Joy what joy

To cease upon the midnight with no payne. Joy what joy. There is nothing more pleasante in this little world of ours than spending a Sunday evening with a local vicar, dining out, nibbling on a slice of Madeira cake, and drinking a fine glass of the best Fonseca port. Joy, what joy. Yes the Rev was in good form last night. Lots to download. Lots to discuss. Lots of coq au vin, roast potatoes, roast parsnips a favourite, and carrots and broccoli. Then the finest slightly over-cooked bread I have tasted for years from his goodly wifey. We discussed the passing of a great figure, the outgoing Archbishop of Cantuar - red as the ace of diamonds, but lovely chappie, sorely missed already. Very nice evening indeed. The Rev was in fine fettle.

Well actually tis mete

Well actually Lord Somerset did have a role in the original shaping of episcopal debate and the production of the BCP, and the role was simple, to steer the bishops away from the minefields of endless conquistador debate about definitions and dogmas and synods, and into the calmer clearer waters of the ordinary man in the street sort of theologising. The protestant reform was necessary, or rather the henrician and boleyn reform of the years 1525-1536 was in fact necessary, simply because the population as a whole were being misled by endless speculation of religious men on privacy matters, such as the king's annulment. Somerset had to threaten all the bishops in synod in 1548 because they had a tendency, even Cranmer, to drift back into the old forms that precipitated debate in the first place under the unhealthy obsessions of Fisher for a species of Campeggio and Conquistador canon law that was exaggerated above and beyond the 4 gospels. Theology had become a problem of public disorder, and so as per today in the council of the catholics at vatican two, the state always reserves the right to intervene when overly religious men upset society and cause public disorder. Hard cheese all round on the trop de qua catholic bishops of 1548 but it was simply that or general disorder of a protestant geneva kind. And both extremes Somerset and the young boy king Edward VI wished to avoid. A protestant reform was necessary because sound men wished a return to all the lovely simplicities of the New Testament era.

When all is said and done

Well out to the country to visit some old vicar friends of the old era of entente cordiale, and discovered that a great secret lies hidden, namely that the faithful who do like a bit of the old faith, the old catholic faith, are still out there in large numbers, according to the Revs of the countryside. This is what they stumble upon when they are beautifying their churches, or restoring the christmas crib, or generally rekindling old customs and devotions like the St Michael's Goose on the feast of the archangels and the holywells of St Rumbold and so on, that there is a surprising warmth toward the old faith. Funny really, given that we had persecuted all those young Spanish jesuit boys for so long. The ordinary rank and file people may not be too happy about modern magisterium from Auntie Overseas on the subject of the usual privacy issues, touching on a woman's right to choose say a caeserean, but they do like the old faith as they see it returned, with a little compassion from the gentle saviour. So the countryside vicars all seem very happy this winter.

Bish bash bosh

Well it is the story of our lives out here in Auntie Overseas, as the local firebrand of the old left wing at university continues his unrelenting but under-the-table campaign against the Roman priests on the QT, what, with his policy of bish-bash-bosh, or rather her policy, as it is usually the feminine component of the episcopal equation that does all this negativity at the palace of the bishop. Shame really but maybe our bishops in the old church of england have spent too much time serving Moscow, or the old style kind of Novo-Sibirsk, or too much time being skivvies and cinderellas to the little women at the palace like the Mrs Proudys of the world, and too little time saying their devout prayers to the God that can always save the Church of England if it just keeps looking up. And things are looking up. At least for the Real Church of England, the Nice Church of England, the Not-so-red Church of England, as I recently popped into a lovely evangelical style CoE church atop a hill on the site of an old monastery and it was full to the rafters of lots of lovely kids and their parents. Nice job - thank the Lord for a bit of gospel greedy bible bashing - lovely exegesis.

The Real

Like playing for Real Madrid, people will say, what about the other side? The Real Church of England is not always what we think it is. For a start the real church could be the old church or what is called the ecclesiastical church, which did believe in sacraments and creeds and christenings, you know the real christian church here in Britain. Or even what we might call the nice Church of England, before 1992, which did not ideologise the world, and did not berate the faithful or did not beat the faithful around the head with a baton rouge, namely a church that did treat people calmly and gently and sweetly. Souls used to be saved in the nice old Church of England, but today it is just a simple faithful killing field belonging to now this, now that cambodian style general among women like folk, as far as we can see. Nero has triumphed. Since 1992. Time to shift across to the catholics or auntie overseas. At least they do believe in the early christian religion. At least they disbelieve all the pol pot Neros around.

Mmm yet

Yet if it be true that a Lucrezia Borgia blessed the administration of the papal states once upon a time with the beautiful perfume of feminine care, then surely we can learn from the feminine side in leadership roles. It is not enough for us always to heark back to ancient paradigms but there is more that can be done to experiment with confidence in the future. The feminine vicar is surely the way forward in a larger world and a bigger society? Thuswise runs the arguments pro and it all seems especially absurd to leave women out of male leadership roles in an era which in 1952 put a stole and a cope on a young princess as she was crowned an anointed priest and queen. Still the old Church of England was nice on this subject and even rather quaint. It was not always like the parson in the Tess movie of such infamy. The old Church of England really did believe in looking after the young and the poor and the widow too. Many vicars became scientists and demographers in the victorian era so as to help others and other nations. And who will forget that marvellous icon of love and charity, the Rev Mr Collins from the movies of Pride and Prejudice and especially the BBC drama series. Anglicanism meant philanthropy. Ah yes those happy days when the Church by law established in Blessed Britain was truly love and charity driven and not just a last refuge for state police policy manuals for the infernal christian vermin below the police station high on the elaborate hills of every town. And no soviets in sight for a thousand miles this side of the Volga and indeed vulgar river of the CCCP. In those days the Church of England was simply elegant. It was a church not a barking menagerie. It was even as pretty as Auntie Over-Seas.

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.