Voices: Hot cross bun-flavoured cheese is not an ‘insult to Christianity’

I think the thing that really turned me off religion growing up was the fact that it all seemed so sombre. I went to a CofE school – not because we were Christian, that was just the closest one to my house – and I remember having to go to the church next door and sit in front of this huge statue of Jesus on the cross during events like the harvest festival. He always looked so sad (which, on reflection, made a lot of sense), and I always associated that feeling with being there, and with religion in general.

As I’ve got older, I’ve realised Christianity isn’t really like that. Christians are just as capable of having a good time as anybody else, and it’s unfair to assume they’re incapable of poking fun at themselves and the more baroque elements of their faith and traditions.

Most of the time.

Christian advocacy group Christian Concern has expressed… well, concern… over a new hot cross bun-flavoured cheese being offered by Morrisons in time for Easter. The cheese is infused with traditional hot cross bun spices, such as cinnamon, plus blueberries and raisins.

“The idea of a hot cross bun is you have got a cross and all the various spices, which represent the suffering on the cross” said Tim Dieppe, the group’s head of public policy. “I don’t really understand how you can turn all that into cheese.”

I’ll be honest, I’m not really one for Easter. I’m one of those guys who’s mostly in it for the chocolate and pastries, so the idea of even more snacking options being made available sounds like a win-win to me.

I’m also a big fan of cheese, and my philosophy is that I’ll try anything at least once – the weirder, the better. You can get salted caramel cheese, cheese infused with charcoal, cheese that looks like a monster in a John Carpenter movie – honestly, the idea of a cheese with some cinnamon and raisins in it sounds pretty pedestrian.

But I also understand the desire to keep certain things sacred, as it were. There was a similar discussion recently about Iceland selling hot cross buns with ticks on them instead of crosses, and while people like Lee Anderson and Jacob Rees-Mogg were rightly mocked for trying to use them as some kind of wedge issue in the never-ending culture war, I do understand the desire to preserve a tradition that forms a core part of something as personal as one’s faith (even when that tradition involves something as seemingly minor as a baked good).

But apparently that isn’t enough. The real issue, according to Dr Gavin Ashenden, former chaplain to Elizabeth II, is that this cheese symbolises the death of Christianity in the western world.

“Why do they always have to pick on Christian symbols? It’s not just this, it’s also Cadbury’s ‘gesture’ eggs. It’s as if anything Christian is being erased”, said Dr Ashenden. “What we are dealing with is the decay of Christendom and Christian culture… we have been told over the last 50 years that we live in a multicultural society, where everyone has a pitch, but that is wrong. It is everyone but Christians.”

See, that’s where you lose me. It’s difficult to take somebody seriously when they use the phrase “decay of Christendom” in a discussion about cheese. We aren’t doing this. This isn’t America, where you can just pretend that a Starbucks barista saying “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas” is going to undo one of the seven seals.

I live in Northern Ireland at the minute, which means that I’m surrounded by all manner of Christians (apparently there are some key differences between certain types, and they get really upset when you don’t know the difference). Once you put aside the whole looming spectre of sectarianism thing, they really don’t take themselves too seriously at all. For a country that was embroiled in a quasi-religious civil war within living memory, they sure know how to laugh at themselves.

Maybe that’s a product of living in a country where religious persecution is actually a real concern, instead of just a hypothetical. When you can’t go down certain streets, or you’ve been turned down for jobs because of your surname, or because you don’t say your mass the right way, you don’t really have time to get upset about cheese.

Maybe Christians in the rest of the UK could stand to learn a thing or two from our Northern Irish brethren. After all, surveys have indicated that the majority of people in England no longer identify as Christian – maybe it’s time to think about offering people something to bring them back to the church.

Perhaps a nice cheese platter would do it?