Oxford and Religion

It seems that Oxford inspires spiritual reflection. Tony Blair famously developed his deep religious grounding (when not moonlighting as the lead singer of a rock band) in the midst of a Law degree at St Johns. C.S Lewis, the famous Christian apologetic, was struck by the incontrovertibly true nature of Christ while sitting on a bus traveling through Oxford down the Cowley Road. A recent issue of Oxford today featured two other individuals - the popular writer on religion Karen Armstrong and the Rabbi Lionel Blue - whose times at Oxford were similarly suffused by spiritual and personal crisis.

In the case of Karen Armstrong, she arrived at Oxford as a nun from a strict Roman Catholic order (pre-Vatican II). The intellectual freedom that is the foundation of an Oxford education soon began to jar with the expectations of submission and blind obedience that characterized her role in the nunnery, precipitating an existential crisis that led to her leaving the cloisters. Lionel Blue arrived in Oxford as an atheist (since the age of five when he had prayed for the deaths of Adolf Hitler and Oswald Moseley - the prayers were not answered) but soon faced a personal crisis prompted by his repressed homosexuality. He literally stumbled on religion while sheltering from the rain at St Giles and the Quakers he met provided the grounding and impetus that he needed to complete his degree.

What it telling to me about these two individuals, is their refusal to cling to dogmatic faith. Armstrong calls belief a "ludicrous red herring". To her, the essence of religious experience is "not accepting dubious propositions" but rather compassion. Armstrong emphasizes that it is "compassion that brings you to a state of transcendence by dethroning you from the centre of your world and putting another in your place". For Rabbi Blue, who characterizes himself as a 'religious free ranger' as opposed to a 'battery believer', genuine spirituality is achieved when it changes you for the better. For him, faith is genuine and not self indulgent if it makes you kinder, more generous and provides greater self-knowledge.

I didn't quite achieve the religious epiphany that C.S Lewis did during my time at Oxford, but I was prompted to give religion serious thought and consideration. During my time there I spoke with many thoughtful individuals - Catholic, Anglican, Church of Scotland and much else beside, indeed the antithesis of the hard-headed, dogmatic right wing evangelical that is the target of so many recent polemics against religion ranging from Dawkins to Hitchens.

While I have been giving religion serious consideration, it has often come in the form of intellectual theorizing about faith - whether God can really exist, and other such ontological questions. One lesson I might have learned from Oxford, and indeed from Armstrong and Blue, is that this intellectualism can only bring you so far - and that the true basis of religion is not considered theorizing (though that must surely play a part) but compassion, generosity and kindness.

Blaise Pascal once wrote that - the heart hath its reasons that reason cannot know. That, to my mind, is a powerful summation of faith.