Scottish Catholic Observer

Richard Dawkins is an odd fellow at times. His strident denunciations of religion usually get my back up but, just ­occasionally; he lets slip a comment that causes even his most ardent admirers to question their faith in him.

Last week he took to Twitter to opine on the soothing effect of the bells of Winchester cathedral, contrasting it with, as he described it, the more ‘aggressive-sounding’ feel of the Muslim call to prayer.

While this was taken by some as implied ‘Islamophobia,’ others feared that their guru might be losing it.

Before we go any further, I must say that I find the ‘adhan,’ or call to prayer, rather lovely: the gentle rise and fall of the song is itself a prayer. But that is an effect of the sound, rather than the words.

I seem to recall that the ‘sound’ of Arabic chant was originally derived from Byzantine Christian chant, although we tend to regard it as a defining feature of Islamic culture. If I’m wrong, then I’m sure there are musicologists only too ready to correct me.

Anyway, back to bells. You seldom hear the peal of bells these days. No doubt this is due to complaints lodged from those ‘on the night shift’ or who regard bell ringing as just another form of noise pollution.

The parish I grew up in, just next door to this one, has a handsome bell tower and I remember my trudge to Sunday Mass would be accompanied by the sonorous thudding of the church bell.

I was never all that keen on going to Mass, but there was something quite mesmeric about the bell ringing: the monotone peal would get louder and louder as you approached, building up a sense of what almost felt like excitement.

The bell still works, incidentally. I heard it ringing not so long ago. It has the advantage of being operated at the flick of a switch rather than have folk glide up and down on bell ropes (even though that always looks like more fun).

St Joseph’s also had a bell. While the Bow’s campanile looked a little more like a chimney than anything else, it had the distinction of being the first bell installed in Greenock since the Reformation (or at least installed in a Catholic church).

The tower itself was also a little higher originally than it is now. Over the decades, the weight of the bell and stresses on the fabric of the building meant that it had to be removed. A slice was also taken off the tower, leaving us with the less than impressive remnant we have today.

As far as I can gather, the bell was put into storage in a builders’ yard and subsequently ‘nicked’ by unscrupulous bellnappers. In its heyday, however, it issued the call to prayer to everyone in the district.

Indeed, just as the traditional criterion for being a Cockney is to be born within earshot of Bow bells (the Church of St Mary-le-Bow), so everyone born in the Rankin maternity hospital came into this world within earshot of our own Bow bell, or St Joe-le-Bow (as we don’t call it).

As a consequence, practically everyone in Inverclyde between the ages of 26 and 80 (the hospital opened in 1938 and closed in 1992) is an honorary member of Greenock’s answer to Eastenders.

Although I understand that a bell clanging in the middle of a housing scheme might not be welcomed by all the neighbours, I do think the silencing of our church bells is a loss. Like the muezzin chanting over the rooftops, the peal of the bells would serve as a reminder of the presence of God in our urban landscape.

The fact that this might appear as something of an intrusion in itself only serves to underscore how much is lost when the only noise we hear is the wail of sirens or music being played too loudly in the cars of boy racers.

A Catholic church in Lucerne, Switzerland has recently invited some students to step in with their ideas to replace their own bells while it is undergoing repair.

I’m not sure if their top idea is inspired or merely inevitable: the marimba ringtone of a mobile phone. It seems that the local population are still reaching for their iPhones—and no doubt cursing—as the ringtone is piped from the bell tower every hour on the hour and before services.

On the one hand, this might be presented as a 21st century equivalent of the call to prayer, except this time it’s God who’s calling us (let’s hope he doesn’t reverse the charges). On the other, it might just be a projection of our banal, noise-drenched society, where it seems we’re available to everyone except God.

One would imagine that those who would be happiest about the demise of our bells would be Professor Dawkins’ chums in the National Secular Society. This very morning, I was greeted with a newspaper headline ‘Grieving Scots are asking for crosses to be removed from funeral chapels.’

It doesn’t require an especially forensic mind to see that the accompanying article is basically another press release from the Humanist Society spinning what can only be a handful of instances of such requests into an apparent torrent of traumatized mourners shielding their eyes from that most oppressive of symbols.

The one thing the secularists are good at is amplifying their voices—and the findings of their own funded research—to paint a distorted picture of the religiosity of Scots.

It cannot be disputed that religious practice is in precipitous decline or that more people are describing themselves as ‘spiritual’ rather than subscribe to a denomination, but anyone reading those press releases churned out as news stories would be forgiven for thinking that Scotland has turned into a sort of secular paradise (if that’s not an oxymoron).

While I’m all for inclusion and sensitivity, I’m amazed how culturally tone-deaf secular activists are (no doubt they’d blame the bells). In those crematoria in which crosses are fixed and permanent features, and I’ve only ever come across one, surely it is present as a sign of hope?

Moreover, it is the symbol, which has characterised the civilizing influence of Christianity as the foundation of a just and caring society.

However flawed churches and individual Christians may have been and still are, to project all your religious phobias onto the cross is a waste of energy and time. And if you reject the idea of eternal life, then that’s something you shouldn’t want to fritter away on ideological turf wars.

In fact, I reckon that Professor Dawkins himself would probably agree with me. After all, Christianity is part of the DNA of the culture to which we belong.

Being soothed by church bells, or taking pleasure in singing Christmas carols (both of which Professor Dawkins freely admits) seems a much more rational approach to this brief span of life we have than to whip yourself into a frenzy of offence-taking.

That’s why there is something a little irrational, not to mention culturally destructive, about the crack troops of secularism. If they truly believed in the inevitable decline and death of religion in this country, they should surely be content with the gradual erosion of its ­influence? But where they show their hand—and their insecurity —is that they seem to be content only with the total erasure of its imprint.

Right, that column ended up a little more of a rant than I intended. That’s what happens when you read the news on your phone during the night when you should be asleep: you end up tired and annoyed by most of what you read.

Next week is the final dispatch from above the snow line (or the arid hinterland as its currently known): I promise I’ll be more reflective and less preachy—although I must admit that is an occupational hazard.

I’m off now to change my ringtone. Happily, the iPhone offers a ‘Bell Tower’ option, so I’m having that.

I might even plug the phone into my car stereo and go for a drive round the parish with my windows down: I’m sure the locals would love it! Just like old times!