Sunday 8 February 2026
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
(Matthew 5:13, 14)
I woke up late, and got to church later than usual. I felt like I had a wire loose and something on my mind.
The day before my wife and I had managed a rare trip to the theatre to see High Noon, at the Harold Pinter theatre in London.
The building is a marvel of 19th century engineering, built in only six months back in the 1880s, so you excuse the feeling you have that the whole place leans towards the neighbours.
The balcony seats felt impossibly high, almost like being dangled from the chandeliers by your ankles. But they suited our budget, and the view was still spectacular.
The play was excellent too. A compelling version of the film that originally starred Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly.
The theatre production featured Billy Crudup (the self-proclaimed “Golden God!” in Almost Famous) as Will Kane, and Denise Gough, who we weren’t familiar with but who was superb, as his wife Amy. The entire cast made the point well that the West End is the best of theatre.
At the end I stood up to applaud just like everyone else. Which is when I noticed the Abolish ICE sign held up at the front by a cast member, who then raised a fist when leaving the stage.
Suddenly I was no longer in the American West. I was back in the front page of a newspaper. From a wonderful performance of moral principle, and of right vs wrong, I was back in the murky and tragic world of activism.
I’m not sure what bothered me most. Was it that the play had spoken for itself, and didn’t need a clumsy banner to remove any faith in the audience to grasp the play’s meaning.
Or was it the simplicity in the argument. That it was reductive, and overlooked the play’s moral themes and how they weren’t as black and white as the ink of the protest banner.
It implied the tragic events in Minnesota, were not in fact complex, did not need careful thought, or a sense of compassion and understanding. But could be summed up so simply. For or against. Compliance or a raised fist.
And I thought about the gospel, which is often delivered at just the right moment, of being the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and a city on a hill.
It’s a truism to say that politics has infiltrated everywhere. Especially culture, film, and the stage.
As I sat forward in my seat, dodging vertigo, completely engrossed in the play, I didn’t think about a cause. I was watching a man coming to terms with his conscience, and what to do when the world abandons you to it.
It was the agony of his situation that made it so compelling.
You see it in A Man for All Seasons, the play about Thomas More, in which More goes to his death to protect his own conscience, just as others protect theirs.
The bitter isolation of doing what you feel is right in a world that would rather you do what seems safer. More reasonable.
I can see how the anti-Trump, anti-ICE protestors might claim that to be their cause. But it works the other was as well.
Whatever my disappointment, the play stuck with me. Perhaps more than the film. It’s the nature of a stage production to feel like you’re actually watching it take place in real time (and the use of a large station clock above the stage to remind you of Will Kane’s looming fate worked particularly well).
I don’t know how this ties in with the beatitudes, or being the salt of the earth, the light of the world, or a city on a hill. But the nature of the two main characters — who disagreed with each other fundamentally, and from justified moral positions — might come close.