The first rule of preaching is not to be preachy – and it’s here that the Vicar of Dibley slips up in lecturing her parishioners on Black Lives Matter in an episode broadcast last night.
When I am training curates, I show them Alan Bennett’s skit ‘Take a pew’ from Beyond the Fringe (1961), where a clergyman’s painful attempts at being hip are sunk by the rising of his sing-songy parsonical voice. Dawn French’s character would have been wise to watch too. The normally inoffensive sitcom, which is being broadcast this Christmas in a series of ten minute specials, features the TV vicar ‘taking the knee’. Surely this year, more than ever, we could have done without sermonising like this in a sitcom.
Some sympathetic clergy are, of course, scrambling to the programme’s defence, proclaiming that this is ‘the’ Christmas sermon we all need to hear.
Get Britain's best politics newsletters
Register to get The Spectator's insight and opinion straight to your inbox. You can then read two free articles each week.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in