Recently, Justin
Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and wealthy former oil company executive
who, compared to most in this country, let alone globally, lives the life of
luxury, announced that the Church of England would be giving £100 million away
to assuage the guilt that HE has decided it has, for its part in the slave
trade.
I saw the
article about it on Twitter and I made a reply which has, if not gone viral,
certainly had an awful lot of views, an awful lot of likes, and an awful lot of
retweets. I don't claim any great insight; I think it's a statement of the
obvious. I said:
“what would
Christ have done with all that money? Answer? He wouldn't have had it as it
would have been given away to the poor as it came in. Think of all those in
need of money now, and Welby’s concerned about slavery that WE, the British, pro-actively
ended over 200 years ago? Justin Welby, as he repeatedly shows, is a political animal
not a spiritual one”
My point then
is, what on earth is the Church of England doing having £100 million spare to
just give away on the whim of a politicised & therefore unworthy
Archbishop?
I know they
have old church buildings to maintain and the salaries of their (ever reducing
number of) clergy to pay, but that has presumably been taken into account
before this announcement, and anyway, having that much spare cash is utterly
obscene and utterly out of keeping with the example given by Christ, that any
Christian Church of any denomination should amass these kinds of sums of money.
The Church
of England has now been ‘modernising’ for 60 years. And of course, when they
use the word ‘modernising’, what they really mean is changing to fit in with
the transient fads of a secular and increasingly atheistic society.
And what has
this constant pandering to the secular atheists achieved in that time?
·
a
90% reduction in regular attendees;
·
An
average age of regular attendee of over 60;
·
A
reduction in available clergy of 25% (many parishes rely on retired clergy
& reduced services); and
·
Less
than 50% putting “Christian” on the most recent 10 yearly national census for
the first time
Now I
thought it was common knowledge, because it's common sense, that doing the same
thing over and over but expecting different results is a sign, if not of
madness, then certainly of foolishness. But apparently not in the Church of
England.
Now the one
thing I would not accuse the leadership of the Church of England of being is
unintelligent. However as Dr John Vervaeke, a cognitive scientist at the
University of Toronto has pointed out, it is perfectly possible to be very
intelligent and also very foolish, and there is no contradiction in that
whatsoever. Knowledge and wisdom are not synonymous.
For the last
several decades there has been a group think among the leadership, - and
of course via training, now among many of its clergy, - that you can describe
as ‘secular’ in the broadest sense of that term.
More specifically a politicisation of the Church of England. And very
specifically the following of certain politically left-wing secular, materialist
& often atheistic societal fads & tropes.
It used to
be said of the Church of England that it was the Tory party at prayer. This has
not been the case now for many decades. It is now very much the Liberal
Democrat party at prayer. Well educated, wealthy, middle class, out of touch
with the masses, and pandering to every secular woke fad that comes along.
I’m afraid that, while the liturgy still uses ridiculously archaic terminology
like, I don’t know, God, Jesus Christ, Holy Trinity, and recites the Lord’s
prayer and Apostles creed (words suitably altered of course), it has become a
mere veneer, trying to hide the Church of England’s blatant secularisation
& politicisation encapsulated by, as I said in my opening remarks, the
wealthy former corporate executive who lives the life of a king, certainly in
comparison to Christ and his disciples, let alone 90% of the global population,
Justin Welby.
Back in the
late 1960s & early 1970s when the move was made away from the 1662 Prayer
Book language of thees and thous, it was said that the old language is why
attendance was falling. This turned out to be untrue and I suspect those
advocating for it suspected as much and were operating politically. Politics
rather than spirituality is behind most major change in ALL Christian
denominations.
I highly
recommend Andrew Doyle's new book ‘the new Puritans’, because the Church of
England has now turned into a far-left puritanical cult.
What's the difference between a cult and a religious denomination? At the basic
level, numbers! And when you look at the number of people within the population
who attend church even once a month, let alone more, the numbers are fast
dwindling to those of a historically relevant yes, but currently irrelevant,
cult.
To borrow
from people in the political sphere when they can no longer be a member of or
vote for the party they have voted for all their lives, ‘I haven't left the
Church of England; the Church of England has gradually left me.’
While
starting from a lower base in terms of numbers in the UK, it is hardly surprising that
the Roman Catholics and eastern Orthodox Church are not haemorrhaging adherents
to anything like the extent of the Church of England or indeed, other secularising
Protestant denominations.
What we are learning is that without maintaining the transcendent mysticism of
God, the ethereal nature of Language and traditional doctrines, - secular
atheism and politicisation wins out remarkably quickly. Indeed, the modern C of
E has encouraged it.
Programatic secularism is the term that the former Archbishop of Canterbury,
Rowan Williams, used to describe this deliberate programme of gradual steps
toward moving the church into the secular and away from its traditional spiritual doctrines.
So, the time
has come for the Church of England to be disestablished, because the number of
adherents and therefore its spiritual usefulness to Society, no longer warrants
it.
Our new
king, Charles the third, said recently that the Church of England has a special
role in the life of our nation. All this comment goes to show is how out of
touch he is with the reality. He is 75 after all. He’s living in the past. It used
to have a special role but outside all the ceremonial function at coronation's,
royal weddings and in his private chapels, which of course is all King Charles ever
sees, it no longer does, as the latest national census clearly shows.
That being the Head of the Church of England is one of the props to the institution
of the monarchy itself, is not a good enough reason to continue pretending that
it is either relevant, or, required to have special status. It should be
disestablished and made to stand, or I sadly suspect, fall, on its own two
feet. I don’t like saying that, but we need to be honest about it.
The sad
thing is that many ordinary members of the Church of England, those who attend
regularly and give their time, resources and efforts to support their local
church, are not like the hypocritical politically motivated leadership at all.
They are being led by donkeys, hypocrites and charlatans who care more about
political ideology, patting themselves on the back for how kind & caring
they are in secular terms, than the poor.
Don’t tell me that the Church of England has got £100 million to give away for
assumed guilt about something we abolished well over 200 years ago, and in the
same breath tell me they care about the poor in their own society.
It is an arrogant elitist institution, or at least is being led by arrogant
elitists, and that must stop.
The traditions,
liturgy, doctrines and practice of the Church of England have gradually been
watered down, secularised, over the last few decades. Why?
Supposedly to make the church more accessible – but accessible to whom?
To stay ‘relevant’. But relevant to whom?
As all the data demonstrates, to those who neither believe nor care.
In attempting to pander to secularists, political ideologues & full-on anti-theists, all the
church has done is reduced the number of its formerly constant adherents.
And now, the
C of E is setting-up a commission looking into whether or not God is gender
neutral and perhaps we should stop saying ‘Our Father’.
So they will, presumably, be altering the Holy Bible itself, altering the words
spoken by Christ himself when he spoke of ‘my Father’.
The Church of England just becomes more secular & more politicised, and shrinks
ever toward a cult that cannot abide, let alone proclaim, its own God-given
ethereal & metaphysical traditions in anything other than post-modern atheist
materialist terms, which dooms it to reducing into oblivion at worst,
cult-status at best – and that’s not much of an ‘best’ is it?
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