Language and the Church

Two posts in one day... something must be up!

My other post today is meant to be serious, this is a little more humorous (I hope!)

Within the Church, and the Church of England in particular, certain words seem to have developed certain meanings, which are quite different from what they seem to mean.

For example

"I value women's ministry"

contains the following implication

"...making tea and coffee and running the creche"

Or the following words and phrases are synonyms:

traditionalist

catholic

anglo-catholic

seeking sacramental assurance

orthodox

anglican use

sound

Unfortunately they seem to be synonymous with "we hate the gayz and the wimin"

Similarly,

liberal

inclusive

anglo-catholic

seem to be synonyms for "gay"

(Serious point follows!)

So I'm white, male, straight, middle class, and I believe the Church should consecrate women to the episcopate, and I believe that there is an equal place in the Church for men and women of all sexualities within the Church (i.e. I support the consecration of Mary Glasspool as a Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles on a political level, I know next to nothing about the woman or the diocese so couldn't tell you how well she'll match the job, just to be clear how I'm misusing my words). I also accept the two traditional creeds of the Church. I say I go to mass on a Sunday, I would describe myself variously as reformed, catholic, protestant, orthodox and traditionalist. I also quite like dressing up to serve at mass. I even regularly go to Eucharistic Devotions and Benediction, and am sometimes heard to say an Angelus on occasion.

What am I?

To those who claim particular uses for these words, can I give some advice from Humpty Dumpty? "When I make a word do a lot of work like that, I always pay it extra"

--

Humpty Dumpty speaks to us via the medium of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6.

PS - Please email me, and I will help you make suitable arrangements for paying your words properly :P

What Does the World Outside Think Of the Church of England?

Tonight, I was at a meeting for prospective candidates and voters for the elections for General Synod in the Autumn. During this meeting I had to give a quick, off the cuff, introduction to who I was and why I was standing.

I do my job for a number of reasons, one of which is that I hate standing at the front talking, so this was never going to be one of my favourite things to do. However, thanks to the clergy present, I had had sufficient wine to give me a little courage, and so I stood up and spoke...

And amongst my waffle (because that is all it probably was!), I found myself telling the floor that I wanted the Church to re-engage with the world out there (arm gestures toward the windows was included). I found myself saying that the "the world out there" (TWOT) thinks that the Church is obsessed with sex and needs to get back to the Gospel.

Upon getting home, I found myself asking whether this was really true. What does TWOT really think about the Church? What do we want TWOT to think about us as the Church? What does God think?

My survey to answer these questions is fundamentally flawed in that it starts and finishes with information that I can pull together in one other browser tab whilst typing this post. Mostly this means I'm judging the answer based on the Church of England newspaper's Twitter feed which seems to act as an aggregator for stories relating to the Anglican Communion in particular and religion in general, so this is a very poor sample, but this is meant to elaborate the question not to give a definitive answer.

In the last 40 posts on that feed, the word "sex" (or compounds based on it e.g. sexual, homosexual etc.) appears 10 times, another post is about civil partnerships, one is about CANA (the Nigerian Anglican Church's invasion of the USA, so that comes down to who the bishop was bonking anyway), some on abortion and family rights and 10 posts were about Islam and Christianity in tension in Asia. Only two were about poor people, and they are both about the same story, the situation in Somalia.

So if this indication is anything to go by, TWOT thinks (or at least the Church thinks TWOT thinks) that the Church is obsessed by sex and Islam.

What do we want to people to think of about us then? Well the prophet Micah made a suggestion: he delivered the Lord's message that we should "act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God", a certain first century rabbi suggested we should be the light of the world. A hymn suggests that "they'll know we are Christians by our love".

That same rabbi explained that on the Last Day the Son of Man will say to those on his right: "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." The Son of Man, in this tale, goes on to say "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me"

So how are we to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God? As the rich man didn't quite ask Christ, how do I love my neighbour?

--

The long quotation is from Matthew 25, and I've copied and pasted from the NIV because its the default on the site I copied it from.

The Micah quotation is from Micah 6:8, again NIV.

On why I've only just got home from the pub... Or on subtlety.... Or on ordination

So this evening I left home at 5pm to go to mass as usual. And I've only just got home, over four hours after leaving the church. It takes me under 45mins to travel. So what happened?

Also this week, I had a conversation with my flatmates about whether we were going to continue living together next year once our current contract on the flat expires. One of the things we talked about was my ability to understand subtle hints.

I realise that the above paragraphs appear to have little connection, except in the conversation we were having in the pub this evening. Said conversation was closely linked to other conversations I have had in pubs this week. And I am trying to work out if these conversations contain a (less than) subtle hint from God.

You see, this evening's conversation was the fourth independent conversation I have had this week (three of which occurred in pubs, for the record - opinion to follow on what this demonstrates) where someone has asked me if I am considering the priesthood. To some of my friends the idea of me as a priest seems entirely alien - they clearly know some of my vices far too well. But so does God, so we'll see..

The first of these four conversations (and the one not in a pub) occurred in a relatively normal place for such conversations to happen, and by itself it probably wouldn't have been something I would have noted. What roughly happened was a quick conversation, whilst preparing for the evening service last Sunday, between Lee (one of the vergers who has just been accepted into training for the priesthood), Brett (a fellow server) and me. And I was asked whether I was considering ordination. As I said a casual conversation in the vestry, of a sort that would normally be washed off and forgotten.

Onto Wednesday, and I was drinking with one of the clergy from the Cathedral, and another friend from there. And again, over a few beers, I was asked had I considered the priesthood.

Once is unlucky, twice is coincidence...

Saturday night I was out for a drink (which turned into a evening in the bar...) after work with a friend. And it sort of happened again that after a couple, Laura and I were talking about whether I was going to become a priest...

...But three times is just plain carelessness

And we come back to this evening. After mass, Guy, David and I decamped to the nearby pub, as is something of our fashion. Initially we were just discussing David's reaction to his first sermon at a major Cathedral service (which btw, was generally quite positive). And then that same question got asked again...

So what is a fourth time?

Now back to subtlety, apparently I'm not very good at getting subtle hints (I wouldn't know, I never noticed any...) Has God stopped being subtle this week? Whilst He has started shouting my name at me in the night (cf 1 Samuel 3), the subtle hints to give this some thought that started about a year ago seem to be starting to be replaced by something clearer!

I'm not sure whether the little advertisement in the church notice sheet each week for a vocations conference is targeted at me too... (And if so, whether it's the Dean's doing or God's - and if there is a difference, and if there is, which matters most!)

So Tom's big question for the week... is this some big kick up the arse I'm meant to be detecting?

PS (mostly for my own benefit, whilst its in mind, I should collate the information) - For a little background, the subtle hints began (again?) at an ordination service I attended nearly a year ago after which a little old lady who I don't think I know asked if she was likely to see me "up there anytime soon". And I can't get that question out of my head. There have a been in the interim a number of other conversations like the ones this week where people have suggested the idea and I've been a little uncertain, but I can't recall details. This week is only notable for the volume!!

PPS - the amount of time I spend in pubs. So this week, my time appears to have divided between work, sleep, the pub and church (not in that order). I don't know whether I should be drawing a link between pubs and the above, but I'm certainly not being a good anglo-catholic, there is no GIN.

PPPS - GIN is a very old in-joke from the Ship of Fools, for now I suggest accepting the reference as one of my many many quirks!

PPPPS - Along with my liking for making extra points on the end of my ramblings, just like this one!