“Lately, the Church of England has been hellbent on a course which is almost designed to cause distress to traditionally-minded vicars and parishioners: the lowly footsoldiers who do the flowers, run the choir and generally keep their beloved old church going while raising money to send a “Parish Offer” to fund the dioceses with their cloth-eared management jargon, their painfully woke initiatives and proliferating job titles like Mission Enablers and Director of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation, with hefty salaries to match.
Some of us were under the impression that the Director of Creation job was filled rather successfully over two thousand years ago. Having lost faith in the eternal verities, the CofE now makes stipendiary clergy redundant – some rural benefices of 10 churches have to share one vicar! – while lunging for relevance with lectures like the one immortally entitled The Church and the Clitoris. Er, it’s been a while since I was a Sunday school teacher but isn’t the G in “G-spot” supposed to stand for God?
In a nutshell, the things which most Britons still value about the CofE are about to be destroyed by the very people who are meant to be its custodians. Parish priests and regular worshippers are up in arms over the “Vision and Strategy” plan which was unveiled by the Archbishop of York at the General Synod at the weekend. The new “growth strategy” is called Myriad. It means getting rid of the clergy with their tedious theological knowledge about, you know, the Bible.
Flog the vicarages! Abandon the churches, centre of our communities for centuries and a beloved part of the spiritual geography of these islands! Dispense with those annoying old parishioners, the ghastly people probably vote Tory anyway! Then – hey presto! – have 10,000 new pop-up churches led by lay people in their living rooms.”
Comment: The Death of the West is much anticipated in the US. BLM, Antifa, the hard left core of the oh, so clever Democrats who privately mock poor ol’ Joe with his demented self-image as Catholic, they all look forward to the decline and fall of everything and re-birth in the rubble of a brave new world.
I hadn’t realized that England is so far gone on the same path. pl
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2021/07/13/time-rebel-church-england-abandoning-flock/
Live in a country that shares 100% spiritual values – rights and wrongs. Live in a country where only 50% share spiritual values – rights and wrongs. Live in a country where zero percent share spiritual values – rights and wrongs.
Many of us grew up in a dominant “WASP” value USA – we took so much for granted. Now we are probably down to a 10% active “WASP value” country. Is that why life feels out of control and we find it a lot harder to co-exist?
By WASP, I don’t mean religious intolerance or any superficial litmus tests – just more traditional values – merit, hard work, honesty, family, healthy habits, decency, common sense. Things we never thought needed to be explained or protected. Values that were passed down my example as well as consequences and even punishment if they were violated.
Odd also that the most fierce religious intolerance is now shown against those who still do share, live and honor those “WASP” values. All of which many be far more media saturation than in actual daily life in this country. Turn off the hateful rhetoric in the media and life takes on a different dimension.
Well, that seems largely to follow how Methodism was derived from the established church. Lay ministry and extemporaneous prayer resulted in a streamlined Book of Common Prayer being adopted as liturgy, and the modifying/streamlining of the Thirty- Nine Articles of Religion. Though of course in Methodism there was also a theological element as well.
“A church founded upon the family values of Henry VIII.”
“…it’s been a while since I was a Sunday school teacher but isn’t the G in “G-spot” supposed to stand for God?”
Hear, hear!
On a related note when considering the latest victory of our newest neo-pagan elite initiative, I stopped into a local Mexican Restauruant late last Friday for a meal. Sat at the bar, said grace over my dinner. The young hispanic man next to me noticed and made a point of saying he appreciated that. Which led to a good conversation over dinner. When we consider Biden and his administration abandoning Cuba to the god-less communists we should wonder whether they have realized yet that not all those crossing our Southern border do so to avail themselves of lgbtq+, democratic-socialism, BLM, Antifa, CRT and the California dole.
Catching up and passing their American brethren, the Episcopal Church which has been on a death march for the past 20 years.
Jesus – a trans social worker.
Colonel – I’m afraid the article is more or less accurate.
More or less – there are still plenty of good people in the Church and in odd corners here and there good things happening. But one senses even that’s against the flow.
Trouble is, there are simply no longer enough of the faithful around. And the Long March through the Institutions didn’t even have to break step, as it overran that lovely old shambles of a Church.
[First post here. I like to come in with a bang.]
Religion is for stupid people.
This is because religion is that which leads to the Garden. And what is in the Garden, besides rivers and trees? Stupid people. The Prophet Muhammad said: “The majority of the inhabitants of the Garden are ‘bulh'”. ‘Bulh’ is an Arabic word which means simpleminded. It can also be a euphemism for stupid.
Rumi, who doesn’t mince words, said the following: “Whithersoever you turn, there is the Face of Allah.” [Qur’an 2:115]. This is a Face that extends forever and ever. Lovers have sacrificed themselves for the sake of that Face, desiring nothing in return. The rest of people are like cattle. (Discourses of Rumi)
Thus, we have a distinction in Islam between those who seek the Garden, and those who seek the Face of Allah.
Likewise in Christianity, we have a distinction between those who seek the Garden, and those who seek the Kingdom of Heaven, which the Bible says is all about you, i.e., around you, and within you, but you do not see it. To see the Kingdom of Heaven, you have to be born again, i.e., death and resurrection, which is the goal of every mystic religion, including Christianity.
Those who seek spirituality, whether in Christianity or in other religions, are actually closer to true Christianity than the Church is, for the Church has always been an enemy of spirituality.
Just a musical teminder of the good old days,
when one could totally and unabashedly celebrate our Western civilization (aka Western Christendom),
as composed by the great Saxon Georg Friederich Händel:
the four anthems he wrote for the coronation in 1727 of the Hanoverian monarch and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, George II:
https://youtu.be/vAyVVqseYZo
Thank you for this link, Keith. Magnificent.
Here’s to King-to-be Charles!
Not to take anything away from QEII,
but I hope she gives her son the opportunity to be King before too much longer,
and gives him the opportunity to hear that glorious music sung in his honor.
If she abdicated she would get to hear it too 🙂