Reconciling the ideas of the French Revolution and the teaching of the Catholic Church has always obliged Irish Republicanism to do a bit of a balancing act. Sean Mac Stiofain refused on religious grounds to smuggle condoms into the 26 counties even though they were an essential part of a bomb maker’s kit for a while. Home made bombs were one thing but he’d have no truck with those filthy things. One atypical Provie of my acquaintance used to attend the Clonard novena explaining that he was asking his god to kill Protestants. The other Provies thought he was a bit of an idiot too.
Inviting Gerry Adams to front a documentary about what Jesus means to him as part of a Channel 4 series on The Bible is, in a very narrow way, an inspired bit of casting. It is certain to cheese off a lot of evangelical Christians in Norn Iron, something guaranteed to satisfy Adams’ fans. Gerry Adams is no Bettany Hughes. She presented the previous week’s episode on the women of the Bible trying to reclaim Lilith and Jezebel as potential feminist heroines who’ve been given a rough time by patriarchal commentators and was an obvious choice to do so. A thousand other candidates could have fronted a programme on Jesus. Lacking Hughes’ scholarship Adams, according to the blurb, aimed to “discover the real, historical Jesus, rather than the version of Jesus he was taught about as a child, and to establish who killed him and why.”
Neither Adams nor Martin Mc Guinness have made a secret of the importance of their Catholicism. Both seem to be a bit more pious than many in their own organisation and even than most men of their age and they give every appearance of doing it for real rather than as an essential part of the baggage of a traditional Republican. So we got to see him blessing himself in Mass and lighting a candle at the site of Christ’s tomb.
Repentance and forgiveness were the aspects of Christianity that Adams first dwelt on. Hardly surprising maybe since while denying that he had any blood on his hands he “took full responsibility” for his actions in the struggle against British imperialism. Leading by example he says he’s forgiven the people who tried to kill him but excluded the modern equivalents of those who built the cross. In Provie speak these are the “securocrats”.
There was a little bit of paddywhackery. Was there any need for the range of gaelgeoir t-shirts? Did he have to translate alea iacta est into Irish? Could they not have cut the “joke” about Sinn Fein being an underground movement as he slid into a first century tomb? There was also more Gerryspeak than was necessary.
Jesus the anti-Roman revolutionary was not absent from the narrative. Adams identified the priests of the temple as the collaborators with imperialism and Jesus as the anti-establishment rebel. What was lacking was an insight into how subsequent editings of the text downplayed this message. That could have made for a more interesting programme.
More than once he used the phrase “by my own lights” to explain how he reconciled his Republicanism and his religion using the human fallibility argument. A variant of this was how most Republicans did the same. Taking the example of the Shankhill bombing he described it as a “stupid” operation and seemed genuinely remorseful. He met the wife of one of the nine dead victims and seemed humbled by the generosity of the bereaved man.
It made for deeply unsatisfying viewing. Unless you had never read anything about Jesus the programme taught little. It offered less insight into recent Irish history and sincere as Adams’ faith might by the lasting impression was deeply conventional and saccharine.
Liam redux 
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