The various Christian churches seem to be hitting the secular headlines recently with the Catholic church, by far the biggest, taking the lead. For the last year or so it has been deeply embroiled with the larger than life moneylenders of the international banking world. But it isn’t (as the innocent Catholic might think) the Children of Christ condemning the moneylenders, calling on them to “Store up their riches in Heaven and not on earth where they will rust and be eaten up by moths.”
A collection of about 120 foreign banks and other creditors want to know what has happened to £916 million of their money which was last seen passing through an intricate network of companies and subsidiaries from Liechtenstein to Peru, mostly owned by the Vatican Bank (IOR). Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, ex-head of the Vatican Bank, has been intimately linked with this mysterious affair. A one-time diplomat in the Vatican, Marcinkus seems to have been unwise in the company he kept while head of the Vatican Bank, for two of his closest associates were Michele Sindona and Roberto Calvi. Sindona, a successful Sicilian banker, has been convicted of fraud and misappropriation of funds while Calvi. ex-member of the infamous masonic lodge P2. belter known as “God’s Banker”, recently slipped secretly out of Italy. He crossed the Gulf of Trieste to Yugoslavia and London, apparently to hang himself from Blackfriars Bridge, first taking the precaution of filling his pockets with stones and placing half a brick down the front of his trousers.
As with any good story, the plot thickens. In July 1978 Pope Paul VI died and was succeeded by a Pope John Paul I. Pope John Paul I died a few months later in September 1978. Allegations have been made that Pope John Paul I was poisoned because he had uncovered the financial wheeling and dealing of the Vatican Bank and objected to it. Contradictory statements by the Vatican about the circumstances of the death only encourage suspicion. Who really did discover the body? What was the Pope really reading when he died in bed?
All this has cast some doubt on the infallibility of the papacy. How could the Vatican get itself into such an embarrassing mess? Even if Pope Paul VI didn't know what was going on under his very nose (Marcinkus’s office was directly beneath the Papal apartments) you would have thought God would have had a quiet word in his ear. After all the Pope, so they tell us, is our direct link with God.
Of course, the Vatican hasn't admitted to making a mistake. It never does. Nevertheless, Archbishop Marcinkus has applied for immunity from prosecution by the Italian Judiciary. The Vatican Bank has also agreed to pay creditors £180 million. confidently expecting to recoup the loss from contributions by working class catholics.
While the Vatican is uneasily wearing the cloak of infallibility the Church of England has attributed falling attendances to the rigidity and inflexibility of ideas, which haven’t changed much in centuries. It has realised that the mumbo-jumbo of the past that worked quite well is seen to be more and more ridiculous. To counter this it has decided to invent some more modern mumbo-jumbo, adapted from the old stuff. Oxbridge theologians have been telling us that a lot of the Bible isn't strictly true, that the meaning and symbolism of what is written in the Bible is more important than whether or not it actually occurred in history. This innovative bit of philosophical sophistry has not gone unnoticed by the more conservative members of the clergy.The result has been a bitter debate about whether the Virgin Mary was or wasn’t.
In July David Jenkins, a leading advocate for change, was consecrated in York Minster as the Bishop of Durham amid protests and interruptions. A few days later there was an unhappy coincidence when the south transept of the Minster was struck by lightning and burnt down. Not surprisingly some of the clergy put this down to a divine thunderbolt, sent by a merciful God as an act of retribution. Fortunately, York Minster was insured by an ecclesiastical insurance company even if it is paradoxical for the church to be insuring itself against acts of God.
So while the Catholic church is grappling with financial corruption and infallibility, the Church of England is trying to reinterpret the work of God. A church that isn't as burdened with outmoded ideas and traditions inherited from previous centuries is Billy Graham's Evangelism. Everybody living in the English provinces must have noticed Big Brother Billy staring down at them from bill boards. His square set jaw. menacing smile and piercing eyes encourage the question “Would I buy a second-hand car from this man?”, especially in view of the personal testimony from ex-President Richard Nixon: “Billy Graham is one of the giants of our time”. But Dr. Billy isn’t the man he was in 1949 when he terrified all those who would like to sec 1950 with Christian threats like “Communism is inspired, directed and motivated by the devil himself. Either communism must die or Christianity must die”. A couple of years ago he went to preach in that nest of demons and devil worshippers, Moscow. Having been well treated by the puppets of Satan, he returned to cause a storm with some inane comments about the benevolent nature of the Russian state.
For a few months this year Graham was on Mission England. Backed up by technicians, campaign managers, thousand-voice choirs, security heavies and the all important $40 million business machine. Billy visited Bristol. Norwich, Sunderland, Birmingham. Liverpool and Ipswich. It must have been quite a spectacle to sec him preaching from the hallowed turf of Anfield. to hear the stadium echoing to the songs of praise, though not the usual irreverent and profane type. No doubt there was a deathly hush as Billy asked the spectators if they could hear Jesus knocking to come in. Jesus certainly wouldn't have been the first to be locked out of Anfield anyway.
Billy is not, as some might think, a man of peace, for when our masters’ property and profits are threatened he believes in the necessity of defence — of killing people and not turning the other cheek. Although he has gone to great pains to appear concerned about the problems of his flock such as unemployment and poverty, these are problems that God has spared Billy, who lives in a converted log cabin on a 200 acre site in America and receives a salary of $55,000 a year.
It’s all very easy poking fun at the Church now that the age of inquisition and witch burnings is over, but it is beside the point. Why do these ridiculous people and institutions exist? Why do so many people believe in what they say?
It is not possible to prove or disprove the existence of God. who exists only for people who have "faith”, a belief in something for which there is no material evidence. The evidence that Christians will give for the existence of a God is their faith. How could they believe in something of which there is no material evidence (except a book of dubious origin and authenticity) unless that belief was inspired by God himself? Their god is supposed to give them faith and this explains, for them, why they have faith. To break this circle of "God exists because 1 believe in God", it is necessary to understand why Christianity is so appealing to many people.
We live in a friendless society of competition. insecurity and. for many of us, absolute poverty. We live in a cruel and impersonal world, over which we seem to have no control. Most Christians would refer to all this as "suffering”. But they offer a unique "solution” to those who arc suffering, which is most of us — a philosophy, a set of ideas, that turns this suffering from something pointless and wasteful into something worthwhile. If we believe in God and Jesus Christ and accept the suffering doled out to us by the world, so they tell us, we will go to a much better place at the end of it and there live forever. The meek acceptance of suffering is a sort of lest and the better we do. the better the chance that we will be rewarded.
This, in essence, is very much like working for a wage. You graft for eight hours a day in a job you hate for the promise of a wage packet at the end of the week. The difference is that there is no pie in the sky at the end of your stint down here. Only worms and maggots. The idea of Christianity also gives you a sense of control over your ow n life for you can participate in the kingdom of Heaven. In every sense Christianity is masochistic, it dupes you into enjoying pain and suffering. It anaesthetises you against the stresses and strains of society. Once accepted, it becomes more difficult to face up to the real horrors of society
DB
1 comment:
No idea who DB was but I like their moxy.
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