We go into our doctor’s surgery (or talk to him or her on the phone) one by one. We have our consultation and somebody else takes our place. That’s when things are – more or less – normal. When a pandemic overwhelms us, we all queue for the same thing – vaccination. Individual treatment is not the rule; it is the whole population that must go through a routine together.
Curiously enough, the same happens in religious practice. We may have a consultation with the vicar (or a time in the confessional with a priest). We may also join in what is called a general confession when we acknowledge our shortcomings and weaknesses. This generally takes place at the beginning of a service. It may seem humiliating to be sheep-like but we may as well be open about it. We don’t always get iit right. We are influenced by other people.
This being the case, we have to ask ourselves whether faith is an individual or a shared experience. Is an ordinary individual believer the basic unit or is the basic unit formed by a group of believers? Is faith singular or plural? We used to speak of Christendom. This was a way of describing Europe when Emperor and pope ruled the roost. People accepted the same view about the Maker of the world and the Redeemer of humankind. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount were guides to behaviour.
Citizens might be hazy about such things but there was a consistency in major matters of belief. And in what we should expect from our fellow-citizens. Kipling picked up the theme in his poem ‘Tomlinson’: ‘for the race is run by one and one and never by two and two.’
That was then and this is now. People have their own standards, their own priorities. More and more we settle our own moral problems, one by one. But Kipling is not the only guide. We also have the New Testament.
SUPPLIES FOR UKRAINE
The Revd Sergiy Diuk, a Ukrainian Anglican, leads a Ukrainian congregation at All Saints, Hanworth, London where he is associate vicar. His congregations is taking part in collecting supplies for Ukraine.
If you have a comment on this post please send an email to Revd John King at johnc.king@talktalk.net Edited extracts may be published. To forward this to a friend click on the chain icon below.