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Sorry, Pope, but this 'proper church' declaration is surreal
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Tim Murphy
Great graphic here:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/site_imagery/frontpicture_fullsize.jpg
The Guardian - Jul 13, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2125508,00.html
Sorry, Pope, but this 'proper church' declaration is surreal nonsense
I'm an atheist but still I resent this joker in Rome slighting my
community. A residual theological chauvinism is aroused
By Simon Jenkins
This week's declaration by the Pope that the Church of England and other
denominations are "not proper churches" was strictly for addicts. Like
Dr Johnson responding to Berkeley on the non-existence of matter, I was
tempted to walk round to my local St Mary's, kick a buttress and
"refute it thus". Then I remembered that Pope Benedict is a theological
surrealist. His church is like Magritte's pipe: "Ceci n'est pas une
pipe." He talks in riddles.
Like many atheists who love churches, I am constantly diverted by the
ectoplasm of religious disputes. Anthropologists may explain that when
the vicar of Bootlington Parva dresses up at the altar, gestures,
chants and pretends to chew the body of Christ, he is doing what was
done at Chichen Itza or the Borneo jungle for centuries past. Such
antics are embedded in our cultural genes. But somehow the Pope is
casting aspersions on my antics and my community. A residual
theological chauvinism is aroused.
Who is this joker in Rome claiming supremacy via the greatest con in
Europe's intellectual history, the 1870 Vatican council's invention of
papal infallibility. Listen, Pope, I am inclined to say, two can play at
infallibility. You are losing so many games these days that you have to
keep moving the goalposts at your Lateran and Vatican councils. My lot
were happy enough on Iona and Lindisfarne until your lot arrived at
Canterbury and made a thorough mess of things for a
millennium-and-a-half.
The Pope drew a distinction between the Orthodox churches, which he
calls sisters (surely brothers?), and Protestants who lack a
"sacramental priesthood ... and a Eucharistic Mystery", and whom he
clearly regards as little short of pagan. First of all, this is an
abuse of the word church, which is from the Teutonic circe (Scottish
kirk) out of the Greek kuriakon doma, or house of the lord. The
operative root is kurios, a chief or headman. This is as wide a
definition of a priest, and thus of a church, as is imaginable.
If the Pope wants to try Latin, we are into ecclesia, from the Greek for
assembly. This is invariably translated as a gathering or congregation
of Christians, not just of those obedient to St Peter's. Augustine
himself defined the word to signify both a body of believers and the
place where they met, significamus locum qui continet. In other words,
there is no textual justification for Benedict's exclusivity. It
recalls the megalomania of Boniface VIII, who made such outrageous
claims of supremacy that monarchs and even cardinals stopped listening,
culminating in the schism of 1378 and eventually the Reformation. In
saying that only Roman Catholicism is a "church", the Pope is merely
redefining the word to suit his position. He is climbing to the top of
Michelangelo's dome and beating his chest like King Kong.
Those of us brought up in the tradition of British tolerance can let
this pass. Other people who wish to order their affairs, secular or
spiritual, should be left to do so provided they leave us in peace -
though Blair's Britain is on weak ground here. If Islam and Shinto,
Zoroastrianism and Druidism, Strict Baptists and Seventh Day Adventists
want to call themselves churches, we can live with it, even if Benedict
cannot.
But if there is to be a spat with Rome over what is and is not a
church, the opportunity should be taken to pull a few weeds from the
path of sanity. What happens in churches may not be my concern, but I
respect it as useful social bond, just as I respect the parish church
as an invaluable shrine to a community's history. While Roman Catholics
scurry off to their modern sheds, it is the Anglican vicar who might
reasonably imitate Benedict, sit atop his gothic steeple and proclaim
his to be "the one true church". He too might demand that all others
worship under his aegis, or at least under his roof. To an outsider it
seems ridiculous that Britain's so-called Christian community, even its
Protestant parts, cannot bring itself to come together in one building.
It is as if, like Welsh chapels, they would rather die apart than live
together. Yet the present Church of England seems more likely to split
into two than to join Methodists, Presbyterians and/or Catholics in one
place.
Last week the prime minister announced he would no longer appoint
bishops but leave it to the church authorities. Why stop there? Brown
should have taken the opportunity of Wednesday's "Queen's speech" to
bring forward the formal disestablishment of the Church of England.
This need not affect the Queen as patron of the church, but a son of
the manse and head of what should be a secular 21st-century government
could surely sweep away the remaining statist nonsense.
That one religious denomination, with roughly the same number of weekly
worshippers as the Roman Catholics and Muslims, should enjoy special
legislative status under the British constitution is inexcusable.
Whether Brown means to continue allowing church schools to prop up
Anglican worship by offering it as a basis for de facto school
selection remains to be seen. Anyone concerned for the cohesion of
urban communities must deplore the revival of such religious
segregation. Look what it has done for Northern Ireland.
Brown is an enthusiast for the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
whose "religionless Christianity" was intended to refashion belief for
a new humanistic age. Bonhoeffer's British champion, Alec Vidler,
argued for continued church establishment on the grounds that it might
allow the church to find a new and wider social purpose. This would be
lost if it were "cleaned up and tidied up so everyone would know what
it stood for". This historical mischief might have been plausible when
Vidler wrote in the 1960s but it is absurd today, with Anglicanism lost
among house churches, evangelical ranters, Pentecostalists and
"churchless churches" from alpha to omega. Brown should revert to
Bonhoeffer, disestablish the Church of England and let Canterbury, Rome
and the rest fight it out on a level field, worshipping as and where
they chose.
This leaves the question of what happens to emptying parish churches,
glories of provincial England - less so of Scotland and Wales - and
museums of its history and humanity. If religious worship continues to
disappear, they will still stand as the physical and emotional focus of
their communities, places of civic congregation and ceremony. If "the
church" collapses, uses will have to be found for churches. They need
no lords spiritual, no appointed monarchs, orbs and sceptres. They can,
and do, encompass places of worship as well as cafes and post offices,
libraries and concerts, galleries and community centres. But they must
be used.
I would not disestablish parish churches, rather the reverse. I would
"establish" them, as in Germany and other continental countries, as the
formal responsibility of parishes and municipalities, a charge on local
rates and a religious and secular amenity for all local people, as in
the middle ages. Everyone paid to build them. They belong to everyone
and should be open to everyone. They just need the product of a penny
rate to prop them up - and need it ever more desperately.
================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
Search Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/htdig/search.html
Support this work, visit our sponsor http://www.blythe-systems.com
Subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
================================================================
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Hash: SHA1
Sorry, Pope, but this 'proper church' declaration is surreal
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Tim Murphy
Great graphic here:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/site_imagery/frontpicture_fullsize.jpg
The Guardian - Jul 13, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2125508,00.html
Sorry, Pope, but this 'proper church' declaration is surreal nonsense
I'm an atheist but still I resent this joker in Rome slighting my
community. A residual theological chauvinism is aroused
By Simon Jenkins
This week's declaration by the Pope that the Church of England and other
denominations are "not proper churches" was strictly for addicts. Like
Dr Johnson responding to Berkeley on the non-existence of matter, I was
tempted to walk round to my local St Mary's, kick a buttress and
"refute it thus". Then I remembered that Pope Benedict is a theological
surrealist. His church is like Magritte's pipe: "Ceci n'est pas une
pipe." He talks in riddles.
Like many atheists who love churches, I am constantly diverted by the
ectoplasm of religious disputes. Anthropologists may explain that when
the vicar of Bootlington Parva dresses up at the altar, gestures,
chants and pretends to chew the body of Christ, he is doing what was
done at Chichen Itza or the Borneo jungle for centuries past. Such
antics are embedded in our cultural genes. But somehow the Pope is
casting aspersions on my antics and my community. A residual
theological chauvinism is aroused.
Who is this joker in Rome claiming supremacy via the greatest con in
Europe's intellectual history, the 1870 Vatican council's invention of
papal infallibility. Listen, Pope, I am inclined to say, two can play at
infallibility. You are losing so many games these days that you have to
keep moving the goalposts at your Lateran and Vatican councils. My lot
were happy enough on Iona and Lindisfarne until your lot arrived at
Canterbury and made a thorough mess of things for a
millennium-and-a-half.
The Pope drew a distinction between the Orthodox churches, which he
calls sisters (surely brothers?), and Protestants who lack a
"sacramental priesthood ... and a Eucharistic Mystery", and whom he
clearly regards as little short of pagan. First of all, this is an
abuse of the word church, which is from the Teutonic circe (Scottish
kirk) out of the Greek kuriakon doma, or house of the lord. The
operative root is kurios, a chief or headman. This is as wide a
definition of a priest, and thus of a church, as is imaginable.
If the Pope wants to try Latin, we are into ecclesia, from the Greek for
assembly. This is invariably translated as a gathering or congregation
of Christians, not just of those obedient to St Peter's. Augustine
himself defined the word to signify both a body of believers and the
place where they met, significamus locum qui continet. In other words,
there is no textual justification for Benedict's exclusivity. It
recalls the megalomania of Boniface VIII, who made such outrageous
claims of supremacy that monarchs and even cardinals stopped listening,
culminating in the schism of 1378 and eventually the Reformation. In
saying that only Roman Catholicism is a "church", the Pope is merely
redefining the word to suit his position. He is climbing to the top of
Michelangelo's dome and beating his chest like King Kong.
Those of us brought up in the tradition of British tolerance can let
this pass. Other people who wish to order their affairs, secular or
spiritual, should be left to do so provided they leave us in peace -
though Blair's Britain is on weak ground here. If Islam and Shinto,
Zoroastrianism and Druidism, Strict Baptists and Seventh Day Adventists
want to call themselves churches, we can live with it, even if Benedict
cannot.
But if there is to be a spat with Rome over what is and is not a
church, the opportunity should be taken to pull a few weeds from the
path of sanity. What happens in churches may not be my concern, but I
respect it as useful social bond, just as I respect the parish church
as an invaluable shrine to a community's history. While Roman Catholics
scurry off to their modern sheds, it is the Anglican vicar who might
reasonably imitate Benedict, sit atop his gothic steeple and proclaim
his to be "the one true church". He too might demand that all others
worship under his aegis, or at least under his roof. To an outsider it
seems ridiculous that Britain's so-called Christian community, even its
Protestant parts, cannot bring itself to come together in one building.
It is as if, like Welsh chapels, they would rather die apart than live
together. Yet the present Church of England seems more likely to split
into two than to join Methodists, Presbyterians and/or Catholics in one
place.
Last week the prime minister announced he would no longer appoint
bishops but leave it to the church authorities. Why stop there? Brown
should have taken the opportunity of Wednesday's "Queen's speech" to
bring forward the formal disestablishment of the Church of England.
This need not affect the Queen as patron of the church, but a son of
the manse and head of what should be a secular 21st-century government
could surely sweep away the remaining statist nonsense.
That one religious denomination, with roughly the same number of weekly
worshippers as the Roman Catholics and Muslims, should enjoy special
legislative status under the British constitution is inexcusable.
Whether Brown means to continue allowing church schools to prop up
Anglican worship by offering it as a basis for de facto school
selection remains to be seen. Anyone concerned for the cohesion of
urban communities must deplore the revival of such religious
segregation. Look what it has done for Northern Ireland.
Brown is an enthusiast for the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
whose "religionless Christianity" was intended to refashion belief for
a new humanistic age. Bonhoeffer's British champion, Alec Vidler,
argued for continued church establishment on the grounds that it might
allow the church to find a new and wider social purpose. This would be
lost if it were "cleaned up and tidied up so everyone would know what
it stood for". This historical mischief might have been plausible when
Vidler wrote in the 1960s but it is absurd today, with Anglicanism lost
among house churches, evangelical ranters, Pentecostalists and
"churchless churches" from alpha to omega. Brown should revert to
Bonhoeffer, disestablish the Church of England and let Canterbury, Rome
and the rest fight it out on a level field, worshipping as and where
they chose.
This leaves the question of what happens to emptying parish churches,
glories of provincial England - less so of Scotland and Wales - and
museums of its history and humanity. If religious worship continues to
disappear, they will still stand as the physical and emotional focus of
their communities, places of civic congregation and ceremony. If "the
church" collapses, uses will have to be found for churches. They need
no lords spiritual, no appointed monarchs, orbs and sceptres. They can,
and do, encompass places of worship as well as cafes and post offices,
libraries and concerts, galleries and community centres. But they must
be used.
I would not disestablish parish churches, rather the reverse. I would
"establish" them, as in Germany and other continental countries, as the
formal responsibility of parishes and municipalities, a charge on local
rates and a religious and secular amenity for all local people, as in
the middle ages. Everyone paid to build them. They belong to everyone
and should be open to everyone. They just need the product of a penny
rate to prop them up - and need it ever more desperately.
================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
Search Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/htdig/search.html
Support this work, visit our sponsor http://www.blythe-systems.com
Subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
================================================================
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