Journey Into Space - Part 1: Blast Off
The aim of this year's Retreat was to look at the spiritual journey of our society over the last 50 years. It began with "Blast Off' by which is meant the determination of the younger generation after the war to build a new world free from the things that had overshadowed, oppressed, or inhibited their parents' generation - war, injustice, and moral repression.
The new generation wanted to build a world free of war and all its attendant horrors. It was this desire that fuelled the CND demonstrations that began in 1955. It was this desire that fuelled the anti-Vietnam War protests that began with America's entry into the conflict in 1964.
The new generation also wanted to build a more just world. This involved seeking to right injustices abroad. There was passionate support for the Campaign for Racial Equality in the States and passionate opposition to Apartheid in South Africa. It also involved seeking a more just and equal society at home. It was this concern that lead to the creation of the comprehensive system of education in 1964.
The third, and perhaps the paramount ideal, was personal fulfilment brought about by the achievement of greater personal freedom. It was this ideal that pushed back the frontiers of permissiveness - one thinks of Philip Larkin's wry little comment:
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three ...
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first L.P.
It was that ideal that drove forward a spate of new legislation - The Suicide Act of 1959; the act decriminalising homosexual relations between consenting adults (1967); The Abortion Act (1967); and the Divorce Reform Act of 1969.
The post-war years saw "Blast Off' on the journey to a new and better world, but before the voyagers could reach the freedom of space, they first had to break free from the old earth's gravitational field. They had to break free from the restrictions, structures, and codes that had held together the world they wished to leave behind. It is to that stage of this journey that we turn next time.
Journey Into Space - Part 2: Escaping Gravity
The Retreat this year sought to trace the spiritual journey of our society over the past fifty years. It began with "Blast Off," the attempt by the younger generation in the 50s and 60s to found a new and better world. This would be a world of peaceful co-existence, social justice, and personal fulfilment. Before that could be achieved, however, they had to break free of the institutions, customs, and social and moral codes that bound people to the old world. They had to break free of the old world's gravitational field.
To achieve this break-through they deployed three strategies. The first was to establish a distinctive counter-culture that set them apart from the society round about them. In dress and in tastes in music they affirmed their separateness. The second was protest. Student demos became one of the distinctive features of the 60s and early 70s. The third was satire, undermining the the values and structures of the old regime. The most conspicuous manifestations of this strategy were the show, Beyond the Fringe, the magazine, Private Eye, and the television show, That was the week, that was.
The success of these strategies in undermining old institutions and attitudes is evident to all. It is evident in the less respectful attitudes to institutions like the monarchy. It is evident in the scepticism that shapes our view of politics and politicians. It is evident in the decline of respect for the law and for those charged with administering and enforcing it. It is evident in the diminished regard, in practice if not in theory, for the institutions of marriage and the family.
It was evident, also, in the abandonment of religion. This is something that has happened at bewildering speed. Stories that fifty years ago everyone knew have now dropped from common currency. Tunes that fifty years ago everyone could sing are now known only to churchgoers. Quotations, once familiar to all, have dropped out of common knowledge. The language of religion, once spoken by all, has become for most a foreign tongue. Fifty years ago, though only 5% of people went regularly to church, this was assumed to be a Christian country whose shared values rested on that faith. Now religious faith is seen as a minority activity. We no longer talk of a Christian country, but set the religious apart as "faith communities".
Inspired by high ideals, the younger generation of the late 50s and 60s blasted off from the old world seeking to found something better. They broke free of the gravitational forces that had bound people to that old world. But once free, they seem to have suffered an engine failure. Instead of powering on towards a new world, they were left floating, lost in space. The causes and consequences of this engine failure, we will examine next time.
Journey Into Space - Part 3: Lost in Space
The Retreat this year followed the spiritual journey of our society over the last fifty years. The journey began with "Blast Off'. The younger generation of the 50s and 60s sought to leave the old world behind and to set out for a new world free from war, social injustice, and moral oppression. Their initial momentum carried them beyond the gravitational field of the old world. They broke free from its structures, codes, and attitudes. But once free, momentum was lost. Instead of powering on towards their new world, they began to drift aimlessly in space. The job this session is to examine the causes and effects of this loss of momentum.
The first cause of this loss of momentum was disillusionment. Despite all their efforts, the world refused to change. It refused to change its ways. War continued unabated. Vietnam gave way to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Later came the Gulf War, war in the Balkans, more war in Afghanistan, and the invasion of Iraq. There was also an upsurge in terrorism, locally in Northern Ireland, and more widely in terrorism that had its roots in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East and in Islamic fundamentalism. The world also refused to change its structures. The Reagan-Thatcher years saw the return of repressive forms of authority and of values utterly alien to those that had fuelled hopes for a better world. Feeling helpless, many gave up the struggle and lapsed into scepticism and indifference.
The second cause of the loss of momentum was the pressure exerted by a rampant capitalism. Disillusion led many to turn inward. If they could not change the world, they could at least better their own lot. It was a course that made them susceptible to the wiles of a capitalism that held out to them a glittering array of consumer goods, promoted by massive advertising, and made accessible by easy credit. Under the pressure of such temptations the spiritual aspirations of personal fulfilment shrank into and became equated with the material aspiration for an ever higher standard of living.
The effect of the loss of momentum has been to reduce us, as a society, to the moral level of infants. On the one hand, we have, thanks to our increasing technical powers and sophistication, almost unlimited choice. On the other, because we are operating in a moral vacuum, we have robbed ourselves of any principles that might guide us in the exercise of that choice. The result is the triumph of appetite. We have descended to the moral level of children in a sweet shop.
After the excitement of "Blast Off' and of breaking free from the gravitational field of the old world, there has come an anti-climax. The ship of society drifts, directionless, in space. But now there are signs that the journey is beginning to be resumed. It is to one such sign that we turn in the next session.
Journey into Space - Part 4: Regaining Control
This year's retreat took as its subject the spiritual journey of our society over the last fifty years. It began by describing `Blast Off as the younger generation of the 50s and 60s took off to found a better world. It told of how they broke free of the gravitational field of the old earth, but it went on to tell how, once in the freedom of space, they lost momentum and began to drift, directionless. That period of drift lasted through the 80s and 90s, but now there are signs that a sense of direction may be returning. One such sign is to be found in Martin Amis's autobiography, Experience. It tells of how prolonged exposure to the moral vacuum of the times led him not to despair but to the beginning of the rediscovery of value and meaning.
Amis experienced to the full the moral chaos of our times. His schooling was a mess. He was asked to leave three successive secondary schools. His home-life was a mess. His parents divorced, and he was subsequently to experience the break-up of his father's succeeding partnership and his mother's two succeeding marriages. His own married life was no better. His own marriage broke up and he was also to discover, in middle life, that he was the father of a child of whose existence he had previously been unaware. More darkly still, his much-loved cousin, Lucy Partington, disappeared suddenly and was subsequently found to have been a victim of Frederick West.
But out of this chaos came not disorder and despair but the discovery of a set of basic values. The death of Lucy Partington led him to a recognition of the value of innocence and purity that would fuel his protectiveness to his own children. The experience of the break-down of marriage and of the pain it caused, led him to recognise the supreme value of love, whose opposite he defined not as 'hate' but as 'death'. He also discovered, again through loss, the vital importance of friendship.
The experience of disorder led Amis to rediscover values. It also prompted him to search for a shape that would give meaning to the chaos that surrounded him. It began with a simple search for 'connections' that would bind together the dislocated fragments of his experience. It led him on to more general perceptions, such as the likening of a life to the shape described by the mouth of the mask of tragedy:
It is often the case that
life, at least to
start with, will resemble a success story: but
the only shape that life dependably exhibits
is that of tragedy ....Tragedy follows the line of
the mouth on the tragic mask ...You rise to a crest
and then you are carried down to a point further
along at the same latitude.
The results of Amis's search for value and for meaning are not in themselves either profound or uplifting but the important point here is not so much the conclusions that Amis comes to but the resumption of the search itself. The search is being renewed for points to steer by. The sense that there is a journey to be made is reawakening. They represent the frail first signs that the ship is once more being brought under control, and when the person pointing them out to us is the foremost novelist of our generation, they are signs that merit our attention.
Journey into Space - Part 4: The Role of the Church
This year's Retreat looked at the story of the spiritual journey of our society over the last fifty years. It told of blast off - of the determination of the younger generation in the late fifties and sixties to create a new and better world. It has told of break out - of how that generation broke free from the codes and strictures that bound them to the old world. It has described how, once in the freedom of space, their journey lost momentum and of how they drifted at the whim of appetite. It has suggested that there are now signs of the journey being resumed as values and meaning begin to be rediscovered. What has been missing from the journey so far, however, is any account of the role of the Church. Where was it while all this was going on? Where should it be now? And, how is it to get there? It is to these matters that we now turn.
Many in the church gave their support to the initial blast off and helped to boost the ship clear of the old earth's gravitational field. They shared the ideals of the voyagers for a more just, equal, and peaceable world. Many were not unhappy with the goal of greater personal freedom. But once the ship had broken clear of the gravitational field, the Church found itself, like a booster rocket, discarded and left to fall back to earth. That is where it now lies, its occupants hurt and bewildered, maintaining customs, using language, and singing hymns that no-body outside the Church seems to know or care about any more.
There is an urgent need for the Church to recover its own proper position which is not lying on the earth but out ahead of the ship acting as a radio beacon to guide it on its onward course. This was the role of Christ himself. One thinks of Teilhard de Chardin's description of him as sonic-one sent from the end of time to show us what we must become if we are ever to have a future. This is the role that has been bequeathed to the Church, and which we must now strive to fulfil.
Fulfilling that role, however, requires that we first re-establish contact with the ship - get on its wavelength. This is not as radical or alarming a task as we may suppose It doesn't mean forsaking either faith or the insights faith has brought us. It doesn't even mean sacrificing the underlying style of worship in which we have grown up. What it does mean is seeking a language that makes that faith and its insights accessible to others, and developing ways of worship that are more open to those less well versed than we are in the ways of the Church.
The spiritual journey of our society over the last fifty years began with a search for a better world. Over the last twenty-five years that search has lost its way. Now there are signs that the search is beginning to be resumed. The Church has in Christ both a vision of where that search should lead us and the path that search should take. The challenge to us now is to communicate those truths effectively in the world.