Monday, 29 June 2009

• Church of England to Streamline Service, Lose the Message

  by Goose of Faith and Geekery
  

  The Church of England has got a plan to curtail steadily dwindling attendance on Sunday morning services. Communion hymns will be replaced in many churches with U2 songs. Clergymen will invite their parishioners to prayer stations where they can rub sea salt on their faces to mimic tears and then meditate on gender equality and environmental sustainability. The faithful will be invited to recite psalms in beat poetry style after they conclude their prayers that the CEOs of Google and Microsoft will pledge more funds to goodwill worldwide. If it sounds made up, it isn’t. Welcome to the church’s “Fresh Expressions” program.

  As reported in recent weeks by Britain’s Telegraph, the program is being systemized and distributed in a new book. The effort is one held close to the bosom of Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Anglican bigwig, and complete nutjob. In his short and distinguished embarrassing tenure, Williams has called for the partial adoption of Islamic Sharia law in Britain, railed against American imperialism, and become a Druid. Dr. Williams believes the Fresh Expressions program is just the medicine British young folks, in particular, need to be enticed back to church.

  This effort is bunk – unfettered, unapologetic hogwash. Expansion on that point in mere moments, but here’s how Brit Reverend David Houlding of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London puts it:

  All this is tosh. It’s just a passing fad, irrelevant, shallow and pointless. There’s no depth to it and it’s embarrassing….

  If this discussion were volleyball, it would be ‘game, set and match’ for Reverend Houlding. It’s the issue of depth that’s so key here, and the lack of it in ‘Fresh Expressions’ is underscored by its proponents attempts to defend it:

  We have to reconnect… It is important to offer spirituality to people who are offered a multi-choice lifestyle and who think that the last place they’ll find it is chuch.

  The quote is taken from the Telgraph’s story, and is the product of Rt Reverand Graham Cray, the head of the initiative (or his larynx anyway). Note his usage of the universalist fluffball term ’spirituality’ instead of other less acceptable labels such as “the gospel,” “Jesus,” or “anything of substance whatsoever.” *Deep and pacifying breath*

  There is nothing wrong with creatively structuring a church service to best speak to a generation or a community. The employing of new types of music and meaningful symbols is outstanding. Applying faith to the problems of our day is terribly important too, though these folks would have a more liberal than Karl Marx “unique” take on what that ought to look like.

  But… a new and streamlined method of delivery needs to have as its heart and soul the enduring message that made the church come into being! Sadly, with all the enhanced delivery techniques, Jesus and his power to bring our lives real purpose doesn’t appear too often in the the program.

  As both an Anglophile and a history geek it’s terribly sad to see British Christianity in this anemic state. The nation that produced John Wesley, George Whitfield, and Charles Spurgeon has been reduced to one where church leadership has lost the plot. We as American Christians would be wise to take note of the lesson on display in the British Isles.

  When the church beautifies and modernizes its outreach method while forgetting the very message its built on, it becomes a remarkably vapid instrument of “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” (William Shakespeare… that is to say he uttered the “sound and fury” bit, as opposed to the rest of the post.)

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