"Most young people in Britain
think that morality means looking after your family or putting others
first". So says a BBC poll published this week. Almost 600 young people
aged between 16 and 24 were asked to choose which they thought was the most
important moral issue from among eight alternatives. 59% opted for caring for
the family: only 4% thought that having religious faith or beliefs was the most
important. A British Social Attitudes
survey published simultaneously suggests that less than a quarter of young
people now consider themselves to be religious.
Such figures must be read
sceptically. The questions devised by the pollster determine to some extent the
answers he is given. But if the figures give us a broadly reliable snapshot
then perhaps it's worth asking whether what they suggest - that religion is
barely esteemed among the young - actually matters. So long as the young care
about something other than themselves - and it appears that they do - then does
religion matter?
Unsurprisingly I think it does, and I
hope that my reasons for thinking that it does amount to more than either
professional self-interest or middle-aged reaction. I think that religion does
matter. It's not that religion is something that the young should take a
respectful interest in whether they like it or not, like they should maths
lessons or piano practice. It's not that I adhere to a species of religion that
holds that they are at risk of the eternal flames if they don't take such an
interest. Put bluntly, it's that I actually believe that, like eating undressed
salad and taking strenuous and regular exercise, religion is good for you, even
if it's often considerably less fun.
Why is it good for you? What is its
purpose? Most people would agree that living in denial of something is
unhealthy. Successive British Governments denied for twenty-three years that
the blame for the Hillsborough tragedy could be laid anywhere but at the feet
of the Liverpool fans. The consequences for us all of that denial will be laid
bare in the months ahead: in the anguish suffered by the families; in the
eroded trust between communities and police; in the dented confidence in our
system of justice.
Yes, denial damages, and the purpose
of religion is help those who practise it to live free from denial. For the purpose of religion is to
help its practitioners to understand who they really are. When Peter acclaims
Jesus as the Messiah he is making a claim about himself as well as a claim
about Jesus. He is acknowledging that God is God, that Jesus is God's Anointed
One, and that he, Peter, is one of those to whom God's Anointed One has come.
He is acknowledging his dependence upon God; he is acknowledging his need of
God's Messiah; and he is acknowledging his solidarity with the people to whom
God's Messiah has come. Those who live without religion are living, whether
consciously or not, with denial. They are living without acknowledging this
dependence, this need, or this solidarity.
So we're all right then? This is not
a moment for complacency. It is emphatically not the case that the
practitioners of religion have got everything sorted. Far from it. Peter
himself illustrates this perfectly in his very next utterance. He has, as it
were, taken the first tentative steps into religion. He acknowledges God. But
he also presumes to know God, and to know that God's Messiah cannot suffer and
die. In his confession of Jesus as Christ, Peter has begun the journey, but he
has only begun it. He will have to follow Jesus to the cross and beyond before
he fully knows what his confession means. He will have to set aside the notions
of Messiah-ship that he has long held and treasured. He will have to be led
into a wholly new understanding. He will have to grow up.
If the purpose of religion is to help
those who practise it to live free from denial then one of the most pernicious
forms of denial is self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is a denial of the
passing years; it is a denial of our inevitable ageing; and it is a denial of
the irrefutable evidence of our eyes, minds and hearts. If the purpose of
religion is to help those who practise it to live free from denial then it is
also its purpose to help them towards maturity. Those who live in denial of
their dependence upon God or in denial of their need of God often find other
gods to be dependent on or to need. But practitioners of religion often depend
upon the God of their childhood, or need the God of their adolescence. And this
is as unhealthy as living in denial of God. Like Peter, who cannot cope with a
Messiah who suffers, we cling to a God who is in reality the tyrannical
Headmistress who once terrified us, or the benevolent commanding officer who we
once respected. We long for a God who punishes us (or, sometimes, for a God who
punishes others); we long for a God who barks orders at us; we long for the God
we've always longed for, the teddy-bear God or the Darth Vader God, the God
who, whether he's an object of adoration or an object of fear, is the God who
has never left the corner of the nursery of our lives.
Religion requires of us a mature
understanding of the God revealed in Jesus Christ, a mature knowledge of the
God disclosed most clearly in the crucified prophet of Nazareth. Hand-in-hand
it also requires of us a mature understanding, a mature knowledge, of
ourselves. Religion won't let us be toddlers or teenagers once we've left those
years behind. Following God, journeying into God's mystery, means journeying
into our mystery. The purpose of religion is to help those who practise it to
live free from denial, and our greatest denial is our denial of our fractured,
fragile selves. Spend any time at all in the company of the living God and the
blind rage, the naked fear, the frustrated ambition and the visceral pain that
we all hold within ourselves become all-too visible. It's far easier to stay in
the nursery with teddy. It's far easier to deny it - but religion won't let us.
That's why the polls' findings alarm me. Religion is good for us. What will
take its place? Amen.
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