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Organ Appeal At St Giles we hear sounds from the organ that our predecessors, including Byron, Shelley and John Soane, have heard for more than three hundred years. This historic organ urgently needed sympathetic restoration more>

The only memorial facing into the nave of St Giles, records the death in action during the First World War of the then Rector’s son Kenneth Davies aged 21 on Vimy Ridge in 1917. Its prominent position illustrates the sense of loss and grief of the Rector and his congregation at the death in the prime of youth of this promising young man. That, and the long roll call of names of employees of the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn now revealed from under layers of varnish on the memorial previously in Holborn Town Hall, but removed, when the Town Hall was sold in 1964 to the west end of the church, reminds us of the extent to which the Wars of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 caught up the whole population of the British Isles and Europe. Until 1914 the many wars in which Britain had been involved, despite numerous fears of invasion by our traditional enemies, the French, had been at arm’s length, in mainland Europe, India, North America, Afghanistan, Africa, and officered by gentlemen, but mainly manned by the poor, about whom no one, apart from their parents and wives, much cared. 1914 saw the first really patriotic British citizen army,. Nearly every family in the land was represented in the armed forces between 1914 and 1918. War memorials throughout the land bear witness to the extent that every town, village and hamlet lost men and women, children, fathers, siblings, as combatants, or as civilians caught in bombing raids, in those two wars.

Nearly sixty-five years on, our memories have dimmed, but the horrors of war are brought into our consciousness again, disappointingly, less by the death and destruction of tens of thousands of civilians in continuing wars, as in the nineteenth century, in far distant lands, in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and many African countries, than by the deaths of comparatively few British soldiers caught up in conflict intended to bring security, justice and peace to deeply troubled lands, whose turmoil is thought to endanger our security, justice and peace. It was hoped that the terrible wars of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 would end war, and bring lasting peace, and that injustice, oppression and aggression could be resolved by peaceful means. Just down the street, Dick Sheppard, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields famously proclaimed such views, but human nature seems unable to be so good. Competitiveness, aggression, assertion are deeply embedded in the human psyche, along with fear. Fear of other people’s suspected aggression, competition, assertion, seems to be the basis of most conflict. Even the apparently strong can be fearful. Perhaps a prime cause of the 1914-1918 War was the apparently invincible Imperial Germany’s fear of British military power. Vanquished Germany’s fear of oblivion in the 1920s and 1930s significantly contributed to the rise of Nazism in Germany and the 1939-1945 War.

Fear does not need to be real to provoke aggression, and to lead to violence and conflict. Fear that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, which it emerged he never had, led to the toppling of his regime in Iraq. Fear of extremist Muslims, who are themselves driven by fear of western secularism and capitalism has led us into war in Afghanistan. Fear, often wholly irrationally of the oppressed by oppressors probably lies at the root of many of the atrocious wars that barely impinge on our media in African countries. Irrational, usually groundless, often mindless, fear of people about whom we have suspicions, or with whom we are unfamiliar, like religious and ethnic minorities, for example towards Jews in Europe and Britain in the 1930s, and today towards Muslims and ethnic minorities, fanned by the media can still lead to aggression, even in our civilised and secure country.

As Christians, we should have the courage to resist and oppose such fears. The Gospels describe Jesus interacting with feared groups among his contemporaries – Samaritans, Greeks, lepers. The first generation of his followers, commissioned to be his presence in the world, turned his body the Church into an international, multicultural group. We need to remember that for most of its history the Church has been colour-blind, and has embraced all ethnic groups. Of course at times the Church has succumbed, usually irrationally, to fear, most sadly in the crusades, of Islam, and in recurring fears of Judaism. But we are the recipients and community of God whose perfect love casteth out fear, and which should enable us to live without fear. And we need to remember that responding to God’s love, which releases us from fear is worked out at the basic level of our daily lives. Everyone can help to dispel fear that leads towards aggression, and the unsettling of peace, by questioning accusations, allegations, assumptions about fears. We can play a part in casting out fear, and contributing towards peace.

Bill Jacob

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