Christ Church

Behind closed doors

The 20th chapter of John’s Gospel begins with the story of Mary Magdalene and ends with the story of so-called ‘doubting’ Thomas. In the midst is Jesus. To what end? That our hearts and minds might be opened out to the greater life of God, to the possibility of acknowledging what the American writer and theologian Marilynne Robinson calls “the miraculous privilege of existence as a conscious being,” a wonderful phrase.

The tomb becomes the womb of new life in spite of our griefs and sorrows. “Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted;” the words of the Beatitudes take on a fuller meaning in these stories. Jesus appears behind the closed doors where the disciples are huddled in fear and uncertainty. He shows them his hands and his side and speaks of peace and forgiveness, and of a kind of knowing, faith, that says there is more though not less to reality than what can be seen and experienced. The two stories are a powerful reminder that we are essentially spiritual and intellectual beings in and through the limits of our knowing and experience. They are not everything but neither are they nothing.

The resurrection belongs to the idea of things metaphysical as the underlying principle of all life. It is a breakthrough of the understanding that frees us from the closed doors of our minds. We see this in both Mary Magdalene and Thomas. They are changed and set in motion but not through the negation of what belongs to themselves and the truth of their individuality. They do not become other than themselves but more fully themselves precisely through the awareness of their unknowing and confusion. This is the possibility of the greater transformation. It is neither a flight from reality nor a denial of creation. It is, to put it theologically, about the redemption of creation and of our humanity, individually and corporately.

In our post-Christian and post-secular world, religion is largely regarded, if regarded at all, as a matter of personal faith and identity, a matter of various agendas and interests. What, then, is the role of Chapel at the School? It cannot be the affirmation of personal faiths or non-faiths, or of the particular claims and assertions of identity for that would be impossible. Neither is Chapel about proselytizing, about forcing or coercing an agenda. It is really more about what we see in these stories: the encounter with ideas that may change us through our being opened to what is greater than ourselves whatever your interests and agendas. Education is about the exposure to ideas. What you do with them is another matter. In this sense, Chapel is simply part of education; the opening out of ideas.

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Woman, why weepest thou?

There is all the difference in the world between education and indoctrination, the one opening us out to ways of understanding, the other compelling thought and expression. We live, it seems, in a world that looks more like George Orwell’s 1984 than Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Religion, like education, cannot be forced, a point which is constantly stressed in Chapel. Like classes, sports, and cadets, students are required to attend but no one can be compelled to believe, neither can Chapel affirm or confirm the various agendas and perspectives, personal beliefs or unbeliefs of students and faculty. It would be almost impossible to think how that could be.

The approach is rather that of the “dignity of difference” which has to do with a deeper sense of toleration. As Jonathan Sacks in a book written just after the events of 9-11 pointed it out, it means holding each form of religion accountable to its own principles. That requires having some understanding of different religions and the forms of their interaction.

Chapel belongs to the history and life of the School as an integral part of the educational project. While the service is Christian and derived from Anglican traditions that honour the School’s history, it is actually very generic and connects to the various practices in many other religious and philosophical cultures in terms of the reading of texts (scripture), of prayers and devotions and reflections, of ritual and symbol. There is not and cannot be any coercion of belief or thought, only the opening out of ideas and concepts that belong to questions that are perennial.

Religion or religions in their variety of expression have certainly been coercive and doctrinaire at times. Such is the sad and ugly truth of our brokenness and sin, our failures. And certainly, there are those who have very negative ideas about religion. Richard Dawkins regards the God of the Old Testament, as he puts it, as the most awful and vile figure in all literature. This prompted the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Jonathan Sacks, to observe, “Oh, I see that you are a Christian atheist.” The term Old Testament is a Christian way of speaking about the Hebrew Scriptures. And while there are many difficult and challenging passages in the Scriptures, Dawkins overlooks the forms of interpretation that highlight the nature of human sin and evil in contrast to the idea of the Law and creation as intrinsically good.

The religions of the world also provide a constant corrective and a rebuke to all forms of self-righteousness, of presumption and indoctrination. Christopher Lasch notes that the spiritual discipline [of religion] is against self-righteousness and that while religion provides comfort, first and foremost, it challenges and confronts us with our short-comings. It is always self-critical. We confront the forms of our unknowing and the limits of our thinking. Only so are we opened out to what is greater than ourselves.

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