Mark Clavier Well-Tempered Churches and the Burden of Bureaucracy
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love The Diocese of Southwark – an archetypal story of flourishing and decline
Tim Wyatt‘s weekly blog The Critical Friend looks at Christian Nationalism and some bishops.
Malcolm Johnson Guarding the Flock Mandatory Reporting and the Confessional
As one who grew in ministry in the years Colin describes, and indeed trained in the same place, I am grateful for his personal reflections.
For me the Church of England above parish level seems a more intrusive and much less generous and open space than it was.
Yes, emphasis is often put on inclusion, or even ‘radical inclusion’ but committed pastoral care, tolerance of difference and acceptance of a broad range of outlooks seems in significant decline. Mercifully I often find such qualities in everyday parishes, but not so much in church life above parish level.
I agree. Our strength is in our parishes. Previously I have been involved at Diocesan Synod level as Lay Chair for 16 years. Now (maybe because I’m now over 80),I don’t miss it. I just turn up each week, sometimes serve and occasionally preach.
I just wonder where the next generation is in this sort of commitment. I only missed Sundays if I were on holiday – not because cousin Gladys was coming to lunch!
Christian Patriotism and Christian Nationalism are used to describe a broad range of different views as Wyatt explores in the blog above and so should be used carefully indeed, if at all. Much like the word ‘woke’ they can be used lazily to describe the things we personally find distasteful. This should not stop us being extremely concerned about the growing popularity of some very alarming, well funded and divisive views about faith, race, immigration and culture. I do note however that the two terms Christian Patriotism and Christian Nationalism rather conveniently abbreviate to ‘Pat-c’ and ‘Nat-c’…
Re Wyatt’s article, I never did like PCA (Principle Component Analysis), almost as much as I don’t like the term ‘actionable insights’.
I agree very much that we need to be extremely cautious about the ways data was gathered.
However, the analysis does leave me feeling ‘so what – what should be done?’.
Not a complaint about Wyatt’s summary, just a general comment.
The Theos report summarised by Tim Wyatt has a formal similar to opinion polls and is based on comparable numbers, about 1700 people interviewed in Britain. That’s great if you’re exploring questions like ‘Does 30% of the population support such-and-such?’ But issues about Christian nationalism are likely to be expressed by much smaller percentages, because the number of regular Anglican churchgoers is now about 1% of the population. Those Anglican attendees might be very worried if a similar 1% of people began to claim Christianity represented something the Anglicans feel it doesn’t. But that might be of no concern to… Read more »
Nothing Laz-c about that!
T. S. Eliot, no less, argued that the ultimate destination of unchecked modern liberalism in the church is a form of totalitarianism, which inevitably steps in as a desperate, heavy-handed bureaucracy to fix the chaos that liberalism itself created.