The novel features two lesbians in a civil partnership who are friends of the woman the detective hero Adam Dalgliesh marries in a Cambridge college chapel. At the end of the service Annie
slipped her hand into Clara’s and felt the comfort of her responsive squeeze. She thought, The world is a beautiful and terrible place. Deeds of horror are committed every minute and in the end those we love die. If the screams of all earth’s living creatures were one scream of pain, surely it would shake the stars. But we have love. It may seem a frail defence against the horrors of the world but we must hold fast and believe in it, for it is all we have.
Baroness James was born in 1920, and was therefore a young adult in World War II. It was precisely such naive romanticism, divorced from righteousness as the Bible conceives it, that led Britain to appease Hitler and thus fail to intervene early enough to stop his wickedness from devastating Europe. Virtually the only man who warned of the folly was Winston Churchill, a maverick failed politician whose boyhood had been seminally influenced by an evangelical nanny.
It is also worth reflecting that Germany had become riddled with romanticism in the 19th century, kicking away its spiritual and moral defences against the rise of aggressive militarism and the evil dictatorship that such a culture spawned.
Such a Lennonesque sentiment from an otherwise sensible woman, placed in the mind of a character in a lesbian relationship contrary to Jesus Christ’s biblical teaching, evokes a grim sense that rigor mortis is setting into the murdered corpse of Christian Britain.
novel–noun
ReplyDeletea fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes.
Sermon - noun
ReplyDeleteSomething that is said; talk, discourse
Christian Britain produced novels that were morally edifying, Jane Austen's being the superlative examples.
It depends what you mean by supporting the Prayer Book Society.
ReplyDeleteDon't want to sound harsh, but often when I read things PBS people say, the BCP is all about tradition, beautiful language, getting the warm fuzzies, and I am left with the impression that the Church of England's main role is to give children the skills to understand Shakespeare.
There are those (and I have one clergyman in mind) who can write in the Torygraph standing up for the the BCP yet completely reject its theology concerning the work of Jesus on the Cross.
Graham said "the BCP is all about tradition, beautiful language, getting the warm fuzzies"
ReplyDeleteSadly this is often the case! An Archdeacon once said in my hearing "You can preach what you like at the BCP Service in the Cathedral. They only listen to the cadences!" The Archdeacon and Cathedral had better be nameless! Sadly it is often true. Maybe a good Yorkshire accent would shake some of them out of their complacency.
Blessing on your ministry tomorrow (Sunday) Julian!
I don't agree at all. In fact it quite distresses me to hear the arguments STILL being raked up as the ones used when the Awful Service Book the ASB was being pushed upon unwilling congregations back in the 1980s, which succeeded in splitting congregations right down the middle between 'progressives' and 'traditionalists'.
ReplyDeleteThe BCP is part of my DNA, I have used it every day of my adult life, and in no way do I get 'warm fuzzies' but am daily reminded of the unchanging Word of God. Unlike some contemporary worship, which seems more like mass hysteria to me.
I quite agree with Jill that the ASB language is often awful, and the BCP's beautiful, but I can't help thinking that the latter IS beautiful precisely because it was written by people who really really believed it; the ASB writers, on the other hand, had an eye (or perhaps more) on what was Relevant, Of Our Age, Speaking To Today In Its Own Language, etc., ie. contemporary culture (should that be "Contemporary Culture"?), that is, secular/materialist/"liberal"-determined culture; and espousing THAT was where the rot set in. But yes, real faith, real belief, is in the end more important than language (with all this "King James Bible" stuff, we are in danger of losing it, yet again).
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