During the heyday of the Charismatic renewal in the Anglican Church, staunch liberals turned their collective noses up at the idea of the Holy Spirit being alive, well and active in the church. Now, scarcely a paragraph emerges from a liberal mainline denomination without some reference to being guided by the “Spirit”. This is a convenient means of sanctifying any hare-brained scheme that pops into the homoerotically overheated minds of the clergy, and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the third person of the Trinity.
In the same way, most Christian terminology has been drained of useful content: “Gospel”, “mission”, “disciple” are all bandied about indiscriminately – to the frustration of those who still think they have objective meaning.
The liberals have stolen our words.
That is not enough, it seems. There was a time when no self-respecting liberal would be caught dead with his arms in the air during worship. Now they have stolen our gestures, too.
Here are Rev. Gary Paterson the new moderator of the United Church of Canada – who happens to be gay, a poet and a clergyman, in that order – and former moderator, Mardi Tindal, putting on a display that appears to be a carefully posed invitation for us to admire their uninhibited enthusiasm for – uninhibited enthusiasm.
I find the image eerily disturbing:
