The Pandemic in the UK

2020 Day 71 of first lockdown (from my diary)

‘The contemporary Christian prophets had predicted that Brexit would result in revival. Yet there is still no revival. After Brexit was decided I’d expected the prophets (who are a kind of obscure interest to a few) to state that the LORD (note the capital letters they often use) would be pleased about the Brexit decision. None of that happened. Not a single one gave a message to say that God is pleased with the country’s actions. They are all on to the next thing and back to telling people to repent. It is disheartening. It is downright depressing. What is the point of worshipping a God who cannot be pleased? And now look what has happened.’

The coronavirus happened. Worldwide.

If the prophets had predicted it then they had been oblique. The most misleading prophecies, I guess, were those which said that everything would just get better and better.

There are some who say that the surge in interest in Christianity in the West and Europe is because of the pandemic. But if that is the case – why hasn’t it happened worldwide?

I remember the pandemic beginning because I had the second worst night of my life in a kind of feverish, hallucinating state. I had left the radio on and in the morning, after a hellish night, the news began to talk of an ‘infection’. It was announced by the World Health Organisation. And this announcement prompted the biggest world crisis I have ever seen. There is always a crisis, but most outward crises do not influence day to day life quite as much as this one. Whatever your views on the origins and subsequent reaction to the pandemic, it caused major disruption for so many. For me it was all abysmal.

Once again Christians were saying that the crisis would lead to a humbling and that from that humbling there could be a revival. But I wondered how. And I wondered why the humbling was necessary. Historically, was this how it had always had to happen? If nothing is impossible with God then why was the ‘humbling’ necessary? Because the danger was that a lot of people would die and we would still get no revival. The worst of all possible worlds. Reports began to say that people really were falling to their knees and praying more than ever for help. But still no revival.

Unless I had missed something, unless I simply did not see it, there was no awakening. I thought back to when I first began witnessing and seeking evidence for it, back to when I examined those library books. Was I being too pessimistic? The voices varied. There were Jeremiahs around, both believers and non-believers, and I always took notice of them. There were others who continued to claim that good things were just around the corner. There were some prophets who frankly seemed… dodgy.

I didn’t just read the latest prophecies. If there was something important, or obviously misleading, I would try to question. Mostly I was ignored. It was a minefield anyway. Occasionally there would be a tweeted reply. One popular prophet memorably prophesied at the start of the crisis that the LORD was telling everyone to take communion together every day. I felt it misleading because of the virus. The prophesies were a little bit like the childhood game ‘Simon says…’ in which you have to discern what is a true message and what is not.

I spoke with a close non-Christian friend about revival again and he, exasperated, said, ‘It doesn’t matter what you think!’. Because he understood that if it did happen then there would be huge changes on a personal and societal level. I was the only writer writing about the socio-economic effects of a revival in the UK. That people would lose jobs. That was not a deal-breaker for me. The deal-breaker was if people would die.

I spoke briefly to God about it all. I wrote a blog. But I found that no matter how much I racked my brains, I simply had no agency to bring it about. Always, the best answer seemed to be that the only way to bring it about was through repentance and prayer. And repentance in the sense of loving others more rather than simply trying to stop sinning. Or at the very least simply giving God the apology in prayer some of us think he owes us (and is unlikely to ever give us).


Later from my diary

‘As I write, we seem to be slowly coming out of the crisis. The Government has been a nightmare, apart from furlough. It has felt, to me, like the end of the world. Almost as if an army of demons are persuaded that these are the last of the last days. But how would they know? Even Christ seemed to blindside himself to the date. The prophets have been largely unanimous in saying that it’s not the end of the world. After all, certain other things are supposed to happen first. The Jerusalem temple being rebuilt and a handful of other things. More than believers say. But as I write I’m fed up and the lockdowns have been difficult. I’ve been fed up for a long time.’

It all made my brain turn to mush and I still wanted to get out and about and get alternative perspectives on something which most people doubted could ever happen... I got sick of thinking and talking about it. I wanted to experience it…

I also got Covid…

A Snapshot

 

2020

I was glad at first to see the two street preachers in the centre of town on a rainy day. I had a little time to spare that day.

I sat on some steps listening to the first preacher. He was a man with a bag for life, possibly in his fifties. I thought I recognised him from another place as the preacher who had managed to draw a crowd once. That is still rare these days. He had the kind of megaphone which was so turned down he may as well have just shouted. We shall call him Dull Preacher, grey all over.

Dull Preacher not only preached badly, he was also a little nasty with it. Nearby signs railed against abortion and homosexuality. He preached what he said was the 'whole gospel', except he left out the part which says that God is love. He didn't say anything illegal but railed at the people of the town as 'wretched, vile sinners'. He took particular pleasure in telling everyone that they were spiritually dead (why tell us then? We're all dead, how can we listen, how did we even get into town?). And that we are on our way to hell. The usual kind of thing which puts people off street preachers.

"I was meditating on hell this morning," said Dull Preacher. What a life. Was this a regular meditation? Was it particularly motivational?

For some reason his version of hell involved spiders crawling over his body or everything a person fears but an infinite amount worse.

It was the middle of the Covid pandemic (which I will write about next week), with the town under tier three Government restrictions, with jobs and shops going and a people suffering all around. Dull proceeded to say, "You are all under the wrath of God!"

This in itself didn't bother me too much as I believe in free speech and I know it is often said. Many believers think it is true. But Dull was so smug with it all. The people of the town resisted or ignored him. A couple sat in wheelchair buggies, one vaping, looking like they were with their grandchildren, all trying to keep dry with hoods. Dull did the usual thing of railing against 'false religion' including Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholics. Standard stuff. Boring. And quite prejudicial.


He was helped by another man, who we will call Red Jacket Preacher, although I want to call him something worse. He had been holding up signs which read, 'Babies are murdered here'.

I thought that maybe Red would be better than Dull. Red was an elderly man. Nothing wrong with that, except he hadn't turned into a fine wine. He seemed to have turned to vinegar. Red had been circling the people handing out tracts while Dull told everyone that we were all dead. In the interim between the changeover of preachers I saw Dull with his arm around Red, first laughing and then praying in public. In the middle of the street. It is common these days. Public prayer. Virtue signalling. The town seemed disinterested.

Red didn't use a megaphone. But to my horror he was even worse than Dull. Everyone in the town, according to him was much worse than a vile, wretched sinner. And by God was he determined to let us all know. He seemed obsessed with railing against adultery in particular.

Once again he preached how the town was under the wrath and judgment of God. But notably he did not preach the whole gospel either, by which I mean he left out the actual good news that God is love as evidenced by the cross. Both preachers lingered on and remained with the bad news and deleted the good news aspects of the gospel, namely God's love and mercy. It was the last thing a people who were desperate for love in a plague needed.

"In fact," said Red, getting a kick out of his task, "God does not love you. He despises you." Except unlike the revivalist Jonathan Edwards, who said similar things, Red was ineffective and his small, Covid-fearing shopping congregation only shook their heads in anger and sadness. What with the pandemic, Brexit, the poverty and everything.

“Oh you haven’t suffered enough yet. You’re going to hell.”

“I’m already there!” shouted one guy who walked past… a sign of life.

Awful.

And then it happened. I had been listening and did not feel too incensed, although I recognised that the preaching was particularly bad. Before I knew it, I had approached Red and stood in front of him. This is what I remember of the following exchange. Dull sidled in then, to prevent violence I suppose, or film the exchange on his mobile.

None of us were wearing masks, but I wasn't intimidatingly or illegally close.

"Can I help you?" Asked vinegar Red.

"No, I don't think you can. I just wanted to say that I think you should also preach about the love of God as well as God’s wrath."

Sometimes I speak too quietly and I don't think Red heard.

"How can I help?" He said, showing no intention or likelihood of helping in any way whatsoever.

I had been sitting listening in the hopeless hope of some miracle - or to intervene if there was an arrest, to keep even these bad preachers safe.


"I'm here to protect you!" I said, exasperated.

My outburst seemed to amuse him.

"Protect me?!" He laughed "And how do you propose to do that?"

"Which church are you from?" I asked.

"None of your business!" Replied Red, still smug and unaccountable. And I looked deep into his eyes and could see that he couldn't care less about me.

It felt rude.

"I'm a journalist" I tried to explain, "I'm here to protect you..." But I was becoming increasingly upset at Red's arrogance. A rude smugness I have encountered before in some Christian circles. It is a kind of sanctimonious self-righteousness which states 'God is with me in everything I ever do or say and he is not with you'. Dull listened in, too close in my face.

"SO GO OFF AND JOURNAL THEN!" Shouted red preacher, still laughing. And that is how I am currently obeying him.

"You have no idea." I replied.

I don't remember much more of the exchange apart from their hard heartedness.


I walked away. But not calmly. I was upset. I cried, too sensitive as usual. I walked through the rain, which mercifully hid my public tears, up the street away from the incompetent preachers. I wondered if I should go back to confront them again. But I felt too fragile to do so. Instead, I made an attempt to write up the incident, before the usual attempts at forgiveness.

I went back later, intending to either film them or conclude the exchange in a more adult way, but they were gone. Thank God they had backed off. The town did not need them. And neither did I.

Red and Dull, Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Later I did dig and find out who they were and which church they were with - but I do not want to identify them or the church because not all believers are like that and besides, I was being oversensitive. Plus, knowing my luck and their characters I would get sued, even with the journalistic defence of truth.

And up and down the country, this pitiful exchange was symbolic of the spiritual state of the nation at the time. Not only were we in the middle of a pandemic, we were in the middle of a decline. The opposite of a revival. Known in the dictionary as a declension.

Yes, there are actually words for almost every spiritual state you and I might be in. Even, for some, conviction periods, an intense time when you begin to doubt many things you used to believe and believe many things you used to doubt...

Brexit and Revival

2016 (From my diary)

‘Some Christian writers are suggesting that the vote for Brexit has resulted in the start of a revival. I somehow doubt it. Believers are divided on which way to vote but the general consensus from those who say they know how God feels over news events, is that Jehovah wants Brexit to happen for some reason. I am undecided.’

 

2017

In 2016 the UK gave its notorious vote for Brexit. It was a strange time and it was not a time when religion kept out of politics. Believers were divided on it. But for some it seemed as if God would only be pleased if we left the EU. Donald Trump earned similar favour with a certain kind of believer. There seemed to be such a deep-seated sense of alienation in society against both the media and the establishment. So, Brexit and Trump seemed to offer some kind of hope to many. Farage was having the time of his life yet again.

The idea was that Brexit would disentangle Britain from a corrupt EU and possibly, eventually, a one world government. But for many it was more about the free movement of others into the UK. Was that discrimination and prejudice or was it about nationalism? Or both?

Many US believers felt that Trump would speak up for believers and for Christian issues, including the issue of termination. But there was no unity in Christian circles on these things. Donald Trump polarised people, there were few on the fence. Even in Britain he had many supporters and opponents.

Brexit, according to some of those commentators, was supposed to result in revival. The LORD would be pleased and this was supposed to create an atmosphere for revival and open up the floodgates of Heaven. But by the start of 2017 all it seemed to have done was create an atmosphere for jingoism. Voices which had never been heard (or tolerated) began to be heard. There were strange winds of change, but that change was not a revival, it was a strange kind of limbo, a vacuum in which the loudest and proudest would have their agendas pushed to the forefront of the consciousness of society. Most of the noise came from the shallow end of the pool. The meek did not push to the front of the queue and were drowned out by the shouts in the confusion in Britain at the time.

 

An incident I witnessed in a town in the Midlands in February 2017 seemed to sum up the whole thing. In the town centre, next to the market place, a street preacher began to preach in the jaded old morning. He said, “Repent. God is loving, God is good. Surrender to Christ. It doesn’t matter what you have done, he will forgive you. These are the end times.”

And he repeated this message to the people on a kind of loop, sometimes changing the order of the sentences. I listened for a while, as was my habit at the time. Then I saw one of the market traders conferring with a security guard who seemed to be linked to the market stalls (it was market day). And the guard, a tall, well-built man with a wispy beard, went across to speak with the preacher (a much more vulnerable looking man). I filmed the incident on my phone, expecting trouble. After a few minutes the man was moved on. The market stall holder had given the security guy his orders and he had succeeded in moving on the preacher, even though he was doing nothing wrong and had not even been using anything apart from his voice. His voice was most likely drowned out by the market stall holder who felt that he was bad for business.

The security guard walked across to me aggressively, smiled as if he had done some deed I should be pleased with (or else the smile said something more sinister) and then suddenly swerved off centimetres from me. I followed the street preacher briefly and he walked out of town, preaching as he went. To him, of course, it was the end times, and such things were to be expected.

The reason this story summed up the times was because the incident was happening on a much larger scale in society – and not just to street preachers.

Traders of all kinds felt that Christianity was not good for business. And their voices were the ones that were heard. And maybe, for some businesses they were right. In the town market there was a resident fortune teller – she, a grey-haired lady who claimed to be the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter had been there for years. She actually seemed quite nice, had a right to be there and I considered going to her if things got really bad, although these days I rarely even read my horoscope. What would a revival mean for new age traders? Other market stalls sold drug paraphernalia, poppers and the usual. But even the more legitimate market traders seemed to fear that the preachers were bad for business. Bad for mobile phone cases. Bad for fabrics. Bad for all kinds of things. It was not as if many people stopped to listen anyway. And that, essentially was the trouble. As the idol makers in the book of Acts in the Bible objected to Paul’s preaching, knowing that his message would result in a loss of their jobs and trade, so the modern-day preachers (even when they preached outside the traditional marketplace) seemed to be a threat to the jobs of many. To those who manufactured arms. To the payday lenders and those who dealt in drugs. These voices seemed to prevail at that time. For the sake, of course, of freedom of choice. And on a macro level, those who criticised or who preached a message which reduced their trade, would be thrown out by the security guards. Guards who would smile as they intimidated and moved on the voices and witnesses in broad daylight.

In the false dawn of Brexit.

The US

Written on 15th September 2016. America. Virginia. Christian college - Regent campus.

Donald Trump is against Hilary Clinton to get into the White House, but sexism is still alive and kicking. I suppose the thing which has really interested me is the way that faith issues are talked about so openly in all the US media. It seems healthier than the UK in that respect.

I am sitting on a kind of picnic table on the Regent College campus where a friend works in the School of Divinity here. I have been lucky enough to have a holiday in America. It is a Christian college founded by Pat Robertson who lives in a huge house nearby. His house is protected by the police 24/7 as he has received death threats recently. He has employed his family to work at the TV station here - CBN, one of the largest Christian TV news stations in the world. In some ways it is like old Constantinople, and may be the closest I have been where a Christian community is in the majority, apart from Christian festivals and churches. As such, I am interested to see how the place feels and whether it really is the utopia I have imagined a revival might be.

I have been told that I have romanticised what a revival is. Usually, a person will romanticise the past but it looks as if I am perceived to romanticise the future. Not a comfortable place for someone with a pessimistic bias. If a revival is an abundance of Christians, then you could say that this Bible belt area is in a kind of revival. But do the believers also need to change their ways?

I asked my friend if things were better here. He thought that there were a whole new set of problems and that poverty and unemployment, drug use and alcoholism were still major issues. As if to bring this message home I was taken to a kind of faith-based soup kitchen. There was a service before the meal and I was asked to give a brief talk about my life story. I wanted to keep it short, aware that the congregation were hungry and had come for the clothes and food. As I spoke, I wondered why people were wandering around, talking and why there was some disruption at the back of the hall. It turned out that the microphone wasn't working and they had missed most of the life story. The story of my life. When the microphone began to work and I realised what had happened, I managed to say a few words about Christ helping me to be drug-free. I said that Jesus can make people's lives better and that when suffering we need gentleness and love. My nerves betrayed me and I had clutched the microphone like it was a cliff-top. It was the usual anti-victorious-Christian scene I am so good at. They clapped politely. Afterwards, the preacher went on too long and the people were hungry. I remembered Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London where he was so scathing of the do-gooders who made people listen to long sermons in exchange for food and accommodation.

I helped to hand out bread and vegetables tied together in heavy plastic bags, aware of the humiliation of being a black person accepting help from a relatively privileged white guy. The stained polystyrene roof sparkled with a kind of ironic glamour, like the glamour of the pound stores at Christmas time in the UK. One female volunteer at the soup kitchen said that there were miracles among the poor. But she was hunched and in need of healing herself. It was a rumour. A man named Ali, a thin black man with a face that suggested a life story better than mine, came for food.

"What is it like to live here?" I asked.

"There isn't that much racial tension or violence," he replied, before asking what the Queen was like.

But I only saw the poverty and contrast between rich and poor in this place. And as I write, on the Christian campus which charges students large sums for education, between Pat Robertson's huge house, TV station and college campus where he employed his family in what seemed like more of a business than a ministry. Perhaps it was a simplistic view - that the glamorous chandeliers and mansion-like staircases at the college were necessary to gain students, to get customers, to make money. That the nepotism was fair and right and good. I dont think nepotism is always wrong or a sin, but it can be if there is a more qualified candidate. It is so widespread in the world and the Church anyway. It was a simplistic view of a far more complicated reality, and yet I wondered why that view was always refuted. And seeing the contrast between rich and poor I concluded that yes, I really had romanticised revival. It was not what I wanted to believe. There were huge problems here.

"Why are Christians so weird?" asked a student at the college coffee store. And if I had dug deeper, if I had really, really dug deep, would I have found what I was looking for? 'Seek and you shall find' being a spiritual law. But I hadn't wanted to find a community which had so many problems. I had wanted to find, been seeking for, a utopia. And now I had to face facts. Revival is not utopia. There would still be great problems. And every ideal feels like that, like some kind of compromise or a lowering of hope. And that is hard. And once again the question:

'But would it make things better?'

A Buddhist Perspective

2015

Of course, there were other faiths which I didn’t encounter so much. I could spend 25 more years finding the views of so many other faiths. From animists to Mormons, I would be spending my life asking for new perspectives. It was confusing enough as it was. For example: ‘What is the view of those who are male family members of those who have spontaneously combusted before the age of 50?’ – a trite question like that illustrated the plethora and range of perspectives out there. Literally, every human being has an opinion on it – even if that opinion is ‘I don’t really think about it much.’

But there are other faiths which have significant memberships and which needed to be covered…

I asked a Buddhist what he thought about the subject… he was a convert and highly intelligent, particularly skilled in his knowledge of history.

James

“We don’t need a Christian revival... although you might. We need to work out where our future lies now that we are no longer the world’s pre-eminent power, and create a new social compact to replace the old one that broke down irretrievably in the 1960’s. The days of deference to the old class-based structure have gone, and with it came a challenge to all established authority such as the Church and crown. 

The task for all post-Christian nations is to work out a civil morality to replace a Christian one that most of the population no longer believe in. That is already happening, and Christian thinking will be a major part of it because it’s what we know. However, if the churches try to impose it then Christianity will be marginalised just as the old religions of Britain were when Christianity arrived on these shores.”

Do we need a revival? Or is it just a preference? There is a sense in which it is not absolutely necessary for some... but it is absolutely necessary for others. In some ways it can even be a life and death issue. There would still be bad news and awful things happening, but as very few of us have lived through a revival, it is hard to do more than speculate at this point. Perhaps a better question is 'Would it make things better for most of the people, or would it be better never to happen?'

But even those who are set against it might find some interest in the lively debates which would occur. At the moment, many of those debates (often online), tend to be grim, graceless flame-wars. Perhaps a revival would temper those wars and make them a little more enjoyable. Life, after all, would be hideous if it were not tempered by love.

Next week I will be changing the style of this blog and moving on to some wider unexplored issues.