Evangelicalism, now the only other real party, has also failed badly, particularly in not developing an intellectual culture among clergy and laity in the nation to engage with secularist relativism and hedonism. During the 19th Century evangelicals transformed culture with their societies and projects to improve social conditions and reach all levels of the nation. This is hardly the case now, despite the heroic efforts of many parish clergy. The liberals have decided to place the unity of the body of Christ well behind the gay agenda, also a useful way of purging the church of evangelicals, as happened in the USA. With conservative catholic Anglicans now very rare, only the evangelicals will stand for biblical trinitarianism rather than a multi faith theism.
The success of the gay lobby will not mean ”˜inclusion’ but a real splintering of liberals and evangelicals, management and workers, into two churches in England. Newman, ever the polemicist, would be delighted at this looming catastrophe for his old church.
The implication that Newman’s remains are being exhumed because of his association with Ambrose St. John is calumny. This editorial bemoans the fact that Evangelicals lack any kind of intellectual culture while at the same time being evidence of that fact.
Phil swain,
Are you suggesting that Benedict XVI is an Evangelical? Machiavelli, himself, said that “it isn’t enough to do the right thing, one must be seen doing the right thing”.
Ah, to be near the center of the cultural and intellectual universe (I speak of London and southern England, of course!). I suppose, though, that the weather tends to make one a bit pessimistic and melancholy from time to time.
With some sort of veiled reference to Queen Victoria’s repressed sexuality, this would have been a perfect Monty Python interview sketch. If this is the way that the upper echelon in the CofE tend to communicate about things nowadays, it may indeed be time to shift away from a Canterbury-centered communion.