Archdruid Eileen On Encountering a Church
and Going to Church is a Waste of Time
Laurie Brock who blogs at Dirty Sexy Ministry discusses dating and the single priest: Eat, Priest, Love.
Ian Paul asks What kind of leader is Justin Welby?
Eric Pickles The Telegraph The fight against intolerance begins at home
One commentator on Ian Paul’s piece – with which Ian Paul then agrees – states that “He [Welby] has shown an immense astuteness when dealing with the press and they are not sure how to handle him.” They must have listened to different media interviews with Justin Welby than I have. Leaving aside *what* is being said, Welby comes across, to me, as defensive and often barely coherent. His main failing in media communication is starting sentences and tailing-off midway through them. And who can forget the ‘gay marriage is great’ fiasco which had to be re-framed the following day… Read more »
Re. Laurie Brock’s advice not to date someone in your parish – I spent the first twenty years of my ministry in small, isolated rural parishes. If I’d followed that advice, I’d have married a non-Christian. Or at least, a non-Anglican. Or, more likely, not have gotten married at all. As it is, I met my wife in my first parish, we’re about to celebrate 36 years of marriage, and it’s been one of the greatest blessings of my life.
Eric Pickles’ little homily in the Telegraph makes me feel rather sick, especially where he warns against false prophets “who come to you in sheep’s clothing.” Well, as Shakespeare very nearly said, even a Conservative cabinet minister can cite scripture for his purpose. What Pickles trots out is very little to do with either Christianity or Islam, though he dresses up his doctrine in the borrowed robes of faith. What he really has to offer is nothing but anodyne liberal civic religion. “Freedom of speech and freedom of religion go hand in hand,” he declares, adding “but both should operate… Read more »
Right, Tim! And you have plenty of company. Some years ago I did an informal survey. I went through the entire clergy list and found that I personally know 112 married Episcopal priests (males, in those days) well enough to be aware of their personal details. Of that number 80 had courted, wooed, and (in some cases, bedded) an active member of their congregation! (that’s over 70%) Each of them told me: “There just were no other options. I didn’t go to bars or night-clubs or any other social settings where I could have made a contact with suitable candidates.… Read more »
I am reminded by the Archdruid of this morning’s reading at Mattins. ‘And there was silence in heaven for about half an hour’. I often think that there is just too much noise in the service and not just in the services, there is too much noise everywhere. Particularly the organist filling in to ‘cover the silences’. I like the silences (and I am a former organist and generally have I nothing against them!) let’s have a little more silence and not be afraid of it.
‘The idea that the law of the state takes precedence over the demands of faith is one to which nobody should ever accede.’
Surely that depends on the nature of ‘the law of the state’ and ‘the demands of faith.’ (?) Otherwise it is a statement every jihadist could sign up to??
rjb: the implication in what you say is that faith is self-justifying, or that liberal political thought is to be welcomed insofar as it happens to coincide with an individual’s religious worldview. This is to seriously impoverish the liberal tradition. While it might be that a religious individual understands their faith as a stronger and more serious personal motivation than values of liberal tolerance, their freedom so to believe and so to act entirely presupposes those structures of liberal tolerance. Where the expression of an individual’s religious faith begins to curtail a like liberty for others, they do not merely… Read more »
Agh! Gasp! Not get married *at all*! How, before God, could you not get married *at all* and still be a Christian, let alone a priest? Aaaaaarrrrrrggggh! The Horror! The Horror!
The sense of heterosexual entitlement is strong in this thread.
Is it unconscious ?