GIVING SIGHT TO THE BLAND
Mary Wakefield visits Holy Trinity
Brompton, and has to flee the children of a nicer God
I WAS embarrassed to tell my taxi driver that I wanted to go to the happy-clappy church, Holy Trinity Brompton; worried that he would think that I was one of them. My fears were justified. 'I take a lot of you nice young Christians over there on Sundays,' he said cheerily, excited about engaging another fresh-faced youngster in an earnest and Godly chat. His face fell as he registered my cynicism reflected in the rear-view mirror. I am not well disposed towards nice young Christians. Overexpo- sure to pairs of missionary Mormons has left me with a horror of dewy-eyed sinceri- ty and 'your persecution only strengthens mY faith' smugness. So it was not in a spirit of open-minded curiosity that I went to test the holy waters at London's most famous born-again church. My mission was more to set my mind at rest than to expose it to possible revelation. I had heard that my former public-school classmates were falling lemming-like into salvation and, having spent a year in the southern states cavorting with cults and Pentecostalists, I wanted to see how the British version compared. Religious life in the deep South is more of a drug culture than a discipline. You can buy into church- es across Texas that promise you the riches of Solomon, religious communities in Georgia where the congregation laugh hys- terically, churches in South Carolina that will turn you into a screaming madman in a Matter of minutes. I was hoping that the happy-clappies were at least less bizarre than their transatlantic brothers in Christ.
Outside the Brompton Oratory a steady stream of shadowy figures was sliding around the side of the building like iron filings being pulled into a magnetic field. Joining them, I found myself squeezed through double doors and swept past sim- pering, pamphlet-pushing ushers to join the main congregation. The interior of the church was impressive: tall Victorian vaults full of soft yellow light. I sidled through a crowd of about 1,000 25-year- olds who were all singing, 'I can see Your face, Lord' in voices well trained in posh school chapels. They sang the same phrase over and over again. Some were crying. Then, inevitably, a smiling face came bobbing through the throng. 'Mary Wake- field? It is, isn't it?' It was. 'It's so great to see you, I'm so glad you're here.' Her tone of voice implied, 'What took you so long to see the light?' Looking around for the light, I searched the bobbing sea of faces and found that recognisable figures emerged from the blurry mass: my best friend from Kensington preparatory school for girls, the first boy I snogged at the Valentine ball. As in some surreal soft- focus Seventies film about a public-school afterlife, I was in a room full of people who had shared my twig-smoking obses- sion in the woods aged ten, and cigarettes behind the pet shed at 13. I felt an unex- pected rush of comradeship and made the fateful decision to suspend my cynicism for a short while, to try to understand.
After half an hour of singing it was obvi- ous that the service lacked the extraordinary emotional charge of its US equivalents. Being a keen collector of the 'gifts of the Holy Spirit', which in Texan televangelist churches include jogging on the spot, foam- ing at the mouth and chanting, 'Money, money, money', I was both relieved and dis- appointed by HTB. I could only see one person convulsing uncontrollably, whereas in any young evangelical meeting in Ameri- ca (particularly those afflicted with the Toronto Blessing), stadiums full of people will be writhing and jerking, barking or lying laughing maniacally on the floor.
There was one worrying moment before the prayers when a Cliff Richard lookalike began to sing in 'tongues' and invited everyone else to do the same. There fol- lowed an eerie burbling noise, like a herd of Jabberwockies in the distance. I waited for the prayers and sermon, presuming that there must be some profound theolo- gy at the heart of this phenomenon.
The prayers, led by a small, bird-like woman boded ill for the theology. We gave thanks for 'Tony Blair's smashing talk on Northern Ireland' and prayed earnestly for `universities, that their Christian Unions might flourish'; that was all. In a church stuffed with privileged 25-year-olds, redo- lent of health and wealth, the most needy people they could think of to pray for were Mr Blair and university students. I looked around for someone to share my indigna- tion, and became aware that there were no old or even ugly people in the congrega- tion. I remembered having read about HTB 'alpha' courses and worried fleetingly that I might have stumbled acros§ the Brave New World factory floor.
The Reverend Sandy Millar, high priest of happy-clappies, did nothing to dispel my growing unease. Looking like an old school matron in drag, he began to give a sermon, or 'talk', about Judgment and Jesus in a high-pitched, querulous voice.
`Jesus came as king not saviour,' he began. Then continued, 'Actually he did come as saviour, but he came as -king as well . . . and saviour.'
I could feel my recently opened mind closing again rapidly.
Soon Sandy reached the heart of his mes- sage. 'Some friends of mine had a tragedy recently,' he confessed. 'Someone sat on their hamster and I asked the classic insensi- tive question, "Have you got another one?"' Groans came from the congregation. Some- one muttered, 'How could you, Sandy?' without a trace of sarcasm. Mr Millar went on, 'Then I realised that saying, "Have you got another hamster?" is rather like saying, "Have you got another child?" because every hamster counts — get it?'
Get what? All I was getting was the growing realisation that there was going to be no depth of meaning here. The born- again phenomenon was turning out to be just a club for people who deify niceness and miss the solidarity of the lacrosse team. No harm done, you may say, but how can people who have had hundreds of thou- sands of pounds lavished on honing their analytical skills end up in this complacent theological vacuum where everyone is so terrified about not being 'nice' that they can't even admit the possibility that God doesn't care about hamsters?
Sandy Millar's talk meandered on. The congregation nodded and smiled and clapped happily. As I prepared to shuffle off, new converts were being invited to the altar and I noticed that the school-friend who had recognised me was smiling at me in a way that said, 'Don't be afraid to give your heart to Jesus.' I felt as if I was stand- ing in a large padded cell. The new con- verts were being given hugs by the 'ministry team' and Sandy was looking around eager- ly for more people to be nice all over.
The golden light and constant smiles were becoming increasingly nauseating and claus- trophobic. I began to long for anything to relieve the oppressive blandness; even an outbreak of the USA-style religious hysteria would have been welcome. My schooldays' nostalgia having completely evaporated, I began to weave my way through the smiling ghosts of ex-classmates, past the pamphlet- pushers, out of the light and into the wel- come cold and dark.
The author is writing a book on American religious cults.
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