Lest we forget that the Church is just as ridiculous

I am ever conscious when I write about anything institutional be it politics, education, or social issues that the Church is not much different. Indeed in many senses it is is more ridiculous than most!

Blogging, as I have been, about the raucous political events that no sees Australia with its first woman Prime minister, I have noted how commentators often seem obsessed by what women wear.

Well lest we forget my aforementioned truth that the Church is just as bizarre, here's a little story about how one of my heroes, Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori who happens to be the Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church, was trifled with during a recent visit to Southwark Cathedral in London.

Apparently the Dean of Southwark made the mistake of asking what protocols might need to apply and was told make from the Archbishop of Canterbury's office, that she should not wear her hat!! (that is, the special hat called the 'mitre' which recalls the tongues of flames which came on the first apostles at Pentecost)

This curiosity is all the more curious when you consider there had been other occasions where she had been seen out in public hat and all (see the follow up here!!)

Bishop K kindly went along with this power-play and carried her hat!

In a Communion, where we have at times prided ourselves on the fact that at least we can be civil. It is offensive when such pettiness takes place.

Loss of faith

The Archbishop of Canterbury recently lamented the loss of Christian culture (here) and laid the blame at the feet of 'pluralistic' education.

I have some sympathy with this. In promoting everything, we promote nothing. At a local school recently year 6 and 7 children were told to look at SE Asia and pick a dominant religion to investigate. They were specifically told not to look at Christianity. The teacher wasn't being (she thought) anti-Christian she was rather making the assumption that most kids in that school would know about Christianity. I think this assumption makes more assumptions than it asserts.

I well remember when I was a teacher in the 70s, our principal challenging the school over the Easter weekend to find out what Easter was all about.

In those days most of the kids had some idea it was about Jesus and his crucifixion. Not so sure that is true. I certainly can no longer assume 30 years aftyer I was ordained that a random group of Aussies can more or less sustain the Lord's Prayer with a little help from their friends. This is not, I think, because of an embarrassment about praying publicly. It is because by and large we have no clue.

Strangely the army did quite a lot to sustain religious culture. So, service men and women of WWII and to a lesser extent Vietnam, probably were made to recite the Lord's Prayer on parade. Now that there are less of them they don't permeate a funeral in the same way so you can't always be assured even the 'traditional' words will be picked up.

Does it matter? The loss of common heritage. I think it does. I always go back to the way the Bible stories permeate English literature.

How on earth do you (for example) understand Wilfred Owen's devastating poem. The Parable of the Young Man and the Old...if you don't understand what the sacrifice of Isaac is all about, or that it comes from the bible, or what sacrifice is about?

I think Rowan Williams is right, not just or only from the religious point of view. But from the cultural point fo view also.

The GAFCON Con

I have been slow to comment on the so called "Global Anglican Future's Conference" (GAFCON), as Anglicans Online observed last week, one may just as well let the dust settle until we can really see what has happened.
Perhaps the most trenchant criticisms are those which suggest that a group met which (allegedly) represented an enormous number of the poorest Anglican Christians, and made no comment about poverty issues, and the health crisis on the African continent. Indeed a number of commentators have suggested that despite the continued insistence that it is the AfricanChurches whose noses are most put of joint by all this, the sort of realignment that GAFCON is promoting will actually serve the interests of rich disaffected Anglicans in North America, Australia and the UK.
Twas ever so
Some interesting reflections here
What is the Bishop of Rochester up to?
What is the Archbishop of Sydney up to?
What is the Archbishop of Canterbury up to?