Across the pond

In the dream I was invited in by the new City University chaplin, who just happened to be Norwegian, to take the Sunday service on his new Church of the Internet jointly with him. I protested that I was an agnostic who even found much to admire in the works of Richard Dawkins, author of  the God Delusion. That did not matter, he told me, he just wanted me to do whatever I felt like doing in the moment. Much like the Quaker style of encouraging people to speak out when the spirit moved them. That is based on a belief that the voice of God can be found amongst our inner voices.

The dream event was a success. I managed to give a half-way decent sermon, stating my belief that the evidence suggests it is extremely unlikely the world was created by an all-powerful God, but that the great religions of the world  rank amongst the most valuable human inventions. Religious belief, I argued has survival value if it does not become rigid and doctrinaire. It protects human beings from arrogance. It reminds them that the voices within include devilish types who may be urging violence against others or self-destruction. All the great religions have meditation and prayer which, in my view, can be a great help in sorting out personal and polical conflicts and making more, rather than less, rational decisions.

The sermon went down OK. More surprisingly I hammed it  up by singing  a few music hall songs in my off-key voice and the congregation joined me  in the choruses.

So I am due to go back next Sunday. In the dream, of course. City University has not yet brought in a radical Norwegian pastor.

My dream, however, was partly triggered triggerd by what is happening at City. On Tuesday evening the journalism department mounted a great debate to decide whether the 2010 election would be more influenced by new media or the old media’s first ever television debates between Brown, Cameron and Clegg which are expected to win an audience of 10 million or more. The verdict of the audience was 75 to 80 per cent in favour of the old media debates.

But yesterday, the video of that event went out on the City journalism web site and I  spent nearly two hours watching it. And one of the thoughts that struck me before I went to bed last night was that this was itself an indication of how that the media will be a powerful influence on this election. City J has moved on since I rettired two years ago and thanks to the inniatives of Professor George Brock and Professor Ivor Gaber. City J journalists can now ‘preach’ to the  whole world thanks to the wonderful world of the internet.

The old media in the debate were represented by the powerful BBC voices of Nick Robinson, political  editor and Evan Davies, the newish anchor man of the BBC Radio Four Today programme. Powerful because of their eloquence and experience. Powerful because they have behind them the authority of the biggest news oranisation in the world, which has a presence on the web as well as via television, radio, videos, cds, dvds and mobile phones.

In my childhood I had problems in tuning in to the right wavelength to hear the voice of God, but through the head phones of my two valve radio I could get the BBC. That was a sort of miracle that had a tangible reality. To me, and millions of others, the BBC news readers had a God-like authority.

There was another, quite different trigger for my dream last night, which will be the subject of my next blog.

Meanwhile readers might like to watch the much more down to earth City J debate by clicking on the video link above. Or, if they don’t have two hours to spare clicking on this link to the report by Guardian journalist, Kevin Anderson.