The Muse rallies to the Church Militant

It is perhaps too easy, when reflecting on the Church of England, for one’s mind to come back to Lord Melbourne’s supposed comments, later oft-quoted by Churchill and others. First, he may have mused that “things have come to a pretty past, when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of one’s private life”. Latterly, he is claimed to have said that “I must be considered more of a buttress than a pillar of the Church, since I support it from the outside”. Apocryphal or not, such is the nature of Anglican navel-gazing that it becomes only one short jump from that, to a certain Oxford Chaplain in the early 2000s making the astonishing claim (belied by the monotonous drone of its delivery) that “Anglicanism is practically atheism”.

(Never mind that Melbourne was a Whig, mocking the Tory Party at Prayer; nor also that Melbourne famously was involved in two sex scandals before his term of office was up)

Some may be surprised by the strength of my religiosity, given the rationalist leanings of my writing. However upon leaving Oxford I was at one stage minded to emulate my close friend in taking Orders at St Stephen’s House, even if one of my motivations was a very temporal love of the vestments. Anglicanism in particular burns strong within me. A good friend of mine recently decided that it was of little consequence to convert (in my mind, rather too glibly) from Lutheranism to Catholicism, citing the latter’s stauncher conservatism. This caused a rare rupture between us, and also provoked me to revisit then underpinnings of the faith that called to me all those years ago; because amidst all the clowning of recent decades that brought us everything from schism over gay bishops to payday loans, taking us from Thomas the Beckett to today’s Pound Shop iconoclast Justin Wellby, the underlying reasons for adhering to the Church of England, for all its faults, remain clear.

The first is theological. There is little point dwelling on the underlying arguments for or against Transubstantiation or Grace, or justification through “faith alone”. What you believe is what you believe; but it is important to focus on the fact that for all her bells and smells, Anglicanism is a cornerstone of Protestantism, which itself is, in the words of historian JM Roberts, “the closest thing England came to have as a national identity”. Whilst one can quibble about some of the liturgical and even ecclesiastical disagreements between denominations, the gap between Protestantism and Catholicism is much clearer and unbridgeable. And no amount of watering down of Anglicanism dogma changes the fact that it is not, even at its Highest, Papist.

The second is intellectual. Readers of this blog will note the importance I place on the need for intellectual coherence and defensibility. Of the various Christian denominations, Anglicanism is by far and away the most intellectually capable and rigorous. Arguably, the Church of England is the only mainstream denomination which sustains a robust intellectual tradition, and it is no surprise that we created all the intellectual lights of other denominations too as a result. At opposite ends, both Henry Newman and John Wesley started life in the Church of England before going off to renew Catholicism and found Methodism respectively. Anglicanism’s very Establishment is why this is true, and its interconnectivity with the institutions of education and learning are the evidence. And of course, Newman and Wesley were both intellectually vibrant whilst within the Establishment; and they both atrophied the moment they left.

Why is this important? Well, faith is all well and good, but intelligence is a gift from God also. As intelligent people, it is right and proper that we seek to square the circle between blind faith and the powers granted us to reason. The Divine Clockmaker demands not only belief in the clock, but an understanding of its mechanics. Therefore any religion which emphasises only the spiritual, to the point even of being anti-intellectual, is being irresponsible towards its adherents. The Catholic Church, of course, is successful amongst the global poor precisely because it aims for the spiritual lowest common denominator; it should be of no surprise that it is so warmly welcomed by cults that, for instance, worship rocks since Catholicism more or less engages in rock-worship itself. Only Anglicanism breaks out of this spiral and in a sense, we have been a victim of our own success. However this is a price worth paying.

The last, and possibly most important point, is civilisational. Outsiders will often mock the provenance of the Church of England as being the result simply of Henry VIII’s proclivity for divorce. To that I say: so what? Faith needs to be theologically coherent, as outlined above, but it also must come from and speak for a people. It is right and proper that the Anglican church is an expression of everything Britain and the Commonwealth is. It must reflect the identity and culture of the temporal powers that underpin it – its churches and cathedrals, its social mores, its language. It is entirely wrong to suggest that a Church should not be so specific as to be “local” to one culture or place, that is precisely what it should reflect. The more it is bound and tied to a geography, the stronger it is – much the same as government or currency. Its ‘exportability’ will then reflect the strength of that underlying culture – much like government or currency. And on this is the strength of its civilisational proposition, and its capability of being Universal.

Because I can say that we have pretty much the best of what every other denomination has, and more. You want bishops? We have a proper Episcopalian Succession. You want some Papal States? We have a whole Commonwealth united in Confessionalism under the King as Head of the Church. You want Protestantism? We practically invented Consubstantiation. You want Church Councils? We have the Synod. On top of all this, we have the pre-eminent choral tradition which puts Catholic services to shame – Evensong is basically one long concert and the Establishment means we have some of the best choirs, organists and composers. Last but not least – and perhaps the clearest expression of how Anglicanism is tied to and enhances the national identity from which it emanates and patronises – we have the linguistic contribution to English from the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Version of the Bible.

Anglicanism is decidedly not atheism. Rather, it is the thinking man’s religion and it is, in concentric circles, England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the Commonwealth. The fact that urban liberals are too uninterested in faith today to recognise this, just as they were under Lord Melbourne and for centuries prior, changes none of this. The Church of England is one spiritual, temporal, ecclesiastical and liturgical whole. It is far too polite to demand being taken seriously; but anyone who disagrees with this is not taking religion seriously at all.

The Muse demands I consider what is it that makes one look the most clever

I have had a relatively academic-leaning background, particularly at school. Having attended, each in their own right, “name schools” (or 名校 as the Chinese would call it), where my studies have taken in everything from the use of silk as alternative monetary policy in Middle Byzantium, to the human bitchiness which decided large matters of state in colonial American religion, to the surprising retrogradation in literacy in China during the 1990s, I feel well-placed to observe where learning happens. And surprisingly, when I look back on all the years I spent becoming over-qualified and under-educated, by far the most intellectually rigorous subject has been: Music.

To take a step back, I have been a semi-professional musician through most of life, and (time for a humblebrag) have been involved in top tier choral establishments, understudied at the Royal Opera, headlined at St Martin-in-the-Fields and much else besides. However it was at A-level that I last studied music academically – and yet, despite being at Oxford and Tsinghua and having collected reams of letters after my name, that Music A-level remains the most intense course of studies I have undertaken.

Let us consider what the constituent parts of this course were:

1. Technical exams – as I recall, two 90 minute exams of listening to recordings, identifying musical language and testing one’s “ear” for marginally off-tune notes in a flurry of orchestral music
2. Composition exams – I think back in amazement at being made to sit at a piano to compose a chorale in the style of JS Bach, on a given tune, in just 60 minutes
3. Performance exams – by far the easiest, this comprised submission of my Grade 8 exams, but also involved recordings of group participation
4. Academic exams – I believe my first ever three hour essay paper (these were to come thick and fast later at Oxford) tackling such pressing questions as – I kid you not – “Discuss the contribution of Handelian organ concertos to the development of concerto-sonata form” or “Do Florestan or Eusebius survive deeper into the Romantic era?”

I would make three observations about this which build to my central case as to why academic Music is such a strong subject for any child to take.

The first point to make is the sheer range of demands that Music A-level placed on a student. I do not believe any other subject required such a diverse range of talent, and needed decent quality in each one – just being a great pianist was not enough to pass, let alone obtain a high grade, in this subject. It comprised a properly academic core, but also made you perform and be highly technical and abstract. It is perhaps the most multi-dimensional subject that can be studied, certainly at the age of 16. Being made to digest and memorise a complicated score such as Schumann’s piano concerto in A-minor – its structure, language, tradition and technique – is something I have never encountered since.

The second point is the obvious one that Music remains by far and away the most esoteric of subjects, given its requirement for dealing in the abstract and a mathematical mind. In the Medieval curriculum, Music formed part of the Quadrivium, the Greater Four science subjects and more or less represented the study of numbers in the context of time (the other subjects being Arithmetic, or pure numbers; Geometry, or numbers in the context of space; and Astronomy, or numbers in the context of both time and space). To look at it another way, Music as an art is far more intellectual than, for instance, visual arts and far less reliant only on emotional reaction as a measure of its efficacy – the work of Bach combines both the aesthetic of a Rembrandt with the technical skills of a master watchmaker. Is there a higher intellectual form of artist than Wagner, for instance? Is there even a Wagner equivalent within the other “arts”? I would wager, no.

Lastly, Music makes you a rounded, high-brow person in a way little else does. One of the great things it trains you for is performance – you are spending most of every day performing for someone or other. This constant need to “put on a performance”, and not be afraid of the limelight, but also to work in a form of harmony not found in many other parts of life outside of the sports field, is unparalleled; the ability, too, to “make do” and be pragmatic when things go wrong is equally important. Given the way we are headed on automation and the economy, it seems very likely that the ability to “perform” will be more important than ever as the only human jobs remaining will be those focused around selling and marketing – something Music is inherently suited to.

Of course I do not attribute all my development to just one subject, and the above is written with a musician’s right to exaggeration; but it is also not completely tongue-in-cheek.  I rarely meet a group of people of a given industry who have a higher median amount of intelligence than musicians; neither are there many industries that would provide better dinner-party company. Yes, musicianship breeds in-jokes and a certain arrogance (humility and music have not, in my experience, been a natural coupling) but by God does it make fun, interesting people – people who can talk big, entertain spontaneously, pull together groups and networks, and who have a vocabulary which articulates and impresses. The fact that most of this is directed towards complaining about others is by the by; the important thing is that Music makes you look very, very clever.

So parents all! If your child is inclined towards Music, do not start hand-wringing. Your precocious offspring is probably just taking the first step towards become future employable, and annoying though they might become, take comfort in the fact that they will be a better sort of person.

My muse has given me leeway until the end of January to complete “Christmas”, giving me just enough time to examine the bigger picture

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Between 1781, when Lord Cornwallis surrendered to the Americans at Yorktown marking the end of the First Empire, to 1942 when Percival surrendered to the Japanese at Singapore and effectively marked the end of the Third Empire, Britain did pretty well. By and large there was not a single concession in between those two dates – with British phlegm being marked by a few remarkable victories interspersed with some even more glorious catastrophes, such as the Retreat from Kabul; the Charge of the Light Brigade; the Sieges of Cawnpore and Khartoum; Isandlwana; and the Somme. The noble, defiant ignorance of the lower classes characterised Empire and was the basis on which it was built.

Since that time, we have had sailors like Arthur Batchelor blubbing away “when the Iranians, who called him Mr Bean, took away his iPod.” We have had a second withdrawal from Kabul where pets were being prioritized over people. Foreign policy has been of a somewhat reduced nature, and with that comes the question: have the British changed? Are we now a weaker nation, no longer capable of seizing the moment and battling for a greater cause?

I say, no. And I think we can see exactly where Britain remains as strong as she ever was. Here I examine the keystones of the imperial character, and how they still manifest themselves.

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Defiance

At the Battle of Jellalabad in 1842, Sir Robert Sale organised the Somerset Light Infantry to hold off thousands of Afghan jezails (after the inglorious / glorious massacre of British forces to the last man at Jugdulluk) for five months. Not only did these men of Taunton refuse to concede, but went on to capture 300 sheep from their assailants for provisioning.

Today this obstinacy and refusal to lie down continues, as shown by these courageous characters, who dressed as traffic cones for a stag do, blocking a local road and finally having to be arrested by the police:

Competitivity

Such was his desire to serve his country, Captain Scott and his four companions famously died in 1912, frozen to death in their vain attempt to be first to reach the South Pole. Yet this was a theme which had centuries of tradition for Britain, particularly in its rivalry with France. The imperial race that took us to the Americas and later the colonisation of Africa before they could, created much of the land holdings which allowed for the idea that Britain had an empire “on which the sun never set”.

And who are the heirs to Captain Scott? Step forward these men:

Cunning

The Great Game raged between Britain and Russia over the Northwest Frontier region over much of the 19^th century. A war that never quite was, Britain strove to counter and undermine the Russian ambitions in the East at every turn, leaving no stone unturned to do so including setting up trade routes and client states. Likewise, when Britain wanted a war with Spain or France, she relied on privateers and pirates to harass her rivals until a war was inevitable – perhaps none more so than the provocations that led to the Second Anglo-Dutch War, where the Royal Africa Company was established to seize Dutch ships and outposts along West African coast.

This guile remains in the blood of the British, as shown by Surrey farmer Robert Fidler, who for four years between 2001-2005 fought the tyranny of the Planning Permission board of Reigate, by hiding an enormous folie de grandeur behind haystacks. The local council was not aware of this military build-up until the it was revealed with a flourish:

(Note: Fidler ultimately lost the case and had to tear down the house in 2016, but it was the effort that counted)

Opportunism

Many wrongly see the height of the British Empire as that conveyed through the formal life of Late Victoriana: reviews at Spithead, Great Exhibitions, the Delhi Durbar. Yet as I have noted before, the real peak of Empire was a century or more earlier, with James Wolfe’s victory at Quebec in 1759, and Robert Clive’s victory over local warlords at Plassey two years earlier. Throughout this period, the British displayed unparalleled buccaneering spirit, just as they had in battling the French in the pirate wars. Britain stumbled into her Empire accidentally, on the whole, but she never missed a chance to assert herself at the expense of others.

This remains perhaps Britain’s greatest trait. When a container ship sank off Devon in 2007 – before the financial crisis when household balance sheets were still bloated by overvaluation and there was no desperation in the air – the reaction of the Great British Public was to scavenge as much as possible before anyone could catch them.

This was magnified a few years later, when rioters in London turned out to be just as keen to loot from JD Sports as they were for social justice.

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And what of the French?

Our cousins across the Channel had a slightly different imperial experience. For a start, due to losing key engagements such as the Battle of the Saintes, France was largely left with bin-ends of empire such as the bone-dry sub-sahara. In Indochine, their most enduring contribution to civilization was the forcing of Vietnamese to eat baguettes and pate.

But they too were famed, whilst the contest lasted, for a sort of cunning. In the Americas for instance, the French were willing constantly to get into bed with local tribes in order to align short term interests against competitors such as British or Dutch. This came to a head in the French & Indian War (the Seven Years’ War) where they used the Delawares and Shawnees against the British colonists. However, whereas in the British this was a noble astucity, a dignified shrewdness of mind, in the French this can only be seen as double-faced artifice, the constant scheming of a younger brother who can never quite get what he wants.

Nowadays, French ingenuity is demonstrated in such activities as getting a free ride in defence spending through NATO, hijacking the European Union for their own ends, and this:

So I suppose we are all back to where we started …