Sorry to start the day by banging on about God again, but one of the first messages I got via social media this morning was to advise me ‘Christ is risen‘. Given my relatively limited grasp of grammar, I am loathe to be critical, but shouldn’t it be ‘Christ has risen‘? Either way, I immediately switched on Sky News to get my first sight of the son of God and all I got was King Brian arriving at church. Good to see the old boy out and about and, hopefully, recovering from his cancer but no obvious sign of God’s lad.
I am for Dave Allen’s show-closing ‘may your god go with you‘ when it comes to religion and while I do criticise religions of all kinds, I am more than content for folk to worship their own gods so long as it doesn’t affect my life in any way at all. Live and let live and all that. But I’m afraid God’s vicar in Canterbury, Justin Welby, has pissed me off big time on this the holiest of etc etc.
I volunteer at a food bank – have I mentioned this before? – run by the Trussell Trust which is, according to its founding principles, “based on, shaped, and guided by Christian principles“. Today Welby says this: “We act because of what God says, found in the bible and to be lived out by the church – in over 30,000 social projects and in 8,000 food banks.” Of course, I knew the religious link to food banks when I signed up and I am content to accept that faith played a part in their foundation, but, Justin, I do not make regular financial donations to the Trussell Trust, nor volunteer at our local food bank because of what God supposedly says in the bible.
Clearly, I cannot speak to others who volunteer at food banks but I know for a fact, certainly at the Melchester branch I attend each week, that most volunteers don’t do God, either. They are there for one reason and one reason only: we don’t want people to starve. It really is that simple. The alternative situation would be as follows. I’d adopt Pascal’s wager which goes like this (this quote from wikipedia):
‘Pascal thought it is better to bet that God exists, and therefore to live accordingly. If God exists, we could gain a lot, like eternal happiness in Heaven, but if God did not exist it would make no difference. For this reason, it would be better to believe in God‘
In other words, to do good things in order to personally benefit one’s self in the eyes of God. I am not suggesting for one moment that people with faith, essentially belief without evidence, do good things purely to benefit themselves but I feel the need to set out the difference. My commitment to alleviating food poverty is not, and never will be, “based on, shaped, and guided by Christian principles“. They’re based on my own.
Justin is essentially non-controversial in anything he says. He wishes King Brian and Kate Middleton well, he calls for “action” (whatever that means) for the hostages, “action” for those in the trenches in Ukraine and, crucially, “action for the 25-30% of children in this country in poverty.” I guess the important bit is that at least Justin believes what he is saying and, unlike Rishi Sunak and co, genuinely wants good things to happen, rather than bad things.
If Christ is or has risen in your world, have a great day and if you are doing good things, then keep on doing them. Christ doesn’t rise in my world and frankly I don’t care one way or the other. But just remember, Justin, you don’t have to do God to go good and without us heathens, who are in a large majority in 21st century Britain, nothing much would happen at all.
