Many Anglican Church of Canada parishes have jumped on the bandwagon of offering passersby in the street ashes on the forehead; it’s called ashes to go. For those who doubt the validity or efficacy of such antics – it has at least partially satiated the ACoC’s craving for relevance: it has its own hashtag, #ashestogo
Much as I favour taking the Gospel out of church buildings to the world, I suspect this is more a case of turning a liturgical expression of our faith into buskers disguised as Nazgûl performing street theatre, having first carefully emptied it of all meaning lest it cause offence.
I have no problem with this actually. I know there is a franchise holder of a fast food chain appropriately called Fast Eddies who typically offers everything on the fly. Nothing like relevance in a fast paced life.
There is no relevance without repentance or at least an attempt at turning. Would someone please tell me what they are attempting.
To the ACC cum TEC’s sleepwalking response in wake of Lambeth’s ‘The English Play’, Act-Scene-, a more repentant response would be:
“Out damned spot! Out, I say! One:two…Hell is murky!”
And why not? Because
“What need we to fear who knows it,
when none can call our power to account.”