Judith's previous articles                                                     Judith's website                 

From Where I Sit                                             Judith Lynch (Melbourne)                  

April 14, 2012                                           A TV DEBATE                            

To Mr Richard Dawkins and Cardinal George Pell

Gentlemen, I’m addressing you respectfully but the little I saw of Q and A on Monday night didn’t inspire me with much respect for either of you. Still caught up in an Easter glow, I turned on the TV and there you were, debating the thorny mystery of transubstantiation. I accept that my understanding of the Mystery encompassed in this mighty word is only minimally better than when I first heard it as a pigtailed schoolgirl. But who can really intellectualise faith?  We know there is a place for scholarship and intellectual debate, but it would probably be better if those debating theological issues spoke the same language.

When I saw your set faces, the antagonism barely held in, I wondered what possessed the ABC to celebrate Easter with an intellectual debate between two men who barely seemed to tolerate one another. Of course ratings win over Easter peace!

I’ll be honest, I switched you off after four and a half minutes and idly imagined what it would have been like if you had accepted an invitation to join my family for Easter lunch. Actually It would have been uncomfortable for everybody if you had both accepted, but this is just a fantasy.

We were such an ordinary bunch, sitting around a long table, set with matching china, the youngest two, the oldest eighty two. Religiously either of you would have fitted in because we swung between regular church goers, Catholic and otherwise, lapsed Catholics (quite a few of those) and those christened as babies but pretty much indifferent to any religious beliefs.

Amazingly the roast meat, crispy potatoes and wonderful gravy all peaked at round about the same time and I said an ecumenical kind of grace giving thanks for the gift that is life and hope. As plates were filled the talk was of people, happenings, common interests – all of it inconsequential and nothing that either of you would recognise as intellectual. If either of you had endeavoured to share your personal and very intellectual beliefs, religious or otherwise, with us, you would have been met with blank stares or polite indifference.

Religion and the words that explain it don’t engage most ordinary people. We say, “I’m not religious but I am spiritual.” Instead of being a sign, a light, a path or a watermark that speaks of God and that leads to life everlasting, religion seems to have become a structure where rules, dogma and tribal loyalties are more important than the way God is experienced in the day-to-day. Religion has a love affair with words and correct ideas, whereas Jesus loved people, who are always imperfect.  

The risen Jesus didn’t use his time with the Apostles and followers to jazz up their grasp of theology.  He ate honeycomb at a table littered with the remains of a half-eaten meal.  He shared an evening meal with a couple who compulsively went over the details of the previous few days. He hosted a sea food barbecue by a lake. And all the time he recognised their fear, their sadness, their dismay, their grief at his death. Over and over he said “Peace be with you.” He boosted their confidence with a promise to be with them “all days”.

That’s what we need to hear from our Church leadership. Our lives are busy and fragmented.  We need encouragement to live the Jesus way in words that respect our life choices. We want to find the God peace that’s curled up inside our spirit, tangled among our worries and our insecurities, the peace that says,  “Fear not. I am with you all days – even the worst.”