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God save the church
By David Waters
Bishops of the Church of England are talking to the Vatican about defecting. The British Foreign Office is mocking the Pope while high-profile British atheists are leading a campaign to have the Pope arrested when he visits in the fall. A British minister is arrested for preaching that homosexuality is a sin.
God save the Queen, but can anyone save the church in England?
"We are at a very, very tricky point as a nation because there is not a consensus commitment to anything else except hard-line illiberal secularism and it's a very dangerous place to be," the Bishop of Lewes, the Rt. Rev. Wallace Benn said last weekend at a Bible by the Beach conference.
Bible by the Beach? Even Britain's serious Christians are laid-back.
One of the topics of conversation at the conference was last week's British court ruling that upheld the firing of a marriage counselor for refusing to provide sex therapy to same-sex couples because of his Christian beliefs.
Christianity is "subjective" and "incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence", and deserves no protection in law above other faiths and to do so would be "irrational, divisive, capricious and arbitrary", Lord Justice Laws ruled last week.
Good luck appealing a ruling by Lord Justice Laws.
Among the witnesses for the counselor's defense was Lord George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. So many Lords in England. No wonder the church's influence is dissipating.
"It is, of course, but a short step from the dismissal of a sincere Christian from employment to a religious bar to any employment by Christians," Carey testified. "I believe that further judicial decisions are likely to end up at this point and this is why I believe it is necessary to intervene now."
Carey went on to warn of future "civil unrest" if judges continue with "disturbing" and "dangerous" rulings in religious discrimination cases.
A few days after Carey testified, British police arrested a 42-year-old Baptist preacher for causing "harassment, alarm or distress" for reciting -- outdoors atop a stepladder -- a number of "sins" referred to in the Bible, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same sex relationships.
Police officers charged him with using abusive or insulting language, contrary to the 1986 Public Order Act, introduced to quell violent rioters and football hooligans.
"The police have a duty to maintain public order but they also have a duty to defend the lawful free speech of citizens," said Sam Webster, a solicitor-advocate for the Christian Institute.
Speaking of free speech, the British Foreign Office has apologized for a "foolish" memo written by a junior staffer with suggestions for Pope Benedict's scheduled visit to England this fall. During "The Ideal Visit," the memo suggested (presumably tongue-in-cheek), the pope could be invited to open an abortion clinic, bless a gay marriage and endorse a line of condoms.
The Foreign Office felt compelled to stress that the memo did not reflect its views or sense of humor. Vatican officials shrugged off the episode, but Peter Forster, the bishop of Chester, argued that the memo is a sign of British society's dismissive attitude toward the church.
"I think that Christianity has been so much a part of the furniture of our society that it tends to be neglected and taken for granted," Forster told the BBC. "There's a 'familiarity breeding contempt' in some circles of society about our Christian heritage."
If that's true, then why? How did the counterculture, anti-establishment, revolutionary Body of Christ become "part of the furniture" in Britain? Could that happen in America?
John Wesley, the Church of England's Methodist reformer, saw this coming more than 200 years ago. He was writing about his fellow Methodists, but his concerns were for the entire Body of Christ.
"I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America," Wesley wrote. "But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power."
David Waters
| May 3, 2010; 12:56 PM ET | Category: Today's Topic Save & Share:
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Posted by: YEAL9 | May 3, 2010 6:23 PM
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The Church of England's and Episcopal Church in the USA's problem is that their members became too educated to believe in superstitious religious nonsense.
The Anglican Communion's problem is that it's popular in places like Nigeria that aren't.
Posted by: WmarkW | May 4, 2010 5:44 AM
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Could "British society's dismissive attitude toward the church" have anything to do with the church's dismissive attitude toward little boys' bodies?
Posted by: areyousaying | May 4, 2010 9:07 AM
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I wonder if the smug anti-church Brits understand just how contemptible it looks to the rest of us to see a modern industrial nation such as Britain still have a sanctioned state religion founded on a murderous pogrom by a mad monarch whose only theological justification for splitting with Rome was that he couldn't have a divorce to serve his secular dynastic ambitions? Do they think their own history will just gloss itself over if they ignore it?
Posted by: razzl | May 4, 2010 9:07 AM
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Meanwhile, US Catholics debate whether or not to "defrock" pervert priests:
Some argue against it under the pretext Bishops would "lose control" of their "straying sheep" if he were defrocked.
As if Bishops maintained control of these perverts while they passed them from parish to parish in the past or otherwise "supervised" them while criminally hiding them from US justice.
This Church needs to cough up over a thousand of their "hebephiles" for civil prosecution NOW and stop pretending they care about anything other than their image and Ratzinger's now dubious reputation.
Posted by: areyousaying | May 4, 2010 6:14 PM
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Added and detailed information about the Catholic sex abuse cases can be found at:
http://www.answers.com/topic/roman-catholic-sex-abuse-cases?method=26&initiator=CANS
And then there is the problems within the Southern Baptist Convention:
From:
“Facing calls to curb child sex abuse within its churches, in June the Southern Baptist Convention — the largest U.S. religious body after the Catholic Church — urged local hiring committees to conduct federal background checks but rejected a proposal to create a central database of staff and clergy who have been either convicted of or indicted on charges of molesting minors.
The SBC decided against such a database in part because its principle of local autonomy means it cannot compel individual churches to report any information. And while the headlines regarding churches and pedophilia remain largely focused on Catholic parishes, the lack of hierarchical structure and systematized record-keeping in most Protestant churches makes it harder not only for church leaders to impose standards, but for interested parties to track allegations of abuse. "
Posted by: YEAL9 | May 5, 2010 9:17 AM
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Meanwhile, in Germany (AP)
The 41-year-old claims a chaplain, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, forced him to practice oral sex when he was an 11-year-old boy in the western city of Essen.
In 1980, then-Munich Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, who is now the pope, approved the priest's transfer to Munich, where he underwent therapy.
However, the man was quickly allowed to return to pastoral duties - a decision that the church says was made by a lower-ranking official without consulting the archbishop.
Hullermann later worked again with children and youth. In 1986, he was handed a suspended sentence for molesting a boy.
While Donohue Catholics like ccnl1 (aka yeal9) blindly remain in denial and lamely cry "others do it, too"
Posted by: areyousaying | May 5, 2010 9:48 AM
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Why did today's pope, prelates, preachers and rabbis, so focused on society's sexual sins, lose sight of clerical sexual sins?
"
FEAR, SHAME and GUILT and COVER IT ALL UP!!!
Obviously ordination in any religion is not assurance of good behavior !!!!!
Neither is coronation!!! e.g. Henry VIII, King David.
Neither is marriage as 50% of those men convicted of pedophilia are married.
Neither is being elected president of the USA!! e.g. Billy "I did not have sex with that girl" Clinton, John "Marilyn Monroe" Kennedy"
Neither is possessing super athletic skill!!! e.g. Tiger "I am so sorry for getting caught" Woods
Neither is being a boy scout leader, an atheist or pagan since pedophilia is present in all walks of life.
If someone is guilty of a crime in this litany of "neithers" they should or should have been penalized as the law dictates to include jail terms for pedophiliacs (priests, rabbis, evangelicals, boy scout leaders, married men/women), divorce for adultery (Clinton, Kennedy, Woods), jail terms for obstruction of justice (Clinton, Cardinal Law) and the death penalty or life in prison for murder ("Kings David and Henry VIII).
Posted by: YEAL9 | May 5, 2010 2:32 PM
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Hmmm, could it be the influence of the womanizing, murdering founder of said Church of England?