Ian Hislop: a modern Ezekiel?

For the 2nd week in a row, the Radio Times is asking questions about faith. Last week Tom Hollander, this week Ian Hislop. Hislop is following up his excellent series on the Victorian 'do-gooders' with a progamme on 'When Bankers Were Good'. With all the talk about putting a new ethical basis at the heart of banking, perhaps Hislops programme should be required watching in the Square Mile.

Hislop is also quizzed about his faith:

Hislop, who was at the helm of Private Eye when it portrayed the then prime minister as a trendy Church of England vicar, described himself as "an occasional Anglican".

He said: "I'm not sure that a lot of what I do is particularly charitable or Christian, so that worries me. I remember being in church and the vicar noticed I was there and included me in a rant in his sermon against those who bear false witness. That put me in my place. So I am pretty confused about my position. But I go."

I was wondering if Hislop is too hard on himself, and was put in mind of the prophet Ezekiel. Here is someone who cooks over dung to make a public point, graphically compares Israel to a prostitute, and repeatedly satirises and slams the rulers of Israel for their vices and sins. Part political commentator, part performance artist, Ezekial would have worried the lawyers at Private Eye, and been post-watershed material on Channel 4.

Though I guess if the CofE embraced Hislop too openly, that might devalue his currency as a commentator and prophet. After all, if you want people to hear you speak from the church steps, not the vestry.

Symbolism and Protest

The latest Touching Base is now online at the Wardman Wire, on the place of symbolism in prophecy, politics and protest (ooh, that was good!). A snippet:

a good prophet is a master of symbolism. Many times, Old Testament weirdos like Ezekiel did peculiar things like cook over their own excrement, or build scale models of a beseiged Jerusalem. The people might forget their words, but not the images of Ezekiels pessimistic political punditry. Especially when it came true. Jesus, when looking for a way of helping his followers to remember his life and its meaning, left the symbols of wine and broken bread.

Some prophets themselves become symbols, without speaking we already know what they stand for: Tutu, The Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King.

At some level this works for all of us. We all have a public image, we are seen in a certain way, and we put varying degrees of effort into buffing it up and making sure it’s the one we want to project. We know that there is a gap between perception and reality, and we also know how much we stand to lose if and when that gap is exposed.

Clarkson, Risk and Insurance

A further thought about yesterdays Jeremy Clarkson story - one thing that makes it newsworthy (apart from Clarkson getting egg on his face, which will have delighted most of the population), is the sheer brazen risk of putting your bank details in the biggest circulating 'newspaper' in the country.

It stands out because it's countercultural. Buy anything on the net now and if you don't carefully check all the little boxes on the screen you'll find you've paid an insurance premium for safe delivery, safe travel, safe sex or whatever. Buy anything electrical and the price of a warranty (insurance against it breaking down) is thrown in, because that's the main way the retailers make a profit. Insurance is a symptom of a risk-averse society. Our attitude to children is another barometer of this: we protect them from percieved risks, when in many ways it's safer for children now than it was a generation ago. In fact our very protecting of children (bundle them into the car rather than walk) creates risk for everyone else. It's a prime case of individualism working against what everybody wants.

But we also seem to have lost the middle ground on risk. It's either obsessive safety, or extreme sports. A few tentative forays, like 'the dangerous book for boys', have recognised that there was a healthy attitude to risk in previous generations that we've lost in our own. In some ways the petrolheads like Clarkson are the only prophets for risk in mainstream society. It's just a shame that it's wasted on something as boring, and dangerous, as cars. We seem to be great at taking risks in all the wrong areas - fast cars, binge drinking, excessive debt - whilst areas which deserve the odd risk or two: friendship, faith, telling the truth, standing up for the poor, protesting and campaigning, you can probably add dozens of examples - risks which pay off for the benefit of others - we have become timid.

So Jeremy, do it again. Sorry for having a pop at you for taking a risk. We need you.

Prophetic Art, Prophetic Action

Cranmer is currently posting on the state of Bethlehem and its beleagured Christian population, and put up this picture of a new take on the nativity scene:

including the new Israeli security barrier. The sets are produced by the Amos trust, and the larger church-sized version has a 'detachable' security barrier. If only it were that easy in real life.


It's interesting that it's art and craft pieces which are drawing more attention to the situation in Bethlehem than words. That's something which Archbishop John Sentamu recognises, hence his dramatic chopping up of his dog collar on the Andrew Marr show today (watch it here) .

The trouble with prophetic action is that it always runs the risk of looking like a gimmick or publicity stunt. What's the difference between Sentamu's protest against Robert Mugabe, and David Blaine fasting in a perspex box for 40 days? There will no doubt be some people who cry 'gimmick' - it was clearly premeditated (why else would he have a pair of scissors with him on the show?), but it's grabbed the headlines, and is an image which people will remember.


Being a prophet is a risky business. People might label you, in Blairs word, a 'nutter'. Ezekiel cooking over his own poo, Jeremiah hiding his underpants under a rock, these aren't exactly the actions of fine upstanding members of the community. The line between prophetic action and idiocy is sometimes visible only to God. In a culture saturated with the media, prophets both have to be more media-savvy, but also more innocent. Everyone is after their 5 minutes, or 5 megabytes, of fame, and if people remember the messenger more than the message, then somehow the action of prophecy has gone wrong.


The other fascinating thing is the use of the visual. There's no doubt that words, in the hands of a master craftsman, can be incredibly powerful. But the visual arts, and dramatic actions have a power to communicate that leaves most of us amateur wordsmiths standing. Approaching Christmas, and thinking about how to communicate the old old story in fresh, challenging and meanginful ways, I have to tread the line between gimmick and dramatic visual aid in the search for things to show and do that will illuminate the Christmas crib from a new angle.


What helps of course is that pretty much every day at the moment there is a story in the news which can be worked with, whether it's the Archbishop, Blairs interviews, the survey on nativity plays, or the swell of voices from other faiths telling the secularists to lay off Christmas (see Cranmer again on Fridays 'thought for the Day'. )