FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 279 30 October 2007 The Father of Europe In 802 AD a curious gift reached the Christian West from the Muslim East. An elephant. Sent by Caliph Haroun Ar-Rashid to Emperor Charlemagne. An event so curious that some thought it apocryphal. “Possibly it never happened”, wrote literary magus Jorge Luis Borges. That in the Middle Ages such a mighty beast could travel from the famed city of Baghdad all the way to the capital of the kingdom of the Franks, Aachen, in Germany, seemed merely legendary. Stuff from the Thousand and One Nights, in other words. Actually, Borges was unduly sceptical. The story is true. The elephant did come all the way from the Orient to the Occident. We even know his name, Abu el-Abbas. Charlemagne gratefully received him, reciprocating with gifts for Haroun. Abu el-Abbas lived on in Europe until 810, when he died at Lippenham, in Westphalia. Insh’allah, his sojourn was a happy one. Last week, ambling through the lively streets of the modern city of Aachen, the priest found himself meditating on Kaiser Karl der Grosse, aka Charlemagne. Not a difficult feat, as the emperor’s presence is ubiquitous there. Temptation to interview him was irresistible. I succumbed to it. Your Majesty, your empire extended from the Pyrenees in the West to the Elbe and the Danube in the East. Nearly the whole of Christendom at the time. The epic Chanson de Roland sings of your military foray into Spain. You and your heroic paladins fighting the Moors. Happy with that? Remember that I spoke a German dialect, so I could never read the Chanson. I crossed the Pyrenees because three Arab emirs, at war with the Caliph of Cordoba, had asked my help. I drove my enemies across the Ebro but failed to take Saragossa. On the way back, my rearguard and Count Roland were treacherously slain at Roncesvalles by wild Basque tribesmen. A worthless race, whose only achievement in history has been to milk cows. Despicable bunch. Not even worth soiling my sword with their low blood. Ahem…a bit non-PC but let’s let it pass. You are obviously a man of your time… A man of all times, you mean, priest. And an emperor for all seasons. Today you talk of Europe a lot. I like that. I was the first European. All right, I had to do a bit of killing in the process. Smash the pagan Saxons, for example. But I don’t see how you can condemn me for that. My Saxon wars were fought in self-defence. And for the Faith. There was no booty to grab. Your America and Britain, supposedly ‘democratic’ and secular, blather on about human rights and altruism. But you send armies to invade countries as faraway as Afghanistan and oil-rich Iraq, which hardly threaten you. We fought the enemy like soldiers, face to face and sword against sword, whilst your ‘civilised’ lot majors on raining monster bombs and missiles on primitive foes safely from a distance. And I personally engaged in combat, along with my men. I have not heard of your leaders – what are their funny names? - Bush and Blair, risking their skin in Basra or Helmand province. Touché’, Your Majesty. Better to move on. Your relationship with the Church. You were quite a pious monarch, they say. A Christian one, certainly. I won’t apologise for that. We Franks had embraced the Faith since the days of King Clovis. That made us true citizens of a universal city, both earthly and spiritual. No longer barbarians out of primeval forests but children of both Rome and Jerusalem. I always believed the temporal and the spiritual must go hand in hand, united, like the soul with the body. Aristotle says that the highest life is that of the intellect. Reason should rule. Had that fountain of all wisdom been a Christian, he would also have added faith. Politics works out best with Church and State conjoined. When St Paul in Romans writes that ‘all power is from God’, his words apply most perfectly to the polity I established. That is why I was happy to have Pope Leo crown me Emperor at Rome in AD 800. In God’s name I become ruler of a restored Roman empire. So I swore to be the protector of the Church – as it ought to be, surely. Isn’t your Britain today ruled by a monarch who bears the official title of ‘Defender of the Faith’? Er…yes. But can’t imagine the Queen going to war to spread Anglicanism, or to defend the Archbishop of Canterbury. By the way, why did you override the authority of Byzantium? There was already a roman emperor in Constantinople, no? Indeed. That meddling female, Irene. She was a usurper, because she called herself not empress but emperor. And no woman can be that, anymore than a woman can be a priest. So the throne was vacant. What! You think I am a misogynist? No way. I loved my daughters so much, I kept them always by my side, as everybody knows. Interesting views, Sire. So you really claim to be the Father of Europe? Priest, consider my name, Charles. In all the Slav languages, and in Hungarian, it has become the name for ‘king’. Carol, Kital, Kral. That must be significant. I, Charlemagne, am forever Carolus Magnus, Charles the Great. My empire was German, Roman and Christian at the same time. Fine fusion of religion and cultures. The good Saxon from York, Alcuin, implementing by enlightened cultural policies. ‘Education, education, education’ was my slogan. And I got on ever so well with the Jews. And with the Muslim Empire. I sent Haroun ar-Rashid fine hunting dogs in return for his elephant. I could go on… If God wills it, I will. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 280 6 November 2007 The Bomb ‘There is no morality in war’. I saw a small, prune-faced oldster growl that out on telly, last week. Fellow called Paul Tibbets. Aged 92, he had just kicked the bucket. But who he? Of course, the US B29 pilot who dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Huh! He would say that, wouldn’t he? 80.000 Japanese instantly died, or were badly wounded by ‘Little Boy’ – the bomb’s nickname. A temperature of over 5000 degrees F. raged where Little Boy did its nice job. Plenty of blackened and charred bodies long littered the streets and the ruins. Three days later, another A-bomb hit the city of Nagasaki. 40.000 people were incinerated. Kyoto had been mooted as a target, but the American War Secretary, Henry Stimson, obviously was a cultured man. Did not like to destroy a historical city. Jolly considerate of him. Being civilised really is a wonderful thing. In a subsequent communiqué Stimson stated that the bombs had been dropped to shorten the war, thereby saving many lives. However, he also let slip reference to the Japanese’s beatings and torturing of US prisoners. Frank but unwise. Because it suggests that the motive behind the attack was not exclusively ‘humanitarian’, or even utilitarian. Hence it marred the given rationale a bit. Desire for revenge may well be inherent in our fallen humanity. Even rational, perhaps, but a humane or moral instinct certainly it is not. ‘There is no morality in war.’ Yet Tibbets also justified his atomic warfare with the standard ‘saving lives’ argument. Was he aware of the contradiction? To advance the saving of human lives as a reason for destroying many others is a moral argument – what else? Whose lives did he mean? His fellow Americans’, exclusively, or did he include Japanese lives? Those of the innocent civilians, particularly? Or did he think, immorally, they did not count? But I imagine he’d shrug his shoulders at these finicky questions. Orders must be obeyed. That’s what soldiering is all about, isn’t it? Only wonder why that did not apply to some of the Nuremberg trial defendants… Tibbets claimed he never lost a night’s sleep over the raid. Maybe that’s just as well. Would it help or console the dead, the maimed and the radioactively-contaminated survivors to know that Little Boy’s pilot had spent sleepless nights thinking about them? It may be different with the Supreme Judge, however. Like the rest of us, Tibbets is called to render an account. The outcome, of course, lies beyond human ken. ‘There is no morality in war.’ Kind of reminiscent of General Sherman’s often-quoted ‘war is hell’. Fascinating utterance. For its theological ignorance. Did Sherman ever realise that, whatever punishment the souls of the damned may suffer (and, mind, as a German mystic wrote, ‘nothing burns in hell, except the ego’), it is inflicted according to the strictest, indeed the highest justice? Thus, contrary to Sherman’s intended meaning, there is justice in hell. Justice is what fashioned hellfire (again, mind, not at all like gas fire!) and justice is what apportions condign punishment in the infernal regions. To the guilty ones. War, on the other hand, as waged by men, is a singularly inept instrument for effecting justice. That is so because often those who suffer the most in war are the innocent. ‘There is no morality in war.’ A lawless remark. Words that militate not solely against the idea of restraints in fighting – churchy stuff the tough-minded can easily dismiss – but also against the ancient law of nations and indeed modern international law. Quite wrong, in fact. As Tibbets might have learnt, had Japan won the war. He might have found himself arraigned before a tribunal for war crimes. Or he might not. The conduct of the Japanese armies in China was horrific, granted. And Japan at Pearl Harbour had attacked first. But two wrongs do not make a right. Otherwise, what would remain of the lofty, ethical ‘superiority’ of the West? ‘Saving lives’. In itself, a commendable aim. But can you trade human lives for human lives? In bulk, like sheep or potatoes? Hmmm… I am told there is a ban on that in Jewish law. However, halacha, casuistry based on the Talmud, states that ransom can be paid to free prisoners from captivity. So, Israeli religious parties support the Government’s exchange of prisoners, even if it means dealing with Israel’s deadly enemies, like Hezbollah and Hamas. What view the learned rabbis would take on an actual, massive ‘body trade’, I haven’t a clue. Must ask my friend, Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, when we discuss Family of Abraham issues on Al-Mustaqillah TV, soon on the 15th. The Christian view is clear, however. Those who do evil so that good may come deserve condemnation, as St Paul teaches in Romans (3:8). Hence no good end can justify an evil means, pace the cynical and failed Florentine politician, Machiavelli. The deliberate, intentional and direct targeting of innocent non-combatants in war – no matter if the war itself is a just one – is morally illicit. And that regardless of any presumed utilitarian calculus. The medieval Church wisely saw warfare as a Grenzmoral – a painful case, poised on the edge between the moral and the immoral. Hence it tried to put up barriers and limits as to the harm that it was done. Some classes of persons were considered immune or exempt from fighting (like bishops! The priest would put them right on the frontline!), and truce was enforced at certain seasons. What the Church could not do of course was to eliminate the human drives towards aggression and violence. Another Flood would be needed for that. ‘There is no morality in war.’ Did poor Tibbets ever realise what a diabolical statement that is? Were that the case, no believing soldier could fight without sinning. The extermination of the innocent would be OK. Notions like bravery, loyalty, honour and patriotism would be either meaningless or intrinsically evil. Some of the most admired Christian heroes, from St Charlemagne (a sop to my friend Werner…) to Wellington, would be merely butchers…and so on. ‘There is no morality in war.” Verily, Satan would say that. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 282 21 November 2007 Labours of Hercules My latest appearance on Al-Mustaqillah Pan-Arab TV, the ‘Family of Abraham’ programme, has led me to revisit Greek mythology. I mean the figure of the strongest man ever, the superhero Hercules. And his celebrated twelve labours. It is like this. In a fit of madness, Hercules has slain his own family. To do penance, the Delphi oracle orders him to go to King Eurystheus and be his slave. The King, in league with Hercules’ sworn enemy, the goddess Hera, thinks up some twelve fiendish tasks. And each one well-nigh impossible. The famous Twelve Labours of Hercules. 1. To kill the lion of Nemea. A beast no weapon could harm. Tricky, eh? No matter. Hercules just strangles it with his bare hands. 2. To dispose of the Hydra of Lerna. A swamp monster with nine heads, one of them deathless and the others, as soon as cut off, each sprouting up two more. (An incubus of geometric progression!) Not a pet you’d like to have about the house. But our hero enlists his nephew with a burning torch to sear each neck after he has chopped the head off - the Hydra cannot not grow them again. And the immortal head? Easy. Hercules just buries deeply under a huge rock. (Must still be there, I guess. And mighty bored.) 3. To capture a wondrous, golden-horned stag, sacred to Artemis. Hercules could kill it in a jiffy, of course, but the creature is wanted alive. It takes the hero a whole year to do that. 4. To get a huge, lethal boar, living on Mount Ereymanthus. Hercules hunts it for ages from lair to lair, until the brute is worn out. And so easily taken. 5. Now a simile part of the English language, the Augean Stables contains thousands and thousands of cattle. Shocking! For years no one has cleaned them. In one day poor Hercules has to do it! Thank God, apart from brawn he also has brains. He turns the course of two rivers, causing them to rush through the stables. It washes away the muck jolly quickly. 6. The people of a place called Stymphalus are pestered by countless pesky birds. Ahem, maybe it isn’t fair but the goddess Athena helps a bit. She scares them out of their nests and Hercules then shoots the lot. 7. This labour entails a trip to Crete. To seize some beautiful savage bull. A gift from the sea-god Poseidon to King Minos. All right, it isn’t as bad as fighting the Minotaur, yet it is a Herculean task OK and the hero is victorious. 8. King Diomedes of Thrace owes much-feared man-eating mares. To get them, Hercules first takes out Diomedes and then he ensnares the nightmarish mares. A trifle. 9. To bring back the girdle of Hyppolita, Queen of the man-hating Amazons. A complicated plot. And, groan, ungallant. Suffice it to say that Hercules slays the Queen, fights off the furious Amazons and makes off with the girdle. 10. There is an island with the cattle-owning Geryon, a monster with three bodies. On the way there, Hercules uproots two great rocks and sets them as mighty pillars in the sea, to commemorate his exploit. They are, of course, Gibraltar and Ceuta. And he completes his mission, too. 11. To bring back the golden apples of the Hesperides. ‘Take off the vault of Heaven from my shoulders and I’ll give you the apples’, promises Atlas, the Hesperides’ father. Hercules obliges but Atlas refuses to honour the bargain. ‘OK, but just take back the vault from me one moment, as I put pads on my shoulders’, wily Hercules suggests. Boy, isn’t Atlas dumb? He buys it. So Hercules walks off with the apples. 12. You ain’t heard nothing yet. A journey to Hades, no less. The underworld. From which no one has ever returned. Two tasks in one, actually. To free hero Theseus from the chair of forgetfulness and to bring back the hideous, three-headed hell-hound, Cerberus. The story again is complex but…yes! Hercules lifts up the wriggling monster and carries it up to King Eurystheus. Hurrah! The hero’s labours are over. Well, you might dream up a thirteenth difficult task for our Hercules. Stopping global warming, maybe. Or turning the Sahara desert into a garden. Or getting our London Underground to run efficiently. Or, to plump for the hyper-impossible, to settle the Israel-Palestine conflict to the satisfaction of both. However, my own modest task arises out of satellite exchanges with a certain Dr Abdullah. From Saudi Arabia. The third panel member on the TV discussion mentioned above. You see, Dr Abdullah suffers from an unshakeable conviction. That ‘the West’ is out to attack Islam. He fired off battery after battery of sundry, disjointed and unrelated names and data: the Crusades (he would, wouldn’t he?), Dante, Voltaire, Renan, President Bush, the Danish cartoons, Pope Benedict…and so on. Despite my reasoned objections, like the Hydra he went on to sprout up new grievances. Not that I’d have wanted to treat him as Hercules dealt with the Hydra, of course… Dr Abdullah seemed to live in a very one-dimensional, almost paranoid universe. One in which there is a universal conspiracy to get at him and his side – the Wahabi one, presumably. His discourse was monotonous, obsessive and inflexible. All the wrongs in history were on the other side and all the goodness and justice and right on his own. Totally Manichean. And this towards fellow Abrahamic believers! I felt a bit like a Jew might have felt, subjected to a tirade by a Jew-baiter like Julius Streicher. It was sad. Saddest of all was Dr Abdullah’s incapacity to distinguish between ‘the West’ and Christianity. 200 years ago that equation might have had validity. Today no longer. ‘The West’ as such no more stands for Christ than for Zoroaster. Some Western quarters are anti-Islam, yes. But often the same forces are anti-Christianity, as well. It is the priest’s God-given (Herculean!) task to persuade good Muslims and good Christians to unite against the common foes of ‘Ahl al-Ibrahim’. Maybe a Hercules might manage to get that message into the thick head of some misguided monotheists, insh’allah without using his club. Revd Frank J. Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 285 12 December 2007 Fifth Columns In 1936, early in the Spanish Civil War, General Franco had five armies, or military columns, menacing the enemy government in Madrid. Four of them were converging on the capital from the outside but the fifth column was inside. They were Franco’s supporters, lurking within republican areas, waiting the right moment to strike at los rojos. Fifth columnists, they were called. Three years later, Franco won. According to a well-known British journalist, we have a fifth column in our midst. Muslim extremists – who else? So she wrote in a major tabloid newspaper not too long ago. Last week a speaker in a mosque, whilst fingering rabid Islamophobes, drew my attention to her. Well, call it sheer coincidence or Jungian synchronicity, next day I found myself in a media gathering that boasted that very lady’s presence. Blandly, I raised the issue: are fifth columnists really at work in this country? Interesting answer I got, only…it should be confidential – sorry! History abounds in fifth columns, real or imagined. Centuries before the phrase got coined, Roman Catholics in Protestant England fitted the bill. When Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, ipso facto he absolved Catholic Englishmen from oaths of allegiance to their heretical Queen. With a clear conscience, they could conspire against her. For Protestants, that rendered any Catholic person potentially disloyal, a traitor. Indeed, numerous foiled plots against Tudor, Stuart and Hanoverian monarchs involved Catholics. QED. In consequence, Catholics in England had to suffer much persecution and discrimination ever since. Even today, the fires and frenzies of the Reformation totally banked, if Prince William married a Catholic girl, he would forfeit his right to the British throne. Isn’t that crazy? The Armenians too were branded fifth columnists by the Young Turks during WWI. ‘This alien Christian race is in collusion with the Russians. Want to stab us in the back’, the decadent Ottomans claimed. Despite the fact that Armenians have served under the Sultans for hundreds of years. In military capacity too, e.g. as sappers at the siege of Vienna. The wholesale massacres of innocent Armenians quickly followed. Japanese Americans suffered not so horrifically in WWII but the US authorities saw them as potential pawns of the Rising Sun in America. So they were herded into concentration camps. When the Soviet Union still held sway, and the red menace loomed, comrade Krushchev truculently warned the capitalist West: ‘We shall bury you!’ (Not much of a prophet he.) Communists and their sympathisers in ‘the free world’ were deemed quintessential fifth columns. Mind you, Soviet agents and spies and fellow travellers did not exist only in Senator McCarthy’s fertile brain. There actually were people like that. Besides, consider this counterfactual: if the Russian tanks had ever swept into France and Italy, to set up people’s republics, on whose side would local communists have fought? Well and good. But let’s get a bit analytical about this thing. Franco’s fifth columnists lay murkily hidden. What made them dangerous, however, was their link with el Generalissimo’s other four columns, plus Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany. (The Republicans had Stalin, of course.) Our native, aspiring jihadists, by contrast, who can they count on? The al-Qaeda column? Maybe it exists. Now and again, it causes real havoc with its nasty suicide bombings and low-tech shenanigans. And big casualties. But its chances to topple the mega-armies and gigantic, sophisticated police and security machineries of the West are actually less than zero. 9/11 and 7/7 were directed against the innocent and so they were atrocious and despicable acts. But they never came anywhere near destroying the States involved. And please, do not muddy the waters by bringing in Iran, the nuclear threat and that kind of garbage. The Shia State has as much love for Sunni al-Qaeda as Bush does. True, the Shia support liberation movements OK. I doubt, though, that Iran is behind the Welsh nationalists of Plaid Cymru or the Free Alaska Eskimo faction. Part of a loose, worldwide guerrilla force our home-bread radicals may well consider themselves to be – lethal fifth columnists, posing a threat to our very survival, they are not. Don’t relax, yet. A fifth column may be real, after all. A malignant cabal, a spiteful spider that wishes to destroy Britain, yep. A hundred times more damaging than the Luftwaffe was. But where is it? Here is my surprise candidate. It’s called the British Government. An internal ‘column’ in active collusion with malevolent external columns. Called the EU. You see, controlling the social policy of its member states, the EU has gradually eroded and undermined key religious and ethical values. For instance, the ideal of the family based on the New Testament. Cohabitation and same-sex partnerships have become the legal equivalent of marriage. Divorce is almost the norm. Abortion and contraception are palmed off as ‘reproductive rights’. Under the banner of obsessively repeated shibboleths, talisman-like slogans like ‘equality’ and ‘anti-discrimination’, the British Government gleefully works in tandem with the EU gang to dismantle the core values constitutive of the very fabric of British society. A dire state of affairs. And a challenge, for Christians especially. From the beginning, we Nazarenes had to object to certain pagan practices of the Roman Empire. Abortion, infanticide, human fighting in the arena, sacrificing to the deified emperor and so on. To the extent of suffering martyrdom. Of course, Christian resistance to paganism was not violent – that is the significant, qualitative difference with today’s men of violence. Christians were peaceful fifth-columnists. The weapons they fought with were spiritual. As St Paul lists them: ‘the shield of faith’, ‘the breastplate of righteousness’, ‘the helmet of salvation’ and ‘the sword of the spirit’ (Ephesians 6:13-17). With same unbloody weapons the Church – the true, visible and invisible Church of Jesus Christ – must fight today. In concert with innumerable other columns: those of the angelic hosts in Heaven. So, it turns out that I myself am a fifth-columnist. Amazing! You know what? I am going to enjoy it. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Father Frank’s Rants Rant Number 286 18 December 2007 A Gnostic Golden Compass Two stars contend for the viewer’s attention in the movie The Golden Compass. Nicole Kidman as the ambiguous Ms. Coulter has oodles of sex appeal. Ravishing enough to stir up tumult in any man’s loins. The other is the heroine proper. 12 year old Lyra, played by Dakota Somebody. A pretty lass and a no mean budding actress. Still, something bothers me about her acting. That hardness about her eyes. The constant, scornful frown. A spiteful little mouth and mien. Why does she scowl so much, like a spoilt or disturbed brat about to throw a tantrum? A suitable case for child psychiatry. Hmmm… director's directions apart, lovely Dakota must have wanted to act like that. Why? Elizabeth John in The Shia Newspaper to me suggests an answer. The media, she argues, have “influenced the minds of girls and produced today’s confused generation of women filled with masculine notions of violence and challenge, rather than easing the pain of the world by their delicateness, compassion and motherhood. Instead of living her femininity, the young woman of today is engaged in fierce battles with rough men”. Thus speaks a Muslim woman – don’t stone the poor priest, please! Not just big, rough blokes Lyra takes on. Her greater fight is against the malevolent ‘Magisterium’. A child-stealing male mafia intent on robbing human beings of their souls and free-will, to subject them to the blind authority. It ‘works by telling people what to do’. Writer Philip Pullman is gunning for the Christian Church, surprise, surprise… The Magisterium hates science. So it attempts to poison Lyra’s uncle, scientist and explorer, Daniel Craig’s Lord Asriel. (Sporting a particularly nasty-looking, spiky beard.) To stop him from investigating some wondrous cosmic dust that gives access to other worlds. Funny how my mind runs back to another, all too real scientist. Dr James Watson got the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA. But last October this eminent scientist was suspended for his research laboratory. The Science Museum in London cancelled his lecture. Hysterical voices asked for his prosecution. Fanatics threatened demonstrations against him. So Dr Watson issued a public, grovelling recantation. (Shades of Galileo before the Inquisition!) The Magisterium’s long hand, surely? Actually the illustrious scientist’s sin had not been against God. His comments had been about race and intelligence. Taboo subjects. Maybe he is wrong. Maybe blacks are superior to whites, who knows? Science should decide. The point is that the new Inquisition, the sinister despisers of knowledge and reason today aren’t always or necessarily religious. Mr Pullman, take note, on the doubtful assumption you give a damn for truth. Truth matters because the Golden Compass of the title is an Alethiometer. (Aletheia: the Greek word for ‘verity’.) A magic truth-telling device, looking rather like a snuffbox. It infallibly helps Lyra in her quest. Pity the A-meter fails to tell her about the true Christian take on freewill. Far from wishing to take freedom away from us, the Church teaches that: 1) freedom is a gift from God; 2) man was created free; 3) freedom is the real possibility to choose between good and evil; 4) men have a right to exercise this freedom; 5) freedom makes human agents real moral subjects. As St Irenaeus of Lyon put it long ago: “Man…is created with free will and therefore master over his acts.” I confess it: much of the above comes from ‘The Catechism of the Catholic Church’. Admittedly, Reformers like Luther and Calvin were a tad less glowing on human freedom. As at least half a Protestant, I take their point. But Pullman is attacking Rome, not Geneva. Hence, if he really believes that Catholicism condemns freewill, he is an ignoramus – full stop. Besides, the Alethiometer might have informed the author about a fashionable and influential determinist anthropology. From troglodyte Marxists to the limp, moaning Left of our time. If anyone seeks to undermine human freewill, it’s that lot. Whenever they claim that someone was forced to steal, maim or murder ‘because society is unjust and the way he was brought up and he had no choice but to be a criminal and blah, blah, blah’, they implicitly make a mockery of our freedom. The most precious of God’s gifts. The most resounding moral J’accuse is what such people deserve. Because they slander and degrade human dignity. Maybe next time morose young Lyra should throw a tantrum or two in that direction. The movie has its (few) moments. The hilarious whisky-swilling, talkative armoured bear is one. The rumbustious, shaggy and Yiddish-looking ‘Gyptians’ could have been lifted from ‘Fiddler on the Roof’. But my absolute favourite is the big-moustachioed, cum-Texas-drawl cow-boy aeronaut Sam Eliott. A scream! And the proof the wonderful myth of the Wild West still rides on OK, never mind if on an improbable dirigible in this ramshackle fantasy world. The Golden Compass smells of Gnosticism. That ragbag of pseudo-spiritual ideas and doctrines proliferating in the early centuries AD. The Creator of our human universe, Gnostic Marcion held, was neither omnipotent nor good. Rather, a second-rate, inferior deity. Similarly, Pullman sees the God of monotheism as a negative, spent, dying force. (Tell that to the millions of pilgrims now on Haj at Mecca, Phil!) Dupe Marcion set out to denigrate the Old Testament, too. I wonder whether Pullman realises his atheism implies anti-Semitism? Anyway, the Church told Marcion where to get off. As to the peculiar cosmic stuff sought by Lord Asriel, it echoes somewhat the particles of supernatural light some Gnostics believed to have been entombed in matter and human bodies. Even pesky little Lyra could be a distant transmutation of the fallen female wisdom of Simon Magus… And the ‘daemons’ that appear in animal forms too could have a counterpart in the Gnostic daimones – good and bad spirits of the air. But maybe what’s at play here is more primitive, like shamanism. Either way, the cute shape-shifting critters don’t amuse the priest at all. The human soul comes from God. It is infinitely noble, unique. I see why godless Pullman wishes to mingle it with animalism, of course. Old Nick’s hand, eh? But fear not, folks: Non Praevalebunt! Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 287 3 January 2008 Dombey and Son ‘Papa! What’s money?’ asks pensive little Paul Dombey of his dad in Dickens’ great work, Dombey and Son. Mr Dombey, a wealthy City man, is nonplussed. Pounds, shillings, gold, silver and copper – surely the familiar words will do? But, unpleased, the child insists: ‘What’s money after all? Papa, what can it do?’ ‘Money, Paul, can do anything’ proclaims the adult, patting the child on the head. ‘Anything, papa?’ ‘Yes, anything – almost’, says Mr Dombey. ‘Why didn’t money save me my mamma?’ returns Paul, meaning the mother who died giving him birth. A devastating question. But not quite enough to floor his capitalist dad. So Mr Dombey launches himself into a heartfelt, if pagan, paean to money. ‘Money causes us to be honoured, feared, respected, courted, and admired and makes us powerful and glorious in the eyes of all men.’ All much desired attributes, no doubt. That is, desired by people like Paul’s father. Still, the man is at least honest. Note how his pompous list does not include the word ‘love’. Even a tragic figure like Dombey senior, obsessed with his firm, his male heir, his status and his power, realises that his money will never be able to buy him his little boy’s love. Indeed, nemesis awaits him at the novel’s end. The priest read Dombey and Son over Christmas in Rome. Now, that’s a bit serendipitous. Because the Eternal City has a secret name. No kidding. ‘Rome’ was only the public, exoteric name of Rome. Ancient Roman writers like Pliny tell us that the city’s true name was hidden from the masses. Only a few chosen ones knew it, such as the High Priest of the state cult. Should an enemy have got intelligence of the mysterious word, Rome would have fallen. Hence, the penalty for such abominable betrayal was death. A certain Valerius Soranus, Pliny informs us, actually did the unthinkable act. He disclosed the Name to the uninitiated. A crime he paid for with his life. What was that secret name? Sigh… nobody really knows. Because the secret was well kept. But, imagine I knew, dear reader. I would be faced with a dilemma. I am a Roman. And a priest. In a sense, I am connected with the ancient priesthood of my birthplace. So, if I were to blab out the secret name…how do I know the ancient curse would not fall on my head? Call me superstitious but, like Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce once put it, it’s safer ‘fare le corna’ – namely, to do the old misfortune-averting gesture… However, cheer up! Rome’s most secret name must remain hidden, yes, but a second best, not-so-secret name exists. And it can be revealed. Consider Rome’s name in its proper Latin spelling. Roma. Now read it backwards. Amor. Love. Geddit? Too simple, eh? Of course. That is why Amor cannot have been the mysterious, hidden name. Uncovering it would have been too easy. Amor is simple but…simplicity is the mark of truth, a useful Latin saying goes. And so I feel it is fitting I should have happened upon the wonderful passage from Dickens in the City of Love. Love…yes, love. Not money, mind you. Nor sex. Those who equate the two are idiots. Because love and sex cannot be the same. If they were, love of country and love of music would mean sex with country and sex with music, which is nonsense. Whether they realise it or not, by doing so such people fall below the beasts. With apologies to the latter, which are at least innocent of good and evil. Also, Rome’s ancient emblem shows a she-wolf, so I have to be nice to animals! The Creator fashioned human beings in His image, to follow virtue and knowledge and love. Whenever they deviate from those, they soil and profane the Maker’s work, as well as fouling up their own nest. Love. A simpleton’s hope for 2008? Probably. The media are full of violence, as usual, and those who can read the runes are not optimistic. But love is prescriptive, not descriptive. When Christ commands his disciples to love one another, and indeed our enemy, He is certainly not describing what is actually going on. Maybe Luther was right. There are two cities on earth, he claimed. One, composed of true Christians, true disciples of love, who follow the sublime prescriptions of the Gospel. The other city is people by a very different, nasty crowd. They are the children of Cain, the first murderer, he who slew his own innocent brother. St Augustine of Hippo, himself a proud Roman citizen, did not scruple to equate pagan Rome with the second city – hadn’t Romulus killed his brother Remus at the city’s very inception? Luther, however, was too pessimistic. He gives no hint whether the citizens of the City of God might not go about converting the inhabitants of the wicked city to better ways. To win them over to the ways of Love. I submit that way is itsef….well, figure you’d divine it: Love. Love, not money. Mr Dombey found that out too late. Only saints and hypocrites can afford to despise money, of course. Most of us need it and appreciate its advantages. But money ain’t enough. Money itself will not only not save us from death, it isn’t enough to keep us alive, either. Doomed little Paul is partly a vindication of that eternal truth. Indeed, even animals – snakes and insects excepted - will not prosper without an atmosphere of warmth and love. Unloved babies certainly don’t flourish at all… After losing his beloved son, his firm and being forsaken by his second, unhappy wife, Mr Dombey seems damned. But Dickens believed in happy endings. Thanks to young Florence, the slighted and humiliated daughter, whose love has stayed steadfast despite her father’s many cruelties, he at last grasps the enormity of his inhuman selfishness and begs for forgiveness. Love has saved him. Methinks the old, unfeeling Dombey lives on unredeemed, though. In the spirit of our stupid age. An age, a civilisation that teeters on the brink of an abyss. Does it stand a chance? Yes. If it responds to Divine Love. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant 290 28 January 2008 Oxford and Islamic Prayer AD 732, France. Momentous history is made. At the battle of Tours Charles Martel routs the invading Arab armies from the Umayyad caliphate. Had victory gone to the Muslims, ‘the interpretation of the Qur’an would be taught in the University of Oxford and her pulpits would teach Islam’ mused a thousand years later English historian Gibbon. Huh! What would that great infidel say, I wonder, if he knew of the current proposal to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer from a mosque in East Oxford? Well, the priest is now hearing the Muezzin’s voice five times a day. In Doha, Qatar, a little, finger-like peninsula that waggles gently out into the Arab Gulf. He is a visiting fellow at the Qatar Foundation – smart guy, eh? Looking out of his spacious flat’s windows, he can view the beige silhouettes of elegant minarets lancing up into the hazy sky. Guess there is no actual man up there crying out his pious summonses. These days the Muslim faithful listen to a pre-recorded message. The very first Muezzin of Islam, a black slave called Bilal, might not be quite fond of that, I figure, but…hadha hayat, c’est la vie. The Oxford debate is raging. Newspapers carry letters pro & con. If Christians can ring their bells, why can’t Muslims cry out their prayers, one reasonably asks? But bells are just a signal, whilst the Muezzin is proclaiming an ideological message, counterattacks another. ‘Along with Chris Hitchens and Professor Dawkins, I might agree God is not great, but I wouldn’t wish to have it broadcast it outside my window five times a day’ insinuates an able dialectician, astutely muddling the issue. Then a Muslim spokesman states that their prayer calls would go out not five times every day of the week, but only three times on Friday. Whereupon the enemy exults – ‘Hurrah! Muslims are retreating, thanks to our opposition. Charles Martel, we have done it again!’ Presumably they know not how, according to tradition, Allah meant the prayer calls to be daily far more frequent. Only the intercession of the Prophet brought them down to the current five. The cleverest critics eschew any reference to religion altogether. Because they fear being branded as intolerant. Instead, it is simply a matter of peace and quiet, they swear – and who’d object to that? The noise is what it’s all about. But bells are noisy OK, so why the asymmetry? When I was curate of St Mary Abbots Church, Kensington, our bell ringers’ sonorous evening practice would make some locals grumpy indeed, I recall. And Muslims say they propose to go back to Bilal’s days – no amplification by loudspeaker – or will they? I am not sure but it won’t pacify the critics, you bet. In Charles Martel’s days, you can guess where Christian clergy would have stood in this debate. However, times are a-changing. We are now ‘enlightened’. So the Anglican Bishop of Oxford backs the Muslims. A rare occasion to make himself relevant, as I surmise the chap is normally about as useful as a dog on a motorbike. Also, a certain Canon Partridge invites the opposition to enjoy the prayers’ beautiful classical Arabic. The priest approves of the Partridge being dovish – better a dove than a hawk, sure – but how many of the people of East Oxford – largely a working-class area - are conversant with al-Fusha – the language of the Qur’an, he asks himself? Please, dear reader, don’t take this amiss. I used to know a nice Anglo-Catholic vicar in East Oxford, Father Flatman. Not much appreciated by some of the local folks. ‘I even got spat upon’, he told me. ‘In fact, the nicest people to me are the Muslims.’ A remark I shall never forget. I imagine Father Flatman, were he still on this earth, would not mind the Muslim prayer one little bit, and that for good, spiritual reasons. Anglicans aren’t the only ones to side with Islam. Some bloke from Blackfriars, the Roman Catholic Dominican house, also made approving noises. That is kind of encouraging, given that the good Dominicans of old might have reacted a wee bit differently. You see, they used to run the Inquisition. Islamophobes of course are angered by the Bishop’s line. ‘He has betrayed us’, somebody lamented. Holy simplicity! As if anyone anymore took seriously most of the stooges sitting on the Bishops’ Bench as having anything to do with upholding Christ! I read in the Salisbury Review how stunned the Bishop of Bradford looked when someone suggested to him that he might be a ‘leader of Christianity’. He somehow found the idea shocking. I wholeheartedly agree. I would no more expect authentic Christian leadership from those mitred asses than I would from the useless King Log of Aesop’s fable. The sooner our faithful people realise that, and take condign action, the better. I know a bit about Oxford. Because I trained for the Anglican priesthood at Cuddesdon Theological College, in its environs. Cuddesdon, huh! A college so damned wet and liberal that the word ‘sin’ was hardly ever mentioned by our ordained lecturers. Maybe just as well, as sin is something they and the students knew a lot about. Especially the unforgivable sin, that against the Holy Ghost. These days, by the way, I learn that three Muslims students from the famous Islamic Al-Azhar University in Cairo do a stint on an exchange at my old college. What they might learn there I do not wish to say… There used to be another, better and greater Oxford. That of the Tractarians. Those pious and learned Anglican divines, who brought back devotion, liturgy and sacramental spirituality into the bloated and smug body of the late Hanoverian Church. A valiant band of goodly, scholarly priests, such as John Henry Newman, Pusey, Keble and Froude. The movement they initiated infused new life in the Church of England. But the devil (who else?) has been at work. A catastrophic failure of nerve has pervaded and taken over what used to be a fine Christian Church. Today in Oxford you will seek in vain for the spirit of the Tractarians. Instead, you’ll meet the wan, bloodless spirit of conformity to the ways of a stupid post-modernity. If the Muezzin’s voice stands against that, why not? Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FATHER FRANK'S RANTS Rant Number 291 6 February 2008 Ash Wednesday in Doha Lent last night began with a curious Ash Wednesday dream. The priest was wandering about the narrow lanes of an Eastern city. All around stood dizzingly tall towers. Of the oddest shape. Spiral-like, they mounted the sky, tapering towards the top, piercing the heavenly vault like daggers. ‘Like Towers of Babel’, I think I thought. Outsize Arab calligraphic motifs, askew and luminous, encrusted their walls, like fantastic shells. Some spelt out ‘Bismillah’ – in the name of God, others were too difficult to make out. Staring up at the vertical spectacle, I bumped against a wall. A blind alley. Suddenly, I realised I was lost, surrounded by steep high walls. Panic assailed me. ‘How do I find my way back…back to what? Who am I? Where do I come from? Why am I here?’ Anxiety tightened its fingers round my throat. I started shouting, cried out for help, blessed or cursed, became incoherent. Shadows – men? women? ghouls? - glided past but they ignored me. Till one of them stopped. And materialised as a lithe, dark-shrouded female form. ‘Why do you cry, Frank? There is no need.’ Relief gave place to wonder. ‘How…who told you my name?’ Her answer was a smile. And silence. Her sallow, oval face conveyed only sweetness and peace. Like some contemplative Madonna. ‘Never mind’ said I ‘I am so glad, anyway. I am afraid I am lost. Will you be my guide?’ ‘No, he will’, she answered, raising a tiny, frail hand towards the sky. The arabesque-laden towers had given place to glittering skyscrapers. Striking silhouettes, shiny glass cakes topped by pyramids, yet kind of familiar, like London’s Canary Wharf. Many looked still under construction, unfinished. ‘Of course’ I thought, forgetting the incongruous shift ‘I am in Doha. By the bay. Near the Corniche. Where I take my strolls every day. How reassuring all this...what is she pointing at…?’ Then I saw the bird. First small and faraway, swifly growing near and huge. An amazing green shape, head crowned by a rainbow-like crest of bright feathers. Lighted on top of a near skyscraper, so near yet so far. Where have I seen it before? In vain I wracked my brains. ‘He is the Simurgh, Frank. Hud-Hud, we call him in Arabic. You know. Comes from God. He expecting you. Here in Doha. How fortunate you are!’ the woman spoke. Her large brown eyes held me in thrall. Opening my mouth, I began to formulate the first of a thousand questions when her face instantly fell apart. Dissolved. Instead, a voice resounded…God is greatest. There is no God but God… it was the Al Fajr, the dawn prayer. The early call to of the muezzin had dissipated my dream. God sometimes speaks to man in dreams. The Bible proves it. Doesn’t the angel of the Lord appear to St. Joseph in a dream, to tell him that Mary is pregnant of the Holy Ghost? And aren’t the Magi warned of God in a dream about Herod’s murderous intentions? Pace unbelieving philosopher Thomas Hobbes, ‘God spoke to me in a dream’ is not the same as ‘I dreamt that God spoke to me’. Which is not to say that a dream’s message, whatever its origins, is always easy to comprehend. Mine, however, does not strike me as impossibly cryptic, al hamdulillah! Today is Ash Wednesday. The beginning of the holy season of Lent. Christian Ramadan, if you like. A preparation for Easter. A time for fasting, spiritual self-exertion and self-denial. But also a time of temptation. Amidst the fat cows, the hedonism as well as the horrors of our globalised world, it is easy t get lost. So, kind of suitable the dream began with the experience of being lost. The tall towers resembled a bit the description of the bizarre mud zyggurats of Sana’, in Yemen, about which I have recently read in Jonathan Raban’s Arabia. The futuristic skyscrapers are the sight familiar here in downtown Doha, a city in gestation, partly Manhattan, partly a building site. But what about the mysterious female, huh? Madonna-like. No hint of her name. So I’ll give her one. I shall call her Maryam. Outwardly similar to the many Arab women here, clad in alluring dark dresses, and ambling about leisurly in the big Western-style shopping malls. But she wasn’t like the others. She was different. Special. Very. As to the bird, well, that’s a cinch. Maryam gave me the clue. The hoopoe. And the Simurgh. A mystical creature, the protagonist of Farid Uddin Attar’s Conference of the Birds. One of my most loved – but also most disturbing – books. An allegory. It tells of the birds’ search for their king, the simurgh. In Persian, it means ‘thirty bids’. They only know he lives in a remote, faraway land. So they set off, led by the wise hoopoe. Hardly an easy, touristy desert safari as they do in Qatar. They have to cross endless barren wastes, climb formidable mountain ranges, fly over interminable, stormy oceans, dodge bandits, undergo tests and trials galore. Many birds lose heart, drop out, or are diverted by laziness, carnal temptations, foolishness. Others run away, or die of illness or are killed by brigands. In the end, only thirty birds reach the desired goal. They find at last the Kaf, the vertiginous mountain where the simurgh lives. And they are taken into his presence… I won’t tell you the conclusion. Which is not very satisfactory, anyway. Read it for yourself. The point is, I feel, that Lent is the right time to pause and reflect a while about mine and yours life’s journey. In Doha, London, New York, Banjul or any where else. Like a Shakespeare’s play, life can be said to consist of five acts. Some of us are in the second or third act, others play their part in later acts. Macbeth suggests that the whole thing is a tale told by an idiot, full of noise and signifying nothing. That is not religion’s view. Life is not meaningless. Despite the TV screen’s daily terrible reports of violence and mayhem, this is still God’s world. Created by the provident Creator for a benevolent purpose. Each atom, each particle of matter, each human person fits into that divine scheme. And Lent comes in handy for figuring out what role God wants us to play in His divine plan. In Attar's lovely story, each bird stands for different human types. Different characters and attitudes, as diverse as human beings are. Coward, courageous, decisive, shy, active, slothful, chaste, lustful, stupid, bright...you name them. The hoopoe is their guide, which is paradoxycal, as the point of the quest is that they do not yet have a leader, they are searching for it. And the sought-out king, you would have guessed, stands for the Creator. To tell a secret, the priest has already flown with the Simurgh once. Twenty years ago. On Iran Air. Airline that sports the figure of the sacred bird on its fusellage. Quite a flight it was, as the airplane cop somehow got it into his head that I was a British Intelligence agent. Which suggests that he wasn't very bright! Maryam. The most difficult part of my dream. All right, I am going to spare you corny references to Beatrice, Laura and that kind of poetic stuff. But as God's plan for man's salvation was effected through the agency, the willing submission of Mary, the extraordinary Hebrew maid from Nazareth, every human being's existence depends on woman. God indeed in Genesis calls Eve 'the mother of all living'. But woman's role certainly is not just physical or reproductive. Spiritually, the priest feels, her role is immense. Probably superior to man's. It would be unwise, nevertheless, for anyone to expect to find a Maryam amongst the women of Doha. Though so many look sweet and attractive and even beautiful, as the swish about in their long, elegant, silken black dresses, a husband's or father's sword is likely to be administered unto any male who was bold enough to approach one, however innocently. You just don't do that here. Oh, well, I shall just have to wait that a mystical Maryam finds me. And she might already have.... Now, joyfully to the hardships of Lent. To the greatest glory of God. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 292 11 February 2008 Rooting for Rowan: The Archbishop and the Sharia What’s wrong with me? I am in living in Qatar , not in Yemen . I mean, here there is no qat, Yemen ’s popular hallucinogenic weed. Yet, something peculiar is happening. I’d never, never have believed but…yes, I confess it: I agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury. He backs sharia law in Britain . You bet he isn’t chewing qat either. Still, he happens to be right. A friend even suggested it’s my influence. Well, maybe. The priest’s occult powers…even I don’t fully know them! It is droll to see how berzerk Rowan’s enemies have gone. Stoning, beheading, chopping off of limbs and flogging, he is calling for them, they scream. Even his druidical roots are mischievously imputed. (Groan… the priest himself has poked fun at Williams for that in the past: mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.) Didn’t his Celtic ancestors practise the cult of the severed head? Proof positive this Welshman hankers after the same, under the cover of Islam. Might as well charge Scot Gordon Brown with being a Pictish marauder at heart, or Texan George Bush with rooting for lynch law. A veritable apotheosis of missing the point – that sums up many people’s reactions to the ABC’s sensible remarks – in part. Truth is, allowing Muslims in England voluntarily to submit to sharia rulings in certain family and marital disputes is no more judicially enormous than letting Catholics ask the Sacra Rota ecclesiastical tribunal to annul their marriage. Or permitting Anglo-Catholic traditionalists to bar women priests from the altar. My good friend Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg could provide condign examples affecting Jews. Angry or anguished cries of ‘there is only one British law’ ignore these plain facts. The most rational comment I have come across on the web is that of an African Christian. He observes that in their African colonies the Brits always allowed ‘parallel universes of common and customary laws’. And that worked out pretty well. But never in England ! shout Islamophobes. Do they mean it? Unless they propose to boot out all Muslims from this sceptred island, as 400 years ago Spain’s King Philip III did with the Moriscos, how can they prevent this minority from enjoying some of its own religious or customary laws, if it so wishes? But what if religious rulings conflict with the law of the land? More about that anon. Meanwhile I note that the law of the land, like Heraclitus’ river, and unlike God’s law, is always in a state of flux. A church marriage was once prescriptive, now there is a civil alternative. Today capital punishment is off the statute book. Homosexuality was once a crime – now no longer. Ditto for same-sex unions. Whilst fox-hunting has become illegal. The priest does not pass judgment here, only notes. Parliament changes the law all the time, man! Of course, sharia law isn’t just about humdrum family disputes and jolly Imam’s counselling. It is a whole, comprehensive and total system, embracing every social, political, economic and personal aspects of human life. Guess that is what puts the wind up a lot of Western people these days. ‘Jesus Christ we have largely disposed of, are we now having to suffer Muhammad?’ our secularists moan, shaking with fear and loathing. For such people I have no sympathy. Also, in reality sharia isn’t monolithic. OK, the Saudi and Sudanese models aren’t quite everybody’s cup of tea, and that includes many Muslims. But in many countries, like little Qatar , the Sharia Court is only for domestic cases, family troubles, whilst state courts are fashioned after a mix of Western legal practices. The Qur’an officially underlies legislation, yes. Qataris, unlike many Europeans, are in no doubt as to their identity… The British Government, unsurprisingly, equivocates. ‘British law should apply in the UK , based on British values’, thunders Gordon Brown. British values, eh? Like what? Queuing, saying ‘thank you’ a billion times a day and being generally nice? A bit too weak a brew to work as the basis of a culture. (Note how the wily PM always keeps mum about that authentic English value, Christianity.) Anyway, his spokesman admits that legally ‘small adjustments had been and will be made’. Mini-sharia’s OK, in other words. Which is broadly what the Archbishop is pleading for. In other words, the government cynically fudges the issue. What’s new? So, dear Rowan, the poor priest defends you. But I ask you to go one better. As a leader of Christianity - please, don’t get nervous now – you must start beating the drum for Christian principles, too. There is something faintly comical about the way in your recent lecture you set yourself up as interpreter of sharia – leave that to Muslims to determine. But you can/ought to speak strongly about Christian law. Right to have 3/% of the population have their laws, but Christians are a bit more numerous than that in England . So we too must have our share. I bet you know what Christian law is. Wot! You don’t? Pulling my leg, eh? But just in case, let me remind you. The laws of Christianity are set out in Holy Scripture. For example, both in the Old and the New Testaments we find God through His chosen Christ, His apostles and prophets forbidding and blasting adultery and fornication. Sins also explicitly cited in Cranmer’s Anglican Prayer Book. So you must demand that the British state allow church courts to try such crimes and punish them. (No stoning, no. Maybe just a few pebbles, plus naming and shaming the reprobates.) Our liberal rulers won’t have it of course. They’ll get mad at you. Because church courts would conflict with their permissive, iniquitous laws. When then? Rowan, this is your chance. No longer the establishment’s bearded jester everybody’s takes you for, you will take up the mantle of Christian prophecy. Proclaim loud and clear, like our first martyrs did, that Christians must serve God rather than men. Oh, boy, how they will revile you! But at last you will truly become what you are meant to be: a leader of Christians. Revd Frank Julian GellI
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FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 293 24 February 2008 Doha Dialogue Vox pop has it that meeting a Qatari in Doha is difficult. So I must be lucky because a Qatari met me. ‘A’an idhnak… I saw you on Al Jazeera. You are a priest. I have some questions, if you have time.’ Indeed I did. Verily, today to be is to be on television. Being interviewed by Al-Jazeera TV last week did the trick. Such is fame. An immaculately clad man in starched white robe and red-checkered head dress introduced himself as Muhammad. In the City Centre, a five-storey mega-shopping mall which might as well be in London ’s Bayswater, given its disappointingly non-Arab hordes of shoppers. Ensconced on plush pea-green armchairs in the Café Richoux, Muhammad and I conversed amiably. Bespectacled and middle-aged cove, sporting a neat, black goatee, an interpreter and translator with a government department, he was not narrow-minded – ‘as a Muslim, I am interested in all religions’, he asserted – but also proud of his own faith. My bold claim that Cross and Crescent should not be enemies but allies, had intrigued him. ‘Friendship is fine. Friendship is human. But how can we be allies, if we worship a different God?’ His first question. ‘Our conceptions of God are not identical, true’ I answered. ‘Nor are our scriptures. But, speaking philosophically, of necessity there can only be One True God, however we conceive him. Moreover, we have been kind of allies before. Didn’t the Prophet before the Hijra send many Muslims to Christian Ethiopia, to enjoy protection from persecuting polytheists? His example proves it is possible to be allied today.’ ‘I see…but times were different…Christians today want to wage war on us.’ I shook my head. ‘Please, beware of the logical mistake to pass from ‘some’ to ‘all’. I don’t lump all Muslims with some murderous fanatics. Most Christians preach peace, not war. Besides, Church authorities are firmly against war-mongering. If anything, they are accused of being too pro-Islam. Just think of Archbishop Williams and the sharia…’ ‘What about the Christian Zionists? On Al Jazeera you said they are a heresy. Why doesn’t your church brand them that?’ ‘Only a church council can declare a doctrine a heresy. The Archbishop of Canterbury maybe should have a go. But the influence of the C.Z is vastly exaggerated. I can prove it. Their power supposedly comes through the Republican administration, the Neo Cons and so. Now, wait for the next Democrat US President. You’ll find him, or her, (la samaha Allah!), no friends of C.Z., yet just as pro-Israel as Bush. Maybe more. Hence the C.Z. make no fundamental difference to US policy towards the Middle East .’ He mulled that over a bit. ‘Why doesn’t Europe help the Palestinians?’ Actually a generous EU already hands out dollops of hard cash to the poor Palestinian Authority. But I reiterated my utopian proposal, boldly advanced in the interview: Europeans should invite both Israel and Palestinians to join the EU. Once inside, they would have to get along. Unlikely? Sure, but not more than any other arguably ‘realist’ solution I know of. ‘The Inquisition…’ God forgive me, that historical jibe prompted a bit of a tit for tat. ‘Hey, give me a break! Remember I am a Protestant. The Inquisition persecuted me too. You could say I am a fellow victim. They burned our Bibles as well as our bodies. Which forces me to put a question to you: why doesn’t Saudi Arabia allow Bibles into the country? What are they afraid of? Isn’t that being like the Inquisition?’ ‘They are Wahabis. I am not.’ ‘Are you a Shia?’ ‘No. I am Ahmadiyya’ he disclosed, somewhat reluctantly. Well, that was a revelation. A Muslim heretic! Because his sect has been declared non-Muslim in Pakistan . They are not flavour of the month in Islamic countries. But the priest did not wish to intrude upon private grief. ‘At least you know what is like to be suffer, as a minority.’ Muhammad assented, nervously, and went on: ‘We revere Jesus as a Prophet. Why doesn’t your church so accept Prophet Muhammad?’ ‘You should read my unpublished book on the Prophet! (No Christian publisher will touch it, alas. It’s dynamite.) But I shall not dodge a hard question. First, be aware that whilst ‘prophet’ is the highest title accorded to a man in Islam, Christians consider Christ much higher than that. To call Christ simply a prophet falls far short of what he is to us. It’s like calling the Pope an ordinary priest. Certainly Muhammad was a prophet in the sense religious phenomenology gives to the term. But I recall a R.C. prelate who during a conference in a Muslim country got carried away by interfaith fervour and let slip that he believed in the Prophet Muhammad. ‘Catholic bishop converts to Islam!’ the local press screamed. The Vatican was not amused… He enjoyed the story and pumped me up with some more excellent Turkish coffee. ‘On air, you explained how God can have a son. I did not understand it.’ ‘We believe God has a son because our Scriptures say so. It is a truth of faith. Further, as a philosopher, I do not place limits on God’s omnipotence. If God wills to have a son, then He can do it! And it is tied up with the Christian notion of God as supreme, divine love. It belongs essentially to love to issue in procreation, as any human parent knows. I do not expect these points to convince you. You would not be a Muslim if they did. Only hope you understand them.’ ‘I’ll have to think about that…but the Trinity? How could that be true?’ ‘Well, the great mystic Sufi Ibn Arabi defends the Trinity somewhere. He says that Father, Son and Holy Spirit mean no more than calling the One God also the Lord, the Merciful and the Compassionate, as the Quran does. Three names for the same Being.’ He looked doubtful: ‘You can’t use that argument for your Trinity.’ I pointed out Ibn Arabi did. But time pressed, as it is its habit. We got up, shook hands and exchanged cards and pleasantries. ‘Fursa Sa’ida!’ Happy meeting, he said. ‘As’ad’ I replied. Even happier for me. Revd Frank Julian Gelli
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FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 294 4 March 2008 World of Jinns Somebody is watching us. Right now, as I click away at my computer, and as you are reading this. We may believe ourselves to be alone. Actually, we are not. Because there is another world parallel to this world. An invisible reality to which we have no access, yet its creatures can and do enter our world. It is an unimaginably vast and unseen universe, its strange inhabitants innumerable. They are born, marry and are given in marriage, have homes, children, eat and drink, own property, animals…all that. Just like us. And, like us, they are rational beings. Hence they can choose between good and evil, and so some of them are good and others wicked. Some follow chastity, others practice fornication. Some have faith in divine revelation and some do not. Jinns. That is their name. So does the Qur’an calls them. There is even a Sura named after them – Sura Al Jinn. It speaks of a troop of these creatures that once listened to a prophetic recitation and finally accepted its high message. And so those jinns became Muslims. Jinns are, like men, created but, unlike men who were moulded from wet clay, their ‘matter’ is smokeless fire. Fascinatingly, a large body of legal rulings exists concerning them. The ulama’s large and detailed discussions range from whether jinns are material or immaterial, to their sexual habits and their property rights. Yes, because mischievous and randy jinns haunt the dreams of human beings and sometimes have intercourse with them. A scholar from a prestigious Islamic college, I learn, once found out that the woman to whom he was married, and from whom he had had ten children, was in a fact a jinnia. Whether that unsettling discovery constituted ground for divorce, I do not know. Still, let us not be gloomy. It is important to remember, there are also benevolent and beneficent jinns. Here in Qatar, in a place called Al Khoor, there is a house haunted by jinns, my driver, Zoogi, told me. And a certain lean, scrawny and moon-coloured cat which scavenges in Doha’s Al Fajma district is also suspected of being a jinn. To be fair to Zoogi, he is also a bit of an empiricist. He admits that ‘I have never seen a jinn’. Which introduces one little problem about invisible jinns - and indeed about any disembodied entities. What are the criteria of individuation, of identification of jinns? Physical beings can be seen, touched, smelled etcetera. That is, they are in principle accessible to our senses. So they can be recognised. When I shall meet Zoogi again tomorrow, hopefully I will identify him as the same Zoogi I saw last night because he will look like the same man. But how would I recognise today’s jinn as the same as yesterday’s jinn? Indeed, how would I count how many jinns there are near me now? One? Two? A thousand? Billions? If they take up no space, there are no limits as to their number. Such potential teeming of jinns would be immeasurably worse than any human population explosion. Jinn proliferation, huh, there’s the rub! Of course, a similar difficulty arose for the learned Schoolmen of the Middle Ages regarding angels. How many did dance on the point of a pin? The question vexed them a great deal. Oh, well, one day I’ll find time to read St Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, on this subject – I will then know the answer. Sophisticated Islamic thinkers may well pooh-pooh the whole matter. Relegate the jinn concept to the dustbin of mythological, pre-modern and magical forms of thought. It’s up to them, though I’d think applying such a reductive procedure to a verbatim divinely dictated text is tricky business. Were I in their shoes, I’d be cautious. I’d rather follow Karl Barth. In his massive Church Dogmatics Barth defends belief on angels. Despite the fact that trendy theologians ignore the lovely beings as passé. His argument is neat: ‘I believe in angels because the Bible says so.’ Too simple? But ‘simplicity is the mark of truth’, Barth might reply. Confession: I think I recognised a jinni the other night. Fear not, only a fictional one. I mean Heathcliff, the sombre, unredeemed anti-hero of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. As I was perusing the novel, it dawned on me that Heathcliff could well be described as either a jinni or as the progeny of one. Found wandering as a stray child on a Liverpool dock, a ‘little black-haired swarthy thing, as dark as if it came from the devil’, mouthing a ‘gibberish that nobody could understand’, Heathcliff is a prime candidate for the role. Charlotte Bronte herself, in her introduction to her sister’s great work, notes insightfully that his character was less a human being than ‘a man’s shape animated by a demon life – a Ghoul – an Afreet.’ Both epithets derive from the Arabic language, I note… Another, not quite bad but definitely mischievous and real a jinni, I guess, was a long vanished young man I once met in Prague. He did not exist, I later discovered – I mean, he was the person he pretended to be. For years I suspected him to be a golem – much more like a jinni, I now feel. A good jinnia, on the other hand, is likely to have been the blonde female tram driver who kindly assisted me one desperate night when I was lost in Dresden. A buon intenditor…poche parole! My good friend Shahin, a maverick Iranian, is a more difficult case. An intrinsically good and meek person, almost Christ-like, yes, but also a crazy, even dangerous character, on reflection. Maybe half human, half a jinn? And he looks like one – now I see it! Wait a minute…it has just dawned on me…what about the priest himself? I seem to hear a small voice whispering: ‘You too could be a jinni.’ That’s got to be wrong, I am sure. But, were it so, one of the nice ones, I trust. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 295 19 March 2008 Muslim Saint or Muslim Sinner? The execution took place before a jeering crowd. One chanting God is great and Islam is the solution. So they put a hood over the old man’s head and a noose round his neck and then they hanged him. On January 18, 1985 . Inside Khartoum ’s Kober Prison. Eye witnesses record no memorable last words. Only that the prisoner looked calm and unafraid, his eyes ‘defiant’. His name was Mahmoud Muhammad Taha. A Sufi sheikh. A mystic who had been jailed by the British in his youth, for fighting for Sudan ’s independence. One who had turned his two years’ captivity into a time of khalwa, spiritual retreat. A suitable time for meditating on dreams, visions and deepening insights into sacred things. (Feel my time in Doha is a bit of a khalwa, too.) Later small bands of followers gathered about him. He organised them into a republican party - a body advocating a socialist agenda but also a radically revolutionary, new concept of Islam. Which eventual led to his being sentenced to death. On charges of sedition and apostasy. To simplify. The sheikh argued and preached that the earliest parts of the Qur’an, the surahs revealed at Mecca , embody the purest Islam. Mostly spiritual, non-political verses. Contrariwise, the later, so-called Medina revelations, would display menaces, invectives, legislations, war regulations – much more coercive stuff, on the whole. Their content, according to Taha, is spiritually mixed and dated. So Muslims today should prioritise Mecca , not Medina . Because the Meccan revelations represent the real, deeper message of Islam. Warlike jihad and penal sharia rulings belong to the past. The time has finally come for a new, liberating stage in mankind’s development. Not a theology Islamic authorities would enthusiastically back, the priest surmises. But Taha also taught the total equality between men and women. So his movement was a champion of women’s right and inclusiveness. Female members were active on colleges and public places. In that, time has vindicated the Sufi saint. His garrulous Islamist arch-enemy, Hasan Turabi, no less, in recent years has recanted previous views and has gone in for an unprecedented out-and-out feminism. Sussed out which way the wind is blowing, eh? Taha must be smiling bit, wherever he is now. The sheikh was against the introduction of sharia in Sudan . Quite apart from the checks that stern code places on the female of the species, Taha argued sharia was unfair to Christians and animists, overwhelmingly the majority in Southern Sudan . He pointed out that bringing in Muslim law would antagonise non-Muslims, making them hate and distrust Islam. Huh! You know what? I am so friendly to Muslims, I like Islam so much, I hadn’t thought of that! But maybe the Archbishop of Canterbury might cogitate on it a bit. Community cohesion, interfaith relations, as the cant goes, might not do well under sharia. Just look at the popular & media reactions following his lucubrations. Does not augur well. Indeed, Taha broke many taboos. He urged Arab countries to talk to Israel . For that, his enemies vilified him. Spread rumours that he was a Zionist agent. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? But nothing could be clearer that one day Palestinians (Hamas included) and Israelis will have to make a deal. There is no other solution, is there? So maybe the Sheikh’s spirituality was not all that other-worldly… Do not, mind you, mistake the Sudanese Sufi for a Western liberal in tall white turban and jellaba. He stood for Islam and defended politics and theology alike in terms what is true in Islam. Guess he would have made an unusual Mahdi. Why did he not proclaim himself so? Perhaps because he knew how much blood there is attached to the figure. He was right to eschew any claims to that. On the other hand, visionaries like Taha are ‘damned’ by their friends. By which I mean liberal, progressive Western writers, journalists and human rights activists. People who – surprise, surprise – like the sheikh and his ideas a lot. They bestow on him sobriquets like ‘a pacifist Muslim’ and ‘the moderate martyr’. There’s the rub. If Taha’s spiritual, daring interpretation of his own tradition is to have any hope, it cannot not be seen as one welcomed by a motley crew that includes Bush, Blair, the BBC, The New Yorker, the EU, the Israeli government and Salman Rushdie. Is it credible young Muslim radicals and intellectuals would take Qur’an lessons from that lot? Their approval bestows the kiss of a thousand deaths. Consider, a Sudanese academic in the US who currently defends Taha and propagates his views is unwise in ganging up with…Irshad Manji! If there is anyone likely to be a red rag to Muslims…can’t think of a better candidate than sweet, deviant Irshad. Was he a martyr? His followers certainly revere him as one. And his killing was a judicial crime. The judge gave him no chance to recant, unlike the followers who were tried with him. The whole farce was engineered by the military ruler, Numeiri, an unprincipled dictator who had courted even communists to keep going. The sharia card was another attempt to hold on to power by pandering to Islamists. Years later Numeiri pretended to have offered Taha a way out while awaiting execution. Were that true, Taha would have behaved somewhat like Socrates in his last days – better being true to his beliefs than mere survival. Survival after death is what he would have believed in, anyway. In an interview, Hasan Turabi after the execution mocked Taha. ‘He thinks he is Jesus Christ’, he said, no doubt intending to make light of the dead man. A remarkable comparison, methinks. Because Jesus Christ, amongst many other things, preached a gospel of peace and did not kill anyone. Instead, he was accused of blasphemy, given over to a mob and judicially murdered. But, to the astonishment of even his disciples, he came back from the dead. Numeiri had Taha buried in an unmarked grave, fearful of any martyrdom cult. But I read that his disciples waited for him to return. He did not. He is dead. Are his ideas? Allahu a’alam. Revd Frank J. Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 296 27 March 2008 The Pope and the King Throne and altar. A hallowed alliance thought to be defunct. Killed off – or rather, drowned in blood – by the French revolution. But now resurrected, wonder of all wonders, thanks to Saudi King Abdullah and Benedict XVI. My nice local paper, The Gulf Times, reveals how, when Pope and King met months ago, they discussed an interfaith project of ‘ways to safeguard humanity.’ Abdullah praises ‘a meeting I will not forget, a meeting of a human being with another.’ Al Hamdulillah! It would be mean of me to observe that he could hardly have said less. Instead, it was generous of the Saudi ruler. Especially after the Holy Father’s ill-starred Regensburg speech. And those nutters in his own kingdom who scream that religious dialogue leads to the abrogation of Islam and the creation of one world religion. Guess the head of the house of Saud is far-sighted. He acknowledges not only the need for dialogue but also that the two faiths have common goals. So he rightly blasts ‘the disintegration of the family and the rise of atheism in the world - a frightening phenomenon that all religions must confront and vanquish.’ Huh! With that tough message, should the eternal Bin Laden ever succeed in subverting Arabia and exiling the King, Abdullah could easily get himself a job as preacher in an evangelical parish in the Midlands, believe you me. Still, as himself a former atheist (folies de jeunesse, je jure!), the priest won’t damn the poor sods too much. Theoretical atheism is largely a bolshie adolescent’s posture. With The Necessity of Atheism the young poet Shelley fancied he was shaking the foundations of society, instead Oxford University simply sent him down. His pamphlet reads like an ill-digested, pretentious undergraduate’s essay, a queer melange of Humean scepticism and Spinozistic mysticism. In the final section, Shelley decries belief in post-mortem survival. I wonder what our poet is thinking of that where he is now, if he has not perished… There is, however, another kind of atheism. I’ll call it a moral one. That exemplified by Ivan, he of that tremendous novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan does not, strictly speaking, deny that there is a God. He just wants to have nothing to do with him and ‘returns him the ticket’. Why? Because of innocent children’s suffering. A God who allows something so atrocious to happen is a deity Ivan Karamazov will not have any tracks with. A sentimental, mushy argument! Why should the torments inflicted on helpless old people in some sadistic ‘home’ be less theologically harrowing than those of kids? But Ivan’s reaction is morally cogent in relation to the general problem of evil. Why does a God of love allow the innocent to suffer? Christians still have to wrestle with that. Leibnitz’s rationalistic, clever theodicy does not quite satisfy. Islamic theology is, I believe, harder on this subject. Innocent suffering seems to bother it less. Wonder why? Iskander, shaqiqi, any thoughts? (One of my sharpest, relentless readers, folks!) A third type of atheism, very obnoxious, is a state or political one. China of course swears there is no religious persecution there but that is untrue, as any Falung Gong practitioner will aver. Moreover, both the persecution of Islam in Chinese Turkestan and the repression of culture and religion in Tibet speak volumes about the evil nature of Chinese communism. A true hero of our time is the Dalai Lama, a profoundly spiritual and non-violent leader. We must certainly include Buddhism in the wider religious dialogue. A faith I once flirted with, via Zen. I still believe Christ and Buddha have a lot in common, yep. China may mean big and lucrative business for the West but rubbish on that! I’ll be the first to boycott the Beijing Olympic Games. Athletes should not run on victims’ blood. So, it is good to talk & to act together, whenever possible. But serious confusions exist. The 130 Islamic scholars who wrote to the Pope, urging dialogue, claiming that the peace and future of the world could depend on that, meant well. They instanced trust in only one God and caring for one’s neighbour as key common beliefs. Goody. But don’t the scholars understand that the influence of the Catholic Church, or indeed any other church, on Western policymakers is virtually nil? The Holy Father can preach against wars but he can stop none. Why do they persist in mixing up the West and Christianity? Back in Victorian times, being an Englishman was synonymous with being a Christian and state and church were in symbiosis. To day, sadly, the British Government is an infidel entity. Ditto, in practice, for all the major Western nations. Muslim spokesmen should get that into their heads and not make the Cross responsible for the sins of a godless secularism. Which brings up another difficulty. The separation between Church and state in the West, one of our biggest unholy cows. King Abdullah, the unelected ruler of a theocracy, may find that a tad difficult to comprehend but, alas, it’s a fact. The ways of Providence, however, are wondrous, as well as infinite. In bringing the Church to such a pass in Europe, maybe God has given us a window of opportunity. In the past the Church could count on the coercive power of the state to back it up. None of that obtains today. Christians can only rely on the Word of God, the Gospel, and can only employ the powers of love, persuasion and good works. Surely all that is better, because much closer to the Founder’s teaching and practice. Saudi Arabia is different. Sigh...the religious cops may come along at prayer times and enforce observance by escorting people to the mosque even if they do not wish to go. That to me shows not a religion’s strength but its weakness. At least European secular society – I speak as its fiercest foe – still allows for the exercise of man’s freedom, the greatest of God’s gifts to us. On YouTube you can watch the King giving Benedict the gift of a diamond-encrusted sword. I think I heard the Pope exclaiming ‘St Paul’s!’ No doubt a reference to Ephesians 6:17 - the sword meaning ‘the word of God’. Let it be the best of all weapons. Revd Frank J. Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 297 4 April 2008 Fitna Trouble and strife indeed. Fitna, the short film in Dutch by Geert Wilders physically hurt my eyeballs, like a video nasty would. Some of it is so harrowing, I had to cry. An attack on the Qur’an and the Prophet, no doubt. Implicitly, however, Wilders provokes deep and hard questions for strong believers of any faith, including myself. ‘Happy shall be he that takes and dashes your little ones against the stones’ sings Psalm 137. The children of the Edomites, a kindred race of the Hebrews yet loathed by them, are meant. And, should you ever desire a warrant for genocide at God’s behest, just peruse the Book of Joshua, chapters one to ten and have your fill. However, hypothetical Mr & Mrs Cohen, of London’s Golders Green, do NOT go about gleefully praising those verses and even less urging their imitation. Ditto for the overwhelming majority of Jews. And I hardly need to state that Hebrew scholars do not interpret such passages literally. Indeed, Christian writers like St Augustine and Origen held that OT conflicts are symbolic of wars of virtue against vice. Christians certainly should understand them spiritually, not militarily. The NT Book of Revelation looks more challenging. Its cosmic scenario of strife between good and evil, culminating in the final battle of Armageddon, has been injudiciously invoked to buttress some human conflicts. Such as the now defunct confrontation between the Soviets and the West. Way back the priest protested against that lethal misuse of a holy text. To justify being willing to nuke millions of Russian civilians. I pointed out the key actors of Revelation are God and his angels, not the CIA or the SAS. The righteous suffer innocently. They do not go about cutting off the wicked’s heads. The mysteries of the book are indeed profound and still await full unravelling. St John’s vision is perennially valid. So Revelation has much to teach humanity. Because its pages are suffused with God’s breath. It does not enjoin killing but forbearance. Jesus’ message is one of peace. That did not stop philosopher Bertrand Russell from penning ‘Why I am not a Christian’. The Messiah’s blasting of an unfruitful fig-tree and his sending demons into a herd of swine which then rushed into the sea and perished would indicate he was not a nice guy. Huh! While bowing before Russell’s high logical and mathematical mind, I must grin at his religious exegesis. Wittgenstein was right when he sniggered, apropos such popular scribbling, that ‘these days Russell is not going to kill himself doing philosophy’. Bertie was a non-conformist, yet I surmise he judged Christ by the standards of a liberal Anglican vicar, with all his feebleness and stupidity. Jesus of Nazareth was made of sterner stuff. By the way, at some stage in his dotage, Russell actually advocated using the atom bomb on the Rousskies. Definitely not nice, that one! Adumbrating these matters with Sergei, a snazzy German lawyer, in a café in Doha’s fashionable Villaggio (an apotheosis of kitsch globalisation), he brusquely challenged me: ‘All very well, Father. But you are beating about the bush. Fitna is about Islamic violence, not Jewish or Christian. Where do you stand on that? Or do you just enjoy pandering to Muslims?’ Wallahi! Plain speaking, eh? Just to go on pandering. Fitna has an imam attacking liberalism and democracy as Western ideas. He was right. Indeed they are. Europeans have enthroned them in the place of the God of their fathers – a God whose very name our shabby politicians are ashamed even to mention. But, intellectually speaking, there is nothing self-evidently true or eternal about such concepts. And they represent only a strand of Western thought, though one currently all-powerful. What is more, the fruits of liberalism and democracy are not uncontroversial. The invasions of two Muslim countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, both flagrantly illegal and immoral acts, have been waged in the name of liberal democracy. NATO troops fight and rain bombs there everyday for, they say, democracy. And liberal Britain, the modern cradle of this gaff, and party political-crazy Italy, the countries I know best, are a mess. Soaring crime, drugs, abortion, alienation, rootlessness, immorality, religion in sharp decline, family in pieces, illegal immigration, youth adrift…geddit? Maybe it is time for those who think, and who are men and not mice, to put their heads together and to study whether a better system to manage society may not be at all conceivable – and desirable. Fitna also extrapolates ‘hard verses’ from the Qur’an and links them with violent and repugnant deeds, like 9/11, the beheading of hostages and so on. Extremist preachers and desperate men are portrayed as if they represented over a billion Muslims. Wilders has gone over the top there, and deliberately. He may well have wished for large-scale violence to follow, to validate his point. He knows there are thriving Islamic and ‘Islamist’ movements in the West, from Turkey to Egypt, that worry Western people and media and politicians alike. So much so the latter have all rushed, like Gadarene swine, to defend Islam against Fitna. With friends like those, Muslims do not need enemies… As to holy but hard verses. Jewish philosopher Martin Buber tells somewhere of a discussion he had with a very strict Orthodox rabbi over a passage in I Samuel 15:8-23. The prophet Samuel tells King Saul God commands him to wage war on the Amalekites. To utterly destroy them: men, women, children, infants, animals, the lot. That Saul does. He massacres the enemy. He only spares the leader, King Agag, plus some juicy animals. But Samuel hears God telling him he is angry with Saul, because the king has disobeyed him in not slaughtering everything and everybody. So Saul repents and, when Agag comes to Samuel, trusting in mercy, the Bible says: ‘Samuel hewed Agag into pieces before the Lord in Gilgal’. After much soul-searching and inward struggle, Buber relates, he told the wise rabbi he could not believe God had really dictated that awful action. ‘You don’t believe that?’ countered the venerable old man, with deep voice and terrible eyes. ‘What do you believe then?’ Again Buber hesitated, struggled with himself and spoke eventually: ‘I believe Samuel had misunderstood God’s will.’ The rabbi looked him in silence for a while. Then he spoke, quietly: ‘I believe that, too.’ Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 299 17 April 2008 I have not sinned enough Non ho peccato abbastanza. ‘I have not sinned enough’. Wallahi! A sentence to make you sit up. Worry not, it’s only poetry. The title of a stirring anthology of contemporary female Arab poets. Pleasingly rendered into Italian by orientalist Valentina Colombo. ‘I have not sinned enough’. Thus sings Lebanese Joumana Haddad. Her poem, Lilith’s Return, is wickedly droll. Lilith was originally a female fiend haunting desert places. (Isaiah 34:14, King James Version, renders her name quaintly as ‘the screech owl’!) Later in rabbinical lore she became the woman who deceived Adam. Haddad has her boasting of being ‘the dissolute angel, Adam’s aboriginal mare, seductress of Satan’. Her sexuality insatiable, she thrives on transgression. A supposed symbol of female liberation and a skilful manipulator of her lovers, Lilith voices a freedom independent of men’s desires – and of divine laws, I should add, but then demons are prone to do that, anyway. ‘I have not sinned enough’. Has Haddad ever heard of Carpocrates? Who he? An ancient heresiarch. Based in Alexandria of Egypt, the famed city founded by Alexander the Great, a celebrated seat of culture and learning, where East met West. There Carpocrates flourished, during the second century AD. Teaching an abominable and stupid ethics. Bet Lilith would have thoroughly approved of it. You see, Carpocrates got it into his head that the more sin, the more grace, the more salvation. So he set out to break all the 613 precepts and prohibitions of the Torah. Just think about it: from bestiality to marrying his sister, from tale-bearing to gorging oneself on swine’s flesh. It must have been quite a chore. However, at last having run through the whole sorry list, the fool must have smugly said to himself: ‘All right, I have sinned enough.’ Doubt he quite enjoyed the final reward, though. Sexual frustration seems to be one running thread through many verses. So the Egyptian Iman Mersal reproaches her lover. ‘You made me believe the world is like a girls’ school and that I should extinguish my desires, so to be the teacher’s darling.’ And she makes it clear she won’t. Her poem evokes violent fights with the male. A bit melodramatically, she threatens suicide but she ends up telling him: ‘You must die before me – the death of loved ones is a great chance to consider finding replacements.’ A novel thought, no doubt. Another rebellious voice is Saudi Fawzya Abu Khalid. ‘I have torn up my past heritage, uprooted the trees of my tribe, embraced the freedom of outlaws’. And she inveighs against the man who is nothing more than ‘the Sultan’s messenger, a pimp who extols the merits of the fruits of the Fertile Crescent’. Such lyric anger displeased the Saudi authorities. They did not appreciate her giving public readings, so allowing ‘strangers to listen to her voice’. Gosh, I can imagine worse sins than that. Subversive feeling is partly allied to technical revolution. Arab poetry goes back to pre-Islamic times. Rhythms and metre were governed by strict, unchanging formal rules. But in1949 Iraqi poetess Nazik al-Mala’ika broke away from traditions, advocating free verse. And she tackled head on the hardest question. Arabic being a sacred language, the speech of the divinity, that of the supernatural author of the Qur’an, any critique of its grammar could be problematical. Yet she accused Arabic of being the language of a people who ‘do not value women’. Proof? Arabic grammar prioritises the masculine gender over the feminine. Also, the Arabic word for ‘illiterate’ ummiya, comes from umm, mother. Etymological argument – tricky. In the entertaining War labours a lot, another poetess, Dunya Mikhail, shows herself refreshingly free from the stock pacifist language de riguer about military strife. Instead, she goes in for irony. And enumerates warfare’s hard-working deeds: ‘War – how serious – how active – how able…war is unstoppable, night and day. It inspires tyrants’ long speeches, bestows medals on generals and subjects to poets…war works hard, it has no equals, but nobody praises it.’ Delightful, isn’t it? I have not sinned enough makes for pleasurable reading. I mean this as a compliment. The priest is a hedonistic reader. He only reads what he enjoys. And much of this poetry strikes him as both good and enjoyable. Form and content often combine in a harmonious whole. As to criticism. Some will say I have the wrong glands to offer credible comment. Alas, I cannot help it. That said, I wonder whether it is self-evidently true that unbridled sexual freedom should be the summit of women’s aspirations. Islamists are saying that the infidel West is trying to use women as Trojan horses to penetrate into the sacred citadel of Islamic customs and mores, in order to undermine them from within. Sounds like the mirror image of the Western paranoia about young Muslim males in our midst being ready to become terrorists. Pious Muslims might well object that many of the women’s voices in this anthology are westernised, deracinated ones. Unrepresentative people, because alienated from their own culture. Or simply highbrow feminist viragos, incompetent to speak for millions and millions of ordinary Arab women. Normal women who would never wish to take harlot Lilith as a role model. Women whose chief, natural aspiration is to marry and form a family, have children and care for them. The notion that all that Arab females deeply desire is the freedom to have as many sexual encounters as possible is false. A fantasy. It is a projection of the decadent mores and disvalues affecting most men and women in secular western societies. A Satanic construct. Hence one to condemn and reject outright. Thus speaks my hypothetical critic. I have not sinned enough. A haunting title. Because, let us face it, sin attracts human nature. There would have not been any need for Moses to bring down the Ten Commandments from the holy mountain, had sin been per se unappealing. And, as the parable of the Prodigal Son teaches, especially the young are all too liable to err in that direction. But beware! Whether our Zeitgeist likes it or not, sin must be resisted and defeated. Hence the words of the Apostle still stand as a warning to all: the wages of sin is death. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 279 30 October 2007 The Father of Europe In 802 AD a curious gift reached the Christian West from the Muslim East. An elephant. Sent by Caliph Haroun Ar-Rashid to Emperor Charlemagne. An event so curious that some thought it apocryphal. “Possibly it never happened”, wrote literary magus Jorge Luis Borges. That in the Middle Ages such a mighty beast could travel from the famed city of Baghdad all the way to the capital of the kingdom of the Franks, Aachen, in Germany, seemed merely legendary. Stuff from the Thousand and One Nights, in other words. Actually, Borges was unduly sceptical. The story is true. The elephant did come all the way from the Orient to the Occident. We even know his name, Abu el-Abbas. Charlemagne gratefully received him, reciprocating with gifts for Haroun. Abu el-Abbas lived on in Europe until 810, when he died at Lippenham, in Westphalia. Insh’allah, his sojourn was a happy one. Last week, ambling through the lively streets of the modern city of Aachen, the priest found himself meditating on Kaiser Karl der Grosse, aka Charlemagne. Not a difficult feat, as the emperor’s presence is ubiquitous there. Temptation to interview him was irresistible. I succumbed to it. Your Majesty, your empire extended from the Pyrenees in the West to the Elbe and the Danube in the East. Nearly the whole of Christendom at the time. The epic Chanson de Roland sings of your military foray into Spain. You and your heroic paladins fighting the Moors. Happy with that? Remember that I spoke a German dialect, so I could never read the Chanson. I crossed the Pyrenees because three Arab emirs, at war with the Caliph of Cordoba, had asked my help. I drove my enemies across the Ebro but failed to take Saragossa. On the way back, my rearguard and Count Roland were treacherously slain at Roncesvalles by wild Basque tribesmen. A worthless race, whose only achievement in history has been to milk cows. Despicable bunch. Not even worth soiling my sword with their low blood. Ahem…a bit non-PC but let’s let it pass. You are obviously a man of your time… A man of all times, you mean, priest. And an emperor for all seasons. Today you talk of Europe a lot. I like that. I was the first European. All right, I had to do a bit of killing in the process. Smash the pagan Saxons, for example. But I don’t see how you can condemn me for that. My Saxon wars were fought in self-defence. And for the Faith. There was no booty to grab. Your America and Britain, supposedly ‘democratic’ and secular, blather on about human rights and altruism. But you send armies to invade countries as faraway as Afghanistan and oil-rich Iraq, which hardly threaten you. We fought the enemy like soldiers, face to face and sword against sword, whilst your ‘civilised’ lot majors on raining monster bombs and missiles on primitive foes safely from a distance. And I personally engaged in combat, along with my men. I have not heard of your leaders – what are their funny names? - Bush and Blair, risking their skin in Basra or Helmand province. Touché’, Your Majesty. Better to move on. Your relationship with the Church. You were quite a pious monarch, they say. A Christian one, certainly. I won’t apologise for that. We Franks had embraced the Faith since the days of King Clovis. That made us true citizens of a universal city, both earthly and spiritual. No longer barbarians out of primeval forests but children of both Rome and Jerusalem. I always believed the temporal and the spiritual must go hand in hand, united, like the soul with the body. Aristotle says that the highest life is that of the intellect. Reason should rule. Had that fountain of all wisdom been a Christian, he would also have added faith. Politics works out best with Church and State conjoined. When St Paul in Romans writes that ‘all power is from God’, his words apply most perfectly to the polity I established. That is why I was happy to have Pope Leo crown me Emperor at Rome in AD 800. In God’s name I become ruler of a restored Roman empire. So I swore to be the protector of the Church – as it ought to be, surely. Isn’t your Britain today ruled by a monarch who bears the official title of ‘Defender of the Faith’? Er…yes. But can’t imagine the Queen going to war to spread Anglicanism, or to defend the Archbishop of Canterbury. By the way, why did you override the authority of Byzantium? There was already a roman emperor in Constantinople, no? Indeed. That meddling female, Irene. She was a usurper, because she called herself not empress but emperor. And no woman can be that, anymore than a woman can be a priest. So the throne was vacant. What! You think I am a misogynist? No way. I loved my daughters so much, I kept them always by my side, as everybody knows. Interesting views, Sire. So you really claim to be the Father of Europe? Priest, consider my name, Charles. In all the Slav languages, and in Hungarian, it has become the name for ‘king’. Carol, Kital, Kral. That must be significant. I, Charlemagne, am forever Carolus Magnus, Charles the Great. My empire was German, Roman and Christian at the same time. Fine fusion of religion and cultures. The good Saxon from York, Alcuin, implementing by enlightened cultural policies. ‘Education, education, education’ was my slogan. And I got on ever so well with the Jews. And with the Muslim Empire. I sent Haroun ar-Rashid fine hunting dogs in return for his elephant. I could go on… If God wills it, I will. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 280 6 November 2007 The Bomb ‘There is no morality in war’. I saw a small, prune-faced oldster growl that out on telly, last week. Fellow called Paul Tibbets. Aged 92, he had just kicked the bucket. But who he? Of course, the US B29 pilot who dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Huh! He would say that, wouldn’t he? 80.000 Japanese instantly died, or were badly wounded by ‘Little Boy’ – the bomb’s nickname. A temperature of over 5000 degrees F. raged where Little Boy did its nice job. Plenty of blackened and charred bodies long littered the streets and the ruins. Three days later, another A-bomb hit the city of Nagasaki. 40.000 people were incinerated. Kyoto had been mooted as a target, but the American War Secretary, Henry Stimson, obviously was a cultured man. Did not like to destroy a historical city. Jolly considerate of him. Being civilised really is a wonderful thing. In a subsequent communiqué Stimson stated that the bombs had been dropped to shorten the war, thereby saving many lives. However, he also let slip reference to the Japanese’s beatings and torturing of US prisoners. Frank but unwise. Because it suggests that the motive behind the attack was not exclusively ‘humanitarian’, or even utilitarian. Hence it marred the given rationale a bit. Desire for revenge may well be inherent in our fallen humanity. Even rational, perhaps, but a humane or moral instinct certainly it is not. ‘There is no morality in war.’ Yet Tibbets also justified his atomic warfare with the standard ‘saving lives’ argument. Was he aware of the contradiction? To advance the saving of human lives as a reason for destroying many others is a moral argument – what else? Whose lives did he mean? His fellow Americans’, exclusively, or did he include Japanese lives? Those of the innocent civilians, particularly? Or did he think, immorally, they did not count? But I imagine he’d shrug his shoulders at these finicky questions. Orders must be obeyed. That’s what soldiering is all about, isn’t it? Only wonder why that did not apply to some of the Nuremberg trial defendants… Tibbets claimed he never lost a night’s sleep over the raid. Maybe that’s just as well. Would it help or console the dead, the maimed and the radioactively-contaminated survivors to know that Little Boy’s pilot had spent sleepless nights thinking about them? It may be different with the Supreme Judge, however. Like the rest of us, Tibbets is called to render an account. The outcome, of course, lies beyond human ken. ‘There is no morality in war.’ Kind of reminiscent of General Sherman’s often-quoted ‘war is hell’. Fascinating utterance. For its theological ignorance. Did Sherman ever realise that, whatever punishment the souls of the damned may suffer (and, mind, as a German mystic wrote, ‘nothing burns in hell, except the ego’), it is inflicted according to the strictest, indeed the highest justice? Thus, contrary to Sherman’s intended meaning, there is justice in hell. Justice is what fashioned hellfire (again, mind, not at all like gas fire!) and justice is what apportions condign punishment in the infernal regions. To the guilty ones. War, on the other hand, as waged by men, is a singularly inept instrument for effecting justice. That is so because often those who suffer the most in war are the innocent. ‘There is no morality in war.’ A lawless remark. Words that militate not solely against the idea of restraints in fighting – churchy stuff the tough-minded can easily dismiss – but also against the ancient law of nations and indeed modern international law. Quite wrong, in fact. As Tibbets might have learnt, had Japan won the war. He might have found himself arraigned before a tribunal for war crimes. Or he might not. The conduct of the Japanese armies in China was horrific, granted. And Japan at Pearl Harbour had attacked first. But two wrongs do not make a right. Otherwise, what would remain of the lofty, ethical ‘superiority’ of the West? ‘Saving lives’. In itself, a commendable aim. But can you trade human lives for human lives? In bulk, like sheep or potatoes? Hmmm… I am told there is a ban on that in Jewish law. However, halacha, casuistry based on the Talmud, states that ransom can be paid to free prisoners from captivity. So, Israeli religious parties support the Government’s exchange of prisoners, even if it means dealing with Israel’s deadly enemies, like Hezbollah and Hamas. What view the learned rabbis would take on an actual, massive ‘body trade’, I haven’t a clue. Must ask my friend, Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, when we discuss Family of Abraham issues on Al-Mustaqillah TV, soon on the 15th. The Christian view is clear, however. Those who do evil so that good may come deserve condemnation, as St Paul teaches in Romans (3:8). Hence no good end can justify an evil means, pace the cynical and failed Florentine politician, Machiavelli. The deliberate, intentional and direct targeting of innocent non-combatants in war – no matter if the war itself is a just one – is morally illicit. And that regardless of any presumed utilitarian calculus. The medieval Church wisely saw warfare as a Grenzmoral – a painful case, poised on the edge between the moral and the immoral. Hence it tried to put up barriers and limits as to the harm that it was done. Some classes of persons were considered immune or exempt from fighting (like bishops! The priest would put them right on the frontline!), and truce was enforced at certain seasons. What the Church could not do of course was to eliminate the human drives towards aggression and violence. Another Flood would be needed for that. ‘There is no morality in war.’ Did poor Tibbets ever realise what a diabolical statement that is? Were that the case, no believing soldier could fight without sinning. The extermination of the innocent would be OK. Notions like bravery, loyalty, honour and patriotism would be either meaningless or intrinsically evil. Some of the most admired Christian heroes, from St Charlemagne (a sop to my friend Werner…) to Wellington, would be merely butchers…and so on. ‘There is no morality in war.” Verily, Satan would say that. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 282 21 November 2007 Labours of Hercules My latest appearance on Al-Mustaqillah Pan-Arab TV, the ‘Family of Abraham’ programme, has led me to revisit Greek mythology. I mean the figure of the strongest man ever, the superhero Hercules. And his celebrated twelve labours. It is like this. In a fit of madness, Hercules has slain his own family. To do penance, the Delphi oracle orders him to go to King Eurystheus and be his slave. The King, in league with Hercules’ sworn enemy, the goddess Hera, thinks up some twelve fiendish tasks. And each one well-nigh impossible. The famous Twelve Labours of Hercules. 1. To kill the lion of Nemea. A beast no weapon could harm. Tricky, eh? No matter. Hercules just strangles it with his bare hands. 2. To dispose of the Hydra of Lerna. A swamp monster with nine heads, one of them deathless and the others, as soon as cut off, each sprouting up two more. (An incubus of geometric progression!) Not a pet you’d like to have about the house. But our hero enlists his nephew with a burning torch to sear each neck after he has chopped the head off - the Hydra cannot not grow them again. And the immortal head? Easy. Hercules just buries deeply under a huge rock. (Must still be there, I guess. And mighty bored.) 3. To capture a wondrous, golden-horned stag, sacred to Artemis. Hercules could kill it in a jiffy, of course, but the creature is wanted alive. It takes the hero a whole year to do that. 4. To get a huge, lethal boar, living on Mount Ereymanthus. Hercules hunts it for ages from lair to lair, until the brute is worn out. And so easily taken. 5. Now a simile part of the English language, the Augean Stables contains thousands and thousands of cattle. Shocking! For years no one has cleaned them. In one day poor Hercules has to do it! Thank God, apart from brawn he also has brains. He turns the course of two rivers, causing them to rush through the stables. It washes away the muck jolly quickly. 6. The people of a place called Stymphalus are pestered by countless pesky birds. Ahem, maybe it isn’t fair but the goddess Athena helps a bit. She scares them out of their nests and Hercules then shoots the lot. 7. This labour entails a trip to Crete. To seize some beautiful savage bull. A gift from the sea-god Poseidon to King Minos. All right, it isn’t as bad as fighting the Minotaur, yet it is a Herculean task OK and the hero is victorious. 8. King Diomedes of Thrace owes much-feared man-eating mares. To get them, Hercules first takes out Diomedes and then he ensnares the nightmarish mares. A trifle. 9. To bring back the girdle of Hyppolita, Queen of the man-hating Amazons. A complicated plot. And, groan, ungallant. Suffice it to say that Hercules slays the Queen, fights off the furious Amazons and makes off with the girdle. 10. There is an island with the cattle-owning Geryon, a monster with three bodies. On the way there, Hercules uproots two great rocks and sets them as mighty pillars in the sea, to commemorate his exploit. They are, of course, Gibraltar and Ceuta. And he completes his mission, too. 11. To bring back the golden apples of the Hesperides. ‘Take off the vault of Heaven from my shoulders and I’ll give you the apples’, promises Atlas, the Hesperides’ father. Hercules obliges but Atlas refuses to honour the bargain. ‘OK, but just take back the vault from me one moment, as I put pads on my shoulders’, wily Hercules suggests. Boy, isn’t Atlas dumb? He buys it. So Hercules walks off with the apples. 12. You ain’t heard nothing yet. A journey to Hades, no less. The underworld. From which no one has ever returned. Two tasks in one, actually. To free hero Theseus from the chair of forgetfulness and to bring back the hideous, three-headed hell-hound, Cerberus. The story again is complex but…yes! Hercules lifts up the wriggling monster and carries it up to King Eurystheus. Hurrah! The hero’s labours are over. Well, you might dream up a thirteenth difficult task for our Hercules. Stopping global warming, maybe. Or turning the Sahara desert into a garden. Or getting our London Underground to run efficiently. Or, to plump for the hyper-impossible, to settle the Israel-Palestine conflict to the satisfaction of both. However, my own modest task arises out of satellite exchanges with a certain Dr Abdullah. From Saudi Arabia. The third panel member on the TV discussion mentioned above. You see, Dr Abdullah suffers from an unshakeable conviction. That ‘the West’ is out to attack Islam. He fired off battery after battery of sundry, disjointed and unrelated names and data: the Crusades (he would, wouldn’t he?), Dante, Voltaire, Renan, President Bush, the Danish cartoons, Pope Benedict…and so on. Despite my reasoned objections, like the Hydra he went on to sprout up new grievances. Not that I’d have wanted to treat him as Hercules dealt with the Hydra, of course… Dr Abdullah seemed to live in a very one-dimensional, almost paranoid universe. One in which there is a universal conspiracy to get at him and his side – the Wahabi one, presumably. His discourse was monotonous, obsessive and inflexible. All the wrongs in history were on the other side and all the goodness and justice and right on his own. Totally Manichean. And this towards fellow Abrahamic believers! I felt a bit like a Jew might have felt, subjected to a tirade by a Jew-baiter like Julius Streicher. It was sad. Saddest of all was Dr Abdullah’s incapacity to distinguish between ‘the West’ and Christianity. 200 years ago that equation might have had validity. Today no longer. ‘The West’ as such no more stands for Christ than for Zoroaster. Some Western quarters are anti-Islam, yes. But often the same forces are anti-Christianity, as well. It is the priest’s God-given (Herculean!) task to persuade good Muslims and good Christians to unite against the common foes of ‘Ahl al-Ibrahim’. Maybe a Hercules might manage to get that message into the thick head of some misguided monotheists, insh’allah without using his club. Revd Frank J. Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 285 12 December 2007 Fifth Columns In 1936, early in the Spanish Civil War, General Franco had five armies, or military columns, menacing the enemy government in Madrid. Four of them were converging on the capital from the outside but the fifth column was inside. They were Franco’s supporters, lurking within republican areas, waiting the right moment to strike at los rojos. Fifth columnists, they were called. Three years later, Franco won. According to a well-known British journalist, we have a fifth column in our midst. Muslim extremists – who else? So she wrote in a major tabloid newspaper not too long ago. Last week a speaker in a mosque, whilst fingering rabid Islamophobes, drew my attention to her. Well, call it sheer coincidence or Jungian synchronicity, next day I found myself in a media gathering that boasted that very lady’s presence. Blandly, I raised the issue: are fifth columnists really at work in this country? Interesting answer I got, only…it should be confidential – sorry! History abounds in fifth columns, real or imagined. Centuries before the phrase got coined, Roman Catholics in Protestant England fitted the bill. When Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, ipso facto he absolved Catholic Englishmen from oaths of allegiance to their heretical Queen. With a clear conscience, they could conspire against her. For Protestants, that rendered any Catholic person potentially disloyal, a traitor. Indeed, numerous foiled plots against Tudor, Stuart and Hanoverian monarchs involved Catholics. QED. In consequence, Catholics in England had to suffer much persecution and discrimination ever since. Even today, the fires and frenzies of the Reformation totally banked, if Prince William married a Catholic girl, he would forfeit his right to the British throne. Isn’t that crazy? The Armenians too were branded fifth columnists by the Young Turks during WWI. ‘This alien Christian race is in collusion with the Russians. Want to stab us in the back’, the decadent Ottomans claimed. Despite the fact that Armenians have served under the Sultans for hundreds of years. In military capacity too, e.g. as sappers at the siege of Vienna. The wholesale massacres of innocent Armenians quickly followed. Japanese Americans suffered not so horrifically in WWII but the US authorities saw them as potential pawns of the Rising Sun in America. So they were herded into concentration camps. When the Soviet Union still held sway, and the red menace loomed, comrade Krushchev truculently warned the capitalist West: ‘We shall bury you!’ (Not much of a prophet he.) Communists and their sympathisers in ‘the free world’ were deemed quintessential fifth columns. Mind you, Soviet agents and spies and fellow travellers did not exist only in Senator McCarthy’s fertile brain. There actually were people like that. Besides, consider this counterfactual: if the Russian tanks had ever swept into France and Italy, to set up people’s republics, on whose side would local communists have fought? Well and good. But let’s get a bit analytical about this thing. Franco’s fifth columnists lay murkily hidden. What made them dangerous, however, was their link with el Generalissimo’s other four columns, plus Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany. (The Republicans had Stalin, of course.) Our native, aspiring jihadists, by contrast, who can they count on? The al-Qaeda column? Maybe it exists. Now and again, it causes real havoc with its nasty suicide bombings and low-tech shenanigans. And big casualties. But its chances to topple the mega-armies and gigantic, sophisticated police and security machineries of the West are actually less than zero. 9/11 and 7/7 were directed against the innocent and so they were atrocious and despicable acts. But they never came anywhere near destroying the States involved. And please, do not muddy the waters by bringing in Iran, the nuclear threat and that kind of garbage. The Shia State has as much love for Sunni al-Qaeda as Bush does. True, the Shia support liberation movements OK. I doubt, though, that Iran is behind the Welsh nationalists of Plaid Cymru or the Free Alaska Eskimo faction. Part of a loose, worldwide guerrilla force our home-bread radicals may well consider themselves to be – lethal fifth columnists, posing a threat to our very survival, they are not. Don’t relax, yet. A fifth column may be real, after all. A malignant cabal, a spiteful spider that wishes to destroy Britain, yep. A hundred times more damaging than the Luftwaffe was. But where is it? Here is my surprise candidate. It’s called the British Government. An internal ‘column’ in active collusion with malevolent external columns. Called the EU. You see, controlling the social policy of its member states, the EU has gradually eroded and undermined key religious and ethical values. For instance, the ideal of the family based on the New Testament. Cohabitation and same-sex partnerships have become the legal equivalent of marriage. Divorce is almost the norm. Abortion and contraception are palmed off as ‘reproductive rights’. Under the banner of obsessively repeated shibboleths, talisman-like slogans like ‘equality’ and ‘anti-discrimination’, the British Government gleefully works in tandem with the EU gang to dismantle the core values constitutive of the very fabric of British society. A dire state of affairs. And a challenge, for Christians especially. From the beginning, we Nazarenes had to object to certain pagan practices of the Roman Empire. Abortion, infanticide, human fighting in the arena, sacrificing to the deified emperor and so on. To the extent of suffering martyrdom. Of course, Christian resistance to paganism was not violent – that is the significant, qualitative difference with today’s men of violence. Christians were peaceful fifth-columnists. The weapons they fought with were spiritual. As St Paul lists them: ‘the shield of faith’, ‘the breastplate of righteousness’, ‘the helmet of salvation’ and ‘the sword of the spirit’ (Ephesians 6:13-17). With same unbloody weapons the Church – the true, visible and invisible Church of Jesus Christ – must fight today. In concert with innumerable other columns: those of the angelic hosts in Heaven. So, it turns out that I myself am a fifth-columnist. Amazing! You know what? I am going to enjoy it. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Father Frank’s Rants Rant Number 286 18 December 2007 A Gnostic Golden Compass Two stars contend for the viewer’s attention in the movie The Golden Compass. Nicole Kidman as the ambiguous Ms. Coulter has oodles of sex appeal. Ravishing enough to stir up tumult in any man’s loins. The other is the heroine proper. 12 year old Lyra, played by Dakota Somebody. A pretty lass and a no mean budding actress. Still, something bothers me about her acting. That hardness about her eyes. The constant, scornful frown. A spiteful little mouth and mien. Why does she scowl so much, like a spoilt or disturbed brat about to throw a tantrum? A suitable case for child psychiatry. Hmmm… director's directions apart, lovely Dakota must have wanted to act like that. Why? Elizabeth John in The Shia Newspaper to me suggests an answer. The media, she argues, have “influenced the minds of girls and produced today’s confused generation of women filled with masculine notions of violence and challenge, rather than easing the pain of the world by their delicateness, compassion and motherhood. Instead of living her femininity, the young woman of today is engaged in fierce battles with rough men”. Thus speaks a Muslim woman – don’t stone the poor priest, please! Not just big, rough blokes Lyra takes on. Her greater fight is against the malevolent ‘Magisterium’. A child-stealing male mafia intent on robbing human beings of their souls and free-will, to subject them to the blind authority. It ‘works by telling people what to do’. Writer Philip Pullman is gunning for the Christian Church, surprise, surprise… The Magisterium hates science. So it attempts to poison Lyra’s uncle, scientist and explorer, Daniel Craig’s Lord Asriel. (Sporting a particularly nasty-looking, spiky beard.) To stop him from investigating some wondrous cosmic dust that gives access to other worlds. Funny how my mind runs back to another, all too real scientist. Dr James Watson got the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA. But last October this eminent scientist was suspended for his research laboratory. The Science Museum in London cancelled his lecture. Hysterical voices asked for his prosecution. Fanatics threatened demonstrations against him. So Dr Watson issued a public, grovelling recantation. (Shades of Galileo before the Inquisition!) The Magisterium’s long hand, surely? Actually the illustrious scientist’s sin had not been against God. His comments had been about race and intelligence. Taboo subjects. Maybe he is wrong. Maybe blacks are superior to whites, who knows? Science should decide. The point is that the new Inquisition, the sinister despisers of knowledge and reason today aren’t always or necessarily religious. Mr Pullman, take note, on the doubtful assumption you give a damn for truth. Truth matters because the Golden Compass of the title is an Alethiometer. (Aletheia: the Greek word for ‘verity’.) A magic truth-telling device, looking rather like a snuffbox. It infallibly helps Lyra in her quest. Pity the A-meter fails to tell her about the true Christian take on freewill. Far from wishing to take freedom away from us, the Church teaches that: 1) freedom is a gift from God; 2) man was created free; 3) freedom is the real possibility to choose between good and evil; 4) men have a right to exercise this freedom; 5) freedom makes human agents real moral subjects. As St Irenaeus of Lyon put it long ago: “Man…is created with free will and therefore master over his acts.” I confess it: much of the above comes from ‘The Catechism of the Catholic Church’. Admittedly, Reformers like Luther and Calvin were a tad less glowing on human freedom. As at least half a Protestant, I take their point. But Pullman is attacking Rome, not Geneva. Hence, if he really believes that Catholicism condemns freewill, he is an ignoramus – full stop. Besides, the Alethiometer might have informed the author about a fashionable and influential determinist anthropology. From troglodyte Marxists to the limp, moaning Left of our time. If anyone seeks to undermine human freewill, it’s that lot. Whenever they claim that someone was forced to steal, maim or murder ‘because society is unjust and the way he was brought up and he had no choice but to be a criminal and blah, blah, blah’, they implicitly make a mockery of our freedom. The most precious of God’s gifts. The most resounding moral J’accuse is what such people deserve. Because they slander and degrade human dignity. Maybe next time morose young Lyra should throw a tantrum or two in that direction. The movie has its (few) moments. The hilarious whisky-swilling, talkative armoured bear is one. The rumbustious, shaggy and Yiddish-looking ‘Gyptians’ could have been lifted from ‘Fiddler on the Roof’. But my absolute favourite is the big-moustachioed, cum-Texas-drawl cow-boy aeronaut Sam Eliott. A scream! And the proof the wonderful myth of the Wild West still rides on OK, never mind if on an improbable dirigible in this ramshackle fantasy world. The Golden Compass smells of Gnosticism. That ragbag of pseudo-spiritual ideas and doctrines proliferating in the early centuries AD. The Creator of our human universe, Gnostic Marcion held, was neither omnipotent nor good. Rather, a second-rate, inferior deity. Similarly, Pullman sees the God of monotheism as a negative, spent, dying force. (Tell that to the millions of pilgrims now on Haj at Mecca, Phil!) Dupe Marcion set out to denigrate the Old Testament, too. I wonder whether Pullman realises his atheism implies anti-Semitism? Anyway, the Church told Marcion where to get off. As to the peculiar cosmic stuff sought by Lord Asriel, it echoes somewhat the particles of supernatural light some Gnostics believed to have been entombed in matter and human bodies. Even pesky little Lyra could be a distant transmutation of the fallen female wisdom of Simon Magus… And the ‘daemons’ that appear in animal forms too could have a counterpart in the Gnostic daimones – good and bad spirits of the air. But maybe what’s at play here is more primitive, like shamanism. Either way, the cute shape-shifting critters don’t amuse the priest at all. The human soul comes from God. It is infinitely noble, unique. I see why godless Pullman wishes to mingle it with animalism, of course. Old Nick’s hand, eh? But fear not, folks: Non Praevalebunt! Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 287 3 January 2008 Dombey and Son ‘Papa! What’s money?’ asks pensive little Paul Dombey of his dad in Dickens’ great work, Dombey and Son. Mr Dombey, a wealthy City man, is nonplussed. Pounds, shillings, gold, silver and copper – surely the familiar words will do? But, unpleased, the child insists: ‘What’s money after all? Papa, what can it do?’ ‘Money, Paul, can do anything’ proclaims the adult, patting the child on the head. ‘Anything, papa?’ ‘Yes, anything – almost’, says Mr Dombey. ‘Why didn’t money save me my mamma?’ returns Paul, meaning the mother who died giving him birth. A devastating question. But not quite enough to floor his capitalist dad. So Mr Dombey launches himself into a heartfelt, if pagan, paean to money. ‘Money causes us to be honoured, feared, respected, courted, and admired and makes us powerful and glorious in the eyes of all men.’ All much desired attributes, no doubt. That is, desired by people like Paul’s father. Still, the man is at least honest. Note how his pompous list does not include the word ‘love’. Even a tragic figure like Dombey senior, obsessed with his firm, his male heir, his status and his power, realises that his money will never be able to buy him his little boy’s love. Indeed, nemesis awaits him at the novel’s end. The priest read Dombey and Son over Christmas in Rome. Now, that’s a bit serendipitous. Because the Eternal City has a secret name. No kidding. ‘Rome’ was only the public, exoteric name of Rome. Ancient Roman writers like Pliny tell us that the city’s true name was hidden from the masses. Only a few chosen ones knew it, such as the High Priest of the state cult. Should an enemy have got intelligence of the mysterious word, Rome would have fallen. Hence, the penalty for such abominable betrayal was death. A certain Valerius Soranus, Pliny informs us, actually did the unthinkable act. He disclosed the Name to the uninitiated. A crime he paid for with his life. What was that secret name? Sigh… nobody really knows. Because the secret was well kept. But, imagine I knew, dear reader. I would be faced with a dilemma. I am a Roman. And a priest. In a sense, I am connected with the ancient priesthood of my birthplace. So, if I were to blab out the secret name…how do I know the ancient curse would not fall on my head? Call me superstitious but, like Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce once put it, it’s safer ‘fare le corna’ – namely, to do the old misfortune-averting gesture… However, cheer up! Rome’s most secret name must remain hidden, yes, but a second best, not-so-secret name exists. And it can be revealed. Consider Rome’s name in its proper Latin spelling. Roma. Now read it backwards. Amor. Love. Geddit? Too simple, eh? Of course. That is why Amor cannot have been the mysterious, hidden name. Uncovering it would have been too easy. Amor is simple but…simplicity is the mark of truth, a useful Latin saying goes. And so I feel it is fitting I should have happened upon the wonderful passage from Dickens in the City of Love. Love…yes, love. Not money, mind you. Nor sex. Those who equate the two are idiots. Because love and sex cannot be the same. If they were, love of country and love of music would mean sex with country and sex with music, which is nonsense. Whether they realise it or not, by doing so such people fall below the beasts. With apologies to the latter, which are at least innocent of good and evil. Also, Rome’s ancient emblem shows a she-wolf, so I have to be nice to animals! The Creator fashioned human beings in His image, to follow virtue and knowledge and love. Whenever they deviate from those, they soil and profane the Maker’s work, as well as fouling up their own nest. Love. A simpleton’s hope for 2008? Probably. The media are full of violence, as usual, and those who can read the runes are not optimistic. But love is prescriptive, not descriptive. When Christ commands his disciples to love one another, and indeed our enemy, He is certainly not describing what is actually going on. Maybe Luther was right. There are two cities on earth, he claimed. One, composed of true Christians, true disciples of love, who follow the sublime prescriptions of the Gospel. The other city is people by a very different, nasty crowd. They are the children of Cain, the first murderer, he who slew his own innocent brother. St Augustine of Hippo, himself a proud Roman citizen, did not scruple to equate pagan Rome with the second city – hadn’t Romulus killed his brother Remus at the city’s very inception? Luther, however, was too pessimistic. He gives no hint whether the citizens of the City of God might not go about converting the inhabitants of the wicked city to better ways. To win them over to the ways of Love. I submit that way is itsef….well, figure you’d divine it: Love. Love, not money. Mr Dombey found that out too late. Only saints and hypocrites can afford to despise money, of course. Most of us need it and appreciate its advantages. But money ain’t enough. Money itself will not only not save us from death, it isn’t enough to keep us alive, either. Doomed little Paul is partly a vindication of that eternal truth. Indeed, even animals – snakes and insects excepted - will not prosper without an atmosphere of warmth and love. Unloved babies certainly don’t flourish at all… After losing his beloved son, his firm and being forsaken by his second, unhappy wife, Mr Dombey seems damned. But Dickens believed in happy endings. Thanks to young Florence, the slighted and humiliated daughter, whose love has stayed steadfast despite her father’s many cruelties, he at last grasps the enormity of his inhuman selfishness and begs for forgiveness. Love has saved him. Methinks the old, unfeeling Dombey lives on unredeemed, though. In the spirit of our stupid age. An age, a civilisation that teeters on the brink of an abyss. Does it stand a chance? Yes. If it responds to Divine Love. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant 290 28 January 2008 Oxford and Islamic Prayer AD 732, France. Momentous history is made. At the battle of Tours Charles Martel routs the invading Arab armies from the Umayyad caliphate. Had victory gone to the Muslims, ‘the interpretation of the Qur’an would be taught in the University of Oxford and her pulpits would teach Islam’ mused a thousand years later English historian Gibbon. Huh! What would that great infidel say, I wonder, if he knew of the current proposal to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer from a mosque in East Oxford? Well, the priest is now hearing the Muezzin’s voice five times a day. In Doha, Qatar, a little, finger-like peninsula that waggles gently out into the Arab Gulf. He is a visiting fellow at the Qatar Foundation – smart guy, eh? Looking out of his spacious flat’s windows, he can view the beige silhouettes of elegant minarets lancing up into the hazy sky. Guess there is no actual man up there crying out his pious summonses. These days the Muslim faithful listen to a pre-recorded message. The very first Muezzin of Islam, a black slave called Bilal, might not be quite fond of that, I figure, but…hadha hayat, c’est la vie. The Oxford debate is raging. Newspapers carry letters pro & con. If Christians can ring their bells, why can’t Muslims cry out their prayers, one reasonably asks? But bells are just a signal, whilst the Muezzin is proclaiming an ideological message, counterattacks another. ‘Along with Chris Hitchens and Professor Dawkins, I might agree God is not great, but I wouldn’t wish to have it broadcast it outside my window five times a day’ insinuates an able dialectician, astutely muddling the issue. Then a Muslim spokesman states that their prayer calls would go out not five times every day of the week, but only three times on Friday. Whereupon the enemy exults – ‘Hurrah! Muslims are retreating, thanks to our opposition. Charles Martel, we have done it again!’ Presumably they know not how, according to tradition, Allah meant the prayer calls to be daily far more frequent. Only the intercession of the Prophet brought them down to the current five. The cleverest critics eschew any reference to religion altogether. Because they fear being branded as intolerant. Instead, it is simply a matter of peace and quiet, they swear – and who’d object to that? The noise is what it’s all about. But bells are noisy OK, so why the asymmetry? When I was curate of St Mary Abbots Church, Kensington, our bell ringers’ sonorous evening practice would make some locals grumpy indeed, I recall. And Muslims say they propose to go back to Bilal’s days – no amplification by loudspeaker – or will they? I am not sure but it won’t pacify the critics, you bet. In Charles Martel’s days, you can guess where Christian clergy would have stood in this debate. However, times are a-changing. We are now ‘enlightened’. So the Anglican Bishop of Oxford backs the Muslims. A rare occasion to make himself relevant, as I surmise the chap is normally about as useful as a dog on a motorbike. Also, a certain Canon Partridge invites the opposition to enjoy the prayers’ beautiful classical Arabic. The priest approves of the Partridge being dovish – better a dove than a hawk, sure – but how many of the people of East Oxford – largely a working-class area - are conversant with al-Fusha – the language of the Qur’an, he asks himself? Please, dear reader, don’t take this amiss. I used to know a nice Anglo-Catholic vicar in East Oxford, Father Flatman. Not much appreciated by some of the local folks. ‘I even got spat upon’, he told me. ‘In fact, the nicest people to me are the Muslims.’ A remark I shall never forget. I imagine Father Flatman, were he still on this earth, would not mind the Muslim prayer one little bit, and that for good, spiritual reasons. Anglicans aren’t the only ones to side with Islam. Some bloke from Blackfriars, the Roman Catholic Dominican house, also made approving noises. That is kind of encouraging, given that the good Dominicans of old might have reacted a wee bit differently. You see, they used to run the Inquisition. Islamophobes of course are angered by the Bishop’s line. ‘He has betrayed us’, somebody lamented. Holy simplicity! As if anyone anymore took seriously most of the stooges sitting on the Bishops’ Bench as having anything to do with upholding Christ! I read in the Salisbury Review how stunned the Bishop of Bradford looked when someone suggested to him that he might be a ‘leader of Christianity’. He somehow found the idea shocking. I wholeheartedly agree. I would no more expect authentic Christian leadership from those mitred asses than I would from the useless King Log of Aesop’s fable. The sooner our faithful people realise that, and take condign action, the better. I know a bit about Oxford. Because I trained for the Anglican priesthood at Cuddesdon Theological College, in its environs. Cuddesdon, huh! A college so damned wet and liberal that the word ‘sin’ was hardly ever mentioned by our ordained lecturers. Maybe just as well, as sin is something they and the students knew a lot about. Especially the unforgivable sin, that against the Holy Ghost. These days, by the way, I learn that three Muslims students from the famous Islamic Al-Azhar University in Cairo do a stint on an exchange at my old college. What they might learn there I do not wish to say… There used to be another, better and greater Oxford. That of the Tractarians. Those pious and learned Anglican divines, who brought back devotion, liturgy and sacramental spirituality into the bloated and smug body of the late Hanoverian Church. A valiant band of goodly, scholarly priests, such as John Henry Newman, Pusey, Keble and Froude. The movement they initiated infused new life in the Church of England. But the devil (who else?) has been at work. A catastrophic failure of nerve has pervaded and taken over what used to be a fine Christian Church. Today in Oxford you will seek in vain for the spirit of the Tractarians. Instead, you’ll meet the wan, bloodless spirit of conformity to the ways of a stupid post-modernity. If the Muezzin’s voice stands against that, why not? Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FATHER FRANK'S RANTS Rant Number 291 6 February 2008 Ash Wednesday in Doha Lent last night began with a curious Ash Wednesday dream. The priest was wandering about the narrow lanes of an Eastern city. All around stood dizzingly tall towers. Of the oddest shape. Spiral-like, they mounted the sky, tapering towards the top, piercing the heavenly vault like daggers. ‘Like Towers of Babel’, I think I thought. Outsize Arab calligraphic motifs, askew and luminous, encrusted their walls, like fantastic shells. Some spelt out ‘Bismillah’ – in the name of God, others were too difficult to make out. Staring up at the vertical spectacle, I bumped against a wall. A blind alley. Suddenly, I realised I was lost, surrounded by steep high walls. Panic assailed me. ‘How do I find my way back…back to what? Who am I? Where do I come from? Why am I here?’ Anxiety tightened its fingers round my throat. I started shouting, cried out for help, blessed or cursed, became incoherent. Shadows – men? women? ghouls? - glided past but they ignored me. Till one of them stopped. And materialised as a lithe, dark-shrouded female form. ‘Why do you cry, Frank? There is no need.’ Relief gave place to wonder. ‘How…who told you my name?’ Her answer was a smile. And silence. Her sallow, oval face conveyed only sweetness and peace. Like some contemplative Madonna. ‘Never mind’ said I ‘I am so glad, anyway. I am afraid I am lost. Will you be my guide?’ ‘No, he will’, she answered, raising a tiny, frail hand towards the sky. The arabesque-laden towers had given place to glittering skyscrapers. Striking silhouettes, shiny glass cakes topped by pyramids, yet kind of familiar, like London’s Canary Wharf. Many looked still under construction, unfinished. ‘Of course’ I thought, forgetting the incongruous shift ‘I am in Doha. By the bay. Near the Corniche. Where I take my strolls every day. How reassuring all this...what is she pointing at…?’ Then I saw the bird. First small and faraway, swifly growing near and huge. An amazing green shape, head crowned by a rainbow-like crest of bright feathers. Lighted on top of a near skyscraper, so near yet so far. Where have I seen it before? In vain I wracked my brains. ‘He is the Simurgh, Frank. Hud-Hud, we call him in Arabic. You know. Comes from God. He expecting you. Here in Doha. How fortunate you are!’ the woman spoke. Her large brown eyes held me in thrall. Opening my mouth, I began to formulate the first of a thousand questions when her face instantly fell apart. Dissolved. Instead, a voice resounded…God is greatest. There is no God but God… it was the Al Fajr, the dawn prayer. The early call to of the muezzin had dissipated my dream. God sometimes speaks to man in dreams. The Bible proves it. Doesn’t the angel of the Lord appear to St. Joseph in a dream, to tell him that Mary is pregnant of the Holy Ghost? And aren’t the Magi warned of God in a dream about Herod’s murderous intentions? Pace unbelieving philosopher Thomas Hobbes, ‘God spoke to me in a dream’ is not the same as ‘I dreamt that God spoke to me’. Which is not to say that a dream’s message, whatever its origins, is always easy to comprehend. Mine, however, does not strike me as impossibly cryptic, al hamdulillah! Today is Ash Wednesday. The beginning of the holy season of Lent. Christian Ramadan, if you like. A preparation for Easter. A time for fasting, spiritual self-exertion and self-denial. But also a time of temptation. Amidst the fat cows, the hedonism as well as the horrors of our globalised world, it is easy t get lost. So, kind of suitable the dream began with the experience of being lost. The tall towers resembled a bit the description of the bizarre mud zyggurats of Sana’, in Yemen, about which I have recently read in Jonathan Raban’s Arabia. The futuristic skyscrapers are the sight familiar here in downtown Doha, a city in gestation, partly Manhattan, partly a building site. But what about the mysterious female, huh? Madonna-like. No hint of her name. So I’ll give her one. I shall call her Maryam. Outwardly similar to the many Arab women here, clad in alluring dark dresses, and ambling about leisurly in the big Western-style shopping malls. But she wasn’t like the others. She was different. Special. Very. As to the bird, well, that’s a cinch. Maryam gave me the clue. The hoopoe. And the Simurgh. A mystical creature, the protagonist of Farid Uddin Attar’s Conference of the Birds. One of my most loved – but also most disturbing – books. An allegory. It tells of the birds’ search for their king, the simurgh. In Persian, it means ‘thirty bids’. They only know he lives in a remote, faraway land. So they set off, led by the wise hoopoe. Hardly an easy, touristy desert safari as they do in Qatar. They have to cross endless barren wastes, climb formidable mountain ranges, fly over interminable, stormy oceans, dodge bandits, undergo tests and trials galore. Many birds lose heart, drop out, or are diverted by laziness, carnal temptations, foolishness. Others run away, or die of illness or are killed by brigands. In the end, only thirty birds reach the desired goal. They find at last the Kaf, the vertiginous mountain where the simurgh lives. And they are taken into his presence… I won’t tell you the conclusion. Which is not very satisfactory, anyway. Read it for yourself. The point is, I feel, that Lent is the right time to pause and reflect a while about mine and yours life’s journey. In Doha, London, New York, Banjul or any where else. Like a Shakespeare’s play, life can be said to consist of five acts. Some of us are in the second or third act, others play their part in later acts. Macbeth suggests that the whole thing is a tale told by an idiot, full of noise and signifying nothing. That is not religion’s view. Life is not meaningless. Despite the TV screen’s daily terrible reports of violence and mayhem, this is still God’s world. Created by the provident Creator for a benevolent purpose. Each atom, each particle of matter, each human person fits into that divine scheme. And Lent comes in handy for figuring out what role God wants us to play in His divine plan. In Attar's lovely story, each bird stands for different human types. Different characters and attitudes, as diverse as human beings are. Coward, courageous, decisive, shy, active, slothful, chaste, lustful, stupid, bright...you name them. The hoopoe is their guide, which is paradoxycal, as the point of the quest is that they do not yet have a leader, they are searching for it. And the sought-out king, you would have guessed, stands for the Creator. To tell a secret, the priest has already flown with the Simurgh once. Twenty years ago. On Iran Air. Airline that sports the figure of the sacred bird on its fusellage. Quite a flight it was, as the airplane cop somehow got it into his head that I was a British Intelligence agent. Which suggests that he wasn't very bright! Maryam. The most difficult part of my dream. All right, I am going to spare you corny references to Beatrice, Laura and that kind of poetic stuff. But as God's plan for man's salvation was effected through the agency, the willing submission of Mary, the extraordinary Hebrew maid from Nazareth, every human being's existence depends on woman. God indeed in Genesis calls Eve 'the mother of all living'. But woman's role certainly is not just physical or reproductive. Spiritually, the priest feels, her role is immense. Probably superior to man's. It would be unwise, nevertheless, for anyone to expect to find a Maryam amongst the women of Doha. Though so many look sweet and attractive and even beautiful, as the swish about in their long, elegant, silken black dresses, a husband's or father's sword is likely to be administered unto any male who was bold enough to approach one, however innocently. You just don't do that here. Oh, well, I shall just have to wait that a mystical Maryam finds me. And she might already have.... Now, joyfully to the hardships of Lent. To the greatest glory of God. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 292 11 February 2008 Rooting for Rowan: The Archbishop and the Sharia What’s wrong with me? I am in living in Qatar , not in Yemen . I mean, here there is no qat, Yemen ’s popular hallucinogenic weed. Yet, something peculiar is happening. I’d never, never have believed but…yes, I confess it: I agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury. He backs sharia law in Britain . You bet he isn’t chewing qat either. Still, he happens to be right. A friend even suggested it’s my influence. Well, maybe. The priest’s occult powers…even I don’t fully know them! It is droll to see how berzerk Rowan’s enemies have gone. Stoning, beheading, chopping off of limbs and flogging, he is calling for them, they scream. Even his druidical roots are mischievously imputed. (Groan… the priest himself has poked fun at Williams for that in the past: mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.) Didn’t his Celtic ancestors practise the cult of the severed head? Proof positive this Welshman hankers after the same, under the cover of Islam. Might as well charge Scot Gordon Brown with being a Pictish marauder at heart, or Texan George Bush with rooting for lynch law. A veritable apotheosis of missing the point – that sums up many people’s reactions to the ABC’s sensible remarks – in part. Truth is, allowing Muslims in England voluntarily to submit to sharia rulings in certain family and marital disputes is no more judicially enormous than letting Catholics ask the Sacra Rota ecclesiastical tribunal to annul their marriage. Or permitting Anglo-Catholic traditionalists to bar women priests from the altar. My good friend Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg could provide condign examples affecting Jews. Angry or anguished cries of ‘there is only one British law’ ignore these plain facts. The most rational comment I have come across on the web is that of an African Christian. He observes that in their African colonies the Brits always allowed ‘parallel universes of common and customary laws’. And that worked out pretty well. But never in England ! shout Islamophobes. Do they mean it? Unless they propose to boot out all Muslims from this sceptred island, as 400 years ago Spain’s King Philip III did with the Moriscos, how can they prevent this minority from enjoying some of its own religious or customary laws, if it so wishes? But what if religious rulings conflict with the law of the land? More about that anon. Meanwhile I note that the law of the land, like Heraclitus’ river, and unlike God’s law, is always in a state of flux. A church marriage was once prescriptive, now there is a civil alternative. Today capital punishment is off the statute book. Homosexuality was once a crime – now no longer. Ditto for same-sex unions. Whilst fox-hunting has become illegal. The priest does not pass judgment here, only notes. Parliament changes the law all the time, man! Of course, sharia law isn’t just about humdrum family disputes and jolly Imam’s counselling. It is a whole, comprehensive and total system, embracing every social, political, economic and personal aspects of human life. Guess that is what puts the wind up a lot of Western people these days. ‘Jesus Christ we have largely disposed of, are we now having to suffer Muhammad?’ our secularists moan, shaking with fear and loathing. For such people I have no sympathy. Also, in reality sharia isn’t monolithic. OK, the Saudi and Sudanese models aren’t quite everybody’s cup of tea, and that includes many Muslims. But in many countries, like little Qatar , the Sharia Court is only for domestic cases, family troubles, whilst state courts are fashioned after a mix of Western legal practices. The Qur’an officially underlies legislation, yes. Qataris, unlike many Europeans, are in no doubt as to their identity… The British Government, unsurprisingly, equivocates. ‘British law should apply in the UK , based on British values’, thunders Gordon Brown. British values, eh? Like what? Queuing, saying ‘thank you’ a billion times a day and being generally nice? A bit too weak a brew to work as the basis of a culture. (Note how the wily PM always keeps mum about that authentic English value, Christianity.) Anyway, his spokesman admits that legally ‘small adjustments had been and will be made’. Mini-sharia’s OK, in other words. Which is broadly what the Archbishop is pleading for. In other words, the government cynically fudges the issue. What’s new? So, dear Rowan, the poor priest defends you. But I ask you to go one better. As a leader of Christianity - please, don’t get nervous now – you must start beating the drum for Christian principles, too. There is something faintly comical about the way in your recent lecture you set yourself up as interpreter of sharia – leave that to Muslims to determine. But you can/ought to speak strongly about Christian law. Right to have 3/% of the population have their laws, but Christians are a bit more numerous than that in England . So we too must have our share. I bet you know what Christian law is. Wot! You don’t? Pulling my leg, eh? But just in case, let me remind you. The laws of Christianity are set out in Holy Scripture. For example, both in the Old and the New Testaments we find God through His chosen Christ, His apostles and prophets forbidding and blasting adultery and fornication. Sins also explicitly cited in Cranmer’s Anglican Prayer Book. So you must demand that the British state allow church courts to try such crimes and punish them. (No stoning, no. Maybe just a few pebbles, plus naming and shaming the reprobates.) Our liberal rulers won’t have it of course. They’ll get mad at you. Because church courts would conflict with their permissive, iniquitous laws. When then? Rowan, this is your chance. No longer the establishment’s bearded jester everybody’s takes you for, you will take up the mantle of Christian prophecy. Proclaim loud and clear, like our first martyrs did, that Christians must serve God rather than men. Oh, boy, how they will revile you! But at last you will truly become what you are meant to be: a leader of Christians. Revd Frank Julian GellI
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FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 293 24 February 2008 Doha Dialogue Vox pop has it that meeting a Qatari in Doha is difficult. So I must be lucky because a Qatari met me. ‘A’an idhnak… I saw you on Al Jazeera. You are a priest. I have some questions, if you have time.’ Indeed I did. Verily, today to be is to be on television. Being interviewed by Al-Jazeera TV last week did the trick. Such is fame. An immaculately clad man in starched white robe and red-checkered head dress introduced himself as Muhammad. In the City Centre, a five-storey mega-shopping mall which might as well be in London ’s Bayswater, given its disappointingly non-Arab hordes of shoppers. Ensconced on plush pea-green armchairs in the Café Richoux, Muhammad and I conversed amiably. Bespectacled and middle-aged cove, sporting a neat, black goatee, an interpreter and translator with a government department, he was not narrow-minded – ‘as a Muslim, I am interested in all religions’, he asserted – but also proud of his own faith. My bold claim that Cross and Crescent should not be enemies but allies, had intrigued him. ‘Friendship is fine. Friendship is human. But how can we be allies, if we worship a different God?’ His first question. ‘Our conceptions of God are not identical, true’ I answered. ‘Nor are our scriptures. But, speaking philosophically, of necessity there can only be One True God, however we conceive him. Moreover, we have been kind of allies before. Didn’t the Prophet before the Hijra send many Muslims to Christian Ethiopia, to enjoy protection from persecuting polytheists? His example proves it is possible to be allied today.’ ‘I see…but times were different…Christians today want to wage war on us.’ I shook my head. ‘Please, beware of the logical mistake to pass from ‘some’ to ‘all’. I don’t lump all Muslims with some murderous fanatics. Most Christians preach peace, not war. Besides, Church authorities are firmly against war-mongering. If anything, they are accused of being too pro-Islam. Just think of Archbishop Williams and the sharia…’ ‘What about the Christian Zionists? On Al Jazeera you said they are a heresy. Why doesn’t your church brand them that?’ ‘Only a church council can declare a doctrine a heresy. The Archbishop of Canterbury maybe should have a go. But the influence of the C.Z is vastly exaggerated. I can prove it. Their power supposedly comes through the Republican administration, the Neo Cons and so. Now, wait for the next Democrat US President. You’ll find him, or her, (la samaha Allah!), no friends of C.Z., yet just as pro-Israel as Bush. Maybe more. Hence the C.Z. make no fundamental difference to US policy towards the Middle East .’ He mulled that over a bit. ‘Why doesn’t Europe help the Palestinians?’ Actually a generous EU already hands out dollops of hard cash to the poor Palestinian Authority. But I reiterated my utopian proposal, boldly advanced in the interview: Europeans should invite both Israel and Palestinians to join the EU. Once inside, they would have to get along. Unlikely? Sure, but not more than any other arguably ‘realist’ solution I know of. ‘The Inquisition…’ God forgive me, that historical jibe prompted a bit of a tit for tat. ‘Hey, give me a break! Remember I am a Protestant. The Inquisition persecuted me too. You could say I am a fellow victim. They burned our Bibles as well as our bodies. Which forces me to put a question to you: why doesn’t Saudi Arabia allow Bibles into the country? What are they afraid of? Isn’t that being like the Inquisition?’ ‘They are Wahabis. I am not.’ ‘Are you a Shia?’ ‘No. I am Ahmadiyya’ he disclosed, somewhat reluctantly. Well, that was a revelation. A Muslim heretic! Because his sect has been declared non-Muslim in Pakistan . They are not flavour of the month in Islamic countries. But the priest did not wish to intrude upon private grief. ‘At least you know what is like to be suffer, as a minority.’ Muhammad assented, nervously, and went on: ‘We revere Jesus as a Prophet. Why doesn’t your church so accept Prophet Muhammad?’ ‘You should read my unpublished book on the Prophet! (No Christian publisher will touch it, alas. It’s dynamite.) But I shall not dodge a hard question. First, be aware that whilst ‘prophet’ is the highest title accorded to a man in Islam, Christians consider Christ much higher than that. To call Christ simply a prophet falls far short of what he is to us. It’s like calling the Pope an ordinary priest. Certainly Muhammad was a prophet in the sense religious phenomenology gives to the term. But I recall a R.C. prelate who during a conference in a Muslim country got carried away by interfaith fervour and let slip that he believed in the Prophet Muhammad. ‘Catholic bishop converts to Islam!’ the local press screamed. The Vatican was not amused… He enjoyed the story and pumped me up with some more excellent Turkish coffee. ‘On air, you explained how God can have a son. I did not understand it.’ ‘We believe God has a son because our Scriptures say so. It is a truth of faith. Further, as a philosopher, I do not place limits on God’s omnipotence. If God wills to have a son, then He can do it! And it is tied up with the Christian notion of God as supreme, divine love. It belongs essentially to love to issue in procreation, as any human parent knows. I do not expect these points to convince you. You would not be a Muslim if they did. Only hope you understand them.’ ‘I’ll have to think about that…but the Trinity? How could that be true?’ ‘Well, the great mystic Sufi Ibn Arabi defends the Trinity somewhere. He says that Father, Son and Holy Spirit mean no more than calling the One God also the Lord, the Merciful and the Compassionate, as the Quran does. Three names for the same Being.’ He looked doubtful: ‘You can’t use that argument for your Trinity.’ I pointed out Ibn Arabi did. But time pressed, as it is its habit. We got up, shook hands and exchanged cards and pleasantries. ‘Fursa Sa’ida!’ Happy meeting, he said. ‘As’ad’ I replied. Even happier for me. Revd Frank Julian Gelli
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FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 294 4 March 2008 World of Jinns Somebody is watching us. Right now, as I click away at my computer, and as you are reading this. We may believe ourselves to be alone. Actually, we are not. Because there is another world parallel to this world. An invisible reality to which we have no access, yet its creatures can and do enter our world. It is an unimaginably vast and unseen universe, its strange inhabitants innumerable. They are born, marry and are given in marriage, have homes, children, eat and drink, own property, animals…all that. Just like us. And, like us, they are rational beings. Hence they can choose between good and evil, and so some of them are good and others wicked. Some follow chastity, others practice fornication. Some have faith in divine revelation and some do not. Jinns. That is their name. So does the Qur’an calls them. There is even a Sura named after them – Sura Al Jinn. It speaks of a troop of these creatures that once listened to a prophetic recitation and finally accepted its high message. And so those jinns became Muslims. Jinns are, like men, created but, unlike men who were moulded from wet clay, their ‘matter’ is smokeless fire. Fascinatingly, a large body of legal rulings exists concerning them. The ulama’s large and detailed discussions range from whether jinns are material or immaterial, to their sexual habits and their property rights. Yes, because mischievous and randy jinns haunt the dreams of human beings and sometimes have intercourse with them. A scholar from a prestigious Islamic college, I learn, once found out that the woman to whom he was married, and from whom he had had ten children, was in a fact a jinnia. Whether that unsettling discovery constituted ground for divorce, I do not know. Still, let us not be gloomy. It is important to remember, there are also benevolent and beneficent jinns. Here in Qatar, in a place called Al Khoor, there is a house haunted by jinns, my driver, Zoogi, told me. And a certain lean, scrawny and moon-coloured cat which scavenges in Doha’s Al Fajma district is also suspected of being a jinn. To be fair to Zoogi, he is also a bit of an empiricist. He admits that ‘I have never seen a jinn’. Which introduces one little problem about invisible jinns - and indeed about any disembodied entities. What are the criteria of individuation, of identification of jinns? Physical beings can be seen, touched, smelled etcetera. That is, they are in principle accessible to our senses. So they can be recognised. When I shall meet Zoogi again tomorrow, hopefully I will identify him as the same Zoogi I saw last night because he will look like the same man. But how would I recognise today’s jinn as the same as yesterday’s jinn? Indeed, how would I count how many jinns there are near me now? One? Two? A thousand? Billions? If they take up no space, there are no limits as to their number. Such potential teeming of jinns would be immeasurably worse than any human population explosion. Jinn proliferation, huh, there’s the rub! Of course, a similar difficulty arose for the learned Schoolmen of the Middle Ages regarding angels. How many did dance on the point of a pin? The question vexed them a great deal. Oh, well, one day I’ll find time to read St Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, on this subject – I will then know the answer. Sophisticated Islamic thinkers may well pooh-pooh the whole matter. Relegate the jinn concept to the dustbin of mythological, pre-modern and magical forms of thought. It’s up to them, though I’d think applying such a reductive procedure to a verbatim divinely dictated text is tricky business. Were I in their shoes, I’d be cautious. I’d rather follow Karl Barth. In his massive Church Dogmatics Barth defends belief on angels. Despite the fact that trendy theologians ignore the lovely beings as passé. His argument is neat: ‘I believe in angels because the Bible says so.’ Too simple? But ‘simplicity is the mark of truth’, Barth might reply. Confession: I think I recognised a jinni the other night. Fear not, only a fictional one. I mean Heathcliff, the sombre, unredeemed anti-hero of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. As I was perusing the novel, it dawned on me that Heathcliff could well be described as either a jinni or as the progeny of one. Found wandering as a stray child on a Liverpool dock, a ‘little black-haired swarthy thing, as dark as if it came from the devil’, mouthing a ‘gibberish that nobody could understand’, Heathcliff is a prime candidate for the role. Charlotte Bronte herself, in her introduction to her sister’s great work, notes insightfully that his character was less a human being than ‘a man’s shape animated by a demon life – a Ghoul – an Afreet.’ Both epithets derive from the Arabic language, I note… Another, not quite bad but definitely mischievous and real a jinni, I guess, was a long vanished young man I once met in Prague. He did not exist, I later discovered – I mean, he was the person he pretended to be. For years I suspected him to be a golem – much more like a jinni, I now feel. A good jinnia, on the other hand, is likely to have been the blonde female tram driver who kindly assisted me one desperate night when I was lost in Dresden. A buon intenditor…poche parole! My good friend Shahin, a maverick Iranian, is a more difficult case. An intrinsically good and meek person, almost Christ-like, yes, but also a crazy, even dangerous character, on reflection. Maybe half human, half a jinn? And he looks like one – now I see it! Wait a minute…it has just dawned on me…what about the priest himself? I seem to hear a small voice whispering: ‘You too could be a jinni.’ That’s got to be wrong, I am sure. But, were it so, one of the nice ones, I trust. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 295 19 March 2008 Muslim Saint or Muslim Sinner? The execution took place before a jeering crowd. One chanting God is great and Islam is the solution. So they put a hood over the old man’s head and a noose round his neck and then they hanged him. On January 18, 1985 . Inside Khartoum ’s Kober Prison. Eye witnesses record no memorable last words. Only that the prisoner looked calm and unafraid, his eyes ‘defiant’. His name was Mahmoud Muhammad Taha. A Sufi sheikh. A mystic who had been jailed by the British in his youth, for fighting for Sudan ’s independence. One who had turned his two years’ captivity into a time of khalwa, spiritual retreat. A suitable time for meditating on dreams, visions and deepening insights into sacred things. (Feel my time in Doha is a bit of a khalwa, too.) Later small bands of followers gathered about him. He organised them into a republican party - a body advocating a socialist agenda but also a radically revolutionary, new concept of Islam. Which eventual led to his being sentenced to death. On charges of sedition and apostasy. To simplify. The sheikh argued and preached that the earliest parts of the Qur’an, the surahs revealed at Mecca , embody the purest Islam. Mostly spiritual, non-political verses. Contrariwise, the later, so-called Medina revelations, would display menaces, invectives, legislations, war regulations – much more coercive stuff, on the whole. Their content, according to Taha, is spiritually mixed and dated. So Muslims today should prioritise Mecca , not Medina . Because the Meccan revelations represent the real, deeper message of Islam. Warlike jihad and penal sharia rulings belong to the past. The time has finally come for a new, liberating stage in mankind’s development. Not a theology Islamic authorities would enthusiastically back, the priest surmises. But Taha also taught the total equality between men and women. So his movement was a champion of women’s right and inclusiveness. Female members were active on colleges and public places. In that, time has vindicated the Sufi saint. His garrulous Islamist arch-enemy, Hasan Turabi, no less, in recent years has recanted previous views and has gone in for an unprecedented out-and-out feminism. Sussed out which way the wind is blowing, eh? Taha must be smiling bit, wherever he is now. The sheikh was against the introduction of sharia in Sudan . Quite apart from the checks that stern code places on the female of the species, Taha argued sharia was unfair to Christians and animists, overwhelmingly the majority in Southern Sudan . He pointed out that bringing in Muslim law would antagonise non-Muslims, making them hate and distrust Islam. Huh! You know what? I am so friendly to Muslims, I like Islam so much, I hadn’t thought of that! But maybe the Archbishop of Canterbury might cogitate on it a bit. Community cohesion, interfaith relations, as the cant goes, might not do well under sharia. Just look at the popular & media reactions following his lucubrations. Does not augur well. Indeed, Taha broke many taboos. He urged Arab countries to talk to Israel . For that, his enemies vilified him. Spread rumours that he was a Zionist agent. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? But nothing could be clearer that one day Palestinians (Hamas included) and Israelis will have to make a deal. There is no other solution, is there? So maybe the Sheikh’s spirituality was not all that other-worldly… Do not, mind you, mistake the Sudanese Sufi for a Western liberal in tall white turban and jellaba. He stood for Islam and defended politics and theology alike in terms what is true in Islam. Guess he would have made an unusual Mahdi. Why did he not proclaim himself so? Perhaps because he knew how much blood there is attached to the figure. He was right to eschew any claims to that. On the other hand, visionaries like Taha are ‘damned’ by their friends. By which I mean liberal, progressive Western writers, journalists and human rights activists. People who – surprise, surprise – like the sheikh and his ideas a lot. They bestow on him sobriquets like ‘a pacifist Muslim’ and ‘the moderate martyr’. There’s the rub. If Taha’s spiritual, daring interpretation of his own tradition is to have any hope, it cannot not be seen as one welcomed by a motley crew that includes Bush, Blair, the BBC, The New Yorker, the EU, the Israeli government and Salman Rushdie. Is it credible young Muslim radicals and intellectuals would take Qur’an lessons from that lot? Their approval bestows the kiss of a thousand deaths. Consider, a Sudanese academic in the US who currently defends Taha and propagates his views is unwise in ganging up with…Irshad Manji! If there is anyone likely to be a red rag to Muslims…can’t think of a better candidate than sweet, deviant Irshad. Was he a martyr? His followers certainly revere him as one. And his killing was a judicial crime. The judge gave him no chance to recant, unlike the followers who were tried with him. The whole farce was engineered by the military ruler, Numeiri, an unprincipled dictator who had courted even communists to keep going. The sharia card was another attempt to hold on to power by pandering to Islamists. Years later Numeiri pretended to have offered Taha a way out while awaiting execution. Were that true, Taha would have behaved somewhat like Socrates in his last days – better being true to his beliefs than mere survival. Survival after death is what he would have believed in, anyway. In an interview, Hasan Turabi after the execution mocked Taha. ‘He thinks he is Jesus Christ’, he said, no doubt intending to make light of the dead man. A remarkable comparison, methinks. Because Jesus Christ, amongst many other things, preached a gospel of peace and did not kill anyone. Instead, he was accused of blasphemy, given over to a mob and judicially murdered. But, to the astonishment of even his disciples, he came back from the dead. Numeiri had Taha buried in an unmarked grave, fearful of any martyrdom cult. But I read that his disciples waited for him to return. He did not. He is dead. Are his ideas? Allahu a’alam. Revd Frank J. Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 296 27 March 2008 The Pope and the King Throne and altar. A hallowed alliance thought to be defunct. Killed off – or rather, drowned in blood – by the French revolution. But now resurrected, wonder of all wonders, thanks to Saudi King Abdullah and Benedict XVI. My nice local paper, The Gulf Times, reveals how, when Pope and King met months ago, they discussed an interfaith project of ‘ways to safeguard humanity.’ Abdullah praises ‘a meeting I will not forget, a meeting of a human being with another.’ Al Hamdulillah! It would be mean of me to observe that he could hardly have said less. Instead, it was generous of the Saudi ruler. Especially after the Holy Father’s ill-starred Regensburg speech. And those nutters in his own kingdom who scream that religious dialogue leads to the abrogation of Islam and the creation of one world religion. Guess the head of the house of Saud is far-sighted. He acknowledges not only the need for dialogue but also that the two faiths have common goals. So he rightly blasts ‘the disintegration of the family and the rise of atheism in the world - a frightening phenomenon that all religions must confront and vanquish.’ Huh! With that tough message, should the eternal Bin Laden ever succeed in subverting Arabia and exiling the King, Abdullah could easily get himself a job as preacher in an evangelical parish in the Midlands, believe you me. Still, as himself a former atheist (folies de jeunesse, je jure!), the priest won’t damn the poor sods too much. Theoretical atheism is largely a bolshie adolescent’s posture. With The Necessity of Atheism the young poet Shelley fancied he was shaking the foundations of society, instead Oxford University simply sent him down. His pamphlet reads like an ill-digested, pretentious undergraduate’s essay, a queer melange of Humean scepticism and Spinozistic mysticism. In the final section, Shelley decries belief in post-mortem survival. I wonder what our poet is thinking of that where he is now, if he has not perished… There is, however, another kind of atheism. I’ll call it a moral one. That exemplified by Ivan, he of that tremendous novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan does not, strictly speaking, deny that there is a God. He just wants to have nothing to do with him and ‘returns him the ticket’. Why? Because of innocent children’s suffering. A God who allows something so atrocious to happen is a deity Ivan Karamazov will not have any tracks with. A sentimental, mushy argument! Why should the torments inflicted on helpless old people in some sadistic ‘home’ be less theologically harrowing than those of kids? But Ivan’s reaction is morally cogent in relation to the general problem of evil. Why does a God of love allow the innocent to suffer? Christians still have to wrestle with that. Leibnitz’s rationalistic, clever theodicy does not quite satisfy. Islamic theology is, I believe, harder on this subject. Innocent suffering seems to bother it less. Wonder why? Iskander, shaqiqi, any thoughts? (One of my sharpest, relentless readers, folks!) A third type of atheism, very obnoxious, is a state or political one. China of course swears there is no religious persecution there but that is untrue, as any Falung Gong practitioner will aver. Moreover, both the persecution of Islam in Chinese Turkestan and the repression of culture and religion in Tibet speak volumes about the evil nature of Chinese communism. A true hero of our time is the Dalai Lama, a profoundly spiritual and non-violent leader. We must certainly include Buddhism in the wider religious dialogue. A faith I once flirted with, via Zen. I still believe Christ and Buddha have a lot in common, yep. China may mean big and lucrative business for the West but rubbish on that! I’ll be the first to boycott the Beijing Olympic Games. Athletes should not run on victims’ blood. So, it is good to talk & to act together, whenever possible. But serious confusions exist. The 130 Islamic scholars who wrote to the Pope, urging dialogue, claiming that the peace and future of the world could depend on that, meant well. They instanced trust in only one God and caring for one’s neighbour as key common beliefs. Goody. But don’t the scholars understand that the influence of the Catholic Church, or indeed any other church, on Western policymakers is virtually nil? The Holy Father can preach against wars but he can stop none. Why do they persist in mixing up the West and Christianity? Back in Victorian times, being an Englishman was synonymous with being a Christian and state and church were in symbiosis. To day, sadly, the British Government is an infidel entity. Ditto, in practice, for all the major Western nations. Muslim spokesmen should get that into their heads and not make the Cross responsible for the sins of a godless secularism. Which brings up another difficulty. The separation between Church and state in the West, one of our biggest unholy cows. King Abdullah, the unelected ruler of a theocracy, may find that a tad difficult to comprehend but, alas, it’s a fact. The ways of Providence, however, are wondrous, as well as infinite. In bringing the Church to such a pass in Europe, maybe God has given us a window of opportunity. In the past the Church could count on the coercive power of the state to back it up. None of that obtains today. Christians can only rely on the Word of God, the Gospel, and can only employ the powers of love, persuasion and good works. Surely all that is better, because much closer to the Founder’s teaching and practice. Saudi Arabia is different. Sigh...the religious cops may come along at prayer times and enforce observance by escorting people to the mosque even if they do not wish to go. That to me shows not a religion’s strength but its weakness. At least European secular society – I speak as its fiercest foe – still allows for the exercise of man’s freedom, the greatest of God’s gifts to us. On YouTube you can watch the King giving Benedict the gift of a diamond-encrusted sword. I think I heard the Pope exclaiming ‘St Paul’s!’ No doubt a reference to Ephesians 6:17 - the sword meaning ‘the word of God’. Let it be the best of all weapons. Revd Frank J. Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 297 4 April 2008 Fitna Trouble and strife indeed. Fitna, the short film in Dutch by Geert Wilders physically hurt my eyeballs, like a video nasty would. Some of it is so harrowing, I had to cry. An attack on the Qur’an and the Prophet, no doubt. Implicitly, however, Wilders provokes deep and hard questions for strong believers of any faith, including myself. ‘Happy shall be he that takes and dashes your little ones against the stones’ sings Psalm 137. The children of the Edomites, a kindred race of the Hebrews yet loathed by them, are meant. And, should you ever desire a warrant for genocide at God’s behest, just peruse the Book of Joshua, chapters one to ten and have your fill. However, hypothetical Mr & Mrs Cohen, of London’s Golders Green, do NOT go about gleefully praising those verses and even less urging their imitation. Ditto for the overwhelming majority of Jews. And I hardly need to state that Hebrew scholars do not interpret such passages literally. Indeed, Christian writers like St Augustine and Origen held that OT conflicts are symbolic of wars of virtue against vice. Christians certainly should understand them spiritually, not militarily. The NT Book of Revelation looks more challenging. Its cosmic scenario of strife between good and evil, culminating in the final battle of Armageddon, has been injudiciously invoked to buttress some human conflicts. Such as the now defunct confrontation between the Soviets and the West. Way back the priest protested against that lethal misuse of a holy text. To justify being willing to nuke millions of Russian civilians. I pointed out the key actors of Revelation are God and his angels, not the CIA or the SAS. The righteous suffer innocently. They do not go about cutting off the wicked’s heads. The mysteries of the book are indeed profound and still await full unravelling. St John’s vision is perennially valid. So Revelation has much to teach humanity. Because its pages are suffused with God’s breath. It does not enjoin killing but forbearance. Jesus’ message is one of peace. That did not stop philosopher Bertrand Russell from penning ‘Why I am not a Christian’. The Messiah’s blasting of an unfruitful fig-tree and his sending demons into a herd of swine which then rushed into the sea and perished would indicate he was not a nice guy. Huh! While bowing before Russell’s high logical and mathematical mind, I must grin at his religious exegesis. Wittgenstein was right when he sniggered, apropos such popular scribbling, that ‘these days Russell is not going to kill himself doing philosophy’. Bertie was a non-conformist, yet I surmise he judged Christ by the standards of a liberal Anglican vicar, with all his feebleness and stupidity. Jesus of Nazareth was made of sterner stuff. By the way, at some stage in his dotage, Russell actually advocated using the atom bomb on the Rousskies. Definitely not nice, that one! Adumbrating these matters with Sergei, a snazzy German lawyer, in a café in Doha’s fashionable Villaggio (an apotheosis of kitsch globalisation), he brusquely challenged me: ‘All very well, Father. But you are beating about the bush. Fitna is about Islamic violence, not Jewish or Christian. Where do you stand on that? Or do you just enjoy pandering to Muslims?’ Wallahi! Plain speaking, eh? Just to go on pandering. Fitna has an imam attacking liberalism and democracy as Western ideas. He was right. Indeed they are. Europeans have enthroned them in the place of the God of their fathers – a God whose very name our shabby politicians are ashamed even to mention. But, intellectually speaking, there is nothing self-evidently true or eternal about such concepts. And they represent only a strand of Western thought, though one currently all-powerful. What is more, the fruits of liberalism and democracy are not uncontroversial. The invasions of two Muslim countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, both flagrantly illegal and immoral acts, have been waged in the name of liberal democracy. NATO troops fight and rain bombs there everyday for, they say, democracy. And liberal Britain, the modern cradle of this gaff, and party political-crazy Italy, the countries I know best, are a mess. Soaring crime, drugs, abortion, alienation, rootlessness, immorality, religion in sharp decline, family in pieces, illegal immigration, youth adrift…geddit? Maybe it is time for those who think, and who are men and not mice, to put their heads together and to study whether a better system to manage society may not be at all conceivable – and desirable. Fitna also extrapolates ‘hard verses’ from the Qur’an and links them with violent and repugnant deeds, like 9/11, the beheading of hostages and so on. Extremist preachers and desperate men are portrayed as if they represented over a billion Muslims. Wilders has gone over the top there, and deliberately. He may well have wished for large-scale violence to follow, to validate his point. He knows there are thriving Islamic and ‘Islamist’ movements in the West, from Turkey to Egypt, that worry Western people and media and politicians alike. So much so the latter have all rushed, like Gadarene swine, to defend Islam against Fitna. With friends like those, Muslims do not need enemies… As to holy but hard verses. Jewish philosopher Martin Buber tells somewhere of a discussion he had with a very strict Orthodox rabbi over a passage in I Samuel 15:8-23. The prophet Samuel tells King Saul God commands him to wage war on the Amalekites. To utterly destroy them: men, women, children, infants, animals, the lot. That Saul does. He massacres the enemy. He only spares the leader, King Agag, plus some juicy animals. But Samuel hears God telling him he is angry with Saul, because the king has disobeyed him in not slaughtering everything and everybody. So Saul repents and, when Agag comes to Samuel, trusting in mercy, the Bible says: ‘Samuel hewed Agag into pieces before the Lord in Gilgal’. After much soul-searching and inward struggle, Buber relates, he told the wise rabbi he could not believe God had really dictated that awful action. ‘You don’t believe that?’ countered the venerable old man, with deep voice and terrible eyes. ‘What do you believe then?’ Again Buber hesitated, struggled with himself and spoke eventually: ‘I believe Samuel had misunderstood God’s will.’ The rabbi looked him in silence for a while. Then he spoke, quietly: ‘I believe that, too.’ Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 299 17 April 2008 I have not sinned enough Non ho peccato abbastanza. ‘I have not sinned enough’. Wallahi! A sentence to make you sit up. Worry not, it’s only poetry. The title of a stirring anthology of contemporary female Arab poets. Pleasingly rendered into Italian by orientalist Valentina Colombo. ‘I have not sinned enough’. Thus sings Lebanese Joumana Haddad. Her poem, Lilith’s Return, is wickedly droll. Lilith was originally a female fiend haunting desert places. (Isaiah 34:14, King James Version, renders her name quaintly as ‘the screech owl’!) Later in rabbinical lore she became the woman who deceived Adam. Haddad has her boasting of being ‘the dissolute angel, Adam’s aboriginal mare, seductress of Satan’. Her sexuality insatiable, she thrives on transgression. A supposed symbol of female liberation and a skilful manipulator of her lovers, Lilith voices a freedom independent of men’s desires – and of divine laws, I should add, but then demons are prone to do that, anyway. ‘I have not sinned enough’. Has Haddad ever heard of Carpocrates? Who he? An ancient heresiarch. Based in Alexandria of Egypt, the famed city founded by Alexander the Great, a celebrated seat of culture and learning, where East met West. There Carpocrates flourished, during the second century AD. Teaching an abominable and stupid ethics. Bet Lilith would have thoroughly approved of it. You see, Carpocrates got it into his head that the more sin, the more grace, the more salvation. So he set out to break all the 613 precepts and prohibitions of the Torah. Just think about it: from bestiality to marrying his sister, from tale-bearing to gorging oneself on swine’s flesh. It must have been quite a chore. However, at last having run through the whole sorry list, the fool must have smugly said to himself: ‘All right, I have sinned enough.’ Doubt he quite enjoyed the final reward, though. Sexual frustration seems to be one running thread through many verses. So the Egyptian Iman Mersal reproaches her lover. ‘You made me believe the world is like a girls’ school and that I should extinguish my desires, so to be the teacher’s darling.’ And she makes it clear she won’t. Her poem evokes violent fights with the male. A bit melodramatically, she threatens suicide but she ends up telling him: ‘You must die before me – the death of loved ones is a great chance to consider finding replacements.’ A novel thought, no doubt. Another rebellious voice is Saudi Fawzya Abu Khalid. ‘I have torn up my past heritage, uprooted the trees of my tribe, embraced the freedom of outlaws’. And she inveighs against the man who is nothing more than ‘the Sultan’s messenger, a pimp who extols the merits of the fruits of the Fertile Crescent’. Such lyric anger displeased the Saudi authorities. They did not appreciate her giving public readings, so allowing ‘strangers to listen to her voice’. Gosh, I can imagine worse sins than that. Subversive feeling is partly allied to technical revolution. Arab poetry goes back to pre-Islamic times. Rhythms and metre were governed by strict, unchanging formal rules. But in1949 Iraqi poetess Nazik al-Mala’ika broke away from traditions, advocating free verse. And she tackled head on the hardest question. Arabic being a sacred language, the speech of the divinity, that of the supernatural author of the Qur’an, any critique of its grammar could be problematical. Yet she accused Arabic of being the language of a people who ‘do not value women’. Proof? Arabic grammar prioritises the masculine gender over the feminine. Also, the Arabic word for ‘illiterate’ ummiya, comes from umm, mother. Etymological argument – tricky. In the entertaining War labours a lot, another poetess, Dunya Mikhail, shows herself refreshingly free from the stock pacifist language de riguer about military strife. Instead, she goes in for irony. And enumerates warfare’s hard-working deeds: ‘War – how serious – how active – how able…war is unstoppable, night and day. It inspires tyrants’ long speeches, bestows medals on generals and subjects to poets…war works hard, it has no equals, but nobody praises it.’ Delightful, isn’t it? I have not sinned enough makes for pleasurable reading. I mean this as a compliment. The priest is a hedonistic reader. He only reads what he enjoys. And much of this poetry strikes him as both good and enjoyable. Form and content often combine in a harmonious whole. As to criticism. Some will say I have the wrong glands to offer credible comment. Alas, I cannot help it. That said, I wonder whether it is self-evidently true that unbridled sexual freedom should be the summit of women’s aspirations. Islamists are saying that the infidel West is trying to use women as Trojan horses to penetrate into the sacred citadel of Islamic customs and mores, in order to undermine them from within. Sounds like the mirror image of the Western paranoia about young Muslim males in our midst being ready to become terrorists. Pious Muslims might well object that many of the women’s voices in this anthology are westernised, deracinated ones. Unrepresentative people, because alienated from their own culture. Or simply highbrow feminist viragos, incompetent to speak for millions and millions of ordinary Arab women. Normal women who would never wish to take harlot Lilith as a role model. Women whose chief, natural aspiration is to marry and form a family, have children and care for them. The notion that all that Arab females deeply desire is the freedom to have as many sexual encounters as possible is false. A fantasy. It is a projection of the decadent mores and disvalues affecting most men and women in secular western societies. A Satanic construct. Hence one to condemn and reject outright. Thus speaks my hypothetical critic. I have not sinned enough. A haunting title. Because, let us face it, sin attracts human nature. There would have not been any need for Moses to bring down the Ten Commandments from the holy mountain, had sin been per se unappealing. And, as the parable of the Prodigal Son teaches, especially the young are all too liable to err in that direction. But beware! Whether our Zeitgeist likes it or not, sin must be resisted and defeated. Hence the words of the Apostle still stand as a warning to all: the wages of sin is death. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 300 23 April 2008 Wickedness One ordinary day in sleepy Roman Africa, the great empire already sick with that decadence that would soon result in the sack of Rome by the Goths, a band of little boys raided an orchard and stole some pears. There was no famine and the lads were neither poor nor hungry. They had no material necessity for stealing the fruit. The deed was done simply for kicks. As children often do. One of the boys was called Aurelius Augustinus. Later known as St Augustine. One of the shapers of Western thought. Many years later in his Confessions the Saint writes at length about that apparently trifling prank. Not trifling to him. Augustine saw in it the proof of the dark side of human nature. Because the motive for the stealing was not any outward temptation. It lay in the theft itself. Pure, distilled lust for wrongdoing. That is why the boys stole. The action ‘was foul and I loved it…I loved my own fault’ he laments. Bertrand Russell, in his excellent History of Western Philosophy, upbraids Augustine for carrying on too much about his childish fling. The Saint was being excessively sensitive. Typical Christian hang-ups, things of that sort. But great minds detect the important even in bagatelles. Great souls like, say, Mahatma Gandhi. He too spoke of his own failings in ways the shallow-minded would think exaggerated and ‘morbid’. In fact, both the Christian and the Hindu saints realised that in order to treat a serious illness, a wise healer has to have a clear diagnosis of its causes. The poor priest’s sins are scarlet (well, at least his rants are read!), so he needs no personal pranks to agree with Augustine. But one hot day last month he visited the Doha Zoo. A pleasant and well-kept establishment. What? You feel I am a bit too long in the tooth to go to the zoo? How rude! Thing is, I wanted to see the unicorns. I mean, the famous oryxes. Maha in Arabic. Kind of desert deer. Nice, harmless beasts that have been hunted almost to extinction. The Qatari government has set up a natural reserve for them in the North of the country but the zoo was handier. I call them unicorns because a legend has it that their two gently curving horns, when viewed in profile were mistaken for a single one by ancient observers. Anyway, off I went to the zoo, saw the graceful maha, snapped pictures and that made me as happy as happy as a sand boy. Indeed, like a lively party of Qatari school boys whom I saw near the exit. (No coeducation in Qatar, sorry.) Like all school kids in the world they were fooling around a bit. I observed how some were intent on mocking, tacking the mickey, mildly tormenting, call it what you will, another boy amongst them. An African. Coal-black. And, to tell the truth, clearly effeminate. Camp. Both in voice and demeanour. Picture to yourself an Arab Graham Norton. I heard repeated a lot the word shaadh, ‘gay’. Actually, the kids were very nice. They liked my speaking a little Arabic to them and readily agreed to pose for a group photograph, along with their young teacher, laughing, shouting and pulling faces. All so natural. They may indeed have been much like the kind of boy I myself was long ago, in another time, another place. Or like Eton school gents. Or kids from any bog comprehensive in the Midlands. Each one of them was Everyman. Mountain out of a molehill? Don’t know. Nothing especially bad about those kids, got to make that ultra-clear. On the contrary, they were perfectly normal. And pleasant. But they also appeared, to me at least, to enjoy making their ‘different’ fellow pupil’s life a bit miserable. Why is that? The boys were Muslims. Islam does not believe in original sin. Muslim writers never tire to stress that. Fine. Any religion has a right to its own doctrines. I suspect, however, that Muslims, just like any other persons, lock their front door on going out. If human nature is intrinsically good, why do that? And why does sharia law prescribe draconian punishments like stoning the adulterer and cutting off a thief’s hand, if, again, people have no deep-rooted inclination to sin? No one has answered me that, yet. (Bilal, are you there?) Original sin, of course, is widely misunderstood. The Bible in Genesis has the Creator behold his creation and ‘God saw that it was good’. Hence the Word of God teaches original goodness, not original sin. That much displeased the philosopher Schopenhauer, a cosmic pessimist. He saw in it a mere Hebraic prejudice, a crude form of optimism, as opposed to the profound truth of our aboriginal failure. But sound Christian theology maintains both. Man’s original goodness is grounded in divine creation – a Scriptural fact. The Fall messes things up, that too Scripture teaches. How bad is the damage? Calvin believed that the sin of Adam radically depraved our nature. That is ultimately incoherent. A radically depraved mind could not even grasp the message of salvation. And it could only produce depraved thoughts. St Thomas Aquinas wisely interpreted the results of the Fall as having produced a dislocation of the human will, an inclination to evil-willing, not a radical corruption of our being. It follows we cannot lift ourselves up by own bootstraps, so to speak. We cannot will the good unaided. We need God’s grace. For Christians that culminates in the saving work of Christ – well, I’d say that, wouldn’t I? All that a long way from scrumping pears or ribbing a fellow pupil. But bullied children committing suicide at times. Small cruelties can be magnified in the minds of sensitive youngsters. That inclination to do wrong for the sake of it, for the sheer pleasure of doing the deed St Augustine adverted to for good reason. As to the treatment…it is called the Church. Not of course the ridiculous and pathetic and apostate Church of England of today. I mean the Invisible Church. The Church whose members are known only to God. Revd Frank Julian Gelli ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Turkey: Ragip Zarakolu Professional background
