Two documentaries this week made us ponder what our country, with its 1 per cent of the world’s population, exists for. How God Made the English (BBC2, Saturday) had the historian Diarmaid MacCulloch musing about the way we have believed for a thousand years that we were God’s chosen people, having taken that baton from the Israelites — thanks to the Venerable Bede.
I am not sure that he made the case. Most nations have believed at one time or another that God was their principal cheerleader. When the Israelites were in the smiting business, anyone they successfully smote, such as the poor wretches who lived in Jericho, were simply in God’s bad books. When they themselves were taken into slavery, it was because they had disobeyed orders. Many fundamentalist Israelis still believe this stuff. It’s a self-sealing argument, as convincing as footballers who make the sign of the cross before a match, as if God is going to give them that all-important away goal to get into the next round of the Champions League.
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