Category Archives: Anglican

Rowan Williams wades into the St. Paul’s debacle

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But he hasn’t waded in very far.

From here:

He said the resignation, which followed that of Rev Dr Giles Fraser, the Canon Chancellor, was “very sad news” and that the events of the past fortnight had shown “how decisions made in good faith by good people under unusual pressure can have utterly unforeseen and unwelcome consequences”.

Speaking publicly about the crisis for the first time, Dr Williams added: “The urgent larger issues raised by the protesters at St Paul’s remain very much on the table and we need – as a Church and as society as a whole – to work to make sure that they are properly addressed.”

As usual Rowan Williams can’t make up his mind what to do or whose side to be on. If he sides with the Dean Knowles, throw the protesters out faction, it makes his prior anti-banker statement look even more ridiculous; if he sides with the Giles Fraser, we stand with the protesters (even though they have less of an idea of what they are doing than Rowan Williams) faction, the church may look good for a while but will lose hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The internal division in the church on what to do about the protesters parallels the division between church conservatives and liberals. The difference is, in the case of the latter, almost no-one cares, or even notices; the former is very public and the world is watching to see what the church will do.

Will Rowan mingle among the tent dwellers and organise impromptu Indaba groups? Will he advocate a Listening Process between clergy, police and protesters? Will he employ Hegelian dialectic to arrive at a middle ground that everyone will be unhappy with?

The Bishop of London, Richard Chartre, has plumped for the last option: he wants the protest to be scaled down but not be forcibly removed.

What should the church do? It seems to me to be a perfect opportunity to preach the gospel of Christ – the real one, not social justice claptrap – to the lost. Tent city on the steps of St. Paul’s would be a good setting for an Alpha course.

 

St. Paul’s clergy dropping like flies

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The first to go was the cathedral’s canon chancellor, Giles Fraser, then Fraser Dyer the cathedral chaplain and now Graeme Knowles, the Dean.

After repeated criticism of profiteers and ‘bank robbers’ the Church of England is now hoist with its own petard. If only Rowan Williams would do the decent thing and follow the example set by St. Paul’s clergy.

From here:

The Church of England is facing an escalating crisis after a third senior cleric resigned over the Occupy movement’s protest camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral.

The Rt Rev Graeme Knowles, the dean of St Paul’s, announced he was resigning with immediate effect, saying that the row over the Occupy London site had made his position “untenable”.

Knowles said he was “no longer the right person to lead the chapter of this great cathedral” and that his departure could provide the opportunity for a “fresh approach” to the crisis. On Friday, he took the first service at the cathedral after it reopened its doors after a week-long closure.

Last week, Giles Fraser, the cathedral’s canon chancellor, and Fraser Dyer, the cathedral chaplain resigned.

Reacting to the latest resignation, Rowan Williams has issued a statement, continuing the familiar theme of lamenting the collective transgressions of the financial industry while ignoring the church’s primary purpose of offering salvation through Jesus Christ:

“The urgent larger issues raised by the protesters at St Paul’s remain very much on the table and we need – as a Church and as society as a whole – to work to make sure that they are properly addressed.”

 

The St. Paul’s occupation

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From here:

Fears that St Paul’s Cathedral will become a ‘new Dale Farm’ deepened today after a legal battle began to evict protesters camped outside.

The City of London Corporation and cathedral officials each decided to go ahead with court actions as the landmark reopened after being closed for a week because of the anti-capitalist demonstration.

I’m surprised no-one has thought of the obvious solution. Get Canon Giles Fraser back to preach non-stop outdoor sermons to the occupiers. They would be gone within the hour.

Here is the Guardian’s latest comment on the attempt to oust the protesters. For once, they have it about right.

 

The whole episode reminds me a little of the delightful 1963 film, Heavens Above: in it the new vicar played by Peter Sellers invites a group of displaced gypsies to live in the vicarage with the inevitable consequences. The whole thing is on Youtube. Here is part 4:

 

Rev. Dr. Giles Fraser, the puppet of bankers and corporate interests

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Giles Fraser is a regular contributor to the left-leaning Guardian and is director of  St. Paul’s Institute where he enjoys admonishing  bankers on “the right use of money”. He is also Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral which is losing £20,000 in revenue daily because of the mob occupying its steps.

The cathedral is now seeking a legal remedy to its plight and, in spite of Giles Frasers’ protestations to the contrary, it probably is all about the lost income.

Rev. Giles Fraser is a liberal so he supports same sex marriage, doesn’t like Operation Christmas Child because it evangelises and is Islamophobic, and would like us to think that Jesus was a Marxist.

Bearing all this in mind, it was with considerable satisfaction that I listened to this clip of a protester declaring that “St. Paul’s is backed by the City, by the very bankers and corporate interests which we are here to protest against.”

 

Occupy St. Paul’s

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From here:

Scores of anti-corporate demonstrators invaded London’s historic St. Paul’s Cathedral on 16 October, but police who tried to stop them were told to leave by church officials, Religion News Service reports.

[…]

The Rev. Giles Fraser, the cathedral’s canon chancellor who took steps to ease tensions, told reporters that “I am very much in favor of people’s rights to protest peacefully,” and said he asked the police to leave the building “because I didn’t feel it needed that sort of protection.”

[…]

A statement issued by Occupy London Stock Exchange (Occupy LSX) quoted Andy Robert, one of the protesters, saying: “We’ve now been welcomed by St Paul’s … We are here to talk about the role of the financial sector, government and corporate greed have in ruining the lives of ordinary people and how we can bring about change.”

However, the occupiers may already have outstayed their welcome. It seems that their presence is threatening the profitability of the cathedral. I’m sure that the £22,600 raked in every day is all used to promote social justice and has has nothing whatsoever to do with corporate greed.

But the cathedral has now said the increase in numbers at the site meant it was forced to “review the extent to which it can remain open for the many thousands coming this week as worshippers, visitors and in school parties”.

The statement asked: “Is it now time for the protest camp to leave?

“The consequences of a decision to close St Paul’s cannot be taken lightly.”

Last year the cathedral said it generated £8.25m from commercial activities, or an average of £22,600 a day.

This total included entrance fees from 820,000 paying visitors.

New Zealand Christchurch Cathedral to be built out of cardboard

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From here:

The original 1864 cathedral was badly damaged in a major earthquake on February 22, with the bell tower completely destroyed.

A second quake, in June, caused further damage, shattering stained glass panels.

The city has yet to decide on a long-term replacement for the landmark and has commissioned architect Shigeru Ban to create a structure that will be ready by the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and last until the Anglican cathedral can be restored to its original condition.

Tokyo-based Mr Ban has earned a reputation for his use of cardboard – because it is recyclable and surprisingly strong – for large buildings.

It isn’t often such an apt metaphor presents itself: a cardboard cathedral for a denomination with a cardboard faith which will soon have to fill its pews with cardboard cut-out people to maintain the illusion that someone is still interested.

Richard Chartres doesn’t let a royal wedding go to waste

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The bishop of London used his sermon for the inevitable Anglican eco-cobblers:

We stand looking forward to a century which is full of promise and full of peril. Human beings are confronting the question of how to use wisely a power that has been given to us through the discoveries of the last century. We shall not be converted to the promise of the future by more knowledge, but rather by an increase of loving wisdom and reverence, for life, for the earth and for one another.

On a related note, I think Rowan forgot to comb his hair; and don’t get me started on those eyebrows:

 

Hell Pizza

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Hell Pizza is running a silly advertisement:

This has upset the  Anglican Church:

Hell Pizza, a chain in New Zealand, has angered the Anglican Church over its new ad comparing its limited time offer of hot cross buns, which is decorated with a Satanist symbol, to Jesus.

But St. Matthews Anglican church is not in the least perturbed and is displaying its own version:

Auckland Anglican church, St Matthews in the City, has put up a new billboard similar to the pizza outlets, advertising a hot cross bun with a pentagram symbol.

It says “Hell no, we’re not giving up pizza for lent”.

Priest in charge Clay Nelson says it’s about taking the mickey out of those Christians who complain about Hell Pizza’s “clever” ads.

He says people shouldn’t take things so seriously and go to war with secular society which doesn’t do Christianity any good.

If St. Matthews doesn’t take Hell seriously, what, I wonder, does it take seriously? Progressive Christianity, apparently, and the only thing it takes seriously is the act of not taking Christianity seriously.