Tony Blair's lacertilian* press secretary, Alastair Campbell, once remarked that the Labour government "didn't do God", even though Blair himself famously did, often giving the impression that his most controversial decisions had been taken after direct talks with the Almighty.
The problem with God, of course, is that whether you "do" him or not, he never seems to give up and go away. Especially at the Christmas season, He seems to bring confusion both to those who would rather not acknowledge even the possibility of his existence, and to those who aren't quite sure what to make of Him. Thus, in The Times for December 26, we saw a quite remarkable juxtaposition of stories.
The main headline on the front page of the paper was 'Archbishop under fire for "political" riot sermon'. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, had chosen to use his Christmas Day sermon to link last summer's riots in London and elsewhere with the activities of City speculators: "The most pressing question we now face, we might well say, is who and where we are as a society. Bonds have been broken, trust has been lost....Whether it is an urban rioter mindlessly burning down a small shop that serves his community, or a speculator turning his back on the question of who bears the ultimate cost for his acquisitive adventures in the virtual reality of today's financial world, the picture is of atoms spinning apart in the dark".
Just a couple of weeks ago, PM David Cameron, who by his own admission "does God" a whole lot less than Tony Blair did, had taken it upon himself to call for a return to Christian values in Britain, calling on Archbishop Williams's Church of England in particular "to help shape the future of our communities". Dr Williams may well have intended his Christmas sermon to take up that challenge; if so, he will have been disappointed by the reaction. Though the government itself has refrained from commenting, a Tory MP, Gary Streeter -- who is, rather surprisingly in the circumstances, a Christian himself -- pronounced that "The Archbishop of Canterbury is on safer ground when he sticks to moral and spiritual issues. He would be wiser to leave the politics to the politicians and focus on giving us much-needed spiritual leadership". Turn that on its head and it reads remarkably like an admission that there is no morality in politics, which rather proves the Archbishop's point.
The rest of the media paid little attention to this spat, preferring to focus on the Duke of Edinburgh's stent and the Downton Abbey Christmas special. The fact that The Times made it the lead story for the day perhaps permits us to draw the inference that the paper agrees that Dr Williams and his ilk should butt out of politics. This makes the editorial that appeared on the very next page of the paper all the more surprising.
The editorial was titled "Darkness at Christmas: China's communists appear intent on snuffing out the growth of Christianity." This is, as you would surmise, a robust criticism of the Chinese government's attitude to the rapid growth in religious practice in the country. A couple of extracts will give the flavour: "The party sees religion, and Christianity in particular, as a threat because it worries about the existence of a rival organisation whose members have a different loyalty and are guided by priorities set by others". And "The real problem for China, as it was for the Soviet Union, is the growing cynicism and spiritual vacuum in public life. This makes it increasingly difficult to underpin standards of ethics or to enforce respect for social norms".
Substitute Britain for China in that last quote, and it would have slotted seamlessly into Dr Williams's speech, whereupon The Times would presumably have seen fit to refute it on the front page! There is, of course, an explanation for this glaring inconsistency: The Times is now by far the most pro-Cameron newspaper in the UK, and seems increasingly unwilling to brook any criticism of him, even from the head of the established church.
* You can probably guess, but if you can't....look it up!
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