Monday 19 December 2011

Two deaths and a demolition attempt

Two contrasting recent deaths:
The appalling and forgettable North Korean dynastic communist dictator, Kim Jong- il, and the impressive and courageous Czech playwright, anti-communist dissident and democratic politician, Vaclav Havel.
A post here at Mercator.net  contrasting the reaction to the deaths of Vaclav Havel and Christopher Hitchens.

Liberal historical revisionism, Dickens & M.R. James:
It was interesting to hear on  'Start the Week,' BBC Radio's  Monday morning Andrew Marr programme, Canon Giles Fraser, giving his best impersonation of the uber-modern jolly, flippant Anglican Vicar, complete with Blair-like estuary English, being given a little bit of a lesson on the significance of evil and the complications of an alienated human nature by writers Susan Hill and Clare Tomalin in a discussion on the greatest of ghost story writers, M.R. James.
But it serves Giles Fraser right for his all-too-predictable theologically liberal stuff earlier in the programme about the Emperor Constantine having hijacked the Faith and corrupted its early purity (a plug for an upcoming demolition job on the origins of Christmas, to be broadcast - of course - by the BBC on Christmas Day) - not to mention his positively uncomprehending and outrageously 'Spartist' comments on the Nicene Creed. What is the ecclesial purpose of  a Creed again - please? Contrast this with the long-standing Anglican (Catholic) tradition that true social concern and doctrinal orthodox must go hand in hand.
Yet more very Establishment anti-establishment views. Interesting? Not so very much.
Although I do agree with him that Christianity has to be about Salvation (although we do need to define that: whether we like it or not, we're back to creeds again) and not just mere moralism.
 Listen here

2 comments:

  1. But it serves Giles Fraser right for his all-too-predictable theologically liberal stuff earlier in the programme about the Emperor Constantine having hijacked the Faith and corrupted its early purity...

    From a man whose employer exists to serve the state. (It left the church to do so.) I think my irony meter broke.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm afraid mine has been broken for a while now.....

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