Alan Wilson continues his BCP series in The Guardian with The Book of Common Prayer, part 8: Liturgy and society. “The BCP is defined far more by liturgical statements than dogmatic formularies, offering a distinctive concept of uniformity.”
Christopher Howse asks in the Telegraph Who’d be seen dead in an ill-dressed grave? and “rues the coming of new funerary rites that find a place for teddy bears”.
Stephen Tomkins and Nicholas Taylor write in The Guardian about Halloween: saints vs devils. “Catholic bishops think dressing up as saints, rather than devils, is a holier way to mark Halloween. What are the pros and cons?”
Sue Blackmore has been to a baptism and writes about it in The Guardian: Fighting talk in church. “At a family baptism I was appalled when the congregation was called to combat aggressive atheists – I don’t want to fight.”
Bernard Leikind writes in The Guardian that Job suffered alone – and so must we. “Many believe a caring, personal God has their welfare in mind, but the Book of Job provides little to support this view.”
Rowan Williams preached this sermon The purpose of fasting at a service of thanksgiving to mark the Global Day of Prayer for the millennium development goals at St Paul’s Cathedral in Kolkata. “Fasting is about more than going without food – it is connecting with reality and noticing the suffering of your neighbour.”
This is also available on the Archbishop’s website: Archbishop’s MDG sermon at Kolkota Cathedral.
Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times that Christianity is like being rescued.
John P Richardson (The Ugley Vicar) asks Why has Reform failed?
I’m amazed that a seemingly intelligent and educated man like John Richardson can “stumble” over the hurdle of “male headship” in the Reform Covenant, but apparently have no problem with the insistence on a 6000-year-old Earth and a six-day special creation in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.
I refer to John Richardson’s comment in:
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/10/society-of-saint-augustine-explained.html
Sue Blackmore obviously found out what some of the Church of England has become, in its move to a sect like mentality.
The Chicago Statement is new to me. Sounds even more idiotic than the early 20th c. fundamentalist pronouncements. Flat earth, anyone?
The most painfully difficult thing for me is Sue Blackmore understanding ‘Unless you receive the Kingdom as a child’ to mean ‘Unless you receive it while you are still a child’ instead of ‘unless you receive the Kingdom in the same way as a child would receive it. Oh dear – how hard to explain our faith is!
“Augustine’s sense that some original sin is what keeps us trapped is often disparaged. And I also want to resist his unhelpful association of this sin with sex. None the less, the idea that human beings are a bit like alcoholics on a 12-step programme — where we must first accept that we are incapable of helping ourselves, and that we need assistance from elsewhere in order to set things right — seems exactly right.” – Giles Fraser, Church Times – Fr. Giles speaks of the deep-seated reality at the heart of the Christian enterprise. Far from the current fundamentalist… Read more »
The Augustinian model is profoundly flawed, in that it allows the concept of “the Elect.” While fundies are constantly speaking (I won’t say striving, as their hypocrisy has been far too evident) for pietism, a code of conduct, the Augustinian theory is no less prone to misuse – indeed, I’m not sure that it was that sound in its conception. A preferable model would be to speak in terms of being born into a sort of universal ignorance, a mean animal-level of existence. “Sin” is a fairly neutral word, itself, but has come to have the connotation of willed evil… Read more »