Although not a keen reader as a child – but making up for it as an adult – I did enjoy a good school story. There is a huge literature exploring life in English private schools, from Tom Brown’s Schooldays onwards. Very popular in my childhood was the series of humorous books by Anthony Buckeridge featuring a schoolboy called Jennings.

Like many children whose horizons are expanding, he is fascinated by the concept of infinite regression, or – his obsession – addressing a letter utterly and completely. To give an example, the once-hallowed grounds of our Parliament have the address:

Parliament Buildings, Pipitea,
Wellington, Wellington Region,
Te Ika-a-Māui, New Zealand,
Oceania, Southern Hemisphere,
Planet Earth…, and so on, across the universe.

While this exploratory tendency in children is common, adult life brings in other and less imaginative influences. Wordsworth comments that:

“Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy…”

We are taught, whether consciously or otherwise, that we belong and owe our loyalty to certain groups, that certain affiliations are ‘natural’ to us. The class system in Britain – which Jennings inhabits – is an example; although Buckeridge, the author, was said to be ‘of the Left’ himself.

Jennings’ best friend at school is Darbishire, the son of a clergyman: naturally a man, and naturally an Anglican. The Church is not immune from polarising tendencies: everyone can name the kind of church that they would never go to! UCANZ and other ecumenical efforts have sought to soften the boundaries of the institutional churches with some success but there is an instinct to draw the wagons around.

In church circles, there is a tension between an insularity which claims it has ‘the truth’ and an ever-greater ecumenism which now includes inter-faith dimensions. These ever-widening circles of inclusion are not just a childhood game. In a world where political polarisation is increasing dangerously, it is important to affirm the categories that can unite us: compassion, tolerance, humanity – and humour.