Giles Fraser writes about Hegel for the Guardian in Face to Faith that “Dialectical Anglicanism has many problems, foremost among them the damage to its champion – Rowan Williams.”
Another philosophy tutorial in The Times by John Cottingham Philosophers are finding fresh meanings in truth, beauty and goodness.
Christopher Howse in the Guardian has Gay divisions make Anglicans glum.
Giles Fraser again, this time in the Church Times: Why fervour makes me feel sick.
The Tablet has another editorial about the Church of England, Our friends’ problems.
At Ekklesia Simon Barrow and Jonathan Bartley have strong opinions about marriage: What future for marriage?
Giles Fraser is right. Even now, amidst the cosy sweaters of HTB, terrorist plotting is rife.
Giles Fraser wrote: “… I secretly admire the sheer determination of the phenomenon of Holy Trinity, Brompton. None the less, when I see great crowds of people filled with passionate religious zeal, I feel a sickness in the pit of my stomach.” This is a strangely subjective way to judge a phenomenon that many see as one of the main things that God is doing in the CofE and other denominations from free church to Roman Catholic. Not all zeal is bad (!) and personally I would rather have an enthusiastically worshipping congregation than a glum one. Maybe Giles needs… Read more »
To analyse his statement: ‘passion ‘ and ‘zeal’ are not bad but neutral: it depends what one is passionate/zealous about. But normally they are positive things: ask any teacher (or pupil). And whenever they are positive, they are *very* positive. So GF is speaking of something that is normally very positive as though it were negative: calling black white. He needs to define what he is saying. Is he saying blandness is good? Or that it is good to be ineffectual? Or apathetic? ‘Religious’ is an inapplicable word, which would be disowned by pretty much every HTB member, evangelical, charismatic,… Read more »
I liked Cottingham’s article, and pondered that the factions that seek to suppress evidence and stifle diversity have forgotten that God has simple and clear values e.g. referring to the bible as the Book of Truth. I quite liked the article on dialectal Anglicanism and agreed with Fraser’s concerns about well-motivated and organised factions. It left me cogitating and contemplating limitations in the model. Some might be making an assumption in that the “new paradigm” is fully embrassed by all the previous players, but that is not necessarily the case. For example, the confederates of the United States lost the… Read more »