Two minutes silence or two minutes applause?

Here's my article for the November magazines:

I'm often asked if I get nervous before taking services, to which I honestly reply that I very rarely do except for being perpetually worried about getting people's names wrong at weddings, baptisms and funerals!

However, one service I do get nervous about is the Remembrance Service, partly because of the solemnity of the day and also the complexity of the service, involving many different people, but mostly because of the two-minutes silence.  This seemingly simple element of the service presents a multitude of potential disasters.  Firstly, there's the matter of timing the silence for 11.00am: there can be many things of variable length happening before the silence; processions, wreath-laying, roll call, the Last Post, etc..  This matter of timing is made worse if there is a clock nearby (which may or may not be right!) and also phones or watches beeping the hour.  Generally people don't mind if the timing of the silence is out, but there are some who will vocally and forcefully complain if it is not precise.  Then there is the matter of timing the length of silence itself: who is doing it? do you give the signal to the bugler in time for them to start at the end of the two-minutes, or at the end and risk having a slightly longer silence?  And then there's the nervousness about the silence itself – what if someone shouts something out during it?  I'm getting panicky just thinking about it!

The two-minutes silence for Remembrance originated in Cape Town, South Africa in 1918 but the idea reached Britain in time for the first anniversary of the signing of the armistice in 1919 and has remained a permanent feature of Remembrance services ever since.  Observing a silence to remember those who have died has also become commonplace for local, national and international purposes, particularly at sporting events.  Silences are very useful for public observances because they contain no statements or assumptions concerning beliefs: people can use that time to pray or meditate or reflect as they see fit.

However, a time of silence is increasingly being replaced by a time of applause.  This may have pragmatic reasons, e.g. it avoids the problem of people jeering during a silence, but it may also reflect a wider cultural shift.  Funerals, although called such for simplicity, are increasingly entitled on the order of service “A service to celebrate the life of...”; replacing mourning the death of someone with thinking about their life.  Whilst it is certainly beneficial to recall memories of those who have died, it seems to me that this shift is partly due to a loss of clarity about what happens after death.  If we are silent in the face of death we might be confronted with the fear of the unknown, so we drown it out with applause and celebration.

For those who believe and trust in Jesus there is the promise of eternal life with him (John 3:16), and so there is no fear in being silent in the face of death.  Death is sad but it is no longer an enemy: it is a friend that ushers us into the joy and pleasure that lasts forever.

How do we stop being afraid of each other?

This is my magazine article for June:

Those of you on social media will have probably seen posts that say that people want to keep socially distancing after the threat of the virus has gone, not for health reasons but just because they don't like talking with people! However, although some people are enjoying not having to interact with others, a lot of people, including introverts, are finding that they are really missing being with people. But as I write this (and I'm aware it may all have changed by the time you read this!), there is a growing sense that the restrictions we face at the moment will gradually lift. The questions then are how? and when?.

Aside from the practicalities there is another problem we have to solve as we move towards normality: how do we stop being afraid of each other? One of my strangest experiences at the start of this crisis was talking to someone and thinking “this person may have Coronavirus; they may be passing it to me; this person might be killing me!” The precautions that we are encouraged to take also make us cautious about other people. We stay two metres away from people because we might infect them, but also because they might infect us. We want trolleys and door handles to be sanitised; we want deliveries left on doorsteps; we wear gloves to bring in the bins, all to prevent contamination from others. COVID-19 might be the enemy but the people around us are its agents.

It seems to me that there are two ways in which we can re-learn how to be with other people. The first is to re-assess how we view life. The Government mantra reminds us that we should 'save lives' but why should we? This pandemic could have been used to aid 'social Darwinism' – killing off those who were weakest in society, which would have helped solve the problems of an over-stretched NHS and a pensions crisis. The fact that this would have been unacceptable is due to the deep Christian roots of our society: life is sacred not simply some evolutionary accident, and life is only sacred because we are made in the image and likeness of God himself (Genesis 1 and 2) and because he loves us enough to die for us (1 John 4:9-10).

The second is to re-assess how we view death. We fear COVID-19, and therefore others, because we fear death itself. Christianity, with the death and resurrection of Jesus at its heart, has the antidote to this fear – death has been destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). This is why in the Plague of Cyprian (249–262 AD) that, at its height, caused upwards of 5,000 deaths a day in Rome, Christians stayed in Rome to tend the sick. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, reported that in doing so they often died 'serenely happy' unlike the other Romans who “deserted those who began to be sick, and fled from their dearest friends. They shunned any participation or fellowship with death; which yet, with all their precautions, it was not easy for them to escape.” (Eusebius 'Ecclestiastical Histories' 7.22.7–10). The Romans died in fear but the Christians died cheerfully, knowing that “that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him” (1 Thessalonians 4:14).

So as we ease ourselves out of this lockdown, let's learn again not to fear people (because the worst they can do to us is kill us and death is not to be feared) and to love them as God's beloved image-bearers (and that includes you!).