, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10.
'Do you not know that the wicked will not
inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral
nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual
offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor
swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.'
So, homoesxuals won't inherit the kingdom of God,
according to 'St' Paul, but he has no objection in the case of slave owners.Matthew
24:45, quoting Jesus himself:
'Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom
his master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves
their allowance of food at the proper time?' (New Revised Standard Version.)
Jesus takes for granted the view that slavery is a
natural institution of society, not open to objection.
The Archbishop of Canterbury will never issue an
apology along these lines: 'Our founder, Jesus Christ, God the Son never
regarded slavery as a sin. He allowed slavery to go unopposed. We apologize
unreservedly for his failure to condemn she shameful and horrific evil of
slavery.
Above, after a flogging: a slave in Louisiana in
the mid nineteenth century.
Slavery was ended in the United States not by
Christianity and not by convincing slave owners that slavery was wrong by by
persuading slave owners to free their slaves. It was ended, of course, by
military action. Above, General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union armies.
War: The Second World War
The
killing of babies, children and young people at Auschwitz and other
extermination / concentration camps and the killings of the Einsatzgruppen,
mobile death squads
Above, Jewish women and children from Hungary walking toward the
gas chamber, Auschwitz II, May/June 1944. None of these people would have
been Christians, although it's possible that a few were Christian converts.
Were all the non-Christians destined for eternal separation from God?
(the view of orthodox Christian doctrine, the state called 'hell)
Hunger and industry
Material on this section takes the form of extracts from my page
Ireland and Northern Ireland.
On the
back cover of Peter Mathias's 'The First Industrial Nation:' 'The fate of
the overwhelming mass of the population in any pre-industrial society is to
pass their lives on the margins of subsistence. It was only in the eighteenth
century that society in north-west Europe, particularly in England, began
the break with all former traditions of economic life.'
'In the
'Prologue,' this is elaborated: 'The elemental truth must be stressed that
the characteristic of any country before its industrial revolution and modernization
is poverty. Life on the margin of subsistence is an inevitable condition for
the masses of any nation. Doubtless there will be a ruling class, based on
the economic surplus produced from the land or trade and office, often living
in extreme luxury. There may well be magnificent cultural monuments and very
wealthy religious institutions. But with low productivity, low output per
head, in traditional agriculture, any economy which has agriculture as the
main constituent of its national income and its working force does not produce
much of a surplus above the immediate requirements of consumption from its
economic system as a whole ... The population as a whole, whether of medieval
or seventeenth-century England, or nineteenth-century India, lives close to
the tyranny of nature under the threat of harvest failure or disease ... The
graphs which show high real wages and good purchasing power of wages in some
periods tend to reflect conditions in the aftermath of plague and endemic
disease.'
'Larry
Zuckerman, 'The Potato:' 'Famine struck France thirteen times in the sixteenth
century, eleven in the seventeenth, and sixteen in the eighteenth. And this
tally is an estimate, perhaps incomplete, and includes general outbreaks only.
It doesn't count local famines that ravaged one area or another almost yearly.'
Christian
Wolmar's 'Blood, Iron and Gold: how the railways transformed the world' includes
this, after pointing out one way in which diet was improved by the coming
of the railways: 'There were countless other examples of the railways improving
not only people's diets but their very ability to obtain food. France, for
example, had periodically suffered famines as a result of adverse weather
conditions right up to the 1840s, but once the railways began reaching the
most rural parts of the country food could easily be sent to districts suffering
shortages. Moreover, it would be at a price people could afford ... The consumption
of fruit and vegetables by the French urban masses doubled in the second half
of the nineteenth century almost solely as a result of the railways.'
No transformation in history is as important as the British industrial
revolution, which quickly transformed more receptive nations, such as
Belgium, but not others, such as Ireland. Why do far fewer women die in childbirth, why do few
people in industrialised nations live amidst vermin, unable to feed
themselves adequately or to keep warm, why do people in industrialised
nations not live in insanitary
cabins?
Britain's response to
The Great Famine in the mid-nineteenth century was worse than inadequate,
but Britain had this to its credit. It was the place where The Industrial
Revolution began, where so many of the inventions and innovations which
transformed life were devised, the place where for a long period of time The
Industrial Revolution was most vigorous by far. There wasn't one famine in
history, of course, which dwarfed all other famines, this period of famine
in Ireland. By then, there had been famines in every country in the world,
very often less severe, sometimes more severe. It was The Industrial
Revolution which ended the threat of famine in industrialised countries. When
Ireland eventually became an industrialised country itself, it was with British
help.
E A Wrigley gives this useful summary of the impact and benefits of the
Industrial Revolution in 'Energy and the English Industrial Revolution:'
'One of the best ways of defining the essence of the industrial revolution is
to describe it as the escape from the constraints of an organic economy.
Civilisations of high sophistication developed at times in many places in
the wake of the neolithic food revolution: in China, India, Egypt, the
valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, Greece, and Rome, among others. Their
achievements in many spheres of human endeavour match or surpass those of
modern societies: in literature, painting, sculpture, and philosophy, for
example, their best work will always command attention. Some built vast
empires and maintained them for centuries, even millennia. They traded over
great distances and had access to a very wide range of products. Their
elites commanded notable wealth and could live in luxury. Yet invariably the
bulk of the population was poor once the land was fully settled; and it
seemed beyond human endeavour to alter this state of affairs.
'The 'laborious poverty', in the words of Jevons, to which most men and
women were condemned did not arise from lack of personal freedom, from
discrimination, or from the nature of the political or legal system,
although it might be aggravated by such factors. It sprang from the nature
of all organic economies. [In organic economies] .. plant growth ...
represented the bulk of the sum total of energy which could be made available
for any human purpose. The other energy sources which were accessible,
chiefly wind and water, were, comparatively speaking, of minor importance.
The ceiling set in this fashion to the quantity of energy which could be
secured for human use was a relatively low limit because only a tiny
fraction of the energy reaching the surface of the earth from the sun was
captured by plant photosynthesis. Since all productive processes involved
the consumption of energy, and plant growth was the dominant energy source,
the productivity of the land conditioned everything else.
...
'The process of escape was slow but progressive ... from being a minor
contributor to energy supply in Tudor times, coal increased steadily in
importance, reaching a position of almost total dominance by the
mid-nineteenth century.'
The Gospel of Jesus and Public Health
Prominent in the Gospel of Jesus and the teaching and practice of Jesus'
followers: reliance upon miracles (such as the miracle of the feeding of the
5,000) and prayer (such as praying for an end to the plague). Christians
have sometimes used other measures, such as killing Jews. During the period
of the Black Death, false accusations were often made against Jews - that
they had poisoned wells. Jews were sometimes tortured to make them confess
to poisoning the sources of drinking water. As I point out in various places
on the site, there's no record of Jesus, or St Paul, or other Christians in
the early Church- or most Christians in the centuries when
Christianity was dominant - opposing the use of torture.
The Black Death was the deadly plague pandemic, at its peak between 1347
and 1351. Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the plague vary - from
around 75 million to around 200 million.
The scientific perspective: Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium
Yersinia pestis, spread
by fleas, but during the Black Death it probably also took a secondary form,
pneumonic plague, spread by person-to-person contact.
Of all the causes of disease, diseases caused by lack of safe drinking
water are the most prominent. Cholera is one example, but there are so many
others. Again, the measures which have been effective are very different
from the Christian 'solutions,' which are no solutions at all.
Provision of safe drinking water and treatment of sewage have been
achieved by vastly different means, scientific advances, such as
chlorination of drinking water, and vast construction projects, the building
of reservoirs, water treatment plants, sewage plants, the construction of
massive pipelines to convey drinking water (and the water needed for
industry, again, on a vast scale) and separate pipelines to take away
sewage.
A little information about the construction of just one civil engineering
project, the construction of Derwent Dam in Derbyshire. The dam is important
for many reasons, among them this: it was used for practice by the Dam
Busters during the Second World War.
From the Severn Trent water publication, 'Dam builders to Dambusters:'
'Derwent Dam took over ten years to build and six months to fill!
'Imagine over a million tonnes of stone blasted out of the earth at
Grindleford's Bole Hill quarry, travelling to Bamford by rail, then on to
the valley over 7 miles of specially built railway ...
'Different trades worked on the dams. Skilled masons from as far away
as Cornwall dressed the stone to the precisely proportioned blocks you see.
Strong navvy labourers, many from Wales, worked in teams digging out
foundations, shifting earth and stone.'
The industrial revolution was harsh, as harsh as the pre-industrial age, but
a necessary prelude to this age of comfort and comfortable assumptions and
illusions.
The harshness of the industrial age, like the comfort of this age, wasn't,
of course, shared by everyone. The harshness was experienced by people who
really are all but invisible today, all but forgotten, such as the navvies.
'Men of Iron,' the superb book by Sally Dugan, is mainly concerned with the
audacious work of the engineers Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Robert
Stephenson (she also does justice to the genius of their fathers, Marc
Brunel and George Stephenson).
She writes of the navvies' work, 'Maiming or mutilation came with the job,
and navvies were lucky if they escaped with nothing more than the loss of a
limb. They worked using picks and shovels, crowbars and wheelbarrows, and
their bare hands; the only other aid they had was the occasional blast of
gunpowder. Some were blinded by explosions; others were buried in rock
falls. All led a life of hard, grinding physical toil, tramping from one
construction site to another in search of work.'
'Men
of Iron' includes this quotation, from Elizabeth Garnett: 'Certainly no men
in all the world so improve their country as Navvies do England. Their work
will last for ages, and if the world remains so long, people will come
hundreds of years hence to look at it and wonder at what they have done.'
The view that all navvies were sentenced to eternity in hell, except for the
tiny minority who had accepted Jesus as 'personal Lord and Saviour' is
contemptible.
Remembrance Sunday and the
Church of England
The National Arboretum
describes itself as 'a place for everyone to remember.' It should not be
holding Church of England services in which everyone attending is expected
to join in prayers. It should not be holding Church of England services
based on doctrines which will not be accepted by everyone but only by a
small minority, such as the doctrine that those who fell in the First World
War and the Second World War and other conflicts are condemned to eternal
punishment - everyone, that is, who has not accepted Jesus as personal Lord
and Saviour. The National Arboretum should not be promoting a Church which
regards those who played such a magnificent part in defending our freedoms
as essentially abject sinners, in need of God's redemption. What they
deserve is our thanks and our gratitude for their achievements.
Commonwealth War Grave - Jewish
cc-by-sa/2.0 -
©
Evelyn Simak -
geograph.org.uk/p/5706944
_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1604891.jpg)
Commonwealth war grave - Christian
This is the Website of the National Arboretum:
https://www.thenma.org.uk/
And this page is a record of the most recent Remembrance Sunday
Order of Service
https://www.thenma.org.uk/what's-on/events-exhibitions-and-talks/events/remembrance-sunday/online-order-of-service
It was conducted by The Venerable Dr Susan Weller, Archdeacon of Lichfield.
An extract from the section 'Confession and Absolution:'
'Let us confess to God the sins and shortcomings of the world ... Let us
confess our share in what is wrong, and our failure to seek and establish
that peace which God wills for his children.'
At this point, I'll quote some words from the part of the Bible called 'The Law,'
Numbers 31. Moses takes
a very different view of what God expects. He regards himself as acting in
accordance with God's will.
14. Moses
was angry with the officers, the commanders of battalions and companies, who
had returned from the war.
15. He
asked them, “Why have you kept all the women alive?
16. Remember
that it was the women who followed Balaam's instructions and at Peor led the
people to be unfaithful to the Lord. That was what brought the epidemic on
the Lord's people.
17. So
now kill every boy and kill every woman who has had sexual intercourse,
18. but
keep alive for yourselves all the girls and all the women who are virgins.'
The translation here is the Good News (!) translation.'
According to Deuteronomy 20, God gives
commands concerning the treatment of people in captured cities. From the
translation of the 'Good News Bible:"
20:13 Then, when the LORD your God lets you capture the city, kill every
man in it.
Even harsher treatment is ordered for cities intended for settlement:
20:16 But when you capture cities in the land that the LORD your God is
giving you, kill everyone.
In the words of the remembrance service, ' ... that peace which God wills
for his children.' Is this an example of 'that peace?'
In the third column of this page, there's material from Exodus 11 in
which it's claimed that God killed the first born sons of the Egyptians -
adults, children and babies - committed, in other words, mass murder.
To resume comments on the service. There then follows a prayer, to be said
by (All).
Father, we have sinned against heaven and against you, and are not
worthy to be called your children.'
This is the view that everybody, including devoted parents, army, navy and
airface veterans, are hopeless sinners who have to be redeemed by the blood
of Jesus before they are acceptable to God.
Susan Weller will then have spoken these words,
Almighty God have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your
sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and keep you in life
eternal, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
And those who were present, members of the Church of England, members of
other churches, Jews, Moslems, Hindus and members of other religions,
atheists and agnostics will have been expected to say 'Amen.' In the Order
of Service at this point in the service, there's this:
(All) Amen
If Dr Weller were to be contacted for clarification, I think it's very
likely or overwhelmingly likely that she would confirm that according to Church of England doctrine, not all
the men and women who died and are commemorated at the Arboretum, far from
it: most are not saved from their 'sins.' Of the people attending to
service, God will damn all those who fail to accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour.
The Arboretum should not be organizing these services, then. There should be full
opportunity for
debate, with the Church of England given every opportunity to explain its
views, its policies - its beliefs. Events to commemorate remembrance at the
Arboretum - and in public places throughout the country - should no longer
be promotions of one religion and one denomination of one religion.
Church
of England members and members of other churches can go to churches for
specifically Christian commemorations. This is elementary fairness. The
National Arboretum has no business to encourage in future the insincere
mumbling of a response in prayer when the speaker has no belief in the
Christian God.
In the column to the right, in the section on the
Prayer Book Society, there's comment on
the burning alive of Edward Wightman for heresy in Lichield, in 1612.
Richard Neile, the Bishop of Lichfield at the time, played a decisive part
in ensuring that the barbaric execution went ahead.
The work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is beyond
praise. The contribution of Fabian Ware, who founded the Commission in 1917,
is beyond praise. At the cemeteries of the Commission I've visited in
Belgium and France, I've experienced the immense dignity and calm of these
places, the sobering and harrowing impact of these places. Each marked grave
has a headstone, which has a national emblem or regimental badge, and the
rank, name, unit, date of death and age of each casualty, with a personal
dedication chosen by relatives. The headstone includes a religious symbol,
but not in the case of known atheists. In the vast majority of cases the
symbol is the Christian cross, but not for followers of other
religions, such as the Jewish man whose headstone is shown above, Of
course, the fact that a headstone has the Christian cross is no evidence
that the man who gave his life was a believing Christian. When asked 'What
religion are you?' it was very, very common to answer 'C of E,' Church of
England.
The Commonwealth War Graves
Commission didn't assume, then, that everyone who made this sacrifice was a
Christian and has made an attempt to distinguish between Christian - at
least nominal Christians - and believers in other religions, or nominal
believers in other religions, as well as people who clearly had no religious
beliefs.
The Lions of the Great War statue in Smethwick,
Birmingham (which was vandalised just days after it was unveiled) is one of
a number of similar monuments. The statue shows a Sikh soldier. Birmingham
City Council: the statue 'honours the sacrifices made by South Asian service
personnel of all faiths from the Indian subcontinent who fought for Britain
in the First World War and subsequent conflicts.'
But in services
throughout the country, on remembrance Sunday, not the least attempt is made
to distinguish between Christians and non-Christians. When those present are
expected to give the responses, what are people who disagree with Christian
theology or who have no interest in it to do? What are followers of other
religions to do? Stay silent? Mumble
insincerely? Asking people or expecting people to show belief when they have
no belief shouldn't possibly be expected. The Church of England may have its
reasons for expecting people to take part in a Christian service even when
they have no belief in Christianity, or to become silent witnesses in these
parts of the commemorations, by far the larger part of the commemorations,
in general. This is a marginal institution now, and so it may well try to
maintain any influence it has, such as this influence over the people
gathered to remember the fallen.
This is an Order of Service for Remembrance Sunday:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/
hi/pdfs/26_08_05_order_of_service.pdf
It contains this:
' ... through Jesus Christ our risen Redeemer'
and this bit of Trinitarian theology:
'
And the blessing of God Almighty,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit be with you all
and remain with you always.'
What are the Unitarians, the Jews,
the Moslems, the agnostics and the atheists who are present to make of
this? Is this an event they can witness and take part in wholeheartedly?
Any Anglicans present who are Conservative Evangelicals will have a
their own interpretation of the words, 'through Jesus Christ our risen
Redeemer.' For them, anyone who rejects the risen Redeemer has no hope
of salvation. In the past, Christianity was a hellfire religion, almost
completely so. That influence has waned, but not so amongst
Conservative Evangelicals, as well as some other sections of the Church. The Jews and the atheists who are buried in
the graves of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission are excluded from
salvation. They didn't accept 'Jesus Christ our risen Redeemer.' The
status of the nominal Church of England members
is presumably the same.
If, as I argue, Services of Remembrance on Remembrance Sunday - the ones
held in the open air, attended by members of the public with widely
varying views on religion, not, of course, the services held in Churches
- are indefensible in their present form, what can replace them? This
involves difficulties, but they can be addressed. There can be
continuity with the past. Very often, a band takes part in the event and
I see no objection to the continuing playing of such resonant pieces as
'O God our help in ages past' and 'Abide with me,' but without the
words. 'Nimrod,' from Elgar's Enigma Variations, is often played at
Remembrance Sunday events and, of course, has no words, only its intense
beauty.
Perhaps a choir could be present to sing the words of a hymn-
just so long as the public isn't expected to sing the words as well. The
music is far more important than the words to all but committed
Christians, and often, far more important to committed Christians as
well.
In the Christmas season, I've listened to carols very, very often -
the very popular carols and such carols as 'In dulci jubilo,' 'Es ist
ein Ros ensprungen' and 'Adam lay y-bounden.' And, of course, Bach's
Christmas Oratorio. Again, the music is far more important than the
words to most people.
Remembrance Day commemorations without the involvement of the
Church of England would be shorter than before, but the commemorations
could be extended. Consideration could be given to commemorating the
service of men and women in the British Armed Forces directly after the
commemoration of those who fell in previous conflicts. At present, Armed
Forces Day is held in late June. Moving these event from June to
Remembrance Sunday would make sense. Very often, members of the armed
forces attend Remembrance Sunday events and they would obviously take
part in the events to commemorate the service of present day members.
The general public would be free to attend the earlier part, the
commemoration of the fallen or the later part, the commemoration of the
present day Armed Forces, or both parts.
Christian believers would, of course, be free to attend a religious
service later in the day. Every year, at Endcliffe Park in Sheffield, a
wreath laying ceremony is held to commemorate the crew of the American
bomber Mi Amigo which crashed in the park on February 22, 1944. The
ceremony is held on the Sunday nearest to February 22. A little later, a
service takes place at St Augustine's Church, which is not far from the
crash site. I attend the ceremony, but not the Church service, as I'm
not a Christian believer. This is the pattern which should be followed.
A replacement for the present Remembrance Sunday services (again, the
ones attended by the general public, not the ones in Churches) is
essential, overdue. On November 11, 2018, I attended a
Remembrance Sunday service in a nearby park, a smaller event than the
one I usually attend, in Sheffield city centre. As always, I found the
religiosity dispiriting, but this year more than ever. In this year
which marked the centenary of the ending of the First World War, there
had been the chance to find out so much more about the soldiers, sailors
and airmen who took part in this war, but for most of the time, the
stress was not upon human life but upon theology and ecclesiastical
generalities. Not in evidence at all was any recognition of
complexities, of harshness, the realities which historians have probed.
The achievement of historians who have written about the First World War
deserves to be much more widely recognized. Their achievement is on a
very high level, so often - magnificent. A Remembrance Day event isn't a
suitable venue for exploring these complexities, but a Remembrance Day
event isn't the place for clergy to give their own
interpretation of historical events, presenting it as obvious or
indisputable fact.
This is what the clergyman did at the event I attended. In his address, he claimed that when the guns fell
silent, peace had replaced war. This is perfectly true. Peace did
replace war, for the time being. But he also claimed that hope had
replaced 'futility.' This is surely the claim that the First World War
had been a futile war. Many historians have contested this claim and
have given arguments and evidence that the claim is mistaken.
In the booklet which gives the format of the service and the text which
forms the main component of the service, the words of the Reverend Canon
are often followed by the response expected of the public: in bold
print.
Examples from the booklet:
After each prayer the following being [sic - insufficient care was given
to proof-reading] will be used.
Officiant Lord, in your mercy.
All
hear our prayer
So, people at the commemoration who never pray are expected to make an
exception now and to offer a prayer, with the expectation that God will
hear the prayer?
Later:
Officiant Will you seek to heal the wounds of war?
All
We will
The officiant, like most of those attending, or perhaps all of them, has
no way of healing the wounds of war.
Officiant Will you work for a just future for all humanity?
All
We will.
Any idea that injustices in vile, corrupt states - or injustices in
liberal, enlightened states can be ended, so that all humanity has a
just future, is utopian, impossible, deluded. Any idea that people
attending the service should be expected to give assent to the notion is
ridiculous.
The service included five 'Regimental Collects,' not delivered by the
officiant. This is the first of them, the prayer for the York and
Lancaster Regiment (the mangled opening is another instance of poor
proof-reading:
'Almighty God who cans't save by many or by few and dost bid us to
endure to the end that we might be saved, strengthen we pray thee, The
York and Lancaster Regiment, that, as our perseverance has not been
found wanting in battle, so we may be blessed in enduring all
temptations, and at length, receive the crown of life, through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
All Amen.
This is a prayer which amongst other things asks God to strengthen The
York and Lancaster Regiment. Our national defences are badly in need of
strengthening. There are insufficient recruits, there's insufficient
funding, the armed forces aren't given the resources to meet the very
serious challenges they face. National defences are strengthened by
well-known means, finding more recruits (recently, the decision has been
taken to find recruits from other countries) by changes to the national
finances, and the rest. Is it worth asking God to strengthen the
national defences? Surely not, and it's no more worthwhile to ask God to
strengthen the York and Lancaster Regiment.
The Collect makes clear reference to the Christian doctrine of
salvation: ' ... that we might be saved.' This is an aspect of Christian
doctrine which I've discussed in many other places. Which people, according
to the officiant, according to Justin Welby, to name just two people,
are saved? What are the criteria? The evangelical answer, shared by very
large numbers of other orthodox Christians, is very
restrictive. The saved are far fewer in number than the damned.
I do, though, commend the last paragraph of the text in the booklet and
specifically the last sentence:
'Lest we forget. The First World War came to an end at 11 am on 11th
November 1918. The Second World War ended on 8th May (Europe) and 15th
August 1945 (Far East.) Let us also remember all the members of the
British Forces who are currently deployed in operations, world-wide.'
A dual commemoration, of the present-day service of
the British armed forces after a commemoration of those who have fallen
in war, seems to me to be a very promising development. Present day
members of the armed forces do extraordinary work. They too deserve our
gratitude and practical work. The 'good causes' which I have in mind as
far more deserving recipients of donated money than the churches are
very wide ranging but include many, many forces charities and other
organizations.
Not all the prayers used in the service are given in the booklet. There
was, for example, a prayer for our political leaders, asking God to
grant them 'wisdom.' Will our political system be strengthened in the
least by asking God to grant wisdom to our political leaders? The complexities and realities of politics are
far removed from this mechanical, routine exercise of prayer and response. To expect
the wider public to take part in the charade is nonsensical.
The Church of England may well expect, or hope, that some of the people
who attend a Remembrance Day service and who aren't church goers will go
on to become church goers. It would be unfair to claim that this would
be the primary motivation of the Church. In individual cases, this may
happen, but far more likely is this outcome: people who attend who have
lost a relative in a war, people who have a more general interest in the
enormity of the major conflicts, the enormity of the losses, the
devastating effects of much smaller conflicts, will be dismayed and
deterred by the nature of the service, led by the clergy, with public
activity confined to the responses to the prayers of the clergy, the
saying of the Lord's Prayer, and the singing of hymns.
Below, the Menin Gate Memorial at Ieper / Ypres recording the names of 54
389 officers and men from United Kingdom and Commonwealth Forces who died in
the Ypres salient before 16 August 1917 and who have no known grave.
