SCRIPTURAL TRACES: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE RECEPTION AND INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE 2 Editors Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University W. J. Lyons, University of Bristol Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge Editorial Board Michael J. Gilmour, David Gunn, James Harding, Jorunn Økland Published under LIBRARY OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 506 Formerly Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series Editor Mark Goodacre Editorial Board John M. G. Barclay, Craig Blomberg, R. Alan Culpepper, James D. G Dunn, Craig A. Evans, Stephen Fowl, Robert Fowler, Simon J. Gathercole, John S. Kloppenborg, Michael Labahn, Robert Wall, Steve Walton, Robert L. Webb, Catrin H. Williams HARNESSING CHAOS The Bible in English Political Discourse Since 1968 James G. Crossley LON DON • N E W DE L H I • N E W YOR K • SY DN EY Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 © James G. Crossley, 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. James G. Crossley has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identi ¿ ed as Author of this work. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-0-56765-550-9 ePDF: 978-0-56765-551-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Crossley, James G. Harnessing Chaos/James G. Crossley p.cm Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 978-0-567-65550-9 (hardcover) Typeset by Forthcoming Publications Ltd (www.forthpub.com) Disclaimer Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions there may be and would be grateful if noti ¿ ed of any corrections that should be incorporated in future editions of this book. In memory of Callum Millard (1974–2014) 1 C ONTENTS I NTRODUCTION xiii Chapter 1 ‘C HAOS I S A L ADDER ’: A R ECEPTION H ISTORY OF THE B IBLE IN E NGLISH P OLITICS 1 1. Why ‘English’? 4 2. Why ‘since 1968’? 8 3. Political Receptions of the Bible since 1968 10 a. The Cultural Bible 10 b. The Liberal Bible 12 c. The Neoliberal Bible 15 d. The Radical Bible 18 4. Tony Benn and the Decline of the Radical Bible 20 5. ‘The Good Man Jesus’ 29 6. Concluding Remarks 32 Part I E XPERIENCING D EFEAT Chapter 2 C HRISTOPHER H ILL ’ S W ORLD T URNED U PSIDE D OWN 37 1. The Problem of 1968 37 2. Christopher Hill 46 3. Christopher Hill’s Bible 53 4. Experiencing Defeat: 1640s–1660s, 1960s–1980s 60 5. A Radical, English Bible 64 Chapter 3 T HIS W AS E NGLAND : T HE S IMILITUDES OF E NOCH P OWELL 70 1. Rivers of Blood 70 2. Rethinking the Post-Imperial Nation 76 3. Church of England 79 4. Like the Roman? The Lost Gospel of Enoch 82 x Contents 1 Part II T HATCHERISM AND THE H ARNESSING OF C HAOS Chapter 4 ‘Y OUR A RMS A RE J UST T OO S HORT TO B OX WITH G OD ’: M ARGARET T HATCHER ’ S N EOLIBERAL B IBLE 95 1. Margaret Thatcher: Cultural Phenomenon and Nonconformist 95 2. Thatcherite Anthropology: Thatcherism versus Communism 103 3. From the Evil Empire to the Axis of Evil 106 4. Let My People Go! Margaret Thatcher’s Bible 110 Part III C ARRIERS OF C ULTURAL C HANGE Chapter 5 ‘W E ’ RE A LL I NDIVIDUALS ’: W HEN L IFE OF B RIAN C OLLIDED WITH T HATCHERISM 129 1. Satire, Comedy, and Freedom 129 2. The Radical Figure of Jesus/Brian 129 3. He’s Not the Messiah and He’s Not the Resurrection 135 4. Jesus and Brian, Revolution, and Trade Unions 140 5. Thinking about Sex 144 6. The Multicultural Jewish Brian of History 147 7. A Brian for His Times 151 Chapter 6 S AVING M ARGARET FROM THE G UILLOTINE : I NDEPENDENT M USIC IN M ANCHESTER FROM THE R ISE OF T HATCHER TO THE R ISE OF B LAIR 153 1. From Punk to Britpop: Manchester 1976–1994 153 2. ‘For EveryManc a Religion’ 158 3. Biblical Language: Joy Division and The Fall 160 4. Biblical Language: Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses 163 5. Taking the Rain out of Manchester? Cityscapes and Personalities between 1976 and 1994 169 6. Margaret’s Guillotine 174 Contents xi 1 Part IV F ROM T HATCHER ’ S L EGACY TO B LAIR ’ S L EGACY Chapter 7 Y OUR O WN P ERSONAL J UDAS : T HE R EHABILITATION OF J EFFREY A RCHER 183 1. Thou Shalt Not Get Caught 183 2. Abel, Not Cain 188 3. First among Equals 191 4. A Matter of Honour 194 5. False Impression: Who Betrayed Whom? 197 6. Speculative Archerisms 204 7. Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less 207 Chapter 8 45 M INUTES FROM D OOM ! T ONY B LAIR AND THE R ADICAL B IBLE R EBRANDED 210 1. Spiritual and Religious: The Political Theology of Tony Blair 210 2. ‘This Money and Bloodshed’ 220 3. Doing God? The Iraq War and the Apocalyptic Bible 225 4. As Is Written: Pure Democracy 234 Chapter 9 T HE G OVE B IBLE VERSUS THE O CCUPY B IBLE 242 1. 1611 after 2008: The Bible in an Age of Coalition 242 2. Surviving Cynicism and the Noble Big Other 254 3. Surviving Postcolonialism 259 4. What Ever Happened to the Radical Bible? 266 5. Same-sex Marriage or Subversive Love? The Case of Peter Tatchell 271 C ONCLUSION : W HY D O P OLITICIANS B OTHER WITH THE B IBLE ? 277 Bibliography 283 Index of References 303 Index of Authors 305 I NTRODUCTION As Nick Spencer has shown, there should be no doubt that the Bible has deeply embedded itself in English parliamentary politics over the centuries. 1 The Bible even has a physical presence of sorts in the Houses of Parliament, including the Latin text of Psalm 127.1 on the À oor of the Central Lobby and the texts of 1 Peter 2.17 and Proverbs 11.14 on the À oor of the Commons Lobby. 2 Spencer noted, however, that a certain appreciation of the Bible had changed by the end of the nineteenth century. Unlike the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Bible was no longer an authoritative document which could (theoretically) decide political debates. Instead, the Bible was becoming a document which informed arguments, inspired individuals and provided rhetorical force. But in addition to no longer commanding universal deference, awareness of the contents of the Bible was changing: Evangelicals...also recognised that the level of biblical knowledge among their peers, particularly in parliament, could not now be assumed. When the Quaker MP John Bright spoke in favour of Gladstone’s Reform Bill in 1866, accusing an opponent ‘into what may be called his political cave of Adullam’, many members of the House did not know where or what the cave of Adullam was. That would not have happened in Cromwell’s time. 3 This loss of biblical knowledge also echoes a wider debate, and one that will be touched upon in this book, about the apparent ‘decline’ in biblical literacy, that is biblical literacy as de ¿ ned in a quasi-Protestant sense as knowledge of the speci ¿ c details of a range of biblical passages and an 1. N. Spencer, Freedom and Order: History, Politics and the English Bible (Kindle edition; London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2011). On the history of Christian- ity across contemporary party politics see e.g. M.H.M. Steven, Christianity and Party Politics: Keeping the Faith (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), pp. 45-64. 2. Spencer, Freedom and Order , Introduction. 3. Spencer, Freedom and Order , Chapter 8. xiv Introduction 1 awareness of a range of biblical characters. 4 That there is a loss of knowledge about the details of the biblical texts is clear enough yet if the emergence of reception history has taught us anything it is that the Bible undeniably remains widely present in contemporary culture. In this book, I want to change the emphasis from a quasi-Protestant notion of biblical literacy and look at what interpreters, primarily English politicians, think the Bible ‘really means’ or how it might be used rhetorically, and particularly in its public presentation rather than any hidden motives , irrespective of whether there is an awareness of obscure biblical passages and characters, irrespective of whether a given political position can actually be found in the Bible, and irrespective of whether any given political interpretation would hold up to scholarly exegetical scrutiny. In other words, I want to look at the broad public hermeneutical assump- tions among roughly contemporary politicians and how they interact with wider cultural and historical change. Chapter 1 will give an overview of ways in which we might approach the interaction between historical change and understandings of the Bible. It will provide an explanation of the choice of post-1960s English political culture with particular emphasis on the importance of the emergence of Thatcherism and neoliberalism. It will then discuss major politicised understandings of what the Bible ‘really means’ and rhetorical uses (the Cultural Bible, the Liberal Bible, the Neoliberal Bible, and the Radical Bible) which will form the basis for the rest of the book and how different political ¿ gures and trends interact with these understandings. Some attention will initially be given to Tony Benn and his politically radical biblical interpretation because he represented a dwindling understanding of a once popular tradition in parliamentary politics. Taking the examples of the Communist historian Christopher Hill and the Conservative politician Enoch Powell, the section on ‘Experiencing Defeat’ will look at how different political traditions engaged with the upheavals of the 1960s and the end of Empire. While both result in narratives of defeat and decline, both illustrate nascent ways in which politically radical, economically liberal, and nationalistic interpretations would survive inside and outside Parliament. 4. On debates over the pros and cons of biblical literacy see e.g. P.R. Davies, ‘Whose Bible? Anyone’s?’, Bible and Interpretation (July 2009), http://www. bibleinterp.com/opeds/whose.shtml; H. Avalos, ‘In Praise of Biblical Illiteracy’, Bible and Interpretation (April 2010), http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/ literate357930.shtml. Introduction xv 1 The following chapter will look at Margaret Thatcher’s in À uential understanding of the Bible. Thatcher saw the Bible as important support for her agenda of individualism and economic liberalism, or what would be labelled ‘neoliberalism’, and as something to be seen as part of English or British nationalism and democratic heritage. She also saw the Bible as being fundamentally anti-Marxist which was, of course, part of her Cold War thinking. But this was also in subtle contrast to her views on ‘religion’ which, no matter how negatively she viewed a manifesta- tion of a given religion in the present, recognised that there was always potential for ‘good’. This would be taken up in more detail by Tony Blair, in addition to his tacit general acceptance of Thatcher’s reading of the Bible, even if his rhetoric occasionally suggested otherwise. The steadily developing ideas of Thatcherism and her individualistic interpretation of the Bible in wider cultural trends are shown by looking at people who would largely be expected to be hostile to Thatcher and the Conservatives: Manchester musicians and Monty Python. These seemingly eclectic examples show how Thatcherism was, consciously or unconsciously, harnessing wider cultural trends developing since the 1960s but also how key elements of Thatcherism were, consciously or unconsciously, being transmitted by arguably more credible carriers of cultural change. The next section will look at Thatcher’s ongoing in À uence in party- politics and political biblical interpretation with reference to two important aspects of her legacy: the sharp fall of the Conservative Party and its ‘toxic’ brand and the emergence of the heavily Thatcherite New Labour. The chapter on Jeffrey Archer and his somewhat obviously semi- autobiographical novel on ‘rescuing’ Judas will look at how problematic hyper-Thatcherism had become but simultaneously how, outside Parlia- ment, Archer’s Bible represents an arguably unintentional by-product of Thatcherism – the amorality of the extravagant wealth of the successful entrepreneur. The chapter on Blair will look at how, despite all the concerns of some of those around him, he regularly used the Bible in a way familiar to Thatcher while trying to incorporate the more politically radical biblical language that was deeply embedded in the Labour movement. Blair attempted to use biblical language of radical social transformation to garner support for his foreign policy and interventions, particularly in Iraq where he was struggling to gain widespread support from the Labour Party. Controversial though Blair’s agenda was, there is clear evidence that his exegesis is a norm within the Parliamentary Labour Party, particularly his emphasis on social liberalism. Some attention will xvi Introduction 1 be paid to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and how he has developed his understanding of the Bible internationally as part of his understanding of ‘religion’ and other scriptural traditions, notably the Qur’an, in terms of liberal democracy. The next chapter will assess present day understandings of the Bible in parliamentary politics in light of these political and hermeneutical changes. The hermeneutical assumptions of Thatcherism remain among the circle around David Cameron and key Liberal Democrats but are quali ¿ ed by the Blairite concern for social liberalism. The nationalism of the ‘heritage’ angle of the Bible has been strongly emphasised as representing English democracy, tolerance, freedom, and so on, most notably in the various utterances during the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible and Michael Gove sending a copy of the King James Bible to English schools. Some consideration is then given to the views outside of this seemingly settled political tradition: the fate of politically radical interpretations of the Bible. This will involve more politically radical interpretations of, for instance, sexuality and same-sex marriage (e.g. Peter Tatchell), foreign policy (e.g. the East Timor Ploughshares), the 2008 ¿ nancial crisis (e.g. Occupy London Stock Exchange), and racial politics (e.g. Linton Kwesi Johnson). It is clear that such radical interpretations certainly remain but that they largely take place on the fringes of Parliament, or outside Parliament entirely. Finally, some speculative consideration is given to why politicians bother using the Bible at all. In virtually all cases, the interpretation of the Bible matches the political agenda of a given politician and there is no obvious reason why the Bible is even needed. Issues of political heri- tage, voting, and implicit notions of authority will be brie À y discussed. In short, this book is about the parliamentary and even cultural victory of (a modi ¿ ed) Thatcher’s Bible out of the socio-economic chaos of the 1960s and why politically radical interpretations have been pushed outside Parliament. Chapter 1 ‘C HAOS I S A L ADDER ’: R ECEPTION H ISTORY OF THE B IBLE IN E NGLISH P OLITICS Put bluntly, this book is an explanation of changes in dominant political- ised assumptions about what the Bible ‘really means’ in public presenta- tions in English culture since the 1960s, but with wider implications. 1 This book re À ects my wider interests in the ways in which the chaos of social upheaval and economic change can bring about shifts in, and explosions of, ideas and thinking (whether revolutionary, reactionary, creative, culturally bizarre, peaceful, violent, accidental, and so on) which may have long-term impacts, be clamped down almost immedi- ately, or have potential unrealised. In this case, I want to look at how the social upheavals of the 1960s and the economic shift from the post-war dominance of Keynesianism to the post-1970s dominance of neoliberal- ism – or, alternatively, the cultural shift from high modernity to post- modernity – brought about certain emphases and nuances in the ways in which the Bible is popularly understood, particularly in relation to dominant political ideas. Appreciating the chaos of history within a more totalising history, and its impact on changes in the history of ideas, has a long intellectual tradi- tion but remains most useful when quali ¿ ed by Foucault’s reading of genealogies. 2 When taken in this sense, historical analysis looks for the 1. In this respect, this book echoes the some of the key methodological concerns of M.H.M. Steven, Christianity and Party Politics: Keeping the Faith (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), p. 14: ‘No archival work has been conducted – the premise of trawling through documents in any of the party archives in London, Oxford and Manchester was ultimately considered to be pointless. It is highly unlikely that the in À uence of Christianity upon policy documents – or some sort of equivalent – exists or is made available for public consumption... Media sources, however, are used... in an attempt to give the study as much impact as possible.’ 2. M. Foucault, ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History’, in D.F. Bouchard (ed.), Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), pp. 139-64. 2 Harnessing Chaos 1 somewhat chaotic redirection of ideas without recourse to implied meta- physical origins. This Foucauldian quali ¿ cation is, perhaps, especially important in this instance because it is clear that people – including some of those studied in this book – really do think the Bible and categories sometimes associated with the Bible (e.g. marriage) can be traced back to pure biblical and civilizational origins. Rather, to reemphasise, what is being done in this book is tracing and unravelling the assumptions held about what the Bible ‘really means’ or how it is used rhetorically and looking at the contemporary history of accidental, purposeful, discon- tinuous, and implicit meanings in the developments of such ideas as they appear in English politics and culture. On one level, this book is a narrative history, self-consciously weaving ‘popular’ biblical interpretation in and around a retelling of English politics since the 1960s. The narrative of this book is very de ¿ nitely not an all-encompassing retelling of the Bible and biblical interpretation since the 1960s, but rather a look at the ways in which some seemingly very different biblical interpreters are embedded in English political discourses and popular culture, with the major thematic links being the Bible, the country in which the interpretation was undertaken, and the timeframe. To take an unlikely analogy, it is using themes in a not entirely dissimilar way to Simon Schama’s Landscape and Memory (to take one example) and his use of ‘mythic’ themes such as wood, rock, and water as loose unifying narrative features to illustrate the ways human beings have interacted with the world around them. 3 Though this book obviously has more emphasis on chronology (for the purposes of organization) than Schama’s great work, the eclecticism of his choice of individuals studied to illustrate broader issues is something I have found appealing. Similarly, I think it remains important to focus both on politi- cians central to mainstream political assumptions about the Bible (e.g. Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, Gove), as well as those ¿ gures seemingly more incidental (e.g. Hill, Archer), and those seemingly unconnected to the mainstream political process (e.g. Monty Python, Manchester musicians) because I want to illustrate the widespread power of (often unconscious) ideological and historical change and presentation in the public arena, irrespective of whether the given politician, musician, or ¿ lmmaker personally agreed with, or were even aware they were part of, a given dominant ideological trend. 3. S. Schama, Landscape and Memory (London: Vintage, 1996). 1. ‘Chaos Is a Ladder’ 3 1 There are further reasons why this book, with this sort of approach, bene ¿ ts from chapters on popular culture and seemingly more incidental ¿ gures. The so-called ‘anomalies’ of history will always tell us something about their times. We might bring this sort of logic in line with Robert Darnton’s suggestions about the role of the historian and interpreter in his book on eighteenth-century French cultural history, The Great Cat Massacre . For Darnton, the best starting point in attempting to penetrate an alien culture is ‘where it seems to be most opaque’; by ‘getting’ the joke, proverb, riddle, ceremony or whatever, it is possible to start grasp- ing a ‘foreign system of meaning’. 4 We might turn Darnton on cultural contexts closer to home and those parts of our own culture which might seem alien to some investigators but which in fact help us understand our own systems of meaning. The cases of potentially surprising inclusions such as Archer, Hill, Manchester, or Monty Python will likewise tell us something about ideological developments in the period covered in this book both in terms of similarities and differences from mainstream political developments. 5 The inclusion of what might broadly be labelled ‘popular culture’ has another important function in terms of change in the history of ideas. As we will see below, it was counter-cultural challenges from outside the political establishment that, in part, prepared the way for, and/or were harnessed by, the political changes of the 1970s and 1980s, even if some of the participants on all sides would no doubt be horri ¿ ed to hear this. Furthermore, popular culture arguably contains more effective carriers of cultural change than parliamentary politics, holding cultural or sub- cultural capital that politicians do not always have. Besides, we are living in an era where the distinction between high and low culture has appar- ently collapsed, and the characters in this book are no different, whether it be the creative array of visual portrayals of Thatcher, graf ¿ ti or t-shirts bearing slogans about Enoch Powell (a one-time professor of Greek, 4. R. Darnton, ‘Workers Revolt: The Great Cat Massacre of the Rue Saint- Séverin’, in The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (London: Allen Lane, 1984), pp. 75-104 (77-78). 5. We might note here that there is no signi ¿ cant discussion of John Major or Gordon Brown. There are a number of related reasons for this near-exclusion. Both Major and Brown were largely continuing the agendas of their predecessors, no matter how much they might have tried to distance themselves from them. To dis- cuss either would involve repetition. However, and certainly in the case of Major, the Bible is not used to the extent it was by Thatcher and Blair who both set the hermeneutical agenda for what followed.