Thinking Anglicans

opinions before Michaelmas

In The Times Jonathan Sacks writes Holy days are an annual check to mission drift.

In the Guardian Naftali Brawer also writes about Yom Kippur.

In the Church Times Giles Fraser tells us What’s right with the neo-cons.

Cif belief this week posed the question Have extremists retaken American Christianity? Answers came from Harriet Baber, Stephen Bates and Sarah Posner.

The CofE’s College of Bishops issued a statement about climate change.

George Pitcher wrote Assisted suicide: The worm has turned.

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John B. Chilton
15 years ago

Giles’ essay is a refreshing take on the neo-cons.

choirboyfromhell
choirboyfromhell
15 years ago

Giles, I’ve got to differ with you on this one. Conservatism got muddied up with the “religious purists” in the states, and lost sense of proper financial restraint in the midst of a idealistic war against justice and peace issues. It is this shift that is both attracting and creating religious zealots from the hinterlands in the USA, and obscuring the priorities of our last national election. It’s the tail wagging the dog and not the other. And the Guardian article of H. E. Baber has it backwards as well. It is Christian Extremists in the states that are influencing… Read more »

Father Ron Smith
Father Ron Smith
15 years ago

“..Thus they (the neo-Cons) came to be regarded as latter-day Crusaders, forcing through a clash of civilisations. Better internationalists would have been more respectful of difference, recognising that what works in one country may not work in the same way in another.” – Giles Fraser – In this final paragraph of his item on the neo-cons, Canon Giles is also putting his finger on the pulse of the would-be ‘neo-cons’ in the Church, the dissenters from the three-legged stool of historical Anglicanism, who would like to impress their questionable uniformity on the different Provincial Churches of the Communion. Unfortunately, both… Read more »

H. E. Baber
15 years ago

H. E. Baber has it backwards as well…This is all driven by right-winged religious groups.

My point was that most individuals involved in these groups are religious because they’re right-wing rather than right-wing because they’re religious.

Father Ron Smith
Father Ron Smith
15 years ago

” Professor D Michael Lindsay, a sociologist of Rice University, told the Washington Post: “Movements do better when they have something to oppose. It is easier to fund raise … easier to mobilise volunteers because you have an us versus them mentality and that plays very well right now for the Christian Right.” – article by Stephen Bates – Surely this is the story of the ‘Religious Right’ – wherever it may be found – especially in America at this time, where President Obama’s push for a Gospel-tyle medical benefits for all is being opposed by right-wing fundamentalists. Naturally, the… Read more »

choirboyfromhell
choirboyfromhell
15 years ago

With all due respect Dr. Baber, if you think that the likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan, and Rush Limbaugh have not inflamed, excited and motivated the public in the influence of public policy, I think that you should reconsider. As you know, leadership and group dynamics, as well as the command presence of a speaker/leader should never be underestimated. Those “Tea Parties” that happened in Washington, DC three weeks ago were not spontaneous events. They were planned, funded and executed by the influence peddlers that have too much control of our country, and they have tried mightily to do… Read more »

H. E. Baber
15 years ago

Choirboy, I’m skeptical. When I was marching in the streets in anti-war demonstrations long ago people who didn’t approve were convinced that the whole anti-war movement was planned, funded and executed by Moscow, Hanoi and a local Communist fifth column.

Demagogues like Falwell (now, by the way dead), Buchanan and Limbaugh exploit popular sentiment–they don’t create it. And in any case the public sentiment that drives the tea parties and tax-payers revolts isn’t religiously motivated. It is just plain distrust and hatred of government as such, which the religious right has exploited–not created.

drdanfee
drdanfee
15 years ago

So perhaps we shift, from pondering questions about the extremist domination of USA religion-politics-policy; to the question of why a possible Market Exists for this extremism? My best guess so far – pending some crucial new/hidden evidence or indicators – is the sheer mass and depth and rate of global change. A deep sense, often uspoken on the extremes (note plural S) – is that we all ride the unruly Tiger. In too many ways and instances to number, actually. Everybody is searching for a sense of balance and functional centering in the midst of some of the most dramatic… Read more »

Father Ron Smith
Father Ron Smith
15 years ago

Now that Michaelmass has arrived in Aotearoa/New Zealand, may we at St. Michael and All Angels Church in Christchurch offer our Love and Prayer for all of you in the Anglican Communion who are able to celebrate the angelic host in the presence of God. Prayers and Blessings

choirboyfromhell
choirboyfromhell
15 years ago

I guess my distrust and perhaps over-emphasis on “conspiracy theories” comes from my instinct to follow the money. Like the Ahmanson family who funded the whack-jobs trying to tear the fabric of the Episcopal Church, (along with -Duncan getting “saved” by the ‘academy’ down the river at American Bridge and Steel), one should look at the motivations of those who are raising cane. I still thinks it’s beyond just being opportunistic.

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
15 years ago

Father Ron Smith

Lovely church. The wooden Gothic reminds me very much of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Our parish is St. Michael’s, too, so Happy Patronal from one to another!

Father Ron Smith
Father Ron Smith
15 years ago

Thanks, Ford! “How good and wonderful thing it is brethren (& sistren) to dwell together in unity”
Good to know that there is something about the Church that we can celebrate in common. Agape!

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
15 years ago

I thought I was the only one to use the faux plural “sistren”! Sometimes written ‘sisterns’. Dear God, there’s someone else out there with my sense of humour!

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