Declaring that the devil has departed from the Church of England\u2019s baptism service, The Guardian reported on June 20 that \u201ca simplified baptism which omits mention of the devil\u201d\u009d is now favored by the clergy who have test-marketed it throughout the United Kingdom. Claiming that the traditional rejection of the devil and all rebellion against God \u201cput off people who are offended to be addressed as sinners,\u201d\u009d clergy claimed that they found it much easier to ask parents and godparents to make vows that do not mention Satan.<\/p>\n
Responding to a population \u201cwhich sees no pressing reason to spend Sunday mornings or any other time in Church,\u201d\u009d the Guardian reports, the new and improved baptism service also deletes the instruction to the godparents that the child will keep God\u2019s commandments, and learn what a Christian \u201cought to know and believe to his soul\u2019s health\u201d\u009d \u201d\u201d promising only that the church \u201cshall do all that we can to ensure that there is a welcoming place for you. We will play our part in helping you guide these children along the way of faith.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
The decision to delete the devil from the ritual reveals that the Church of England may be losing its sense of sin \u201d\u201d and its need for salvation. More than 60 years ago, T.S. Eliot wrote about the sense of alienation that occurred when social regulators \u201d\u201d like the church \u201d\u201d began to splinter and the controlling moral authority of a society is no longer effective. He suggested that a \u201csense of sin\u201d\u009d was beginning to disappear. In his play \u201cThe Cocktail Party,\u201d\u009d a troubled young woman confides in her psychiatrist that she feels \u201csinful\u201d\u009d because of her relationship with a married man. She is distressed not so much by the illicit relationship, but rather, by the strange sense of sin. Eliot writes that \u201chaving a sense of sin seems abnormal she believed that she had become ill.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n