Saturday 6 August 2011

Don't Go Dutch

One sixth of Dutch Reformed clergy are now agnostics or atheists, and they preach their views openly. The unappealing nature of liberal theology, together with the vastly higher birthrate among those who hold to the old-time religion, have combined to make the Orthodox Calvinist heirs of a nineteenth-century secession, once outnumbered six to one, equal to the DRC in terms of weekly churchgoers. But, despite recent disestablishment, it is the DRC that is treated as the norm by the media, with increasingly calamitous consequences for the fundamentally Christian character of the economy, society, culture and polity of the Netherlands. Or, at least, of the historically Protestant North.

Classical Christianity is also the basis of this State and of all three of its political traditions But independent research has found very large proportions of the women among the Church of England’s clergy to be doubters of or disbelievers in key points of doctrine. Two thirds deny “that Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin”. One quarter denies the existence “of God the Father Who created the world”. Assuming a woman on the episcopal “team” in each diocese, of those with privileged access to the media and other organs of national life as the voice of the Christianity professed by seventy-two per cent of Britons, at least one eighth would be agnostics or atheists.

Parliament should just say no.

4 comments:

  1. There are also plenty of disbelievers and doubters among the women in the Catholic Church in your own diocese - and who attend Mass every week and more often. The sacred Host is just a parable. The sanctuary lamp merely signifies a place of sanctuary - like the story of Quasimodo. These are but two examples of many.
    I suppose I must add, in these days of equality, that the men are no better.

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  2. But that's not the position of the Magisterium.

    And no one is going to make those women bishops.

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  3. Ah, yes, the Magisterium! Perhaps you should run a course to explain to everyone, starting with the clergy, what the Magisterium is. Many (Most?) of the faithful have no idea what this entails and think that it is simply accepting what the Pope says at any given time - to be accepted or rejected as they think fit.

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  4. Those two things cannot both be the case.

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