Fortsätt till huvudinnehåll

The poor old Church of England


019 Canterbury Cathedral Nave facing west
Originally uploaded by Eric Rochester

The Church of England is going through one its periods of agonisation. It would never have existed were it not for Henry_VIIIs divorce, though the Reformation would probably have affected the church in England in some way, even if it were not for the Tudor king.

It has always been a three-way compromise between those who would like to have remained Roman Catholic, the genuine Protestants - the so-called evangelicals - who adhere closely to scriptural texts, and the ones in-between, probably the largest number, who just want to live-and-let-live. It has held together because nobody has generally pushed principle too hard. A few, like John Wesley, went off to found the Methodists, and from Newman's time there was a trickle into the Roman Catholic church, but the C of E has remained the dominant Christian grouping in England until recent years.

The points at issue this time are the appointment of openly gay clergy, women priests and bishops. Both the evangelical wing don't like it for scriptural reasons and the Catholic wing don't like it because it would absolutely prevent a corporate reunion with Rome.

Now, some Anglicans who see themselves as Catholics are seeking some form of reunion with Rome. One of the many problems is that there is already a Roman Catholic church in Britain with its own structure of dioceses and its own parishes. How could one have a Roman Catholic parish of, say, Catford and an Anglican Catholic parish of Catford, with their own churches and clergy a few hundred yards apart? Would they come under the authority of separate bishops both covering the same area?

How could this possibly happen? In any case, the RC church could not automatically accept former Anglican clergy as its own clergy; they would have to go through a period of formation and scrutiny so that the RC bishops were satisfied that these new clergy satisfied their own standards, which whilst not necessarily better or worse, are certainly different. And bishops have to be appointed from Rome when vacancies arose, so it is understandable that they would be reluctant to "go over"

Some people might say that these Anglicans who are seeking to join as entire communities want to have their cake and eat it, which would be unkind, but sadly, that is the truth of the matter. It is understandable why people whose ancestors may have been Anglicans for generation, and with long-standing friends in their church, would not want to make the break. And for the clergy, it means loss of job and home, which is a heavy price to pay. Which has given rise to this wish for the entry of entire communities into the (Roman) Catholic church.

So it comes back to the usual answer. If people feel the need to join the Church of Rome, which is not the same thing as leaving the Church of England, they have to do it as individuals. People cannot expect other people to make the decision for them. And there is always a price for the admission ticket - loss of friends, loss of job opportunities, giving up cherished practices, etc. Everyone has to decide for themself.

Kommentarer

Populära inlägg i den här bloggen

Importing people to sustain demand

I got involved in a discussion with a Youtuber called “Philosophy all along”. This was in connection with criticism of Trump’s policy of deporting illegal migrants, which he argued would be bad for the economy as it would reduce demand. This implies that there is a need to import people to sustain demand. There is no obvious reason why a population should not be able to consume everything that the same population produces. If it can not, then something else is going on. It is a basic principle that wages are the least that workers will accept to do a job. Wages are a share of the value added by workers through their wages. The remainder is distributed as economic rent, after government has taken its cut in taxes. Monopoly profit is a temporary surplus that after a delay gets absorbed into economic rent. Land values in Silicon Valley are an example of this; it's like a gold rush. The miners get little out of it. Rent and tax syphon purchasing power away from those who produce the g...

The dreadfulness of British governance

I wrote to my MP on two entirely separate issues recently. The first was to do with the replacement for the Inter City 125 train, which at £2.6 million per vehicle, is twice as expensive as it ought to be. The second concerned the benefits of a switch from business rate and Council Tax to a tax based on site values. In both cases, the replies were full of spurious, unsubstantiated assertions and completely flawed arguments. This is typical. You will not get an iota of sense from the government on any area of public policy at all - finance, economics, trade and employment, agriculture, housing, health, transport, energy. All junk. If you write to your MP you will invariably receive answers that are an insult to your intelligence, no matter what subject you are writing about. Of course they cannot understand statistics. They are innumerate. Whitehall is staffed with idiots with a high IQ. Look at their IT projects. And mind your purse, they will have that too.

How much more will the British tolerate?

The British are phlegmatic, tolerant and slow to rouse. Thus there was no great reaction after the terrorist attack in July 2005. The murder of Lee Rigby created a sense of outrage, but nothing more, since it appeared to be an isolated incident. Two serious incidents within a fortnight are another matter. Since the first major terrorist incident in 2001, authority has tried to persuade the public that Islam is a religion of peace, that these were isolated events, or the actions of deranged "lone wolves", having nothing to do with Islam, or to reassure that the chances of being killed in a terrorist attack were infinitesimally small. These assurances are are beginning to wear thin. They no longer convince. If government does not act effectively, people will take the law into their own hands. What, however, would effective action look like? What sort of effective action would not amount to rough justice for a lot of innocent people? Given the difficulties of keeping large n...