Beyond Belief

A Comres survey commissioned by the BBC for Palm Sunday** does not look good for the Church of England despite a predictable effort to spin the findings.

In the survey, 51% of people surveyed identified as Christian. Half of the people surveyed said they didn’t believe in the resurrection, while only 31% of people identifying as Christian said they did. Only 17% of people thought the Bible version was literally true while 26% believed but thought the Bible shouldn’t be taken literally.

Although Christmas is now far more celebrated, the resurrection is the core tenet of Christianity and Easter is its most important festival. No resurrection, no Christianity.  To quote the Bible: Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. (John 11:25) And yet more than two thirds of Christians don’t believe that.

Sidebar: I wrote about how Jesus is not the only one claiming to be resurrected here. 

Belief and church attendance have been falling for quite some time. The figures for belief in this survey are slightly better than those in a YouGov survey from last year which found that only 46% of people identify as Christian. This was a much bigger survey and so is more likely to represent the population as a whole (nearly 12,000 as opposed to around 2,000 people). The YouGov survey also found that more people believe in ghosts than in a Creator.

  

According to the current survey, 37% of people identifying as Christian never go to Church. Another survey by the Church of England itself found that only 2% of the population go to the Church of England at Easter. The flock really has strayed far from the Good Shepherd (probably because they know he’s going to herd them off to the slaughterhouse so we can all eat our traditional Easter roast lamb and rosemary). 

The survey also looked at belief in life after death. It found that only 46% of people said they believed in it and the same number said they didn’t. If you don’t believe in an afterlife then the Church’s carrot and stick tactics are not going to work on you.

Sidebar: of those who do believe in an afterlife, 56% were women and 36% were men. I looked at why women may believe more than men in many kinds of supernatural phenomena (and non-evidence based medicines) here.

The Church is fighting a rearguard action and trying to spin the findings that 20% of the non-religious believe in some sort of life after death and that 9% of non-believers do believe that the resurrection happened.

The Bishop of Manchester, the Right Reverend David Walker,said: "This important and welcome survey proves that many British people, despite not being regular churchgoers, hold core Christian beliefs”. He describes the results as “surprisingly high levels of religious belief among those who follow no specific religion, often erroneously referred to as secularists or atheists”.

Let’s unpack this a bit. Firstly, the Church doesn’t have a monopoly in life after death belief. About a third of the people (32%) who believed in some sort of life after death believe in reincarnation, hardly a Christian doctrine.

Secondly, 9% believing in the resurrection is not a ‘surprisingly high level’ when you look more closely and see that these are people who ‘do not belong to a religious group’ according to the survey. They are not identified as non-believers or claiming to be atheist or secular, he’s just grasping at straws because any kind of belief, however small or tenuous is better than nothing.  He does deserve credit for his top skills at ignoring all the stats that don’t reflect well on the Church though. That’s quite an impressive mental contortionist act.

Thirdly, he is conflating atheists and secularists. Atheism means no belief in God whereas secularism is a political belief in the need for separation of Church and State. You can be religious and secular, as many people are.

Like a lot of Easter eggs, the Bishop’s claims are hollow and crack under the slightest pressure.

There is also dissension in the Christian ranks. Reverend Dr Lorraine Cavenagh is the acting general secretary for Modern Church, which promotes liberal Christian theology. She said "Science, but also intellectual and philosophical thought has progressed. It has a trickle-down effect on just about everybody's lives.

"So to ask an adult to believe in the resurrection the way they did when they were at Sunday school simply won't do and that's true of much of the key elements of the Christian faith."

A cynical person might say that the Church wants us all to believe like children at Sunday School do. Many of these children also believe in Santa.

Would it be mean to point out that in 2002 a survey found that a third of Church of England clergy don’t believe in the physical resurrection? That’s a bit of an own goal. It’s also unfair to people who do believe if they’re being led by people who don’t.  

These findings follow the Cadbury Easter egg fiasco where self-proclaimed vicar’s daughter Theresa May and Archbishop Sentamu got very hot under the dog collar about Cadbury’s and the National Trust dropping the word Easter from their eggs and egg hunt. I wrote about that here (short version – it’s not true).  

Does any of this really matter to most of us who are more interested in hot cross buns, chocolate eggs and maybe some roast lamb next Sunday?

The Bishop of Manchester also said: "This demonstrates how important beliefs remain across our society and hence the importance both of religious literacy and of religion having a prominent place in public discourse."

This is the crux of the matter. The Church will not give up its power and influence. It will not give up unelected bishops in the House of Lords or its tax-free benefits or state-funded Church schools and hospital chaplains or its general right to meddle in people’s lives. It wants the right to cherry-pick who gets to go to its schools, to mislead children in sex education classes and to discriminate against women and non-hetero cis men.

Church leaders are deluding themselves about the relevance of their beliefs and their jobs in a multi-cultural society. Yes, this country has a Christian heritage, religion has shaped society and history but it is not the sole influence. Societies evolve and the Church is looking increasingly like a dinosaur just before the meteors hit. Or, to add another simile, the Church is like a ferret that will not let go once its jaws have locked on.

However, this survey is no reason for celebration. Politicians won’t do anything to secularise the country because they’re afraid of losing votes. Anglicans (Church of England) are more likely to vote Tory, for a start. This government is very good at ignoring research it doesn’t like in any area and at dismissing ‘experts’ as irrelevant. 

So the Church of England has the last laugh. Whatever surveys show, there is no prospect of change any time soon. It’s much easier to hold onto power than to gain it. Inertia, cowardice and the status quo prevail.

Happy Easter.

** Palm Sunday is the one before Easter where the Bible says Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey and people waved palm leaves at him.

The E Word

As if Theresa May didn’t have enough to deceive the British public about at the moment, now she decides to wade into the Great Easter Egg Debate. This is basically the Winterval, ’they’re cancelling Christmas’ non-story with added chocolate.

Cadbury’s and the National Trust have been running a joint egg hunt for 10 years. This year they’re calling it the Cadbury's Great British Egg Hunt instead of the Easter Egg Trail.

According to May, dropping the Easter is ‘ridiculous’. According to Archbishop Sentamu, this is ‘spitting on the grave’ of the company founder, John Cadbury, who was a Quaker.

May said: "I think the stance they have taken is absolutely ridiculous. I don't know what they are thinking about frankly. Easter's very important... It's a very important festival for the Christian faith for millions across the world." She also reminds us that she’s a vicar’s daughter.

Firstly, Cadbury is not dropping Easter from its promotions. As a spokesman point out: "A casual glance at our website will see dozens of references to Easter throughout." A ten second look at their website shows ‘Enjoy Easter fun at the National Trust’. Yes, the E Word is right there.  They also have a section called Easter Products  that says ‘Our eggstensive range is packed with perfect treats for the Easter season!’. Yes, it’s a terrible pun, but, again, the E Word is right there.

The National Trust website  says Join the Cadbury Egg Hunts this Easter. In fact, the page mentions the E Word five times.

Secondly, dear Archbishop, stop being a drama queen for one minute and you may remember that Quakers don’t even celebrate Easter because they believe every day is holy. 

Thirdly, both the Archbishop and the vicar’s daughter seem to have forgotten that there is nothing in Christian doctrine about the mass consumption of poor quality chocolate at Easter, whether it is shaped like an egg or a rabbit. These are wholly pagan relics. I wrote about the pagan originsof Easter here .

Fourthly, calling it the Great British Egg Hunt should make all the Brexiteers happy. We’ll have none of that Middle Eastern religion that was imposed on traditional British beliefs around 1500 years ago. Keep Britain’s Spring Festival British.

Fifthly, if Easter is as important as the two of them are trying to make out, how come only about 2% of people bother going to Church to celebrate what is the fundamental basis of Christianity?  And that’s according the Church of England’s own statistics. 

All of those armchair Christians really should stop their advance towards diabetes for an hour and go to their nearest church – if they even know where it is.  They may be able to sing some carols but how many Easter hymns do they know? How many gave something up for Lent? It’s not as if Cadbury and the National Trust are barricading church doors to keep people out.

Sixthly, the real story here is that Brexit could mean more expensive or smaller chocolate bars. Cadbury’s have already reduced a pack of six Creme Eggs to five with only a slight decrease in the price. A spokesman for thecompany has said that it may well have to pass on higher costs to customers by raising prices or selling smaller products for the same price. And it’s not even a British company any more, it’s owned by US company Mondelēz International. I suspect the ghost of Mr Cadbury would be far more bothered about that.

Cadbury’s are probably far less worried about what Theresa May thinks than about the fact that six out of ten of our favourite chocolate products are made by their rival Mars, including the top slot, which is taken by Maltesers.  

Finally, a vicar’s daughter and an Archbishop really should know that it’s a sin to tell a lie. They won’t be getting any eggs this year because the Easter Bunny knows if you’ve been naughty or nice. Santa sold the Bunny his list – customer data sharing gets everywhere.

2018 UPDATE

It looks like Cadbury's and The National Trust are avoiding the wrath of May and the Archbish this year by plastering the word Easter all over their joint egg hunt site.

But this isn't enough for some people.  Yes, the War on Easter brigade are back. The Sun has come up with the shock horror headline that nine in ten eggs won't have the word 'Easter' on them. One of the people they spoke to said 'Eggs signify  Jesus is risen and help tell the story. Why  not put Easter on the front of eggs?' Kind of missing the point there. Eggs, as we know, predate Christianity as part of Spring celebrations across many cultures.

If they don't like the eggs, perhaps they'd be happier with this:

It's so much easier to whine about eggs than to deal with the fact that so few people go to Church on Easter Sunday even though it is the core festival of this religion - not Christmas. Only 1.3 million attended in 2015 according to the Church of England's own data. That's only 2.3% of the population (of England - the Churches of Wales and Scotland have separate data). Too busy stuffing themselves with chocolate, probably.

I'm sticking to hot cross buns. After all, the best part of any religion is its carbs.

2021 Update:  Here we go again. As if getting through the pandemic wasn't hard enough. The Express is braying:  Political correctness gone mad! Words 'Easter, egg' dropped from seasonal chocolate treats.

It's not about spurning Jesus but, according to Allyson Stewart-Allen, chief exec of International Marketing Partners for Galaxy, "In the multi-cultural society that the UK now is it may be that the majority of target customers do not celebrate Easter and therefore being able to offer that product as a gift for non-Christians is a domestic opportunity for the manufacturers".

Nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with money. Cadbury's are still using the E word on their packaging.

I'm disappointed the Express didn't talk about Cancel Culture although 'multi-cultural' probably had a fair few of its readership frothing at the mouth.

I'm thinking about having a Terry's Dark Chocolate Orange for a change this year because I'm that much of a rebel.

The miracle of chocolate?

Stories about the potential health benefits of chocolate surface on a fairly regular basis. Those of us who would happily mainline chocolate may latch on to these stories but, as with most things, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Three stories picked at random:

In the latest news story, a Swedish study published in Neurology has found that chocolate may protect men against strokes. It found that men eating the most chocolate in the study group (63g/2.2oz) were 17% less likely to have a stroke.

In 2011, the BMJ published a study which found that the highest levels of chocolate consumption (more than two bars a week) were associated with a 37% reduction in cardiovascular disease and a 29% reduction in stroke compared with the lowest levels.

This study noted that 'Recent studies (both experimental and observational) have suggested that chocolate consumption has a positive influence on human health, with antioxidant, antihypertensive, anti-inflammatory, anti-atherogenic, and anti-thrombotic effects as well as influence on insulin sensitivity, vascular endothelial function, and activation of nitric oxide. These beneficial effects have been confirmed in recent reviews and meta-analyses, supporting the positive role of cacao and cocoa products on cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, atherosclerosis, and insulin resistance'.

In 2010 an American study found that older women who eat dark chocolate once or twice a week could be lowering their risk of heart failure. The study notes that one or two 19-30 gram servings of dark chocolate a week led to a 32% reduction in heart failure risk. This fell to 26% when one to three servings a month were eaten. But women who ate chocolate every day did not appear to reduce their risk of heart failure at all.

So there does appear to be some health benefit to eating chocolate. However (here comes the bad news), every study says that the fats and sugars in chocolate (even dark chocolate) have potential negative health risks. And every study suggests that it's the flavanoids in chocolate that appear to confer benefit.

Further research will probably show that a cacao-derived pill would confer the benefits and none of the risks. Which is no fun at all.

It's not just chocolate that contains flavanoids, they are also found in all citrus fruits, berries, onions (particularly red onion), parsley, pulses, tea (especially white and green tea) and red wine.

So all the articles that appear to be good news for chocolate eaters could just as well herald onions as potential lifesavers - except that wouldn't make for such good headlines.

It's unlikely that a bag of onions will replace a box of chocolates as the romantic gift of choice for men who forget their partner's birthday or their anniversary and stop off to pick something up on the way home from work. The British Onion Producers Association is not going to start paying for TV adverts modelled on the Milk Tray Man or ones with skinny women eating onions in suggestive ways.

But if you care about your loved one's health, giving them an onion would be a really romantic gesture. Shortly followed by it hitting your head.

A chocolate-covered onion. So wrong.

The Chocolate Serum That Isn't

A company called Ikove is advertising on its website an Acai Chocolate Age-Resisting Serum. The magic C word caught my attention.

According to the press release: 'ikove means 'keep alive' in Tupi-Guarani, an indigenous South American language, and the luxurious Ikove Acai Chocolate skincare range does just that!'

Resisting the temptation to apply some of the products to a small dying animal to see if they would indeed keep it alive, I looked at the description of the serum.

Açaí Chocolate Age-Resisting Serum
Antioxidant
This 100 percent plant-derived concentrate is formulated with antioxidant açaí and cocoa, nutrition-rich rosehip oil and revitalizing Amazonian botanicals. It protects against the negative effects of aging and the environment while at the same time deeply nourishing and moisturizing your skin. Directions: Apply to the face and neck areas that require special attention.98% certified organic 100% natural 100% vegan

Just for once, I won't do my usual tirade about anti-oxidants NOT WORKING because there is, in my eyes, a far greater sin here. The ingredients are:

Ingredients:•bertholletia excelsea (brazil nut) seed oil, •rosa aff. rubiginosa (rosehip) oil, •orbignya oleifera (babaçu) seed oil, •euterpa oleracea (açaí) fruit extract, •chamolilla recutita extract, •equisetum arvense (horsetail) extract, •calendula officinalis extract, •lavandula officinalis (lavender) extract, vegetable glycerin, bisobolol oil, •citrus reticulata (manderin) oil, •citrus aurantium dulcis (sweet orange) oil, lavandula officinalis (lavender) oil.

Have you spotted yet what's missing?

Their other choco-products - moisturizer, shampoo, conditioner, exfoliant and cleanser - include theobroma cacao L (cocoa) liquor or cocoa butter. But not this one.

There is no chocolate in the Acai Chocolate Age-Resisting Serum.

I rang the head office, which is a company called PhytoScience, and asked if there was any chocolate in it. A nice man called Chris told me that 'If there's no chocolate on the list of ingredients, there's no chocolate in it. Sorry to disappoint you'. He was very keen to tell me about acai, which was actually quite interesting. But not interesting enough to make me forget that there is no chocolate in it.

Did they just forget to mention it? Was the person writing up the ingredients list distracted by something shiny? Is it 'chocolate' in some sense that is unknown to me? Does the word 'chocolate' mean something else in Tupi-Guarani?

Not that I was thinking of spending £18.95 on a tiny bottle of serum but to promise chocolate when there is none is a crime against humanity.

Is nothing sacred?

It's National Chocolate Week (although in my world, that's every week) and the purveyors of something that looks like chocolate but smells considerably worse are trying to muscle in. Is nothing sacred?

Russell Grant has consulted his astrological charts and listened to the voice of the cosmos to come up with a list of which chocolate is best suited to each star sign. According to him, my star sign - Libra - likes the finer things in life and is likely to choose soft and smooth chocolate fillings preferably wrapped in a heart-shaped box to share with their partner. Hand-made chocolate moulded in novelty shapes will amuse this chocolate lover.

No. I like large bars of dark chocolate, preferably Green & Black's Maya Gold or Cherry. Or anything by Paul Young of Islington (I would never normally advertise in my blog but this is chocolate and all normal rules are suspended).

Novelty chocolate shapes? Yes - chocolate shaped like a very large bar of chocolate. Oh and Russ, I don't share my chocolate with ANYONE. My ideal partner is a diabetic.

To capture the diet market, or possibly to guilt-trip anyone overweight, there is a chocolate face mask being advertised for Chocolate Week. According to the advert, Cocoa is packed with antioxidants to smooth skin, macadamia nut oil moisturizes, and almond oil reduces imflammation. Let's ignore all the research that has found anti-oxidants do sod all, then. [Edited to add: now there is some evidence that they may increase the chances of developing type 2 diabetes]

And why would your face be inflamed in the first place? Perhaps from weeping because some bugger bought you this stuff instead of the real thing. Eminence Organic Skincare Mousse Hydration Masque costs £36 for 60ml. That's a teeny tiny pot with a very big name.

In my local supermarket today, £36 would buy:

78 packs of Minstrels or Maltesers

90 Mars Bars

36 packs of Fox's double chocolate cookies

240 Fingers of Fudge

and I don't even want to think about how many Gü chocolate puddings or I'll have to go out and buy some.

According to Mintel, people in the UK ate £3.5bn worth of chocolate last year - that's £57 each person. Is that all? If that's an average, there must be an awful lot of babies who aren't onto solids yet.

Mintel have also found that sales of dark chocolate almost doubled in the UK between 2005 and 2007. A (female) senior market analyst at Mintel said: Although dark chocolate is still high in sugar, it is rich in antioxidants and is lower in fat than milk chocolate. Dark chocolate now has the reputation of being a healthier alternative to other chocolate. Again with the anti-oxidants. Let's make it absolutely clear - THEY DON'T WORK. Anyone would think chocolate was one of your five a day. If dark chocolate is 'healthier', that means you can eat more of it, right?

Chocolate is not now nor has it ever been good for you (although it is cheaper than Prozac). But it is one of life's essentials. And in case anyone's interested, it's my birthday this week. Good timing.

Roses are Blooming in Picardie

Picardie, where I spent a long weekend, is the land of Joan of Arc, hunting and oddly shaped spires.

Joan of Arc (aka La Pucelle) is a local heroine; there are monuments and plaques to her everywhere describing how she sacrificed herself to liberate France (from the wicked English) in 1431. They skip over the fact that it was the French (Burgundians) who sold her to the English and that the French king could have ransomed her but didn't. I suppose that when you have been consistently thrashed by another country, any hero is better than none, even a cross-dressing woman who hears voices. This is the version of her at Le Crotoy. She was known for wearing men's clothes but this statue has her in a more ladylike skirt. Unless she is the inventor of the culotte.

Picardie is a big hunting area. While the English traditionally hunt with horses and dogs, the French prefer guns - because they kill things they can eat. Including any rare bird that is foolish enough to fly through their airspace.

The tabac in Crecy, where I was staying, also sold guns and hunting accessories. There are signs all over the area reminding everyone that the countryside has been preserved by la chasse - hunting. Even the wildlife reserves also double as hunting grounds. The lakes in the reserve at Cayeux had decoy ducks in and hunting hides. And Icelandic ponies, for some reason.

It's an area that has seen a lot of battles. In 1346 the French were beaten by us at the Battle of Crecy during the Hundred Years War. They were led by John of Luxembourg, the Blind King Of Bohemia. We were led by Edward III and his son, the Black Prince, both of whom had eyes that worked, which might have given everyone some indication of how it would turn out. There is nothing to see at the battlefield site now apart from cows although there is a viewing tower and a sign that acknowledges our superior fire-power.

Crecy is also the only place I have ever been woken in the morning by a noisy donkey. It makes a change from bin men.

Not far away is Agincourt (or Azincourt in French) where we beat them again in 1415. This time, the French King, perhaps remembering Crecy, made his excuses and stayed home. It's the battle which allegedly gave rise to the English V sign. The English longbows were state of the art and, it is said, when the bowmen were captured their two fingers were cut off to stop them shooting any more arrows (you shoot arrows, not fire them). Showing the V sign was a defiant way of saying they were still in action. Allegedly.

The area also includes the Baie de Somme, where bigger and bloodier battles were fought. The carnage is re-enacted every year when migratory birds fly over and are shot from the sky by local hunters in massive quantities. And then eaten.

There are some unusual spires in the area. This one is in St Riquier, a former northern stronghold of Charlemagne, once a city, now a small town.

While we're in St Riquier, it has a large and intact abbey from Charlemagne's time. We couldn't go in because some bugger was selfishly getting married but there are some great gargoyles on the outside. I'm not entirely sure this is a gargoyle (from the French: to gargle) as, to be one, it has to have a water spout in its mouth. This could just be a grotesque.

Back to spires, the one on the church in the village of Machiel was unusual too. The graveyard was full of tall, very ornate, but rusty iron crucifixes. It looked a bit like a scrap yard - which a cemetery kind of is, I suppose.

In St Valery, the owner of the restaurant where we had lunch was wearing a Welsh railway T shirt and we made the mistake of asking about it. He was a huge train enthusiast and talked a lot about all the trains he had been on in Wales and elsewhere. Every holiday involves trains for him and his wife, who kept very quiet on the subject then told him to stop talking to us because our food was getting cold. Incidentally, smoking is no longer allowed in French restaurants but dogs are.

On two evenings, we went into Crecy forest to look for deer. We heard a stag (and a lot of owls) and glimpsed a few deer but that was all. It got dark while we were there and suddenly, all my rational, urban sense went away and I was scared. Partly of getting lost or falling over in the dark - which was entirely sensible - and partly of what might be lurking in the darkness. No matter how scientific you are in your thinking, there are times when primitive instincts kick in and your body starts to react in an alarming way, making you feel vulnerable and jumpy, more than keen to be inside with the door locked. My forest companion thought this was hysterical and led us deeper in as the light failed. At one point, all I could see were his pale legs in shorts ahead of me.

I felt a bit wimpy at first but consoled myself with the thought that, although it has been a very long time indeed since such instincts were useful, I am descended from a long line of early scaredy cats who survived to pass on their genes while the braver ones got eaten by something that really was lurking in the dark.

Finally, there is one thing the French are currently doing much better than us - postage stamps. The latest range celebrates chocolate and is even impregnated with chocolate scent.

The latest offering from our Post Office features a set of rather naff mythical beasts. Unicorns, mermaids and pixies cannot compete with choco-timbres.

Chocolate News

My inner nerd has been taking over far too much of late, diverting me from the true subject of this blog, which is of course the carb-based snack. So...

Important news from the world of chocolate (which is one of the major food groups):

About half of American women crave chocolate, and approximately half of the cravers crave it specifically around the onset of menstruation. This study examines whether the primary cause of this "perimenstrual" craving is a direct effect of hormonal changes around the perimenstrum, or rather if the craving is a general response in some individuals to stress or other notable events. Insofar as there is a direct hormonal effect, one would predict a substantial decrease of 38% in total chocolate craving in women post-menopause, corresponding to the proportion of women pre-menopause who report craving chocolate exclusively perimenstrually. Based on a survey of pre- and postmenopausal alumnae of the same University, we report a significant but small decrease in prevalence of chocolate cravings post-menopause. The decrease is only 13.4% and thereby much smaller than a 38% drop predicted by a purely hormonal explanation, suggesting that female reproductive hormones are not the principal cause of perimenstrual chocolate craving.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

More news. The Swiss have invented a low calorie chocolate that doesn't melt in hot weather - 90% lower cal than the average chocolate 'product', they claim. However, part of the reason it's less fattening may be because it's full of air bubbles so most of it isn't chocolate.

According to a spokesperson: "It's called Vulcano because it can be eaten when it's hot, and it's airy and full of bubbles, like volcanic rock." Or like Aero?

The main reason for making a chocolate that melts at higher temperatures is so that it can be sold in hot countries - it's heat-resistant up to 55C (131F) whereas most chocolate starts to melt at 30C. We are reassured that: "It does melt in the mouth, but it is the enzymes in saliva rather than the heat of the tongue that causes it to dissolve." Hhm. I'm liking the sound of it less. And the grammar of the press release not at all.  Not while there is Green & Black's in the world and this shop.