I want to discuss in this essay the possible interrelations between socialism, Christianity and community.

For one strange moment in the summer of 1994, it seemed as if the people of this country had become a community, united, like so many communities, perhaps all communities, around a death. The death of a Scottish Christian socialist, John Smith. But they became a community it seemed, perhaps again like every community, around a mourning for lost community, lost solidarity, lost hope of a religiously-tinged socialist ideal (which many more sympathise with than believe in).

And we are still just about within the echo of this moment, which determines that the new public visibility of Christian Socialism, concentrated around the Elisha figure of Tony Blair, has an elegiac, melancholy feel to it. There is nothing here for anyone to triumph in; least of all Christian Socialists. For if a surprising number of still remaining socialists are Christians, or indeed Jews, Muslims or Buddhists, then this may be precisely because socialism, like religion, now assumes a merely spectral reality in the modern secularised world. It has ceased to appear either plausible or rational, and has instead been consigned to the realm of faith. Yet, as with Christianity in the west, we remain haunted by its excellence, because nothing has emerged to replace it; we sense that just as the story of a compassionate God who became man was the ‘final religion’, so also, the hope of a universal fraternity based on sharing was ‘the final politics’. With its demise, we are delivered over to something somehow more secular than politics—to a future of infinite utilitarian calculation by individuals, states and transnational companies, of the possible gains and losses, the greater and the lesser risks.

The Sunday before Advent has long been known among Anglicans as ‘Stir-up Sunday’, the day for stirring mincemeat, cakes and puddings in preparation for Christmas. Its title is drawn from the opening words of its Collect in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people, translated by Cranmer from a Latin collect beginning Excita, ‘stir up’, which has been part of the Roman liturgy since the sixth century.

The Catholic liturgy, too, has kept this ancient text for the week before Advent, but the version in the current Missal from the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) is much duller: Lord, increase our eagerness to do your will. It is good news that this is to be replaced with a version that, like Cranmer, recalls the peremptory crispness of the original: Stir up the hearts of your faithful people. Lord God .... It is unlike Cranmer and the Latin, however, in that the words ‘Stir up’ do not stand alone, and so they are less arresting, less memorable.

This new version is part of the revision of the Missal undertaken by ICEL, whose fruits are now being submitted to Bishops’ Conferences for approval. The bishops of England and Wales have voted to accept most of the prayers submitted, including those for the Masses of weeks in Ordinary Time. In so doing, they parted company with their brother bishops in the USA, who have raised objections to a number of texts. ICEL has become something of a tyranny, which individual bishops’ conferences are in effect powerless to resist.

In the Beginning

Perhaps I should begin by saying that the origin of this paper lies in the discussion of the North European diffinitors when they met last year to begin thinking about this General Chapter. We met in Edinburgh, one of the most northerly houses of the Order in Europe, in October as the all-enveloping darkness of a Scottish Winter began to make itself felt, and in a city known for its particularly gloomy Calvinist establishment. So perhaps there was a certain inevitability about our finding this topic. What I want to say is partly drawn from our conversations in Edinburgh, and from our correspondence with each other since then, and partly from the depths of my own sense of mortality.

I suppose we should also take into consideration the fact that one of the provinces represented at that meeting, Flanders, doesn’t have a single novice or brother in formation at present, and has had no ordination for two years. Only two men have been professed there in the last 25 years. Houses are closing, projects are dying. The Dutch province also has its difficulties: having had 600 members in 1957, it now has about 190, and most of these are old men. One novice was professed three years ago, and now they are asking themselves whether they can receive any more. They have had to sell the Albertinum, one of their major historical projects. It’s hardly surprising that the Dutch diffinitor, Ben, asks “Are we coming to the end of religious life?” This is certainly the impression given in some parts of the world.