Andrew Lightbown Theore0 Talking of inclusivity, offence and rejection
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Why do Christians seem preoccupied by sex?
Ted Harrison Church Times Beware the use of banal and meaningless slogans
“Think carefully before creating one, … and make sure to avoid these common pitfalls”
Marcus Walker Catholic Herald Why Anglo-Catholicism appeals to millennials
Meg Warner ViaMedia.News Elephants, Penguins, Procreation & Japanese Knotweed
Preoccupation with sex is hardly a distinctively Christian thing in the early 21st century. Anyone taken a look at popular media lately?
I think the difference is that the popular media by and large consider sex to be enjoyable, natural and desirable, whereas Christians, or at least the church, seem to consider it to be none of these things and therefore want to control who does what with whom. In that sense the church is not so very different from Mars Hill.
All is not exactly well outside the church either, Richard. See https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/
I think the question is, why should the Church be following the world’s example in being preoccupied with sex?
Oh, the Church is preoccupied with sex, inho – but not in a creative or even helpful way. A shame for an incarnational religion isn’t it ?
In his ‘Point of view’ on Sunday morning Will Self talked about the Abrahamic religions and their ‘spiritual disgust for the incarnate’. Sums up the situation very pithily I think.
Judaism is very earthy and not afraid of the physical. I think considering our bodies to be opposed to our spiritual lives may owe more to Classical Greek and Roman philosophies and religion – especially Gnosticism.
See, I don’t think the Church is preoccupied with sex. Our hosts here at Thinking Anglicans point us to many excellent articles, covering many aspects of the Church’s life (mainly in the UK, but also in the wider Anglican world). But it is almost always the pieces about gender and sexuality that get the long comment threads. The other subjects, some of them vitally important, often pass with little or no comment. This would certainly give the impression that the readership of Thinking Anglicans is preoccupied with sex. But that simply means that we’re not in agreement about the subject,… Read more »
Unfortunately the Catholic Herald article does not appear.
Fr John Emlyn
EDITOR: It appears for me, now.
Andrew Lightbown should be made a bishop. He has the charity, the gravitas and the plain common sense – not always present in those ‘chosen’.
I believe Ted Harrison’s article is important. We are surrounded by jargon in church life, and the repetitive use of “in” words such as “resilience” and “flourishing” can soon empty the force and usefulness of them. The trend in recent years to attach the word “mission” to everything is similarly unhelpful, and I believe a turn off to those not “in the know”. Is there a Christian Plain English Society?
I’ve run into this phenomenon in the folk music world too, Rod. ‘Old folk songs’ means songs by Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel. When you say ‘No, they’re still new – I’m talking about the anonymous songs passed down through the generations over hundreds of years’ people look at you blankly…!
I didn’t realise that authorised liturgy included a Latin Mass for it to be increasing in popularity for Anglo Catholics.
Technically Latin has always been authorised in the Universities and other places where it was (until relatively recently) a lingua franca. (http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/Latin1560/BCP_Latin1560.htm) Unless things have changed recently, there was always a Latin celebration of the liturgy within the University at the beginning of each term. More widely, I am pretty sure that Common Worship allows for musical settings within the liturgy to be sung in their original language or translation. Though pushing it slightly, the format of A Service of the Word (with or without Holy Communion) only provides a structure, and does not specify any but a very limited… Read more »
Canon B42.2 is relevant here, which I quote for convenience below: B 42 Of the language of divine service 1. (1) Subject to the following provisions of this Canon, authorized forms of services shall be said or sung in English. (2) In the provinces of Canterbury and York outside England authorized forms of service may be said or sung in the vernacular. 2. Authorized forms of service may be said or sung in Latin in the following places – Provincial Convocations Chapels and other public places in university colleges and halls University churches The colleges of Westminster, Winchester and Eton… Read more »
The Byrd 4 part mass is a sublime piece of music – his other masses are really good as well. Our young choir members adore them (the congregation does too) and we do sing them in Latin. It may simply be that some exquisite music has Latin text.
In which case aren’t we back to music and the Latin Mass point the author was making is something of a stretch then?