Religion and Cocktails

I suppose it had to happen.....couldn't keep quiet about religion for long.

I'm having to do a lot of thinking about religion, fundamentalism, evangelism, conversion etc at the moment. I'm a member of the local Sacre group, a really lovely lot of people of all sorts of religious persuasions who are totally committed to giving the children of Norfolk as good an education about religions as we can. We meet about once a term and look at ways we can get schools to become more enthusiastic about the teaching of religious education. I've belonged to a multi-faith group before in 1995, in Newham, possibly the most culturally and religiously diverse of London boroughs.

So there we were, all of us, including Sikhs, a couple of Muslims,  a Hindu couple, Christians of all persuasions, a Buddhist, a delightful Baha’i woman, even a pagan,  meeting at the local methodist community centre, talking about how we could raise awareness of faith issues in schools and the borough in general. Quite suddenly, apropos of nothing at all, an Anglican Minister said, “Of course, you realize you’ve got it all wrong, only Christianity has got it right”. I thought it was a joke, surely in this company it must be: it wasn’t. He genuinely meant it.  I couldn’t believe anyone could be so crass. After a rather embarrassed silence the meeting wound up. I never went again.

On Tuesday I saw a news item about the Government trying to legislate against fundamentalist led terrorism and trying to pump money into Islamic hot spots. Outrage welled up within me, a feeling I’d not associated with the 10 o’clock news since the eighties! (Ever so sorry to those under 30, you won't remember Thatcher). I was furious that so called intelligent and informed politicians couldn’t see that it wasn’t Islamic fundamentalism we should be afraid of, it was any religious fundamentalist. My mind went back to those horrific days when an ex alcoholic bigot was the most powerful single person on the planet. I remembered with deep embarrassment that it became acceptable to be a “creationist thinker” (surely a contradiction in terms) and that it became mandatory in some states to teach Intelligent Design.

It seems to me that instead of being afraid of Islamic fundamentalists, we should be afraid of unthinking acceptance of any religious dogma when it obscures our basic human glories of compassion, care, acceptance of others, and a readiness to consider that we may need to think about what once we accepted as “revealed truth”.

My eleven year old daughter at the moment is having to sing some songs in assembly which, while not out of place in a Baptist church, are quite questionable in a state primary school. The same school has started a Fish Club. This looks at Bible stories, is run by a "born again" Christian and is advertised widely in the school. I have this virtual sister school in Forest Gate where the local fundamentalist Imam sets up a club…… yes, precisely.

As Pilate once said “What is truth?” I don’t know, I DON'T KNOW, but I hope we would accept that, from our incredibly myopic view of our astonishingly complex universe, there are many truths.

Incidentally, I questioned my daughter about what she thought religion might be. Almost verbatim, these are her words:

“ I think human beings like to make sense of things. I think religions are the stories they tell when it gets too complicated for thinking. Because there are different groups of people all over the world, there are bound to be lots of religions.”

Thank you Sue, for encouraging the children in your care to think!




Cocktails: So many from Harvey Wallbangers to Caipirinhas. We all have our favourite. All seem to make the world a happier place.
Religions: So many from Hinduism to Atheism. We all have our belief. All should make the world a better place.


Cheers!