評論
打印
Politicians and religion
政客與宗教
Doing God
造神風波
David Cameron's frank Christian talk is more astute than the reaction to it suggests
卡梅倫坦率的復活節講話與其說是對民眾的反應有所企圖， 不如說是詭計多端
FEW Britons have well-defined religious beliefs, but many have tastes in matters of religion. As with tea, they don't like it too cold or too hot. They seem to want the established religion to be present somewhere in the background, with its village churches, Christmas carols and Remembrance Day services, and they would hate it to vanish altogether; but they would squirm if anyone asked them to accept Jesus as their personal saviour.
具有虔誠宗教信仰的英國人數量雖然微乎其微，但是大多數的英國人都有著良好的宗教品味。譬如喝茶，他們不喜歡茶溫過低或過高。英國人似乎只是希望將宗教建立在某些特定環境之中，例如他們的鄉村教堂、圣誕頌歌以及國殤日的紀念服務。如果這些都消失不見的話，英國人會十分不悅；但如果有人要求他們將耶穌作為救世主頂禮膜拜他們又會覺得十分別扭。
It is that sentiment that David Cameron and other senior Tories seemed to be invoking when they marked the Easter season with some firmly (but not too firmly) Christian messages. Having declared at an Easter reception that he was “proud of the fact that we are a Christian country”, the prime minister took to the Church Times, an Anglican weekly, to spell out what he did not mean. He described himself as a “rather classic” member of the Church of England, “not that regular in attendance and a bit vague on some of the more difficult parts of the faith”. Still, he loved old country churches, like the one his parents had laboured to restore, and welcomed the church's role as a moral and pastoral force.
然而在卡梅倫和其他保守黨高級官員給復活節打上看似堅定的基督色彩的烙印，似乎祈盼能夠喚起民眾狂野的宗教熱忱。在復活節講話中公然宣布他“為我們作為基督徒國家而感到驕傲”之后，首相卡梅倫又在英國國教徒周刊《教會時報》上聲明他并沒有那個意思。他將自己形容成英國國教“不勝虔誠”的一員，“但并不經常參與宗教活動，對某些較難認同的宗教信仰的態度也模棱兩可?！蓖瑯拥兀類壑@個古老國家的教堂-那些由他的祖祖輩輩耗時耗力修復的教堂，并希望教堂可以作為一種道德與pastoral的力量繼續發揮它的功用。
These words, plus a short Easter broadcast noting how “incredibly special” the feast was for many people, have drawn loud complaints from secularists. Dominic Grieve, the attorney-general and an Anglican, defended his boss's views—and was barracked in turn. More than 40 Anglican bishops and 600 clergy issued an implicit rebuke in the form of a letter urging Mr Cameron to focus on food poverty. Keith Hebden, a clergyman, said that the police had prevented him and the bishop of Oxford from delivering a copy to Mr Cameron's constituency office, in an area where lovely old churches abound.
然而對于大多數人，這些話加上復活節廣播中傳遞出的“令人難以置信的特殊存在”，已然在世俗論者中引得噓聲一片。身為總檢察長的國教教徒多米尼克·格里夫，為他的頂頭上司辯護，卻反而被人們聲討。.超過四十名圣公會主教和600名神職人員以書信的形式對卡梅倫發出隱晦的指責，并要求其將重點放在糧食短缺的問題上。牧師基斯·赫布登稱，警方阻止他和牛津的主教向卡梅倫的選區辦公室遞送這一信件的復印本。據悉該選區辦公室位于老教堂鱗次櫛比之地
Yet Mr Cameron's appeal to warm and fuzzy Anglicanism is politically astute. A recent survey by Theos, a religious think-tank, showed a clear link between being Anglican—practising or otherwise—and voting Conservative. Such voters are Mr Cameron's to lose, and he may lose many of them to the anti-Brussels UK Independence Party if it presses the button of cultural nativism more successfully.
不過卡梅倫對于英國國教熱情而曖昧的呼吁不失為一種政治上的明智之舉。最近由宗教智庫“西奧斯”所做的一項調查顯示了民眾對國教或者其他宗教的信仰同投票支持保守黨之間的明確聯系。卡梅倫失去了這些選民的支持，并且如果卡梅倫的此項舉動按下了促使英國社會文化異化與分裂的按鈕，卡梅倫將會失去更多的選民，并且這些選民最終會投向反歐盟的英國獨立黨的懷抱。
And as Jonathan Bartley, founder of a more liberal religion-watching outfit called Ekklesia, points out, the proportion of Britons (59%) who call themselves Christian on a census form exceeds by a factor of at least ten the number of regular churchgoers. That implies a large constituency of cultural Christians who are not militant secularists but have no more appetite for “difficult parts of the faith” than Mr Cameron does.
正如自由宗教組織Ekklesia創始人喬納森·巴特利指出的那樣，在人口普查中聲稱自己是基督徒的人口（高達總人口的59%）超過了定期去做禮拜的人數的十倍。這意味著大多數選區的基督徒并非激進的世俗論者，而是比卡梅倫對那些“較難認同的宗教信仰” 更難接受的人。
For evidence of the continuing role of religion in politics look, too, at Mr Cameron's main rivals. Ed Miliband, Labour's leader, is an atheist who nonetheless aspires to be “the first Jewish prime minister”. Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, is an atheist too, but he points out that his wife and children are Catholic. Fervent secularism is no more appealing to most Britons than its opposite.
披著政治外衣的宗教所帶來的持續影響也是卡梅倫的主要對手之一。工黨領導人埃德·米利德班，是一名無論如何都想要成為“第一位猶太人首相”的無神論者。自由民主黨的領袖尼克·克萊格也是一名無神論者。但是他指出他的妻子和孩子都是天主教徒。對于大多數英國人來說，狂熱的世俗主義除了其對立面之外沒有任何可取指出。翻譯 周曉婷 校對 張丹
譯文屬譯生譯世
