|
Letters
received during the week
of 15 June
 Upstairs,
downstairs
CHECKING
IN TO READ this
week's AO homily (15
June), I am struck by one aspect
you don't mention in evaluating the Victorians' workfulness
in relationship to our own. Both British and American society in
the 19th century were class societies, and gendered societies.
The 'clerics and bishops' you cite (surely bishops
are also 'clerics'?) were in a relatively privileged
position in those societies; they could concentrate their energies
on doing what they wanted to do and considered to be important,
because there was someone else, or rather, several elsepersons,
female and / or of lower social standing, preparing their meals,
making their beds, doing the household shopping, etc.
As
an incurable workaholic myself, I am often frustrated by how
much time goes
on these things—NOT that I consider them unimportant,
quite the contrary; but they do impinge enormously on the time
available
for reading, writing, and doing more project-like things. I
am very happy to live in more egalitarian times, but it certainly
reduces one's 'productivity'.
Cheers,
Keith Battarbee
Turku, Finland
Our
face is
a bit
crimson from this oversight. We agree with Keith: A
vast army of servants kept the clerisy (as Trollope termed the
clergy and civil service class) from quotidian
tasks and freed up their time so they could write
and publish impossibly much, classify rare shells, grow prize-winning
roses, and
take Sind. Certainly
not having
to bother
with
the washing up and meal preparation and hours commuting gave
one far more time to be productive. But we
still hold that
we 21st-century folk should do more with the hours
we have free
Could
it be... Anglican?
WHAT
MAKES A CHURCH ANGLICAN? I
was pondering over this question ever since two ladies approached
me while I was on duty last Sunday
asking whether my church was a Roman Catholic church. They walked
out of the nave halfway through the service and asked me this
question. I asked myself 'What makes them think that my church
is a Roman Catholic church in the first place? And what makes
them realise that the church is not Roman Catholic?'
There
must be some ways in which one can identify an Anglican church.
For me, other than the BCP and the word Anglican / Episcopal
after the church name, what are some other ways to make the differentiation
clearer?
Regards
from Singapore.
Gabriel
Leng
St Andrew's Cathedral
SINGAPORE
17 June 2003
If
you'd like to send along Anglican-branding ideas to Gabriel,
send them to us. We'll forward your emails to him.
About
vivisectionists and, um, yes, that
• KEEP
UP THE GOOD WORK, reminding
us of who we are and whom we represent. I
would like to comment on the outbursts over homosexuality in
the Church. Family rows are often the most ferocious, but
when the bounds of love are exceeded, hatred slips easily
in, and hatred is not of God. It is love that is the cardinal
virtue
of the Christian, not correct sexual chemistry. So much of
the tenor of arguments against homosexual priests and bishops
seems
to exude self-righteousness and homophobia, in its original
sense of fear of the same sex.
I
am myself heterosexual, brought up
in a strict Irish catholic family, did my theological
training in a Spanish monastery, but even I am scared by some
of the
sexual rigidity expressed in these and other columns.The
theology of
sexuality and sexual orientation is not explored; Bible
texts are simply slung about as dangerous missiles. I
fail to understand how such believers can criticise Muslim fundamentalists.
When I talk to non-Christians, they are more scandalised by
the
verbal violence of Christians than they are by the lifestyle
of ordinary
homosexuals. It is the lack of love rather than the expression
of love that bothers them (and me!). It seems to be the
same lack of love as that which enable people to bomb abortion
clinics,
blow up vivisectionists, etc. God help us if those people
are the gate-keepers of heaven! Some people already there
might
have
to leave!
The
Reverend Gerry Reilly
Crewkerne, Somerset, ENGLAND
ger_mon@totalise.co.uk
17 June 2003
• THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY HAD A CHOICE of
how his time at Lambeth Palace might be defined. He could have
chosen the poor in their hundreds of millions. How all of us
help keep them in poverty and on the verge of starvation
or death by disease. Confronting all of us with responsibility
for this crime would have been far reaching and controversial.
It might also have demonstrated his common purpose with Christ,
who, lest we forget, died for the poor.
He could have chosen the victims of war by confronting us with
our direct responsibility for the deaths of millions of people
across the globe in wars where we interfere and manoevre to protect
our interests. This would have risked his own 'crucifixion',
but only by the media and the powerful. Then he might also have
demonstrated his common purpose with Christ, who, left we forget,
blessed the peacemakers.
Instead,
he has chosen to be defined by the albeit very, very important
issue of the rights of gay and
lesbian people in the church. And
as the church gleefully tears itself apart, millions upon hundreds
of millions of the poor, hungry, exploited, wounded and dying
all over the world are ignored.
Today,
the Anglican Church looks less relevant and less like Christ
than it ever has before. That really
is a cruel irony for an Archbishop
who must have believed he was making the church seem more relevant.
Andrew
Peel
London, ENGLAND
20 June 2003
From
the Church of Norway
I
JUST WANT TO SAY THANK YOU for
a splendid web site, with all the news and all the links, and
very readeble 'front
leaders'. This
is a marvellous way also for a member of the norwegian clergy
to be kept informed and be in touch with the
big World. Forgive my hopeles english spelling—I just had
to offer thanksgiving for your splendid work in this simple and
hasty way!
Pax et Bonum
Dag Magnus Havgar
Curate, the Parish of Bragernes, Drammen in the Diocese of Tunsberg
Church of Norway
Earlier
letters
We
launched our 'Letters to AO' section on 11 May
2003. All of our letters are in our
archives.
|
