Good

I remember back in 1975 when I was a young curate in Oldham. The church had a parish hall with a licensed bar, which I was wont to frequent. One day, the steward asked me if I wanted to have a drink and I replied in the negative. With a mocking expression and tone of voice he replied, “Oh! Are you turning Christian, then?”

It used to be commonplace for people to identify being a good person with being Christian. The reasons for this are various, such as Christianity’s being virtually the only popular religion in large parts of British history, and also, as in the illustration of my experience at the bar seems to demonstrate, Christianity is sometimes associated with curbing bad behaviour, but often diverts into the area of wanting to spoil other people’s fun.

What is the origin of that association between religion and being good? Certainly you need a lot more space than a magazine article even to start approaching that question, but it must have something to do with the negative impacts of our human behaviours and the needs we have to produce the best qualities in our life together in communities.

“The gods”

It would be interesting to go back to the dawn of human life on earth, but we can’t, because there are no records, only vague hints and guesswork. Our ancestors seem to have tried to placate and propitiate what they understood to be the forces guiding the seasons and the weather and the success of harvests, whom they called “the gods”. Their efforts, such as making sacrifices, whether human or of produce, were then assessed in terms of success the following year and then moderated or repeated to achieve the best results.

In this ancient world-picture, humanity was at the mercy of uncontrollable forces and there arose a priestly caste of people who claimed to be able to mediate with the gods in the interests of the people – for a little consideration, of course. The earth was seen clearly to be flat with a canopy above it. Storms, thunder, floods, disease and disaster ruled the day-to-day lives of most people, who lived in constant fear of crop failures and starvation. They were easy prey to the canny person who could offer solutions to their problems, whether religious, medical or political.

If you consult works of anthropology, for example, that influential book The Golden Bough by J G Frazer, published in sections from 1890 and in one volume by Macmillan and Co. in 1922, you will get a feel for the myriad religious explanations on offer to the ancient people. And, in a deep sense, explanation, or aetiology, is central to the rise of religions, and the Judeo-Christian religious tradition in particular. The myths of the Books of Moses, the Law and the Prophets all offer aetiology in an effort to make sense of everything that was happening both to the community and to individuals.

Unity, purpose and vision

Essential to this development was the Law, a basis for community living that Jewish people regard as being literally given to Moses by God. Whatever the content of this Law, the concept of a God-given Law is very important to the development of history and social history. The concept of being God-given lends authority to laws, and, when in the context of a community of faith, creates a sense of unity, purpose and vision.

Because the Law is given by God, it is to be treated with the greatest respect and obeyed, and lawlessness is to be treated severely and justice meted out without reference to the status of the lawbreaker. In theory, the God-given law puts all people in the same class and levels them to be all children of Israel.

Moses (as depicted here by Charlton
Heston) was believed to have been
given the Law by God.

It is in this framework that religious people see “religion” as providing a moral framework and compass for the world. The Judeao-Christian tradition is the inspiration of British law and our common understanding of what it is to be good neighbours, how to know what is wrong and then how to treat wrongdoers, and how important it is to dispense justice without fear or favour but with mercy, and to support widows and orphans, the alien within our gate and the poor.

From this Jewish heritage, our society gets much of what is good, deeply embedded and at times taken for granted and, at other times, challenged and confronted. Here we see the origins of the National Health Service, social-services departments across the country, the law courts and trial by jury, and the comprehensive education service we enjoy.

For Christians who inherit the Jewish tradition and welcome it, the teachings of Jesus are enshrined in the same areas of human activity. He is seen as a healer, a teacher, a supporter of the estranged and weak, and one unafraid to confront corrupt authority, be it Roman or religious. It is from his life and work that Christians find the renewal of inspiration for the positive and wholesome values that make society work well.

So, it is not the case that society needs religion to make people good, but that, with our common history, we find the impact of religion inescapable. It would also be impossible to rewrite the code books of ethics without reference to these foundations.

What would life be like if we didn’t have these laws and rules? Go to any prison and find out what life is like when nobody really cares about your safety or wellbeing and where you are seen as an “offender” and not a real person. See how prisoners treat their own kind, whom they perceive to be weak or vulnerable. Go to any school and find out what happens when the teacher disappears for a while or the class scent a weak teacher.

The merciless pursuit of that weakness becomes the object of the exercise.

Golding gave us a negative view in his nightmare scenario Lord of the Flies.

William Golding, the Nobel Prize-winning author, described his nightmare scenario in Lord of the Flies, a work written from a position of pessimism about human nature. The themes of the book are the tensions between the need for a common good and the need for individual expression; the need for order and rules and the desire for power. In Golding’s novel, the boys descend into negativity and violence.

While I do not necessarily adopt the same pessimism about human nature, it is evident from history, and the theme of the Psalmist in the Jewish Scriptures, that the wicked seem to flourish and the good often experience hard times. Why is this?

Dog-eat-dog response

There is something in our human nature that produces the dog-eat-dog response, and this response must be guarded against not just by rules and laws but by positive action through education, societal mores, civilising influences such as the arts and international friendships. Religions are a conduit for good things of this kind and have promoted them over centuries, along with other agencies, of course.

I have to say that I am fully aware of the negative impact of religions, especially Christianity, but my contention is that, human nature being what it is, those who desire power and need to exercise it ruthlessly would find their way to the top in any system, whether religious or political. Religious leaders who abuse their religion by producing negative and harmful results for people are well known and don’t need to be recounted here, but the abuse is now recognised as abuse by many observers, although it continues in our day, as we all know.

The bottom line for me is the ambiguity of being human. We have our earthbound side, our dark side, our need for power and our will-to-live instinct, which can make us killers and dangerous people. But we also have our finer parts, our self-sacrificing ability, our generosity, our creativity and our will to do the good.

For most ordinary people, what religions do is provide inspiration for a fulfilled life and a way of expression for our human dilemma through myths, which help us handle the difficult matters. Others have offered a language and system to handle these issues, such as Freud and Karl Marx, but religions provide a time-honoured language and systematic thought pattern through which we may talk about the dark side of being human, and come through to refresh and enjoy the finer side.

When religions or political systems provide a platform for power-crazed leaders determined to make other people conform or die, then we know that the dark side has indeed triumphed. We know from history what happens with such people in power, and we see the results in those twentieth-century atheists, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.*

Religion doesn’t make anyone good, but it helps, sometimes!

*Hitler’s religious affiliations are often doubted. While he was brought up a Catholic, there seems to be evidence that he renounced this. For example, see this Wikipedia article on “Adolf Hitler’s religious beliefs” – Ed.

Neil Richardson has been the rector of the Parish of Greenford Magna in Middlesex since 1982. He is also a Prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral and an Honorary Alderman of the London Borough of Ealing. He has been a member of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) since the 1970s.

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