I hope by now that I have at least convinced the reader that I believe that the danger threatening Christianity is irrelevance, unless it at least learns to support the secular State; it must do that, even if it cannot create a world view. The danger facing Islam is a descent into barbarism, unless it disowns the suicide bomber. To illustrate the gulf that exists between the clergy’s official orthodoxy and the congregation’s unreasonable pedantry, may I tell the following story? The church where I worshipped for 30 odd years only had a congregation of about 10 by the end; so most of us were on the Church Council. At one Meeting we complained that when the lay-reader took the service, she was not allowed to consecrate the wine; we only got the rice-paper wafers. We made no complaint about the lay-reader; she preached very well, better usually than the clergy. And there was much to be said for our complaint, in that Article 30 of the 39 Articles says, “The cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-people”. Both parts of the Sacrament should be ministered to everyone alike. Now every clergyman in the C.of E. has subscribed to the 39 Articles at some time; it is the fundamental document of our Protestant Religion. A clergyman who has not subscribed to them, or who is unwilling to do so, should go and become a papist. That of course would normally mean losing his job, and being unfrocked. Undeterred by that somewhat unpalatable sanction, we were told that the whole tradition of the Church stood in our way, there were insuperable difficulties in transporting consecrated wine from one church to another, but we need not worry because on each wafer a drop of consecrated wine had been dropped, so we were getting both bread and wine! For good measure, we had to listen to a sermon that his turning the bread and wine into the very body and blood of Christ, was a greater miracle than all Jesus’ healing miracles put together. It seemed to me that this was a proposition so preposterous that the same day, or possibly the next day, I wrote the following essay.
Nothing is sacred nowadays. The thief and the hooligan have at least taught us that. The collection plate at church is a legitimate object of theft, if the congregation is so foolish as to leave it unattended for a moment. Any suggestion that a vandal should respect church property, is met with abuse. If anyone says they are without sin, and are not responsible in any way for the ills of society, the standard response in polite society is to roar with laughter. So when the clergy tell us that the Eucharist is the most perfect miracle, transcending all Christ’s healing of the sick, in that it changes the bread and wine into the very body and blood of Christ, is this most profound mystery, or is it dangerous farce? It is a dangerous claim; it ignores the blatant science that nothing material changes when the consecration takes place.