Songs of Praise shows the Calais migrants do not sing alone
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Version 0 of 1. Walking through the middle of the migrant camp in Calais, the presenter Sally Magnusson was clearly affected by what she saw: mostly Muslims, but many Christians, fleeing all kinds of hell in their homelands. “Its amazing that the first thing they want to do when they come here is to build a church,” said Maya Konforti, a NGO worker from the camp. “They wanted a church before they wanted a home.” And suddenly the Calais migrants are no longer some threatening illegal “swarm” but flesh and blood people – some churchgoers, yes, but first and foremost human and individual. Like you and me. What was most subversive about Songs of Praise was that it emphasised a common link that some of us share with them. And it is a link that transcends nationality and knows no borders. Songs of Praise is the world’s longest-running religious TV show. For more than half a century this Sunday afternoon staple has been entertaining often elderly, homebound former churchgoers with generally undemanding but good-natured Christianity. Usually the worst that could be said of it is that it is smug geriatric wallpaper. But hardly offensive. Indeed, usually nowhere near offensive enough. Related: Inside the Calais migrants' church – in pictures But over the past few weeks it has had a succession of Tory MPs and tabloid editors frothing at the gills. “Hymnigrants” spluttered the Sun. “This is how the BBC is spending YOUR cash,” screamed the Express, doing its anti-BBC bit and raising the intriguing prospect of Songs of Praise taking morality lessons from the former publisher of Asian Babes. Not that most Songs of Praise viewers would be familiar with Asian Babes. The average viewer is in her mid-70s – Margaret Thatcher in her latter years was a fan of the show. And despite recently moving to what the BBC now hideously calls a “magazine format” (you can just imagine the W1A discussion), it remains genuinely participatory, with the audience being made to feel like an extended part of the church congregation, often singing along with the hymns at home. For example, the week before last’s episode was dedicated to a celebration of VJ Day. “In Christ there is no east or west, in Him no south or north; but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth,” sang the congregation and choir from St Martin-in-the-Fields. And all over the country people joined in with John Oxenham’s familiar hymn. But remarkably, not a single Tory MP complained. Were they not listening? Or perhaps they just didn’t appreciate the subversive ideology being propagated. Written in 1908, this hymn was intended as a deliberate Christian rebuttal of Kipling’s famous lines: “East is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet.” In contrast to the percieved norm, Sunday’s programme wasn’t Songs of Praise from some leafy Surrey village but from a camp that has become one of the contemporary fault lines between east and west. Completed only in the past few weeks, St Michael’s church is a fragile tarpaulin construction, decorated by a few religious posters and attended by Christians from Syria, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Their worship is simple, with songs of praise being directed especially towards the angel Gabriel, asking for his help and intercession. It was an astonishing witness to the power and diversity of the Christian faith, and such a contrast to the perfect Sunday-best churchgoers singing in the same programme a bit later on. Nonetheless, it was a rather genteel-sounding Christian from Kent who put it best. Interviewed about why she had crossed the Channel to distribute food – Magnusson overdoing the “why are you helping these bloody people” line as a sop to the programme’s critics – she replied with dignity and simplicity: “That’s what the church is for.” And that’s so obviously right. “Well done Songs of Praise,” tweeted the archbishop of Canterbury. “People of Calais – God’s good people – you do not sing alone,” said the Iona Community. In church terms, this programme was entirely uncontroversial stuff. I had a little walk-on part in the programme, but they cut out my mini-sermon on the similarity between the plight of these refugees and the story of the book of Exodus. Maybe that was a little too strong for Songs of Praise. So why have Tory MPs have been lining up to disparage the programme? Damian Collins, Philip Hollobone, Henry Smith, Andrew Rosindell … they all had a go. “Overly political” was the executive summary of what they took issue with. But this criticism says nothing about Songs of Praise and absolutely everything about the theological illiteracy of the modern Tory party. Related: A 21st-century Exodus: what the makeshift Calais camp church means Back in 1983, the Catholic conservative MP Chris Patten wrote that “to describe Conservatism without mentioning Christianity would be like describing a barometer without referring to the mercury”. Not any more. And it is a massive historical change. Of course, the Tories still know they are supposed to pay lip service to Christianity – “we are a Christian country” and that sort of thing – but apart from the memory of booming out Jerusalem at school, they increasingly haven’t the foggiest idea what Christianity is. Take, for example, David Cameron’s woeful Easter sermon this year. The Catholic Herald (no lefty bias here) described it thus: “To be quite frank, a Cameron rendition of Abba’s I Believe in Angels would have contained more theological conviction than this embarrassing attempt at an Easter message.” And to be fair, Cameron admits he doesn’t really get God, his faith being, as he said, like the “reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns”. So here is a basic note on Christianity and how it relates to the Calais camp. Yes, you could start with the story of the Good Samaritan, or Christ saying: “In so much as you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” But theologically, the core is probably Galatians 3.28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek … for you are all one in Christ.” Passports are really not that significant in Christian terms. Christians are connected to each other by the waters of baptism and not by some accident of nationality. Thus, in Christ there is no east nor west. It’s fine if the Tories want to side with Kipling. But please stop pretending that it has anything to do with defending Christian Britain. Indeed, without immigration there would hardly be a Christian Britain left. |