Bad prayers
Sir: Mary Soames says that we should all now surrender to modernised church ser- vices (Diary, 4 July) because it is simply too much trouble to resist them. She supports her argument by claiming that those who object to new Bibles and prayers seldom go to church anyway. This strikes me as a very strange position.
After all, anyone with the saintliness to stomach the Alternative Service Book, plus the hugs and handshakes that come with it, is obviously saved already and deserves a reward in heaven. The argu- ment is about the rest of us, profoundly embarrassed as we are by most forms of
religious feeling.
The English people have always relied on their church to make allowances for them. They have approached it through the grandeur of its language, the power of its music or the loveliness of its buildings. Under the pretext of making itself more efficient (and, paradoxically, of making itself more attractive) the Church is now trying to close most of these doors.
Once closed, they will be shut for good. Mary Soames herself admits that this will be a loss and even praises the old words for their power to stay in our memories and return to us when they are most needed.
This odd doctrine of abandoning the good and lazily accepting what we know to be bad must follow too many years spent in listening to the lifeless prose she says we must now welcome in place of poetry.
Peter Hitchens, Oxford.
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