religion

ONE BIRTHDAY IS ENOUGH

Robert Butler — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:15:49 +0000

~ 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.

THE THREAD OF WILDNESS

Robert Butler — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 12:42:07 +0000

~ 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.

A CATHOLIC READING LIST

Bruce Clark — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 03:39:13 +0000

On the eve of the pope's visit to Britain, The Economist's religious-affairs correspondent suggests some lofty reading material ... read more »

OF MYTHS AND MUSEUMS

Natasha Lennard — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 06:02:45 +0000

In honour of Charles Darwin's birthday, Natasha Lennard reports from a creationist museum in rural America ... read more »

FAITH EQUALS FERTILITY

Anthony Gottlieb — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:56:22 +0000

Religious people have more babies than non-believers--and not just for the obvious reasons. Anthony Gottlieb looks into a philosophical puzzle ... read more »

THE NAMESAKE

Anand Prakash — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:51:43 +0000

A SCEPTIC'S PILGRIMAGE | May 9th 2008

Pingu1963/Flickr

A cranky cynic, Anand Prakash didn't know what to expect from his summer of ashram-hopping. But he found something unexpectedly heartening in the story of Anandathirtha, a formidable monk and his namesake ...

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE read more »