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This may turn into a long Anglican whinge so bear with me..
I've been thinking a bit lately about attitudes in the Church. It all started on Saturday when I was singing in the parish choirs service in King's chapel. A number of local church choirs get together to sing in a kind of festival of church music. It was a shame the choice of music was so poor. A bad piece by Archer, an appalling hymn whose idea of harmony was having eight bars of middle C for the basses etc. Of the few decent pieces the conductor murdered If Ye Love Me. [ or If ye love me ( gasping breath!) keep my comman-DUH-munts as he would have it].
Then I realised that for most of the choir this was the height of church music, many had been practising for weeks, which made me feel guilty about turning up 2 hours before the service to sight-read my way through it. This was also fairly high church (cassock and surplice all round). So of course the great church music of the cathedral / chapel tradition which I am used to is very much the exception and not the rule. It seem a great shame that one of the great cornerstones and achievements of the Anglican church is being almost willfully ignored by most of its members, and perhaps are ignoring what the church was is (and should be?).
In a similar vein I discovered the website of Cambridge City church here. This is a super-charismatic evangelical church here in Cambridge. Among the gems on their site:
"Brickfields [the name of their building] is situated on the right hand side, between the Mazda garage and the shed factory."
Their "prophetic picture" of their church is an image of King's chapel, clearly they secretly long to be Gothic high Anglicans...
and their justification for the absolute truth of the bible:
We know that because it says so in the Bible. Now you may say, 'hang on, isn't that a circular argument?' But in fact, any argument for an absolute authority on truth will always be circular - for example, we might say: 'I use logic to work out what is true, because any other method would be illogical'.
[A circular argument is still a circular argument, we don't use logic to find what is true, only what is true given certain assumptions are accepted. The statement on logic is actually illogical, and a tautology, in itself.]
When will evangelicals realise that their acceptance of the absolute truth of the bible is a belief, and not a necessary part of Christian faith, and certainly not a certainty.
I may have fun poking fun at evangelicals, but then I read a sermon on Genesis 1 on the Stag website here. Yes its the old God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve argument. Sometimes I think the sooner the church schisms over the gay bishop debate the better...
I've been thinking a bit lately about attitudes in the Church. It all started on Saturday when I was singing in the parish choirs service in King's chapel. A number of local church choirs get together to sing in a kind of festival of church music. It was a shame the choice of music was so poor. A bad piece by Archer, an appalling hymn whose idea of harmony was having eight bars of middle C for the basses etc. Of the few decent pieces the conductor murdered If Ye Love Me. [ or If ye love me ( gasping breath!) keep my comman-DUH-munts as he would have it].
Then I realised that for most of the choir this was the height of church music, many had been practising for weeks, which made me feel guilty about turning up 2 hours before the service to sight-read my way through it. This was also fairly high church (cassock and surplice all round). So of course the great church music of the cathedral / chapel tradition which I am used to is very much the exception and not the rule. It seem a great shame that one of the great cornerstones and achievements of the Anglican church is being almost willfully ignored by most of its members, and perhaps are ignoring what the church was is (and should be?).
In a similar vein I discovered the website of Cambridge City church here. This is a super-charismatic evangelical church here in Cambridge. Among the gems on their site:
"Brickfields [the name of their building] is situated on the right hand side, between the Mazda garage and the shed factory."
Their "prophetic picture" of their church is an image of King's chapel, clearly they secretly long to be Gothic high Anglicans...
and their justification for the absolute truth of the bible:
We know that because it says so in the Bible. Now you may say, 'hang on, isn't that a circular argument?' But in fact, any argument for an absolute authority on truth will always be circular - for example, we might say: 'I use logic to work out what is true, because any other method would be illogical'.
[A circular argument is still a circular argument, we don't use logic to find what is true, only what is true given certain assumptions are accepted. The statement on logic is actually illogical, and a tautology, in itself.]
When will evangelicals realise that their acceptance of the absolute truth of the bible is a belief, and not a necessary part of Christian faith, and certainly not a certainty.
I may have fun poking fun at evangelicals, but then I read a sermon on Genesis 1 on the Stag website here. Yes its the old God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve argument. Sometimes I think the sooner the church schisms over the gay bishop debate the better...
