Letters
from 9 to 15 January 2006
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It's
not life, it's television
Can
we please have some comment (and action) on the awful presentation
of Christian living portrayed on the premiere of "The Book of Daniel?" I
was hoping the show would be more along the lines of "Joan of Arcadia," but
it was far too inappropriate in too many ways to even list here.
There
was so much to be learned from the way the family learned to accept
the gay son -- instead of holding him up to mean-spirited ridicule
from family members.
The
Bishop's wife could have been depicted as senile without using
the graphic words. The shock value of their exchange as they were
going to the car was enough to show her illness extremes without
being inappropriate for viewers.
Dysfunction
in a family can be depicted in a way to help people deal with their
own problems, but everything about this show was mean-spirited
and not funny.
I will
not give this show a second chance, although I had great hopes
for it.
Ruth
Anne Harris
Grace Episcopal Church
Fairfield, California, USA
9 January 2006
(Ed:
for those of you who live outside the USA, the US's NBC
Universal network has launched a television soap opera programme 'The
Book of Daniel' whose protagonist is an Episcopal
Priest. The programme is not universally admired.)
Don't
forget the Book of Daniel
How
quickly we forget some
of the steps along the long journey that — through time
and place — have delivered the sacred manuscripts, clergy
and sacraments to our day.
Part
of that journey includes archaeological evidence for: a woman
priest (in a fresco in the Catacombs of Priscilla, Rome); a woman
bishop (in a mosaic at St. Praxedis, Rome) and even some evidence
of church rites for same-sex blessings across mediæval Europe.
The
conservative/liberal divide of modern Anglicanism is hardly a new
one either. For
according to the first Book of Common Prayer:
‘And
whereas in this our tyme, the myndes of menne bee so diuerse,
that some thynke it a greate matter of conscience to departe
from a peece of the leaste of theyr Ceremonies (they bee
so addicted to their olde customes), and agayne on the
other side, some bee so newe fangle that they woulde innouate
all thing, and so doe despise the olde that nothing canne
lyke them, but that is newe: It was thought expediente
not so muche to haue respecte howe to please and satisfie
eyther of these parties, as howe to please God, and profitte
them bothe' (BCP 1549)
Martin
Murray
St. John's Cathedral
Hong Kong Island, HKSAR
martinmurrayeducation@hotmail.com
10 January 2006
Earlier
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