In defence of hymn-singing atheists
At my daughter's Christmas concert on Monday night, none of the Tamil parents knew the words to the carols, so the Jews had to sing twice as loud. The next morning I read Libby Purves's elegant reproach to the great atheist Richard Dawkins on his admission that he too enjoys belting out Away in a Manger. “How honest is it to sing?” she demanded of Professor Dawkins. “How insulting to those who mean every word of it?”
This made me uneasy about the carolling Jews. True, they absolutely don't rubbish God, but Jews explicitly deny the possibility of Jesus being the Messiah, and therefore presumably ought to worry about causing offence to true believers when singing this, as they did: “Late in time behold Him come/ Offspring of a Virgin's womb/ Veiled in flesh the Godhead see/Hail the incarnate Deity.” You'll recognise there Charles Wesley's own interesting preoccupation with carnality, as well as one of the most famous not quite rhyming couplets in schoolboy history.
Fortunately both Jews and Hindu Tamils were — for reasons of time, I imagine — spared the verse from Once in Royal David's City, where the young Jesus's imagined relationship with his Virgin mother is extolled, continuing: “Christian children all must be/Mild, obedient, good as he.”
The author of the carol was a Victorian Ulsterwoman, C.F. Alexander, the wife of the Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, and Mrs Alexander was not averse to supplementing the scriptures when she felt the Spirit demanded it. In the version of Once in Royal David's City that we did sing on Monday, the final verse ended thus: “When like stars His children crowned/All in white shall wait around.” Now, it's been years since I took biblical instruction, but I am not aware of any authority for the exact colour of the clothes to be worn in Heaven by those eternally “waiting around”. Like any songwriter Mrs Alexander had just made it up.
It seems a bit harsh, therefore, to make belief any kind of test for joining in the song. Worse, I would say that anyone who “means every word of it”, given the provenance of many words, has problems much bigger than whether a Professor R. Dawkins denies God.
And it also raises a question over Libby's suggestion that Prof D might be more honest if he stuck to “a verse or two of Frosty the Snowman”. This an interesting parallel, since this, too, is a tale of resurrection, in which Frosty finally, “Had to hurry on his way/But he waved goodbye saying/‘Don't you cry, I'll be back again some day'.” And songwriters Jack Nelson and Steve Rollins had no less supernatural backing for their words than did Mrs Alexander, so one perhaps ought to add that Professor Dawkins may only sing their song if confident that he isn't in the company of those who believe that Frosty the Snowman is real.
