Is Britain Christian? ITV Tonight review 24th July 2014

Changes

The heat has driven me into becoming a precious whinger again. 

Last night's ITV Tonight programme on the state of modern-day Christianity in Britain was interesting but could have been made ten years ago.

The programme discussed David Cameron's much debated claim that what remains of Britain is still a Christian country and his call for people of faith to share that faith (just so long as you don't work in the NHS... or a whole range of other occupations).

And maybe reporters will just look at the next census figures and rehash a similar report in ten years time. The established churches perpetually waning and some of the charismatic and evangelical churches perpetually growing. Food banks and secular alternatives to faith made a brief mention, but that is all that they were.

The conclusions were the same as were expressed in 2004 and this is partly because the British media now have very few journalists who have either the skill, expertise or inclination to understand the state of Christianity in the UK today.

Despite a tradition of journalists covering both the ebb and the flow of faith in this country it seems that mainstream editors do not, on the whole, think that faith is newsworthy. It is a constant complaint that the only news that Christianity gets is negative. We can't all be precious whingers.

So, with the last specialist faith reporter in the established media losing her job a matter of months ago is it any wonder that the resulting reports are largely rehashed and superficial? Or is it simply a mirroring of a tide which is still going out?

The conclusion of the Tonight programme was this: Christianity is on the wane. And this is an ebb which is predicted to continue. One expert even forecasted that this trend would continue into the future. It was almost a prophesy. And they can be misleading.

Actually, the program wasn't entirely unfair. At least there were none of the outrageous generalisations which have characterized too much output relating to Christianity. But again, these generalisations and inaccuracies are partly due to a dearth of specialist faith reporters. Again I whinge.

The conclusion of 'Tonight' was the same as ten years ago. Remember, this is a report on the state of faith in the nation now and according to this report Christianity is largely on the wane.

But it is so much more complicated than this.

Perhaps anyone with any sense would have spent the evening watching the tide from a beach.

Think happy thoughts.

The seven secrets to happiness?

This week I went to the annual ‘Happiness Lecture’ which took place in the University of Birmingham’s Great Hall.

The Great Hall itself is enough to make even the grumpiest person feel a sense of wonder – it holds around 2000 people and is littered with portraits of important people and huge lanterns which dangle from the high ceiling like something from Harry Potter.

The lecture this year was given by Gyles Brandreth. As I grumpily said to my wife on the way there: “Come on. Let’s go and listen to a rich man lecture us on how to be happy.” He is a former European 'Monopoly' champion after all.

To be fair on Brandreth, he didn’t skirt around the topic and said he would give us his seven secrets of happiness by the end of the hour long lecture.

“Money in itself is not a road to happiness,” he said. Who would even think otherwise?

I suppose you don’t get to be one of the most in-demand speakers by not being topical and funny. And Brandreth was both of these things. But could he deliver when it came to helping us to be happier? It’s good to be entertaining, but was the man actually going to be any help!?

He started by telling us that the pursuit of happiness is a relatively modern notion.

“In the past happiness was to be for the next world. Life was a vale of tears and happiness was not for this world but for the next world.”

That was as deep as he got. Perhaps the superficiality in his tone was a blessing in disguise? Some truths are simple after all. He blamed America for the apparent change in attitude of people towards happiness in this life and then concluded that happiness itself is not a transient feeling so much as a lasting ‘rightness of being’.

Of course when you are as successful as Brandreth, with an ongoing commission on the BBC, you are probably going to experience a certain ‘rightness of being’. You really are going to feel as if God and the universe are affirming you for your hard work. Perhaps the successful always feel this ‘rightness of being’. And in the end you can get to lecture grumpy cynics like me on what happiness really is.

Then he told us what he believed were the seven secrets of happiness. Although he could be lying of course (in order to keep up with the Joneses in the ‘happiness competition’).

1. Cultivate a passion.
2. Be a leaf on a tree (attached to some greater organism).
3. Avoid introspection. "Introspection is death," says Brandreth, "No-one is interested in you!"
4. Be open to change
5. Audit your happiness. Do something about it.
6. Live in the moment.
7. If you want to be happy - act happy.

“And does it work?” asked Brandreth, momentarily looking introspective, “I’m not sure.”

I wasn't quite sure either. And I’m not even sure if he said anything remotely useful. Because it was the Great Hall itself which really stopped me from feeling so grumpy that night.