Evensong

Nearly all of them were hostile to her. It came off the screen in waves. This broadcast was three years old, and she had now taken the New Anglicans a long way down the road she’d described, but people still replayed it. It showed so much about her: the presentation, the preparation, the confrontation. She always had an instinct for aggression, even when massively outnumbered.

A distinguished BBC news presenter briefly introduced her to the audience. There was the barest scattering of applause.

“I’d like to thank the BBC for inviting me to give this year’s Reith Lecture. As you know from the extensive way it’s been trailed—”(especially by you, Anwar thought)“—I’ll be talking >about a set of projects which will define the future direction of the New Anglican Church. The Room For God projects. I know this audience will be familiar with them, but for the sake of the wider broadcast audience I’ll out line them briefly. Later I’ll describe them in more detail.

“The Room For God projects are part of the core business of the New Anglican Church. Whether you look through a telescope or a microscope, you see that science uncovers more and more about the universe. But the more it uncovers, the more that remains unknown—and the more room it creates for God. So the New Anglican Church will encourage, and finance, scientific research which other churches may find threatening. Medical research, too. We’ll support campaigns for birth control. We’ll attack bigotry wherever we find it. Religious bigotry. Homophobia. Subjugation of women. We’ll fund independent research into the behind-closed-doors conclaves in which the Bible was put together: what was included and what was left out, by whom and why. And we’ll finance campaigns against fundamentalism and Creationism, and in favour of secular education and secular politics. We’ll even fight the tax-exempt status of religious cults. We’ll shine our light everywhere! We’ll...”

She paused. There were mutterings in the audience. “Oh, come on! People should come to a Church—any Church, ours or yours—as grownups! They should come from choice, not from being spoonfed by some ghastly priest caste who won’t let them grow up!”

“Arrogant! You’re arrogant and self-regarding!” someone in the audience roared. “This is just a PR event for you. You take an inordinate pride, young woman, in parading your anger!”

“Pride and Anger,” she said. “Two of the Seven Deadly Sins. I use a mnemonic to remember them: SPAGLEG. Sloth, Pride, Anger, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony.”

“Yes,” said another voice, “and you’ve shown two of them tonight, and all of them in your private life!” (Laughter, turning to applause.)

“Well,” she replied, leaning forward on the lectern, “four or five of them are not so bad, in moderation. For rational people. For people wanting self-respect instead of self-loathing, or aspiration instead of guilt, or just some physical comfort.” (Silence, turning to uproar.)

From there, the Reith Lecture ceased to be a lecture, and became a war: an audience against one person. All the protocols went out the window. Longboom mikes were swung out over the audience. Producers reordered schedules. This would be something unheard of in modern broadcasting: a major live event which erupted, in real time, before a worldwide audience of tens of millions. With any ordinary broadcast, corporate middle-managers might have killed the live feed and gone to a stock documentary on meerkats or modelmaking, but this was the Reith Lecture. Nobody dared kill it.

As if she sensed all this, she gathered up her sheaf of notes from the lectern and flung it, rather theatrically, to the floor. She glared down at them from the stage, awaiting their attacks.

“Even homosexuality,” said a voice from the audience. The longboom mike immediately swung over to him. “Anything offensive to normality and decency, you’ll be sniffing around it for its money. Even,” sneeringly, “the love that dare not speak its name.”

She smiled unpleasantly. “In Brighton they call it the love that dare not speak its name because its mouth is full.” (Indrawn breaths.) “Try a mouthful. It cures all afflictions. Even fundamentalism.”

Anwar was aghast at her aggression. And yet: just one of her, against all of them. She was like a small creature baring its teeth and refusing to back down. Ever. Against anyone.

“This is your new fascism! Anyone who disagrees with you, you call them afflicted! Brand them as fundamentalists! Turn them into hate figures!”

“I don’t hate fundamentalists. I just think that 99 percent of them give the other 1 percent a bad name.”

“Most of the people you brand with that—that offensive word, are legitimate religious scholars.”