December 17, 2004
BACK TO THE CATACOMBS:
Church faces implosion and life underground, says senior adviser (Ruth Gledhill, 12/11/04, Times of London)
A SENIOR adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury has issued an apocalyptic warning about the future of the Church of England, forecasting that Christianity in Britain will be driven underground and that the Church will fragment.In a private document presented this week to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, Dr Rowan Williams and Dr David Hope, Jayne Ozanne suggested that a time of great persecution was coming.
She gave warning that the outlook for the established Church was not good and that the Church would continue to implode and self-destruct over gay clergy and other matters. She says that its future will be one of an underground movement comparable to resistance movements during the Second World War.
Archbishop doubts nation's Christianity (Jonathan Petre, 13/12/2004, Daily Telegraph)
The Church of England's second most senior figure said yesterday that he would be "hard-pushed" to describe Britain as a Christian country.The Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, said people were less committed to the Church and secularist tendencies were on the increase.
While many described themselves as Christians, how they expressed their Christianity had changed enormously, he said.
"I would be hard-pushed to say we were a Christian country because of the secularist tendencies, the fact that commitment to the Christian church is less than it was," said Dr Hope.
It's not at all clear that Christianity in Britain wouldn't benefit from going to ground and ridding itself of such modern accretions as acceptance of homosexuality. Returning to its roots would likely make it stronger, more coherent, and more attractive. As the secular culture around it rots a comeback would be rather easy. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 17, 2004 7:51 AM
A better word for Protestantism is "Fragmentism." Lots of saints among those 30,000 fragments, though.
Posted by: JimGooding at December 17, 2004 10:23 AMThe way to ward off this catastrophe in the United States is to crush the infamous thing that public education has become
Posted by: Lou Gots at December 17, 2004 11:03 AMLou:
The problem with Christianity is this: ... the outlook for the established Church was not good."
Is there any established church anywhere for which the outlook is good? Do you think there just might be some connection between the vitality of religion here in the US, and the lack of an established religion grown lazy on an entitlement to gov't support?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at December 17, 2004 11:30 AMVoltaire predicted that "The French will remain Catholic long after they have ceased to be Christians."; it wasn't only France he was right about.
Posted by: Mike Earl at December 17, 2004 11:33 AMThe C of E has always been far more part of the problem than part of the solution.
Why should a Church bureaucracy, grown fat, lazy and happy under a blizzard of state subsidies, have any interest whatsoever in the opinions, beliefs or problems of the people it was at least in theory supposed to be serving?
And if that Church is going to ignore the opinions, beliefs, or problems of those people, why should they continue to allow their hard-earned tax dollars to be given to these bureaucrats?
And why should those people even bother worshipping in that bureaucratized, tamed, religion-free, PC State Church when, in a free society, they can worship elsewhere?
The C of E will never become illegal, only the object of universal ridicule and disdain from secular and religious folk alike. For the pompous asses who run the place, that is probably worse than the thumbscrew and the rack.
Posted by: Bart at December 17, 2004 1:20 PMWhile many described themselves as Christians, how they expressed their Christianity had changed enormously, he said.
No more witch burning.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at December 17, 2004 1:31 PMWhich is hardly an improvement.
Posted by: oj at December 17, 2004 1:46 PM