'Dear Colleagues in Christ...' A Bishop Writes.

Hardly has the ring of a Saint Paul does it?

He knew how to begin any letter with due mind-concentrating thunder. If you are not familiar with his many and varied salutations - 'tough love' oft the theme of the thing - then check your Corinthians or your Romans or your Ephesians. "I, Paul on a mission. You, call yourself a church? God help the lot of you!" - more or less sums up the general approach.

'Was that the post?' 'I'll get it.' 'Anything for me?' 'Couple of bills and one from Paul.' 'Crikey, summons the brethren. I'll be with you in a minute, just need the loo.' - You can readily picture the very and nervy scene.

The modern Bishop, sadly perhaps, is constrained to be more circumspect. He may have the passion - the rhetorical power even - of the Great Apostle, yet he must temper his words with more mercy than he might wish. No 'Regional Diversity Commissions' in Paul's day; none of your 'All Aboard! - a national strategy for inclusion' papers to mess with his head or style. Above all no potentially looming Employment Tribunal should a modern day cleric take it into his or her head to claim that he or, indeed, she has been 'harassed' for being hauled over any burning coals for failing to deliver on some pointless 'attendance target' - what we old folk would still tend to call a congregation.

But a Bishop so constrained is a man deeply irked. When there's a boot to be stuck in to a recalcitrant rump, when muscular Christianity urges a swift and sharp body blow, yet but a soft 'Ahem...' is all that is permitted; then it must and does gall a man's guts so. ('Internalising the anger' is, I believe, the modern lingo. Does sound quite as nasty as it ought.)

Don't get me wrong. Not all Bishops are, as dear E M Forster would have it, 'telegrams and anger'. Many rather - at least in the beginning - are perfectly kindly and dear souls. We are not talking here necessarily a sentimental character or a drippy disposition - thank Goodness - but the burning fire of a belief that inspires a radiance of regard for others. ('Love Thy Neighbour' - that sort of thing. You must have come across it.)

I indeed count myself lucky never to have had to serve under one of those relentlessly cheerful happy-clappy coves, who irk as much for their implacable happiness as by their intolerable clappiness. Was it not poor Fr. Benjamin 'Dizzy' Rayleigh who used to receive notes from his mad-as-any-hatter Bish 'Call Me Dave' that began 'Dear Team Jesus'? That would be beyond any enduring. Was even indeed - three good vicars went over to Rome by day's end and two more later fled with the parish coffers to some dodgy ashram in Potters Bar.

So I know where largely I am with our own Bish Tom: made of stern stuff and self-taught to be sterner, generally if not universally straight as a die, eye for the main chance naturally yet pretty hopeless at seriously deviant politicking as he does so blush when he lies - all within reasonable and manageable bounds. (If Mrs Bish can live with that then so can I.)

All that being so, I am much like any a Roman or a Corinthian or indeed an Ephesian - you see the handwriting, you read the superscription and you know what's coming next.  When, then, I am a 'Colleague' it is a clear call to consolidated arms on behalf of the collective party. Some external threat has been perceived and we are to stand together united in the face of some darkening force.

Fortunately Bish Tom does have quite a knack of spotting an ill-wind about to blow before most of us have felt a stirring of even a chilly breeze. A necessary charism if you are given to sounding the trumpet of alarm - troops quickly wearing down and out should such clarion calls prove too often false.

But what then is the dire matter so presently told you reasonably wish to know. I cannot in truth yet tell, as I haven't read the letter beyond its all-revealing greeting. Darn it all, it is Sunday, a parson needs his rest too. Whatever it is can surely wait a day or so. Much like the Government. We seem to be jogging along without one quite well, thank you kindly; so why stir the pot when it is nicely simmering by itself?

Let us all then recall the ever wise words of the late, dear Duke of Devonshire who, whenever faced with a decision, would listen to all the pros and cons of acting before gently sighing 'Much better not'. Wonder how Saint Paul would have reacted had he received such a reply: Letter of the Romans to Paul - 'Hi, got urs ta. Chill! On hole no. OK? CU! x.' Not well one quite imagines.