LIFE AND WORK - NOVEMBER 2002


Many years ago now, when I was minister of a Glasgow parish, I had to preach at a presbytery service for the induction of a new minister. The clerk of the presbytery at the time was Andrew Herron, who, I think it is fair to say, took a rather different attitude to matters of faith, and in particular to the social and political implications of the Gospel than I did. In the vestry at the end of the service, Andrew said to nobody in particular, but I assume with me in mind, and with a slight edge to his clipped tones, "I used to think when I became presbytery clerk that I'd hear lots of sermons that I would be able to make use of myself……but I never have"!

Having spent the past fifteen years working in religious broadcasting, I have probably heard more preachers and sermons than has been good for me. There were a number of reasons why I felt that church services made poor broadcasts. They are designed for public consumption and radio in particular is an intimate medium. The number of people who can imagine what a church is like, far less understand what goes on there gets fewer every year, and no broadcaster wants to hitch his or her strategy to a clearly diminishing audience. However just as important as these considerations in my opposition to the broadcasting of church services was the inescapable fact that most of the sermons I heard, and most of the scripts I was presented with, were in some shape or form commercials for the church and not presentations of the Gospel.

It is ironic that most ministers working today have been taught that Jesus had no intention of founding a church and yet most ministers seem to want to talk, not about what Jesus did say and do but about the institution he never envisaged.

It reminds me of T.S. Eliot's observation that the church reminded him of a bakers' shop which had a sign outside saying "Bread 1$", but when you went into the shop all that was for sale was the sign!

There may be a number of reasons for this unhealthy concentration on the church which I found amongst ministers asked to prepare a broadcast. Some may have felt the need to apologise for the perception people have of the church, and there is certainly considerable need for apology if recent research undertaken for BBC Scotland is anything close to accurate. Of those interviewed, almost all had some experience of the church which had given them a "scunner" at institutional Christianity. Others may have wanted to take the opportunity to present what they imagine is a more human face to an institution which, as recent events have shown, can behave in ways which people perceive to be at odds with the Gospel. "Cognitive dissonance" is a phrase the Old Testament scholar the late Robert Carroll liked to use to describe that sort of thing.

I suspect, however, that there is a deeper reason: with the honourable and consistently thoughtful exception of a number of conservative evangelical ministers, who have a quite clear understanding of what the Gospel is and involves, most ministers I suspect are much more comfortable reflecting on an institution which they are at home with, than the Gospel which they are less than clear about. And they certainly find it easier to talk about the church than to struggle to find ways of expressing the Gospel in language which the world understands.

That great preacher who died recently, Stuart McWilliam, in a book about preaching, quoted with some dismay a survey of religious broadcasts which concluded forty years ago "The Church is greatly preoccupied with itself. From half to one third of the sermons are about the Church. About half the prayers are on behalf of the Church. This far outweighs any other concern".

In my estimation many of today's congregations will hear more sermons than was the case in 1963 about the Church.

The man who taught me more about broadcasting than anyone else, an unrepentant congregationalist called Vernon Sproxton, introduced me to a frightening parable which the Danish thinker Soren Kierkegaard liked to tell.

"A circus proprietor discovered that the big tent was on fire, and he called one of his employees and said 'Go into the middle of the circus ring and tell the people that the tent is on fire and they must get out as quickly as they can' The man went, but in a little while he came back saying 'They wouldn't listen to me. They just laughed.' 'Go again,' said the proprietor, 'and make them listen! Say to them the circus is on fire, flee for your lives! But again he returned, saying 'They l;aughed at me! They refused to listen!' Because the man whom the circus proprietor had sent was the clown; and no-one took the clown seriously.