Morning:
8°c
AS middle age enfolds me in its musty embrace I'm increasingly preoccupied by the deliberations of the Church of England. This could be simple atavism - go back a couple of generations and there are many ordained Anglicans in my paternal line - but it may also be because there is something genuinely epochal taking place at Lambeth Palace. For more than 400 years, since the 1689 Act of Toleration, the Church has been secure in its status as the state religion. This was only ever a political solution to Christian schism, never a doctrinal one. Indeed, as any theologian will point out, there are no real differences in belief between Protestant and Catholic, any more that there are in Islam between Sunni and Shia.
Perhaps this political basis explains the peculiar genius of the Church when it comes to absorbing heterodoxy. "Satanist?" the smiling vicar asks of a new - and horned - parishioner. "Jolly good, come along to the vicarage for coffee, we're a very broad church, y'know." This latitude is currently best exemplified by the way Rowan Williams and his supporters are trying to square the circle over women bishops.
Looked at doctrinally, the creation of "flying bishops", who can be parachuted into parishes where communicants - and priests - find it impossible to accept the episcopal authority of women, is a non-starter. Conservative and evangelical Anglicans, who, in their different ways, all take their line from the Word of God, will find the idea at best a sticking plaster on their stigmata; while liberals, whose doctrine is really one of human rights and equality before the temporal law, will see these "provincial episcopal visitors" for what they are: a sop to the traditional misogyny of the established church.
Bizarrely, just as the Archbishop of Canterbury has become able, publicly, to countenance the idea of disestablishment, I find myself warming to what defenders of the Church of England have always seen as its unique role: to spiritually minister to all Britons, regardless of our faith, or even if we have none. It seems to me that nothing redounds so well on the Anglican Church as the manner of its going; for, while the Pope snaps back into reaction, the better to appeal to Catholicism's core constituency, Williams struggles to find a moral framework than is genuinely workable in today's complex and globalised world.
Still, I'm sure he is worldly enough to know that in a political church it's not angels but humans who will decide the matter of women bishops - and that the liberals will win in time. After all, it's only 20 years since the first women were ordained Anglican priests, yet now they comprise a third of all clergy. Leave it another 20 years and they'll probably be the only Anglican bishops at all.
Of course, I don't wish to be overly ironic, but this seems me a state of affairs that has always maintained in Britain: a significant minority of moral and goodly women - ordained or otherwise - ministering to a largely godless laity.
She knows, you know
Caroline Kennedy, the latest of the great US political dynasty to seek public office by running for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, has been pilloried for her inarticulacy, the most egregious example being her use of the nonce phrase “you know” 144 times in an interview. But these verbal tics infect even the most eloquent among us. Besides, you have to place those “you knows” in context; Ms Kennedy was explaining that as well as being a lawyer and an education activist she had written seven books — two on the US constitution. Well, at the end of the day, you have to admit that while I — or you — may not know, she manifestly does.
To be brief, less sex please
While some weirdos campaign against prospective legislation to outlaw violent and necrophiliac pornographic imagery, I find myself exercised by words alone. There's something peculiarly gross about the billboards that have sprung up all over London screaming: “Do you want sex to last longer?”
Personally, I don't like the way newsagents display so-called “top-shelf” magazines but at least you can explain to a small child who notices these grimacing lovelies that there's nothing intrinsically wrong about looking at the naked human body.
Not so with this slogan — any parental explanation will reveal a society that regards prolonged sexual gratification as a commodity to be purchased like any other. So, far from being encouraged to buy whatever potion these pornographers are selling, I find myself wishing that sex would shrink and become illegible.
* Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery, is calling for an end to "extravaganza" exhibitions and proposes in their place mini-shows, with just one or two artworks on display. I'm in total agreement - and I think many gallery-goers will be. I've long known that staring at too many great paintings and sculptures gives me aesthetic indigestion, while suspecting that curators mount these big shows - just as retailers put on big sales - for largely commercial imperatives.
But here's a poser for Penny: too many pictures may be a problem at the exhibition but too many people are even worse. I finally got to the Francis Bacon show at Tate Britain on Sunday and found myself unable to actually see these masterworks of figuration without live figures getting in the way. So, how can London's galleries put on small-scale shows, while keeping numbers small, too?
Reader views (5)
Oscar Wilde says it best at the beginning of 'Dorian' -have you ever read it?
- Aelred Down, cheltenham, england, 08/01/2009 13:11
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"but at least you can explain to a small child who notices these grimacing lovelies that there's nothing intrinsically wrong about looking at the naked human body. "
You mean the female body [only] ? Like, objectifying women? Yeah that's a good thing to make kids comfortable with and see as normal.
- Karen, UK, 03/01/2009 07:53
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Further evidence that Dawkins is right that theology is simply a nonsense subject, on par with the study of leprechauns as he put it.
- Michael, London, 02/01/2009 14:57
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I can't understand why women see the right to take part in a male dominated superstitious ritual headed by a male imaginary super being as being a sign of equality. Equality in stupidity maybe? We all need to be liberated from religion and god. I would hope that women could take the lead in this.
- Michael, London UK, 31/12/2008 14:05
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Erm.....most theologians will tell you there are quite a few significant differences between Protestantism and Catholicism. Transubstantiation for a start. The significance, or not, of Mary and the Saints. The significance, or not, of the Pope. I won't go on, but I learnt all this at GSCE level and I assume you did too.
- Claire, London, 31/12/2008 13:55
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