No, Ed West. We should encourage and promote Christianity in schools.
The idea of "Cultural Anglicanism" as
"benignly tolerant" is a piece of public school nonsense, and wildly
at variance with the plain facts of history. It is not unconnected to the idea
that the Conservative Party is non-ideological and has no class motivation.
Another piece of public school nonsense, and wildly at variance with the plain facts of history, is the notion that any more than half of the population of England has ever belonged to the Church of England, or anything approaching even that figure at any real distance from London and the Home Counties.
Peter Hitchens has been doing some work on making the case for the Book of Common Prayer based on its theology rather than on its poetry, but I can only wish him good luck.
Where the BCP is concerned, its lobby is in no small measure made up of those who are particularly attached to the later musical settings of it. Those have not recently become confined to cathedrals and to the chapels of Oxbridge colleges. Rather, they have always been so. (There are particularly naive cradle Catholics who imagine that that is the sort of thing that will be going on in the Ordinariate. It is not.)
Even beyond that, the argument is about the language. But the whole point of it at the time was that it was in ordinary speech, specifically designed to be universally understood down to every last word. Peter seems to grasp that point. But, to the best of my knowledge, no other partisan of the BCP does. Quite the reverse, in fact.
Made all the odder by the fact that many of us, even in childhood, never did have much difficulty understanding the language of parochial Evensong, which is not remotely like the cathedral or the college chapel kind's omitted confession and absolution, no sermon, almost no concession to the presence of the congregation in the room, and deliberately unpastoral timing in the mid-afternoon, although it is telling that a collection is still taken.
Nor understanding the BCP Communion Services of early Sunday mornings or of mid-weeks. That it was practically Slavonic, which we should sit back and enjoy for the rhythm if we did not understand the words, was always as lost on us as it was, and was intended to be, on the original hearers.
Bringing us to the King James Bible, rarely read even at parochial Evensongs: the Psalms in the BCP are not the King James, but an earlier translation; whereas the readings for Communion Services, which are King James, are printed in full in the BCP, those for Matins and Evensong are not, only the Bible references are given. But, again, the King James Bible was specifically designed to be universally understood at the time, and in fact has a history of fostering popular religion.
John Wesley changed parts of the BCP to suit his theology, but did not alter the language; his Prayer Book was still in widespread use among Methodists until fairly recently, and may still be in parts of the world, while the Authorised Version was universal, as it was in Nonconformity generally, and as it still is in much of the American Bible Belt and elsewhere.
Yet in the country of its origin, the argument advanced for it, even for its use in church, is that it is the text preferred by atheist aesthetes such as Richard Dawkins and Douglas Murray, or the late Christopher Hitchens. What does it say about it, that that is the case? Is its literary impact even that great, certainly compared to Shakespeare, and no one suggests that he should be read in church? Yes, many modern translations are heavily politicised both theologically and in a wider sense, as are certain lectionary arrangements of their material.
So was, and is, the King James. So will any translation always be. All translation is exegetical, whether of the Bible or of anything else. Again I appeal for someone, somewhere to reissue the Missal's RSV Edition, using by far the most edifying translation of the Bible into modern English. "The Bible as literature" is always, ultimately, a refusal to engage with the Bible as the Bible, at least if one allows oneself to stop there.
There are theological arguments to be made for the King James Bible, based on its design specifically for liturgical use and in order to aid theological scholarship within the ecclesial community as such, based on the authority that Authorised it, and based on fidelity to the Textus Receptus, a position which, whatever else may be said of it, also has adherents in several other language-groups, including a particularly strong following among the Finns.
The first of those points is a very good one indeed, to which the answer is the affirmed superiority of other meetings of that same need. The second and third are also theological points, the answers to which are likewise theological.
And that, alas, is why those points are not made by "Cultural Anglicans". They do these things much better in America, in Northern Ireland, and on the ultraconservative fringes of English, Scottish and Welsh Calvinism. I may not agree with them. But at least I can respect them.
Another piece of public school nonsense, and wildly at variance with the plain facts of history, is the notion that any more than half of the population of England has ever belonged to the Church of England, or anything approaching even that figure at any real distance from London and the Home Counties.
Peter Hitchens has been doing some work on making the case for the Book of Common Prayer based on its theology rather than on its poetry, but I can only wish him good luck.
Where the BCP is concerned, its lobby is in no small measure made up of those who are particularly attached to the later musical settings of it. Those have not recently become confined to cathedrals and to the chapels of Oxbridge colleges. Rather, they have always been so. (There are particularly naive cradle Catholics who imagine that that is the sort of thing that will be going on in the Ordinariate. It is not.)
Even beyond that, the argument is about the language. But the whole point of it at the time was that it was in ordinary speech, specifically designed to be universally understood down to every last word. Peter seems to grasp that point. But, to the best of my knowledge, no other partisan of the BCP does. Quite the reverse, in fact.
Made all the odder by the fact that many of us, even in childhood, never did have much difficulty understanding the language of parochial Evensong, which is not remotely like the cathedral or the college chapel kind's omitted confession and absolution, no sermon, almost no concession to the presence of the congregation in the room, and deliberately unpastoral timing in the mid-afternoon, although it is telling that a collection is still taken.
Nor understanding the BCP Communion Services of early Sunday mornings or of mid-weeks. That it was practically Slavonic, which we should sit back and enjoy for the rhythm if we did not understand the words, was always as lost on us as it was, and was intended to be, on the original hearers.
Bringing us to the King James Bible, rarely read even at parochial Evensongs: the Psalms in the BCP are not the King James, but an earlier translation; whereas the readings for Communion Services, which are King James, are printed in full in the BCP, those for Matins and Evensong are not, only the Bible references are given. But, again, the King James Bible was specifically designed to be universally understood at the time, and in fact has a history of fostering popular religion.
John Wesley changed parts of the BCP to suit his theology, but did not alter the language; his Prayer Book was still in widespread use among Methodists until fairly recently, and may still be in parts of the world, while the Authorised Version was universal, as it was in Nonconformity generally, and as it still is in much of the American Bible Belt and elsewhere.
Yet in the country of its origin, the argument advanced for it, even for its use in church, is that it is the text preferred by atheist aesthetes such as Richard Dawkins and Douglas Murray, or the late Christopher Hitchens. What does it say about it, that that is the case? Is its literary impact even that great, certainly compared to Shakespeare, and no one suggests that he should be read in church? Yes, many modern translations are heavily politicised both theologically and in a wider sense, as are certain lectionary arrangements of their material.
So was, and is, the King James. So will any translation always be. All translation is exegetical, whether of the Bible or of anything else. Again I appeal for someone, somewhere to reissue the Missal's RSV Edition, using by far the most edifying translation of the Bible into modern English. "The Bible as literature" is always, ultimately, a refusal to engage with the Bible as the Bible, at least if one allows oneself to stop there.
There are theological arguments to be made for the King James Bible, based on its design specifically for liturgical use and in order to aid theological scholarship within the ecclesial community as such, based on the authority that Authorised it, and based on fidelity to the Textus Receptus, a position which, whatever else may be said of it, also has adherents in several other language-groups, including a particularly strong following among the Finns.
The first of those points is a very good one indeed, to which the answer is the affirmed superiority of other meetings of that same need. The second and third are also theological points, the answers to which are likewise theological.
And that, alas, is why those points are not made by "Cultural Anglicans". They do these things much better in America, in Northern Ireland, and on the ultraconservative fringes of English, Scottish and Welsh Calvinism. I may not agree with them. But at least I can respect them.
Whether people were physically members of the Church of England is hardly the point-the British were culturally Anglican, so it didn't matter whether they really believed in it. They behaved as if they did.
ReplyDeleteBritain was culturally Anglican.
And the fact that the Conservative Party is non- ideological is borne out by the fact that they've swallowed all the ideas of the Left for the last 50 years.
Have the Tories ever sought to reform Wilsons enormous welfare state, reverse his destruction of the grammar schools or reform the giant 'treatment instead of prevention' National Sickness Service, as Peter Hitchens calls it?
Have the Tories ever stopped Labours policy of subsidising fatherless unmarried homes, abolishing the death penalty, weakening prisons and taking police off the street?
Has Cameron ever sought to repeal Harriet Harmans Matxist Equality Act 2010- the totalitarian piece of legislation now used to persecute public-sector Christians?
Have the Tories ever reversed Labours long-standing policy of abolishing hereditary peers, finally achieved by Blair?
Has Cameron ever sought to close the borders that Blair flung open to 5 million people in order to "rub the Rights nose in diversity" as Andrew Neather put it?
Have the Tories ever sought to reverse the European Constitution Gordon Brown forced on us, thus over-writing our own ancient Constitution?
No is the answer in every case.
Because the Tories, being unprincipled careerists, have no ideas of their own-so they adopt the ideas of their enemies.
Anything for an easy life.
Britain was culturally Anglican.
ReplyDeleteWhen? That has never been true even of any more than half of the English. Never.
I stopped reading at that point. As would everyone else have done.
Perhaps you need to look up the word culture.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't mean they all went to Church.
Perpahs you could start by reading Weber on the 'Protestant ethic' and Victorian Britain.
Fifty per cent of that in England was Nonconformist, massively predominating in many parts of the country.
ReplyDeleteAnd they certainly did believe it, with most un-Anglican cultural, not to say political, consequences. They despised the Church of England, and their political vehicle was in power much of the time.
Such were the figures from the first point that anyone bothered to measure them. And that was just England, the Anglican heartland.
The unerring ability of social scientists to tell everyone what they already knew, of course. "Weber"? Did you say, "Weber"?
But if you have only ever read as far as Weber, then, well, the first half of this sentence speaks for itself.
Fifty per cent of that in England was Nonconformist, massively predominating in many parts of the country.
ReplyDeleteAnd they certainly did believe it, with most un-Anglican cultural, not to say political, consequences. They despised the Church of England, and their political vehicle was in power much of the time.
Such were the figures from the first point that anyone bothered to measure them. And that was just England, the Anglican heartland.
The unerring ability of social scientists to tell everyone what they already knew, of course. "Weber"? Did you say, "Weber"?
But if you have only ever read as far as Weber, then, well, the first half of this sentence speaks for itself.