Billy Graham's son was patronised briefly on Radio 4 this morning; advancing his belief that the hand of God could be seen in American presidential voting patterns (or more sinisterly, in the results?) and also signally failing to understand any insult he was offering his Rohingya Muslim "friends" by his oblivious evangelising.
The event reminded me of an occasion in my youth when I went, with a couple of house-mates, to see his father at a football stadium in London. On our walk from the station we were interrupted by a desperate outside broadcast crew who were finding the sort of difficulty in interrupting the flow of attendees that would be familiar to a time traveller attempting to prevent the siren's call from enticing a stream of Eloi from their doom. I paused for long enough to explain to them that I was thinking of starting a religion of my own and wanted some pointers, that one of my friends was already a believer and was there for affirmation whilst the second claimed to be keen on a bit of chanting. I don't think they broadcast my interview. My recollection of the event itself was of a feeling of incomprehension swiftly followed by boredom.
I ate my breakfast to further reports considering the stature and style pointers of The Son of God, followed by Bishops banging on about child poverty and interfering in politics in a way that is bizarrely state-sanctioned. IMHO a failure to understand that government should be providing the majority with the means to be independent and to avoid fostering the sort of helpless position of a congregation petitioning an omnipotent body that they may not understand.
I silenced the radio before it enraged me further and before "A Point of View" which is the usually secular interruption to Sunday's religious output that inverts the position played by "Thought for the Day" throughout the week.
In the kitchen, some of the molecules that I had excited earlier were trying to escape via the glass, fogging the view down a cold and damp garden. The unemployed detergent bubbles were crackling mournfully in the sink and, with the rest of the house still quiet, I snook a brief return to warm bed covers.
