In one of its first posts it asks “What is ‘Big Tent’ Christianity and Why Should it Matter to Us?”

The answer seems to be a place where everyone gets along no matter what their theological differences; even, I suspect, their different religions:

Let’s face it. The very term “Christian” has been “so torn apart in the battle-to-the-death between liberals and conservatives that there’s no longer any point in using it at all,” says Clayton. Indeed, I’d add that there’s really no place for words like “liberal” and “conservative” in the exercise of effective Christian witness to a fragmented world. We can’t rehabilitate the word ‘Christian’ until we jettison our baggage of institutional dualistic thinking. Adopting these kinds of oppositional stances which stifle dialogue and over-simplify deep human concerns is not only absurd, but essentially unchristian. The inability to live with one another in a ‘big tent’ in spite of our theological and cultural differences is antithetical to the very Gospel we espouse and hobbles the work of the Holy Spirit.

Bishop Michael Ingham would be very comfortable banishing the term “Christian”, since he isn’t one: if the diocese didn’t allow for members to adhere to non-Christian theology, its own bishop wouldn’t find room in the “big tent”. Not a moment too soon, some of you are probably thinking, but a bit of an embarrassment, nevertheless.

The article goes on to reveal the recipe for revitalising the diocese:

“it’s high time for a more prophetic, more counter-cultural Christian faith”

The only problem is, in a typically grotesque piece of double speak, “more counter-cultural” translates to “more cultural capitulation”:

[a faith] that is welcoming, inclusive, and validates all the gifts that the diversity of human individuals can bring to what are ideally messy, chaotic Christian communities: communities that spill out of themselves to engage our society and culture as followers of Jesus who push the envelope – or as Tim Keel puts it in his book Intuitive Leadership – ‘embrace a paradigm of narrative, metaphor and chaos’

I have no idea what that piece of cliché riddled nonsense means, but I can guarantee it does not contain an iota of anything that is counter-cultural.

The diocese is about to invade the neighbourhood in its zeal to appear counter cultural, though:

We’ll be hearing more about it.  Our own diocese recently hosted an enthusiastic gathering of parishes where all of us were inspired by the stories about the birthing and nurturing of  ‘neighbourhood’ initiatives. The day culminated in some goal setting and proposed action planning that have potential to transform parish life as we, as followers of Jesus,  focus on finding new ways to connect to those around us.

Having worked in large companies for the last 40 odd years, I have learned that as soon as institutional fixtures  get to the stage of saying things like “birthing and nurturing,” “goal setting”, “action planning”, “potential to transform” and “focus on finding new ways to connect”, they have reached a state of mental torpor from which there is no return; nothing will get done and the perpetrators of such desperate banalities will quite soon be gurgling incoherently as they submerge in their own threadbare meanderings. A typical corporate executive whose incompetence has been thus exposed is forced to look elsewhere for employment; preferably employment whose prerequisite is not clear thinking – some end up as Anglican bishops.