Britain, where are you?

Archbishop's Christmas sermon – ‘Don’t build lives on selfishness and fear’

Sunday 25th December 2011

Happy Christmas Rowan Williams!  Your widely-leaked Christmas Day sermon stuck, as I feared, to the central, recurring theme of your tenure … that of asking interminable questions.  You spoke of an exploding, disintegrating Britain .. what a terrible shame you didn’t take the opportunity to give us some answers!

But first, here’s what we learned from this very clever, perplexing, man:

1)      In Hebrew, 'word' and 'thing' are the same

2)      Edward Elgar said of his Enigma Variations that they were all based on a tune that everyone knew – and no-one has ever worked out what he meant.

3)      Some people respond deeply and truthfully to Jesus without fully knowing who he is or what exactly they are doing in responding to him; this is not a recipe for tight religious exclusivism.

Paradoxically, the Archbishop’s speech doesn’t begin with a question, but ends with one:

“The most pressing question we now face … is who and where we are as a society. Bonds have been broken, trust abused and lost. Whether it is an urban rioter mindlessly burning down a small shop that serves his community, or a speculator turning his back on the question of who bears the ultimate cost for his acquisitive adventures in the virtual reality of today's financial world, the picture is of atoms spinning apart in the dark.

“And into that dark the Word of God has entered, in love and judgment, and has not been overcome; in the darkness the question sounds as clear as ever, to each of us and to our church and our society: 'Britain, where are you?' Where are the words we can use to answer?

In his blurb, the Archbishop says “Christmas challenges individuals and whole societies alike not to build lives based on selfishness and fear, but to be open to searching questions about identity and solidarity, stark questions that are more pressing in the wake of falling confidence in institutions and challenges to social order.”

More challenges, more questions.  Perhaps fine for academics … but I don‘t think that’s enough.  If Britain is exploding like ‘atoms spinning apart in  the dark,’ don’t we, Christians and all, want clear spiritual leadership from the most senior churchman in the land?  If he’s specifically calling on bankers and speculators to become moral … why doesn’t he say so?!

There is also a load of stuff about the 350^th anniversary of the Book of Common Prayer …

Despite the difficulties of the language for 21^st century multi-cultural Britain, the Archbishop sees the book as “something for a whole society, binding together our obligations to God and to one another, in a dense interweaving of love and duty joyfully performed.”

But the prayer book is not written in inclusive language! It seems that, once again, he’s speaking to white, middle-class university-educated Britain, forgetting that this is a dwindling band.

At the very least, Dr Williams recalls, “those who prayed the Prayer Book, remember, included those who abolished the slave trade and put an end to child labour, because of what they had learned in this book and in their Bibles about the honour of God and of God's children. They knew their story; they knew how to give an answer for themselves, how to join up the muddle of their experience in a coherent pattern by relating it to the unchanging truth and grace of God. That's why the coming year's celebration is not about a museum piece.”

I fear that it is not the Book of Common Prayer that is the museum piece …

• If you think I’ve quoted selectively, here is the full text:

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2292/#Sermon