Well shivvver me timbers

Well actually not everybody was on board with the General Synod Debate in 1992 in which all the canon theologians deferred to the wishes of the laity for a more "modern understanding" of the scriptures in permitting an innovation on the tradition and allowing the consecration of active women to sacred duty within sanctuary. Modern here meant letting the silences speak. It was a very superficial debate with very superficial reports made from the biblical exegetes, none of whom were present, and few serious theological interventions from any clergy, so accordingly the debate showed forth the paucity of reserves in the house of laity for sober theological argument both sides either for or agin. We had ceded the totality of church order to synodal fillibuster, more importantly of the whole field to a species of an alien strange politics instead of classical Judaean or christian theology, much of it thatcherian, which amounted to a clear contravention of our earlier commitment to reach out to the poor of the nation after the 1851 census. Acts 15 simply did not happen.

Still

Still it was not like other churches, it was not driven hard by the new canons of a new elite clergy hell bent on imposing commitments on the christian flock come what may. It was a church that was kind to first time enquirers. It was a church that was brought into being by a king and his lover call-girl to be antidote to a major crisis. A church that was meant to bring the civility of bed and board, of marriage and family to the quite cadences of the cloister and parsonage. In sum the real church of england was an oasis in a desert of despair.

At last

All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things bright and wonderful, the Lord God made them all. Thuswise we begin our happy blog as an introduction to all that was real and great in the once glorious Church of England. A Church that was truly church, a church that was really committed, a church that was actually christian, a church that was really goal-driven, a church of cucumber sandwiches, of tea on the vicarage lawns, a church in sum that was all that a church should be, a church within a church, and not just another lame excuse for dry grey rain-sodden soviet ideology like a west sunday afternoon in Bratislava as so many religions have become that are now penetrated right through with the old diktats of socialist ussr ideology. No, God made the church of england and saw that it was very good. It was largely perfect and a nice jog through a nice religion.