Yesterday, for the third time this year, someone expressed to me genuine concern about involving the church in a project because they feared that dealing with a discriminatory organisation would compromise their moral integrity. The Church of England used to be the guardian of the nation’s morals, but is increasingly perceived as irrelevant, or even a threat to them. At first sight this is amazing, because the people I meet in church are usually kind, upright and morally aware. The nation’s moral instinct has changed, however. The church in its own bubble has become, at best, the guardian of the value system of the nation’s grandparents, and at worst a den of religious anoraks defined by defensiveness, esoteric logic and discrimination.
The collapse of empire may have led people to search for a new moral purpose in diversity not conformity. Neoliberal economics since Margaret Thatcher may have broken down networks and social tribes, regional identities and family ties. A new social and moral consensus has emerged. It is broadly Christian in the sense of “inspired by the teaching of Jesus” but disconnected from the institutional church.
This affects more than just the C of E. Evangelical bodies bemuse people who are innately suspicious of religious zeal and unpersuaded about the particularities involved. The Roman Catholic church seems corrupt and weird about sex.
Ummm, kind of fatuous and draws a false conclusion that Jesus is only authentic if he guides you into social change of the zeitgeist. To continue with the IT riff the good bishop started. CofE 2.0 is coming too late and there were no effective hotfixes issued between it and the prior major release, CofE 1.0. Sounds like time to use the throwaway code metaphor and move to a new platform.
Yeah, the church needs a reboot just like sometimes I need to reboot my computer to help get rid of the viruses that people keep trying to insinuate into it.
Look, when he says, “The real fault line now in the church is between those of all stripes who are at home with social change, and whose Jesus inspires them to find ways of living authentic lives in this culture; and those who fear it, and whose religion is a way to prevent it, or even reverse it”: that’s a lot of posturing nonsense. The bigger fault line now is between those who think that the Christian religion has some character, any character, any tradition passed down from its origins, and those whose theology is utterly subservient to their social politics and for whom every teaching is liable to be overthrown if liberal “tolerance” demands its sacrifice. All you have to do is look at the CWoB debates: some of the most socially liberal and most theologically conservative are abruptly united because one of the most basic precepts about how the church is realized in this world is being pushed overboard just to make the “inclusion” faction feel good about themselves.
What is weird is when the church’s own leaders keep on urging her to walk more quickly towards Babylon.
To be truthful the only distinctive aspect here is the preference for bar room banter (viz. Roman Catholics as weirdos). The general view that the COE is out of touch and needs to catch up (or pipe down) has been replicated numerous times over the last century on issues as varied as Sunday observance, contraception, divorce, re-marriage etc. etc. So far from “re-booting” anything this is a strategy that has been replayed multiple times over the last 100 years. If one genuinely desires a “re-boot”, and I take Bishop Alan to be serious in his desire to see things change, why venture the same, evidently failed, tactic.
By coincidence, this article appears just when the position of ABC is open. +Alan Wilson writes:
[blockquote] “The real fault line now in the church is between those of all stripes who are at home with social change, and whose Jesus inspires them to find ways of living authentic lives in this culture; and those who fear it, and whose religion is a way to prevent it, or even reverse it.” [/blockquote]
This is an excellent example of why this bishop must never be allowed to become Archbishop of Canterbury. He is just another trendy liberal.
The fault line is NOT between those who are “at home with social change” and those “whose religion is a way to prevent it”. Rather, it is between those who take seriously the claim of Jesus Christ to be Lord of all, and who seek to live out that claim, in their own lives, their church and their nation.
The good bishop of Buckingham just doesn’t get it; he would be (another) disaster as ABC.