0:00:02 > 0:00:03bear's head
0:00:03 > 0:00:04That's all from me now.
0:00:04 > 0:00:05Stay with BBC World News.
0:00:05 > 0:00:08Now as part of HARDTALK's 20th Anniversary season,
0:00:08 > 0:00:10another chance to see an interview first broadcast in 2013.
0:00:10 > 0:00:12Welcome to HARDtalk.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14My guest today is the former Bishop of Edinburgh,
0:00:14 > 0:00:15Richard Holloway.
0:00:15 > 0:00:20He entered a seminary at the age of 14, intent
0:00:20 > 0:00:23He rose to become the leader of the Anglican Church in Scotland.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26But he gradually lost faith in many of the certainties
0:00:26 > 0:00:26in Christianity.
0:00:26 > 0:00:28Including the existence of God.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31He finally resigned from the church, accusing it of persecuting gay
0:00:31 > 0:00:33people.
0:00:33 > 0:01:03Did his own loss of faith betray those he once preached to?
0:01:03 > 0:01:05Richard Holloway, welcome to HARDtalk.
0:01:05 > 0:01:09At the age of 14, you left your working-class home in the west
0:01:09 > 0:01:12of Scotland and went off to a very austere place in England.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15It was to train as an Anglican priest.
0:01:15 > 0:01:17Train as a monk.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19What was that like?
0:01:19 > 0:01:20It was lovely.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23I was a romantic wee boy who wandered the hills
0:01:23 > 0:01:27where I grew up.
0:01:27 > 0:01:33The hills give you a sense of beyondness, of otherness,
0:01:33 > 0:01:36but that was also related to me and the kind of love for Western
0:01:36 > 0:01:38movies, this idea of the lonely hero.
0:01:38 > 0:01:39Riding on and rescuing.
0:01:39 > 0:01:47I got kind of bitten by that.
0:01:47 > 0:01:49I was discovered by the local priest.
0:01:49 > 0:01:51He invited me to join the choir.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54The beauty of it somehow consumed me.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57He talked about the given away life, this mystical thing called
0:01:57 > 0:02:01a vocation that some people had, to give themselves
0:02:01 > 0:02:04to a greater purpose.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07I went to him when I was 13 and said tentatively,
0:02:07 > 0:02:11maybe I was hearing this call to give myself away for this great
0:02:11 > 0:02:17purpose called the priesthood, and giving away life, to life.
0:02:17 > 0:02:18The lonely hero.
0:02:18 > 0:02:20He said, we will send you to this.
0:02:20 > 0:02:22Because I was due to leave school at 14.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25There is a monastery in England which trains poor boys
0:02:25 > 0:02:26for the Anglican priesthood.
0:02:26 > 0:02:28It was a wonderful place.
0:02:28 > 0:02:29A kindly, eccentric, mad place.
0:02:29 > 0:02:31These lovely old monks.
0:02:31 > 0:02:35They were not trained teachers.
0:02:35 > 0:02:37But it deeply embedded itself in my psyche.
0:02:37 > 0:02:44But it was a strange disruption.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47You say in your book, Leaving Alexandria,
0:02:47 > 0:02:50which is the name of the town you grew up in, that
0:02:50 > 0:02:52you were looking for something called transcendence.
0:02:52 > 0:02:54What do you mean by that?
0:02:54 > 0:02:58I think we are all very strange creatures.
0:02:58 > 0:03:03We are not embedded in nature, the way my wee dog is,
0:03:03 > 0:03:06or kangaroos in the outback.
0:03:06 > 0:03:09We are conscious of ourselves, aware of being strange creatures
0:03:09 > 0:03:13in a universe that does not explain itself, does not offer an immediate
0:03:13 > 0:03:21manual for reading.
0:03:21 > 0:03:26I think the human animal therefore hungers for meaning,
0:03:26 > 0:03:28in an apparent meaningless world.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30We are very divided, and religion has traditionally been
0:03:30 > 0:03:33one of the ways in which the question has been answered.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36Yes, there is a meaning and a purpose and you can give
0:03:36 > 0:03:37yourself to it.
0:03:37 > 0:03:39I'm no longer as comfortable with religious certainties,
0:03:39 > 0:03:42but I am still addicted to the search, the strange human
0:03:42 > 0:03:44passion of finding meaning and beauty and joy,
0:03:44 > 0:03:49and that is the transcendence.
0:03:49 > 0:03:54This experience cut you off from your family, didn't it?
0:03:54 > 0:04:00It did in a kind of emergent sense.
0:04:00 > 0:04:02It never cut me off from their love.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05But what I had was the past.
0:04:05 > 0:04:08It started me on the long journey to education,
0:04:08 > 0:04:13for self reflection, to thinking about things,
0:04:13 > 0:04:17and I came from a culture where hard work was embedded.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21It didn't, in a sense, educationally evolve.
0:04:22 > 0:04:24Increasingly, I did feel a bit of a stranger,
0:04:24 > 0:04:25but a loving stranger.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28You tell a tale in your book about writing a letter
0:04:28 > 0:04:34to your father, trying to win him back for God and for Jesus.
0:04:34 > 0:04:36I know, it was horrible.
0:04:36 > 0:04:39Every year on Good Friday we fasted all day.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43We had a devotion of three hours which were exactly to correspond
0:04:43 > 0:04:45to the three hours that Jesus spent on the cross.
0:04:46 > 0:04:47They were always very intense emotionally.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51It was a visiting monk who preached to us.
0:04:51 > 0:04:55I was fired up by the desire to spread the word of Jesus and God.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59Between the end of the three hours and when we had our tea,
0:04:59 > 0:05:08I wrote my father a letter, calling him back to God.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11Writing the book, I realised that, as I was writing that,
0:05:11 > 0:05:13I had been three hours in intense devotion,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16he was probably facing the next three hours of his shift
0:05:16 > 0:05:17in a terrible factory.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20And um...
0:05:20 > 0:05:26So I set the pious appeal to him.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30He had the grace never to reflect it but I'm still ashamed.
0:05:30 > 0:05:32You found the letter much later, didn't you?
0:05:32 > 0:05:32Yes.
0:05:32 > 0:05:39In my mother's drawer.
0:05:39 > 0:05:46Religion gave you permission to perform these discourtesies.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49And, yeah, I'm deeply ashamed.
0:05:49 > 0:05:53You say that it started to change when you hit puberty.
0:05:53 > 0:05:58Yeah, because sex hit me.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01I'd gone there as a wee, prepubescent boy.
0:06:01 > 0:06:06I caught this monastic, romantic vocation.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08I wanted to give myself away.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12And part of that was celibacy.
0:06:12 > 0:06:13I discovered...
0:06:13 > 0:06:19During an Easter vacation, I used to work at a farm,
0:06:19 > 0:06:22and I cuddled a land girl.
0:06:22 > 0:06:26I had my first sexual experience.
0:06:26 > 0:06:27I didn't know what it was.
0:06:27 > 0:06:29Just this thing surged through me.
0:06:29 > 0:06:31The same thing happened that night.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34I knew it was sinful.
0:06:34 > 0:06:44Christianity has this problem with sex in the beginning.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48Not in a sensible way, saying this is a big thing that can
0:06:48 > 0:06:50ruin lives, get it right, be careful about it.
0:06:50 > 0:06:53The kind of Christianity I inherited saw it as intrinsically bad,
0:06:53 > 0:06:56and the godly people did not do it, they were virgins,
0:06:56 > 0:06:57they were celibate.
0:06:57 > 0:06:59I was pulled in this terrible tension.
0:06:59 > 0:07:02That was a secret I took back with me at age 16.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05Looking at all these holy people, assuming they did not
0:07:05 > 0:07:05have sexual thoughts.
0:07:05 > 0:07:09None of it was hitting them, it was only hitting me.
0:07:09 > 0:07:10When did you abandon celibacy?
0:07:10 > 0:07:12You are married, you have three daughters.
0:07:12 > 0:07:13When I got married.
0:07:13 > 0:07:15Even that was a struggle.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18I still felt a strange pull that marriage was second best.
0:07:18 > 0:07:24It was a concession.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27The prayer book, Wedding Rite, it says that.
0:07:27 > 0:07:32It says marriage is a gift created by God as a gift for those who don't
0:07:32 > 0:07:40have the gift of...
0:07:40 > 0:07:42Countenance.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45It was a methadone maintenance programme for those who could not
0:07:45 > 0:07:46give up the sex life.
0:07:46 > 0:07:47It always denigrated it.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50There was the sense that you had licence to perform it but God
0:07:50 > 0:07:53would rather you do not ask for it.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56Was the question of sexuality the first step of you and the Church
0:07:56 > 0:07:57parting company?
0:07:57 > 0:07:58The real kicker for me...
0:07:58 > 0:08:01I fought my way and wrestled my way through this stuff intellectually,
0:08:01 > 0:08:04but emotionally, probably for me, the real kicker came quite late
0:08:04 > 0:08:18in my career.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21It was the Church's continued hatred of gay people.
0:08:21 > 0:08:22Although many of them were...
0:08:22 > 0:08:26Most of my early mentors as priests were gay men with a divided nature,
0:08:26 > 0:08:28giving themselves to God and the Church.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31The Church would say it does not hate gay people,
0:08:31 > 0:08:34they simply do not approve of gay sex.
0:08:34 > 0:08:36Yes.
0:08:36 > 0:08:38It's a distinction without a difference.
0:08:38 > 0:08:41If your very urges are condemned as unlawful and displeasing to God,
0:08:41 > 0:08:44and I have known many wonderful gay priests who lived this kind
0:08:44 > 0:08:47of divided life, I asked one of them, I said,
0:08:47 > 0:08:49why are you sticking with this?
0:08:49 > 0:08:50He says, because of Jesus.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53He had a sense that Jesus would have understood,
0:08:53 > 0:09:03because Jesus was surrounded by these discarded outsiders.
0:09:03 > 0:09:08That is the bit of Christianity that still appeals for me.
0:09:08 > 0:09:10In this man, they've got absolute acceptance of themselves
0:09:10 > 0:09:13in their own sense of rottenness.
0:09:13 > 0:09:17But Christianity became respectable.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21But the people around Jesus never were.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25For me, the people who carried that virus were the gay people.
0:09:25 > 0:09:27They felt themselves to be outsiders.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30It was when the Church, which had a don't ask,
0:09:30 > 0:09:34don't tell policy for a long time, actively started persecuting gay
0:09:34 > 0:09:37people in the '90s, that is when I saw that certain ways
0:09:37 > 0:09:41of holding faith were cruel, and I think has to be challenged
0:09:41 > 0:09:50whenever it appears.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54That was the thing that really started me on a journey that
0:09:54 > 0:09:54took me away.
0:09:55 > 0:09:58You said even when you were in training, there was an all-male
0:09:58 > 0:10:00environment, your first real crush was on a fellow novice.
0:10:00 > 0:10:07What was that relationship like?
0:10:07 > 0:10:11It was unnerving in many ways.
0:10:11 > 0:10:13I was quite a happy student.
0:10:13 > 0:10:15I worked hard.
0:10:15 > 0:10:20And then I fell in love with a fellow novice.
0:10:20 > 0:10:23It plunged me into regret.
0:10:23 > 0:10:26Because I didn't want to be with anyone but him.
0:10:26 > 0:10:28I didn't fantasise sexually about him but emotionally I wanted
0:10:29 > 0:10:31to be near him all the time.
0:10:31 > 0:10:33I did not know what he thought of me.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36I thought he was kind of fond of me.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39I met him 30 years later during my retreat to be a bishop,
0:10:39 > 0:10:45we had a holiday at Cornwall together, we had to sleep
0:10:45 > 0:10:48in a double bed in a farmhouse in Cornwall.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52I was intrigued by the fact that I was in bed when he came back
0:10:52 > 0:10:55after having brushed his teeth, and he said, I will sleep
0:10:55 > 0:10:59on the topside of the sheet, to separate us.
0:10:59 > 0:11:03I wondered about that.
0:11:03 > 0:11:04He must have had an inkling.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08When I went to make my retreat at this nunnery, in 1986,
0:11:08 > 0:11:10they said to me, he has come back from Africa,
0:11:10 > 0:11:12he is leaving the order.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15But he is our chaplain at the moment.
0:11:15 > 0:11:17It was this guy.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20I made my confession to him.
0:11:20 > 0:11:26And then leaving the last day, I referred to that journey,
0:11:26 > 0:11:31because I remember roses blossoming on the roadside.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34He said, we were in love, and I said yes.
0:11:34 > 0:11:36I said, can I do anything for you?
0:11:37 > 0:11:41He said, buy me a wee transistor radio.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44And I did.
0:11:44 > 0:11:47You have been a champion of gay people, the right of gay people
0:11:47 > 0:11:50to join the priesthood.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53Why does that matter to you so much?
0:11:53 > 0:11:59Partly because, to me, it's a straightforward justice issue.
0:11:59 > 0:12:09The most important Christian doctrine is about reincarnation,
0:12:09 > 0:12:11-- The most important Christian doctrine is about the incarnation,
0:12:12 > 0:12:15which is presupposed of God's love of the world and nature
0:12:15 > 0:12:17and all its complexity and plurality, and being gay
0:12:17 > 0:12:18is part of that.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21Even though I'm not sure about God now, I'm sure that cruelty
0:12:21 > 0:12:24to individuals who cannot help their colour, their sexuality,
0:12:24 > 0:12:29their gender, is the thing that we most passionately must oppose.
0:12:29 > 0:12:31In politics and in religion.
0:12:31 > 0:12:38When I saw the Church be increasingly cruel to them,
0:12:38 > 0:12:44it was about 1988...
0:12:44 > 0:12:46It peaked at a conference then.
0:12:46 > 0:12:48You are now the most senior Anglican clergyman in Scotland,
0:12:48 > 0:12:50and you went to these...
0:12:50 > 0:12:52These conferences happen once a decade.
0:12:52 > 0:12:54You saw what you described as the cruelty among
0:12:54 > 0:12:55your fellow clergymen.
0:12:55 > 0:12:56What did you mean?
0:12:56 > 0:12:59There was a debate about human sexuality, essentially about gay
0:12:59 > 0:13:03sexuality, and whether practising gay people could be...
0:13:03 > 0:13:06Ordained.
0:13:06 > 0:13:12They have been in their thousands for centuries.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15The African bishops, who are particularly homophobic,
0:13:15 > 0:13:24hijacked the debate, and they wanted the Lambeth
0:13:24 > 0:13:27conference to condemn gay sexuality in a famous proposal called 101.
0:13:27 > 0:13:29It was like being at a Nuremberg rally.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33It wasn't a considered debate - the Bible says we can't support
0:13:33 > 0:13:34this, I want to be compassionate...
0:13:34 > 0:13:37No, it was ugly, it was cruel.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41They were saying the kind of things that the most horrible bigots say,
0:13:41 > 0:13:43and I came out a bit drained.
0:13:43 > 0:13:47Something died in me.
0:13:47 > 0:13:51Outside, on a wee grassy knoll, a Nigerian bishop was exorcising
0:13:51 > 0:13:53a young gay man.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58Trying to cast out the devil of homosexuality.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01A devil did come out but it was the devil of homophobia,
0:14:01 > 0:14:04and it has bedevilled the Anglican Church ever since.
0:14:04 > 0:14:06We are still wrestling with it.
0:14:06 > 0:14:10Anyone under 35 just does not get it, but we are still rabbiting
0:14:10 > 0:14:11on about it.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13It kills me.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16Is it true that you threw your bishop's mitre in the Thames?
0:14:16 > 0:14:17It's true.
0:14:17 > 0:14:19An artist made me a biodegradable one.
0:14:19 > 0:14:27But I chucked it in.
0:14:27 > 0:14:32And you stayed in the church for two more years.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35What it's like to stand by the altar, in the pulpit,
0:14:35 > 0:14:37preaching to people who believe in the resurrection,
0:14:37 > 0:14:40who believed in the divinity of Christ, when you,
0:14:40 > 0:14:42yourself, have long since given all that up?
0:14:42 > 0:14:44Well, that was a slow evolutionary process.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47It was more the ethical thing that did me in.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49You can deal with...
0:14:49 > 0:14:51Doctrinal stuff is metaphoric, it's poetic.
0:14:51 > 0:14:52Not to every priest.
0:14:52 > 0:14:53Not to every believer.
0:14:53 > 0:14:56Not to everybody, yes, but to a lot of people.
0:14:56 > 0:14:58But the resurrection, surely, the literal truth
0:14:58 > 0:14:59of the resurrection is non-negotiable for most
0:14:59 > 0:15:02Christians.
0:15:02 > 0:15:03I suppose it is.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06But I think that it's always been interpreted in a number
0:15:06 > 0:15:13of different ways.
0:15:13 > 0:15:17It seems to me that the resurrection is about more than a resuscitated
0:15:17 > 0:15:19body walking out of a tomb.
0:15:19 > 0:15:20What's the significance of that?
0:15:20 > 0:15:24The resurrection that made the woman go to the front of the bus instead
0:15:24 > 0:15:27of staying in the back of the bus, that made Martin Luther King
0:15:27 > 0:15:29challenge racism, that's real resurrection stuff.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32I'm not interested in the biology of bodies walking out of tombs.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35I'm interested in the resurrection narrative that changes history.
0:15:35 > 0:15:36That, I've always believed in.
0:15:36 > 0:15:38A lot of people literalise these great myths.
0:15:38 > 0:15:39Religion is a story.
0:15:39 > 0:15:41It's not factual, scientific knowledge.
0:15:41 > 0:15:43It's a fundamental category error to misunderstand that.
0:15:43 > 0:15:45The trouble is, we falsely scientised it.
0:15:45 > 0:15:47I think scared theologians have falsely scientised it.
0:15:47 > 0:15:50If it helps you get through life believing those physical...
0:15:50 > 0:15:52I wouldn't try to knock that for you.
0:15:52 > 0:15:54But just don't force me to say that they're factual,
0:15:54 > 0:15:57when I treat them as metaphorical, and poetical.
0:15:57 > 0:16:05And that makes them even more powerful.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08Can you understand why a lot of people in the Anglican Communion,
0:16:08 > 0:16:12a lot of Christians whom you lead, feel betrayed by the way
0:16:12 > 0:16:14in which you've changed your thinking about religion?
0:16:14 > 0:16:16Oh, sure.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20And I hate hurting people. I did hurt a lot of people.
0:16:20 > 0:16:22I said that in my final sermon.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25I said I'd become, in my 60s, the kind of Bishop I hated
0:16:25 > 0:16:26in my 30s.
0:16:26 > 0:16:30I had to be kind of true to that. It was a slow, emergent process.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34Yeah, I get that.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36I get the complexity of all of this.
0:16:37 > 0:16:39I hurt lots of people, to whom I was a precious
0:16:39 > 0:16:42source of support.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45That's why I had to go away and take a sabbatical from religion.
0:16:45 > 0:16:48That's the trouble with religion, it got stuck 2000, 3000 years ago.
0:16:48 > 0:16:51It got stuck with women, it got stuck with gays,
0:16:51 > 0:16:53it got stuck with ways of understanding the astronomy
0:16:53 > 0:16:58of the universe.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01You can keep the best of religion and still intellectually go on.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04And that, I think, is all I was arguing for.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07I wasn't saying that you mustn't believe in a physical resurrection
0:17:07 > 0:17:13or a six-day creation.
0:17:13 > 0:17:17If it helps you through life, do it, as long as it doesn't make you cruel
0:17:17 > 0:17:20and persecutory, that's not the way I understand these things.
0:17:20 > 0:17:22I'm sure I know how much I hurt people.
0:17:22 > 0:17:27They wrote and told me.
0:17:27 > 0:17:28I've got a big mailbag.
0:17:28 > 0:17:30There was a kind of helplessness about it.
0:17:30 > 0:17:32In many ways, I was a divided soul.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36It's a classic Scottish thing to be, it's what McDermott called
0:17:36 > 0:17:38the antisyzygy, that you can incorporate two contending realities
0:17:38 > 0:17:40in your own soul.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43I think that's not a bad way to live, because truth
0:17:43 > 0:17:49is really simple.
0:17:49 > 0:17:52Should the church be forced by law to marry gay people,
0:17:53 > 0:17:54even when it doesn't want to?
0:17:54 > 0:17:55No, I wouldn't do that.
0:17:55 > 0:17:57I'm enough of a liberal...
0:17:57 > 0:17:59I don't like the way the French do this.
0:17:59 > 0:18:01I like a secular society.
0:18:01 > 0:18:04If people want to cover themselves in a head to foot cassock cloak,
0:18:04 > 0:18:06I don't want to interfere with that.
0:18:06 > 0:18:09I quite like the accommodation we've reached in Britain,
0:18:09 > 0:18:11we're pretty much a secular society, but history's untidy.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14There are elements of the old religious domination.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16I think religion should be free to practice their beliefs
0:18:16 > 0:18:18and rituals in the sanctuary.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22What I don't like is when I try to bully people in the secular square.
0:18:22 > 0:18:25"Because we forbid this in the sanctuary, we are not
0:18:25 > 0:18:28going to let you get away with it in the public square",
0:18:28 > 0:18:30we must oppose that.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32I wouldn't want to interfere.
0:18:32 > 0:18:38And they get opt outs.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40They discriminate against women, they discriminate against gays.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43I let them be their eccentric, bigoted selves in the sanctuary.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46But I stand defiantly against them if they tried to emancipate
0:18:46 > 0:18:56these imprisoned people.
0:18:56 > 0:18:59Successive Archbishops of Canterbury have always prioritised preserving
0:18:59 > 0:19:01the unity of the worldwide Anglican communion.
0:19:01 > 0:19:03And admitting gay priests would have shattered that community.
0:19:03 > 0:19:07Weren't they right to hold onto that until the church is ready to take
0:19:07 > 0:19:16that step together?
0:19:16 > 0:19:18There is an argument for that, clearly.
0:19:18 > 0:19:19It's this duality thing again.
0:19:19 > 0:19:21If your primary value is institutional unity,
0:19:21 > 0:19:24if you prize unity above, say, justice, you'll do that.
0:19:24 > 0:19:27And honourable men, and it's all men, have done that.
0:19:27 > 0:19:33I can respect that.
0:19:33 > 0:19:36But if that's all you have, if you just have institutional
0:19:36 > 0:19:39unity, if you don't have awkward, maverick people saying you shouldn't
0:19:39 > 0:19:42be doing that, you shouldn't be penalising gay people and women,
0:19:42 > 0:19:44that's called the prophetic tradition in Christianity.
0:19:44 > 0:20:01The three classic roles in Hebrew religion, prophets,
0:20:01 > 0:20:02priest and king.
0:20:02 > 0:20:04Kings rule, priests justify the rule with Godly anointing,
0:20:04 > 0:20:07and it's always the prophets, the awkward squad, who come along
0:20:07 > 0:20:08and say, that's wrong.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11If you purge the prophetic element from the church,
0:20:11 > 0:20:12you purge its cleansing element.
0:20:12 > 0:20:16Now, it's probably not a good idea to make prophets archbishops or even
0:20:16 > 0:20:18bishops, so probably I was a mis-description.
0:20:18 > 0:20:20I ended up feeling I had to prophetically challenge these
0:20:20 > 0:20:24injustices.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27But in my understanding of the ecology of institutions,
0:20:27 > 0:20:29I know that it takes a while.
0:20:29 > 0:20:36But it's always the awkward sods, the minority that bring change,
0:20:36 > 0:20:38because the big, powerful institutions never volunteer
0:20:38 > 0:20:39to empty themselves of power.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42Male patriarchy in Britain didn't volunteer to give women the vote.
0:20:42 > 0:20:45Women died to get the vote.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48They chained themselves to railings, and that's what brings change.
0:20:48 > 0:20:50OK, I can understand that, but morally, I'm sorry,
0:20:50 > 0:20:58I still think that justice trumps institutional unity.
0:20:59 > 0:21:01And you haven't walked away from the church altogether.
0:21:01 > 0:21:03You still sometimes attend your old church,
0:21:03 > 0:21:04Old Saint Paul's in Edinburgh.
0:21:04 > 0:21:09Yes.
0:21:09 > 0:21:11It's a pretty forgiving church that welcomes
0:21:11 > 0:21:12you back, isn't it?
0:21:12 > 0:21:13Yeah.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16Well, I think, on the whole, the Anglican Church has been
0:21:16 > 0:21:17a forgiving church.
0:21:17 > 0:21:18It's been a messy, muddled church.
0:21:18 > 0:21:21It got hardened in the 90s when it was drifting
0:21:21 > 0:21:24and they thought the only way for churches to survive
0:21:24 > 0:21:26was to become very conservative, evangelical and give people
0:21:26 > 0:21:28the perfect package, answer every question.
0:21:28 > 0:21:30Whereas, on the whole, the Anglican Church tended
0:21:30 > 0:21:34to question every answer.
0:21:34 > 0:21:36It's still a spacious, imaginative church.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39Yeah, I'm in church most Sundays, at Old Saint Paul's.
0:21:39 > 0:21:40I love that building.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43It traps the mystery of this hunger for transcendence for me.
0:21:43 > 0:21:45It's uncomfortable, I don't do God comfortably.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47A lot of people talk too comfortably about what,
0:21:47 > 0:21:49to me, is an unspeakable mystery.
0:21:49 > 0:21:53But I'd rather be in than out.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55Do you still think of yourself as a Christian?
0:21:55 > 0:21:57I think of myself as an agnostic Christian.
0:21:57 > 0:21:59But I'm not interested in the labels.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01Jesus is still very important to me.
0:22:01 > 0:22:06I never lost Jesus.
0:22:06 > 0:22:07Jesus was a challenger.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10He didn't prioritise institutional unity over justice and truth.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13On the whole, people that prioritise institutional integrity over justice
0:22:13 > 0:22:14and truth don't get crucified.
0:22:14 > 0:22:17I'm interested that you still go back to Kelham Hall,
0:22:17 > 0:22:18where it all started for you.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21Is there part of you that imagines the monastic life
0:22:21 > 0:22:22you might have led?
0:22:22 > 0:22:25Constantly, yes.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29It's hard to talk about it without tearing up, and I get weepy.
0:22:29 > 0:22:33But I go back to the graveyard, that's all that's left of the order,
0:22:33 > 0:22:34because they moved out in 1973.
0:22:34 > 0:22:37A bit of me still hankers after the absolutely tightly packed
0:22:37 > 0:22:39given away life, without questioning this other self.
0:22:40 > 0:22:42But what McDermott calls the Caledonian antisyzygy is in me.
0:22:42 > 0:22:47I'm there, part of that, but I'm also part of someone
0:22:47 > 0:22:57who leaves places and moves on, and is never comfortable anywhere.
0:22:57 > 0:23:00And abandons old certainties.
0:23:00 > 0:23:02That's been the story of your life, hasn't it?
0:23:02 > 0:23:04Yes, and that's painful.
0:23:04 > 0:23:06Certainties can be comforting, they're a nice woolly coat
0:23:06 > 0:23:09against the icy brass.
0:23:09 > 0:23:11Yeah, I'm now very suspicious of certainty.
0:23:11 > 0:23:13Political certainty and theological certainty.
0:23:13 > 0:23:16I think that there is a cleansing humility about doubt.
0:23:16 > 0:23:19It helps us muddle our way through some of the jails
0:23:19 > 0:23:26we imprison ourselves in.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29Yeah, I suppose I now preach a gospel of uncertainty.
0:23:29 > 0:23:32What about one of the great certainties of the Christian faith,
0:23:32 > 0:23:35the idea of life after death, a life for all eternity?
0:23:35 > 0:23:36I don't have that.
0:23:36 > 0:23:38I'm probably more certain about not having it.
0:23:38 > 0:23:39I can't say for certain.
0:23:40 > 0:23:41Obviously this universe is an extraordinary thing.
0:23:42 > 0:23:44In some sense, they're my grandchildren over there,
0:23:44 > 0:23:49my DNA will go on in them and in their grandchildren.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52But I don't expect when I die to wake up, meet Audrey Hepburn
0:23:52 > 0:23:54guiding me in to the afterlife.
0:23:54 > 0:23:57And all the prospectuses I've read of it don't attract me.
0:23:57 > 0:24:07But who knows?
0:24:07 > 0:24:09I might be surprised. Not unpleasantly, I hope.
0:24:09 > 0:24:11Richard Holloway, thank you for speaking to HARDTalk.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14Been a pleasure, Alan.
0:24:38 > 0:24:40Hello there.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43The weekend's weather brought us plenty of warm sunshine.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46There was a bit of rain across northern and western parts
0:24:46 > 0:24:47of the country.