The Death of Prayerfulness

The world will not have failed to note that ++Rowan Williams, the 104th  Archbishop of Canterbury, is to release the poisoned chalice and do something else altogether more pleasant. For many of my own theological and ecclesiological persuasion this news is received with much sadness.

++Rowan, in the many little gobbets of opinion that now span the globe is already being regarded as woolly, detached and other-worldly. Put another way, he hasn't played to the press with snappy one-liners, has always remained a man of holiness and not a headline gatherer. Yes, he looks like a druid, and yes, his bonce is capped off with a barnet from another age, but so what?! I think that ordained people are, in some small way, meant to be other-worldly while ministering to the world in which they live. Are we not meant to embody the common perception of holiness in some small and meagre way? I believe that ++Rowan did and does. I doubt that he will become a back-seat complainer like his predecessor, and for that I thank the Lord, or become an irritating millstone around his successors neck. 

What perhaps saddens me most of all is that void he has now already created is become the cadaver-consuming feeding ground of the Campaigners. The pro-Bishops-with-Boobs are manoeuvering, as are the anti-Bishops-with-Boobs. The pro-Covenantalists and already twitching with the same eye-flickering rapidity with which the anti-Covenantalists are twitching. Pro-gay and anti-gay drum-thumpers alike are starting the blaze a trail for 'their man for the top'. and the Blogosphere ... I see flames even now as keyboards go overtime. 

Put another way, the campaigners are now working to overload so that the best man (and this time it can only be a man) gets the job? No - they want their victory and this change of Primate will seal the deal in minds of many of them. 

I wonder how much praying will be done as the process unfolds? And I mean proper praying and not "God, please give me what I want"  type of prayer. Sadly, my own cynicism compels me to believe that not as much as their should be. 

But Farv, I hear you cry, this is just the way the world is. These causes are important and the right choice of archbishop is important to those causes and those involved in their direction. Don't get me wrong; I am not naive and I know that Primates have much power to do good or ill. People will judge the next man on his record as they do this one - but I hope and pray (fervently, earnestly and often) that every single Christian will pray for an archbishop that will, first and foremost, lead us as a Church towards a more Christ-like life where divisions are attended to with grace on all sides and those whose aspirations are dashed by the choices we are all called to make will still feel that our wonderful Church of England can still be their home and haven of prayer. 

For my part, I pray thankfully for ++Rowan's ministry as our Shepherd. I can't imagine the cost to him and family life (knowing how much a mere priest sacrifices for his/her ministry), but I give thanks that we have been led by a man of conspicuous prayfulness and outwardly, at least, unlimited faithfulness. 

A Statement of The Manifestly Obvious

One of the few helpful things about this process of packing up and leaving is that I have to remove myself, in part, from the warp and weft of the Church of England Merry-go-Round. My attention to Synod was fleeting, by reading of others' blogs criminally sparse, and my view of the Church Times cursory. This removes me from a depth of knowledge, but also grants me an insight into the wider macro-perspective. 

It may be a blogosphere thing, or it might just be how it is for everyone, but it seems that in the present, Anglicans can do nothing but fight among themselves. I have touched on this already. 

To be be a member of the Church of England, to the passer-by, entails the following:

 - Carping on about the Archbishop of Canterbury

 - Carping on about people carping on about the Archbishop of Canterbury

 - Carping on about people carping on about the Archbishop of Canterbury after carping on about the Archbishop of Canterbury

 - Carping on about the Anglican Covenant

 - Carping on about those who defend and/or condemn the Anglican Covenant

 - Carping on about whether women are equal in the Church

 - Carping on about those who have a view about whether women are equal in the Church

 - Carping on about the place of homosexual people in the Church (or in life)

 - Carping on about those who have a view about whether homosexual people have an equal place in the Church (or in life)

 - Carping on about being at Synod

 - Carping on about those who are at Synod

 - Carping on about the decisions made

 - Carping on about the lack of decisions made

 - Carping on about staying in the Church or running off to form another

 - Carping on about those who are running off to form another church somewhere else

...and so the list goes on. Let me be clear, though. I accept that I write this a carper, and have no illusions that I am above or outside of the carping. Yet carping seems to have well overtaken prayer as the conversation of the Church of England. 

We seem not to be able to celebrate the Paschal Mystery, only become fixated on how we regard that Mystery differently. 'God is Love plc' seems not to be struggling for extreme old age, but by a basic lack of graciousness. I sense, though, that some will throw their arms up in disgust saying: No Farv, you are wrong. I just care! 

I wonder if it is time to celebrate our common humanity. There is too little gratitude for the gift of faith, our place in the great family of the Church. Instead, we sound more like disaffected teenagers who are convinced that they know better and are the pioneers of all things. Yes, the Church of England is a messy gaggle of faith-holders. Yes, it often groping in the dark for a direction and its leader, Rowan, doing only what one person can to make things better. But it is our Church, our family - and just a scintilla of pride and defensiveness for this family would go a long way to healing the many hurts that are meted out almost daily in the written word. 

Is it time to stop carping? I hope that time comes soon. 

The Church Dead in Two Decades?

Some say that it partly forms the Body of Christ on earth, and others that it will be dead in twenty years. All we know, is it it called

The Church of England

The blessed Telegraph suggests, in its headline, that the "Ageing Church of England 'will be dead in 20 years'". Before you climb out of your prams, it was not the blessed Telegraph that says it, no - a cleric from the Eastern Flat-lands of England. 

Well, Reverend Doctor Patrick Richmond, let us examine this hypothesis of yours. 

• Dr Richmond suggests that because our congregations are on average 61 years old, that it is reasonable to suggest they may all be dead in the ground in twenty years. That may be true, but that implies that his view of modern evangelism is less than favourable. The thing is, Doc, that the average age of Christian congregations has always erred towards the ancient - it is just that people start returning to church in their fifties once families and their immediate needs abate. Unless there is a virus that Doc knows about that will wipe us nearly-forties out in the next twenty years too, then I would suggest that congregations are gently self regenerative.
• He cites the drop in stipendiary clergy as another part of his 'perfect storm'. None of the Disciples were paid after all, and while it is true that the church has to become less dependent on its dog-collars, there are still many thousands of people in accredited ministries whom he seems to overlook. Add to this that all Christians have a role in ministry, we can put it another way - the 'perfect storm' exists in his Norfolk teacup. The priesthood may well be dead in the Church of England in twenty years time (actually, no it won't, I still have thirty to serve), but if the Church was ever dependent solely on its priests and not, say, God - then it was always lost. 
• That all said, I must congratulate him for his play on words: "2020 apparently is when our congregations start falling through the floor because of natural wastage, that is people dying" - there's a pun in there somewhere. And a grotesque pessimism. 

Now this is where I have a problem - and those of you who read this blog regularly (thank you), will know that I become gusset-rotated. I can cope with people of no faith deriding our church. I can even cope with the side-swipes of our press who love to dance on our perceived grave. Where I have a problem is when clerics make statements like this, or other clergy who make statements about being bored at Synod, because they gift to our many detractors the very stuff that they need to undermine us more. Comments in the stories mentioned here have become the playgrounds of the 'all churches should be pulled down' brigade and those who express the 'all believers in gods are nutter and bombers' sentiments (inferred if not in fact stated). Clerics seem to want to do it in the public gaze, and neither aging congregations, declining clergy numbers or the next meteorite could do more damage. 

You will also know that I have firm views about churches behaving more as businesses in their business affairs. An aspect of the article that caught my eye was the statement:

The Church was compared to a company “impeccably” managing itself into failure, during exchanges at the General Synod in York.

Whilst I hold the views that I do, I am also clear that the Church is not a business and very often diametrically opposed to one. It typically exists on the good will and efforts of a vast number of un-trained volunteers as a percentage when compared to paid staff, that our 'product' is a fruit of faith and broadly intangible and that every single Head Office Directive falls into the category that would, in the commercial world, see us closed and picked over by venture capitalists in mere weeks. The Church is, by very definition, a sort of anti-business, and despite all else, has survived far worse than this. 

Self-criticism is good and it is healthy. Dr Richmond exceeded that. Self-criticism is good and it is healthy, but self-proclaimed self-destruction exceeds that. The Church of England will not be dead in twenty years. Despite the views of the youthful Vicar of Eaton, there are still many of us who expect to be around in thirty and forty years time (God willing). His words are, of course, one of the fashionable sneers we have heard about recently, and to my mind, unhelpful at best, harmful at worst. 

I do not apologise one iota for my loyalty to my Church and to my Archbishop. I am, though, desperately sorry that so many seem to consistently seek to climb aboard the bandwagon of church-bashing, synod-bashing, and the old favourite Rowan-bashing. I doubt that God called anyone to that particular ministry. 

Fashionable Sneers

Every once in a while, when I fail to show the requisite courage to express my feelings here, my spiritual leader does it for me. In an article in The Independent, I read about ++Rowan's perspective on the English Anglican Church, and it resonated with me.

I often wonder what an alien would make of the Church of England, were that alien to land tomorrow. That alien, in their preparation for human culture, may have acquired its best selling book of all time, and may even have read the bit where the followers of Christ are called to "Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than this". That alien may have been impressed with the moral basis of a Christian life, even to the point of discipleship.

Then their ship lands and they look out of the door and see what it really looks like ...

 - Some Christians in the Church of England are so choosy about how to apply Christ's own words that rather than embrace half the population as equal, both in calling and ability, they would sooner walk away and form quasi-denominations. I am not sure that I read "Love you neighbour as yourself, until they don't agree with you or are slightly different biologically, then you may leave and almost join another denomination". The alien may be concerned then why an Ordinariat exists or the birth of baby AMiE. Love with conditions. 

 - For some Christians, being born homosexual makes you some kind of grotesque mutant, and quite unworthy of the neighbour-love. I can only shudder when I ponder how that same section of loving folk would regard those unable to grow to six feet in height, unable to paint with oils, unable to curl their tongue or those whose hair curls rather frustratingly. You're fine mate, so long as you are like me, mate. 

 - That Christians seem to want to fight over bits of paper rather than the needs of the poor. Only mention Section 2 and some Christians will lock you into a war of semantics soon as look at them. They may even start a group and ask retired clerics to help out at the coffee-mornings. Is this proper work of a Christian? The alien wonders. The alien thinks perhaps Christians like to get wound up about such stuff yet seems oddly quiet on some really important things.  

The alien would surely regard much of the energy of the Church of England as engaged in self-appraisal and self-protection when its Head is the man who self-emptied himself and died self-sacrificially that others may be saved. At best, it might regard many Anglicans as just a little pre-occupied with things that divide. 

We are a people with a mandate to love, and ++Rowan very properly drew attention to that lack in our present day. What are we fighting for? What are we defending? Orthodoxy? Our own 'safe place'? Did any of us embrace this faith that we may be safe? Once we place our heads elsewhere, we must surely take comfort that for many invisible and anonymous people, the faith of the Church is worth dying for (notionally and in actual fact), that it lives and breathes with people with real issues of life and death - and it makes a difference. He spoke of a "church in love", a beautiful yet simple phrase. We seem so far from it, and the transformative power that comes with it. 

Tomorrow is, in Lectionary Churches in the C of E, the day when we listen to the Parable of the Sower. The alien is likely to wonder when we will stop fussing over the soil that is already very good and have a crack at the margins. 

Freedom of Speech, With Conditions

Lord Sugar does it. Educated kids do it. Even carpet sellers and estate agents do it. Let's do it. Let's speak our mind. 

1689 was a good year for Brits. Some law or another granted us the right to speak freely, within a given framework that is now designed to stop people from telling other people to kill yet more people. Let it be stated here, ladies and gentlemen, that killing people is wrong, and people who kill people will get their comeuppance - ya hear?!

Anyway - the thing is this. The Archbishop raised his bearded and extravagantly browed head above the parapet and now the world is in a little bit of a flap. See what Archbishop Rowan said here. This post is not meant to to comment on what he said to whom or why (and if you read this blog enough, you might guess anyway), but more about the reaction of the chattering classes. 

The reactions of an overwhelming number of people who have tapped their views online can be summed up in one such sentiment: "Mind your own business, preacher man". (I added punctuation where it was found to be lacking). 

In our world, we the Westerners are chasing around country by country promoting the ethics of democracy whether they want it or not. We are westernising the world, because of course we are the tippy-top best at everything and we should of course lead the world in the process of becoming more like us. Part of democracy is to do with free speech, until a Christian tries it. Some may say that the Archbishop of Canterbury is not elected, but neither is Lord Sugar or Vanessa Feltz. Some say that being God-botherers means that we are somehow opinion-amputees who should keep schtumm in the very world where we live. 

Why?

I pay tax and so does the jolly old Archbish. I would fear being in a world when the leader of an ethically based organisation was expected to be silent in the political arena. Priests are called to defend the poor and represent those in their care - and I fail to understand how commenting publicly about sincerely held concerns for society falls beyond that mandate. 

For my part, I am less worried about what ++Rowan said than I am delighted that he did. How would we regard a man who operates as a senior leader in 'God is Love Plc' who turned away and said nothing? Christians must be present in the debate, as should people of all faiths - because to remove them or silence them denies a facet of society that is, after all, quite important to a good many of us - and that is the spiritual aspect.

Maybe ++Rowan should go blonde, or start a programme called 'The Curate' - because perhaps then he could be accorded his own democratic rights without the fuss that we have seen today. 

Defending Rowan Williams

Almost every day reveals yet another attack on the Archbishop of Canterbury. Be that in the press, Christian or secular; in blogs, priestly or lay; on Twitter and so many other places besides. These attacks are public, intended to be public - intended that the deliverer of the attack of the moment may have his or her 'moment' having queued so long for it. Attacking Rowan Williams is, I think, the new blood sport of Anglican Christians. The tooting horns toot, the slavering hounds slaver, and the bearded man of God is chased while others revel in the spectacle.

This all means that what I am about to write makes me very unfashionable and counter-cultural, which is just fine.

We are all entitled to our views. Dialogue generated from those views is healthy on the whole, but as with all things, it needs to be appropriate and held in the right place and time. An army lives by a code of loyalty and obedience to its senior officers, and more especially to its Commander in Chief. When that breaks down in the field of war, people die. That is not to say that soldiers do not have their views or that they are universally in favour of every utterance made 'at the top', as I know that they are not. They are intelligent people and not robots after all. In business, loyalty to 'the Firm' is expected. This is normal and largely healthy (there are, of course, exceptions). Employees do as they are asked (or told) because that is their job - and company loyalty is a very strong force in people. A public statement condemning a business decision by the CEO would largely bring with it a difficult outcome for the employee concerned. 

It seems that in the self-imposed ivory tower existence of some in the Church, where choices are limitless, media exposure is on tap - that some feel that the boundaries of loyalty that most people in the pews abide by don't apply. Again, I say that it is right to have views, to disagree with the Archbishop, to be vehemently against him at time - but this is stuff that should happen in private.

I am saddened by every attack on our leader. They not only degrade 'the Firm', they do damage to a person because he cannot reasonably defend himself - in other words, he cannot fight back with the same freedom that his priests and bishops can launch attacks. I have not yet read one attack on him by a person with the skills to do his job more effectively. Yes, Rowan Williams has not acted like a perfect human being, and let's face it, the only perfect human in our history lead his own followers to a martyr's death. Attacking the leader might be fashionable, and it might attract readers - but it is disloyal and, in my opinion, wrong - and slowly but surely fatally weakening the organisation. If we are a church who seek to be 'of the world' and walking alongside those who are in the world, then I think we should live by the scruples bound up in loyalty that they all live by.