submitted to the GUARDIAN yesterday:
As a Church of England priest of 40 years' parish experience, I found your editorial (Bluster in bad faith, 28 February) most important. For too long our denomination has been struggling to release men and women from the shackles of medieval thinking.
Many parish clergy rejoiced at the advent of civil partnerships. We organised a public discussion in church on "how to celebrate a civil partnership in church". The majority of those attending voted in favour of offering a proper service of celebration, with bells, organ, flowers etc. The church council used this information to design a parish policy welcoming to church any who had been through a civil partnership, and offering them a proper Christian celebration. We obtained suitable liturgical material from a senior bishop. Our diocesan bishop agreed in principle with our policy, but refused to permit anything to be done in our church building – OK outside!
I have been asked to bless ships at Appledore shipyard, lifeboats, the new bridge over the river Torridge, school buildings, cars, trains, private homes, homes for the elderly and handicapped, undertakers' offices, local and county councils, a church toilet, pilgrims, new babies, gardens, a shoe shop, the dying, pets (parrots, horses, cats, dogs and stick insects), countless wedding couples, oranges at Christmas and primroses at Easter. All this I did happily, thinking God, through the C of E, was blessing people and their concerns with his non-judgmental love. So why is the C of E leadership seeming to be so unwilling to allow clergy to bless civil partnerships – men and women who want God's blessing on their commitments?
Rev David Chance (retired)
COMMENT: MadPriest, a Church of England clergyman, can confirm that he is not expected to enquire about the manner of life of stick insects before blessing them as long as they are truly repentant. However, he is slightly worried that he may be hauled up before The Inquisition for once blessing a UNISEX toilet on church premises.
I love the piccie of the African Grey.
ReplyDeleteAww, lovely birdie! :-)
Erm... and the joke?
ReplyDeleteThe 'toon is spot on!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lois.
ReplyDelete:-)
ReplyDeleteFWIW
jimB
Thanks, Jim.
ReplyDeleteI saw that letter somewhere else yesterday and thought of you! I'm glad you put it up! Great Cartoon!!!
ReplyDeleteI have come to believe that the CofE under the leadership of the current ABC is quickly becoming part of what I think of as the "Worldwide Persecuted Christian Church," that includes fundamentalist persons of many stripes here in the US and elsewhere. They claim they are persecuted for all sorts of imagined wrongs done to them in the name of justice for all. Many of them are of the Tea Party persuasion. It's hard for me to believe we all read the same Bible.
I luvs African Greys I do :-) You can have a much more intelligent conversation with an African Grey than you can with most people. Present company excepted.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure, but I believe my niece's Ruby is an African Grey. She's a sweetie.
ReplyDeleteShoppy Made of WIN!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, JCF.
ReplyDeleteIt really makes me so happy when people congratulate me on the jokes that I think are good. And this one made me laugh when I was working it up - that doesn't happen often.
I have heard that African greys are also nice birds. The ones I have met have been quite accommodating, one might say even earnest.
ReplyDeleteMadPriest, when your jokes make me laugh, I tell you. I will never forget your Gertrude Stein joke about the pope that no one else understood, and I will not soon forget the recent joke about the call on the cell phone for the deceased. Humor is a strange thing. The laughs come when they will. What works for some, does not work for others. C'est la vie. :-)
ReplyDeleteNorwegian blues are a dozy bird.
ReplyDeleteMimi, you are right, although some people are more easily pleased than others. But that goes for other things than just humour.
Do I catch a hint that I am hard to please? If that is the case, you should feel like you hit the jackpot when I say I like your jokes.
ReplyDeleteMad One, it's a good joke, I don't mean to neglect your toon, it's just that if there's a parrot in the picture my brain will always start croaking out comments about that first.
ReplyDeleteWe have street parties in High Heaton when it happens, Mimi.
ReplyDeleteI know, Cathy. In fact you were in my mind when I thought of the joke. That's true.
ReplyDeleteAll Right! Now that is funny. LOL is the test, you know.
ReplyDeleteAlso, sometimes when I comment from work I am pressed for time and trying to do several things at once, including pretending that I am not commenting on blogs when I am really, by hiding the web page behind other pages if anyone happens to look. So it is only now I am home and can sit down and read over the post properly (which I couldn't earlier) that I can fully appreciate your illustration :-) It is very funny.
ReplyDeleteCathy, I have told you off before about letting work get in the way of keeping up with my blogging, so don't use it as an excuse!
ReplyDeleteI've certainly told them that but they seem unconvinced.
ReplyDeleteIT sounds as if she has met a lot of African greys. That's rather enviable. In fact, she moves in African grey circles, by the sound of it.
been wondering about this....in the
ReplyDeleteC of E a priest can't bless a civil union within the walls of a church, right?
But will a CofE priest get defrocked if s(he) blesses civil unions outside of church property?
I wonder this in regard to you, rev. Jonathan...if and when it seems certain that no parish work will ever happen, would you get de-priested if you offered Christian blessings to civil same sex unions? I am sure that there are enough couples that you would be fully busy with funds a plenty
blessing danielj
The bishop referred to in this post is being very brave. Most C. of E. bishops would not give permission to a priest to bless a civil union anywhere. At the moment I am not allowed to do anything priestly anywhere because I am not licensed to do so by a bishop. Therefore, if I was to bless anything I could be defrocked.
ReplyDelete