When two or three are gathered – it’s a crime
If the Government banned the sale of bananas and oranges during this pandemic, people would have something to say, even if bananas and oranges were taking up transit capacity needed for PPE. Bananas in refrigerated holds might even convey coronavirus. And, of course, other sources of potassium and vitamin C could be found.
So far, no such rationing has been put in force. We are all, however, told when and how we may go to church.
Few doubt that in times of plague churches may be closed. The difficulty now derives from the Government trying to be helpful and ending up as a kind of Ministry for Religion.
You may stand alone and pray in church or synagogue, but you may not sing. You must not listen to a Psalm being read or watch a priest saying Mass. Once the church authorities negotiate what they are permitted to do, the path winds downhill into a worldview like that of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
I am not criticising the Catholic bishops or even the bishops of the Church of England (who connived during the first lockdown in the banning of clergy from their own churches, beyond the dictates of the law, so that any streaming of services had to be from kitchens or vicarage drawing rooms). Indeed a harmful effect of negotiating to secure some freedom to worship is the irate party spirit that divides active Christians.
Worshippers don’t want much. The desire to pursue their religion unharried by the forces of the law is expressed in the Benedictus.
This canticle in the Book of Common Prayer is taken from the account in the Gospel according to St Luke of the song of praise delivered by Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist. Zacharias, who served as a priest in the Temple at Jerusalem. He declared that God had sworn an oath to Abraham that “we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear; in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life”.
This canticle belongs to the Morning Prayer recited daily in the thousands of places of worship belonging to the Church of England. As a priest, Zacharias’s idea was to serve God by burning incense in the Temple, when it was his turn on the rota. His actions, like those of public worship or liturgy today, were performative.
The term performative often seems to be misused now to refer to words pronounced as if by an actor, for appearances. But technically a performative statement is one that achieves what it signifies. An example comes in the marriage ceremony when a spouse says: “I do.” Saying the words brings them into the married state in law and before God.
Similarly with performative rituals. Zacharias’s incense-burning signified worship of God, and the rising of the smoke at his hands was indeed worship of God. That was why early Christian martyrs refused to burn incense before an image of the Emperor, who was not to be idolatrously worshipped.
There are of course ways of worshipping God without outward signs, as in prayers that lift up the heart and mind to God inwardly. In this the Holy Spirit acts.
But if we have learnt anything from this year of house imprisonment, it is that physical presence at worship attended by others physically means a lot.
The law makes it a crime as soon as two or three distanced people gather in common prayer (though 50 can gather in private prayer).
It is not a question of claiming we are persecuted by the state. But in a country with an established Church, more status should be given to the Church to act freely and responsibly in its own sphere.