The Pensive Pilgrim

There has been a flury of social media activity recently following the publication of the Church of England's teaching materials 'Living in Love and Faith' - the latest attempt to explore questions around gender, sexuality, marriage and relationships.   Not surprisingly, attention has been focussed in particular on two videos.The first of these, released by the 'Church of England Evangelical Council', was clearly filmed prior to the release of LLF and re-iterates all the well-rehearsed conservative arguments whilst also gently rattling sabres about either leaving the CofE if it changes its teaching in any way, or at least requiring the development of new provinces for those who would dissent from any such change. Rather bizarrely, it features people who were architects of LLF itself. The second, far more toxic, video was published by the group calling itself 'Christian Concern'. This is presented as a 'critique' of the LLF materials, in particular th...

  Welcome, straight friend, to Mirror-World. Your imagination has brought you here, and your imagination will enable you to experience what Mirror-World has to teach you.   So set your imagination free. While here you can be – and indeed must be – completely yourself. It is only the world around you that will be different. It will be a mirror image of the real world, and everything will be reversed, but if you dare to open your heart and mind, it is an image that may give you a new insight into the lives and experiences of others, and perhaps even to understand yourself in new ways. You are yourself. Your sexual desires and drives remain as they have always been. If you are in a committed relationship, that person remains the absolute focus of your desires and love. (I bet that’s a relief, isn’t it?) But you need to know that here in Mirror World, physical and romantic attraction to the same sex is the norm.   You will be left in no doubt about this. From the ear...

As England begins another Lockdown in response to Covid-19, places of worship have once again been told that they can open their doors only for private prayer. Public worship is now forbidden by law for the next month. As one would expect, there have been some very angry responses to this, not least from clergy in the Church of England. Indeed even the Archbishops and Bishops - who were criticised for acquiescing too readily to the shutting down of public worship last time round - have challenged the government on this occasion.  Inevitably, it is the voice of the objectors that is most heard; but in reality, views on this issue - both amongst the clergy and, even more so, the laity - are rather more mixed. Whilst some have argued that closing churches for public worship will do missional harm to the church, others suggest that in a predominantly secular culture, excepting faith communities from a hardship that so many other institutions must endure simply causes more alienation. I...

A few days ago I took a funeral service. Unlike several others recently, the death wasn't Covid-19 related. As the mourners gathered in the Crematorium, I  noticed that, despite the Funeral Director's best efforts,  many of them were taking no notice whatsoever of the social-distancing markers on the chairs. As a result, many rows were filled with people who clearly weren't all from one household or 'bubble'. To their credit, they were all wearing face masks, but as the service ended and they filed past me into the courtyard area, many of them huddled close together whilst others kissed and embraced. As several people were chatting, they either raised, lowered or removed their facemasks.  Grief, of couse, is difficult enough to cope with at the best of times, and it's hardly surprising that mourners at a funeral either forget what precautions they need to be taking or abandon them because they simply find them all too much to bear in such sad circumstances.  It...

 One day, a couple of years ago I had two appointments to keep in London. I was going to have a little time to spare, so I asked myself how I might best fill the time. Some people would probably say that I should have gone shopping; but my itinerary didn’t really allow long enough for a decent shopping spree, and anyway I’m a Yorkshireman, so I didn’t want to spend any money! It occurred to me that I was due to make a confession. What better place to do it than London? With so many famous Anglo-Catholic churches, there was bound to be somewhere with a set time for hearing confessions where I could slip in and out anonymously. Just for interest, I picked up my copy of ‘The Church Travellers Directory 1973’ – which some of my readers will doubtless remember with great affection. It listed the churches in which at that time there was a Daily Mass, indicated by a letter D, where the main Sunday Service was always a Mass indicated by an S, where Confessions were heard regularly at fixed...

In 1987 the British government launched a major public heath campaign warning of the dangers of what was then a new killer disease - AIDS. Every household in the country received a leaflet entitled ' AIDS - 'Don't die of ignorance' . This was accompanied by two nightmarish TV advertisements featuring  the violent eruption of a volcano, a crumbling iceberg and the four apocalyptic letters A-I-D-S being chiselled into a gravestone to the strains of  the latin hymn for the dead  'Dies Irae' ('Day of Wrath'). The chilling voice-over by John Hurt explained the dangers of this terrifying new phenomenon and gave a stark warning:  'If you ignore AIDS, it could be the death of you.'  This campaign was both a major success and a disastrous failure. It was a success because it did indeed strike terror into people's hearts. Everyone was aware of this new health threat and suddenly became fearful of 'catching AIDS' (sic). Ironically - and tra...

"Church of England weighs up cull of bishops "  screamed the headline in today's Sunday Times. The article went on to say " T he Church of England is to begin a rethink of its role which is expected to lead to a 'massive shrinkage' in the number of dioceses and parish churches that it runs - and could even mean that it had dozens fewer bishops."   This shouldn't come as any surprise. It has been blindingly obvious to many people for some time that the Church of England currently has far too many churches, many of them unsustainable, and that it would make sense to merge some dioceses, to slim down the administrative infra-structure and to move towards a majority of parochial clergy being self-supporting. The famous hymn parody says " Like a mighty tortoise moves the church of God"  and it is certainly true that the Church of England moves slowly on many things, especially those issues that are contentious. The economic fallout of the ...