[Reader-list] God needs to get New

[Harsh Kapoor]

God needs to get New

Tony Benn
Wednesday January 23, 2002
The Guardian (UK)

The announcement that the Church of England is to be privatised has 
been welcomed by the CBI, the World Trade Organisation and the 
Central Bank in Frankfurt as a bold new initiative to bring religion 
closer to the consumers, which is how congregations are described in 
the white paper, New Christians, launched in Westminster Abbey 
yesterday.

Speaking at a press conference, the prime minister explained that the 
success of the policy would have to be judged mainly in terms of the 
new resources that a public-private partnership would make available 
for the renewal of the church, which had suffered from falling 
attendance for many years.

Christos, one of the biggest multinational corporations in the world, 
based in Los Angeles and already well-known for its success in the 
arms trade, has offered to invest billions in this "exciting project" 
and provide a new management able to make fuller use of the assets 
now owned by the church.

Graveyards are to be cleared and returfed for sporting events and pop 
concerts, but the headstones will be carefully preserved and sold to 
bereaved families to keep at home, instead of having to go out to see 
them at the weekends. Consultants are already at work assessing ways 
in which church property could be developed and have begun 
discussions with the new minister appointed to conduct the 
negotiations on behalf of the archbishop.

The new Department for Excellence in Anglican Development (Dead) has 
modernised the 10 comandments. Two redrafts of existing commandments 
have aroused a great deal of interest: "Though shalt not kill" has 
had these words added by the Ministry of Defence: "unless ordered to 
do so", and "Thou shalt honour thy mother and father" has been 
amended by the Treasury to add: "by seeing that the cost of their 
care in old age does not fall upon the state".

Prayer books are to be reprinted with advertisements and both Pret a 
Manger and McDonald's have commissioned leading designers to provide 
suitable copy to accompany the Holy Communion. Churches are to be 
opened for commercial performances and Madonna is to be asked to sing 
next Christmas, with tickets priced in euros to help familiarise the 
audience with the new currency before it is introduced in Britain.

Confession is now to be made much more widely available by putting it 
on TV, after the success of the Jerry Springer and Kilroy shows, 
where people have opened up about their private lives, and the high 
ratings have proved how popular sin can be with a national audience.

When a vacancy for a bishop, or archbishop occurs, any individual 
will be free to put in a bid and it is hoped that many people in the 
City of London, who may never have thought of a career as a New 
Christian, might be tempted to test their entrepreneurial skills in a 
completely new field, while continuing to enjoy comparable financial 
rewards.

The synod will be replaced by a focus group which specialises in the 
needs of the market to test public reactions to sermons before they 
are delivered; to maintain the non-political nature of the church, 
none will deal with controversial issues such as peace or social 
justice.

In a clear statement of the need for responsibility and 
accountability, the prime minister has decided to set up a new 
regulatory body, Ofgod, to name and shame ministers who have failed 
to live up to the high standards expected. Chris Woodhead is to be 
asked to take it on, following his success at Ofsted.

Lord Birt, whose experience at the BBC in privatising its services 
won the respect of broadcasters, is to be appointed to Number 10 as 
the prime minister's spiritual adviser, with the task of seeing that 
standards of management are maintained at the same level we have seen 
in Railtrack and other public services moved into the private sector.

Critics have been dismissed as dinosaurs who are living in the past 
and reminded on many occasions that we must live in the real world 
and try to forget the Old Christians who are always harping on about 
Bethlehem and Jerusalem, which simply do not interest the younger 
generation and are responsible for the decline of religion in modern 
Britain.

One New Labour minister, speaking on Newsnight, summed it all up by 
saying: "Jesus drove the money changers out of the Temple, but as a 
business-friendly government, we are trying to get them back in 
there."

Here again Britain is now in the lead and the prime minister's 
decision to visit the Vatican to persuade the Pope to follow suit has 
been hailed as a new example of his global leadership and 
determination to put Britain at the heart of Europe.

tony at tbenn.fsnet.co.uk

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