This Sunday I’m hoping we shall have a Q&A on theological things with questions from some younger members. This will be instead of the sermon, but should develop into a reasonable substitute.

Peter Wilson, the Chichele Professor of the History of War, has written in Prospect Magazine this month about sovereignty, nationhood and international cooperation. He argues that nationalism is always bordering on self-destruction because it relies on us-and-them distinctions. As soon as you attempt to define who belongs, you naturally exclude people and a vicious circle follows. ‘Liberal efforts at inclusion,’ he says, ‘in the name of multiculturalism merely represent the flip side of the same problem, since they simply grant minorities special dispensation from a presupposed “national” culture…Minority groups are permanently forced to relate themselves to the larger national culture through the addition of adjectives, as in Asian Muslim British.’

He seems to be arguing that contemporary globalisation has rendered narrow nationalism unviable. For democracies, maintaining borders and restricting immigration is clearly a major issue and only totalitarian states, ruling by fear and terror, can enforce conformity and monoculture. The way forward therefore must be to see diversity as normative and desirable, enriching rather than threatening. So we ought to avoid national stereotypes such as ‘Britishness’ seen in terms of the bulldog spirit, knowing the rules of cricket, and walks on the Sussex Downs.

The same could be said about the Church. Enough of sitting on the fence, bicycles and choral evensong. What about interfaith? But as soon as we try to institutionalise diversity we’re in trouble. St Hilda’s College is considering what future chapel provision we might have in a new building. Some would like an interfaith prayer room looking out over the calm of the Cherwell. But how do avoid this being as arid and soulless as the prayer room in Gatwick airport. And do people really want to sit in isolation in such a place contemplating their own navel? Would the college be doing any more than ticking a box marked political correctness? When, in fact, the undergraduates want a space big enough to dignify worship and to accommodate the choral music of worship; they want community not isolation.