THANK GOD FOR STEREOTYPES

There are only three clerics appear regularly on British television. They have 101 different faces but these are just different actors; there are only three types of clergy person ever discovered by the script-writers of the English-speaking world.

There is the Vicar of Dibley. She (oh yes, non-British viewers who have not caught this show should understand that it is very important that this character is female) is hilariously funny. Her battles with her parish council are gut-wrenchingly funny. My wife and I pointed excitedly at the screen and say “That’s…” but here the laws of defamation prevent identification. The Vicar’s god is a friendly guy. He’s one of us, enjoys a joke – even a very smutty joke – and doesn’t mind if the Vicar doesn’t seem to know any theology, gets drunk and seduces a passing hunk.

Our second media minister is the Innocent Abroad. He (oh yes – only a man could be as naïve and simple as this fellow) drifts from plot to plot in soap operas, seeming to be somewhat lost. He has picked up his counselling skills from the back pages of a rather tame and inoffensive women’s magazine. His theology centres on a deity called Human Goodness. He sees the best in the worst in this world. Nobody takes much notice of him in or out of the drama. Script writers do not have to go to the trouble of writing him out of the story-line. He can disappear and it will be months before any viewer notices.

And finally there is the paedophile, murderous, serial adulterer who has a ready stream of biblical texts at his disposal. Once upon a time he might have been gay but that clearly could not be the case now. He is the only one of our three pastors who has read the bible and all the texts with words like “whore”, “blood” and “vengeance” have lodged in his mind. He is evil; he is a hypocrite; and he proves that you can’t trust a clergyman – at least not with your child, your wife or your life.

I am really grateful for these stereotypes. I hear colleagues bemoan the poor representation of pastors and teachers on television and in the cinema. I have been caught up in their grousing about it. But when I pause and think about it I am grateful for the stereotypes.

I know pastors who long for a portrayal of our work by a square-jawed, ruggedly-handsome, world-conquering, powerfully-preaching, theologically-literate, tall-building-leaping hero actor (Greek: hypocrites). How we long to be Tom Cruise of Christendom.

Some of still believe we are that. “I am the minister of this parish” I hear colleagues petulantly declaring when they suffer yet another defeat at the hands of a church committee or yet another rebuff by an atheistic administrator.

But then I thank God for the stereotypes. I come home at the end of a day with all the usual challenges of Christian ministry in this 21st century and as a flop down in front of the TV they are all there. I laugh to the point of breathlessness at the Vicar of Dibley and the antics of her congregation and then weep at the utter godlessness of her morality. I cringe at the ineffectual irrelevance of some nameless nonentity with a bit part in a “human interest” play and then I rage at the incarnate evil of the Bible-text-spouting villain of a police drama.

Is that how my congregation sees me? A useless and comic hypocrite, albeit not drawn with the broad brush strokes of television?

It doesn’t matter. I thank God that these images humble me. I am not doing this job because it carries with it status, or power, or honour. It once did in this country. Not now. As the images humble me I speak to God.

I start angry: “You called me to THIS?”

Then I calm down; maybe even I cry: “You CALLED me to this?”

And then it becomes clear: “YOU called me to this.”

And twenty-one years on I am still here; still in this small town which has nothing that makes it world famous; still in a small church; still never likely to be on a conference platform; still watching the country I love drift aimlessly away from its Christian heritage. People shake their heads and say, “Ooh – it’s spiritually hard there. There’s not much life in the church there.” They may even think “there’s not much life in you”.

And I think, “YOU called me to this.”

Thank God for the stereotypes which bring me back to my proper starting point: God’s call.