Leader

Sorry, God is religious

ONE FEATURE of the post-modern era has been the deconstruction of language. Linguists and semioticians have taught us to reassess the balance between, on the one hand, the multiplicity of meanings that a word has assumed during its history and, on the other, the particular understanding of a particular hearer. We are no longer willing subscribers to a common meaning, with the result that, for instance, our new supposedly common worship book is likely to contain eight different eucharistic prayers. On the street, this development has introduced a lot of play into our language. Institutions and organisations with a message to convey cope by attempting to eliminate all ambiguity from their output, particularly where matters of race or gender, age or ability are concerned. The rest of us are getting used to the practice of applying inverted commas round significant words and phrases.

The latest word to be put through the mill is "religion". Fanfare for a New Generation, an Evangelical charity supported by Sir Cliff Richard, has produced a poster that pronounces: "Religion is dead." The clue to this seemingly nonsensical sentiment is in the second line: "God isn't religious - why should you be?" Although "religion" has hitherto been a more or less neutral word, "religious" has for many years carried a second, pejorative meaning. In the 19th century, the words "religiosity" and "religiose" were used to describe an excess of zeal or scruples. More recently, the detractors of religion in general have not bothered to make a distinction.

For an evangelistic campaign to fall into the same trap of equating "religious" with "dull and deadly", as the Revd Steve Chalke, a television presenter, put it at the poster's unveiling on Monday, strikes us as unwise, however knowing it wishes to appear to be. Even if one supposes that casual observers read beyond the damning first line, the suggestion about God is ludicrous. Our Lord practised the dullest (though not the deadliest) form of religion during his lifetime on earth, as have all his followers through the ages. Prayer, observed, is not entertaining.

Fanfare's answer is to encourage people to watch a television broadcast on 2 January from Frinton Free Church, in Essex. For those in the know, of course, the word "Frinton" has long had a secondary, pejorative association. It means dull and deadly.

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