The new world.

Fings ain't wot they used to be! Of course not, and how could they be! T'owd man is constantly telling me just how much the world has changed in the last 20 years or so; and that's official. There have never in the whole history of humanity been so many changes affecting us so quickly. The big thing is the internet of course. But apparently the scale of change is so big, so rapid, so far-reaching and deep, that we can hardly comprehend it. I think that humanity ought to give itself a pat on its collective head for coping as well as we do. But the strange thing is that we don't seem to notice the fact until it is pointed out to us!

And so it happens that we read the Bible in a rather different context from how we did in, say, the 1950s. Those of us in ministry or vicarages can get rather tired of hearing bishops who got to the top of the tree (they're dropping off now, thank the gods) by rising up through the ranks in the 1960s sounding off about how they made a great success of ministering in some big tough council estate, and how the church was packed etc etc. Yawn, I'm afraid; yawn. Telling us about that ad infinitum does nothing to help us who struggle in these days of indifference towards religion. It's a trip down memory lane, and has to be seen as that, before those of us around now start to feel performance anxiety when they bash on just that bit too long. But if we remember the content of my first paragraph, then we can perhaps relax a bit about ourselves.

Humber squiggle

We who are now in our in our 50s experienced some of the first chills to run through society. We'd been to university and colleges, some of us, and yet it was starting to be the case that there were not enough jobs of the right kind for graduates. But there was no comfort out there, because our elders were still stuck in the mentality that said that if you worked hard and passed exams, then your present and your future was assured. If things didn't go like that for you, then clearly you were at fault and needed a few lessons in self-presentation, and then all would be OK. But we young 'uns knew it wasn't like that. We could see the writing on the wall for the 'it's with...' approach; by which I mean that attitude to life which sees most things that happen as all down to something we have done. I could never so much as catch a cold without it being my fault for not wearing a coat on one occasion. Never mind that I experienced hypothermia in 2008 and didn't catch one after that, the British like to think that colds are self-generated. 'It's with [going on a bus] [having a young person in the house who goes to school] [having/not having the central heating on too early in the year]...' Being unemployed too - 'It's with [not working hard enough at school] [not going to the interview with a properly ironed shirt] etc etc...' It was a comforting world when you could take refuge in 'It's with...' Part of this was that you could read the Bible - those bits which are heavy on blame for floods and massacres and stuff included - and take comfort that it'll never happen to you, because you didn't do those things which brought it on.

Of course, there were some uncomfortable happenings, there were floods, and people did catch nasty diseases and all kinds of calamities. But there was a sense of it being possible to be master of your own destiny; more to the point, it was possible to point the finger at people you considered brought their misfortune on themselves.

So in many ways it's a great new world now! Less comfortable in many ways, but misfortune is so widespread, that if we have a touch of it, we no longer have to go through the self-blame ritual! Wonderful! We can blame someone else if we must, but at least we do not have to face the crippling feeling that out there people are heaping blame on us. We are just part of the great mass of unfortunates. What a weight off the mind! I'd much rather be quite poor and blameless than just a bit less poor and held responsible when I know I'm not.

I was going to go all theological and start to go on about how I see the effect of the new context in which we read the Bible, but I think I'll leave this one here: this is the silver lining in the cloud of low church attendance, falling sales, lack of respect for your profession, wotever: it's so widespread and so bad now that we know it's not your fault, it's a feature right across the whole western world! Rejoice, again I say, rejoice! Relax! Enjoy a bike ride across the Humber! Spend your time doing things of no benefit to the GDP and don't feel guilty! Wow - is this the dawning of a really, really new age?