The retreat continues, despite the best efforts of the Anglicans to keep making concessions to disbelieving modernity, as the Archbishop of Canterbury did again this week with his observation that we were obliged to treat the Christmas Story really as just a legend. Like Alfred and the burnt cakes, I suppose.
Christmas closes another year that has been pretty brutal on the God squadders, a year in which the swelling tide of unbelief crashed further through the structures of our cultural architecture….
But the atheists didn’t confine their advances to the rather narrow field of non-fiction for grown-ups. Seizing on the old Jesuit principle of getting them while their young, Philip Pullman went Hollywood this year with the Dark Materials trilogy.
Mr Pullman, knowing a commercial opportunity when he saw one, described Catholics who objected to the adaptation of his books, which feature as the principal villain a thinly disguised Papacy, as “nitwits”.
This seems to be wanting to have your polemical cake and eating it. You can hardly blame Catholics for feeling a bit defensive. He told an interviewer a few years ago that the main purpose in writing his books was to undermine belief in God. Now belief in God may be increasingly optional these days for the more lukewarm leaders of Anglicanism but it is still pretty much a prerequisite for Catholics.
What a remarkable slur and very sloppy journalism. Facts ignored.Clearly he had not actually listened or read the text. Rowan Williams did not describe the Christmas Story really as a legend. He did say in his interview with Simon Mayo on BBC Radio Five Live that the Bible describes the Magi coming on a visit but not that they were kings nor that there were 3 of them. He actually defended the biblical account of Christmas, the nativity.
People across the theological spectrum in the UK have sprung to the defence of RW.
The transcript is here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=FNNTIYYFRFPZRQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/12/20/nwise220.xml
You can listen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/mayo.shtml
Let’s remember, too, that Pullman’s movie is tanking, particularly in the US, and that Dawkins’ book was pilloried by many reviewer, even those who were admitted fans and fellow atheists.
Sorry, that Telegraph link is failing.
The main part of the interview is here. http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/sermons_speeches/071219.htm
[i]”The retreat continues, despite the best efforts of the Anglicans to keep making concessions to disbelieving modernity…”
“Now belief in God may be increasingly optional these days for the more lukewarm leaders of Anglicanism but it is still pretty much a prerequisite for Catholics.”[/i]
Ouch. What further evidence do we need? Anglicanism is becoming a “byword among the nations”. We’re a cultural and spiritual laughingstock. And why? Because there is truth in both of those statements. We continue making concessions to people who aren’t interested in believing in the first place. We’re making concessions to our own doubts and sense of reason. Rather than doing what Theresa did, which was push back against those doubts and choose every day to believe and persevere.