While so many others in the Christian blogosphere have been
posting on this subject over the last two weeks, I’ve stayed silent. Mainly,
that’s been pressure of work. Probably this is too little, too late now: isn’t
one of the blogosphere’s curses something it shares with our culture, namely
the pressure for everything to be instant? If someone doesn’t offer an instant
opinion, there’s something wrong with him or her. If they do, and it is later
shown to be faulty judgment, that is held against them.
And that in itself is part of the difficulty here. We have a
culture that has marginalised the place for considered reflection. In an age of
near-instantaneous communication possibilities, we also expect
near-instantaneous wisdom. It’s a fallacy. Wisdom is gained over what Eugene Peterson called ‘a
long obedience in the same direction’, not something you expect of red-top
tabloids. The Sun’s terrible headline ‘Bash the bishop’, a crude reference to
masturbation, tells you more about their journalists and readership than
anything else.
A particular issue has been that of handling a serious and
nuanced academic debate, when given by a public figure. Some have argued that Rowan Williams should have
known that even though he was speaking to an academic audience, there was a
wider constituency for his speech, precisely because of who he is. They have
suggested he should not speak in such an intellectual way. (Certainly, the
tabloids can’t handle it.) The cry is for him to ‘dumb down’ or return to
Oxford. Others suggest his PR staff are at fault.
After a few days’ on-and-off reflection on this, my mind
went back to Neil Postman’s
seminal book on television, ‘Amusing
Ourselves To Death’. In it, he argues that television is not a good conduit
for serious debate. By its very nature, it reduces all exploration to simple
clashes between two diametrically opposed parties. There is no space on the
spectrum for views that fall in between. In politics, for example, everything is
reduced to ‘left’ versus ‘right’. This has caused problems for many years for
the Liberal Democrats, and in more recent years for New Labour (because they
are not ‘socialist’ but a mixture). It now affects David Cameron’s Tories.
My suggestion is this: Postman’s analysis is correct, and
the television mindset he describes has affected wider public discourse in
other media, now including the press. Newspapers that used to be able to
discuss things more subtly now live in the light of the sound-bite 24-hour news
channels and the near-instantaneous Internet. To compete, they drop the
subtlety and over-simplify. An academic paper by Rowan Williams never stood a
chance.
However, does that mean we should give up and dumb down? Not
in my opinion. James Emery White has
just written a paper that does not refer to the Williams/Sharia controversy,
but is pertinent. It is called ‘Big Brains, Small Impact’.
White laments the absence of the ‘public intellectual’. In past generations, he
argues, there were many more such people who maintained high academic
standards, but who still communicated with the public without sacrificing
intellectual integrity. Christianity had C S
Lewis; American society in general had Gore Vidal. Yet these
figures are rare today, he argues. What has changed? Today’s intellectuals more
often become professional academics, at home on the campus and writing for
journals. This is just as apparent in the Church, he says. You get either
mindless populist hogwash, or obscure academics writing for a niche audience. The
latter has been important, especially in conservative Christian circles, where
it has been essential to react against a prevalent anti-intellectualism. However,
it is no use if the academy is impressed with something so original it
qualifies as a PhD thesis, but is detached from reality.
It’s hardly uncommon for an Archbishop of Canterbury to hold
a doctorate. The position calls for someone who will – amongst other things –
be one of White’s public intellectuals. Rowan Williams, like C S Lewis, has
been an Oxford don. It is not an impossible call. The question is whether
Williams can make the transition.
Even if he does, the Church should be prepared for different
criticisms. Mockery will always come. Williams’ predecessor, George Carey, was no intellectual slouch,
with a PhD from King’s College, London, on the Shepherd of Hermas. (I should
declare that I studied under George for a year or so.) He had more of the
common touch. The media seized on that. He was the working-class boy from
Dagenham, with a charismatic spirituality. The TV satire show Spitting Image
caricatured him as spending his time singing ‘Kumbaya’ with the Scouts. George might
not have been a Lewis, but he had an ability to speak about faith to ordinary
people. But Christians should know ever since Jesus warned us that people would
paint a target on our chests and fire.
Williams didn’t help himself on one level. He knew there was
more to Sharia Law than cutting off the hands of thieves or stoning adulterers.
His immediate audience did. He didn’t take account of the wider audience, both
those inflamed by bigotry and those more nervous than ever of Muslims ever
since the attempts to bomb Glasgow Airport, apparently led by ‘respectable’
doctors. I have heard more than one ‘ordinary’ person say that before that
incident, they knew there were decent, quiet, law-abiding Muslims. However, from
then on, they didn’t know whom they could trust. Bigoted newspapers like The
Sun knew how they could easily tap into that. They knew popular sentiment. Rather
than address it, they exploited it.
Maybe some of the Church hasn’t helped itself in the
controversy, either. Williams had a good point for us in his lecture. We have
been used to asking for exemptions to allow for our conscience in society. Years
ago, medical staff got exemptions from involvement in abortions if it offended
their beliefs. More recently, however, members of the current Government have
seen the sexuality issue as a chance to hurt the church, especially the
Catholics: witness the agony over adoption agencies. There is a Christendom
mentality still operating in our midst that expects favours for the Church, but
for nobody else. If we want our exemptions (and on these issues, I for one do),
then we need to extend a generous spirit to other parties in a diverse society
like ours. Social cohesion is the buzz phrase: there are politicians who prefer
to treat it as social coercion. It is even more surprising (except when you
allow for this Christendom mentality) to hear Christians say there is one law
for everybody, when we have wanted a different law. Some of us are living in
the past, and it’s dangerous to do so. As a free church Christian, I am nervous
about Williams’ claim that as a pastor of the Church of England he should speak
up for other religious groups. It may be well intentioned, but it smacks of
Anglican imperialism. Would it not be better for us to help other parties get
their voice heard on their own terms – if they need the help, that is?
In summary: let us pray for more ‘public intellectuals’ from
the Church. Maybe Tom Wright and John Sentamu could step
into the rôle. However, let us still be prepared for ridicule. In the meantime,
let us contribute to the social cohesion debate, while recognising that we Christians
are not the only group in our society that will want exemptions on grounds of
conscience.
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