A Bowler Controversy

BY REV NORMAN MACKAY

The British Library has a comprehensive listing of all Phds awarded from UK institutions. Impressively, over 600,000 are hosted electronically and can be downloaded by the user. As you can imagine there is something of a range of topics included, from broad issues of history to more specialised and “niche” fields of enquiry. I have a friend whose research fell into the latter category: Paragraph structure and translation: the theory and practice of paragraph and other high level structures in English and Russian narrative and the effect of the translation process upon these structures. She was telling me recently with a wry smile that only a solitary individual had downloaded her thesis. My suspicion is that it was a close relative.

Not listed as a topic of research, though capable of expansive inquiry, is the history and significance of the humble ‘bowler hat.’ I recall a particular clergyman who donned what was called a ‘ministerial bowler,’ together with a dark suit and jet-black shoes. The justification for this alarming state of affairs was the somewhat bizarre claim that it ‘hid the man.’ If “hid” was intended to render him invisible in a coal mine then the explanation had some merit. However, for the most part, local people ‘gawked’ at him as if he were impersonating a villain from a Batman movie.

The point is that dress codes and other identifiers convey meaning beyond themselves in any given culture. Within the study of culture these are called symbols. Semiotics the technical term for the study of signs and symbols which convey meaning is a fascinating area of research, and totally relevant to us as we seek to share our faith with those around us, or further afield. Any given society or social grouping is full of symbols and signs. Thus, Thomas Shelby of Peaky Blinders wears his flat cap as an identity marker, a signature hat, rather than for protection against the rain or cold. Likewise, the bowler hat communicates something of meaning and value to those who wear it from pinstripe-suited bankers to marching Orangemen. Onlookers might have a very different perception of the chosen symbol and, unlike the wearer, respond to it in a negative or hostile manner. Yet, in and of itself the hat has no fixed meaning.

The worldwide Church reflects God’s cosmic and global saving purposes. He is by means of the Gospel of grace gathering and saving people who, through sin, were previously scattered and lost. Followers of Christ do not congregate under the banner of a given national identity, nor are they all required to assimilate into the culture of a single nation or social grouping within that nation.

The Church is a universal and intercultural society. We have no flags, badges, bowlers or other paraphernalia that could reflect an ethnocentrism, sectarianism or racial elitism. There is, for example, no such regional deity as a God of Ulster who does not like Irish Gaelic or Irish dancing. The Church is a new heavenly outpost without borders, cultural barriers, or social strata, where the national identity of its members is subordinated to the spiritual harmony and testimony of the group. This is pivotal to our witness before a watching world.

As a Christian community, we are called to be incarnational within the wider society in which we live. To be so requires a working knowledge of our local culture with its multiple signs and meanings, as well as an understanding of the trappings of our own social grouping that may render us alien in the eyes of those we are called to reach. This does not imply that we disavow aspects of our own identity that are legitimate or valuable to us. It simply means that we recognise that our ‘bowler hat’ or whatever our specific signature symbols are, might be communicating something egregious to others.

In this regard, we have much to learn from cross cultural international outreach agencies who incorporate the study of culture into missionary training. Underpinning this provision is the conviction that it is not sufficient to simply understand the message of the Gospel but we must also be trained as communicators of the Gospel and this within an increasingly mobile, post-Christian and pluralistic society. Indeed, the very forces of globalisation are creating this necessity whether we like it or not.

It is for this reason that Christian Intercultural Studies and Christian Cultural Anthropology (these disciplines considered within a Christian intellectual framework) ought to be a central component of any Christian leader’s preparation for ministry in these days. A congregation that can navigate its way around Calvin’s theology but is lost when it comes to understanding its local community is unlikely to do well in reaching the unsaved for Christ. Within such studies, preachers and church workers might just be furnished with illustrations that local people come alive to, since these are actually drawn from the world(s) they inhabit. •