FOREWORD

The film "The Queen" has been well received, in the UK and abroad, both for its acting and its theme. Essie Wise has been impressed by the thinking behind the film and writes about the issues she considers particularly important. Terry Skene has been listening carefully to john Humphreys interviewing religious leaders in an attempt to regain his lost religious faith and shares with us his reaction to these BBC Radio 4 programmes.

In July we published the first of Arthur Bruce's articles about his attempt to help a group of orphaned boys in Bucharest. We continue his reminiscences of an innocent abroad trying to come to terms with a variety of very complex situations in order to counter the deprivation and discrimination suffered by these youngsters.

Over the years various writers have speculated about Robert Burns' religious beliefs and whether or not he might possibly have been a Unitarian. Certainly in his East Coast travels he may have encountered Unitarians and he was an admirer of Revd, Thomas Fyshe Palmer, the Dundee Unitarian Minister, unjustly accused of political subversion and sentenced to transportation by the tyrannical Pitt government. Terry Skene has been researching Robert Burns' religious standpoint.

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by Essie Wise

"The Queen", written by Peter Morgan, directed by Stephen Frear and starring Helen Mirren in the title role, is a fictitious account of the Royal Family's reaction to the death of Princess Diana in August 1997. Dramatic reconstructions of historical events within a few years of their occurrence has become a popular TV and movie genre and the best of them allow the originators to comment seriously upon the moral, social, political issues raised by the people and events portrayed. "The Queen" is such a mm, well-balanced, sensitive, perceptive and thoughtful, which uses the events of August 1997 to present a view about how people perceive themselves and events in an age of instant and incessant information and about where the source of moral authority is now located.

There are three protagonist groups: the Queen and the Royal Family, public Opinion as created and expressed by the Media, and the Prime Minister of three months standing with his closest advisers. The issue is the Queen's failure to appreciate that the media's perception of her role has been changed to accommodate their portrayal of Diana. When she realises this and finds the role so unsuitable she refuses to perform it, a power struggle develops between the Royal Family and the tabloid newspapers while the Prime Minister attempts to arbitrate between them.

Diana was a mega-celebrity, the most visible woman on the planet and as such the prime property of the world's press and TV channels. Her every public appearance was illuminated by flashbulbs and spotlights, her words recorded and relayed to every radio station on earth. Her whole life, from shy princess to the 'Queen of Hearts', from fairy-tale wedding, the birth of her children, to her health and marital problems, her divorce and love-affairs were the very stuff of TV drama and tabloid headlines. Now, unbelievably, she had made her final exit suddenly, dramatically and tragically. Throughout the world millions of people were shocked and plunged into mourning for a person they had never met but with whom they had lived vicariously and even considered a member of their own family circle. Having peered with forensic intensity into every nook and cranny of her biography, the cameras were not to be denied this unprecedented opportunity of participating in the funeral of the media's greatest super-star. Television is the medium of the age of equality, sharing everything in close up, emotion, reaction, behaviour, expression, its intimate and immediate vigilance, dissolving privacy and distance, disseminating to the universe whatever might attract its attention. No-one, therefore, in the whole wide world was to be excluded from these obsequies for a tragic princess.

Far removed from the media frenzy, the Queen, in distant Balmoral, was concerned for the welfare of her grandsons, Diana's children, and felt that the funeral was a Spencer family preserve, and should be conducted with dignity and restraint. Diana was a private individual, no longer a member of the Royal Family, and those closest to her ought to be allowed to mourn her privately, safe from public intrusion. She was not a media super-star to them but a family member, as vulnerable and fallible as they, a person with whom they had shared an intimate relationship which happy at first had become embittered beyond reconciliation so that the only solution appeared to be total separation. This view was incomprehensible to the editors of the tabloid press who claimed that so great was public grief that only a state funeral could assuage it. A person who had lived so vividly in the public eye deserved a funeral befitting her media importance and so they set about orchestrating a campaign to persuade the Queen and the government that to deny Diana a state funeral would be mean spirited and contrary to the wishes and needs of the great British public. Pictures appeared of the expanding lake of floral tributes around Buckingham Palace; tearful women were interviewed, confessing their sense of loss and wish to participate in a public expression of mourning; an angry man was filmed pointing at the decommissioned flagstaff above the Palace demanding a Royal Standard there at half mast; and editorial voices urging the Queen to appear grieving among her people on the streets of London.

At this stage an impasse was reached. There was no precedent for this situation. The Queen wished to adhere to tradition. The media wished to make the most of its opportunities for spectacle. The Prime Minister anxious to be seen as the people's politician for the same reason that he had dubbed Diana' the people's Princess', cannot find a compromise. Public opinion, therefore, created and fostered by the. tabloids and TV news channels, must be the arbiter. What the public wants, or bas been persuaded it wants, the public must have. The monarchy is the possession of the people and as such bas been annexed by the media moguls. The Queen must capitulate.

Advised by the Prime Minister that the monarchy is in jeopardy, The Queen accepts the plan to stage a state funeral, moves to London and goes 'walk-about' among the crowd surrounding the Palace gates, while the photographers snap away in a frenzy, and the television cameras peer under the Queen's hat in search of a tear.

The image-makers get their day in the Cathedral, the dark suited royals solemnly pictured in the front row, seated behind them the great and the good of the music and fashion industries, celebrities and notables, faces familiar from the TV screens and the gossip columns, all there, under one roof displayed, listening to the tributes, responding to the ritual, paying homage to the greatest star of them all. A coup de media, in more senses than one. The film raises questions about moral relativism in a media age and who speaks for the people. Politicians measure the popularity of their agendas by the number of votes cast in their favour. Television channels and newspapers measure the acceptability of their products by the number of their viewers and readers, upon which their revenue depends. Media companies pursue policies which will maximise their audiences, and when accused of invasion of privacy or overstepping the limits set for them, they claim they are acting 'in the public interest' and are 'safeguarding democracy' by exercising 'the right of free speech'.

However, pleasing the public, or whatever section of the public is deemed to be most favourable to their aims, achieves a higher priority than our traditional ideals of human decency, integrity, sincerity and truth. Surely satisfying democracy or pursuing the greatest happiness of the greatest number were never intended to be independent of generally accepted moral standards? This film, however, suggests that in the case of the events portrayed, moral authority lay with the institution with the loudest voice. In a tense and edgy audience at the end of the film, the Prime Minister tries to congratulate the Queen for demonstrating royal humility. The Queen, however, suggests it was more a case of royal humiliation. The implication being that she was bullied into compliance by the media for their own ends, and that her point of view never received a fair hearing.

The film leaves the discussion at this point, but I think there is also a spiritual issue which is never stated but is implied in the argument. The media have created a cult of celebrities worship, whereby millions of people engage with life by identifying themselves closely with the images of personalities regularly appearing on the TV screens etc. Admiring other people for their achievements or qualities is a positive thing usually, but worshipping another human being is in the end a morally stultifying experience, a kind of idolatry.

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By Bill Stephen

Another hail-shower swept down from the hill, darkened the interior of the hall, rattled against the windows and enriched the sound of our applause as Molly O'Brien, leaning heavily on her grandmother's arm, limped down the aisle between the stalls towards us on the platform, her face beaming with excitement and delight. Suddenly, I had a fleeting impression of a slender figure, sheathed in a long leather coat, face shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat, striding towards us from the dimness at the side of the stage. She brushed passed me, thrust something into my hand, muttered," "Excuse me. This is mine." seized the star prize, Molly's prize, from the raffle table, turned on her heel and made off towards the gloom at the side of the stage. Cassie Bandeen, pushed me aside, lunged at the figure and grabbed the fringe of the scarf trailing over her shoulder. The woman stopped, turned suddenly, tugged her scarf hard from Cassie's grasp and at the same time pushed her sideways. Unbalanced, Cassie fell against the card table which collapsed beneath her weight and spilled her on to the floor of the hall some three feet below. The applause died. Hail rattled against the windows. For a few heart-beats, we were silent and motionless. Then confusion erupted.
''It's the ghostie wifie!" yelled Joe Ingram, (Ingins) through a mouthful of girdle scone. She's pinched O'Brien's prize!"
A group quickly gathered around Cassie, senseless on the floor. "Get a stretcher!" Ingins and Tyoochers clambered on to the platform to chase after the intruder.
The Minister fetched Molly a chair. A red-faced tea-lady brought her Grand-mother a cup of tea. Bewildered and silent they clung to each other, marooned in the middle of the room while the uproar raged around them.
"Where's Dave Flett?" A piercing voice rose above the racket demanding the village constable. "He should be here! That woman should be in jail!" The hall-keeper started blowing his police whistle long before he reached the main door.
"Doctor Alison. Dr.Alison."
"I'm on my way." The Doctor handed his tea cup to the tea ladies, picked up his bag, and, trench coat flapping around his soaked trouser legs, pushed his way between the tables of home-baking and bric-a-brac to the group around his niece. Cassie lay motionless on her back, her head turned to one side, shrouded by her long, brown hair. Her left arm was, ominously, tucked awkwardly beneath her. An elderly woman was trying as gently as possible to pull her skirt and petticoat down over her knees.
"Aye, that's fine, Alice, keep the lassie decent, but I need your help at this end."
"Yes Doctor," said Miss Taggart, the village Registrar, "but these men, they were looking at...eh.."
"Just raise her head a little, till I see what's what." He lifted her eye lids and shone a torch into her eyes. He straightened up.
"She'll be fine," he said to me, and patted my arm. "She's had a bit of a knock. That's all."
I raised my hand to wipe my eyes and discovered the pound notes the 'ghost woman' had given me. I was shaking all over, terrified, and I felt sick and dizzy. Sobs were rising up and choking me, The air was heavy with the smell of wet clothes and fumes from the paraffin stoves set around the walls.
P.C. Flett and three ARP Wardens arrived with a stretcher. Cassie began to jerk her head from side to side .as if trying to shake herself free of something.
I'd first encountered the 'ghostie wifie' when Cassie took us out wool-gathering after Sunday school during the summer.
Cassie suddenly shrieked in pain as she tried to use her left arm. "All right, lass. Ye've had a bit of a tumble. Just lie still" She moaned and fainted again.
We were up on the hill, just behind the 'ghost woman's house,' pulling sheeps' wool off the fences and hedges. Cassie told us Mr Churchill needed it for the war effort. (Cassie was always doing things for Mr Churchill's war effort, collecting waste paper, picking rose-hips for rose-hip syrup, organising concerts and sales-of-work to raise money for bombed-out families.) It was warm and sunny and the air was sweet with the scent of rowan blossom. We could see the 'ghost woman' sitting in front of her summer-house, head bowed, sewing something on a frame.
"We'll manage, now, Miss Taggart." The men lifted Cassie on to the stretcher. She moaned. My eyes smarted and my cheeks were wet with tears. She was white and limp. Her right arm flopped off the stretcher and dangled, lifeless. No one moved or spoke as she was lifted up. Silence had suddenly stilled the uproar. The mood was sombre. We were still in a state of shock.
Joe Ingram, bored senseless teasing shreds of wool from barbed wire, shouted, "Hey, Ghostie Wifie, gie's a chasie!" and hurled a half-eaten cooking apple as hard as he could into her garden. The apple exploded on the roof of the summer-house, showering the woman and her work with tiny fragments of soft, wet fruit. She leapt to her feet, glared at us and ran into the house, the noise as she slammed the door echoing across the hillside like a gun shot.
"She's killed Cassie." Mollie's shrill voice pierced the silence. As the stretcher past through the hall she was screeching hysterically, "She took my prize and she killed Cassie. Cassie's dead." Her granny, deeply embarrassed, stooped to calm her. A young woman in a head-scarf thrust a box with pink ribbon into her hand, but she pushed it away, her face flushed and tearstained. "She's got my prize," she wept, holding up her raffle ticket. "It's my prize."
Later that afternoon, the 'ghost woman', Freda Van Gaast, sat in her studio gazing out on the hillside. Usually, the view lifted her spirits. That morning, after overnight snow the hill had been a gleaming white dome set in a crisp, blue sky, but now it was an ugly lump, under baggy, black clouds. The morning's events had added insult to the serious injuries she had already endured and left her feeling battered and humiliated. Her finest work. Her tapestry, that had taken three years of her life, offered as a prize in a tuppenny raffle. It was unbearable. Another surge of anger stiffened her body. How could they even dream that she would donate such a piece to their jumble sale!
She turned to her tapestry now stretched upon a frame. She tried to calm herself, to concentrate on her work. She carefully placed her magnifier over the Virgin's face and began to examine her eyes. Stitch by stitch, she inspected her meticulous handiwork, each one perfectly formed, each identical to its neighbour. The resentment ebbed slowly, as she admired the sheer skill with which she had created the halo around the pupil, setting the highlights like tiny mirrors exactly where they appear on Botticelli's original. Finding the exact shade for the inner ring of the iris, a tantalising mixture of olive green and hazel had taken her months, as indeed had the slate-blue of the outer ring. She had spent so many hours in front of the original in the Uffizi Gallery to identify her colours so that she could reproduce the painter's subtle palette in shades of silk thread. And these village people were prepared to give all this away, for tuppence a ticket! Bitterness flooded her being again. How could they be so blind! Soulless philistines!
That contemptible policeman who had all but accused her of assault and theft. He had stood there dripping in the vestibule, demanding to see 'Mistress Gast'! He'd come taking evidence as he called it, as if she were a common criminal! She'd committed a breach of the peace, perhaps. The Procurator fiscal would be informed. How could she steal her own work? She could claim it had been stolen from her in the first place! And that she was only defending herself against that Bandeen girl. That's as may be but she'd have to make herself available for further questioning, he said, leaving a pool of muddy water on the tiled floor.
What a stupid fuss over a simple misunderstanding. Had they never heard of Dunkirk, up here? Or the Blitz!
The despair which she had been fighting for the past few weeks since the destruction and looting of her London studio now descended upon her like a thick black hood. She sat with her head in her hands and wept.
Big Ben was chiming nine o'clock on the radio when Dr Alison arrived to see Miss Van Gaast. Her Cousin, Alexandra, with whom she shared the house, took him into the sitting room.
"I'm sorry to call so late." He paused, but Miss Van Gast remained silent. "I've just returned from the Aberdeen Infirmary. It's a ghastly night for driving. It has taken me more than three hours to get home."
 "This is the BBC Home and Forces' Programme. This is the Nine O'clock News and this is Alvar Liddell reading it." His resonant baritone was more than a match for the Doctor's weary voice.
"They've decided to keep Cassie for a bit. She's had a bad concussion. Her arm's broken and her shoulder is dislocated. I hope there'll be no lasting damage. She's set her heart on being a surgeon. She's under sedation. They'll operate tomorrow."
"Alexandra, shouldn't you offer your guest a chair?"
"No, thank you, Alley, I'll be off in a minute. She'll be a bit uncomfortable for a while, but at seventeen we heal quickly."
He paused. Alexandra blushed, tried a smile and fiddled with the door handle. "Well, there it is. I thought you'd like to know."
"Dr Alison," she turned off the wireless and looked at him for the first time. She had her mother's colouring, dark and pale-skinned, with delicate features, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes which now gave her face a shadowed, haunted look. Her voice was dry and tense, as if she was struggling to control herself. "1 do not, nor have I ever wished your niece any harm. What happened to her today was caused by her own impulsiveness and none of my doing. I deeply resent the way this accident is being laid at my door and how this trifling misunderstanding has been inflated out of all proportion."
She stood up, motioned him to be silent. "Come upstairs to the studio. Please."
The room was pitch black. She closed the door. He could hear her moving about. She pressed a switch. Suddenly, light splashed against the far wall. The effect was dramatic, breathtaking. In front of him, set on an easel, was a needlework picture of a Madonna and Child, so exquisitely worked that the figures seemed to be reaching out of the darkness towards him. The colours vibrated in the intense lamp-light and seemed to flow into the room. The scarlet, blue and pale gold of the Virgin's gown; the red-gold of her hair, the bright auburn of the baby's hair, the soft peach of their skin tones, and blends of colours that he could not even guess at, so subtly combined were the interweaving threads.
"An old master?"
"Botticelli's 'Madonna and Child with Saints'. I omitted the saints."
"You don't need saints. That lovely, lovely face.. ..it says it all. Calm, gentle, compassionate, open. It's as. if she were bestowing a benediction on us all.
He moved closer to the sampler. "The way you've done the eyes 1 feel they can see right through me.,... but without judging me...I think I could tell that woman anything and she'd understand."
"Worth a tuppeny raffle ticket, d'you think? My Madonna?
Now can you understand my distress when I arrived' here this morning from London, after spending eighteen hours on an over-crowded train, to discover that those village kids had carted it off weeks ago with the jumble-sale stuff.
"Cassie found it in a cardboard tube among the bric-a-brac, I believe, so she promoted it to the raffle. But I must say, in my own defence, this is the first time I have seen it."
But Freda was not listening to him
"I was frantic. I'd no idea what had happened to it until the District Nurse happened to mention 'my generous raffle prize' when she called to see Alexandra this morning. Dr. Alison this sampler and my share of this house are my sole remaining assets. My father's house in Amsterdam has been commandeered by the Nazis, my studio and workshop in London were bombed and then ransacked. All my stock... three half finished commissions... my threads... my tools... my designs, my templates, my folios of drawings "Her voice became louder and shriller as she struggled for breath "..the work of the work of a lifetime all gone and now I'm being persecuted in my mother's village over a school kid's raffle ticket."
Her voice was hoarse with shouting. Her face was a white mask in the dim light, but he could feel her trembling with anger and frustration.
"You talk to me about blessings! D' you know. That tapestry cost me hundreds to make and the convent that commissioned it is now an S.S. barracks in Silesia and the nuns are scattered goodness knows where. You people are living in cloud-cuckoo land! Haven't you noticed the world is falling apart!"
"Mollie O'Brien's certainly has. Her grandfather owned 'Q'Brien's Bar' down in the Seatown. About six months ago, a bomb dropped outside the front door.' The front of the building was blown out. Mollie's mother, father and grandfather were killed immediately, her brother died two days later. Mollie was dug out of the rubble seriously injured. She eventually got out of hospital about two weeks ago.
She and her grandmother have lost everything, as well. Miss Taggart has given them a home until Christmas, but then her sister is moving  in permanently. After that, . they're homeless again. Winning the raffle, you see, was a big thing for Mollie."
"Oh, really, Doctor! That's sentimental twaddle," her voice scornful. "Don't try emotional blackmail, Doctor, it doesn't suit you. I'm sorry the kid has lost her family, but that has nothing to do with me."
They stood in silence, looking at the tapestry, as self-pity started to replace anger in Freda's heart.
"Why do you people want me to feel guilty? What am I to feel guilty about? Don't I get any sympathy? I'm as much a refugee as that eight year-old Mollie of yours."
The storm was over.
There is great healing in that picture," said the Doctor. There is so much love and trust in that woman's eyes."
"What you are seeing, I think, is a reflection of the artist's humanity."
"Yours?" Asked the Doctor.
"Sandro Botticelli's. I just copied it. I can't say I felt it, personally. I'm not in the least religious. What I see is her vulnerability. She is caught up in something tremendous. She has just given birth. She has a new life to care for and has no control over what happens next.
Trust, or is it an appeal compassion?
I'm not sure. She is so exposed, you see, to whatever fate has in store for her. The painter sees her predicament. He is deeply moved by it. The paint is laid on with such tenderness. The brush strokes are so gentle, so caressing, so intimate. I think he was almost afraid to touch her."
Her voice was soft, now, low, almost a whisper. For a few seconds she was back in the Uffizi, in front of the original, lost in admiration.
The Doctor kept silent while she enjoyed her reverie, but noted the change in her mood. At last, moved by her sincerity, he said, "Why don't you exhibit your Madonna in the village? After all, we never saw her properly, stuck up on the stage there, in that half light. This tapestry of yours has great spiritual qualities and folk will respond to it. They will appreciate it, I'm sure. They're not as insensitive as you think. And wouldn't it be a good thing if some of them at least were to see in the tenderness of your work a reflection of their sympathy for Mollie O'Brien.?"
"My vulnerability, Doctor, is protected by a thick layer of cynicism. I'm not ready to trust you and your villagers just yet." With that, she plunged the room into darkness again and left.
That night, after Alexandra had gone to bed, Freda, tired as she was, returned to her studio, opened the curtains and looked out towards the hill, now indistinguishable from the blackness of the night.
The Doctor's remarks about Mollie O'Brien had affected her deeply. They had apparently a great deal in common, both innocent victims of the war. While she had felt sorry for herself, she had felt no up-rush of compassion for Mollie. Ever since she had tried to be a creative artist she had encountered a kind of emotional barrier that confined her feelings to herself. Desperate as she was to reach out and feel part of the world, to care for people and things enough to see what was unique about them, so that she could feel uplifted by them, inspired by them enough to form her own original vision of life, she could never get beyond her preoccupation with self. She had settled for a second hand vision of life as a copyist. All her samplers, exquisite as they were, were copies of the great masters' work and drew their power from these originals. She could only mirror other people's visions. To create, one must love, as Botticelli must have loved his Madonna, with a selfless compassion. She couldn't do that. She couldn't expose herself in that way. Love made one vulnerable and so far she had not been able to take that risk.
A star appeared in the corner of the window. The outline of the hill began to emerge from its back-ground, and then the window panes were crowded with stars. As she watched the sky clear an idea began to form in her mind, a new excitement was tingling like electricity, deep in her being. Having whispered, "Thank you," to the Madonna, she went to her desk, drew out her drawing board and started to create. The mirror had cracked from side to side. She had made a commitment.
Seven weeks later, Christmas week was upon us at last, and snow covered the streets, out-lined the window sills, cornices and chimney pots, capped pillar-boxes and telephone kiosks, and clad bus-stops and lamp-posts in an icy sheath.
Once again we were in the town hall now smelling deliciously of the forest. The walls were decorated with fir and pine branches and holly wreathes. At the back of the platform was a tall Christmas tree set in a broad wooden tub, painted in green and red stripes, each one adorned with a silver star. Crepe-paper streamers decorated the upper part of the tree and from the lower branches dangled red, gold and silver stars cut from card board and painted.
Seated at the piano at the window side of the platform, was Mr Taggart, the school headmaster thumping out the tunes, and standing centre, still looking pale after four weeks in hospital and wearing a sling, was our Cassie, conducting her Christmas Carol concert. Muffled in coats, scarves, hats and gloves we had exulted with the angels, watched with the shepherds, knelt at the manger with Mary and Joseph, joined the Wise Men bearing gifts, and carried logs through the snow with good King Wenceslas, and just as the afternoon sun was pouring volumes of rose-red light into the hall, a Boy Scout bugler leapt on to the stage and delivered a triumphant fanfare to welcome the village Madonna. Mounted as a banner and carried aloft by Ingins and Tyoochers (who else) the 'ghost wifie's' sampler was paraded down the central aisle to the platform where it was set up for all to see.
Following them, much more slowly, still lame but smiling proudly came Mollie O'Brien, carrying, back to front, what appeared to be an oval picture frame. Reaching the end of the aisle, she stood between the boys supporting the Madonna and showed us the front of her picture. It was another sampler, but this time portraying the features of Mollie O'Brien, as the goddess of Spring, wearing a circlet of daisies and primroses in her hair.
As Mollie lifted up her portrait above her head, a great surge of applause engulfed the hall and the people at the back stood on the wooden forms to get a better view. Happiness shone from every face. Suddenly, the audience caught its breath, the applause stuttered into silence, as from out of the shadows at the side of the stage came a figure in a long leather coat, and wearing a broad-brimmed hat. Cassie ran across the stage, brought the figure to the centre, where she and Freda Van Gaast, shook hands and embraced each other. The pianist hammered out "For they are jolly good fellows". Some of us sang, some of us clapped and Ingins turned cartwheels across the front of the stage. (Perhaps, Cassie had staged managed that as well.) The Madonna floated over our rejoicing, her eyes calm and compassionate, like a benediction.. ..
Mollie and her grandmother moved into the 'ghost house' that Christmas and lived there at least until the war ended. As far as I know they never returned to the Seatown.
Freda seems to have left the village just before the fall of Hitler, presumably taking her Madonna with her.
The following Spring, Mollie was well enough to return to school and one day she brought her sampler to class. Freda had done a lot more work on it over the winter. Now, 'Mollie' wore a heart-shaped pendant on which were embroidered in microscopic stitching, the letters 'S.B'. Mollie said they stood for "Sandra." She couldn't pronounce his second name but he was "a great healer."

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by Terence Skene

John Humphrys, the Inquisitor-in-Chief of the BBC Radio Four "Today" programme, has recently felt the need to hew a path through all the many obstacles that stand between him and a belief in God. As a child he was brought up in a conventional Church of England household, was christened, confirmed and believed without question all he was told about the existence and power of God. However, as he became more familiar with the ways of the world and of human nature, its wanton crue1ty, its selfishness, its ability to inflict unnecessary suffering upon the innocent and weak, his belief in a God of love and compassion ebbed away, and now as a mature adult finds himself without any religious faith whatsoever. This is not a condition he welcomes, and now at the age of sixty three he would like to rediscover the faith he had as a child. He has observed that sincerely religious people get a great deal of satisfaction from their faith and he wishes to share in that satisfaction. He is also deeply troubled by the state of the world and desperately wishes to fmd an answer to 'man's inhumanity to man'. He, therefore, invited three mentors to conduct him on a search for God, Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Professor Tariq Ramadan, Moslem scholar, and Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi.
Their conversations, each lasting 30 minutes were broadcast on Radio Four at weekly intervals starting with the Archbishop of Canterbury on 31/10/06. These are very erudite men, blessed with clever and subtle minds, rational in their attitudes, aware of the most recent thinking in their sphere, and in addition to being religious leaders of their respective Faiths, by virtue of their position, expert politicians. They seemed wary of John Humphrys' project, not because of his reputation for pugnacity~ but because each has a constituency of his own which would doubtlessly be listening critically to every word.
None of these learned gentlemen, for instance was prepared to be specific about the nature of God. Professor Tariq Ramadan, the Moslem leader, claimed all that could be known was the oneness of God. The Archbishop of Canterbury said that he was committed to the reality of -God and he had a developing relationship with God, and tried to accept what God gave him, but would not say if there was such a thing as a God in any simple sense. The Chief Rabbi also talked about a human/God partnership and thought God to be a human universal and that if people don't believe in God they worship other things such a fascism or racism or an economic or political system and eventually arrive at idolatry which ends in bloodshed.
The method employed was the political interview at which Humphrys excels, whereby the evasions, inconsistencies, duplicities, inaccuracies, irrationalities of the politician are exposed by persistent interrogation. In these God, interviews, however, it is the misconceptions of the interviewer that are unearthed. Humphrys complains right at the start, that their roles have been reversed and that the Archbishop is interviewing him.
When asked what kind of a God it is that he no longer believes in and what had destroyed that belief, Humphrys replied that it was the notion of a supreme being, the creator, the supreme moral conscience, and he could not reconcile this belief with the unending, universal human suffering that he witnessed every day of his life. How could a God of Love permit such things to happen?
The Archbishop then patiently explained the 'free-will' defence. God has made a universe in which conscious beings emerge who make their own decisions, who possess free will' and therefore are morally responsible. We do not live in isolation and therefore our actions are bound to impinge upon other people. Should God step in at some point when there is a risk that our actions might injure some one else, slightly or moderately or seriously or mortally? When should God step in and if he were to, would there still be such a thing as free-will? Clearly God does not interfere directly with free will. Do we, nevertheless, require God to intervene at some point in an individual's suffering in order to protect his good name? What God does, and has the whole of eternity in which to do to do it, is to offer healing, and some of that healing may come from other human beings. Unspeakable suffering is a fact of life and it is very, very hard indeed, to live with the experience and knowledge of it, and for some people, there may be no healing on this earth, but Faith encourages us to believe in God's perspective, in God's time, healing will occur.
Sir Jonathan Sacks also regards human beings as the cause of suffering and as far as possible, also as the healers of that suffering. He says God challenges humankind not to accept suffering as the will of God but to struggle against it, to feed the hungry, heal the sick, tend the injured comfort the bereaved and so on. God was even in Auschwitz, he claims, in the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill', in the words, 'thou shalt not oppress the stranger' and in 'your brother's blood cries to me from the ground', however, the German people did not listen. Humankind bears the responsibility of the holocaust, not God. He claims that God created a physical world in which random events occur which were not intended or planned by God. These events may cause great suffering. It is up to humankind to do its utmost to prevent or relieve them. To blame God for disasters is not a positive or helpful attitude. Blame is what made us lose paradise, that's the message from the Garden of Eden.
Professor Tariq Ramadan cannot explain suffering. It exists in the world. Humankind should do what it can to ameliorate suffering but there also has to be a realisation that no matter how much is done, it will never be enough. Humphrys then suggests that the free will argument excludes the possibility of God ever intervening in human affairs and that makes prayer pointless. The Archbishop replied that freedom is the image of God in us and that therefore exercising our freedom in prayer can allow something of God's action to enter human life by working through our freedom. rather than by usurping it. This is why he prays, . because he believes that somehow he may make a channel for God's action to come through and help with a particular situation. God has set up conditions in such a way that such an occurrence is possible.
The Chief Rabbi also believes in the importance of prayer. He hears a voice within him which is also a voice from beyond and he converses with this voice. He believes that God listens to what he has to say and in time and in his own way, responds.
Tbe obstacles set up by Humphrey's were demolished, one by one, such as religious wars, the interpretation of the Koran and Sharia law, but he was left complaining in the end that he had still not regained his childhood faith. He complained that the gift of faith, enjoyed by his mentors had been denied him, The Archbishop explained that he needs to be aware of God's love for him, but Humphrys claimed that be cannot entertain such a feeling because he does not believe in the existence of God in the first place. The Archbishop can only repeat that the gift of God is there available to him and that there is no predestined plot to exclude Humphrys from belief in God. Ultimately, it is his own responsibility. He can only hope and pray that sooner or later Humphrys will become aware of God's love for him.
About his eternal destination, his mentors are reluctant to commit themselves apart from saying, reassuringly that there is always hope. After all, no human being is privy to the mind of God. Rowan Williams adds that only God can judge why a person may be resistant to him, but the wish to believe, the willingness to believe, is a good sign.
In the end the general listener is left with the conclusion that it is all a matter of faith, and that for most people that faith has to be worked at. The responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of the person concerned. One enters into a relationship with God, strives to develop it and in time attain a kind of certainty that there is a God. There are no quick fixes. There is no sudden awareness of conviction, no instant illumination, just slog, slog, slog.

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THE ST. NICHOLAS ICON

By Arthur Bruce

This icon was painted on a thin panel of wood in 1993 by Mihal (aged 15 from Tirgoviste, Romania My first encounter with Mihal was at a summer camp that year in the Carpathian Mountains. He was selling the icons at $1.00 each to build up some savings for his future. I regret now that bought only the one representing Aberdeen's Patron Saint. Mihal's parents were of Gipsy origin. His grandmother, whom I later met, had been a teacher of French and English. His father was an artist who had completed several projects in Tirgoviste and his mother claimed to be French, with only a slight knowledge of Romanian. Their living room in their flat was almost entirely decorated with empty beer cans, while the floor was laid with sheets of newspaper. On one occasion, a friend drove me to Tirgoviste but refused to allow me to take up an invitation to stay overnight at this flat, claiming that I would not be alive to be picked up in the morning! They later moved to Trei Brazi where I met Grandmother while they were all living in the home of her mother. Unfortunately, Mihal had a bicycle accident which left him with what he called "spasmodic amnesia". We corresponded for several years now have lost contact.