Get real

I only did a brief and rather disconnected speech in the debate on women bishops at the Church of England's General Synod last Tuesday. In it I reminded Synod that when we think of the ecumenical impact of our decision we needed to consider not only the Roman Catholic Church, but also the other churches (particularly) in Europe. I didn't have time to expand, but would like to have done.

However, I did ask the Synod to get real when making silly statements about the Church of England “not having the authority” to do what we were doing. (a) If the Synod and Church has no authority, what are they doing sitting on the Synod in the first place? (b) if I really believed this, I couldn't be an Anglican in the first place. Despite all the fantasy special pleading, our orders are not recognised by Rome and our 'church' is a mere 'ecclesial community'. That's the inescapable bottom line. (c) If those who say they truly believe in 'headship' actually do so, then why didn't they do what the male heads of the Church were leading them to do?

OK, not exactly knock-down arguments for the consecration of women as bishops, but they open up arguments that were not properly aired during the debate itself. Sometimes we are just too polite.

This morning, having spent yesterday doing what the Church of England does every day – in parishes, in local communities, in meetings that don't lose focus on what we are here for – I returned to a quick scan of the media.

Naturally, politicians are shouting loudly about how to sort the Church of England out. Apparently, we shouldn't be listened to any longer on moral issues because of this. And we should be disestablished.

Well, there are good arguments to be had about both those matters, but the sheer illogicality of some of the stuff would, in any other context, be screamingly funny. For a start, we have politicians elected (in some cases) by a fraction of the electorate indignantly telling the Church off for only managing to muster 90%+ of the bishops, nearly 80% of the clergy, 64% of the laity, and 42 out of 44 dioceses behind the cause of women bishops.

How about, before we listen to another politician, we couple – in any political discussion – potential disestablishment of the Church of England with a demand that every MP can only sit in Parliament if positively elected by 50% (I am feeling generous) of the electorate in his other constituency. Electoral legitimacy in a democracy also needs attention paid to it.

The point is basically this: the Church of England has not rejected women bishops – the House of Laity of the General Synod has. The Church of England has massively and overwhelmingly approved not only the principle, but the process. The only question now is how to find the right wording to make law that makes this a reality.

We failed this time, but I hope those who are bitterly disappointed and disillusioned will (a) aim at the right target, (b) turn disappointment (and, in some cases, exhaustion) into determination, and (c) be clear and boringly repetitive, especially with other politicians and journalists/commentators, that the Church has not rejected women bishops.

After all, it isn't just the Church that needs to get real.

(On the good news front, the General Synod looks positively coherent in comparison with Chelsea FC who yesterday hired a Liverpool reject as their latest messiah. Ahem…)

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Things I didn’t learn this week

1. Why my voice disappeared under yet another bug. Did I become soft during a decade in the south?

2. Why my iPad gets the wifi signal, but won’t connect with the internet upstairs in my house when every other computer does.

3. How the Church of England can best respond to events in a single cathedral in one diocese when the story has an impact on all the other 43 dioceses – and the Church’s reputation.

4. What is causing the iPhone 4S battery life to be dodgy. Apparently, Apple engineers are working on it. No problem with my HTC.

5. How other bishops manage to read so many books and write intelligent stuff.

6. Why people subject themselves to the public humiliation that is X Factor.

7. What it means for Britain to be ‘European’ – wanting the benefits on our own terms, but without having decided what ‘belonging’ might mean.

8. Whether Nicolas Sarkozy was really narked with David Cameron – or just tired from sleepless nights caused by the new baby.

9. However justified the concerns of the ‘occupy’ campers, what their considered alternatives are.

10. How long the latest Chelsea manager will have a job before he heads ‘back to Europe’.

Off to Peterhouse, Cambridge, tomorrow to preach on ‘Bad Dreams’ in the college chapel at 6.30pm. Maybe I’ll have got some answers by then. You never know…

 

Er… run that by me again?

So, Liverpool have drawn Chelski again in the European Champions League and I am sure Chelsea are more worried about it than Liverpool. Should be interesting, anyway – especially in forcing my Chelsea-supporting clergy to carry on praying for me despite my obvious heresies and sins.

But the footie is a side show to other stuff going on. How about this for today’s ‘weird journalism’ prize? Today’s issue of The Church of England Newspaper has a whacking great headline on the front page of today’s issue that says: ‘Wycliffe Hall fails inspection report’. The second paragraph of the subsequent article says this: ‘The inspection team concluded that [the theological college is] fit for preparing candidates for ordained and licensed ministry.’

Now, I am quite broadminded, but this is just one more example of crass CEN ‘journalism’. I watched the shenanigans at Wycliffe Hall during the last couple of years with sadness, incredulity and diminishing confidence and my questions have not been allayed by the inspection report (which I have read in full). But, this sort of ridiculous reporting indicates that even if the college has come out better than expected, the ‘newspaper’ just looks silly. Wycliffe Hall did not fail its inspection; several areas were highlighted for further development and attention in order to bring it up to scratch.

Does the CEN have any purpose any more?

 

Hubris: the coming and going of empires

Schadenfreude is a terrible thing. But it is a little hard to resist when the mighty are brought low and the powerful lose their strength. Those of us who deplored the way Roman Abramovich was able to use his dodgy billions to buy Chelsea, price everyone else out of the market, win the Premiership and crow over the clubs lower down the table, have at least been able to watch the whole show begin to fall apart. Or, at least. to weaken.

Today saw the dismissal of Chelsea’s third manager in two years. It was ‘the Special One’, Jose Mourinho, who produced the champions who gloated about their money and strength and success. Avram Grant passed the time reasonably well. Then the Portuguese saviour arrived, Luiz Felipe Scolari. Seven months later and he’s gone. Chelsea are fourth and losing their gloss. Well, I am a Liverpool man and have had to endure a couple of decades of gloating from Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea fans after we graciously stood down from three decades of football dominance in England and Europe and let the little clubs have their chance.

I know I keep coming back to this, but it seems really important to have a proper perspective on ‘time’. As Mary’s Song, Magnificat, makes clear with uncompromising and worldly candour, the mighty will fall and what looks solid and permanent will one day collapse. Whether it be political and military empires, the global banking system or football clubs, the louder they shout and the harder it is to catch the sound of crumbling underneath the noise. Empires come and go, hubris leads to nemesis and the world can change in previously inconceivable ways.

Scolari might not be encouraged by this, but he is an actor in a play that provides a metaphor for the way the world is: the victim of people who have believed a myth and cannot bear to see the end of the fantasy they thought would be permanent. But life moves on and the mighty fall and the meek get raised up. The weak appear to be the strong ones and the fools turn out to be the wise ones.

I realise this is a bit of a leap, but this makes me reflect on the Church. It is always great to see ‘success’, but the edifice of ‘success’ (numbers, wealth, resources or noisiness) can seduce us into thinking that God must be on our side and approving/blessing all we think and believe and do. Yet history is littered with those who claim numbers and strength to validate their views over against those who differ – and, as time rolls on, are shown to have been wrong, unbiblical or to have found the right answer to the wrong question.

Surely the proper response to ‘success’ is that humility – rooted in the conviction that time will eat away at the powerful edifice – that knows its place and recognises that it might be wrong. One day I am going to write a book called ‘Towards a Confident Humility’ and work this one out in more detail. But, in the meantime, I’ll just wonder how many more managers Chelsea will go through in the next two or three years. And, of course, I’ll continue to hope that Liverpool doesn’t go the same way.

Incidentally, I know I should be writing something sensible about the opening of the General Synod this afternoon and the speech by the soon-to-retire Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, but I am not on the Synod, was busy in London and have only read George Pitcher’s intelligent and concise reading of the speech. So, I’m left with Chelsea. And my schadenfreude. And, of course, the guilt this induces in me.

 

The man that hath no music in himself…

Martin Amis ended his obituary of John Updike with the observation that ‘this is a very cold day for literature’. Well, I guess it was – and I intend to work through some of Updike’s works once I have finished working through Dostoyevsky. But however cold the world of literature might be, it’s freezing cold here in Croydon. I have just walked back from a concert at the Fairfield Halls and am frozen. Or I was…

Hail to Fernando Torres! Liverpool have just this minute beaten Chelsea 2-0 with both goals coming in the last few minutes of time from the wonderful boot of Torres. Suddenly the cold has diminished, hope has awoken and the blood is coursing through my veins with renewed determination.

The concert was superb: a celebration of the great 20th century English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Being the cultural philistine that I am, I am very familiar with some musicians and composers and not at all with others. Mozart, Dvorzak, Bach, Beethoven and a number of others press the right buttons, but I have never really been exposed to Vaughan Williams. But today’s concert was performed by the Croydon Philharmonic Choir (of which I am Patron), the New London Sinfonia and other choirs and it was a very beautiful eye-opener. Or should that be ‘ear-opener’?

The Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis was lovely. The Hodie was powerful and moving. But it was the Serenade to Music that really got me going. The words are taken (and adapted) from the discussion of music between Lorenzo and Jessica in Act V, Scene 1, of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and includes the following:

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.

I think Shakespeare (and Vaughan Williams) struck the right note with this observation. Music goes deep when we take the time to listen and not just have it around us like sonic wallpaper. Take the music out of life – or out of human experience, both individual and collective – and our humanity is seriously diminished. There is such a deep connection between music and our emotions that to shield ourselves from the power of music is to hide ourselves from the vulnerability of being moved and changed. Sometimes music goes over and beneath and around the protective walls we establish for ourselves and reach the hidden depths of emotion and sensibility.

It is not surprising that King David was a poet and musician.

And, now, as darkness falls and the import of icy snow and wind from Russia approaches, I am putting John Martyn and Bruce Cockburn back on the stereo. The night will be long.