Thoughts on the Church of England

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?