by Peter Mullen, TCW
OK then, I own up. I am a Christian – admittedly a poor specimen of that company. Worse, I am a High Church of England priest and have been since 1971. It gets even worse. I am a traditionalist, an old ecclesiastical fart, a reactionary devotee of the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. Bear with me, please, for there is worse to come. I don’t believe in moral progress. Instead, I believe in Original Sin. Why believe something so idiotically medievalas that? Because it’s the only doctrine I can’t doubt. I can doubt all the others such as the miracles, the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, but I can’t doubt the fact of Original Sin because I know I am infected by it. And St Paul has spelled it out for me in 15 words of one syllable so that even a modern bishop could understand: ‘The thing I would not, that I do; and what I would I do not.’ That’s me to a T. And I guess it’s true for you too. Though I am not the sort of priest who wants to ram religion down your throat – or through any other orifice.
I don’t believe what the Beatles used to sing – that we are ‘getting better all the time’. The Middle Ages were a picnic compared with modernity: For instance, there were more killed in the wars of the 20th century than in all the previous wars put together. I’m afraid I don’t have the fashionable virtue of self-esteem which the Daily Mail tells us we ought to cultivate. For I know that myself is the last person I should esteem. I don’t believe in that other fashionable virtue, ‘equality’, either: for I know I can’t run as a fast as an Olympic sprinter, sing as beautifully as Bob Tear used to do or write like Jane Austen. But I do believe that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and that he is with me in the Holy Communion.
All right, I’ll come clean . . . We were in the pub, it wasn’t early and we had imbibed more than the whiff of the barmaid’s apron, but I admit I was a bit put out when my RC priest friend said: ‘You Anglicans believe that the consecrated elements at the Eucharist are only symbols of Our Lord’s body and blood, don’t you? We Catholics hold to the ancient and traditional doctrine of Transubstantiation.’ (I swear I could hear his capital ‘T’.)