Getting slightly off topic, but it has puzzled me how the RBL — as national custodians of Remembrance — are not the lead agency in local remembrance parades. Thanks for explaining why this is. I still think it’s wrong.
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That’s very useful context.
I certainly don’t expect overnight change, but change has to start somewhere. The more accepted the argument for change becomes, the more it will snowball.
That’s where inclusive organisations have a duty to take a formal stance on behalf of their people.
While local councils may hold the cards in terms of authority, all it would take is the RBL and uniformed organisations saying “we find ourselves unable to commit people to an event that isn’t inclusive of them” and things will change quickly.
Never forget that, where a military parade exists, it arguably makes the event. If you move the parade elsewhere, or to a different time, many will follow.
Edit: That’s exactly what I did to unlock our impasse, and pretty much everyone came with us.
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Thanks all, sorry to be “tail end Charlie” as usual on this forum…
As a Padre, I’m all for broadening Remembrance out. The latest C of E prayers seem very “wet, whiny and woke” to me, and were the bit where (despite substantial shortening/editing) folk started to drift off from local war graves last week!
I find discussions of the service elements useful e.g. Last Post - isn’t that telling our dead that it’s safe to sleep, because they are being watched over till the morning?
Lots of the religious elements work well with “light touch” e.g. “Go forth into the world in peace” etc. is great at Remembrance (or for new NCOs, as this weekend for me!) even without much of “the God bit”.
I agree it needs to be locally shaped - I know several OCs who worry about inclusion when there’s one new Cadet of different faith, but on my home Sqdn one militant atheist is great at keeping me on my toes! The role of faith in conflict is of course vast & mixed (e.g. misused in WW1, clear in WW2, muddier in some recent ones?)…
While I’m here, sorry for the sins of the Church. Stepping out on parade as a Padre this week makes me think a lot about the organisation I come from.
Apologies for owt I’ve said wrong in this contribution, but thanks to everyone for theirs - think it proves my suspicion that “the key is all in the prep”. Think this has been one of our best threads!
best wishes all
(PS told a campful of Cadets that Amen basically means “yup”, so they could say that if they agreed - the sight of a hangarful all grinning when they said it…!)
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Thanks very much for contributing!
I’d only object to this bit quoted above.
A padre can attend a unit with their religious capacity on full show, dog collar and all, but the person objecting or countering gets the “militant” label. I think that’s where we need to be very careful about how one can alienate people from an officially-sanctioned and entrenched position of authority and privilege.
That’s really what I’m against. There isn’t a level playing field for our private beliefs.
In place of “amen”, I very much enjoy “so say we all” from Battlestar: Gallactica. It’s a classic.
Couldn’t agree more!
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That’s the CofE through and through these days, not just limited to Remembrance. They’re barely a Christian church in anything but name, but going through a serious identity crisis.
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The problem to me seems to be the desire to maintain a grip on society and how that’s incompatible with staying true to core teachings.
You can’t ever be inclusive to people like me, but in stretching to cover those with a much looser attachment to the church, you lose your core messaging.
I think the best thing for the church in the long term is to give up the hold on public events and accept that the CofE (or united churches together, which are quite broad) simply doesn’t hold that position any longer.
At least then you can stay true to your actual observers, rather than trying to be all things to most people.
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so do many of the RBL.
But Remembrance is a civic event, it belongs to “the people” and so should be and is rightly overseen by government.
In London, you will see very little of the RBL at the Cenotaph. that isn’t to say the RBL is not involved, but like many “state” occasions, the ceremonial side is handed over to the Armed Forces, and much of the orgsanisation is down to them.
where the RBL is involved is coordinating the march passed which is “back stage” to the whole event and thus out of sight.
other than the President of the RBL, you’d do well to spot anyone from the RBL on screen at the London Cenotaph event.
see the Maggie Smith meme above…
a Padre can dress as a padre and attend Squadron and not "preach."An atheist can do the same.
but as soon as one tries to convince/convert the other, I believe a “militant” title is valid.
I suspect @Depwingchap used “militant” in a casual manner to highlight the atheist in question is keen to question the status quo (“keep me on my toes”) rather than be purposefully difficult at the sight of a dog collar
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But there’s a clear imbalance there between someone who gets a role aligned to their religious beliefs and is appointed to the organisation on that basis, vs a cadet or staff member who may simply object to the creeping in of beliefs they don’t share without actually pushing their own nuanced beliefs.
The default is tannoying.
Don’t think I’ve missed it within the thread - what liaison / feedback has there been from the RAFAC “chief” padre?
None that I’m aware of.
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So I’ve been following this thread quite closely and I have enjoyed seeing the discussion here. I will start by saying I was raised Catholic but would not describe myself as Spiritual, I don’t really believe in a ‘God’ or such but find beauty and calm of the universe and our place in it to be a good starting point for self reflection, I will admit that I got the idea from a group called the Stellar Spiritualist I found while reading one of my favourite Sci-Fi books. While I do not mind singing the ocasional hymn (as I enjoy singing alot generally) and enjoy the oppurtunity to sing often unused songs such as ‘I thow to thee my country’ on Rememberance day and ATC Sunday parade makes for a good change of pace. However I do find myself engaging on the more Christan side of these services (such as prayers) more as something to do than any real feeling behind it and becuase I always did it.
This year (as we have done as long as I’ve been at this Sqn) no one attends the service in the church before hand. The cadets and cadet band form up at the relevant end of the street next to the church along with the others in the parade and take the short march up. This year I found that all the prayers that were normally said during this were not present but I think this is becuase it was a new Vicar who was leading. It resulted in a short service of 2 poems, wreath laying, and the last post (not in that order). I found I was able to reflect on everything better with this situation and made for a Rememberance I felt I could engage with on a personal level which was very nice.
From what @Depwingchap has said I would totally fine with a ‘Go in Peace’ or such but I am personally rather used to that from my Catholic upbringing. And yes, when I realised that Amen just meant ‘I agree’ or similar it made me understand it a lot better and feel better about using it, and as a BSG fan I would be up a ‘So Say We All’ instead (though is that bringing in the religion of the 12 Colonies as that was obviously religious in nature in the miniseries).
And when the padre visits my sqn I always enjoy the disucssions I have with him and he always keeps the religious beliefs out of his nights, while enrollment is a rather religious afair in his church and he will mention that he prays for us I don’t find it too overbearing. When dealing with the cadets on his given night he always does an excellent job with what I think is a very secular approach which I appreciate.
I would happily engage in any further conversaiton but I must echo Depwingchap that this thread has, in the majority, been a very informative and useful thread to look into and I’m happy to see so many engaging in it in good faith trying to find the best solution for thier local situation and looking for parts we can copy from each other. I look forward to seeing what comes out of this both at a local level with councils and such and at a national level with things like the RBL handbook.
I hope you all don’t mind too much that I’m jumping in towards the end of the thread but it took a while to get my thoughts in order.
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Who says it’s the end!? 
Welcome and thanks for getting involved — your perspective adds to the conversation!
Don’t ruin the BSG reference for me 
I’m really glad to hear that. It’s a solid step in the right direction.
While I’ve no doubt that some will fight change as though it’s WW3, I think we’re largely pushing on an open door.
The majority of the population don’t identify with the status quo, and so argued well, an inclusive future for Remembrance is inevitable.
It just requires organisations like our own to accept that we do care about creating a level playing field for all and then to make that positive change and take a stance.
Not taking a stance is still a stance.
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The BSG remake was indeed very religious. The 12 colonies practiced paganism, based on the Greek pantheon (to my amusement, nearly every exclamation had ‘god’ changed to ‘gods’, but I think they did miss a few) whereas the Cyclons worshipped one god and believed ‘God is love’. I think the final episode implied that the survivors were the ancestors of our western civilisation.
Edit: Of course, in the original Battlestar Galactica it was Egyptian iconography: but they didn’t repeat that in the remake because of Stargate.
When are they releasing this latest remake? Can’t wait.
Battlestar Galactica was inspired by Mormonism & the 13 tribes of Israel although the 2004 one was also inspired by sept 11th attacks. The religious iconography did make sense within it’s own context.
Science fiction does tend give a good opportunity to explored theology & Philosophy through allegory & thought experiments.
Having said that when you end up dealing with quantum mechanics, & sub atomic particles such as quarks that come in “flavours” called Up, down, charm, strange, top & bottom your mind does go a bit corkscrewed.
Well, maybe a good place to start a ball rolling?
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This is my personal opinion and the only post ill make because i dont have the mental ability to keep up with it.
I bloody love a good parade but the god stuff doesnt interest me in the slightest but i play along because of the tradition of it.
However alot of these traditions are decades old if not older when the country was 90% white christian so it needs to move with the times as thankfully weve become a multi ethnical and multi religion country however i think the same messaging needs to come across just not leaning a certain way…how you do that. I dont know.
Anyways, Star Wars is better that Battlestar Galatica
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Battlestar galactia theme is better for a marching parade.
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Come on, man… we’re trying to keep this civil!
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