An edited version of the remarks by Cranmer's Curate at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting of the Parish Church of the Ascension, Oughtibridge on April 26th:
We are by God’s grace in a pretty positive phase at the moment as a church family. And we should thank God for that. The encouragements have been celebrated this evening. God has been very good to us this year and there is a sense that the church is turning a corner. And that is down to the fact that God has been doing some team building around here – building a team of committed Christian people who want to see their church and the church they’re bringing their children to move forward.
But we must be careful that we don’t overstate 'the recovery', if you like. We remain a fragile church. It is true of course that all churches of all shapes and sizes in all cultures are vulnerable to all sorts of things - false teaching, division, persecution, spiritual apathy and lack of commitment, ungodliness, the sin that so easily entangles.
Particular vulnerability of small church
But the particular vulnerability about our parish church is that we are not yet viable and sustainable in relation to the commitments that we have, two buildings and our own full-time ministry of Word and Sacrament.
In order to become sustainable, our church needs effectively to double in size as an adult congregation and to double our annual income through planned giving. We can pack a room full of children and their parents fairly easily now – witness the Good Friday event absolutely packed. That’s great, very encouraging, but you can’t sustain a church on well-attended annual events. It’s the number and quality of regular adult Christian disciples you have in your church that makes for viability.
Great privilege to serve the church
I count it a great privilege to serve you as your vicar and to serve the growing number of enthusiastic and committed Christians here. I’m becoming increasingly aware of the fact our busiest and most effective people in the church family are those with the most pressures on them and I want to say that I hugely respect you and it’s an honour to serve you.
As we look forward God willing to a positive year of evangelism and continuing encouragement, I’d like to identify a couple of threats to that if I may. All churches are prone to these, but because we are quite small the impact of these registers harder on us. Two words beginning with d, dastardly d’s we might call them, nasty d words.
Distraction
Distraction first off. By that I mean a church with limited resources getting distracted from our core Aims for Growth, our prayerful desire under God to see this church grow into sustainability. I would include under this heading of distraction what one might call romantic ecumenical activity – churches together stuff or rather more of it than we are already doing. We are ecumenical – we do things together with the other Christian churches in the parish and have done for many years now but the fact is that if there is not a sustainable Anglican parish church here, we won’t have anything to be ecumenical with.
When we are struggling sometimes to fill the roles that need to be filled to enable our church to fulfil its mission, pressure for more ecumenical activity does seem a distraction.
I must also add that people who straddle churches are really quite disruptive to small churches that are looking to become viable. People really do need to commit as individuals, as married couples, as families to one church family and to be part of that local body of Christ. If we give people permission, tacit or vocal, to play games with fragile local churches, whether it’s us or the chapels or other churches in the diocese, we ill serve God’s Church.
Division
Second dastardly d – division. There’s the line in that wonderful hymn The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord - ‘Though with a scornful wonder men see her (the Church) sore oppressed, by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed; yet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up: How long?’
By heresies distressed. An old-fashioned word but heresy basically is unbiblical, wrongful teaching that can arise in the Church. I do hope and pray that we don’t get that here because it does cause division. When some people buy into it and others of us don’t want to buy into it, unfortunately you have a necessary division there and arguments. You certainly don’t want consensus around false teaching. I sincerely pray we will be united around the central truths of the gospel – that we won’t catch the Anglican version of the disease, which is liberalism, soft-pedalling, even denying, the supremacy and uniqueness of Christ, the infallibility of the Bible, and biblical standards of holiness in personal morality. May we be, by God’s grace, spared the division caused by false teaching.
Pursuing our Aims of Growth
So this coming year may we be given grace to avoid the big bad d’s of distraction and disunity and instead to work together as minister and congregation to pursue our Aims of Growth and to proclaim the living Christ by word and by deed to his eternal praise and glory.
May this be by God’s grace a really positive year of evangelism and spiritual growth for the parish church. In the name of the Father, and of Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sunday, 30 May 2010
Thursday, 27 May 2010
DO UNTO TEC-ISTS AS YOU WOULD TO THE MOONIES
This first appeared on the US-based orthodox Anglican news service VirtueOnline:
Mrs Jefferts Schori has expressed confidence that TEC's promotion of Mr Robinson and now Ms Glasspool is gaining acceptance in the wider Anglican Church. That is of course the revisionist strategy in a nutshell. Push out the boundaries of what is acceptable and wait for the visible Church to get used to it.
But, if I may speak personally as a parish plodder in another part of the Anglican Communion (England), I hope I would treat Mrs Schori, or any other member of TEC who shares her worldview, in the same way as I would treat an adherent of another religion. TEC-ism is a religion and in a free and democratic society its adherents should be allowed to practise their faith, under the rule of civilised law. But TEC-ism is not Christianity.
If a TEC-ist visited Sheffield and was in need of the practical assistance of a Good Samaritan, my Christian duty would be to offer it, as one should to any person made in the image of God. But I would certainly not knowingly take Holy Communion with a card-carrying TEC-ist any more than I would take Holy Communion with a Moonie.
The fact that the flag-waving Moonie may once have been confirmed or even ordained according to the rites of the Anglican Church should not make any difference.
It is unwise to be cocky in advance of a challenge one has not previously faced. I do not know how I would react under pressure from the institutional Church locally to take Holy Communion with a visiting TEC-ist at what would be effectively an inter-faith service. I pray that I would do the right thing and be given the grace and strength to endure the consequences.
It is absolutely inappropriate to take the holy symbols of Christ's 'full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world' with or from a person who has publicly, flagrantly and persistently denied the truth of Christ's Gospel and is openly advocating an alternative worldview to Christianity.
The sacrament of the Lord's Supper is Christ's, not mine. I am not free to put a desire to meet the expectations of fellow clergy in the institutional Church above loyalty to Christ. That would in fact be idolatry.
Mrs Jefferts Schori has expressed confidence that TEC's promotion of Mr Robinson and now Ms Glasspool is gaining acceptance in the wider Anglican Church. That is of course the revisionist strategy in a nutshell. Push out the boundaries of what is acceptable and wait for the visible Church to get used to it.
But, if I may speak personally as a parish plodder in another part of the Anglican Communion (England), I hope I would treat Mrs Schori, or any other member of TEC who shares her worldview, in the same way as I would treat an adherent of another religion. TEC-ism is a religion and in a free and democratic society its adherents should be allowed to practise their faith, under the rule of civilised law. But TEC-ism is not Christianity.
If a TEC-ist visited Sheffield and was in need of the practical assistance of a Good Samaritan, my Christian duty would be to offer it, as one should to any person made in the image of God. But I would certainly not knowingly take Holy Communion with a card-carrying TEC-ist any more than I would take Holy Communion with a Moonie.
The fact that the flag-waving Moonie may once have been confirmed or even ordained according to the rites of the Anglican Church should not make any difference.
It is unwise to be cocky in advance of a challenge one has not previously faced. I do not know how I would react under pressure from the institutional Church locally to take Holy Communion with a visiting TEC-ist at what would be effectively an inter-faith service. I pray that I would do the right thing and be given the grace and strength to endure the consequences.
It is absolutely inappropriate to take the holy symbols of Christ's 'full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world' with or from a person who has publicly, flagrantly and persistently denied the truth of Christ's Gospel and is openly advocating an alternative worldview to Christianity.
The sacrament of the Lord's Supper is Christ's, not mine. I am not free to put a desire to meet the expectations of fellow clergy in the institutional Church above loyalty to Christ. That would in fact be idolatry.
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
FRAGILE COALITION UNDER THREAT FROM POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
The revelation by the new Conservative Home Secretary, Mrs Theresa May, of her conversion to politically correct moral values is highly significant.
The Conservatives have long been associated with Judaeo-Christian values on family life and personal morality. Indeed Mrs May herself voted against the repeal by Labour in 2000 of the Section 28 law, introduced by the Thatcher government in the 1980s, to prevent the promotion of homosexuality to school children. She also voted against same-sex adoption in 2002.
But on the BBC's question time last week vicar's daughter Mrs May, also minister for women and equality, was challenged about her voting record on homosexual issues. She took the opportunity to announce her conversion to PC: “If those votes were today, yes, I have changed my view and I would take a different vote.”
Such comments can only contribute to the fragility of the Conservative-Liberal coalition. Backbench Conservative MPs committed to Judaeo-Christian moral values are going to find their loyalty to their leadership under increasing strain. That loyalty has already been tested by the compromises inevitable in a coalition administration.
MPs who understand the evil that has been ravaged on Britain, particularly on its young people, by the 1960s sexual revolution are bound to be searching their consciences during these difficult days. These MPs know how desperately Britain needs to return to biblical spiritual and moral values. Cavalier treatment of such deeply-held moral principles, rooted in Christ's teaching, by the forces of political correctness in the coalition leadership may push some over the edge. It would only take a rebellion by around 60 Conservative MPs to bring the Lib-Con coalition crashing down. That would force a second General Election this year.
Some Conservatives argue that the failure of their leadership to come to an arrangement with the UK Independence Party over a referendum on membership of the European Union cost their party a working majority. Such thinking could lead to the calculation that fresh leadership is needed to do the necessary deal with UKIP.
In these dire economic times, with a mountain of government debt to reduce, Britain needs political stability. Principled public servants on the Conservative back benches know that and that will push them towards supporting the coalition. But they also face the difficult calculation as to whether a bold move would cleanse their party of political correctness and send it back to its traditional Judaeo-Christian philosophical and moral moorings.
Christ's servants in British politics need our prayers in the difficult days ahead. The BCP Collect for Whit Sunday is surely very appropriate for Christian MPs currently on their knees before their Maker searching their consciences:
The Conservatives have long been associated with Judaeo-Christian values on family life and personal morality. Indeed Mrs May herself voted against the repeal by Labour in 2000 of the Section 28 law, introduced by the Thatcher government in the 1980s, to prevent the promotion of homosexuality to school children. She also voted against same-sex adoption in 2002.
But on the BBC's question time last week vicar's daughter Mrs May, also minister for women and equality, was challenged about her voting record on homosexual issues. She took the opportunity to announce her conversion to PC: “If those votes were today, yes, I have changed my view and I would take a different vote.”
Such comments can only contribute to the fragility of the Conservative-Liberal coalition. Backbench Conservative MPs committed to Judaeo-Christian moral values are going to find their loyalty to their leadership under increasing strain. That loyalty has already been tested by the compromises inevitable in a coalition administration.
MPs who understand the evil that has been ravaged on Britain, particularly on its young people, by the 1960s sexual revolution are bound to be searching their consciences during these difficult days. These MPs know how desperately Britain needs to return to biblical spiritual and moral values. Cavalier treatment of such deeply-held moral principles, rooted in Christ's teaching, by the forces of political correctness in the coalition leadership may push some over the edge. It would only take a rebellion by around 60 Conservative MPs to bring the Lib-Con coalition crashing down. That would force a second General Election this year.
Some Conservatives argue that the failure of their leadership to come to an arrangement with the UK Independence Party over a referendum on membership of the European Union cost their party a working majority. Such thinking could lead to the calculation that fresh leadership is needed to do the necessary deal with UKIP.
In these dire economic times, with a mountain of government debt to reduce, Britain needs political stability. Principled public servants on the Conservative back benches know that and that will push them towards supporting the coalition. But they also face the difficult calculation as to whether a bold move would cleanse their party of political correctness and send it back to its traditional Judaeo-Christian philosophical and moral moorings.
Christ's servants in British politics need our prayers in the difficult days ahead. The BCP Collect for Whit Sunday is surely very appropriate for Christian MPs currently on their knees before their Maker searching their consciences:
O God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
Sunday, 23 May 2010
FULL MARKS FOR POLICE OVER WHIT WALK
Amid depressing reports of police arresting Christian street preachers for sins against political correctness, Cranmer's Curate has a happy story. South Yorkshire police were most supportive of our attempt to revive the Whit Walk in our parish.
They provided a cheery community support officer to escort a group of around 15 adults and half a dozen children down Church Street carrying banners and singing 'Jesus' love is very wonderful' and 'Two little eyes to look to God'. Their officers in the communications department were also most courteous and efficient when your curate rang to ask for assistance.
Your curate has written to the Chief Constable to express appreciation. 'Oh, but that's their job and you should expect nothing less.' On one level, yes, but it is great to see our local police force positively defying the off-hand surliness that unfortunately can characterise public sector organisations in post-Christian Britain.
Yesterday's parade on a beautiful sunny day was actually more low cringe than it might sound because it had some connection into the relatively recent past in the spiritual life of the village. The Whit Walks used to happen on a large scale in Sheffield and were a recognisable feature of Christian Britain. A lady in her 30s in the congregation remembered the local Whit Walk from her childhood and wanted to revive it, so we gave it a go.
The Whit Walk, being a movable feast, was kicked into touch with the advent of the fixed Spring Bank Holiday. The same is surely likely to happen to Easter.
We had a service on Coronation Park which invited questions from some local youths and your curate had an opportunity to invite a family to our children's holiday club. So altogether it was worth doing as a witness to the living Christ.
At least it shows that the Church is not prepared to roll over and die, as the dark forces of political correctness clearly wish it to.
They provided a cheery community support officer to escort a group of around 15 adults and half a dozen children down Church Street carrying banners and singing 'Jesus' love is very wonderful' and 'Two little eyes to look to God'. Their officers in the communications department were also most courteous and efficient when your curate rang to ask for assistance.
Your curate has written to the Chief Constable to express appreciation. 'Oh, but that's their job and you should expect nothing less.' On one level, yes, but it is great to see our local police force positively defying the off-hand surliness that unfortunately can characterise public sector organisations in post-Christian Britain.
Yesterday's parade on a beautiful sunny day was actually more low cringe than it might sound because it had some connection into the relatively recent past in the spiritual life of the village. The Whit Walks used to happen on a large scale in Sheffield and were a recognisable feature of Christian Britain. A lady in her 30s in the congregation remembered the local Whit Walk from her childhood and wanted to revive it, so we gave it a go.
The Whit Walk, being a movable feast, was kicked into touch with the advent of the fixed Spring Bank Holiday. The same is surely likely to happen to Easter.
We had a service on Coronation Park which invited questions from some local youths and your curate had an opportunity to invite a family to our children's holiday club. So altogether it was worth doing as a witness to the living Christ.
At least it shows that the Church is not prepared to roll over and die, as the dark forces of political correctness clearly wish it to.
Thursday, 20 May 2010
IN DEFENCE OF IWERNE MINSTER
An evangelistic enterprise focussing on pupils at what it considers to be the 'top 30' public schools is hardly swinging with the spirit of the age. But the Iwerne Minster work, founded in the 1930s by the Revd EJH Nash to bring the Evangelical Christian message to public schoolboys through holiday camps, is still going.
Its offence to the current zeitgeist is neatly summed up in a book review in the Church Times (May 7, p23). Canon David Winter, reviewing Inside Story: The Life of John Stott by Roger Steer, declared:
Though it would be quite preposterous to describe Cranmer's Curate as remotely, in the Iwerne parlance, a 'strategic boy', an academic or sporting Tom Brown whose conversion would produce a spiritual domino effect amongst his peers, he was converted to Christian faith through the ministry of Iwerne as a teenager in the 1970s and early 1980s. The camps, which were held at Clayesmore School in the Dorset village of Iwerne Minster, were then for boys only - they went mixed in the mid-1980s.
Your curate never believed in the so-called 'top-30 rule', the rigid focus on a set of English public schools viewed as 'leading' according to 1930s' criteria. But he is hugely grateful for the ministry of Iwerne Minster. The talks morning and evening were a wonderfully clear, biblically faithful and winsome presentation of the Christian gospel of salvation.
It is not the fault of anyone that they are institutionalised in the English boarding school system from the age of eight. The fact that Iwerne Minster was prepared to bring the gospel to those so spiritually and emotionally disadvantaged is surely something to thank God for, even it did perceive its intended targets as 'strategic' in producing an evangelistic trickle-down effect nationally. This has manifestly not happened.
Clearly, in order for Iwerne to do its work, Christian men and women have needed to stay in that world and evangelise within it. Arguably, too many converted through Iwerne have been spiritually and socially unadventurous and have clung to affluent churches with a big name Iwerne preacher. But some converted through Iwerne are serving Christ out of the Home Counties comfort zone. The gospel does that to people.
There is a still a role for Iwerne in reaching a particular and in many ways disadvantaged section of the population and teaching them the message of grace from the living God which transcends social class.
Its offence to the current zeitgeist is neatly summed up in a book review in the Church Times (May 7, p23). Canon David Winter, reviewing Inside Story: The Life of John Stott by Roger Steer, declared:
He (Dr Stott) was converted as a teenager at a camp for public schoolboys by a man in khaki shorts known to them as "Bash", whose mission in life was evangelising the "leaders of the future". It took John Stott a long time to escape from the embrace of that oddly male, oddly elitist, and oddly simplistic world. He did, and that is the true "inside story" of the man.
Though it would be quite preposterous to describe Cranmer's Curate as remotely, in the Iwerne parlance, a 'strategic boy', an academic or sporting Tom Brown whose conversion would produce a spiritual domino effect amongst his peers, he was converted to Christian faith through the ministry of Iwerne as a teenager in the 1970s and early 1980s. The camps, which were held at Clayesmore School in the Dorset village of Iwerne Minster, were then for boys only - they went mixed in the mid-1980s.
Your curate never believed in the so-called 'top-30 rule', the rigid focus on a set of English public schools viewed as 'leading' according to 1930s' criteria. But he is hugely grateful for the ministry of Iwerne Minster. The talks morning and evening were a wonderfully clear, biblically faithful and winsome presentation of the Christian gospel of salvation.
It is not the fault of anyone that they are institutionalised in the English boarding school system from the age of eight. The fact that Iwerne Minster was prepared to bring the gospel to those so spiritually and emotionally disadvantaged is surely something to thank God for, even it did perceive its intended targets as 'strategic' in producing an evangelistic trickle-down effect nationally. This has manifestly not happened.
Clearly, in order for Iwerne to do its work, Christian men and women have needed to stay in that world and evangelise within it. Arguably, too many converted through Iwerne have been spiritually and socially unadventurous and have clung to affluent churches with a big name Iwerne preacher. But some converted through Iwerne are serving Christ out of the Home Counties comfort zone. The gospel does that to people.
There is a still a role for Iwerne in reaching a particular and in many ways disadvantaged section of the population and teaching them the message of grace from the living God which transcends social class.
Saturday, 15 May 2010
CHRISTIAN BRITAIN IS DEAD - GET OVER IT
There was a time when the vicar was always invited to the reception of the wedding he had just conducted. But that is now a thing of the past. You're a functionary at what is increasingly becoming a fringe activity, namely a church wedding. Don't expect to be handed a glass of champagne.
It almost seems as if some Anglican leaders, exercised about the National Secular Society attack on prayers before council meetings and the likelihood that bishops will get kicked out of the House of Lords, are missing the good old days when the established Church was always invited to the reception.
To quote the actor Mr Pierce Brosnan (speaking in this context about negative reviews), we've got to get up with it, get over it and get on with it. The British public just aren't bothered about the absence of the vicar's name from the seating plan. Some of them may describe their religion as 'Christian' on a census form but they are really not going to take to the streets over the dismantling of the last vestiges of Christian Britain.
The fact that a man (and soon a woman) in a purple shirt is no longer allowed to have an afternoon nap in the Mother of Parliaments is not going to be an occasion for the deployment of riot police.
Whilst there remains an important role for organisations such as the Christian Institute and for Christian politicians such as Lord Waddington and Baroness O'Cathain, what church leaders need to be focussing on now is the building of loving local churches full of mature Christians. Christ-like love, shaped and driven by the Cross, carries its own unique spiritual authenticity and maturity into the infantilism of a pagan culture. As the Apostle Paul taught the church in 1st century pagan Corinth:
It almost seems as if some Anglican leaders, exercised about the National Secular Society attack on prayers before council meetings and the likelihood that bishops will get kicked out of the House of Lords, are missing the good old days when the established Church was always invited to the reception.
To quote the actor Mr Pierce Brosnan (speaking in this context about negative reviews), we've got to get up with it, get over it and get on with it. The British public just aren't bothered about the absence of the vicar's name from the seating plan. Some of them may describe their religion as 'Christian' on a census form but they are really not going to take to the streets over the dismantling of the last vestiges of Christian Britain.
The fact that a man (and soon a woman) in a purple shirt is no longer allowed to have an afternoon nap in the Mother of Parliaments is not going to be an occasion for the deployment of riot police.
Whilst there remains an important role for organisations such as the Christian Institute and for Christian politicians such as Lord Waddington and Baroness O'Cathain, what church leaders need to be focussing on now is the building of loving local churches full of mature Christians. Christ-like love, shaped and driven by the Cross, carries its own unique spiritual authenticity and maturity into the infantilism of a pagan culture. As the Apostle Paul taught the church in 1st century pagan Corinth:
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I am fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13v11-13 - RSV).
Thursday, 13 May 2010
REFORM DOUBLES ITS NUMBER ON WOMEN BISHOPS WARNING
This by Cranmer's Curate first appeared on the US-based orthodox Anglican news service, VirtueOnline. As our denomination accelerates its slide toward TEC-style spiritual and moral bankruptcy, may Christ's ministry in and through Reform local churches be preserved:
Reform's letter to the House of Bishops in advance of July's General Synod advocating the case for statutory provision for opponents of women bishops has attracted 100 signatories, double the number of the first letter in February.
Significant new signatories include Reform Council member, Revd Paul Perkin, vicar of St Marks' Battersea Rise; the Revd Paul Williams, vicar of Christ Church Fulwood; the Revd Ian Gilmour, vicar of the Holy Redeemer, Streatham Vale; and the Revd Michael Neville, rector of All Saints' Fordham. Because the new letter extends the remit from 'incumbents' to 'active clergy', it is able to include Anglican church planters, such as the Revd Canon Tim Davies of Christ Church Central in Sheffield.
Reform's media statement on its latest letter is as follows:
The full text of the letter and list of signatories is here.
Reform's letter to the House of Bishops in advance of July's General Synod advocating the case for statutory provision for opponents of women bishops has attracted 100 signatories, double the number of the first letter in February.
Significant new signatories include Reform Council member, Revd Paul Perkin, vicar of St Marks' Battersea Rise; the Revd Paul Williams, vicar of Christ Church Fulwood; the Revd Ian Gilmour, vicar of the Holy Redeemer, Streatham Vale; and the Revd Michael Neville, rector of All Saints' Fordham. Because the new letter extends the remit from 'incumbents' to 'active clergy', it is able to include Anglican church planters, such as the Revd Canon Tim Davies of Christ Church Central in Sheffield.
Reform's media statement on its latest letter is as follows:
The Revision Committee’s report on Women in the Episcopate published on 8th May “provides no adequate framework for recognition of our future ministry in the Church of England and so could lead to a serious squeezing of the pipeline for future ordinands” said Revd Rod Thomas, Reform chairman today (Tuesday May 11th).
He continued: “It is very disappointing that the Committee, despite a lengthy discussion of the implications of these decisions, has voted to give no adequate statutory provision to those who cannot accept the oversight of a female bishop on Scriptural grounds.
“We very much hope that amendments will be made at July’s General Synod so that we are able to vote on a piece of legislation that seeks to include rather than exclude our ministries now and in the future.”
As evidence of the strength of feeling concerning this innovation, 100 Reform clergy have signed a letter sent to every bishop in advance of the House of Bishops’ meeting next week. This follows a similar letter signed by 50 of the clergy sent in February, and sets out why “the consecration of women bishops would be a mistake and would raise for us great difficulties of conscience and practice, as well as being wrong for our Church as a whole.”
A major practical consequence highlighted by the letter is the pipeline of future ordinands. The 100 churches represented by the letter have sent 286 men into ministry in the Church of England over the last 10 years, of whom 120 were under the age of 30. But these numbers would be seriously squeezed in the future, with Reform clergy encouraging young men to undertake training for ministries outside the Church of England’s formal structures, although within an Anglican tradition.
The full text of the letter and list of signatories is here.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
NEED FOR UNITY IN THE CHRISTIAN RESISTANCE
The general election campaign revealed a consensus between the mainstream political parties on teaching the principles of the sexual revolution to children. The three parties involved in the coalition negotiations are in favour of sex education that puts homosexuality on a moral par with heterosexuality. Indeed, a Conservative candidate was dismissed in Scotland for denying the cardinal doctrines of the sexual revolution.
The principal resistance to this ideological invasion of our children's moral education by the forces of political correctness remains Christian faith schools run by Roman Catholics and Anglicans. To be effective, the resistance must be united. The churches running faith schools sorely need to speak with one voice. Not uniform in their political affiliation or church tradition but united on the great spiritual and moral priorities of the New Testament, which are surely going to be increasingly proscribed in the UK under the new PC consensus.
The Roman Catholics are more united in their resistance than we Anglicans. There are those in positions of influence in the Church of England who are signed up to the principles of the sexual revolution.
Unfortunately, false teaching has undermined the ability of the national Church to contend unitedly against the sexual revolution and the destruction it is wreaking. That is not suprising, for division is precisely the effect of false teaching, as the Apostle Paul warns:
Church leaders who refuse unequivocally to stand up for the supremacy and the uniqueness of Christ, for the infallibility of the Bible, and for biblical standards of holiness in personal morality allow the forces of political correctness an open goal against the moral education of our children.
The principal resistance to this ideological invasion of our children's moral education by the forces of political correctness remains Christian faith schools run by Roman Catholics and Anglicans. To be effective, the resistance must be united. The churches running faith schools sorely need to speak with one voice. Not uniform in their political affiliation or church tradition but united on the great spiritual and moral priorities of the New Testament, which are surely going to be increasingly proscribed in the UK under the new PC consensus.
The Roman Catholics are more united in their resistance than we Anglicans. There are those in positions of influence in the Church of England who are signed up to the principles of the sexual revolution.
Unfortunately, false teaching has undermined the ability of the national Church to contend unitedly against the sexual revolution and the destruction it is wreaking. That is not suprising, for division is precisely the effect of false teaching, as the Apostle Paul warns:
I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive (Romans 16v17-18 - ESV).
Church leaders who refuse unequivocally to stand up for the supremacy and the uniqueness of Christ, for the infallibility of the Bible, and for biblical standards of holiness in personal morality allow the forces of political correctness an open goal against the moral education of our children.
Sunday, 9 May 2010
REVIEWING RAGE AGAINST GOD
This book review by Cranmer's Curate appeared in May's edition of the Forward in Faith magazine, New Directions:
The Rage against God
Peter Hitchens
Continuum, 168pp, pbk
978 1441 10572 1, £16.99
As a Christian apologist in the world of secular journalism, Peter Hitchens is reminiscent of Malcolm Muggeridge. But arguably his latest book is of more practical use in parish ministry than anything the Sage of Robertsbridge wrote.
Christian people in our parishes are often bewildered by the increasing aggressiveness of unbelief and the rapid disintegration of the Christian culture they felt they grew up in. They are in desperate need of a perspective on the intellectual currents of the twentieth century that have led to the spiritual and moral shipwreck of the once Christian West. They are also in need of intellectual tools to help them to cut their way through the cultural wreckage.
Mr Hitchens aims to ‘explain how I became convinced, by reason and experience, of the necessity and rightness of a form of Christianity that is modest, accommodating and thoughtful – but ultimately uncompromising about its vital truth. I hope very much that by doing so I can at least cause those who consider themselves to be atheists to hesitate over their choice. I also hope to provide Christian readers with insights they can use the better to understand their unbelieving friends, and so perhaps to sow some small seeds of doubt in the minds of those friends’ [p. 2].
He is well-placed to help beleaguered Christian readers in this respect because of his experience in debating with his famously atheist elder brother Christopher. In 2008 the pair debated publicly in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and he says the book has an agenda to complete the ‘unfinished business of that evening’.
He is also well-placed to reflect on the moral state of atheistic societies, as was Muggeridge who reported on the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Mr Hitchens was there at its demise, working as a foreign correspondent in Moscow in 1990. He is eloquent in his description of the decadence of that godless society, and its similarity with the growing anti-theism of politically-correct Britain: ‘I came to the conclusion, and nothing has since shifted it, that enormous and intrusive totalitarian state power, especially combined with militant egalitarianism, is an enemy of civility, consideration and even enlightened self-interest. I also concluded that a high moral standard cannot be reached or maintained unless it is generally accepted and understood by an overwhelming number of people. I have since concluded that a hitherto Christian society which was de-Christianised would also face such problems, because I have seen public discourtesy and incivility spread rapidly in my own country as Christianity is forgotten’ [p. 66].
Each chapter of the three-part book begins with a well-chosen Authorised Version quotation from the Psalms. Part One charts Mr Hitchens’ personal journey through atheism in the 1960s when he burnt his Bible through to his rediscovery of Christian faith in the 1980s. The catalyst for this was a holiday visit to Hotel-Dieu in the Burgundy town of Beaune, where he saw Rogier van der Weyden’s fifteenth-century painting of the Last Judgement: ‘I scoffed. Another religious painting. Couldn’t these people think of anything else to depict? Still scoffing, I peered at the naked figures fleeing towards the pit of hell, out of my usual faintly morbid interest in the alleged terrors of damnation. But this time I gaped, my mouth actually hanging open. These people did not appear remote or from the ancient past; they were my own generation. Because they were naked, they were not imprisoned in their own age by time-bound fashions. On the contrary, their hair and, in an odd way, the set of their faces were entirely in the style of my own time. They were me, and the people I knew.’
This experience gave him ‘a sudden strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day, not imprisoned under the thick layers of time. A large catalogue of misdeeds, ranging from the embarrassing to the appalling, replayed themselves rapidly in my head.’ A onetime Trotskyist converted by this. One can only glory at the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Part Two addresses ‘three failed arguments’ advanced by the new atheists, namely that religion causes conflicts; that effective and binding moral codes can be achieved without God; and that atheism is not to blame for atheist totalitarian cruelty.
Part Three, titled ‘the league of the militant godless’, offers a response to the claim of ‘my anti-theist brother’ that ‘the cruelty of Communist anti-theist regimes does not reflect badly on his case’ [p. 121].
A BCP devotee, Mr Hitchens is interesting in his perception of the spiritual agenda behind liturgical revision. He describes how after he rediscovered faith he ‘bicycled from place to place in search of citadels of the old worship’. In one particularly lovely Oxfordshire church, he enquired of a priest if they ever used the Prayer Book. ‘Never,’ he pronounced, ‘I hate Cranmer’s theology of penitence.’ ‘This was a moment of abrupt realisation...The new, denatured, committee-designed prayers and services were not just ugly, but they contained a different message, which was not strong enough or hard enough to satisfy my need to atone' [p81].
The Rage against God
Peter Hitchens
Continuum, 168pp, pbk
978 1441 10572 1, £16.99
As a Christian apologist in the world of secular journalism, Peter Hitchens is reminiscent of Malcolm Muggeridge. But arguably his latest book is of more practical use in parish ministry than anything the Sage of Robertsbridge wrote.
Christian people in our parishes are often bewildered by the increasing aggressiveness of unbelief and the rapid disintegration of the Christian culture they felt they grew up in. They are in desperate need of a perspective on the intellectual currents of the twentieth century that have led to the spiritual and moral shipwreck of the once Christian West. They are also in need of intellectual tools to help them to cut their way through the cultural wreckage.
Mr Hitchens aims to ‘explain how I became convinced, by reason and experience, of the necessity and rightness of a form of Christianity that is modest, accommodating and thoughtful – but ultimately uncompromising about its vital truth. I hope very much that by doing so I can at least cause those who consider themselves to be atheists to hesitate over their choice. I also hope to provide Christian readers with insights they can use the better to understand their unbelieving friends, and so perhaps to sow some small seeds of doubt in the minds of those friends’ [p. 2].
He is well-placed to help beleaguered Christian readers in this respect because of his experience in debating with his famously atheist elder brother Christopher. In 2008 the pair debated publicly in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and he says the book has an agenda to complete the ‘unfinished business of that evening’.
He is also well-placed to reflect on the moral state of atheistic societies, as was Muggeridge who reported on the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Mr Hitchens was there at its demise, working as a foreign correspondent in Moscow in 1990. He is eloquent in his description of the decadence of that godless society, and its similarity with the growing anti-theism of politically-correct Britain: ‘I came to the conclusion, and nothing has since shifted it, that enormous and intrusive totalitarian state power, especially combined with militant egalitarianism, is an enemy of civility, consideration and even enlightened self-interest. I also concluded that a high moral standard cannot be reached or maintained unless it is generally accepted and understood by an overwhelming number of people. I have since concluded that a hitherto Christian society which was de-Christianised would also face such problems, because I have seen public discourtesy and incivility spread rapidly in my own country as Christianity is forgotten’ [p. 66].
Each chapter of the three-part book begins with a well-chosen Authorised Version quotation from the Psalms. Part One charts Mr Hitchens’ personal journey through atheism in the 1960s when he burnt his Bible through to his rediscovery of Christian faith in the 1980s. The catalyst for this was a holiday visit to Hotel-Dieu in the Burgundy town of Beaune, where he saw Rogier van der Weyden’s fifteenth-century painting of the Last Judgement: ‘I scoffed. Another religious painting. Couldn’t these people think of anything else to depict? Still scoffing, I peered at the naked figures fleeing towards the pit of hell, out of my usual faintly morbid interest in the alleged terrors of damnation. But this time I gaped, my mouth actually hanging open. These people did not appear remote or from the ancient past; they were my own generation. Because they were naked, they were not imprisoned in their own age by time-bound fashions. On the contrary, their hair and, in an odd way, the set of their faces were entirely in the style of my own time. They were me, and the people I knew.’
This experience gave him ‘a sudden strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day, not imprisoned under the thick layers of time. A large catalogue of misdeeds, ranging from the embarrassing to the appalling, replayed themselves rapidly in my head.’ A onetime Trotskyist converted by this. One can only glory at the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Part Two addresses ‘three failed arguments’ advanced by the new atheists, namely that religion causes conflicts; that effective and binding moral codes can be achieved without God; and that atheism is not to blame for atheist totalitarian cruelty.
Part Three, titled ‘the league of the militant godless’, offers a response to the claim of ‘my anti-theist brother’ that ‘the cruelty of Communist anti-theist regimes does not reflect badly on his case’ [p. 121].
A BCP devotee, Mr Hitchens is interesting in his perception of the spiritual agenda behind liturgical revision. He describes how after he rediscovered faith he ‘bicycled from place to place in search of citadels of the old worship’. In one particularly lovely Oxfordshire church, he enquired of a priest if they ever used the Prayer Book. ‘Never,’ he pronounced, ‘I hate Cranmer’s theology of penitence.’ ‘This was a moment of abrupt realisation...The new, denatured, committee-designed prayers and services were not just ugly, but they contained a different message, which was not strong enough or hard enough to satisfy my need to atone' [p81].
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
COMMUNICATING WITH OUR PARISH
This by Cranmer's Curate appeared in May's edition of The Bridge, the magazine of the Parish Church of the Ascension, Oughtibridge:
We are as a parish church family are very keen to run articles from community groups in The Bridge. As the parish church we want to serve our local community and to promote and support constructive activities and groups. One of our Aims for Growth is ‘to grow in our commitment to love and good deeds towards our parish through community involvement’.
It is certainly true to say that there is less community activity in our parish than there was even 20 years ago – old Oughtibridgers tell me that. Various factors are clearly to blame for this – the vast increase in access to home entertainment being one.
But thankfully there are still good things going on and people willing to give of their time and effort. If you are involved in a group in one (or more) of the three villages, whether it’s around a hobby, shared interest, community project or association, please do send us an article about it either by e-mail or in a hard A5 copy delivered to the Vicarage by the middle of each month.
Clearly, our specific concern as the parish church is to communicate the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ to our community. We ‘do Christianity’ unashamedly and our basic message is that Jesus is Lord.
Our message is not ‘we’re such good people, you really ought to come along to church’ (though I’ve met some good people in our church family by God’s grace).
Because we are called to uphold the Lordship of Christ, things should be appearing in our magazine that go against the cultural flow. A bland version of Christianity that never causes offence falls very far short of the New Testament!
Two aspects of Christianity that are undoubtedly controversial today are the New Testament’s teaching that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to a saving relationship with the one true God and that heterosexual marriage is the only right context for the expression of sexual love.
The Church will not be popular for upholding those truths. But we are not called to be popular but to be faithful to Christ.
As a Parochial Church Council, we are currently looking at ways of improving our communication to our parish. If readers have constructive suggestions as to how we can do better, please do e-mail or phone. It would be great to hear from readers and a readers’ letters column would be a real bonus.
Yours in Christ’s service,
Julian Mann
Vicar
We are as a parish church family are very keen to run articles from community groups in The Bridge. As the parish church we want to serve our local community and to promote and support constructive activities and groups. One of our Aims for Growth is ‘to grow in our commitment to love and good deeds towards our parish through community involvement’.
It is certainly true to say that there is less community activity in our parish than there was even 20 years ago – old Oughtibridgers tell me that. Various factors are clearly to blame for this – the vast increase in access to home entertainment being one.
But thankfully there are still good things going on and people willing to give of their time and effort. If you are involved in a group in one (or more) of the three villages, whether it’s around a hobby, shared interest, community project or association, please do send us an article about it either by e-mail or in a hard A5 copy delivered to the Vicarage by the middle of each month.
Clearly, our specific concern as the parish church is to communicate the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ to our community. We ‘do Christianity’ unashamedly and our basic message is that Jesus is Lord.
Our message is not ‘we’re such good people, you really ought to come along to church’ (though I’ve met some good people in our church family by God’s grace).
Because we are called to uphold the Lordship of Christ, things should be appearing in our magazine that go against the cultural flow. A bland version of Christianity that never causes offence falls very far short of the New Testament!
Two aspects of Christianity that are undoubtedly controversial today are the New Testament’s teaching that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to a saving relationship with the one true God and that heterosexual marriage is the only right context for the expression of sexual love.
The Church will not be popular for upholding those truths. But we are not called to be popular but to be faithful to Christ.
As a Parochial Church Council, we are currently looking at ways of improving our communication to our parish. If readers have constructive suggestions as to how we can do better, please do e-mail or phone. It would be great to hear from readers and a readers’ letters column would be a real bonus.
Yours in Christ’s service,
Julian Mann
Vicar
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