Another quality article in the Times today, offering some great challenges to the British church and it's relation to the wider state...
"How strange that this race for the exit should be taking place against a background of unprecedented social dislocation, where fear of crime and terrorism has grown, the notion of the family appears to be crumbling and there is, as Tony Blair keeps pointing out, a lack of respect for the authority of the State and its institutions. All the signs suggest that what most people lack in their lives is a solid and comforting point of reference, in other words “a very present help in trouble ”. That is what the church is meant to be. The present Archbishop, Rowan Williams, summed it up in a sermon he preached earlier this year in Armagh cathedral, when he said the church should be “a friendly home for a world of homeless people”.
"One way he has chosen to convey that has been through an initiative known as “fresh expressions”, which uses the Internet and other people-friendly outlets to spread the word. But it is the word itself and how it is disseminated that ultimately counts. When it comes to grappling directly with the big issues of our time, the churches have been, for the most part, inept. Wary of the media, fearful of the accusation of meddling in politics and reluctant to attract controversy, they seem to have lost the art of direct and clear communication. That may be because they have been diverted by their own schisms, over women priests, homosexuality or sexual scandals. But is also because they have lost the art of plain speaking.
"I have read through Dr Williams’s recent speeches and sermons on everything from abortion to terrorism; they are absorbing, thoughtful and intellectually challenging; straightforward they are not. Reading them is like taking part in a long and exhausting journey towards some distant and elusive truth. Most people will have neither the time nor the inclination to join in, and meanwhile the pews grow emptier. Where is the Church when it comes to challenging the Government on civil rights and terrorism; grappling with the issue of drink-sodden town centres; debating stem-cell research and cloning; dealing with anti-social behaviour on our streets; defending — or attacking — multiculturalism; offering that clarity of intent and strength of purpose that is the hallmark of any great churchman? "
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