15 Religion: the remix

Milltown’s cheerless church has been dedicated, until recently, to St Diana, Our Lady of the Landmines. But following some disastrous end-of-year figures, Diana PLC is floundering. If the company’s trading results don’t improve - and there’s nothing to suggest that they will - bankruptcy looms. Unthinkable as it may have seemed just a few months ago, our memories of Princess Diana are fading. That celebrated outpouring of public grief has disappeared into the black hole where such ersatz emotion belongs. Beyond the carefully contrived images it’s like she never existed at all. Even those who do still remember her are a bit hazy about the facts. Was she the one that shagged that rugby player? Did she present the holiday programme on TV? Or was that Lara Croft?

Over the past couple of years the Milltown Times has unwittingly charted Princess Diana’s fall from grace. On the first anniversary of her death, the paper published a special souvenir supplement, showing - with the aid of computer-enhanced pictures - what a visit to Milltown might have looked like, had the princess ever decided to come here. On the second anniversary, however, the paper just ran a two-for-one offer on some monogrammed Princess Diana mug-trees the editor had unwisely bought up in a fire sale. Until there’s another tragic and untimely death of a famous bulemic beauty, the memorabilia market looks dicey.

With less than 2% of the adult population now attending church on Sunday, the Church can’t afford to lag any further behind the leaders in the guilt-driven sector of the leisure market. And, sadly, Princess Diana is not the trusted brand-name she once was. She doesn’t shift product any more. Bearing in mind her work to ban landmines, it’s particularly inappropriate that her name should now be synonymous with a new kind of explosive. ‘Dianamite’: just how insensitive can you get? So, following a brainstorming session by an ecclesiastical focus group, and a survey of Milltown residents, the erstwhile Church of St Diana will be rebranded. Yet again.

With the idea of attracting youngsters back to the fold, the ‘Church of All Saints’ was an early suggestion. But even the most successful of girl bands has only a limited shelf-life. And we can’t deny that the ‘Church of Nokia’ has a certain ring to it. But will churchgoers really whisper heartfelt prayers into mobile phones? Even with the off-peak Sunday tariffs, the Hotline to Heaven looks like a gimmick too far. They might as well bite the bullet, plump for the ‘Church of Microsoft’, and be done with it.

It’s hard for Satan to hit a moving target, so the Church is tossing aside its cherished beliefs and institutions with a speed that even New Labour would find precipitate. If nobody sells their soul to the devil any more, that doesn’t rule out renting it by the hour. Or maybe some kind of timeshare option. And that guff about camels and needles always sounded like sour grapes, propagated by envious malcontents. Instead of alienating busy, wealthy people (the mainstay of our economy, after all) the Church should be looking to get their cut. Everlasting life is a pretty special deal; there’s no point in just giving it away. In a misguided gesture, Jesus booted the moneylenders out of the temple. Today we would be more pragmatic and less hysterical. We’d recognise them for what they really were: independent financial consultants. Faith has served the Church well over the years, but it doesn’t pay the bills. So the introduction of the Church’s own loyalty card hasn’t come a day too soon.

A recent press release hints what the future holds. "For two millennia, people have had to decide whether to worship God... or Mammon. The received wisdom, bolstered by Biblical injunctions, was that they couldn’t worship both. But thanks to the latest ecclesiastical technology, congregations no longer have to make that most difficult of choices. We formally announce - with immediate effect - the amalgamation of God and Mammon... the new company to be known as ‘Gammon’. We feel we are on target with our main objective: to create a supine nation of spendthrift zombies. While the population remains paranoid and fretful, cardholders will believe that their existential misery can be alleviated - however briefly - by meaningless purchases of frivolous consumer items. In this way we feel that Gammon PLC will be in the vanguard of creating a safer, less volatile and more religious society. Have a nice day.”

Steve, our vicar, is a fine and decent man, always ready to offer a helping hand or a willing ear. His moral probity is beyond question - earning him the nickname, around Milltown, of ‘Stainless’ Steve. He’s a model of modesty too: genuinely surprised that his parishioners want to have anything to do with him at all. He tries to see the best in everyone, a policy that’s so far had mixed results. "Being a Satanist doesn't automatically make you a bad person", he confides to the churchwarden, as he prises out the nail that somebody’s driven straight through a sheep’s heart and into the church door. "Actually”, the churchwarden replies, “I think you'll find it does".

Steve bites his lip in vexation. He’s finding life in the 21st century unnecessarily complex; just when he seems to have got the hang of it, somebody changes the rules. When we swore an oath in court, we used to lay a respectful hand on the Bible. But now, according to a new directive from Canterbury, it seems that an Argos catalogue will do. In terms of morality the Church used to take a lead; now, loathe to upset anyone, it meekly follows. People have to make their own decisions today about what’s right and what’s wrong. “It’s not like the commandments were written on tablets of stone”, says Steve. “Actually”, says his churchwarden, “I think you’ll find that they were”.

There are moments, especially during the dark days of a South Pennine winter, when Steve even doubts his own faith. He shouldn’t he so hard on himself; he’s not the first man of the cloth to question the existence of an omnipotent deity. Let’s be honest, atheism never held back the Bishop of Durham’s career. And today we can define an agnostic merely as someone who can't believe it's not butter.

The Bible itself isn’t seen as infallible any more. Instead of taking every word as gospel truth, we treat the Good Book as an a la carte menu, picking out the bits we like and leaving the rest on the side of the plate. After all, the world has moved on a bit since Jesus beguiled and perplexed his followers with parables. The Bible still offers the last word on big issues such as love, honesty and redemption. But God has been inconclusively silent about many of the issues which engage us today, such as the outrageous price of replica football strips.

All this is worrying enough, of course, but it’s when sex rears its ugly head that Steve really gets hot under the dog-collar. He adopts the Church’s now-traditional stance when faced with people having sex for no other reason than idle recreation: he covers his eyes and peers through his fingers with horrified fascination. As a young man, with plenty of horse-power under the bonnet, Steve himself is not immune from the temptations of the flesh. But whenever sexual frustration becomes unendurable, he doesn’t just leap into bed with the upper primate of his choice. No, he resorts instead to that time-honoured remedy for a restless libido: the cold bath and the walking tour.

It’s homosexuality that makes Steve feel particularly queasy. Well, men shagging does. He longs for the good old days, when the only men you'd see in bed together were Morecambe and Wise. On the other hand, the thought of two women, going at each other like knives, makes him reach immediately for the cold tap or his hiking boots. Steve’s worried. He’s heard on the grapevine that the gays of Milltown are planning a recruitment drive. If they’re half as persuasive as people think they are, will Steve be able to resist their silver-tongued blandishments?

Yes, it’s excruciating (or mildly amusing, depending on your point of view) to watch the Church of England wringing its hands over gay issues. Before coming to their traditional half-arsed compromise: a benign intolerance. But what is all this fuss about ‘promoting’ homosexuality. And just how would anyone do it? A poster campaign, perhaps? (‘Go on, give it a whirl... you know you want to’... ‘Women are OK... but you can’t beat the real thing.’) Gay undercover agents in our schools? But far from inveigling their pupils into a gay lifestyle, most teachers are happy if they can get through a lesson without the kids murdering each other. In any case, since most kids do the exact opposite of what they’re told, a gay campaign would only ensure that they’d grow up as straight as the proverbial arrow.

The concerns are groundless. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation, for God’s sake: not just another lifestyle choice, or this year’s colour, or taste sensation, or hobby or new kind of scratchcard. It's not just something you do on a whim, like having your nose pierced or seeing what happens when you drink cleaning fluids. Nobody ever gets bored with being straight and decides just to ‘go gay’ (though Michael Portillo seems to have made the trip in the opposite direction). Homosexuality isn’t some club for which you can take out a trial subscription. It’s not contagious; you can’t catch it, like flu. And it’s not yet compulsory. If anyone propositions you, and you don’t welcome their advances, all you have to do is smile and say: “Thank you for asking, but no...”

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