Spring

Back online after the computer was hit by an aptly named  malicious virus.

But tomorrow is officially the first day of Spring!




My beloved spake, and said unto me,
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs,
and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

from The Song of Solomon Chapter 2

Archbishop of Canterbury to resign

After ten years in perhaps one of the least enviable jobs in the world, Dr Rowan Williams is to step down at the end of the year to return to academic life as Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.
The announcement from Lambeth Palace is here

Computer Problems

No posts,I'm afraid, until the problem is fixed!

'They help us become who we're supposed to be'

"...Interestingly, the connections we have with the animal world, especially with our dogs, have an important role to play in our growth and self-understanding. Put simply, we don't hide in front of our dogs: we see ourselves as we really are. Whether it involves the love and generosity of spirit expressed in getting our dog necessary and expensive medical treatment, or experiencing our uncontrolled anger erupting over an accident on the carpet, dogs have the capacity of bringing out the light and dark in human nature. By taking such moments of personal insight seriously, we have a daily touchstone with reality: we can change and grow. Perhaps one of the reasons we are so devoted to our dogs is that they help us become who we're supposed to be...."   

          The Monks of New Skete, Cambridge, New York State, U.S.A.

The true face of modern 'equality'

Totalitarian intimidation coupled with an aggressive claim to victimhood



From marginalisation to persecution - it didn't take long, did it?
Thank you, Mr Cameron.

O - please

"The Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Rev Tim Stevens, who leads the 26 bishops who sit in the House of Lords, tells The Sunday Telegraph that David Cameron’s policy to end Britain’s 300-year-old succession laws risks overturning the Church’s constitutional role.

Bishop Stevens also defended the bishops’ recent political opposition to several Government reforms and said that they were watching draft legislation carefully for measures that could disadvantage particularly poor or vulnerable people.
He argued that the Prime Minister’s plans to repeal the ban on the monarch being married to a Catholic posed a serious potential risk. Currently the Queen is required to take on the role of Supreme Governor of the Church of England — making it the established Church. But the bishops said that it would be impossible for a Catholic monarch to have that role."  [here]

Given the fact that the first generation to be directly, if hypothetically, affected by this proposed change to the constitution would most likely, barring tragedy, be the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's grandchildren, it might be thought, given the theologically suicidal agenda being pursued in the Church of England by the Bishop and his fellow prelates, this might be a rather ....  well .....  academic ....  issue.
As someone has commented to me, 'a deafening silence on other matters, but........'

This is why we are not exaggerating

"In a highly significant move, ministers will fight a case at the European Court of Human Rights in which two British women will seek to establish their right to display the cross.

It is the first time that the Government has been forced to state whether it backs the right of Christians to wear the symbol at work.
A document seen by The Sunday Telegraph discloses that ministers will argue that because it is not a “requirement” of the Christian faith, employers can ban the wearing of the cross and sack workers who insist on doing so..."  [Full report here]

This is why we are not exaggerating when we express fears that Christianity is being made invisible in modern Britain and gradually forced to the margins of public life  When even those who have been traditionally our friends can do this, we are right to be fearful of the future.
It is all too symptomatic of the modern political (and ecclesiastical) trend to utter reassuring noises while doing the complete opposite. What price Baroness Warsi's speech at the Vatican now?

But these are the questions which need to be answered:
Why exactly is it legally necessary or of benefit to society for the Government to contest this case?
Under what principle of harm does the wearing of Christian symbols at work fall? Health and safety issues are merely red herrings; they can easily be dealt with, where necessary, to everyone's mutual satisfaction. 

Clearly it is a minority of Christians who would wish to advertise their allegiance openly in this way and, admittedly, it is not a requirement of any Christian tradition to do so, but why should those who do so wish to identify themselves have no right to do so, given the ubiquity of distinctive religious symbols and clothing worn - at work - by those of other faiths?
This is about much more than that. How, from being fiercely protective of our liberties, did we become such a passive nation so willing to be corralled, stifled and bullied by bureaucratic oppression?
We should be told what this particular Government's agenda is in terms of its attitude to religious faith and the Christian faith in particular. And the Government, in the person of the Prime Minister, if he is man enough, should be prepared to spell it out.
Until such point, as an Edwardian politician once said, if left in the dark with people like this, one would do well to count one's small change.
And remember our principles when we are next in the polling booth.

Thanks to Fr Mervyn Jennings' blog  for publicising the story

Shamrock

Not an early reference to St Patrick's Day, but the new addition to the Vicarage household...



Part of our Lenten discipline is patience and perseverance!

A suitable piece of music?

....or, if that's too obvious a choice, there is, of course, Elgar's Enigma Variations, (dedicated to ' my friends pictured within') of which the eleventh variation,  'G.R.S.', is named after George Sinclair, the organist of Hereford Cathedral; one story is that the music depicts Sinclair's bulldog, Dan, splashing around in the River Wye after falling in.

This is the full work, with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, connducted by George Hurst.

A final word

for now about the whole unnecessary and essentially manufactured 'gay marriage' fracas.

The logical flaw of those, like the present U.K. Government, who argue that any change in the law will only affect 'civil marriage' and will never lead to religious traditions being coerced into following suit, is that the ethical language used by all the advocates of a change in the State's marriage law, who constantly (and inappropriately) compare their campaign to those who fought against apartheid, simply will not allow of any 'morally acceptable' exceptions to the demand for full 'equality.' Can we imagine any religious tradition being allowed to discriminate in terms of race?
No, and rightly so. But the disingenuous reassurances of those who claim that gay marriage is only a limited matter of equality in terms of the civil law*, forget that, for its advocates, equality is indivisible. Period (as the Americans say.) As we know, the Anglican proponents of women's ordination would agree, hence their attempt to silence or eject all those who oppose them.
For the acolytes of equality, the arguments of traditionalists in defence of apostolicity in the Church, or, in politics, of  social conservatives in defence of a traditional understanding of marriage, are not only mistaken but 'offensive' and, as such, they should be prevented from even being heard, much less given practical expression in the life of the community.
The problem lies precisely with the unconstrained and unbalanced modern redefinition of 'equality' (as an activist agent to enforce and police social change, rather than the previously accepted principle of equality before the law which is 'merely' and conservatively protective of liberty) and with the uncritical and largely unchallenged acceptance of this form of 'equality' in contemporary society as being in itself something which is not only desirable but even essential to human well-being. So far, the social Marxists and their fellow travellers (whose ranks, regrettably, appear to include the Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party) have won the public debate hands down.
If we're that enamoured of the French Revolution, what about a campaign for equal billing for liberty and fraternity?

*They also, of course, forget that there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as 'religious marriage', (although canon law is in practice admittedly somewhat confusing on the subject)  marriage being part of the natural law.

Weekend round-up

A few interesting items from the week's blogs:

I didn't sign up for this - neither did any of us, but it seems to be where God has put us, so just get on with it!
[here]

C.S.Lewis' Latin Letters, showing a not unexpected prescience of where society was going  [here]

The Ordinariate is given an RSV translation for the lectionary. Good - it's a faithful translation in good english and without hidden agendas. Perhaps this is a lead for all of us to get away from the more dubious aspects (sheer ugliness of expression included) of most of the other 'modern' translations of Holy Scripture. [here]

And this cartoon from Matt in The Telegraph nicely sums up the noisiest of today's controversies:

Joy

Glenn Gould: Bach Keyboard Concerto no 3 in D Major bwv 1054



For even though the the fig does not blossom,
nor fruit grow on the vine,
even though the olive crop fail,
and fields produce no harvest, even though flocks vanish from the folds
and stalls stand empty of cattle,

Yey I will rejoice in the Lord
and exult in God my Saviour.
The Lord my God is my strength
He makes me leap like the deer.
He guides me to the high places.

Canticle for Morning Prayer (Habukuk 3: 2-4, 13a, 16-19)

Marriage interventions

The Roman Catholic bishops of England & Wales have produced a pastoral letter to be read in churches this coming Sunday on the subject of the U.K. government's proposed changes to marriage law to include homosexual couples. It is calmly reasoned and persuasive, making a positive case for society's traditional view of marriage, on this subject which is almost guaranteed  to provoke comment - on both sides of the debate -  which is more often than not neither calm nor reasoned.

"Changing the legal definition of marriage would be a profoundly radical step. Its consequences should be taken seriously now. The law helps to shape and form social and cultural values. A change in the law would gradually and inevitably transform society’s understanding of the purpose of marriage. It would reduce it just to the commitment of the two people involved. There would be no recognition of the complementarity of male and female or that marriage is intended for the procreation and education of children.

We have a duty to married people today, and to those who come after us, to do all we can to ensure that the true meaning of marriage is not lost for future generations."

But Cranmer has it right, at least when he states on his blog this morning that the Coalition Government's agenda on this issue [see here and here] could be in serious trouble, when not only those regarded as 'conservative' churchmen are unpersuaded of the need for such a social revolution.
This is the Archbishop of Canterbury's take on the issue:

"Law may indeed turn out to be ahead of majority opinion in recognising this, but it has a clear argument to advance – that the failure to guarantee protection and access is simply incompatible with the very idea of a lawful society. But this falls short of a legal charter to promote change in institutions, even in language. Law must prohibit publicly abusive and demeaning language, it must secure institutions that do not systematically disadvantage any category of the community. But these tasks remain ‘negative’ in force. If it is said, for example, that a failure to legalise assisted suicide – or indeed same-sex marriage - perpetuates stigma or marginalisation for some people, the reply must be, I believe, that issues like stigma and marginalisation have to be addressed at the level of culture rather than law, the gradual evolving of fresh attitudes in a spirit of what has been called ‘strategic patience’ by some legal thinkers."  [Full text here]

Perhaps not exactly a ringing endorsement of the traditional view of marriage, but in the context of a speech which was purely on the subject of human rights and legislation, these words - from someone who has consistently espoused a 'gay-friendly' theology of human sexuality - are a clear sign that the Government can expect vocal opposition to a change in the law - at the moment at least.

I suspect, though, we will have a very long wait before any kind of pastoral letter in support of the traditional definition of marriage - giving unequivocal guidance to the faithful on this now very thorny and politically charged issue - is produced by the Anglican bishops in the U.K., some of whom (surprise, surprise) are already falling in behind the experimental agenda of society's liberal opinion-formers - and not even in an accommodating spirit of 'strategic patience.'
Patience - of any kind and on any issue - is not a modern Anglican virtue.

On a related subject, Brendan O'Neill [here] on why the liberal metropolitan elites favour same-sex marriage:  essentially to advertise their superiority over the 'unenlightened' - religious believers, reactionary rural types, uneducated proles etc..  This blog has always been of the view that the preoccupation of those on the modern western left (political and ecclesial) with the politics of sexuality and sexual identity offers them the chance to give the appearance of being 'progressive' without in the process endangering their own affluent lifestyles. As changing the political climate seems electorally and philosophically beyond them, the present leadership of the British Conservative Party is labouring under the exact same illusion [see here]
 And they say the Church is preoccupied with sex!

A good question

"But as long as people viewed law enforcement as a moral activity, how could that be farmed out to profit-making bodies?" Peter Hitchens [here]

Just don't expect any coherent answers from our present crop of politicians (relativists and utilitarians to a man - or woman) any time soon...

Just what we've all been waiting for

It hasn't taken that long, has it? A 'feminist theologian' has come out with this priceless piece of  reasoning (she actually gets paid for this?)
In her paper “Intersex & Ontology, A Response to The Church, Women Bishops and Provision”, Dr Susannah Cornwall of Manchester University argues that it is not possible to know “with any certainty” that Jesus did not suffer from an intersex condition, with both male and female organs.

“There is no way of knowing for sure that Jesus did not have one of the intersex conditions which would give him a body which appeared externally to be unremarkably male, but which might nonetheless have had some “hidden” female physical features.”

In her own words here

Of course! We are so evidently superior to every generation which has has gone before us that we can't resist doctoring the past (literally in this case) in order to make it fit in with our very twenty-first century social prejudices.
It is not possible to know "with any certainty" ....... that really sums up the whole battle, doesn't it?
But it is Dr Cornwall herself who has made the direct connection between this kind of intellectually dishonest sleight of hand and the ordination of women, not me. We are pygmies standing on the shoulders of giants indeed, but perhaps not in the usual sense of the expression.

St David's Day - news

David Jones:

'Dewi Dyfrwr Gwedia dros Gymru'

[David the Waterman pray for Wales]

O blessed irony! Today's dedication of the restored Shrine of Saint David [link here]

'The Lord giveth...'

To coincide with St David's Day, the Ordinariate has announced the setting up of three exploration groups in Wales - at Abergavenny, Cardiff and Swansea. More information here

And a setting of the Jubilate by William Mathias

  

Almighty God,
who in love towards thy people called thy servant David
to be a faithful and wise steward of thy mysteries:
mercifully grant that, following his purity of life and zeal for the whole Gospel of Christ,
we may with him receive thy heavenly reward;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom with thee and the Holy Spirit
be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

[from The Book of Common Prayer 1984 of the Church in Wales]

WWSDD

What Would St David Do?

It seems that Welsh Labour ministers have blocked a new power which would have enshrined the rights of Welsh local authorities to hold prayers. The Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles fast-tracked an order in effect to overrule the recent controversial High Court decision in the Bideford case which threatened the continuance of town hall prayers. However, the Labour-controlled Welsh Executive has rejected the invitation of the U.K. coalition Government to have Wales included in the legislation designed to protect the rights of  local authorities. [BBC report here]
The Welsh Assembly can itself opt to rectify this situation very easily by passing the necessary legislation. If it doesn't, one hopes Christians of all traditions in Wales will know where not to cast their votes in future. Or does the oft-repeated claim that British socialism (and there are, of course, two 'socialist' parties in Wales - Labour & Plaid Cymru) owes more to Methodism than Marx no longer hold true?

Persecuted or marginalised?

There is considerable discussion at the moment  as to whether Christians in modern Britain (or in the West generally) are being subjected to what amounts to persecution because of their faith. Words, of course, can mean different things to different people and to an extent depend upon the context in which they are being used. Very clearly, we are not undergoing the kind of violent (but in the west, still largely under-reported) persecution our brothers and sisters in the faith have been experiencing at the hands of Muslim extremists in those countries where militant political Islam is in the ascendant.So far at least, our prisons are not crowded with those whose conscience compels them to resist the overweening ambition of the modern liberal State.
Yet equally clearly, an attempt is being made (aided and abetted both by public indifference to things religious and the Church's own doctrinal and ethical confusion) to push the Christian faith to the margins of national life, religious institutions are being badly squeezed by the equality and inclusion agenda and the industry it has spawned and to which it seems all mainstream political parties - even those calling themselves 'Conservative' - have now signed up, and the climate is such that in mainstream academic or political circles a strong Christian belief (as opposed to a vague championing of Christian 'values') is something which is best kept under wraps by anyone harbouring personal ambition. Persecution or marginalisation, the effect is similar in terms of the gradual disappearance of the presence of the Christian faith in the public square.

There was a very revealing discussion on the subject of  faith and doubt  [here] on the radio at the beginning of the week. Among others, it featured Karen Armstrong, the former Roman Catholic nun, and Richard Holloway, the former Anglican Bishop of Edinburgh, both of whom have for a while now taken leave of any kind of recognisable religious belief. It was important, Richard Holloway stated, to general approval, that religion should be enabled to change in "appropriate" ways. There being no one there to represent religious orthodoxy (portrayed for the purposes of the programme as an extreme position, the opposite side of the coin to militant atheism) the phrase was left unchallenged. But by what a priori standard is it possible to define what is 'appropriate' change? Again we are back to that dangerous but all-pervasive contemporary myth that secular rationalist philosophy is an wholly independent and unbiased arbiter somehow raised above the conflict.

Which leads me to another question, one related to the final playing out of the tragedy which has befallen modern Anglicanism. Despite the political noises off at present, we know very well that the marginalisation of the Christian faith in western society is likely to continue. What resistance, if any, to that can we expect from the radicals who already control the agenda of the Anglican provinces of the British Isles and will soon be in positions of undisputed authority? I only raise the question because their own a priori philosophical assumptions (clearly already on display in the relentlessly wooden-headed advocacy of women's ordination and now in the 'repositioning' obviously going on relating to the proposed radical change in the nature of marriage in order to accommodate society's very small but highly vocal and media-visible homosexual minority) are those which are essentially shared with the agnostics, atheists and secularists who are so intent on a further massive reduction in the public influence of the Christian religion.
Actually, it won't much matter, as the public face of faith will already have been changed in 'appropriate' ways from the inside due to the trahison des clercs of the soixante-huitardists, the 'Woodstock generation', and their ecclesial protégés. But even if there were a will to resist any further encroachments of liberal statist secularism (and undoubtedly issues surrounding the sanctity of human life - euthanasia and now even infanticide - will be to the fore), the new Anglican church order will lack the theological, philosophical and historical tools to do the job; they have already sold the pass.

Yes, I know, it's another doom-laden prediction, but let's revisit this in twenty years - if, as they used to say in my first parish, we are spared - and see who is right.

Absurd but sinister - modern British values

The creator of the Fireman Sam children's series was detained by officials at Gatwick airport after a remark he made questioning why a woman wearing a hijab was allowed through a high security gate without having to show her face. Accused of racism, he was forced to explain his remark before being repeatedly asked to make an apology to a Muslim security official for the perceived insult [full story here]
The only problem, of course, is that the remark wasn't a racial slur at all and was unwise only in the sense that it is foolish to make any unnecessary comments whatsoever to representatives of an increasingly humourless and sanctimoniously censorious Anglo-Saxon officialdom.
One would be tempted to question whether a similar comment about a Christian nun would have resulted in the same absurd but deeply sinister over-reaction and forced apology - except we already know the answer to that.
But regardless of the self-hating double standards in operation in our culture, the real problem is that incidents like these contribute to an atmosphere in which hard-won individual freedoms are slowly suffocated in a miasma of corporate hypersensitivity. If a remark is perceived as an insult, regardless of the context and the actual words used, then the insult is judged to be real.
Ironically, contemporary western "liberalism" has seen to it that freedom of speech (the bedrock of all our freedoms) is now judged, at least by petty officials in our society, to be far less important than a mere subjective perception of offence given to cultures which (to put it mildly) do not exactly share our respect for individual liberty.
How did we get here?
.
And another reason to love Sundays - Fr George Rutler's letter [here]

"...At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I have been struck lately by the superficiality of our society’s understanding of itself. I have never been polled by those agencies that supply lists of favorite this-and-thats, so I did not figure in a recent report of Public Policy Polling, which claims that 91 percent of Americans consider Abraham Lincoln the greatest person who ever lived, followed by Jesus at 90 percent and Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers at 89 percent. George Washington got 86 percent, Mother Teresa got 83 percent, and Gandhi was three points lower than Santa Claus, who was the favorite of some 67 percent, who seem to think he was real. (I doubt they had in mind St. Nicholas of Myra.) These people vote in general elections..."

Poulenc: Vinea Mea Electa

Some music for Lent

Sexuality issues - again

Fr Sean Finnegan at Valle Adurni has this post on the vexed issue of same-sex marriage.
In his usual way he has hit the nail on the head:

...."The difficulty is that the battle for marriage was all-but lost for society not with civil partnerships or the forthcoming (and pretty well sure to happen) resolution on gay marriage. Rather, it was when purely recreational sex became first possible and then socially acceptable. And for the vast majority of people (including so many Catholics) anything else would be unthinkable.
And what do we do about it? Find another name for what we believe marriage to be? 'The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony', perhaps? And what if, as seems to be happening in certain of the United States, we come to be required to officiate at these ceremonies in our churches? And don't say it won't happen, because there are people who are very determined that it will.
I guess all we could do is to suspend the requirement for Catholics to marry in church (it isn't required by Divine law); let them go to the registry office, and then come to the church for a nuptial Mass and blessing. Then we simply say to all comers, of whatever sexuality 'we don't do marriages here'."....
What a sad state of affairs."

I share his sympathy (to a large extent) for those who in a secular society wish to be able to celebrate their relationship in a public ceremony, and have it recognised as "equally valuable" to a similar heterosexual relationship. The difficulty arises, of course, when we try to define what we mean by "equally valuable."
Increasingly, this has come to include the right to adopt children and, as we know well, to have equal access to those agencies (whatever their religious tradition) which provides that "service." Our society somewhat schizophrenically stresses both the inherent rights of children themselves and what we could call the therapeutic 'right' of adults to bring up children.
There is a sane, reasoned and articulate case made here - on the basis of the ultimate social and psychological well-being of the child - in support of the traditional definition of marriage. Unfortunately, we have already reached the point, it seems, where even such impeccably argued positions are dismissed out of hand as examples of 'bigotry' without having first to take the trouble to engage with the arguments themselves.  We are, in the name of equality and diversity, in the process of conducting a vast social experiment which will lead us we know not where.
Fr Finnegan's solution to the Church's impending problem over the redefinition of marriage - in effect, getting out of the 'marriage business' altogether- may, indeed, be a possible answer for Roman Catholics. However, for Anglicans I suspect it is already too late for that. My own guess is that within a few years, given the present equivocal mood of many of our bishops, and the increasingly apparent divisions within the church itself, the question of whether or not to allow same-sex marriage ceremonies will be passed down the line to the parish clergy (something already mooted by some in the Diocese of London in a recent letter to The Times) who will then, as individuals rather than representatives of any coherent ecclesial and theological tradition, be subject to all the likely social pressures, and eventually legal sanctions, in order to make them toe the line acceptable to the prevailing culture. Taking refuge in the idea of a civil marriage ceremony followed by a nuptial mass and church blessing won't help us very much. For Anglicans particularly, exactly the same pressures to conform to the new norms of western society will apply to that option also. As Fr Finnegan says, there are those who will make it their business to ensure that is the case.