Piety and prayer may be more effective than demonstrations on the streets.
In Wareham, Dorset, there is an Anglican curate, the Revd Hilary Bond, who sets out to keep on getting arrested by the police as she demonstrates against climate change. She explained her motivation to the audience of Radio 4’s “Beyond Belief” programme. It was born of frustration that signing petitions against climate disaster didn’t seem to change anything.
Radio 4 had brought together an eminent London rabbi, an activist Muslim feminist member of Oxford City Council, and me, to talk about the ethics of religious activism in the light of her use of the clerical collar to add moral weight to her protests. The media always like a good photo of a woman vicar being dragged off by the cops.
