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~ Posted by Robert Butler, December 29th 2011

A citizenship survey in the news the week before Christmas showed that Christians in Britain are much less likely to attend a place of worship than followers of other faiths. I have an idea why. On Christmas Day I went with a relative to a parish church for Eucharist. There were about 60 people in the church, mainly adults, some children. The vicar arrived a little late and apologised because this was his third service that morning. 

Then, in his friendliest way, he asked us if we knew whose birthday it was. That bit wasn't surprising. Anglican vicars are well-known for their chumminess. The vicar looked around the congregation and a mother in the pew in front of me held up her one-year-old daughter. I was just about to lean forward and say that I thought the vicar might have Someone Else in mind, when the vicar went, "Yes, it's Lucy's birthday!"

So the first thing we did at Eucharist on Christmas Day was sing "Happy birthday dear Lucy happy birthday to you." The words didn't come very easily. We were there to celebrate the birth of the Son of God 2000 years ago. As I understood it, God had sent His Only Begotten Son from heaven to earth to save the world from sin. It was a pretty big deal. The village service didn't have to be overly solemn, but a sense of the sacred would have been in order. Half-way through "Happy Birthday" the one-year-old turned and looked at me, so I joined in. After that, the vicar asked the congregation what Santa had brought them for Christmas.

 ~ Posted by Robert Butler, December 27th 2011

In a 21-minute radio interview (the highlights were broadcast today) the Archbishop of Canterbury discusses Dostoevsky with the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall. Three years ago, Dr Rowan Williams wrote a book about the 19th-century Russian novelist, in part, he says as a reaction to the attacks on Christianity by Richard Dawkins and others. The Archbishop felt that when he spoke to atheists about faith they seem to be talking about something very different to him. In their eyes, faith was seen as "a rather second-rate theory to explain why the world is the way it is or a second-rate psychological crutch for people who can't bear the weight of reality". 

Dostoevsky wrote that if you tried to get a group of people to agree that two plus two equals four, they were almost bound to say "why not five?" There was something stubborn and perverse in the human imagination that wanted to go beyond the obvious. Dr Williams says, "I turn to Dostoevsky and think, well that sounds more like what I think faith is than what Richard Dawkins thinks faith is."

Eighteen minutes in, Dr Williams sums up the connection between fiction and faith, 

Fiction helps you to understand that whatever the principles, whatever the sort of standing rules and perspectives on the moral and the spiritual life, human beings are every bit as unpredictable as Dostoevsky sets out, that they resist rational cataloguing and categorisation, and they often resist reasonable solutions. And you don't begin to understand humanity unless you understand that thread of wildness that's in it all. 

 

 

 

Penis jokes are a hoary chestnut of the stand-up comedian. Ever hear the one about the Catholic who converts to three different branches of Judaism and—surprise!—gets circumcised anew each time? You will if you go see "Circumcise Me", an autobiographical one-man, off-Broadway show by Yisrael Campbell.

Yisrael—Chris to his friends back in Penn-Wynne, Pennsylvania—has been telling the true story of his conversions and genital depredations for a few years now, mainly through a club stand-up routine. "Circumcise Me" is a wider project, his first aimed at a general audience, which weaves the wince-inducing aspects into a larger meditation on spirituality, alcoholism, Middle East politics and life in Florida. Dressed, as he puts it, “for 17th-century Poland” (black hat, black coat, beard and peyot, or religious side curls), Campbell is surprisingly nonplussed for someone who has just made the jump from playing events at Jewish community centres to an extended run off-Broadway.

After a show one night, Campbell sat down with More Intelligent Life to answer a few questions about jokes, Judaism, faith and cheeseburgers.

More Intelligent Life: I’ve seen your stand-up act (in the Berkshires). This is your first one-man show, and it has a lot more sadness and drama. Have you recently been exploring your emotional side?

Yisrael Campbell: I’ve been doing for years the hour of stand-up you saw. I wanted [this show] to be more relevant to both Jewish and non-Jewish groups. I picked up a producer along the way, and she sold me on the idea that it had to be a piece of theatre. Unless your name is Jackie Mason, people want to see a dramatic arc.  read more »

Trinity College recently released its 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), which revealed a steady rise in the ranks of non-religious Americans. One of the country's largest ever surveys of faith and belief, the latest ARIS found the percentage of Americans who don't claim a religious identity climbed to 15%, nearly double the number reported in 1990.

“Many people thought our 2001 finding was an anomaly," observed Ariela Keysar, who conducted the survey with Barry A. Kosmin. "We now know it wasn't. The 'Nones' [non-religious people] are the only group to have grown in every state of the Union."

According to the 2008 survey:

Only 1.6% of Americans call themselves atheist or agnostic. But based on stated beliefs, 12% are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unsure), while 12% more are deistic (believe in a higher power but not a personal God). The number of outright atheists has nearly doubled since 2001, from 900 thousand to 1.6m. Twenty-seven percent of Americans do not expect a religious funeral at their death.

 read more »