It would have been unimaginable a decade ago. The service of remembrance held in St Paul’s Cathedral last month for those who died or were injured in the London bombings of July 7 was truly inclusive. Joining the Archbishop of Canterbury at the altar under Wren’s great dome were not only Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminister, and clergy from other Christian denominations, but representatives of all the great faiths of the world — Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. And their presence and prayers were symbolic not only of the diversity of the capital today and the different faiths of the victims but of the unity and resolution of Londoners who would not be intimidated by terror or divided by hatred.
That resolution was most strikingly displayed in solemn ceremony. It was therefore wholly fitting that the cathedral, which for centuries has stood as the soaring pinnacle of faith in the heart of the City of London, should once again be the focus of a nation’s emotion — whether of grief as on this occasion or, as previously, of thanksgiving and rejoicing. What was wholly new was the public acknowledgment that it was faith itself, of whatever confession or denomination, that sustained and comforted the bereaved. A Christian house of God had opened its door to those who sought God by other names and with other rituals and had embraced their spiritual insights as being of separate validity.
Much has been made in recent years of the dwindling attendances at church, the bare pews in rural parishes. It is certainly true that the Church of England, in particular, has seen the number of regular worshippers on Sunday fall dramatically with consequent dire implications not only for its finances but for the viability of the Church’s overall spiritual authority. Some cite this as evidence of a growing indifference to religion, of a secularism that has made Britain one of the least religious of all Western countries — judged, that is, by the yardstick of attendance. But this is to overlook another trend particularly evident in the past year: the resurgence of faith issues and the public debate that these have engendered.
Partly, this is because faith has spilt over into the domain of politics. Most obviously, the London bombings brought to a head questions about one faith in particular, Islam, which have been reverberating through British — and Western — society for four years since the attacks of September 11. Those questions were posed, with particular anguish, by British Muslims themselves. What are the obligations of faith upon Muslims in a Western society? How should Islam confront modernity? What is the nexus between belief and political action?
This debate, sometimes heated, continues. Parliamentary committees, television studios, student unions and local councils bandied around concepts of jihad, fatwa, umma and haj — terms wholly unknown a generation ago but whose theological exegesis is now regarded as central to understanding and co-existing with Islam. But complex questions remain. How tolerant should a society be of intolerance, misogyny and homophobia?
The discussion also provoked an un-usual public re-examination of the values, ethos and cultural legacy of Christianity as the faith that has shaped and guided British society. How should society, underpinned by those values, react to the conflicting concepts introduced by other religions? Is a loving God able to co-exist with divergent deities? And, in the West, has mass materialism taken God out of the market?
Inevitably, the debate has merged into proposals to define Britishness. The Government itself is ill-placed to codify concepts that Britons themselves are still groping to acknowledge. The most trenchant articulation has come from two people who are strikingly able to combine the experience and judgment of the outsider as well as the traditions of the Establishment: Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, and John Sentamu, the recently enthroned Archbishop of York.
Mr Phillips questioned multiculturalism from the standpoint of a social and political activist, pinpointing the quintessence of secular Britishness that he believes of value to all citizens of these islands. Dr Sentamu approached the same question as a man of religion, who wants to bring into the open and celebrate the kind of tolerant, inclusive, supportive faith that he sees as one of the great spiritual legacies of Britain’s long history and global involvement.
Re-examining and acknowledging the centrality of the religion that has shaped these islands is not the same, however, as rediscovering for oneself that faith. Christianity is today embattled. Partly this is because it has yet to find a way of effectively responding to consumerism (a similar dilemma that Islam has in responding to modernity); and partly because the internal debates have been confrontational and debilitating. Anglicanism has been riven by rows over sexuality, doctrine, evangelisation and liturgy; Catholicism has been grappling with celibacy, contraception, the priesthood and liberation theology.
The result is that the Church seems to be constantly in the news, and usually for reasons that are not particularly Christian. This saps morale and undermines moral authority. And yet, the more such issues tend to confuse people’s concepts of religion, the more society yearns for certainty, stability and traditional authority. This has much to do with the atomisation of society and the disappearance of a commonly accepted moral framework. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians turned in huge numbers to the Orthodox Church to proclaim the values and ethical standards that communism patently did not provide. So, too, in the face of a consumerist onslaught that many find ephemeral and amoral, Britons are looking to their forefathers’ religion for moral guidance.
Increasingly, the Church is expected to play a central role in national or even local events. And to its credit, it has done so. It was the church of Old St Pancras where many victims of the King’s Cross bombing found the first comfort; it was Prebendary David Paton, Area Dean of the City of London, who ministered to victims at Aldgate. It is often the church services for those who are held hostage, abducted, murdered or killed in disasters that mark the so important “closure ”.
Again, however, the question is whether this role is a reinforcement of personal faith or a public tradition. It can be argued that what often begins as the second achieves the aims of the first. People are helped by collective worship; they do often find enduring personal uplift in such ceremonies.
What inspires many is the public and unembarrassed proclamation of faith. This has an infectious quality. All those who seek succour from the spiritual dimension of life recognise this imperative. This is why political correctness that plays down Christian symbols or religious observance is so misguided. Observant Jews and Muslims, far from being offended at seeing the symbols of Christian devotion, respect the strength of faith that they instinctively recognise as akin to their own.
Faithlessness leaves them offended. Councils that ban Christmas trees, companies that remove all reference to Christmas in their greetings cards, do more than simply anger the Christian majority; they earn the contempt of non-Christian believers, who wonder about the viability of a religion that dare not proclaim its name.
This is Christmas, and this is a country moulded and governed by Christianity. Secular governance rightly takes no account of religious affiliation. But even a secular educational system insists that all children are grounded in the fundamentals of Christian belief. How else can the young achieve full civic literacy? How else can they appreciate most of the culture, history, art and politics of this country for the past 1,500 years?
The Christmas message is not to be hidden away in schools or in public life. It should not be exclusive but must not bow to a dreary agnosticism that many would impose in the name of non-discrimination. Christians celebrate the birth of Christ, and something of that celebration is communicated to citizens of other faiths.
More than a century ago, the Victorians were beset by angst over what was seen as the retreat of religion in the face of scientific discovery or material progress. Matthew Arnold noted that the sea of faith was, once, at the full, “but now I only hear its melancholy, long withdrawing roar”. We should not be deafened by that roar. Faith is still central to British life.
And indeed for Christians there is good news. Attendance at church has begun to rise again. Clergy have discovered new ways to inspire, new venues in which to worship, new examples to prove the durability of faith. Who can ignore the extraordinary Christian forgiveness voiced by the mother of Anthony Walker, the black student murdered by two racists in Liverpool? Who can forget the spontaneous outpouring of emotion that accompanied the funeral of Pope John Paul II this year? Around the globe and across religious divides, he was seen as a man of towering faith and inspiring example. Even those who opposed his often uncompromising stance on doctrine and authority recognised in him an example to all of humanity. The Christmas message is one of spiritual renewal. It is a message understood by all those of faith, everywhere in the land.
