God, etc

Yesterday, Michelle and I took Seren along to a Christening for one of our friends' babies. Gillian and Matthew were the first of our National Childbirth Trust friends to have their baby, and so Grace's Christening in many ways signals the start of a series of such events over the next few months; if we followed the order that the babies were born in then Seren's would be the second to last of five.

Chez Smith we've debated for a little while as to whether we'd want to hold a Christening or civil naming ceremony for Seren - something for family predominantly to participate in, a chance to bring people together to celebrate the birth of our little treasure with us. Originally the debate was around whether we wanted to do anything at all, but more recently it shifted toward which we would go for - a religious or non-religious ceremony.

Both Michelle and I were Christened, but neither of us - bar Michelle spending some time at Sunday school - are practicing Christians, we don't go and have never been to church, and neither are our respective parents actively religious. My father suspects he may be Jewish (it's a long story), and has actively researched the faith, but certainly isn't active in his worship. Well, as far as I know anyway. I guess it would explain why he's so hard to get hold of on a Saturday. But the idea of holding a traditional church Christening did hold some appeal perhaps for the formality and grandeur, and while we hadn't done anything about it, we seemed to be erring toward this over the civil ceremony.

A sequence of three things served to make us very quickly change our minds. The first was when Michelle mentioned to her parents that we were considering a Christening, which met with some strong opposition from her dad - who is almost an atheist. I say 'almost an atheist' because of course he had both Michelle and her sister Christened, making me slightly unsure over which bit of a Christening is appropriate to someone who doesn’t believe in either God or Christ. The second was when Michelle opened the door last week to two Jehovah's Witnesses who attempted to chew her ear off about God, etc; quite wisely, she used the excuse that Seren needed feeding and shut the door on them. (This is more successful than my last run-in with them many years ago when a combination of being hungover, being in the midst of, ahem, some 'amorous activity' upstairs with a coincidentally very religious girl and hot weather meant that I opened the door to the callers - thinking that it was the postman delivering an overdue parcel of records - in a state of embarrassing undress and for some reason decided that this would be the perfect time to engage in some challenging banter before slamming the door on them; fifteen minutes later I managed to remove one of the guys' feet from holding the door open, had taken a leaflet and didn't really feel that amorous anymore).

The third event to change our minds was, ironically, the Christening itself. We've come to know Gillian and Matthew quite well since the NCT meetings kicked off earlier this year, and knew that they were active in their local church. What we didn't know was that they were Catholic, and it really only became apparent to me about half an hour into the service, although I should have realised because all the obvious signs were there. I don't have a problem with their faith, far from it, but the Catholic service perhaps crystallised in our minds the decision to pursue a civil ceremony, simply because it is slightly more ‘full on’ than Church of England ceremonies.

Notwithstanding the heavy undertones of sin 'n salvation in the service, the main reason that we have changed our minds is that we feel we would be complete hypocrites to hold a Church service. We felt totally out of place at Grace's Christening by not holding strong religious beliefs, almost fraudulent by taking part. On the other hand neither did we want to fit in and repeat the lines in the prayer book when prompted, didn't want to take part when we didn't agree with what we were saying.

It's not that we don't have elements of religious belief - having witnessed the mystery and miracle of childbirth it's hard to believe in natural evolution wholeheartedly - it's more that we're not interested in actively practising, and are Christians not through our own choice but our parents'. We feel it would frankly be hypocritical for us to insist on this for our daughter when we don't believe in it fully ourselves. We didn't get married in church for pretty much the same reason.

I'm pretty comfortable with where I am in terms of religion at the moment. I find it hard to believe that there couldn't be a higher power responsible for kick-starting creation because things are too perfect, but I also see the link that extends back from mankind through apes and onto fish. Perhaps this looks like I am sitting on the fence and not taking a committed view, but this is where I've settled and I'm pretty comfortable there, thank you very much. One of my favourite Nick Cave songs sums up the contradiction quite well - 'I don't believe in the existence of angels / But looking at you I wonder if that's true.' It’s not through doubt that I arrive at this point of view, just where I feel most comfortable.

It wasn't always so. My former girlfriend was a fairly devout Christian. She once said to me that she was disappointed that I couldn't find the capacity to believe completely, saying that she was upset that we wouldn't be together in Heaven, since unless I believed I wouldn't be admitted. Talk about emotional blackmail! Given that we didn't exactly end on the best terms, it's probably now of considerable relief to her that I won't be bumping into her in Heaven. But at the time it did rather shock me into edging closer toward some sort of defined belief structure. I bought a bible and started reading it reasonably avidly, started routinely praying etc, but I stopped short of committing to going to church. She held very firm views about certain things such as sex before marriage, but she still got drunk, wanted to take drugs and went to church just once in all the time I knew her (and she was hung over then); despite being for all intents and purposes a fair-weather Christian she was certainly quick to tell me I wasn't following a path of righteousness and telling me I'd go to hell for it. That holier-than-thou attitude I can well do without.

Despite being a non-believer, while together we were my ex dragged me along to one of her Christian buddies' weddings in Kingston-upon-Thames. Surrounded by very passionate religious types, mostly of around my own age group, was really uncomfortable. While the bride and groom were almost duty-bound to be pleasant toward me, someone must have spread the word that I wasn't Christian and therefore I was at best a target for conversion and at worst completely ostracised. Given that my girlfriend was a bridesmaid I spent much of the day on my own, drinking; I lost track of who was giving me disapproving looks as my stupor deepened. A previous trip to visit the happy couple - possibly for their joint stag / hen party - required my ex and I to stay in separate houses because sharing a bed was frowned-upon. (This despite the fact that the bride and groom regularly slept together). My ex went along to church with them somewhere near Chessington on the Sunday morning, whereas I refused (which met with some degree of disapproval). I was an outsider (aren't Christians supposed to be quite forgiving and accepting?), a non-believing square peg in a Christian round hole.

So, all told, I'm pretty happy that we've gone down the route of a civil ceremony. It’ll be a relaxed day with only the most important people to us attending, some good food and a chance to celebrate Seren’s arrival properly. I'd certainly prefer that to living like my ex's friends in some sort of secular religious cult down in Waco, Surrey.