Here’s a bank holiday quiz question. As we congratulate David Cameron and Samantha on the birth of their beautiful baby girl, is our joy at such events “secular” or “religious”? You may think that what matters is the joy – and the baby – and not what category we put our feelings in.
But it does relate to an issue we are going to hear more about in the next few weeks. Will the state visit of Pope Benedict XVI, just over two weeks away, amount to a dramatic confrontation with Britain’s secular society? Indeed, is that a correct – or even useful – description?
A Vatican spokesman, trying to set the stage for the papal visit, said that from Rome Britain seemed a very secular society. But not long ago the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, took a rather different tack. He described British society as a lot less secular than people supposed. Many who did not go to church nevertheless prayed to God when things got difficult – or, indeed, joyful.
Clifford Longley used to write more incisive, analytical pieces than this when he was on The Times. I have to disagree with his conclusions here. If the Christian Church in general is in chaplaincy mode for Britain as he suggests, then it is withering on the vine. It amounts to a picture of people who love the trappings of Christianity without the content. The externals may comfort and console, but will do little more than that. Only the content of Christianity can change lives, challenge complacency and motivate people to tackle their weaknesses. By content we mean, of course, Jesus the Christ among us as the revelation of God, crucified and risen from the dead, calling us to new life, all of this conveyed in Scripture and the doctrines of the Church. If something called ‘spirituality’ is prized above something else called ‘religion’, then we are left with trappings that comfort, not teachings that challenge, above all we lose a living relationship with God. And with each generation the content and the Christian memory will grow weaker until it fades away altogether.