Another voice
Summa Pilgerica
Auberon Waugh
There was something sweetly babyish in Channel 4's decision to use the evening of the Fifth Sunday in Lent, otherwise known as Passion Sunday, to broadcast the first of a series of three programmes ques- tioning the historical authenticity of the New Testament. We are told that subse- quent programmes, to be broadcast, no doubt, on Palm Sunday and Easter Day, will question whether Christ even existed.
Twenty years ago, when the white heat of technological revolution was all the craze, such a suggestion might have been thought rather daring, even created a bit of a stir. In those days it was sincerely believed that modern 'experts' under the vague direction of the Sunday Times Insight Team would come up with something to prove not only that Christ never existed but that He was a homosexual drug-pusher of hallucinogenic mushrooms whose followers adopted the Cross as a quasi-phallic badge to proclaim their sexual orientation.
Since then, belief in technology has taken a few knocks. Christianity — or at any rate a form of it — is the new craze. With all its horses and all its men, technology has not even been able to prove the Turin Shroud a fake, but that is not the real reason for its failure as an alternative religion. Any day now some particularly fiendish geiger- counter or equivalent gadget may start authenticating the various Holy Foreskins and gallons of Virgins' Milk which sen- sitive, modern-minded parish priests have been tending to hide in their broom cup- boards. Nevertheless it is irrelevant to my argument. Technology's failure as an alter- native quasi-religious faith came about because it failed to satisfy religious hunger in three of its most important manifesta- tions — the atavistic, the eschatological and the charismatic.
While the Spectator's exciting new breed of younger reader looks up those words, I mill observe that Channel 4 seems to have aken over from the old Sunday Times which few, if any of them, will remember) n its relentless pushing of ideas which were :onsidered novel or daring 20 years ago. he Channel's motives, on this occasion, ire easy to understand; nor are they par- icularly to be despised. Nobody who, like ne, is prepared to disregard the present fad 'or joyous or born-again religion can deny hat the collapse of traditional Christianity las left behind it an appalling sense of con- lision. Various of its more paradoxical enets are still held to be philosophically espectable — even intellectually and norally axiomatic — long after their sup- iorting structure of religious faith, hope Ind charity has been removed. Chief
among these (to my mind, at any rate) is the Christian conclusion that worldliness is to be despised, poverty has moral value and personal wealth is wrong; on top of this came the earlier confusion which argued that since all men (yes, and women too) are equal in the sight of God, material equality among men (and women) on earth must be the universal goal. From this comes the glib identification of social equality with justice which inspires the entire canon of the Summa Pilgerica.
Since the removal of its Christian sub- structure, this piece of rubbish floats around in the post-Christian philosophical vacuum. The only answer to the question of why material equality is thought desirable must be that it is self-evidently so, an axiom. It is the piece of post-Christian debris which I happen to find most objec- tionable, but there are plenty of others. Perhaps the programme planners of Chan- nel 4 were more concerned about the con- tinued application of earlier doctrines on the sanctity of human life to the problem of unborn babies and 'the woman's right to choose'; perhaps they were even more con- cerned by the residual impact of Christian injunctions against sodomy as one of the four sins 'crying to Heaven for vengeance'. I do not know. But I can well understand the temptation to clear away all this debris by giving Christianity a final knock on the head.
I think they underestimate the scepticism of the audience they have chosen to ad- dress. Such wide-eyed gullibility as might, 20 years ago, have attached to the pro- nouncements of experts, unknown scien- tists and other technocrats has long since transferred itself back to one or other of the transcendental 'born again' religions. Peo- ple are only too aware that many of the finest brains of the human race have been investigating the New Testament in all its aspects for the past 1800 years. There is a certain reluctance to believe that the new race of 'experts' is any more intelligent, or that it is going to turn up anything new after all this time. On top of this, I suspect that the new generation shares with Pontius Pilate a certain scepticism about the nature of historical truth. Perceptions vary, memory is fallible, gossip and persuasion intervene. Only the mind of God perceives and retains the whole truth; where our own imperfect perceptions are concerned — and especially in relation to events long lost from living memory — we must accept history as whatever tradition has accepted — history is tradition. It can be altered, but the label of truth attaches to it only by vir- tue of our choice, not by virtue of any pro-
perty it possesses in its own right.
Channel 4's programme planners also misunderstand the nature of religious belief. Belief in God, or in Christ as a member of the Trinity, is a creative activity involving a conscious exercise of the im- agination and the will. It is not a static con- dition, like being a negro. When I am occa- sionally asked by a lunatic in the train if I believe in Jesus, I answer 'sometimes'. This is not because I sometimes also disbelieve in Him but because at other times I am reading a book, brooding about Victoria Principal or whatever. Nor is religion a mathematical proposi" Lion which can be proved or disproved within an accepted logical discipline' Religious belief, insofar as it is not inspired by divine agency, must exist as a conscious choice which involved rejecting its alter- native, disbelief. People who say that they want to believe in God but cannot are deceiving themselves. Rejection of disbelief is as important a part of the process as ac- ceptance of whatever one has chosen for been conditioned) to believe. That is Which I say it owes its existence to a hunger which may be broken down into three ingredients
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— the atavistic, the eschatological and the charismatic.
The charismatic — sacramental, or qua,si magical — element is the easiest to supply' You can do it with magic mushrooms, Of incense, singing or dancing or lust a heightened feeling of fellowship such as the army, the Boy Scout Movement, the new Catholic Church and the National Union ° Mineworkers all manage to promote. The eschatological element caters I°`f anxieties about the disappointments cit human life, its brevity and alWate.11., pointlessness. It keeps adherents on olacEn; straight and narrow and provides a for them in their misfortunes. s The atavistic element is the most mysterious, but I observe that it has always existed in every religion which has iasteu longer than a transitory craze. Even Chteuis,; tianity, it must be remembered, was graf t on Judaic roots. For some reason whicht." do not understand this sense of comintull!, with ancestors, of belonging to an ancient]: tradition, of treading where generatio have trod, is an essential part of religion s survival. The old Christianity died because it lost its charisma. The new Christianity cultivated its charismatic appeal at scowl cost to its eschatological and to the virt exclusion of its atavistic functions. . week the Prayer Book Society revealed h. w_ theological colleges have been directed tiuri drop the Book of Common Playectilat preference for the new liturgy, with 1`,;„, of and banal language: 'We are the B°uYtis. Christ. In the one Spirit we were MI balLat ed into one body. Let us then pursue all i", makes for peace and builds up our coinn'outee life.' Though we are many, we ar, I do body, because we all share one bread. er, not think they will share it much long after the present craze has subsided.
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