Thus I find it hard to resist the anxiety that one of the things being celebrated in this 400th year is a construction of Britishness of the sort beloved by American tourists and those who find modern Britain just too difficult or too diverse. Which is why the KJB can share the feel of other fantasy constructions like Midsomer – a place recently described by its executive producer as “the last bastion of Englishness” because of its all-white cast.<\/p>\n
The irony of all this is that the Bible is, in fact, one of the most powerful forces for multiculturalism that the world has ever known. Those who worship the one God need nothing else in common in order to recognise each other as brothers and sisters. In Christ there is neither rich nor poor, Greek nor Jew, black nor white. Which is why the idea that we might use the Bible as a way of harking back to some lost world of simple monocultural Englishness is such a complete nonsense. It really ought to go without saying: God is not an Englishman.<\/p>\n