Suddenly there came a sound … of a rushing mighty wind, … And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.
– Acts of the Apostles, 2: 2-4
†
Traditional Church of England vicars were always very embarrassed when the subject of God came up. The feeling may well have been mutual.
Your typical C of E vicar was very happy talking about church fêtes, harvest festivals, weddings and whatnot. He would gladly go into an infants school to tell them Bible stories. He may even offer some grave opinion on the tragic state of world affairs to anyone who cared to ask, but try to pin him down on matters of theology and he would likely as not get very hot under the dog-collar. He would start reeling off a lot of slack in the lines of thought he professed to follow, he would wheel out all the best empty qualifications “I may be wrong..”, “I like to think..”, “It is all very complicated..” With typical English politeness, the common or garden Church of England curate was more afraid of causing offence than of incurring the Wrath of God. (Even the ones who believed in God in the first place.)
Maybe thinking that God was just another kindly old parish vicar who diplomatically overlooks his parishioners casual blaspheming and heathen lives in the hope that they may at least come to the Easter service. They probably imagined Heaven to be a little like Victorian England. Because to the Monarchy was almost as important as the Almighty in their pantheon. And the Queen certainly outranked the Virgin Mary. They believed in the Empire because they believed in the past, a wonderful time and place where everything had been wonderful.
Of course, they admitted, not everything was perfect in Victorian England, but it was being perfected. The principles and values of those times had been largely right. And it was a plain fact that the loss of those values to our present society was directly responsible for the many problems and failures of our Britain today. If people had maintained the values of those times, we would not be witnessing the malignant sickness of modernity; single mothers, insolent youth, homosexuality, multiculturalism and post-modernism, divorce and abortion.
It was another Sunday and once again Reverend Cake was condescending from high up in his pulpit. He told simple tales and for him, the ends were more important than the means.
Somewhere under the complex hypocrisy of his public preaching and his private failings was a real faith in God. This brought one highly simplifying short cut to all life’s complex conundrums. Given the Gordian knot of some contemporary moral dilemma, the likes of Cake would tangle for a while, trying to tease out a straight forward holy point of view before become frustrated with the fact that life is a little more intricate than that, and finally slashing out with their Sword of Burning Gold. Unaware that the delicately woven fabric of contract, complexity and compromise is actually what life is really all about.
He might not be able to reason through stone-clad justifications for what he believed about gays, unwed mothers or female priests but he knew that by God’s Grace he had access to the eternal truth and that excused him from examining the tedious reasons for everything.
It could get so tangled when you attempted to take on the ‘oh so clever’ nihilists in their language. They were so self-evidently wrong in their moral relativism and over-extended scepticism that it was often impossible to even know where to begin disabusing them. So he did not. They were already doomed; the Devil had their ears so Cake did not discourse with them. Instead, he abused them for the benefit of his less critical congregation.
He did not believe in the Devil of the literal cloven hoofed, fire and brimstone school but these liberals were lost to the darkness. No matter how bright he shone his light they would never see it. Far more fruitful to work on drawing in those in the half-shadows and in keeping hold of the enlightened.
Most people want the world to be simple. Some know that it is not and try not to be too smug about things. Socrates was one of these; the Oracle at Delphi informed him that he was the wisest man alive. A shrewd and modest fellow he didn’t really believe this could be true but also didn’t think it was his place to question an infallible Oracle. Unfortunately for him, he solved the conundrum. He decided that only thing he knew for certain was that nothing was certain. Since no one else had seemed to have realised, this made him the smartest man alive. For being called stupid, the rest of Athens turned against him and he was sentenced to death.
In many ways the Reverend Cake worked completely the opposite way round. He was certain that he had all the answers and that his entitled him to condemn everyone else to a fiery death and eternal agony in the pits of hell. Cake liked to think that original sin rather than ignorance was the price of knowledge. As he often told his congregation, Hell is God’s kitchen. Before birth our souls are all prepared in the cooler of Satan’s ovens; Steam cooked in the devil’s bain-marie. Millions of little souls poaching gently in individual coddling pots, shielded from the true heat of Hell, but there to experience a hint of what awaited them if they failed to lead good lives. The dark, smoky knowledge of right and wrong infused into them as they cooked.
Satan’s ovens weren’t perfect. The temperature was even and so we were born with different knowledge of Evil and hell-fire. A few souls were very underdone, very little right and wrong got into these half-baked atheists, whilst a handful of others were overcooked, spoiled and evil through and through. Most were somewhere in the middle, with enough evil to be original sinners but far short of perfection. Only right there at the golden mean were the saints and saviours, who rose to perfection. Deep down, Cake knew he was one of these. He had certainty baked into him.
•
The man had been on a reconnaissance trip to the British Museum. It had gone well. They had everything he needed and they hadn’t suspected a thing. Had they? He had to been very careful from here onwards. Perhaps they were going to follow him home? They were good.
What, he wondered, was his next step. He really should get back to base to write up his findings while they were clear and fresh in his mind. But what if they followed him? Everything would be lost. He had already reached Tottenham Court Road, busy with shoppers by the time this thought occurred to him. He spun round wildly but he couldn’t see anything. No, that wasn’t the problem. He could see lots of suspicious looking characters. But he couldn’t see his pursuers. They wouldn’t look suspicious. This was going to be difficult. Which ones were ‘THEY’?
He crossed the road and turned north, glancing back as often as he dared. That one with the pushchair? Possibly. What about that man with blue hair. Too obvious. Or is that just what they wanted him to think? No, not on Tuesday, that wouldn’t happen on a Tuesday. It was Tuesday, wasn’t it?
This was getting out of his control. He was afraid. He wanted to run but he fought against it. A bus slowed and he ducked aboard. He stayed just inside the drivers door watching. The woman with the pushchair hurried to try and catch up but the driver didn’t wait for anyone else to get aboard. He watched her into the distance shaking her head and saying something rude. That had been close. He leant forward to talk to the driver.
“Thank you. Where are going?”
“Angel. And can you get back please, you’re not safe there.”
“I know,” said the man and climbed the stairs. His good luck continued. The best seat in the house was unoccupied. He sat down in the front right seat, just above the driver. It wasn’t the best seat on the bus, but it was the best he could do as a passenger.
It was only when the real driver came upstairs to ask him to leave did he notice that the bus had arrived. The journey had been calming after the excitement of the city centre but they had not travelled far. Now the man was standing on an equally busy street not far from Angel tube. This was less heavenly than he had hoped. The buzz of the afternoon crowd all rushing around shopping and shouting into their mobile phones was not what he needed. There were hundreds of pushchairs and, out of the corner of his eye, he started glimpsing suspicious characters, people watching him.
He had to get away, further away. The buses were once again his salvation. He was not sure which one he should get. His head was swirling but he forced himself to focus on the map and worked out which was the longest route. It was the 137 to Enfield and he hoped it would turn up soon because he did not think he could managed to decipher the timetables.
As it was, he only had to wait a few fitful minutes before it arrived. He practically threw himself inside and hurried up to the top deck. He was so flustered that he even forgot to watch out for pursuing pushchairs.
At the end of line, life was more sedate. Having had its Sunday lunch, most of Enfield was sleeping it off. The man had a look around. It didn’t take long. There wasn’t much to look at so he wandered further. In the distance he heard people singing hymns. He moved towards them and found the church. Evensong was already underway so he quietly joined the small congregation somewhere near the back, and loudly joined the hymn somewhere among the tenors.
• †
The Right Reverend Cake looked up from his notes and down on his congregation. The usual losers were held rapt by his performance. He was perpetually disappointed that these were the faithful. Basket cases, inadequates to a man, woman and child.
How different it had been in America, thought Cake. In America, normal people went to church. Normal, well dressed, well adjusted people with real jobs and traditional families. Some of them were millionaires, and even a few multi-millionaires. (Although most of the multi-millionaires who went to church had their own churches. Ones they had started themselves before they became multi-millionaires.) The church was powerful.
The church was influential. If he was in America, he would be powerful, he would be influential. There would be some hope.
In the sparse congregation, there was a face he did not recognise. Not a great prospect, a scruffy unshaven man who could not seem to keep still. But who was paying very close attention. He was even taking notes. He would listen for a short while, leaning earnestly forward in his pew. Then at junctures that put Cake off his stride, the man would suddenly start writing very fast, his knuckles straining white as he gripped his pen and almost tearing through his paper. He would write about half a side in a battered flip-over reporters notepad then he would stop and go back to staring at Cake. The man had burning eyes and Cake could not decide if he approved or disapproved of what he was hearing.
Cake wondered if he was some sort of atheist news reporter, here trying to find some dirt on Cake. There was some, but he felt safe that this man would not find it here. Although judging by his appearance he was used to digging in the dirt and raking the mud. He must be anarchist, thought Cake. The two being close to synonymous in his lexicon. (Along with nihilist, modernist, socialist and liberal) Certainly there was something anarchic about his thought processes. The points in the sermon that set him off on one of his furious scribbles had no pattern that Cake could make out.
Still at least somebody was listening. The church was dying; it was four funerals to every one wedding. And though many of those marriages begat offspring, there were fewer and fewer Christenings. So few of those church weddings involved actual Christians. They had bluffed their way in for the style, for the venue or simply to please the Bride’s mother.
And one could not help but wonder; of such Christenings as there were, how many parents were thinking of their child’s future in Christ’s Kingdom and how many were thinking of his or her future in Christ’s Kingston, the local church school with a good academic record and cynical selection policies. Schools pretended to take children whose parents were of the appropriate sect (there were Jewish, Muslim and Catholic schools too) but actually selected on academic ability to keep high in the league tables. And parents pretended to be religious but actually cared about the same league tables. The opinion of the children was not entered into. The government that is used to saying one thing while doing another declared the policy a great success.
Today’s sermon had been ‘False Prophets’ - always a very easy one to adapt and especially at the moment.
“Today, I want to talk to you about False Prophets, about pretenders to the Throne of God, those who would attempt to usurp the Crown of Thorns. The Jews and the Mohammedeans know something of God.” The Reverend Cake liked to be inclusive. “But they wallow in ignorance of the Truth.” But the truth was he did not know how.
“They will not hear the Good News that Christ is come. They are damned.
“Our Catholic brethren have seen His Light, the Glory of Our Lord, but you must pray for their souls because they venerate False Gods and raise one man in Rome above all other men. That is a sin. There is Our Lord and then there are all of us. And we are all equal.”
At the end of the service, the congregation was invited to join the Reverend for an informal chat. It was something he’d picked up in America. And he’d brought it back in an effort to be different from his colleagues. They didn’t have the facilities of those super-churches so a little table with biscuits and a tea urn were set up at the back of the church. They didn’t have the numbers either. The attendees were three elderly widows with no one to go home to and two sets of new parents and their terminally bored children. Put on display to earn a place in the borough’s better school. Today, there was also the man.
“I liked your sermon, Reverend. I liked it very much.”
“Thank you, my friend. When I am in the pulpit, I always like to speak the Truth as I see it. I have to. It is my duty. Up there is where I am closest to God and where I am closest to these people, and to you, my friend.” There was something about the intensity with which the man attended to him that unsettled the Reverend. Far more than the man from Newsnight ever could. Cake moved away from the man, and went over to strike the fear of God into a seven-year-old girl.
Reverend Cake looked out for the anarchist the last of the congregation came out of the service. But he was not among those leaving the church. There was no one left in the church when he and his curate locked up. Cake assumed he must have missed the fellow and was fairly relieved at the thought.
In fact, the man was sitting in the pulpit. It had long been his habit to stay in church as long as he possibly could. A habit from his unhappy school days where Chapel was a haven and leaving it only returned him to a world that disliked him. Besides, Reverend Cake’s sermon had given him a lot to think about, and unfortunately he had missed a few parts of it. He had an abundance of questions
He would have asked his questions directly to the Reverend, but it was too risky. THEY might be listening. Or the Reverend himself might not understand just who it was he was talking to. (It had happened before.) Instead the man had gone up into the pulpit to see if the Reverend had left behind his notes.
The man was in luck. The Reverend had not left his crib sheet but that was fairly dull anyway. It was a skeleton script of the sort handed out in classes at theological college. It was vague and non-specific and could be adapted to a wide range of occasions and topics. The Reverend had a collection of about thirty different ones and for ordinary services like this one.
For big occasions and for his radio appearances he made the effort to come up with new stuff. But even this was not really necessary, When you had been doing these things two or three times a week for thirty years, you could often get by on a wing and prayer.
For any given Sunday, it was his habit to pick at random a subject he was fairly sure he had not used in the last month or so. If he thought of some way to adapt it, to relate it to events in the news or topical issues he would scribble down a few reminders of what he wanted to say about it. These were on the post-it notes. In a typical sermon, he would normally aim for about seven of these (a good Biblical number) and include three Bible quotes for the Father, the Son and the other one. During the course of the sermon, he would peel off the little yellow stickers as he went along to avoid repeating things and as a way to pace himself.
It was a great pile of these little yellow post-it notes that the man found on the floor of the pulpit. An autumnal forest of them. He studied them intently. There was a lot to take in.
Too much, it was hard to keep his concentration on one thing, without some other significant and important but unrelated thought bubbling up and beginning to clamour for his attention. He had to write fast to be able to keep up. This was far better than the way it had been before, when he was on the medication. When he had been on those powerful pills he had been tricked into taking. When his own thoughts could not get through to him because of the Infernal Mechanisms inside the pills that travelled into his brain and kept locked from him the secrets of his Destiny
At least Church was a safe place to think. Safer than he realised. He had so much to think about that it wasn’t until past midnight that he realised he was locked in. He tried for a few minutes to find a way out but quickly resigned himself to spending the night. He didn’t mind.
He ate the flapjack he found in his pocket and had a glass of water in the vestry. He curled up in a nest he made out of vestments and surplices and slept soundly
Eight hours later, the Reverend and the curate unlocked the doors to prepare for the primary school service. Before they could enter, the man had cascaded out and hurried away at a shuffling half-run.
Reverend Cake watched him go, hoping he had stolen the silverware so they could claim on the insurance. (They were covered for everything except Acts of God.) It would also be a great opportunity for publicity. The Reverend could denounce the gays, anarchists and drug-users responsible and launch an appeal to raise funds for the church.
He was to be disappointed. The man would never attempt to steal priceless artefacts from a church. To him they were part of the church. In any case, he was in too much of a hurry. He must get home and consult his other notebooks.
And if the man’s plan was true, Reverend Cake need not worry about his publicity, his collection plate or the churches worldly treasures. There would be far, far greater revelations and rewards. (And probably a few Acts of God too.) Strangely, as he left the man had taken the Reverend’s hand and spoken to him.
“It says in the book of John. ‘You must be my protector.’“