PETER HITCHENS: Why does the Church of England take the knee to football?

The Church of England is suggesting vicars hold Nativity plays in which the Three Wise Men wear football shirts and scarves, blow vuvuzelas and swagger off stage to the tune of Three Lions. Instead of myrrh and frankincense, they present the baby Jesus with deodorant and muscle rub. The shepherds are playing football instead of abiding in the fields, and the angels tell them that the approaching Saviour is ‘greater than Ronaldo’.

The angels, I regret to tell you, also sing ‘He’s coming soon!’ to the tune (you’ve guessed) of ‘football’s coming home’. There’s even a football in the manger.

You could accuse me of a sense of humour failure if any of this was remotely funny. But it is only pathetic, the actions of a body which has been defeated, struggling to stay popular by toadying to its enemy.

I have often jeered here that the weird football obsession is in fact a pagan religion, with its violent, spiteful and deceitful rites, from the dirty tackle to the pretence of pain, performed in vast temples, with TV beaming it to billions.

In time, it is bound to edge out the less entertaining faiths which have until now guided much of human behaviour. But I think this drivel from the CofE is proof.

The Church of England is suggesting vicars hold Nativity plays in which the Three Wise Men wear football shirts and scarves, blow vuvuzelas and swagger off stage to the tune of Three Lions. Pictured: Fans celebrate England’s third goal as they watch the England v Iran game in the Holy Trinity Church in Sittingbourne, Kent

The leadership of that Church, always the first to surrender to the spirit of the age, has even advised vicars to avoid having carol services on the Sunday before Christmas in case they clash with some football tournament now raging in the Middle East.

A document called Making The Most Of The World Cup Final 18th December 2022, says: ‘Churches often hold carol services in the afternoon or evening, and this could still be possible if you choose the time carefully… but what if there are penalties?! It may be best to avoid that day altogether and host a carol service on Saturday 17 instead.’

And the grotesque Nativity play, called Greatest Of All Time, is one of ‘just a few ideas for how you could use the World Cup as a missional tool this Advent and Christmas’. I am not making this up.

Actually, the Bishop of Derby, Libby Lane, has quite rightly said: ‘I personally do not think that the World Cup should ever have been awarded to Qatar.’ And the Church has rather slowly come round to noticing that Christianity gets a pretty raw deal in that Islamic state.

The leadership of that Church, always the first to surrender to the spirit of the age, has even advised vicars to avoid having carol services on the Sunday before Christmas in case they clash with some football tournament now raging in the Middle East. Pictured: Westminster Abbey

I tend to think that the best response to that is to go ahead with Advent and Christmas with confidence.

I think there must be quite a few people who see in this World Cup that football’s supposed glamour, and its modern attempts to take the knee and wear campaigning armbands, are as empty as a spent firework and as tawdry as discarded tinsel.

It’s really about nothing more than money, a greedy industry without any real principles, whose supposed heroes are all too human when they are tested.

A lot of us would be glad if the Church was prepared to risk a bit, to make the point that there is a higher authority in the world than FIFA and a lasting glory that remains after the TV lights have been switched off and the millionaire commentators have flown home.

• Can you be a nurse, and go on strike? I do not think so. I know nurses get sick of being called ‘angels’ and often aren’t. But the job does sometimes require them to be dedicated far beyond what we ask of normal paid workers. And such goodness is always exploited. It just is. I wish it wasn’t. But it is. And if that doesn’t suit you, my advice is not to be a nurse. 

• Here’s all you need to know about our big political parties and mass migration, now at astonishing levels. They favour it, but they want you to think they don’t. I will never forget a wet Sunday many years ago when I went canvassing for a friend who was trying to win a by-election in the Midlands. As it happens, he was standing for Labour, but I think the other lot would have done the same. Before we went out knocking on doors, we were told: ‘If they raise immigration, just tell them we’re against it.’

 I’m glued to the sleaze in Obama’s city

I have managed to watch almost no live TV for several weeks, having been absorbed by the American drama The Good Wife, set in Chicago and now free to watch on All4, if you can bear the incessant advertisements. 

Its heroine, played by Julianna Margulies, is forced to go back to practising law when her politician husband is sent to prison. And this lands her in an unending whirligig of melodramas in court and out of it, in that very dangerous and yet glamorous city. 

Its heroine, played by Julianna Margulies (pictured), is forced to go back to practising law when her politician husband is sent to prison. And this lands her in an unending whirligig of melodramas in court and out of it, in that very dangerous and yet glamorous city.

Chicago is my favourite American city, much more representative of the USA than the Babylon of New York. The drama is full of shady politics obviously drawn from life. I kept asking myself how the supposedly sainted Barack Obama came through Chicago’s ultra-sleazy political machine smelling of roses.

Join me on Twitter to help save free speech 

Some of you may have noticed that I advertise my Twitter handle @clarkemicah at the top of this column. I suspect many of you wonder what it has to do with me, or with you.

Well, the handle would take ages to explain. It’s based on the name of a favourite book, and I use it because someone else had already taken my actual name. But may I invite more of you to join Twitter and perhaps take an interest in what I do there?

I used to despise Twitter, especially its silly name. I said (and still think) that it is a Left-wing electronic mob, and like all mobs it can turn very nasty and rude. But for anyone trying to get ideas across in the modern world, it’s now essential.

This is why there is so much discussion of Elon Musk’s purchase of the site. There is nothing like it. What he does to it will make a huge difference to debate and free speech.

For me, it is like the broadcasting the BBC increasingly will not let me do. I can respond instantly to major events. I can reply directly to people who want to criticise me or (less often) agree with me. I can tell people about my books, YouTube appearances, public meetings and debates. And this is why I’m in favour of the loosest possible restrictions on it.

My opinions, which 50 years ago would have been considered quite normal, are rapidly becoming widely disliked by the generation coming out of our propagandised schools and universities. Unless speech is free on Twitter, it won’t take long for people who claim to have been offended by one of my opinions to find a way to close me down.

It’s not clear which way this will go, but it would be good for free speech if more conservative-minded people would join it.