FROM THE BOUNDARY

Surveying the landmarks Part six

 

For some reason I don’t quite understand, I got up this morning thinking about John Osborne’s iconic play, ‘Look Back in Anger’. I remember seeing it at Birmingham Rep when I was a sixth former. The play’s set in a little flat in the Midlands, where I was born and grew up. The main character is Jimmy Porter, a ‘leftie’, an angry young man, married out of his class to Alison in a world in which chivalry is dead and hurt and anger threaten to tear everything apart. For Jimmy, it’s because nothing has changed as it should have done. Paradoxically, it’s Cliff, the Welsh boy, who tries to keep the peace in the house. It occurred to me that my story is not unlike Jimmy’s, for I too, though not so young, have also been angry because nothing has changed in this little flat, the Church here in Barbados, which became my home, my orphanage, my reformatory, and caught, as I have been, between the two worlds of God and Caesar.
 
Angry? No, furious. Furious that so-called priests could be so careless with the truth, and all so shabbily, like other men. I’m thinking about my departure from the Cathedral in 2005, which I’ve previously written about, and which effectively ended my Diocesan career as a priest. ‘Mr. Hall has left the Cathedral at his own wish.’ ‘You what? But you told me the bishop was moving me. I didn’t want to go, and you know that. What game are you playing, and why?’ So yes, I was angry. No, furious.
 
I vowed I would never return to the Cathedral. All talk, of course. I’ve returned twice – for a funeral and to lend my minimal support at the installation of the present Dean, whom I remember with some affection from my Codrington days. However, more than this, I wanted to signal my anger to the world, to cry, like Zola, “J’Accuse!” in the ports and market places, to knock off someone’s mitre now and then in wild, destructive moments, and – here’s the point – like Luther to nail my charges, my theses, 95 of them if I could manage it, about this Church and these priests from the doors of my beloved Cathedral.
 
I suppose I expected more from the Church I notionally served. I suppose I expected more than myself. But then, with ‘religion’ what more can you expect? The ‘Church’ is of man. It’s inevitably flawed. It always needs rebuilding. It will always have its power hungry inquisitors. It will always flounder on the rocks of science. It will never free itself from man-made rules backed by threats. It will always make sex the fall guy to mask its own prurience. Its hierarchy will ever be corrupt because that’s the nature of hierarchies. It will ever make God in its image, a God of ‘religion’ rather than of life. It will ever have hypocrisy at its core, immoral men – and women – who dress themselves up in fancy vestments and profess truth from the pulpit yet devoid of compassion and still looking down their noses through the language of admonition. Nor will it cease to put you down if it can, obsessed with the sins of others, and yet ignore the flowering which is truly you. Its spirituality will too often be found under stones. Yet what on earth did I expect? Did I seriously expect more than myself?
 
Now don’t get me wrong. My commitment to my Lord, to Jesus, has never been stronger. He’s become a part of my very being, and I know that if it came to it I would face the lions. However, I have no particular brief for creeds and catechisms mouthed Sunday by Sunday tonelessly, and most certainly none for those so-called teachings which only pass for religion and seek to separate us as human beings. I’ve no wish to search for certainty or choose the comfortable way to salvation. Nor will I choose the crowd for conformity’s sake. No, for I want to cross the boundaries of ‘religion’, free to be myself and not what others expect me to be, into the uncharted seas in search of a new vision – yet still a ‘Christian’, still a devoted disciple of the Pale Galilean.
 
Well, all talk – I never did nail my 95 theses to the doors of the Cathedral, and I’m rather sorry about that. But let me make a start here. In an earlier Column I suggested that we need a new Bible. Now let me argue for a new Reformation. It’s hardly a new idea. Never mind. Yet still let me confront the Church’s apathy, its conceit, its smugness, its spiritual sloth, its acedia – its want of energy – and, all too often, its corruption; and strive to rekindle too its prophetic and protesting role. For when last did you hear it marching against injustice in this land? No, yet you heard unproductive priests with second jobs from the comfort and security of the pulpit labelling our workers “unproductive” and telling them to “go home” – and all to please a Prime Minister. When did they last, these priests, march for Jesus? Which of them marched against poverty? Which of them have raised their voices against the massacre of Christians and gays in foreign lands? Which of them have spoken in support of our young people and articulated and embraced their values? Have any spoken for our beggars as holy fools for Christ? When did they last publicly commit their love to our animals and pets, and to the animal sanctuaries, and inveigh against cruelty towards them? What a bleak Church it is despite the noise it makes on times – or despite its silence because, as we’re told, ‘that’s how we do our thing’. Oh dear.
 
This is what I’m going to do. For the new year, I’m going to nail my 95 theses to this Column without further comment. Make of them as you will. There may not be 95 for I’m still to work on them – but no matter. It will be obvious that I’m not exactly courting popularity in this endeavour. Yet, believing as I do, that the Church cannot remain as it is, how can I remain silent and watch helplessly as it sinks below the water line and becomes increasingly irrelevant in most people’s lives and especially to the young? What kind of legacy do we have for them? Of course, I’m not alone in this perception. There are those who are far, far more eloquent, learned and highly placed than me who’ve said the same for years. But it’s me that’s here and so I can’t simply sit back and sleep, though the years I still have are few. You remember the film, ‘Zulu’? When the Zulus are about to attack the fort at Rorke’s Drift, a private turns to his colour sergeant and says, “Why us serj?” The answer: “Because we’re here, lad.”
 
Go safely, then – until the next time.
 
Little boy’s Christmas prayer from the boundary: ‘Jesus, please let it snow on Christmas Eve.’

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