THE NEW VICAR

A BABE WITH A BOB CUT AND MAGNIFICENT BOSOMS

Once a month several students from Bethany Theological Seminary and Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, IN, gather together in our classmate’s living room to watch two or three episodes of The Vicar of Dibley. The Vicar is one of the BBC’s most popular comedies that ran for ten years and is now in syndication, making a return visit to television sets in the USA. It is the story of a small village assigned its first female vicar and how lives are changed by that experience. The show still continues to be popular enough, even on reruns, to get seminary students to sacrifice an evening of study time to watch them.

With the plethora of British comedies available, one wonders why The Vicar of Dibley, and why now, in this period of the universal church. At a time when most Christian religions are suffering from a drop in membership and many ministers are preaching to empty pews, does a comedy about religious matters merely poke fun at a serious problem or could it be a help in getting people back into the church and seated once again in the pews? With the number of church goers dwindling, many believe it’s time to revisit what church and religion mean to people and then be ready to make some changes. Worldwide movements like the Emergent Church have been working on this situation for several years. While I don’t necessarily think that the writers and actors in The Vicar of Dibley see themselves as Church reformers, I do believe that their work may have that potential.

Although The Vicar of Dibley is a comedy, it takes on several serious issues of necessary changes in the concept of church. The first is the most obvious, the ordination of women as priests. The second is how people see priests and what their expectations are of how they should act. The third is the place of humor in religion, if there is one. The fourth issue is the definition of what a church truly is.

Change is difficult for everyone. There is a comfort in things always being the same, even if the things aren’t working properly. The people of the village of Dibley are a mix of the wealthy and the rural farmers, mostly in their senior years, who are portrayed as “tragic victims of experimentation with hormone replacement.” Let’s eavesdrop while three of the oldsters in the village talk about the changes a woman vicar will have in their community.
“Things have to change.”
“That’s right. Look at traffic lights. If they didn’t change there’d be terrible congestion.”
“Then there’s gravity. If gravity changed we’d all go floating up into space. No one wants that.”
“There’s good change and bad change.”
“That’s right. There’s the changing of the guard, isn’t there?”

Change comes to the village of Dibley when their vicar dies of old age during a church service and is replaced by a female vicar. The ordination of women as priests was very controversial in the Church of England as this series began, and continues to be controversial in many church denominations today. Woman vicars were not received well by many in the Anglican Church. A sign posted on a church in real life said,“The Church of England Murdered Today by the parody of an ordination service in Bristol Cathedral as the first priestesses are created. Pray for those who mourn the death of their church.” Other comments broadcasted in television interviews and written in newspapers, (which are mentioned on the DVDs writer’s commentary), were just as bad. They said things like, “Anglican Vicar says woman priests should be burnt as witches.” “When you have a strong male leadership you have a strong church.”

David Horton (played by Gary Waldhorn), the chairman of the parish council of Dibley echoes the real life sentiment. “If Jesus wanted women appointed to spread the gospel, he would have appointed them. It’s Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John not Sharon, Tracy, Tara, and Debby.” Or “Our little community will not react well to the indignity of a vicar in high heels and will rally behind me in the desire to keep up the traditions that made this village and the Church of England what they are today.” Fortunately the others in the village are open to the change and want to give the new vicar a chance to at least give one sermon and then make a decision. Geraldine, the show’s vicar, preaches and the usual crowd of four is multiplied to a full house and she stays with full consent of the parish council, even an unconvinced but impressed David Horton.

Richard Curtis, the creator and main writer of the series, was inspired by a real life woman vicar, Joy Carrol. Interested in the fact that Joy was one of the first women vicars, he also saw a fun side of the women in this position. Apparently during one of his visits to her house, he saw a cup she had that read, “Lead me not into temptation. I can find it myself.” This opened the way to a more comedic approach to the portrayal of the woman vicar. Up to now the myth of vicars in general was that they were super human, super spiritual, on a par with God. When Dawn French, the actress who plays Geraldine, the vicar of Dibley, met Joy, she had this stereotype in mind. She asked Joy, “Why is a young woman like you a Christian in the first place, let alone a priest? What about having fun and being a young woman who’s going to have a good life and a good time?” Apparently Joy convinced her that one can be a priest and have fun, because Dawn claims to fashion her naughty, irreverent style after Joy.

Geraldine shows the world that female priests are good people, real people, with all the same problems, needs, and desires that all people have. She is often shown as lonely and desiring male companionship. In several episodes she develops crushes on men. When questioned by one of the villagers she simply states, “He’s a man. I’m a woman. He’s a religious broadcaster. I’m a vicar. He’s Scottish and I like Scottish biscuits.” Basically she is a woman beneath the cassock and collar. Geraldine doesn’t wear the traditional priestly cassock, except when in the pulpit. She freely flaunts her voluptuous body in stylish and colorful clothing and funky hats. She is proud of the body she has been given and offers the world the incarnation of a very generous and bountiful God. I think that is what makes her popular, not only in the show but also to the people watching it. The myth of vicars being superhuman, super spiritual, drab and uninterested in the wonder of life was simply that, a myth, and the character of Geraldine has broken it and replaced it with reality.

A sense of humor is a necessity of life, especially in hard times such as the ones many people find themselves in today. It is a necessity for a priest dealing with people one finds in Dibley, or many other villages, towns, and cities in real life. Humor is a large part of what this show is. It is spread out throughout the show, intermingled with some serious and poignant moments as well. It is this mix that keeps the humor above board so that it is not merely irreverent jokes about religion. Richard Curtis says that “because the characters themselves are very good and sincere people, they could write naughty, disrespectful stuff but one would think, no matter how rude, there was never any malice in what was said.” That is why the show can present people who are nitpicky like Frank, bright but dumb like Hugo, in strange relationships with animals like Owen, simple minded like Alice, and who say no,no,no,no then finally yes like Jim, and make them believable as real people with something that all viewers can recognize within themselves. Geraldine is simply a nice person who believes strongly in human goodness and believes all humans should be treated well, no matter how ridiculous they act. But isn’t that the true personality and purpose of a priest of the church, and the people in the church as well?

Geraldine changes the village of Dibley. They become people who care about each other, even with all of their imperfections, because that is how their vicar is. Her character is one of great appetite for everything - for chocolate and men - that makes her very human, and - for her faith and her interest in people - that makes her a very good vicar. She has a well rounded character, interested in religious matters, political issues, social issues, but most of all human issues. She is so nice she can’t turn down anyone’s
invitation for Christmas lunch, so she ends up eating four huge meals in a matter of hours. She brings Hugo and Alice together after 26 years of flirting by putting them in the same room and yelling, “Oh for heaven’s sake; just kiss each other, you morons!” She turns the picture of Jesus she has on her wall over while waiting for her date, saying, “I just don’t think it’s going to be your sort of evening.” She makes the people of the village wear white armbands to support the cause of “Making Poverty History.” She makes the people care about one another. Over the lifetime of the series there comes into being an emotional texture of people who truly need each other. It is the vicar who brings that about by her love for the people of the village. She makes a “church” out of a group of people which is what the real world of people needs today.

The real vicar, Joy Caroll, says of the show, “It has done good for the cause of women, the cause of the church and ultimately for the cause of God.” Seminary students agree that the church would do well to add a bit of the Vicar of Dibley to their list of shows to watch and learn from. With all the humor, with all the jokes, with all the naughty and possible questionable things on the show, there is at the heart of it a message of God.

Geraldine’s introduction to the village is: “You were expecting a bloke, with a beard, Bible, bad breath. Instead you got a babe with a bob cut and magnificent bosoms.” Her first sermon is a mix of humor and religious flavor. “I know a lot of you are surprised to find that your new vicar is a woman. Not as surprised as me. I was convinced all through my teens that naturally I would become a super model. And then one day I read the Sermon on the Mount and it was so fantastic, that was it. I decided there and then to
abandon the cat walk and give the dog collar a try. So here I am, at your service, totally yours, any time, any day. But if you come to see me first thing in the morning wear dark glasses.” From then on you are hooked. Here is a priest I want to know. But her speech right before the Christmas pageant is what the world needs to hear now more than ever. And yes, one hears it from a BBC comedy out of the mouth of a woman playing the role of a vicar in a made up village of Dibley, but it speaks a truth as simple as it is real.

“Two thousand years ago a baby was born in a stable, poorest of the poor. And yet during his life time he says things that are so astonishing that millions of people are still living their lives by them today.”