I’ve set myself a difficult task, I feel, as I want to address several intertwined issues all at once. Firstly, I want to speak about a few church practices, mixed in with aspects of Volk Christianity, that is, corrupt understandings or practices of the faith, and why, in the increasing pace of Islamisation, we need to make Christian culture more real and meaningful. But first, a word on ritual.
Rituals, despite what some Christians may think, are most certainly apostolic and “biblical” (as some like to refer, often erroneously, to things permissible). Christ underwent ritual, practiced ritual, and instituted rituals. However, he, along with the Old Testament prophets, condemned “empty” rituals, the kind that are merely going through the motions, when they mean nothing to you and do not represent, for you, what they are supposed to embody. Take, for example, confirmation, which will be our primary example in this article. Confirmation is supposed to be a moment of initiation into the Christian faith, when one who has been baptized earlier in life (usually as a child) takes ownership of the faith and assumes the obligations of the new covenant. The gravity of this event suggests that the one undertaking it needs to be mature enough to understand what they are taking on, which would suggest that such a ceremonial ritual should be performed when someone is mature.
However, in many churches, it has been reduced to nothing more than a civic ritual that serves as an excuse to dress up our children (when they will still let us), take photos, and have a party. Not that any of these things are in and of themselves bad; they are simply not what confirmation is about. Confirmation is an ecclesial development built on another ecclesial development: child baptism. Child baptism may or may not have begun in the apostolic era, but it certainly did very soon afterward. I do believe in child baptism, for the record, but I accept that the evidence for its practice in Scripture is weak. Christianity, however, does not depend on finding proof texts in Scripture for every practice. Such texts are helpful, but not necessary, for Christian practices.
The early church clearly adopted infant baptism quite early, but it faced a dilemma. Baptism, in its earliest form, required a personal commitment to the new covenant. It was also understood by all to “wash away sins,” and, as a result, many adults delayed their own baptisms until the end of their lives. This was itself a Volk, or a corrupt understanding of baptism in that time. Families were bringing their children to the church and, understanding that baptism was initiation into the community of the redeemed, they wanted their children to receive the graces of the sacrament and to be assured that their children were also among the saved. The church, by its legitimate authority, accepted children to be baptized, and then instituted godparents to catechise them into the faith, followed by the practice of confirmation, to ensure that at an appropriate age they took for themselves the faith that had been given to them as an inheritance, because they were being raised among the people of God.
Today, in Volk/corrupt, and at times almost superstitious expressions of Christianity among the unlearned, baptism is seen as driving out the devil, and it was not long ago that you could not enter someone’s home with a child if that child was not baptized. Godparents are seen merely as people who will take on your children if you die prematurely, and baptism and confirmation are used as excuses to have a party and take cute photos. No one is taking any of it seriously, including the priests, at least functionally. We are hearing these days legitimate grumbling from Christian commentators on the political right about how Ramadan, which is essentially a month of feasting (comically renamed “Ram-it-down” because of the excessive eating that occurs before dawn and after sunset), is taken more seriously by statutory bodies and celebrated more publicly here in the UK by the King, the Welsh government, a number of NHS trusts, and several police authorities.
However, I want to pose a question: is it possible that a chief contributing factor to Shrove Tuesday and Lent being eclipsed by Ramadan is that we, collectively, do not take them seriously? Consider Shrove Tuesday, which is linked to the idea of being “shriven” or “shriveled,” because it was meant to be an annual day of confessing our sins and a final day of preparation for Great Lent. For most people now, it is simply a day to indulge in pancakes; the day’s seriousness has been lost. Lent, rather than being a time of increased prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, a time of intensified repentance, when we wage a real campaign against the sin in our own lives—has instead become a season in which some might vaguely “give up” chocolate, sugar, or some small comfort, only to take it back up again the moment Easter begins.
I realise several things. First, many Christians take these things seriously. The church is not without its spiritual athletes, and many believers understand and practice these disciplines with the gravitas they deserve. Second, I recognise that this deference to Ramadan exists because our liberal elite see which way things are going, the Islamification of the UK, and, having no liberal rationale to resist or reverse it, simply go along with it, not only because they are often moral cowards, but also because they hope to placate the bully boys in the umma.
However, the only reason Islam has such traction in our liberal culture is that the church’s spiritual elites, for the most part (and there are exceptions), neither cultivate a deep seriousness about these practices nor know how to do so. Lent is a time in which the Christian enters a campaign of repentance against their own sinful habits and all the things that enable that sin. It is a time of serious fasting: taking only one meal a day, following a strict vegan regimen, fasting until a certain hour, or abstaining from food every other day. It is, or should be, a serious commitment.
It is also a time when we join our fasting and increase giving to the work of the church, to the poor, and to those in need. It is a time when we deepen our prayer life and work on our souls, seeking to leave sin behind not only for Lent but for good. Christians also use it to cultivate better habits more generally. Lent is a personal MOT for the soul, not to be taken lightly and not to be trivialised by boasts about “giving up chocolate for Lent.” Children and the infirm, who cannot be expected to fast seriously, may give up small tokens such as chocolate, sugar, or desserts like ice cream, so that they can participate in the practice of Lent without bearing its full rigours.
Simply put, if we do not take Lent seriously, why should anyone else? The whole Christian calendar gives believers an opportunity to re-engage with wider society by living out a distinctive culture and a clearly different identity. This cannot be accomplished properly unless we go more deeply into the meaning and significance of its many jewels and embody them with seriousness and gravitas. We need leaders who can navigate these things and cultivate seriousness around them. That means churches should not baptise children unless those children belong to committed Christian parents. We should not accept as godparents anyone but committed Christians. Confirmation should be turned into a proper rite of passage, an entry ritual into Christian adulthood, in which the child becomes an adult and is seen to be taking on the rights, rites, history, culture, traditions, customs, practices, and responsibilities of being a full member of the church. As such, it should probably not be given to children, but to late teens at the earliest.
Marriages should not be offered in a church to just anyone, but only to practising Christians. None of the sacraments should be used as an opportunity to evangelise, in which we prostitute the sacrament for the sake of brief contact with someone. One way to address this is to impose church discipline, stating that the church will not administer sacraments such as marriage, confirmation, or baptism unless people have attended the congregation for a full year as committed members. The Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Orthodox churches often treat the sacraments as mere civic formalities, and this must stop. Protestant churches often have little sense of “culture” at all, which fails them at every turn. A more serious commitment to the meaning and significance of these rituals, traditions, and customs needs to be practised, and that begins with properly understanding them. That understanding should again inform, refresh, and even reform how we implement them and under what conditions.
Godparents should be chosen because they know and live the faith and can teach it to our children, who should meet with their godparents for catechesis. I will give one final example. I think Ramadan is being given a month in the spotlight of the state because of the Volk corruption of Advent. Rather than being a pre-Christmas Lent, Advent has been turned into an early Christmas, in which the first day of Christmas is treated as the last day of Christmas, and Christmastide itself is not celebrated at all. Christians need to return to a real Christian culture, in which Advent is a pre-Christmas Lent and Christmas is properly extended through January rather than confined to December, and truly celebrated. That would mean Advent carols in December and Christmas carols in January.
This kind of seriousness about our own calendar, rituals, and practices will carve out a distinct identity for us. When we can be seen as a Christian people, we will begin to be treated as such. For those brothers and sisters who are anxious that we focus on preaching the gospel rather than being “caught up” in these things, this seriousness will open up countless opportunities for meaningful spiritual conversations about why we Christians do what we do. In short, we will not be treated seriously until we take our own faith seriously. Volk Christianity is not serious; it is a collection of clichés and caricatures. To be serious is to understand and apply what is true in a meaningful way, thinking through its application, even if that means changing the way we do things.
