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Mad Dogs and Church of Englandmen.
Reading the morning broadsheet during breakfast is not a good thing, neither for my digestion nor for my temper for the rest of the day. The average “Church Correspondent” would not be able to differentiate between a maniple and a bookmark. Their main objects in life seems to be to show that Christianity, in general, is irrelevant and that the Church of England, in particular, is out of touch with reality.
Whenever the General Synod meets the scribblers are handed, on a plate, a golden opportunity to achieve both objectives. Every time that august body meets we have living proof that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
Take the financial situation. The church is following Enron in that respect. What does the General Synod do? It kills the goose that laid the golden egg by deciding that calling the banns is outdated. We know that it is outdated. It has been so for years, but it brings in, nationally, at least a million pounds per annum. Put the jam pan on again, Debbie.
Directed by the synod, clergy have turned away people who wanted to be married in church when they had a previous partner still living. Apart from encouraging them to murder the troublesome spouse, this has alienated tens of thousands of people who see a church preaching forgiveness but not practising it. Now the sages of the General Synod have decided to agree to do what some enlightened clergy have been doing for years. Why has it taken them nearly half a century of generating enough hot air to destroy the ozone layer to come to an obvious conclusion?
Next it is to be the vexed question of women bishops. Women as bishops is a contradiction in terms. No woman is sufficiently inept to be a bishop. And as for unity with the Methodists, we didn't ask the Dissenters to break away in the first place, so why spend so much time considering unity, why not be Christians and just invite them back into the fold? With a bit of luck the General Synod is going to go round in circles for the next fifty years arguing about these last two issues, by which time I will be long dead…hopefully.
May God bless you all, Fr. Allan
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