Bach and the survival of Christianity
Yesterday afternoon, we all went to hear Bach's St John's Passion, with period instruments and in its liturgical context, in the rather Mackintoshy downtown church of St Andrew and St Paul.

The music was wonderful. I only have it on vinyl so I haven't heard it for ages, and it was just terrific live, and the singers were amazing. The guy singing the evangelist, the baritone, was an instrument, he really was, the counter-tenor was unbelieveable (I didn't think there still were any) and the way the choir all works together and against itself in parts, is lovely. It was also so neat to see it being conducted -- the conductor looked like a mad scientist, he was leaping about in little jumps, and seeing him bring in just a touch of instrument under a single voice to underline for a moment, the tones together was marvellous. I was deeply enthused.

In the computer game Civilization, Bach's cathedral is a wonder of the world and makes two people in every city content for all time. I was one of them yesterday. (In Civilization, the United Nations is also a wonder, and one which means people always have to talk and can't just attack each other wantonly. I keep thinking about this recently.)

The liturgical context was in one sense very cool. Imagine going to church on Good Friday thinking you'd be suffering through the three hours and the stations of the cross like every year, and having that explode in your face! The story of the passion was there, and it was slowly getting dark outside as it went on, which worked very well. The choristors processed in at the beginning, there was an opening prayer, all cool. There was, however, a sermon in the middle that was a problem.

It's not my religion. I am polite to all religions, it's a religion I have studied in a historical context, and what's more I was brought up in the Church of England, it's an ancestral family religion. It is not my religion, I cannot go along with one jealous God. But it was Bach's religion, and I feel indignant on Bach's behalf -- look, Bach went to a lot of trouble to write this religious music to bring people to church, and look, there I was in church, me, and there Rysmiel was who abhors church, and Zorinth who is even more of a little heathen than I thought. Having got us there, Bach deserved better than a Nestorian sermon that made a mockery of the whole thing.

St. John's Passion was written for Good Friday. Therefore, naturally, it stops with Jesus in the tomb. Resurrection has to wait for Easter. (I do hope this isn't a spoiler...) Nevertheless, the mystery of the Incarnation is not that Jesus was a very nice person who died. The world is full of very nice people who die, good grief, very nice people die every day and we do not found major world religions about them. The point of Christianity is that Jesus was the Son of God who was born as a human being, lived as a human being, died by crucifixion on Friday and on Sunday came alive again. If you don't believe that you are not a Nicene Christian.

Redemption did not come from his death, but from his victory over death, the combination of his death and ressurection. Really dead, really alive again. (I could believe that quite cheerfully, as long as nobody required exclusivity. I could happily go along with a Nicene Creed that started, as in one Credo variant "I believe in many gods including...")

I did not stand up and recite the Nicene Creed, or otherwise denounce the minister as a heretic and a Nestorian. The world appears to be full of Nestorians and Monophysites and outright Manicheans, and it is none of my business, if nobody within their religion seems to mind.

I just strongly objected to the misinterpretation of Bach.

Maybe, I said, as we were coming out at the end, the music still ringing in us, maybe in another thousand years, the whole religion will be remembered only as a footnote to Bach. "And Milton," Rysmiel added. But on reflection, I think the King James Bible will continue to be read as poetry.

Bach is dead, the music will live forever.