Nick Baines has been talking to The Independent: ‘You cannot make women bishops just to have women bishops’.
Ian Paul asks Is baptism enough?
The last of the St Paul’s Cathedral series: What I Want to Say Now: Retired Bishops Speak Out is now available to watch online: The Rt Revd Christopher Herbert. [19 minute video]
There is a transcript of the sermon to read online here.
Giles Fraser writes for The Guardian that In Sweden, human darkness is confronted by the arts not the church.
Laurie Brock of Dirty Sexy Ministry blogs about What Needs to Die in the Church.
re: Ian Paul’s interesting article – Many pathways, many moments of access to Divine grace. The deepest reality of baptism is an ongoing, lifelong event. Daily dying to self, and devotion to God. As even Jesus said, “I have a baptism to undergo.” The scriptures are littered with examples and signposts expressing the baptismal archetype. Baptism is probably the heart of the whole Christian gospel, and extends (and reverberates) far beyond our baptismal reception as infants, which is itself one route of many, by which the grace of God may break into our lives. I say that, notwithstanding my strong… Read more »
re: Laurie’s article – I share some of her frustration with aspects of church that seem too self-enclosed. The things that tend to ‘irk’ me are the comfortable middle-classness and safeness of too many churches I visit. The way those churches (not *all* churches) seem to serve their own members, providing a social network that may be comfortable but doesn’t seem to demand revolutionary challenge. I am quite possibly being judgmental, being wrong about this. But I’m telling it how I feel and find it. Church just doesn’t seem as ‘real’ and earthed and raw, or as precious, as the… Read more »
At the risk of doing a +1. Everything Susannah said is how I also feel.
On the other hand I attend a wide variety of churches from time to time and some are definitely more earthy than others.
I was at a music festival today and life is so vivid and glorious in its diversity at such events. I fear that tomorrow at church it may feel all rather middle class, soporific and bland. Does that matter? I’m too middle class and middle aged to say anything.
I realize that one sentence was pulled out, for the header, but still. “You cannot make women bishops just to have women bishops”: could that line be any more insulting?
Congratulations Bishop Herbert by far the best sermon of the four quartets, head and shoulders above the other three retired bishops offerings. Thank you for a most beautifully constructed and beautiful sermon.
I was at a music festival today and life is so vivid and glorious in its diversity at such events. I fear that tomorrow at church it may feel all rather middle class, soporific and bland. I work on a hectic hospital ward in the east end of London. Huge deprivation. Human life at points of need.I’m sorry, but it just seems like a different world from what I find in church. Pity the poor liturgist! I think I am with Bishop Herbert on this: Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. At the church I attend, where I… Read more »
“”You cannot make women bishops just to have women bishops”: could that line be any more insulting?” JCF
I understood the headline to mean that, once women are allowed to be Bishops, they should be chosen on ability rather than on the basis of tokenism – which would be patronising. Perhaps I have misunderstood what he said in too favourable a way.
What a wonderful, thoughtful and meaningful Sermon by Bishop Christopher Herbert – acting as the final Preacher among the chosen four retired Bishops of the Church of England at Saint Paul’s Cathedral! Each of the Bishops has had something good to contribute to the debate on the Church’s trajectory, but Bishop Tom – from a background of experience in the African Anglican context – was able best to explain why the Anglican Covenant was always a bad idea. No doubt with the very best of intention, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams saw trouble looming on the subject… Read more »
Can’t agree, Father David. (1) All this talk about beauty fails to give concrete pointers to what we should actually DO about various contentious issues; (2) anyone who can write of ‘the common ground that we share with others’ needs an elementary course in English (here allegedly being celebrated) and logic.
I agree with John.
A disappointing rather joyless message that seemed to miss the real beauty of our churches was to be found in the people, our brother and sisters, not just the things they made ……
I notice that Jonathan Brown says that Nick Baines, the bishop of West Yorkshire and the Dales, is responsible for 2.3 million souls. However the diocese themselves say they have 45,000 regular churchgoers. Then I realised, 2.3 million is the entire population of that whole area!
Nick Baines does not quite say what I hoped the headline indicated he said!
I’d hoped he said that ordaining women as bishops is not to be taken as the CofE being ‘OK about gender equality’ in the sense of ‘job done’. There is a bigger agenda to address here.
“I notice that Jonathan Brown says that Nick Baines, the bishop of West Yorkshire and the Dales, is responsible for 2.3 million souls. However the diocese themselves say they have 45,000 regular churchgoers. Then I realised, 2.3 million is the entire population of that whole area!” Tim Milburn
Wow! – that’s almost 2% of the population! #EstablishedChurch
“I notice that Jonathan Brown says that Nick Baines, the bishop of West Yorkshire and the Dales, is responsible for 2.3 million souls. However the diocese themselves say they have 45,000 regular churchgoers. Then I realised, 2.3 million is the entire population of that whole area!”
And all 2.3 million have legal rights to certain ministrations of the Church. The Church exists for the whole of society, even if it consists of a minority.
“And all 2.3 million have legal rights to certain ministrations of the Church. The Church exists for the whole of society, even if it consists of a minority.” Alan T Perry
So gay people can be married in a CofE church in West Yorkshire and the Dales diocese, can they?
Thank you, Martin. I am sure you know that despite occasional asperities and despite my very serious commitment to Anglican pluralism, I am totally with you,
John.
LC at 2.58
Of course not. No-one in England has such a right, as such a rite is specifically not legal.
Isn’t it presumptuous for A to be announced as responsible for B’s soul, without B’s consent? And if B doesn’t appear to even have an interest, isn’t it also absurd? The legal point made by Alan T Perry is good as far as it goes, but doesn’t address this.
Of course A can have a responsibility for B’s soul, whether or not B chooses to ask for any care – the point is that B has a legal right to that care if he or she chooses to ask for it. It is no different, in a sense, from the staff in an NHS A & E having a responsibility to treat for free everyone who comes into the department. It doesn’t mean that they have the right to go out and insist that everyone who has cut themselves has to come in to be treated. It is a… Read more »
Isn’t it presumptuous for A to be announced as responsible for B’s soul, without B’s consent? And if B doesn’t appear to even have an interest, isn’t it also absurd? I rather agree. Many years ago, whilst at theological college in a seminar group, the pastoral theology lecturer (later a distinguished archdeacon) posed the question as to whether the Vicar of St. John’s Waterloo had any pastoral responsibility for the millions who pass through Waterloo Station. As earnest ordinands we wrestled long and hard with the issue and eventually and with regret decided that the answer was no. Perhaps the… Read more »
Re: the safeness and cosiness of church… yes, at its worst this can reflect a social club for the privileged determined to keep outsiders as outsiders. It’s important to recognise, however, that it sometimes resembles that because for many people it IS a refuge from other parts of their lives which are every bit as much a battlefield as the East End A&E department Ian talks about. As I get older, sometimes this attitude is starting to sit a lot less well with me (along with annoyance at people who ‘only do church for an hour on Sunday morning’) .… Read more »
I like to think that everyone in the nation has a ‘right of welcome’ in the National Church. Quite a lot of people only activate that right at times of great crisis, or to celebrate a wedding or gather for a funeral. But I really like the concept that the National Church is everyone’s, to the extent that they want it. Rather than operating as a sect of diminishing numbers, where membership depends on some born again experience etc, I prefer the baptismal model of the Israelites who were delivered through the Red Sea. The good, the bad, the religious,… Read more »
Oh, Susannah! How right you are!!
re Ian Paul’s article on Baptism.
Surely, Baptism is the gateway to full membership of the Body of Christ. At least that seems to have been recognised of late, with the admission of the Baptised to Holy Communion.
There seems to have been no rite of Confirmation in the Scriptures – unless you like to cite the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Disciples at Pentecost. But, where were the Bishops – unless……