Sunday 6 December 2009

Can It Get Any Lower?

They probably haven't even swept up yet after the election of Mary Glasspool in the US, and this Archbishop, who can say sod all about Uganda, has issued a public statement. Surely, surely this is all wrong. Surely this is bankrupted credibility. What is he - some sort of wheeler dealer in promotions in Anglicanism, ignoring the folk who matter when in trouble, with a peaked cap and blinkers on?

I have to be honest about commenting, in that I've moved away from Anglicanism, so I am open to criticism here. But this man has a sort of established Church residual function, and occasionally makes some sort of possibly representative ethical comment. God I hope not. Does he look at what he ought to say and do, and do the opposite? Does he have to stand on his head all the time? Is he perhaps in favour of incarcerating gay people, because he has said nothing about that side of Lambeth 1:10 and its nonsense, but can say plenty about a bishop-elect about whom he knows probably nothing.

Ruth Gledhill has written:

Liberals in England are increasingly frustrated that an Archbishop of Canterbury who was himself elected for his supposedly liberal views on this and other subjects has embraced conservative Christian values in the name of Church unity.

He was NOT elected nor was his selection for his apparent liberal values (his intellectual ability was seen as useful - gosh, simplicity's deserted him), and, after all, he can change his mind if he likes. Nor is it about Church unity (the Anglican Communion is not a Church). It is that there are people at real risk of State sponsored killing, violence, incarceration, partially and wholly supported by leading members in one of these Anglican Churches, and about this he says sod all, whilst he can produce a message against exactly that class of person because one has been elected (yes, elected) to higher office. This is just twisted. It is Church bureaucracy gone mad, and lost the value of anything.

I wonder if and when people start to resign over matters like this? They go away for doctrinal reasons and related, but what about the straightforward ethical association with a leadership that can say nothing about real people threatened but say everything about a single person elected?

2 comments:

Brad Evans said...

Disestablish the church. This is no longer one of those cute things that the English enjoy doing and that the rest of the world couldn't understand. Now this is just stupid and embarrassing.

Anonymous said...

Ruth Gledhill (posting anon cos of nightmare blogger sign-up process) says: I am sure I wrote selected, don't know what happened to the missing 's', maybe the message from my brain never reached my finger. But technically, elected is ok because within the nominations committee they do vote. OK it is not exactly democracy at work, but hey, you can't expect everything all at once.