Indigo Requiem

St. John's Church in Caversham held a special requiem service last night, marking remembrance weekend on the hundredth anniversary of the start of the Great War. Len David conducted his Indigo Requiem, with a combined choir from the Hurst Singers and from St John's. Liturgical sections were led by Revd. Colin Bass, and there was accompaniment from piano, saxophone, bass, percussion and trumpet (as well as the organ for the hymns).

Len has composed Indigo Requiem in a style of jazz which I associate with Gershwin - the respectable end of jazz you might say, but it still raises a smile to hear 'the devil's music' used in a context of formal Christian worship. Jazz has a flexibility of tone and mood which allowed it to move between the sadness of  loss and remembrance and the sure hope of resurrection without jarring ... in Len's hands, at least.

It was a fairly grim night weatherwise - and apparently there had been some firework throwing going on - so the congregation was disappointing; far less than the event deserved. Nevertheless musicians and choir (who were a soloist down through illness, I heard afterwards) did a marvellous job. St John's has wonderful acoustics when the singing is strong, and it was great to hear them ringing out. The sound of fireworks banging outside during the reading of the names of those from St. John's lost in the war was slightly surreal, but possibly appropriate, I guess.

From the programme notes:

The music of the requiem seeks to reflect something of the journey that we make as individuals through distress and dread in facing up to death, ending with a quiet acceptance of hope based on the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ. As we reflect on our own mortality and remember our loved ones who have died, we are invited to offer our feelings to God and pray that after the service we go away knowing something of the saving power of Christ.

The requiem was being recorded, so I am hoping it will end up on YouTube or somewhere similar, in which case I will add a link to the top of this post.

Why War?

We are heading toward the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, a particular lowlight in a century marked by war and massacre.

Looking back at the violence of the 20th century, it strikes me how much of it was characterised by a toxic mix of nationalism and ideology, and how little it had to do with religion.

The First World War was fairly unambiguously nationalist and imperialist in origin, whilst the second seems to have been triggered by a more complex brew. On the one hand there was German national feeling, battered after WW1 and bearing grudges over the post-war loss of Germanic territories; on the other there was fear of communism, fear and hatred for 'the other' - particularly, but not exclusively, 'The Jew' - then there was a striving for discipline and order, represented by a powerful fascist ideology, and a bizarre mix of Aryan and Wagnerian mythologies.

Meanwhile, in the Far East, causes seem to have been more simply about nationalism and access to resources (traditionally the other main driver of imperialism).

In between these 'world wars' you had the Bolshevik takeover in Russia, with its ideological civil war followed by mass famine as their policy of Prodrazvyorstka destroyed the battered agricultural system; then under Stalin the famines and purges continued as ideology and tyranny ran their course.

After the Second World War, the Cold War marked the continuation of ideological and imperial conflict, much of it through proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam. Meanwhile the Maoist revolution in China followed the path of Russia's revolution through civil war, mass famine and extensive purges.

I am only aware of two major outbreaks of violence during the century where religion was one of the main causes, both in the late '40s: the Partition of India in 1947 and the founding of Israel in 1948. Both of these events had violent repercussions which continue to this day, and both had a strong religious element. Both also had a strong ethnic and nationalist element: religion and nationalism can be just as toxic a compound as ideology and nationalism, it seems.

There is a list of 20th-century battles on Wikipedia, which gives an idea of the continuous level of conflict during that troubled century.

Granted that my knowledge of 20th-century history is not exhaustive, I do still find it strange that the 'new atheists' - the likes of Richard Dawkins - continue to link war with religion. With a couple of exceptions, here was a whole century of essentially non-religious violence, much of it explicitly atheist.

Why war? Because people are prejudiced; often they are ignorant and demonise 'others'; they are all too ready to follow leaders who tell them they are right and others are wrong; and because, by and large, people prefer to function as part of a local ethnic/racial community, rather than as part of worldwide humanity.

Most religions attempt to work to a bigger picture, which could be immensely helpful in enabling people to live together in peace. Sadly, all religions are composed of fallible, flawed people, as are all ideological groupings. We could just wait for God to fix it, or we could try to work with God and spread peace and justice in our own small ways, wherever we are, and whoever we are with. It's our choice.

Postscript: There is an interesting post on a similar theme over on the BeThinking blog.