One of the characteristics of western middle class men and women in the latter half of the twentieth century is a form of quiet cynicism. We do not wish to give credence to anyone else any longer. We have shut the door to those who would give us dreams of a better world, and are usually quite happy, even at times quite determined, to dig our own back gardens. We have, in fact, seen the rise and fall of too many heavenly cities for us to wish to build any more. Fanaticism of any kind is definitely a non-starter. One might have thought that this insularity was a particularly English disease brought about by loss of empire and the apparent failure of post-war social optimism, but it is also a disease of each western nation. It is often codified into political form by the new right or into religious form by the moral majority, but it derives, essentially, from a form of quiet, despairing selfprotectionism, resignation; a belief, if it can be adorned with that word, that nothing very much more can be done. All that can be done now, it is felt, is that people should cultivate their own situation. Religion is therefore understood as that which reinforces the sense of the individual’s importance in the face of social and cosmic collapse. The church is the last refuge for those suffering from anomie, and faith gives the individual hope in the face of darkness. Church study groups, when asked what signs of hope there are in the world, answer that there are none, apart, perhaps, from the odd place like Iona or Taize which the middle classes treat like tourist attractions rather than a places for renewal.