A BAD HABIT?

Cassock. Habit. Words I probably would not have, readily, known as a young kid in New Zealand. I soon did – as a member of the child choir at the local, ancient, bluestone Anglican church in my hometown of New Plymouth.

The “cassock” was the ankle length black garment worn by priests and choristers. The “habit” was the customary apparel of a particular occupation or rank. Usually the costume of a monk or a nun.

As a kid I wore both. I don’t honestly remember how I ended up as a member of the Church of England choir at one of New Zealand’s oldest churches.

My first memories of Sunday School services was attending a local Methodist Church where we first put our pennies – meant for the donation plate – on the tram tracks, to be run over so that they looked liked flattened, miniature Frisbees, before we dropped them into the contribution bowl.

That’s what you did on Sundays. And when the adults started singing “Stand up, stand up, for Jesus,” we would sing “Sit down, sit down, for Christ’s sake, because the buggers at the back can’t see”. And we would mock the “press buttons” (the Presbyterians) and the Catholics by chanting pig Latin – “ my father can beat your father at dominoes” while pretending to flick holy water.

Despite all that I ended up in my black cassock and white habit in the choir.

We even got paid 2/6 (half a crown) to sing at weddings – although I remember getting paid the money once on the condition that I did NOT sing.

We were terrible, fledgling Christians. We would challenge the labouring, patient, earnest, volunteer, Sunday School teachers. Young male and female Sunday schoolers would pash and grope each other in the toilets, trees or tea-rooms.

Once, a search party was sent out when a comely young chorister and I didn’t return to the bus on time after a church excursion. And grass stains were noticed.

When I was twelve I became the first sibling in our family to decline Communion in a High Church version of the Church of England. I declined because I just didn’t believe. I became a young, and lasting agnostic. And later a fully-fledged atheist.

My attitude towards religion is so strong that after I wrote a recent column, in compassionate support of organ donors, I ranted to the Editor when somebody cut out all reference to my atheist feelings.

I accept people’s beliefs. I worry that some of the worst wars in history – in Ireland, in Spain, in the Balkans, September 11, in the Crusades -- have been enacted supposedly in God’s name. I accept, and respect, that hundreds of millions of people get solace from their religious beliefs. It helps people through inexplicable times of suffering and cruelty. Bewildering times of hurt and loss. I just personally don’t believe. I have written before about my theory that we are “just ants” and I don’t want to belabour it again.

What prompts these thoughts is two-fold. The new Mel Gibson movie about the last hours of Christ is probably more powerful for Christian religion than somebody putting fifty million Gideon bibles in hotel rooms around the world.

Ands then there was the recent newspaper report by Dr. Muriel Cooper from RMIT, that church attendances are down. Hold the front page? Have you seen how many tired old, deserted, churches in Melbourne have been turned into apartments in the past twenty years?

Apparently, there was a recent report by a National Church Life survey. It showed that church attendance has dropped by around seven per cent in the past five or six years. Surprise, surprise.

We have a population of twenty million people. Less than two million of us/you go to church every week. Probably, and I am guessing, about half of them are Catholics. And most of them are liars. How many Catholics follow the creed and spurn some form of contraception?

I am sixty years old. I remember a joke from forty years ago. What do you call Catholics who practice the Rhythm Method? Parents.

In a recent column I mentioned the American politician who said about the Pope and contraception: “You no playa the game….. you no makea the rules…”

It is hard for an atheist to engage in this religious debate. I concede that. Not my business. But established churches appear to be crumbling faster than their edifices.

For the Catholics it is obvious. Decades of denial about paedophile priests – here and in the United States – have deeply wounded the Church. Especially with repeated proof that more “Christian” concern was concentrated on the child-molesting clerics than on helping their broken, innocent, victims.

In the Anglican church, in this country, Peter Hollingworth, the man who brazenly became Governor-General, trashed that entity’s reputation by his lying and protestations and obfuscations. Australian Story told his story. He should still hang his head in shame.

I am not saying that God is Dead! – as Time magazine so dramatically put it in the 1960s. But he is in trouble. Especially with the regular religions.

The new Pentecostals, the new evangelisticals, the new breeds of religious faith and commitment are building increasing armies of zealots. And that is fine. Whatever gets you through the night.

I just think, as an atheist, that the big churches need a new Inquisition. Into themselves.

March 14, 2004

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2004