Including the existence of god. He finally resigned from the church, accusing it of Persecuting Gay People. Did his own loss of faith betray those he once preached to . Richard holloway, welcome to hardtalk. At the age 01 14, you left your Working Class Home in the West Of Scotland and went off to a very austere place in england. It was to train as an anglican priest. Train as a monk. What was that like . It was lovely. I was a romantic wee boy who wandered the hills where i grew up. The hills give you a sense of beyondness, of otherness, but that was also related to me and the kind of love for western movies, this idea of the lonely hero. Riding on and rescuing. I got kind of bitten by that. I was discovered by the local priest. He invited me to join the choir. The beauty of it somehow consumed me. He talked about the given away life, this mystical thing called a vocation that some people had, to give themselves to a greater purpose. I went to him when i was 13 and said tentatively, maybe i was hearing this call to give myself away for this great purpose called the priesthood, and giving away life, to life. The lonely hero. He said, we will send you to this. Because i was due to leave school at 14. There is a monastery in england which trains poor boys for the anglican priesthood. It was a wonderful place. A kindly, eccentric, mad place. These lovely old monks. They were not trained teachers. But it deeply embedded itself in my psyche. But it was a strange disruption. You say in your book, leaving alexandria, which is the name of the town you grew up in, that you were looking for something called transcendence. What do you mean by that . I think we are all very strange creatures. We are not embedded in nature, the way my wee dog is, or kangaroos in the outback. We are conscious of ourselves, aware of being strange creatures in a universe that does not explain itself, does not offer an immediate manualfor reading. I think the human animal therefore hungers for meaning, in an apparent meaningless world. We are very divided, and religion has traditionally been one of the ways in which the question has been answered. Yes, there is a meaning and a purpose and you can give yourself to it. Im no longer as comfortable with religious certainties, but i am still addicted to the search, the Strange Human Passion Of Finding Meaning and beauty and joy, and that is the transcendence. This experience cut you off from yourfamily, didnt it . It did in a kind of emergent sense. It never cut me off from their love. But what i had was the past. It started me on the long journey to education, for self reflection, to thinking about things, and i came from A Culture Where Hard Work was embedded. It didnt, in a sense, educationally evolve. Increasingly, i did feel a bit of a stranger, but a loving stranger. You tell a tale in your book about writing a letter to your father, trying to win him back for god and forjesus. I know, it was horrible. Every year on good friday we fasted all day. We had a devotion of three hours which were exactly to correspond to the three hours that jesus spent on the cross. They were always very intense emotionally. It was a visiting monk who preached to us. I was fired up by the desire to spread the word ofjesus and god. Between the end of the three hours and when we had our tea, i wrote my father a letter, calling him back to god. Writing the book, i realised that, as i was writing that, i had been three hours in intense devotion, he was probably facing the next three hours of his shift in a terrible factory. And um. So i set the pious appeal to him. He had the grace never to reflect it but im still ashamed. You found the letter much later, didnt you . Yes. In my mothers drawer. Religion gave you permission to perform these discourtesies. And, yeah, im deeply ashamed. You say that it started to change when you hit puberty. Yeah, because sex hit me. Id gone there as a wee, prepubescent boy. I caught this monastic, romantic vocation. I wanted to give myself away. And part of that was celibacy. I discovered. During an easter vacation, i used to work at a farm, and i cuddled a land girl. I had my first sexual experience. I didnt know what it was. Just this thing surged through me. The same thing happened that night. I knew it was sinful. Christianity has this problem with sex in the beginning. Not in a sensible way, saying this is a big thing that can ruin lives, get it right, be careful about it. The kind of christianity i inherited saw it as intrinsically bad, and the godly people did not do it, they were virgins, they were celibate. I was pulled in this terrible tension. That was a secret i took back with me at age 16. Looking at all these holy people, assuming they did not have sexual thoughts. None of it was hitting them, it was only hitting me. When did you abandon celibacy . You are married, you have three daughters. When i got married. Even that was a struggle. I still felt a strange pull that marriage was second best. It was a concession. The prayer book, wedding rite, it says that. It says marriage is a gift created by god as a gift for those who dont have the gift of. Countenance. It was a Methadone Maintenance Programme for those who could not give up the sex life. It always denigrated it. There was the sense that you had licence to perform it but god would rather you do not ask for it. Was the question of sexuality the first step of you and the church Parting Company . The real kickerfor me. I fought my way and wrestled my way through this stuff intellectually, but emotionally, probably for me, the real kicker came quite late in my career. It was the churchs continued hatred of gay people. Although many of them were. Most of my early mentors as priests were gay men with a divided nature, giving themselves to god and the church. The church would say it does not hate gay people, they simply do not approve of gay sex. Yes. Its a distinction without a difference. If your very urges are condemned as unlawful and displeasing to god, and i have known many wonderful gay priests who lived this kind of divided life, i asked one of them, i said, why are you sticking with this . He says, because ofjesus. He had a Sense Thatjesus would have understood, because jesus was surrounded by these discarded outsiders. That is the bit of christianity that still appeals for me. In this man, theyve got absolute acceptance of themselves in their own sense of rottenness. But christianity became respectable. But the people around jesus never were. For me, the people who carried that virus were the gay people. They felt themselves to be outsiders. It was when the church, which had a dont ask, dont tell policy for a long time, actively started Persecuting Gay People in the 90s, that is when i saw that certain ways of Holding Faith were cruel, and i think has to be challenged whenever it appears. That was the thing that really started me on a journey that took me away. You said even when you were in training, there was an all male environment, your first real crush was on a fellow novice. What was that relationship like . It was unnerving in many ways. I was quite a happy student. I worked hard. And then i fell in love with a fellow novice. It plunged me into regret. Because i didnt want to be with anyone but him. I didnt fantasise sexually about him but emotionally i wanted to be near him all the time. I did not know what he thought of me. I thought he was kind of fond of me. I met him 30 years later during my retreat to be a bishop, we had a holiday at cornwall together, we had to sleep in a double bed in a farmhouse in cornwall. I was intrigued by the fact that i was in bed when he came back after having brushed his teeth, and he said, i will sleep on the topside of the sheet, to separate us. I wondered about that. He must have had an inkling. When i went to make my retreat at this nunnery, in 1986, they said to me, he has come back from africa, he is leaving the order. But he is our chaplain at the moment. It was this guy. I made my confession to him. And then leaving the last day, i referred to thatjourney, because i remember roses blossoming on the roadside. He said, we were in love, and i said yes. I said, can i do anything for you . He said, buy me a wee transistor radio. And i did. You have been a champion of gay people, the right of gay people to join the priesthood. Why does that matter to you so much . Partly because, to me, its a straightforward justice issue. The most important Christian Doctrine is about reincarnation, the most important Christian Doctrine is about the incarnation, which is presupposed of gods love of the world and nature and all its complexity and plurality, and being gay is part of that. Even though im not sure about god now, im sure that cruelty to individuals who cannot help their colour, their sexuality, their gender, is the thing that we most passionately must oppose. In politics and in religion. When i saw the church be increasingly cruel to them, it was about 1988. It peaked at a conference then. You are now the most senior Anglican Clergyman in scotland, and you went to these. These conferences happen once a decade. You saw what you described as the cruelty among your fellow clergymen. What did you mean . There was a debate about human sexuality, essentially about gay sexuality, and whether practising gay people could be. Ordained. They have been in their thousands for centuries. The african bishops, who are particularly homophobic, hijacked the debate, and they wanted the Lambeth Conference to condemn gay sexuality in a famous proposal called 101. It was like being at a nuremberg rally. It wasnt a considered debate the bible says we cant support this, i want to be compassionate. No, it was ugly, it was cruel. They were saying the kind of things that the most horrible bigots say, and i came out a bit drained. Something died in me. 0utside, on a wee grassy knoll, a Nigerian Bishop was exorcising a young gay man. Trying to cast out the devil of homosexuality. A devil did come out but it was the devil of homophobia, and it has bedevilled the Anglican Church ever since. We are still wrestling with it. Anyone under 35just does not get it, but we are still rabbiting on about it. It kills me. Is it true that you threw your bishops mitre in the thames . Its true. An artist made me a biodegradable one. But i chucked it in. And you stayed in the church for two more years. What its like to stand by the altar, in the pulpit, preaching to people who believe in the resurrection, who believed in the divinity of christ, when you, yourself, have long since given all that up . Well, that was a slow evolutionary process. It was more the ethical thing that did me in. You can deal with. Doctrinal stuff is metaphoric, its poetic. Not to every priest. Not to every believer. Not to everybody, yes, but to a lot of people. But the resurrection, surely, the literal truth of the resurrection is non negotiable for most christians. I suppose it is. But i think that its always been interpreted in a number of different ways. It seems to me that the resurrection is about more than a resuscitated body walking out of a tomb. Whats the significance of that . The resurrection that made the woman go to the front of the bus instead of staying in the back of the bus, that made Martin Luther king challenge racism, thats real resurrection stuff. Im not interested in the biology of bodies walking out of tombs. Im interested in the resurrection narrative that changes history. That, ive always believed in. A lot of people literalise these great myths. Religion is a story. Its not factual, scientific knowledge. Its a fundamental Category Error to misunderstand that. The trouble is, we falsely scientised it. I think scared theologians have falsely scientised it. If it helps you get through life believing those physical. I wouldnt try to knock that for you. Butjust dont force me to say that theyre factual, when i treat them as metaphorical, and poetical. And that makes them even more powerful. Can you understand why a lot of people in the anglican communion, a lot of christians whom you lead, feel betrayed by the way in which youve changed your thinking about religion . 0h, sure. And i hate hurting people. I did hurt a lot of people. I said that in my final sermon. I said id become, in my 60s, the kind of bishop i hated in my 30s. I had to be kind of true to that. It was a slow, emergent process. Yeah, i get that. I get the complexity of all of this. I hurt lots of people, to whom i was a precious source of support. Thats why i had to go away and take a sabbatical from religion. Thats the trouble with religion, it got stuck 2000, 3000 years ago. It got stuck with women, it got stuck with gays, it got stuck with ways of understanding the astronomy of the universe. You can keep the best of religion and still intellectually go on. And that, i think, is all i was arguing for. I wasnt saying that you mustnt believe in a physical resurrection or a six day creation. If it helps you through life, do it, as long as it doesnt make you cruel and persecutory, thats not the way i understand these things. Im sure i know how much i hurt people. They wrote and told me. Ive got a big mailbag. There was a kind of helplessness about it. In many ways, i was a divided soul. Its a Classic Scottish thing to be, its What Mcdermott called the antisyzygy, that you can incorporate two contending realities in your own soul. I think thats not a bad way to live, because truth is really simple. Should the church be forced by law to marry gay people, even when it doesnt want to . No, i wouldnt do that. Im enough of a liberal. I dont like the way the french do this. I like a secular society. If people want to cover themselves in a head to foot cassock cloak, i dont want to interfere with that. I quite like the accommodation weve reached in britain, were pretty much a secular society, but historys untidy. There are elements of the old religious domination. I think religion should be free to practice their beliefs and rituals in the sanctuary. What i dont like is when i try to bully people in the secular square. Because we forbid this in the sanctuary, we are not going to let you get away with it in the public square, we must oppose that. I wouldnt want to interfere. And they get opt outs. They discriminate against women, they discriminate against gays. I let them be their eccentric, bigoted selves in the sanctuary. But i stand defiantly against them if they tried to emancipate these imprisoned people. Successive archbishops of canterbury have always prioritised preserving the unity of the worldwide anglican communion. And admitting gay priests would have shattered that community. Werent they right to hold onto that until the church is ready to take that step together . There is an argument for that, clearly. Its this Duality Thing again. If your primary value is institutional unity, if you prize unity above, say, justice, youll do that. And honourable men, and its all men, have done that. I can respect that. But if thats all you have, if you just have institutional unity, if you dont have awkward, maverick people saying you shouldnt be doing that, you shouldnt be penalising gay people and women, thats called the prophetic tradition in christianity. The three classic roles in hebrew religion, prophets, priest and king. Kings rule, Priestsjustify The Rule with godly anointing, and its always the prophets, the awkward squad, who come along and say, thats wrong. If you purge the prophetic element from the church, you purge its cleansing element. Now, its probably not a good idea to make prophets archbishops or even bishops, so probably i was a mis description. I ended up feeling i had to prophetically challenge these injustices. But in my understanding of the ecology of institutions, i know that it takes a while. But its always the awkward sods, the minority that bring change, because the big, powerful institutions never volunteer to empty themselves of power. Male patriarchy in britain didnt volunteer to give women the vote. Women died to get the vote. They chained themselves to railings, and thats what brings change. Ok, i can understand that, but morally, im sorry, i still think thatjustice trumps institutional unity. And you havent walked away from the church altogether. You still sometimes attend your old church, 0ld saint pauls in edinburgh. Yes. Its a pretty Forgiving Church that welcomes you back, isnt it . Yeah. Well, i think, on the whole, the Anglican Church has been a Forgiving Church. Its been a messy, muddled church. It got hardened in the 90s when it was drifting and they thought the only way for churches to survive was to become very conservative, evangelical and give people the perfect package, answer every question. Whereas, on the whole, the Anglican Church tended to question every answer. Its still a spacious, imaginative church. Yeah, im in church most sundays, at old saint pauls. I love that building. It traps the mystery of this hunger for transcendence for me. Its uncomfortable, i dont do god comfortably. A lot of people talk too comfortably about what, to me, is an unspeakable mystery. But id rather be in than out. Do you still think of yourself as a christian . I think of myself as an agnostic christian. But im not interested in the labels. Jesus is still very important to me. I never lostjesus. Jesus was a challenger. He didnt prioritise institutional Unity Overjustice and truth. 0n the whole, people that prioritise institutional Integrity Overjustice and truth dont get crucified. Im interested that you still go back to kelham hall, where it all started for you. Is there part of you that imagines the monastic life you might have led . Constantly, yes. Its hard to talk about it without tearing up, and i get weepy. But i go back to the graveyard, thats all thats left of the order, because they moved out in 1973. A bit of me still hankers after the absolutely tightly packed given away life, without questioning this other self. But What Mcdermott calls the Caledonian Antisyzygy is in me. Im there, part of that, but im also part of someone who leaves places and moves on, and is never comfortable anywhere. And abandons old certainties. Thats been the story of your life, hasnt it . Yes, and thats painful. Certainties can be comforting, theyre a nice woolly coat against the icy brass. Yeah, im now very suspicious of certainty. Political certainty and theological certainty. I think that there is a Cleansing Humility about doubt. It helps us muddle our way through some of the jails we imprison ourselves in. Yeah, i suppose i now preach a gospel of uncertainty. What about one of the great certainties of the christian faith, the idea of life after death, a life for all eternity . I dont have that. Im probably more certain about not having it. I cant say for certain. Obviously this universe is an extraordinary thing. In some sense, theyre my grandchildren over there, my dna will go on in them and in their grandchildren. But i dont expect when i die to wake up, meet Audrey Hepburn guiding me in to the afterlife. And all the prospectuses ive read of it dont attract me. But who knows . I might be surprised. Not unpleasantly, i hope. Richard holloway, thank you for speaking to hardtalk. Been a pleasure, alan. Hello there. The weekends weather brought us plenty of warm sunshine. There was a bit of rain across northern and western parts of the country. But, as we head through much of the coming week, things are about to change. Here is a scene sent in from sunday afternoon, southend on sea, in essex. Now, through the course of this coming week, the weather is much more changeable. Therell be some rain for many of us, at times, and things wont be quite as warm. So cooler conditions particularly overnight, youll be pleased to hear, if you found it fairly uncomfortable for sleeping in recent nights. Now, during monday, we have that low pressure and frontal systems not far away from the uk, bringing some showery rain to many parts of the country. Through the day on monday, one frontal system brings a bit of rain to the east of scotland, north east of england, as well. That should ease away through the day, and then for all of us it is a day of sunny spells and scattered showers, and across eastern england, in particular, some of the showers heavy and thundery, bringing a lot of heavy rain, and some hail and thunder as well. Northern ireland, though, having a dryer day, with some sunshine into the West Of Scotland. Eastern scotland staying fairly cloudy and damp, then as we head our way south across england and wales, some heavy showers, especially towards the east. Could catch one or two heavy showers almost anywhere across england the south west probably having a dryer interlude, and the south east still some torrential downpours bringing some sub surface water flooding. Now, there is the chance that the showers could stay away from wimbledon. So a largely dry day, but there is the chance that we could see some showers interrupting play, i think, during the afternoon. Then, heading through into the evening hours, those heavy showers in the east eventually start to ease away. Thunderstorms dying down overnight, but then well see the next batch of rain moving in from the west. We could see 26 degrees in the south east. Tuesday, then, starts off not quite as high and mighty as recent nights, but still 15 or 16 degrees across the south east. And then, as we move through the day, this showery rain from central parts of england and wales moves eastwards. Still some dryer weather, though, for the north West Of Scotland into northern ireland, too. More persistent rain works into the South West Of England later on. Temperatures 15 to 21 degrees, reasonably fresher than it has been. Through into wednesday, then, that rain works its way eastwards. So some rain, some welcome rain, for a time in the south east. That should clear away, and then actually many of us having a dryer day with a light breeze. Certainly fresher than it has been for the time of year. Moderate rain on wednesday, with a light breeze, and temperatures around 15 to 22 degrees. Taking you through towards the end of the week, we will see some rain in the north west, and temperatures continue to be not as hot as they have been. Bye for now. Im rico hizon in singapore, the headlines iraqs Prime Minister says mosul has been liberated, ending three years of occupation by so called islamic state. Just back from the g20 summit, President Trump says hed like to set up a joint Cyber Security unit with russia. Im kasia madera in london. Also in the programme more than 100,000 people take to the streets of istanbul, a show of defiance against turkeys president. The dog tube for stress. Employees in thailand trade working like a dog to working with a dog. Live from our studios in singapore and london