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10/3/99
1:02 AM BST
Mick Hume
Editor
Save us from preachy prime ministers and backsliding bishops
To judge by the government's recent pronouncements, one could be forgiven for
thinking that children need to be taught to read primarily so that they can
study the latest pamphlet to help them cope with the problems of Parenting.
Meanwhile, the main aim of mental arithmetic is apparently to enable little
Jack to calculate how much of his pocket money he would be fined by the Child
Support Agency for impregnating Jill.
In launching his crusade to find a 'new moral purpose' for the nation in
September, Tony Blair and education secretary David Blunkett emphasised the
importance of the government's plans to teach children New Labour's values of
good citizenship. In the age of education, education and education, it seems
that the new three Rs of teaching are to be responsibility, responsibility and
responsibility. So much for 'the happiest days of your life'.
At once pious and pompous, Blair's announcement of a moral crusade revealed a
nervous political elite staring into the hole at the heart of New Britain; a
country where, the fearful government seems to imagine, young people copulate
in the streets after dark while their slovenly parents worship at the altar of
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Yet for all the bold talk by Blair and his
apostles, their initiative also betrays a loss of nerve about how to fill the
spiritual vacuum.
It is easy enough to declare the need for a new moral purpose in a Sunday
newspaper interview; it is a very different matter to work out what that might
mean in practice and win public support for it. So the government is happy
enough to prescribe lectures, curfews, homework and cold baths for 12-year olds
who cannot answer back. But in the same breath, ministers will emphasise that
they are 'not here to preach to adults' about how they live their lives. As we
used to say to bullies before the school counsellors cornered the market: why
don't you pick on somebody your own size?
If there is one thing worse than a moralising prime minister, however, it is an
archbishop with the principles of a backsliding politician. When Tony Blair
returned from his Continental holiday and called for a moral crusade, Britain's
church leaders looked at him as if he had imbibed too much vin rouge. What
seemed to upset leading churchmen was not the rather vacuous character of Mr
Blair's crusade, but the fact that he had dared to suggest that it might be
okay to make any judgements at all, and to teach people something about right
and wrong.
Dr Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, issued a 'friendly warning' to the
prime minister. 'Morality cannot be imposed', he warned his friend, 'and
archbishops are living proof of this. You just cannot say to people, "This is
what you must do".' This was quite a remarkable statement coming from the
leader of the established Christian church in Britain. After all, isn't there
something in the Bible about telling people 'This is what thou shalt and shalt
not do'? Or perhaps the latest rewrite of the scriptures has replaced the 10
commandments with an awareness campaign designed to help people make informed
lifestyle choices.
The old Tory prime minister Harold Macmillan once famously suggested that
politicians should leave preaching to the bishops. The bishops have now told
our preachy prime minister not to expect any back-up from them. It is one thing
for politicians to court popularity by claiming that they don't want to preach
to people. But when archbishops themselves eschew the pulpit, there is
something more than spin at stake. Dr Carey's nervous response to Tony Blair's
crusade confirmed that even those who supposedly speak with authority from on-
high have become infected by the epidemic of non-judgemental relativism now
plaguing society.
The churches typify the way that old-fashioned British institutions (from the
Tory Party and the TUC to the monarchy and the police) are desperately trying
to redefine their role in changing times. What all of them have in common is an
inability to hold the line. As people have lost faith in traditional
Christianity, the churches have retreated from religious principles and moral
absolutism in a bid to make themselves appear more 'relevant' to the real
world. In Britain AD (After Diana), the Church of England in particular has
adapted to the self-obsessions of new-age spirituality, its leaders speaking in
the new tongues of eco-speak and psychobabble. Fear and judgement are out,
feelings and empathy are in.
Take the question of funeral rites, over which the church and its symbols have
long exercised something of a monopoly. Last year the Bishop of Salisbury
announced that, henceforth at C of E funerals, mourners would be encouraged to
place teddy bears on coffins and to talk about how they feel. Then the General
Synod of the Church of England proposed that bereavement counsellors should be
on-hand at funerals to comfort the traumatised (a spiritual task which the
clergy might once have seen as its own preserve), and suggested that the dead
might be buried in forests, in biodegradable cardboard coffins. Having decided
that nobody will rot in hell for their sins, they now want us all to decompose
for our ecosystem.
The new non-judgemental religion is taken to its logical conclusion by Richard
Holloway, the unorthodox Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish
Episcopal Church. Holloway's 'nobody has a monopoly on the truth' attitude
extends right to the heart of traditional Christian teachings; he recently
described Jesus as 'an elusive contemporary presence' who 'had an encounter
with the transcendent meaning we call God'. The bishop's latest book responds
to the declining influence of the churches by arguing the need for a 'Godless
morality'. That seems as unlikely to inspire a moral revival as the
government's petty crusade against school-age sex and antisocial neighbours.
Where the churches once inspired with a vision of power and higher purpose, now
they seek only to 'connect' with a public mood of alienation and powerlessness.
Where once they preached salvation, now they counsel 'survival'. Where once
they raised mighty cathedrals to the glory of God, now they have had to scale
down the Spirit Zone in the Millennium Dome, from a glass and steel pyramid to
a canvas tent. There can be few clearer illustrations of the lowering of human
horizons at the century's end.
The millennium is supposed to be the biggest Christian festival for a thousand
years. Yet the most inspiring message the combined imagination of the UK
churches has come up with to date is a joint millennium 'resolution' which
apparently does not mention the G word but pledges to respect the Earth. As the
lost souls of the modern Christian hierarchy set off on a pilgrimage to find
God in a focus group, they literally have not got a prayer.
The moralists' retreat might seem like a blessing for those of us godless
atheists who have always derided religious superstition and prejudice. But
things are not quite so straightforward. The descent into relativism reflects a
dangerous trend in wider society, where the dominant response to problems seems
always to be to give way, to refuse to stand up for any principle or judge
anything or anybody, and where compromise has become a way of life.
When Tony Blair called for a 'new moral purpose', it was as if he had had a
moment of insight that these things had gone 'too far'. Yet the New Labour
establishment which he fronts has been instrumental in the spread of relativism
and the retreat from standards of excellence in every sphere from the arts and
culture to education. The fact that the prime minister was criticised for
preaching by public figures ranging from the Archbishop of Canterbury to Ed
Straw, brother of the home secretary and head of the marriage counselling
organisation Relate, suggests that things could go much further yet.
Of course it is true that a sense of purpose cannot be artificially imposed on
society or individuals by a statement from Downing Street or a law passed
through parliament. Blair-style attempts by the authorities to politicise moral
matters have always done more harm than good. But the attitude of his friendly
critics reveals another, newer problem - an elite which appears incapable of
laying any kind of moral basis for society, whether founded on religious or
humanist values.
In a mature civilised society, children should assimilate a sense of what is
right and wrong from the way adults act, not from classes in citizenship
learned by rote. So, what examples of grown-up behaviour are they being set in
Mr Blair's New Britain?
This, remember, is a society where, from the prime minister's office downwards,
feelings often appear to be valued more highly than thought. A society where
the assumption seems to be that nobody can really cope with any experience,
from work or college to sex and relationships, without the aid of guidelines,
helplines, counsellors and compensation. A society where the government has
just seen fit to issue an expensive booklet advising new fathers that they
should cuddle their partners after the birth, instead of badgering them for
sex. A society, in short, where we are all treated (and often seem willing to
behave) like irresponsible and emotional little children. No amount of
moralising from government ministers can compensate for the degraded view of
people which children are being taught by living in a world without adults.
The only moral of this story is that a more certain, self-confident society can
only be created by individuals who are capable of standing up for themselves,
speaking freely, and making rational judgements about what is right in the
circumstances. But that is something which, for all the talk of tolerance of
diversity, the current climate will not tolerate. So we are left with a
government trying to make schools compensate for the failings of society by
instructing children to do what adults don't, while our supposed spiritual
leaders hide behind cuddly toys and gobbledegook about our father who art a
transcendent meaning. Save us from them all.
Reproduced from LM issue 124, October 1999
http://www.informinc.co.uk/LM/LM124/LM124_Edit.html
Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
{{End Article}}
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