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Making vows: How binding promises can lead to true freedom

We make all kinds of vows - to marriage promises, to keep up subscriptions, some even make a vow to live a monastic life. Alex Hughes explores what motivates a vowed life and its often counter-intuitive commitments.

Alex Hughes

Alex Hughes is Archdeacon of Cambridge in the Diocese of Ely.

A monk in a wheekchair works on an icon in an art studio. In the foreground is a completed icon.
At Mucknell Abbey, an Anglican Benedictine community, Brother Michäel paints an icon.

Quid petis? (What do you seek?) 

What will you commit to, and for how long, and at what cost or for what benefit? And how will you structure your life in order to fulfil your commitments?  

These questions touch on the very mundane – gym membership, streaming subscriptions, etc. – and the most serious aspects of life, such as romantic partnerships and career moves. Do you decide these matters in accordance with an overarching philosophy of life or by some golden rules you follow?  

The same questions are faced with momentous intentionality by people in religious communities. According to ancient tradition, admission to the religious life begins with a ritual answer to the question, “Quid petis?”, and the community rule ensures that its pattern of life supports and fulfils the quest. 

The question of what we most want in life rarely leads people to become a monk or a nun. For most of us it seems impossible to believe that personal fulfilment could be found within the limits of a strictly vowed life. And yet, more people live under religious vows than you might first imagine.  

The notion of a binding, life-long commitment is still quite an alien thought.

The most common vows in many Christian traditions are made at baptism, confirmation and marriage; as well as ordination vows for those who become clergy. But even if this makes the idea of a vowed life a little more familiar, the notion of a binding, life-long commitment is still quite an alien thought. However, a new book on The Vowed Life in the Anglican Church argues that not only do vows demand more attention within the church than they seem to have garnered recently, but they are actually a point of considerable interest and allure to those outside the Church and may be seen as liberating and life-giving for those who undertake them. 

In his most famous sermon (the Sermon on the Mount), Jesus says:  

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  

.At first, this seems counterintuitive. Surely he meant to say:  

“Where your heart is, there will your treasure be also”?  

I don’t think so. There is a romantic idea that people follow their hearts, but if that were the case, advertising would be a fool’s errand. Advertisers know very well that our hearts’ desires are unstable and that they are easily attracted by the treasures of beauty, wealth, fame and so on. And most of us will have had the experience of being led to desire something – a flashy car, a bigger house, a better job, a sexier partner – only to discover that the treasure that captured our hearts does not bring the lasting satisfaction for which we yearned. At the heart of religion is the belief that God is the treasure we seek; that only God can truly satisfy our deepest desire. For Christians, this does refer to the future - to “treasure in heaven” - but not only to that; or at least, not in a simple way. This is where vows come in. 

Our identities, including the pattern of our desires, are to an extent given, not self-made. 

Probably the most puzzling of all religious vows are the ones made by parents and godparents for children at their baptism. How can anyone make a vow by proxy? How can anyone dare to make a vow on behalf of someone else? Surely everyone, especially children, should be free to make their own decisions? Well, it is certainly true that vowing a child to Christian life goes against the modern ideal of the autonomous human subject who freely makes unconditioned choices for themself. But anyone who has ever raised a child will know that whatever its critical benefits, it is also a myth.  

Parents make multiple significant decisions about how their child will grow up, and those decisions have a deep and lasting effect on the child, for good or ill. Such formation is inescapable and no one, not even with the help of skilful introspection or expert psychoanalysis, can step outside their personal history and make unconstrained choices about who they become. Our identities, including the pattern of our desires, are to an extent given, not self-made. This remains true even in the light of postmodern resistance to the idea that people have a fixed identity, rather than one that changes and shifts as it is performed, since the performance does not arise ex nihilo (out of nothing). We are, as Heidegger said, “thrown” into life: we are conditioned, contingent, and no achievement of individual can release us from that. 

In the first act of King Lear, as his faculties begin to unravel, the king famously asks:  

“Who is it that can tell me who I am?”  

Christians answer this with reference to the voice of God discerned in the Hebrew scriptures:  

“I have called you by name; you are mine.” 

These words are spoken to those who are confirmed, when they renew their baptism vows, which (as I have said) were often made for them when they were too young to speak for themselves. The invitation at confirmation is to take mature responsibility for those solemn promises, which is easier to understand than the earlier vows made by proxy. But even this is not entirely straightforward, because while someone might joyfully receive the gift of a God-given identity – “I have called you by name” – which is not subject to successful performance, how could anyone agree honestly with the divine claim, “you are mine,” since even the greatest saint knows that their daily performance is largely governed by self-interest? This leads us to the crux of the vowed life, where we can begin to see how it is possible, and even desirable, to bind oneself to something despite the risk of failure. 

This is the deep context of our lives, into which we are “thrown,” not by blind chance but by divine choice. 

I have already alluded to the matter of choice in our lives and the conflicts that may arise between a religious, a modern and a postmodern perspective; but there is something more, and much more important, to be said from a Christian point of view. The Christian view is that it is not so much our choice about God that matters than God’s choice about us. God chose to create the world and God chooses each one of us, which is the only choice that matters ultimately. This is the deep context of our lives, into which we are “thrown,” not by blind chance but by divine choice. Fundamentally, therefore, all religious vows are about choosing to be who we already are; choosing to live as one who has been chosen by God. Every other choice is made in this light so that whatever happens, no matter what choices we make in the future, good or bad, God’s fundamental choice of us never changes. And the experience of living under this promise is one of liberation.  

The (post-)modern ideal of complete personal freedom necessarily entails total responsibility, so that the overall success or failure of our lives lies in our hands alone. Perhaps a few narcissistic individuals can easily accept this – “He was a self-made man, and he worshipped his creator!” – but it is a heavy burden of responsibility. The religious alternative does not deny the importance of responsibility - the Bible is concerned from beginning to end with the demands of justice and righteousness - but it does not make our performance the final measure of our worth, and therefore of our identity. If we have bound ourselves to the identity God gives, any account of ourselves such as, “I am a failure … a loser … a disappointment” is covered by “I am a beloved child of God”. It is by living into the divine indicative – “I have called you by name” – that we can begin to let go of self-reliance and welcome and inhabit the sustaining power of God’s “you are mine”.  

For sure, the idea of binding, life-long promises may be countercultural today but, rightly understood, they can be seen as joyful and liberating. Those who seek this way of life seek a heavenly treasure that enriches life at every step. 

  

Further reading

The Vowed Life, eds. Sarah Coakley & Matthew Bullimore (Canterbury Press, 2023) 

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Why bother with podcasts if nobody is listening?

As critics snipe at the popularity of podcasting, podcaster James Cary explores the medium and how we should listen to them.

James Cary

James Cary is a writer of situation comedy for BBC TV (Miranda, Bluestone 42) and Radio (Think the Unthinkable, Hut 33).

Two people sit cross-legged at a low table on which two microphones stand. One press a key on a laptop on the floor.
Photo by Kate Oseen on Unsplash.

During the pandemic, an Australian comedy show, At Home Alone Together on ABC, made a sketch that was widely shared on the internet, especially among podcasters. For those wondering what to do with their time, they had one clear, simple message given with typical Australian honesty: Do not start a f***ing podcast. 

I’ve encountered hostility to the idea of podcasts since I started listening to them fifteen years ago, when the main options were This American Life and Kermode and Mayo talking about movies. Both were podcast versions of existing excellent radio programmes. 

With every passing year, podcasts have become more popular, a huge boost coming in 2014 with the Serial podcast, which was a spin-off This American Life. People with iPhones were realising what the purple icon was, and they weren’t afraid to use it. 

 

Attention a zero-sum game. If you’re listening to something, you’re not listening to something else. Nobody wants their time wasted.

Many resisted. They didn’t really understand what podcasts were, where they came from, how to find them and what made them different from radio programmes. Merely mentioning podcasts would make people either roll their eyes, or far worse, causing what I would call “Podcast Derangement Syndrome”. We see that, albeit humorously, in the ABC sketch, urging people not to start a podcast. 

It’s a fair point. Don’t start a podcast out of boredom. It won’t last more than a few episodes (that’s called ‘podfading’), it won’t be any good and no one will listen as it’s not offering anything substantial or insightful.  

We live in an attention economy. Attention a zero-sum game. If you’re listening to something, you’re not listening to something else. Nobody wants their time wasted. Like a book proposal or an article, you need a clear offer to your listener or reader. 

For example, my own Sitcom Geeks podcast - which ended this month after 222 episodes over eight years – was all about helping people write better sitcom scripts. Yes, that’s a niche interest, but tens of thousands of people want to write sitcoms. 

Many podcasters never identify what they’re offering. They make the mistake of the first crop of bloggers twenty years ago, who started hammering out their error-strewn opinions on everything from politics to dieting. Most of these blogs were read by almost no one, and even the more popular ones didn’t have large numbers. Every medium is the same. Most books don’t sell more than a few dozen copies, particularly self-published ones. Most shows at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe will have an audience in the single digits. 

Podcasting is the same. My other podcast, Cooper and Cary Have Words, deals in lightly comic, theological conversation. Now on Episode 157, we have a fairly devoted listenership, but it’s small. I mention it not because I’m a tiresome podcaster who is forever promoting their podcast. Okay, it’s partly that. But I’m going to do the one thing podcasters never do, which is talk about how many people actually listen. And the numbers here might surprise you. 

Each episode of Cooper and Cary Have Words is usually downloaded by about 1,100 people within a week of dropping, and then another 1,100 within 90 days. So that 2,200 listeners, creeping up another few hundred over the following month. That’s not many, is it? Even late-night shows on BBC local radio playing outré jazz get more listeners by a factor of ten. 

Here’s the next surprise: these figures put Cooper and Cary Have Words into the top 5% of all podcasts in terms of listeners. The 4,500 downloads in the first seven days would put us in the top 1% which again, seems low. The two Seen & Unseen podcasts, Re-enchanting and Seen & Unseen Aloud, are doing well but everyone is dwarfed by the Joe Rogan Experience, which, according to Time Magazine, is experienced by 11 million people. 

But here’s the big statistic to keep in mind: 50% of podcast episodes get fewer than 30 downloads in the first week. 

This would give some justification, then, for a recent article in The Spectator by Sam Kriss who has the most chronic case of Podcast Derangement Syndrome I’ve encountered for a while. He begins by making curious comments about how podcasts are fake, including real ones, but his point is this: “nobody actually listens to any of them.” 

I understand the rage against a phenomenon. The media often confects a craze. When everyone was talking about Game of Thrones, it was fair to point out that this premium show on pay-TV was being watched by a truly tiny number of people. It’s just some of those people were people like TV critics for The Spectator or the BBC. 

Kriss then rather undermines his claim that no-one listens by saying “Sometimes people ask me which podcasts I listen to, and when I reply that these days I don’t really listen to any they react as if I’d said I don’t eat food or breathe air.” So, are those people lying about listening to podcasts? The Spectator has several podcasts. Are they a waste of time and money? 

“Podcasts are also, objectively, crap. I don’t say this lightly.” I think you do, Sam, but let’s take it at face value. The charge that many podcasts are acts of inane vanity is undoubtedly fair. Many others are well-meaning, but poorly recorded and unfocussed. 

This isn’t the 1930s when families might huddle around the wireless and give the BBC their undivided attention. 

But let us also remember that an awful lot of broadcast radio is highly disposable, being either inane links between songs on commercial radio, or punditry for the sake of it on talk radio, whether it’s BBC Radio 4 or TalkSport.  

There are some good podcasts, thought. What about them, Kriss? He says they’re not worth listening to unless you give them your undivided attention, explaining that if you’re listening to a podcast while doing something else, you’re not really taking in the content. This is not educating yourself, but merely acquiring an illusion of knowledge. 

But surely all audio works the same way? We’re listening to the radio or podcasts while we’re cooking, washing up or driving. This isn’t the 1930s when families might huddle around the wireless and give the BBC their undivided attention. 

Then comes a sentence which is revealing. Kriss has just told us that podcasts aren’t real, we don’t listen to podcasts anyway, and that we’re lying about it and when we do listen, we’re not learning anything when we do. We’re all idiots. He then writes,

“The people who make podcasts usually have a very dim view of their public.”

Oh, Sam. Thou dost project too much, methinks. 

We all like a rant. And we often like reading polemical pieces. We love a Clarkson, a Cowell and a Boycott sounding off. But I wonder if Sam Kriss, an established writer for a well-regarded publication has succumbed to the elitist mindset. It is tempting to disparage the voices of those from the outside who wish to speak, whether or not anyone wishes to listen. Thanks to smartphones and RSS feeds, they can, just as the blogs did two decades ago. 

The medium is new but the lesson is old. To whom do we listen? If you look at the life of Jesus it is striking how often he listened to the voices of the excluded, even when his own disciples and henchmen tried to bundle the blind and the embarrassing out of the way. Moreover, those that sought to control the flow of information were, to use theological jargon, ‘the baddies’. We live in age where all kinds of voices can be heard. The question is whether we wish to listen. 

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