"How easy it is these days to appear religiose, if one insists too passionately on Biblical authenticity. The other week, I was first intrigued, and then frankly outraged on the television by an Anglican Vicar, who confessed to having no belief in God. Pressed to explain how he conducted a typical church service, he said it was in a traditional and recognisable form. Further urged to explain, for instance, how he felt he could legitimately lead his congregation in the recitation of The Lord’s Prayer, he responded by saying he saw no inconsistency with the Church’s requirements.

 

“How does it work?” asked the bewildered host of the programme. “To whom are you saying the prayer?”

 

 “To nobody”, was the reply.

 

“But it is addressed to ‘our Father’.”

 

“Yes, but there is no obligation to imagine there is a real Father to address.”

 

 “So you are saying it to nobody?”

 

“Precisely,” said the vicar, with a caricature of a benign smile, “but that does not invalidate the prayer.”

 

Leaving aside the nature of such an opinion, surreally irrational in the vein of Dean Swift, Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear, the question that persists in my mind is how anyone taking such an atheistic stance is permitted to call himself an Anglican Vicar. I have no difficulty with understanding the atheist’s view, so long as he rejects what the Bible, Koran or any other religious book tells him. I can quite see how the humanists’ view must rest on a dismissal of everything Jesus said of himself. However much, as a Christian, I may differ with them, they must travel the road they choose; it would be hypocritical of them to do anything else. But I do have the greatest objection to someone intruding upon the church’s tenets and performing rituals under the banner of Christianity, without accepting the divinity of Christ. What disturbs me most is that nobody in the upper echelons of the Church makes any public comment on this, let alone call for the dismissal of the vicar from his stipend. Perhaps we can be little surprised if the world professes uncertainty about the Church’s validity, when such insane internal toleration gives the clear impression that it is unsure itself. What does this vicar’s congregation make of his services? How do they bring themselves to say the Creed? How do they interpret what Jesus said of Himself? “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” “And I will pray to the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever.” “He (the Helper) will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”

 

Jesus also said ‘John 12:47’: “And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive my words, has that which judges him – the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” If I were the vicar in question, I would be eager to review my position on several grounds, but especially in respect of my soul. Let us pray that he does. I also fervently pray for an awakening within the Church, itself, to the need to declare, with some intolerance, the irreplaceable truth of the Gospel declared by Jesus Himself."