Make Rowan the first Anglican Pope!

No - honestly. OK so I have some ideas for his first few ex cathedra pronouncements which he might not agree with but it might just be worth a shot...

You see, I've been awol from the blogs for a while (going from 1 parish with 3 churches to 7 parishes with 9 churches will do that to you) and in catching up on Rowan's Pentecost Puke and the fallout I stumbled across another post from Fr Ed. Now I don't often find much to agree with in these posts, I just read the blog when I feel abnormally calm to fire myself up a bit. The piece I've linked to concerns the need to introduce marriage annulment to the Church of England, and Anglican Communion as a whole. (Can you see where I'm going? Of course you can!)

Now, FrEd gives us four reasons for this bit of RCizing of the Church. I'm editing the quotage so follow the link above if you want the lot.

"Firstly the process of annulment means that every case is thoroughly examined which means that mistakes are unlikely to be made. [Has this guy never looked at the history of the church that ordained him?] This also ensures that couples understand the gravity of what is at stake and are forced to face up to what went wrong."

"Secondly the process ensures that each case is judged on its merits according to church teaching as opposed to societal opinion. This means that only those marriages which really were flawed become eligible"

"Thirdly annulment takes seriously the state of holy matrimony... if the Church is satisfied that the marriage entered into was not a sacramental reality then the person is freed to marry according to the faith. See then that annulment does not allow for divorce but is a means of recognising when a marriage was not really a marriage at all in the true Christian sense."

"Fourthly annulment is something that can bring healing and wholeness to the recipient. Rather than ignoring the past and leaving people living with guilt... people can start to rebuild their lives and experience the freedom and joy of forgiveness."

So, if we make Rowan the Anglican Pope he so clearly desires to be, and we think of the Communion as a marriage (which it isn't, but some would seek to make it analogous to that) then I'm prepared to concede that FrEd might have a point.

The AC has met point the first already. There's been precious little else talked about for too long.

Point the second - the AC is the very definition of disfunctional and failed if we try (as Rowan seems determined to do) to describe it as the 'one church' that mimics the 'one flesh' of marriage.

On to number three: We should take seriously the idea of the one institutional church and all that means (even if it would only be a federal arrangement.) The AC is in no way that sort of organisation. It is not and has never been the 'sacramental reality.'

Lastly, if we went for the annulment of the AC marriage we might be able to rebuild, witness to those among whom we live and with whom we share our lives.

Of course, this presupposes that Rowan would issue the annulment and that the AC does, in reality, reflect the idea of Christian marriage WHICH IT DOES NOT YOU BEARDED IDIOT!

Ahem.

Please could we have our Anglican Communion back? Pretty please?

IGMC

As I write this the church, or more accurately one priest, is embroiled in a media frenzy about a post on his blog. Fr Ed Tomlinson wrote about the increasing number of funerals he is asked to take in which Christianity is something of an add-on in a post entitled ‘The death of death’.

Now I ought, for the purposes of full disclosure, say now that I know Fr Ed a little – friend of a friend. As a taste of what caused all the fuss, here is an extract from the offending post:
“…it has become painfully obvious that many families I have conducted funerals for have absolutely no desire for any Christian content whatsoever. I have then stood at the Crem like a lemon, wondering why on earth I am present at the funeral of somebody led in by the tunes of Tina Turner, summed up in pithy platitudes of sentimental and secular poets and sent into the furnace with ‘I did it my way’ blaring out across the speakers! To be brutally honest I can think of a hundred better ways of spending my time as a priest…”

This is one of the quotes that you may have read in the national press, who picked it up from the local paper, and it is easy to see why this might cause a stir. Certainly The Times, The Daily Mail, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph felt it warranted a good few column inches.

It perhaps goes without saying that the content of the original post by Fr Ed was in no way as bad as the edited highlights in the papers suggested, or indeed the quote I have used above. It was however a piece that left me a little cold. There was a lack of warmth and compassion that spoke of a kind of Christianity that has, by and large, gone out of favour in the Church of England.

One of the privileges of being a priest in the C of E is that you tend to be the default choice for people who are not necessarily ‘church people’, but find themselves in need of religion. These times are not limited to funerals, but include weddings and baptisms as well as other times of joy and sorrow.

I have always seen the job of the priest on these occasions to speak something of God into the situation, to point to the hope and love that faith provides, regardless of the music that is requested and without any comment on taste. The service (be it baptism, wedding or funeral) is not about me, and the way I approach them is always with the model of a servant leader, something I promised I would strive to be at my ordination.

The ‘extreme’ example of an entirely secular funeral might feel a little odd for me to take, and I don’t honestly know what I would do if such a request were made – perhaps ask the family if they were sure a Christian priest was what they wanted if they required no religious input at all. That said, in just over ten years of ministry I have never been asked to lead such a service.

Suffice to say that I will still strive to offer myself to the community I serve, and to try and point to God’s presence in all life’s joys and woes.