Death by Civilisation: How to accidentally ruin a
perfectly decent society (and how it might still be
saved)
James Cary
DLT £8.99
(978-0-232-52992-0)
Church Times Bookshop £8.10 (use code
CT559 )
LIFE is as messy as church these days. In the dear old days, God
was in his heaven and all was well with the world, which he kept
running smooth as a nut, using venerable, trustworthy
institutions.
Fleet Street housed the fourth estate. The banks were safe as
houses, and their word was their bond. HP sauce came in a bottle,
not on an expenses claim. Our educational institutions led the
world of knowledge. The Church of England was so solidly blue-chip
you didn't even have to go to its services to keep this a Christian
country. Now, the game is up. Post-Leveson, post-MPs' expenses, we
suspect all institutions to be up to no good, hopelessly mired in
sundry kinds of failure and fraud, bungling, and cover-up. We
invent guidelines to set everything right, but, as scandal breaks
upon scandal, it only gets worse. It's enough to make a parson
blush.
Enter James Cary, comedy writer, all-round savant, and social
commentator. Death by Civilisation is a wonderful cascade
of sage snippets, which bestrides the world of media, money,
government, education, and religion. Fit to grace bedside tables
and smallest rooms in the greatest houses, it tells us everything
that matters which they didn't teach us at school - how jokes work,
how to organise a famine, when to fly the flag, why Hitler makes
great TV, and what's our musical funeral.
It is amusing and topical. Herein is a whole rack of anecdotes
and reflections to spice up sermons, too.
What does it all mean, and where will it all end? An inescapable
conclusion emerges, often whimsically, from these pages. As the
Book of Common Prayer told us in the first place, we have no power
of ourselves to help ourselves. The most highly engineered social
tool to make things better usually makes things worse. We stand
helpless before this supreme paradox. In- deed, as Bishop Mandell
Creighton pointed out years ago, no class of people does as much
harm as people who go about doing good. Only Grace, Mercy, and
Peace can save us. Money is not enough. We need Love, and God is
Love.
Dr Alan Wilson is the Bishop of Buckingham.