Doug Chaplin asks on his Clayboy blog: Can you help me with this strange G-d orthography?
Alan Wilson continues his series on the BCP in The Guardian with The Book of Common Prayer, part 4: In the midst of life. “The robust and unsentimental realism of the BCP funeral service is better than modern sanitised sentimentality.”
Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times Ground the debate in worship.
Roderick Strange writes in The Tablet about Newman’s diffident holiness.
Stephen Bates writes in The Guardian about John Henry Newman: An unlikely candidate for sainthood? “Victorian academic who will be beatified by Benedict this Sunday was a troubled and conflicted character.”
Also in The Guardian Eamon Duffy writes that Newman offers church a candle in the dark. “Everything about modern Anglicanism bears the marks of Cardinal Newman’s teaching.”
Andrew Brown writes in The Guardian: Pope’s visit: Moral absolutes and crumbling empires. “Rebellion against the pope was the foundational act of English power yet now the pope stands in Westminster Hall.”
Why is Clayboy so pompous about and trying to be so controlling ? Why attack the quiet (gedit) ‘piety’ of others ?
But then if the Chief Rabbi is not immune to his strictures – and they are strictures – what chance do the rest of us have with our poor scholarship, ignorance and lack of understanding of ‘the issues’ ?
“The robust and unsentimental realism of the BCP funeral service is better than modern sanitised sentimentality.” That must be why this service is NEVER used these days. Even the most died in the wool BCP advocates do not use it, without a great deal of adding and subtracting, thus changing it. It is inadequate to the spirituality, needs, feelings and hopes of people when bereaved. This is true both of regular and occasional church-goers. Bishops, royalty and other keen christians do not themselves us it. About time to begin thinking about these issues in earnest. Even the ecumenical relatively recent… Read more »
RE: G-d
Jewish authorities differ, but mainstream practice is to only avoid writing the Tetragrammaton on something disposable or potentially irreverent. Some authorities insist that vernacular names for God also not be written in full. Many Jews who don’t have a problem with spelling out “God” write “G-d” in order to respect the opinion of their more stringent confreres.
I think that Christians who tend to use are simply trying to comply with what they mistakenly think is standard Jewish practice in an effort not to offend.
I loved Doug Chaplin’s “G-d orthography” article. As a Jew, I understand the long (2 millenia) custom of Jews not pronouncing God’s Hebrew name in the Tetragrammaton. The word is considered so holy that we mere mortals, with our frailties and sinfulness, are considered to profane God through its mere utterance by our lips. Furthermore, even the High Priest may have spoken it only within the Holy of Holies during Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). But, the English word “God” is simply a special case of “god”. There is no holiness attached to the word in and of itself, unlike… Read more »
” the Second Vatican Council itself reflected his experience, exploring what it means for the Church to be holy, though always in need of reform – sancta, sed semper reformanda.” – Roderick Strange, in the ‘Tablet’ – Sadly, it didn’t explore enough – or for long enough. The Curial officials saw to that. Despite the best efforts of some pretty far-seeing and competent theologians – Kung, Ratzinger, Alfrink, etc., Ottiavani and his fellow Roman Inquisition members saw to it that Pope Paul VI toed their line, of least resistance to Vatican I and the primacy of Curia over the Bishops… Read more »
FYI BBC Radio Scotland Mon 20/9 11:30am, Sat 25/09 06:00am Duration 30mins. Also avaialable via iPlayer. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tt4lf The Faithful Remnant In 2010 we mark the 450th anniversary of the Reformation, an event which left an indelible legacy in Scottish society. In this major seven part series, Billy Kay tells the story of the great ecclesiastical traditions which have shaped the history of Christianity in this country. In the third programme, The Faithful Remnant, we explore the history of Episcopalianism since the Reformation, and in particular its association with the Jacobite cause in the Risings of 1715 and 1745. It is… Read more »
Boris gets to the heart of the matter.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/8012873/Popes-visit-Blimey.-What-to-say-to-the-Pope-A-good-joke-ought-to-clinch-it.-.-..html
Well the heady rush to canonize Newman, along with the general impact of the pope’s visit, seem in the main a delayed but self-regarding campaign to claim Newman as just that sort of thinking convert who eventually saw that he needed to turn off his mind so that he could find God via a retrospectively perceived/constructed holy obedience. This closed but typical Vatican narrative is still emerging, dodgy to the facts as its conversation story may indeed be? The new/current pope is anything but willing, when it comes to a great many minds (and hearts) seeking truth and love together… Read more »