FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - God & the British Elections

Rant Number 395 4 May 2010

‘I am from the...Party’ announced the weedy young man who had rung my doorbell.

I gave it to him straight: ‘I am opposed to your party’. ‘Why?’ he asked.

‘On theological grounds’ I informed him. He gaped at me, aghast, as if I was a Kalashnikov-toting Taleban and disappeared.

I felt really good about that. The priest little, modest contribution to ‘future civil unrest’, as Lord Ass might term it. Goody.

Lord Ass is actually Lord Justice Laws, a jolly-looking, moon-faced Englishman. The Times reports that Laws has just dismissed requests like that of Lord Carey, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury. Complaining about a series of court rulings against Christians, Carey had argued for specialist panels of judges to hear cases of conscientious religious belief. Such an idea would be ‘irrational’ and lead to a ‘theocracy’, Lord Ass affirmed. That senior religious clerics should have intervened in the debate was ‘illuminative of a future social unrest’. Would it? Really? Wow! Yippee! That’s super! Allahu Akbar! The priest’s dream ticket. Long live the theocratic revolution! Three times insh’allah to that!

The law is an ass, a Dickens character states somewhere. Fits this case like a glove. This particular Ass has particularly picked on Christianity, accusing churchmen of seeking to elevate its status above other faiths. Hardly so – ministers of other religions have concerns similar to Carey’s & conscientious exemptions are all Christians ask for - but, pray, consider. England has a Church by law established. Part of the British constitution, so much so that Anglican priests on being ordained have to swear allegiance to the Queen. 27 bishops – the Lords Spiritual – sit by right in the House of Lords. The monarch is the Anglican Church’s Supreme Governor. Every British coin bears the initials ‘FD’, Fidei Defensor, Defender of the Faith. And all the British monarchs since the XVIII century have to swear to uphold the Protestant religion. Lord Ass however doesn’t give a damn. He sets all that at nought. All subjective, outdated rubbish, he holds.

Very well. Let us then disestablish the Church of England. Toss out the bishops out of the House of Lords. Strip the Queen of the Defender of the Faith title – struck it off coins, too. Let us be thorough about it. And what are those gorgeous religious paintings, representations of saints and martyrs, doing in the lobby of the Houses of Parliament? Let us paint them over. Oh, as we are on it, let us also bin the national flag. You see, the Union Jack consists of not one but three crosses – St George’s, St Andrew’s and St Patrick’s. Let us scrap all that ‘irrational’ symbolism. Replace the crosses with the figure of a braying ass – well, why not? This is indeed the time of the idiot, the ass – the perfect icon of the spirit of our age.

The ass is now England’s hero. It figures. God – the object of theology (theos-logos) – is missing from our politics. God is the Absent One in these pseudo-historical elections. The way it ought to be, the ‘enlightened’ will gloat. Brown, Cameron and Clegg – the leaders of the three main parties – are at one on that one. They steer clear of God. True, on Sunday Brown, the scion of a Presbyterian minister, was haranguing the faithful of a black church about justice, dignity & blah, blah, blah. Why didn’t some nice black lady hit him over the head with her Bible? The sod’s party has harmed Christianity more than a horde of Red Chinese invaders would. It just shows you what a bad idea married clergy is, if creeps like Brown are the result.

Tory David Cameron has bleated a little about ‘values’. That’s bleating in the right direction but you can bet your boots it’s hot air. Values? What values? The Big Society? An inane slogan. Who’d ever want a Small Society? The Stupid Party, the Tories used to be called. And Anglicans were ‘the Tory Party at prayer’. Today they both are the bland, barely-praying air-heads. Besides, beware their dodgy tax plans...aarggh!

Nick Clegg...oh, yes. The Liberal-Democratic Messiah. (Doesn’t sound quite right, eh?) He was hailed like one, at least a few days back. The Saviour nearly bankrupt Britain is waiting for. Amazing grace. Hail, Nick, hail! Save us! Kill the Talebans for us! More popular than J.C., as the Beatles once boasted. Quite hysterical. Look, Nick, I have got a piece of advice for you. If you really want to be a Messiah, just get yourself scourged, crucified, die and then, three days later, rise again. That should do the trick. Otherwise...you are busted flush, sorry.

Even British Muslims, I have to say, have failed. I mean, Islam’s contribution to the political discourse has been nil. Constantly moaning and bewailing Islamophobia isn’t quite it. Certainly, not the caliphate. Despite the occasional rhetoric, official Muslims leaders are happy to feed on the crumbs the Establishment tosses them. One distinguished Muslim personality confided to me: ‘Oh, no, Fr Frank, we don’t want to rock the boat. Muslims must prove they are good citizens. Labour has given us quite a few perks. Any government will follow suit. We are doing very well as it is....Iraq and Afghanistan? Oh, water under the bridge, really...’ Guess the guy looks forward to a peerage. Thirty pieces of silver must have some appeal...

Dr Rowan Williams, the current Canterbury incumbent, has warned the three leaders not to play the ‘immigration card’. He could say no less. The Church must speak out for the weak and the powerless but a) none of the three parties could actually do a sausage about immigration, even if it wanted to, and b) you could argue the right of the Christian conscience not to be downtrodden by our now neo-pagan rulers should also be a high priority for Rowan. The priest prefers him to Carey – an out and out disaster when he was in office – but Rowan is too timid, alas. His remote predecessor, St Thomas Becket, should be his standard and exemplar. Stand up to the neo-pagan Moloch, Rowan, and I’ll be with you. If not, not.

‘We don’t do God’. A notorious remark. By Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s chief black arts master. One shared by our political asses. But

chaps, beware! If you don’t want to do the Living God, he will eventually do you.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli