“…Instead it could become simply a prescriptive sect: an organisation with an official line which its prelates are expected to toe. If ever there was an effective way to make a church unattractive to all but the dreariest of zealots and and empty its pews still further, this is it.”
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“This was not the first time Sir James has intervened in the debate over the future direction of the national Church. In a letter to The Times in October last year, he called Leicester diocese’s decision ‘to fold 234 parishes into the embrace of 20 to 25 huge groups’ a ‘sad day for the Church of England’.
He accused the CofE of behaving ‘like a socialist republic: demanding increasing “tax” (parish share) from dwindling numbers of churchgoers, then spending too much of it on its own bureaucracy. Moreover, as The Times reported last month, in 2017-2020 it spent £248 million on “renewal and reform” projects that failed to increase church attendance.”
“But, actually, Judeo-Christian assumptions have underpinned every aspect of life in the West for roughly the past thousand years, shaping the way we think about everything – from art to law, morality…
From the Daily Telegraph: Too often Bishops seem preoccupied with fighting climate change or opposing the democratically elected Government; it could lead to a wonderful revitalisation of the Parish system…
Jonathan Baird writes about clergy occupying administrative roles rather than being frontline vicars. Read the original article here
Morar Lucas quotes Archbishop William Temple who said that the Church is the only society which exists for those who are not its members.