An Accidental Modern Boniface Emerges

England proclaims to be a secular land, acknowledging only reason, and ordered apart from God. It is even socially unacceptable to be a Christian in England—the faithful are inferred to be simple-minded, backwards, and rather primitive.

I have long found this manner of thought to be not just false, but hypocritical. Man is a religious creature, so the societies he creates are also religious. It’s arrogance on behalf of modern man to look back on every culture of antiquity and reduce them to religious primitivism, while heralding oneself as some kind of paragon of evolutionary success. The religiosity can be a little harder to see in the modern age, for the “secular” man doesn’t refer to what he worships quite so explicitly, but it’s still there.

A 16-year-old boy has just been arrested in England for cutting down a much-beloved tree. The 200-year-old Sycamore Gap tree had stood next to Hadrian’s Wall (built by the Roman army in 122 AD) and had become a monument in its own right. But, it’s just a tree. How can a culture that prides itself on reason and secularism then seek to punish someone for cutting down a tree? Well, the English had become very attached to the tree, and are emotional about its loss. “This is an incredibly sad day,” police superintendent Kevin Waring said.

Don’t misunderstand—trees serve a useful purpose and can sometimes make for a pretty landscape. This isn’t a call for the eradication of all trees or the destruction of landmarks. I admit that I am a religious creature with loves and attachments. These people do not. Yet, look how the mayor of North of Tyne reacted to the loss of the tree:

Our collective soul? That sounds awfully spiritual. The tree had, for many, taken on a deep religious significance. Thus, it seems apt that it should go.

The story made international news, showing the group love of a kind of pagan idol, which has been given the power of law. The idea of laws that enforce Christian values are scoffed at—blue laws, blasphemy laws, and Sabbath rests representing an age long gone—an era they have supposedly outgrown. But, touch their tree and face the consequences.

It’s difficult to not be reminded of St. Boniface, who was an English monk sent to convert Frisians and Germanic tribes to Christianity in the 8th Century. Pagans were worshipping an oak tree and planning to sacrifice a child to it. He chopped the tree down, demonstrating the power of his God over theirs. Some of the pagans immediately converted. It too, was just a tree, but one that held power over their lives (and souls).

The boy who chopped down the tree at Hadrian’s Wall likely wasn’t engaging in such an obviously religious action, but was more than likely just trying to be obnoxious. Perhaps he found the group worship of the tree to be pathetic or befuddling. He was met with rage, indignation, and religious fervor over the felling. He became an accidental modern Boniface in a culture of pagans.

The sentimentality around this tree shows that people haven’t become “more reasonable”, nor have they outgrown religion. If anything, this goes back to the paganism of before Christianity reached England, at a time when the Druids were sacrificing children to the gods of nature. The yearning for the one true God is deep within man, so he will always be drawn to emotional attachments. He cannot be satisfied by the utilitarianism of modern life. He is made for more. Thus, he attempts to fill that desire with other things, but those scaffolds ultimately fell, for he can find satisfaction only in unity with his maker.