"Don't ever marry a man with bishop potential...."

I've just read another John Mortimer. You know, the creator of Rumpole of the Bailey, the author of the 2003 memoir, Where's There's A Will, in which he acknowledges his atheistic tendencies. In Quite Honestly, his 2005 "comic novel of middle-class do-gooding gone awry" (as the dust jacket has it), Lucy Purefoy is assigned by Social Carers, Reformers, and Praeceptors (SCRAP) to reform Terry Keegan, a career burglar recently released from prison. Lucy's father (Robert) is a bishop of the Church of England and her mother (Sylvia) an addict to G&T's (gin and tonics).

Lucy and Terry tell the story in alternating chapters. I won't spoil the story for you by saying why Lucy herself is in prison in the following scene, but I will share this snippet of conversation from when her mother comes to visit Lucy there:

"You know I met your father in Ronnie Scott's?"
    "Yes, Mum. I did know."
    Whenever Dad was writing a sermon the palace [the bishop's residence] still echoed to Dizzie Gillespie and Charlie Parker, Sidney Bechet and Muddy Waters. I knew he'd met Mum at a jazz club.
    "When I took him home my parents were so pleased because they'd found out he was a vicar with bishop potential. I only liked him because I found him sexually attractive."
    This was wonderful. The prison atmosphere was clearly bringing out the best in my mother. I had never thought that we would have this conversation.
    "So you had a great sex life, did you, Mum?" This question, which I wouldn't have dreamed of asking my mother before this prison visit, didn't seem to worry her at all.
    "Oh yes. Two or three times a night. Even more some Sundays! When he was a vicar. That was when you were conceived and all that sort of thing. It was when he was a bishop that the trouble started. I suppose I shouldn't be telling you all this."
    "What was the trouble then, Mum?" She really didn't seem to mind telling me.
    "God."
    I looked round the room. Children were bored, eating sweets from the prison shop. Couples could no longer think of anything to say to each other. The screws were looking on and Mum was unexpectedly pouring out her heart.
    "How did God come into it?"
    "Well, he didn't really. Not when Robert was a vicar. In those days he seemed to take God for granted. But as soon as he became a bishop—I don't know, I suppose because it was a step up and Robert felt responsible for God and treated him more as an equal. Anyway, he began to find fault with him or question anything he did. Of course, it's got a lot worse since President Bush. He can't understand how God would have anything to do with the man."
    "But how did this affect you?" I knew a lot about Robert's troubles, but now my mum was opening her heart to me.
    "Well, he seemed to think much more about God than he did about me. And then he got so keen on gay and lesbian marriages."
    "You think that was a bad thing?"
    "Not in itself. I mean, I don't give tuppence for what they do among themselves. It's their world and they're welcome to it. But Robert seemed so interested in their sex lives that he forgot all about ours."
    "I'm sorry."
    "So am I. And I'm afraid there's even worse news ahead. Will London's about to retire. He's got something wrong with his brain. Robert's been strongly recommended as his successor."
    "Bishop of London?"
    "Of course the idea's ridiculous, but Robert's enormously excited about it. It'll be very controversial and there are already letters about him in the Daily Telegraph. Robert likes that, having letters against him in the Daily Telegraph."
    "Well, who's for him then?"
    "The Prime Minister apparently thinks he's a 'modernizer' who's prepared to draw a line under the old conservative Church of England. Oh, I do so hope it never happens."
    "Why, exactly?"
    "I've got used to the palace at Aldershot. I know the stairs. I love the peculiar little scullery. I don't want to go to London, Lucy. I prayed to God it doesn't happen."
    "Well then..."
    "But I'm not sure he was listening. I'm not sure he listens to people's prayers any more. Perhaps he's had enough of it by now. All the same, Lucy, what I can say to you is, don't ever marry a man with bishop potential." [pp. 184-185]

A number of things about this passage appeal to me, not least the reference to Bush. For I've been thinking about just what it is I don't believe when it comes to god and religion. And one of the things I don't believe in is whatever god whose advice George W. Bush has been taking.

But more on that anon.