Sir: In reading Mr Ludovic Kennedy's 'A lesson in communication'
(9 May) one sus- pects that his inward eye glistened as he pored over the first eight verses of St Matthew, chap- ter ii, which he was invited to read by his local minister last Christmas—Perhaps this could be written up?'
His touching modesty about being con- sidered (by whom, the Bac?) a fit person to interview twenty-five or thirty ministers, with two archibshops thrown in for good measure, shows us his lack of conceit, but I am not quite clear how frequently he as a humanist has tested the 'stunning boredom' of the modern C of E service.
Anyway, he claims to have made two stun- ning discoveries: (a) that verse 5 is usually read with the wrong emphasis, and (b) that by means of a pause after 'that' in verse 8, the words `I may come and worship him also' show Herod as being ironical.
As regard (a), Mr Kennedy sounds as if he discovered the cross reference to Micah v. 2. This is given in any Bible one picks up; and (b), if Mr Kennedy believes that anyone read- ing the passage intelligently can take Herod's words at their face value, he must be naive.
This entertaining nit-picking is used as a smallish peg on which to hang the general thesis that the C of E is no longer able to communicate. It is interesting to see, however, that Mr Kennedy the humanist credits the Founder of the Church of a capital 'F'!
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