meek gospel of Christ, which urged men to turn the other cheek, was enforced by an Inquisition that persecuted on a scale, and with a cruelty, if Gibbon in his Decline and Fall is correct, that vastly exceeded the relatively modest persecutions of the Roman Emperors. The clergy, inheritors of this fearful history of sin, find it hard to adjust to their role in modern society of being club secretary and repository of sound doctrine, together of course with their duty to administer the sacraments, baptise the young, counsel the grown-up if they have the experience, and comfort the dying if they have the compassion.
What is the effect then of the clergy neglecting their primary duty through the ages to be the servant of all, and choosing. instead to come between God and his people? Well put figuratively, if one wants to imitate Christ, one puts on his spirit and asks oneself, “How on earth do I cope with this problem”? One does not put on man's spirit and ask, “How would Christ have coped with this”? One has to live one's own life, and not someone else's at second hand. But as Christ is no longer alive in the visible tangible world, it is no good speculating on what his consciousness was like, or would be like in the different social conditions prevailing today. A Christian, if he wants to behave with the courage of Christ, must seek the perfect consciousness of God through direct access to him, through prayer. There is no other way open to him. This is so whether God exists or not; the only way is through a sense of communion, whether this in-dwelling is truth or fantasy. This is exactly what the clergy have been determined to prevent the man-in-the-pew from doing, throughout history. In other words, through the ages the clergy (consciously or unconsciously it does not matter) have deprived the man-in-the-pew of the courage to act courageously. Dependant as they are on the laity, they have systematically disarmed the laity in the face of the enemy evil; and one is reminded of the imagery in the last chapter of that wonderful book, Piers the Ploughman, in…