As someone who was brought up in the Church of England, I was interested to read this Guardian article. As the Archbishop of Canterbury (theologian, philosopher and poet, Rowan Williams) prepares to step down next winter, and as the church recently voted to allow female bishops but not openly gay and partnered bishops, the C of E finds itself at a crossroads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_Williams
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| Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams |
"The church in its own bubble has become, at best, the guardian of the value system of the nation's grandparents, and at worst a den of religious anoraks defined by defensiveness, esoteric logic and discrimination. If even the younger and brighter bishops think this, many will ask if there is any hope for the church. Is it still standing only from habit, like a dead tree waiting for the next big storm, or is there life below ground?"
"The national institution, however, appears disconnected from all this, remote, hierarchical, fixated on its own stuff. The church of the future may be less a civil service or conventional business, and more a movement like Alcoholics Anonymous, the ultimate locally delivered, life-changing non-profit organisation. The job of the hierarchy will be to enable this, not to represent it or control it."
"Away from metropolitan centres, the CofE is still in the petit bourgeois mindset of the 50s and 60s. Church was about being associated with the right tribe, sitting in the next pew to the headmaster and the local doctor. My lot can proudly parrot the catechism, want hymns they know and haven't a clue what it is all about."
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