In an opinion piece today in the Daily Telegraph editor Damian Thompson celeberates the 60 year reign of Queen Elizabeth by extolling her virtues as ”Supreme Governor of a national Church”.
But he goes on to lament the sorry decline of the Christian Church in Britian during her reign and to worry about the future of Christianity after Elizabeth’s departure from the throne.
this country’s overtly Christian royal ceremonies have held off the moment that the faith in Britain becomes as residual and meaningless as it has in parts of Europe.
The anxiety for Christians is that this effect depends on the personal convictions of Elizabeth II, who is not only more pious than her children but has also taken her religious duties more seriously than many of her predecessors. If the British monarchy of the future recasts itself as a mere guarantor of religious liberty – as Prince Charles seems to envisage – then the secularisation of public life will be complete.
Thompson’s praise for the Queen and her bold witness to her faith is delightful. Unfortunately, he is not content simply to praise his monarch. He feels compelled to go on and damn the leadership of the church of which her Majesty is ‘the Supreme Governor.”
Thompson observes that,
Since the Queen ascended to the throne, churchgoing in Britain has more than halved; the Churches as institutions have suffered far greater damage than the monarchy.
Then he offers his explanation for the sorry state of religious life in Britain.
Is Queen Elizabeth II the true Christian leader of our country? An odd question for a Catholic to ask, you might think, but consider the feebleness of senior bishops – Anglican and Catholic – during the 60 years of her reign. She has been served by great prime ministers, but no great Archbishop of Canterbury.
Damian Thomposon proposes that the decline in religious adherence in England is attributable to the poverty of leadership among the Bishops of the church.
It is a delightful job to sit on the sidelines and be paid to throw stones at people in positions of leadership.
I am not a Bishop in the church. But I know that, in my own little microcosm of church-land, there are people who would accuse me of having exercised “feeble” leadership over the past 30 years and therefore sharing responsibility for the decline of Christian observance in Canada. And they may be right. Perhaps I and the leaders of my generation in the church are the guilty culprits. But, it seems to me unlikely that we can bear sole responsibility for the lack of commitment to an institutional expression of faith in the western world today.
Perhaps we are responsbile for the fact that Sunday morning sports, shopping, charity runs, and garage sales have preempted church. But, it seems more likely that there have been economic forces at work in our society over the past 50 years that have profoundly opposed active participation in institutions of faith.
It just may be that these same economic forces that keep Mr. Thompson’s newspaper afloat bear a far greater responsibility for the decline of faith in his country, than the “feeble” leadership against which he rails. Mr. Thompson might want to consider if some of the fingers he is using to point at others may not be pointing back at the role of commercial media in shaping the culture of our day.
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June 3, 2012 at 11:38 am
lindsay
Interestingly, here we see an editor of an influential major British newspaper, Damian Thompson, acknowledge quite openly that he is Catholic, and concerned for the future of the church, specifically the mainstream Anglican and Catholic church. He is not impartial. He is Catholic. He doesn’t appear to be trying to further the cause of Richard Dawkins or any secular anti-church league … but he is asking questions about the effectiveness of church leadership in the UK … perhaps this is what earned him the name of “blood crazed ferret’ by the Church Times? … a role Damian Thompson himself appears happily willing to claim … ?
“But, it seems more likely that there have been economic forces at work in our society over the past 50 years that have profoundly opposed active participation in institutions of faith.”
Yeah, it seems Damian Thompson might himself be coming to a similar finding, even if he is not quite there yet. His book “The Fix: How addiction is invading our lives and taking over your world.’ appears to describe the problem as he sees it …
… from a review of his book (The Economist) http://www.economist.com/node/21556201
“He sees no difference in principle between the high of illegal drugs, the sugar rush of cupcakes and the blinking red light on a BlackBerry that signals a new message. All involve the replacement of real relationships and real people with surrogates. Whether these are events, processes, objects or consumable substances (or a mixture) depends on the person concerned.”
“One set of mental circuits tells people to consume as much as possible: food here today may be gone tomorrow. Other more sophisticated parts allow them to restrain themselves. Modern life, argues Mr Thompson, is overwhelming the clever bits and overstimulating the more primitive functions that encourage overindulgence. ”
“Businesses target such weaknesses, using food technology to concoct confections of fat, salt and sugar. Computer-game designers test their products to make them unputdownable: the line between online gaming and online gambling, he argues, is increasingly blurred. As Mr Thompson points out, who would have guessed 40 years ago that a piece of office equipment (a personal computer) would beguile people into sacrificing their health and welfare to play with it? The limits of acceptable behaviour are shifting too: wine glasses get bigger, porn gets harder.
In short, both the need to manipulate feelings and the ability to do so have grown colossally.”
While business is blamed, what appears to be missing both in Damian Thompson’s book and in the Economist review … is the extremely powerful role media and advertising plays in manipulating feelings ….
and what role can we, the church, and our bishops take on to mitigate the impacts of what is happening … do we spend millions of pounds (or dollars or whatever the local currency) to take on an a massive, expensive media campaign, to offer our own brand of “quick fix” or do we dedicate ourselves to building a sustained community where “real relationships and real people” matter more and where “real relationships and real people” are our primary focus and not replaced by surrogates …
It seems we keep looking to bishops and leaders for guidance, yes, and at the same time we want to challenge our leaders’ authority and blame our leaders for the woes of the world … or business, or media … I’m wondering at what point do we recognize our own role as the living body of the church in helping to create the world we find ourselves living in … ?
Is it that we want the freedom but we don’t want the responsibility? … are we ready to use those “more sophisticated parts” of our own “mental circuits” to recognize that with God’s help we ourselves have in ourselves the ability to build another view of community beyond the “quick fix” we possibly think we need?
June 3, 2012 at 12:41 pm
lindsay
I guess the reason behind my questions, which are really questions to myself, is … it’s easy to pass the buck, but at some point the buck has to stop somewhere and why does it have to pass somewhere else … in my own little world, I’m thinking the buck stops here … er, yup, pretty much …
June 3, 2012 at 2:49 pm
jaqueline
“guarantor of religious liberty – as Prince Charles seems to envisage – then the secularisation of public life will be complete.”
huh?
Am I missing something? How does guaranteeing religious freedom mean it’s absence from public life?
Oh…you mean public life will no longer be specifically Christian, we will be part of the crowd, not running the crowd? oh… hmmm.
Still not convinced that that is necessarily a bad thing…..considering 1939 years of patriarchal Christendom kind of blew up in our faces via a whopping great big war.
What was that? Christianity has been in decline since then, since the end of the war? Oh you mean Elizabeth became Queen just after Christendom’s finest hour?….Great timing Liz….by the way…I’d watch those Bishops if I were you…especially that Williams, and that Tutu, they’ve been talking a little too peaceably since those days…..
June 3, 2012 at 11:20 pm
kimgye
“He knew that we are destined as human beings to blaze with the light and glory of our true nature”
A friend mentioned to me how often flame is used to describe our true being, as it were, in other spiritual writings. Is that where we may get to if we are fortunate enough to find the truth of ourselves in God?
June 5, 2012 at 10:40 pm
lindsay
http://simonmarsh.org/2012/06/05/wisdomsname/
Defender of faiths
I have, I’m afraid, heard too many conversations amongst English churchmen and women who have laughed scornfully at ideas proposed in the past by HRH the Prince of Wales – that there might be a time when the ancient title Defender of the Faith, as applied to the British Monarch, might be changed slightly so that the Sovereign became Defender of Faiths.
But, truth to tell, the benevolent reign and service across sixty years of Her Majesty the Queen, together with the faithful service of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, and that – initially laughed at – suggestion by the Prince of Wales, has been quietly getting on with the task anyway, without need, in the event, of the amended title. And the present Archbishop of Canterbury, working with and alongside other faith leaders in this country and around the world, has supported and sustained an ever healthier religious environment in which sharp edges are properly and gladly softened so that a diverse population finds itself able to rub along together without fear of injury to heart, soul, mind or body.
~ Rev Simon Marsh
June 5, 2012 at 11:28 pm
kimgye
I can only hope that in my lifetime I see this great country become the Republic that we deserve to be. Britain deserves to have their Queen, as do all the conquered lands that freely choose to be a part of their crumbling empire. I would like to see the Anglican Church be recreated out from under its association with the monarchy. Course I have many dreams………
June 7, 2012 at 12:33 am
lindsay
Dreams … okay, so how about … Prince Charles becomes king … in his short reign he changes the title of “Defender of the Faith’ to ‘Defender of the Faiths’. It’s the one extremely memorable and historic thing he does …
He can’t be ‘Defender of the Faiths’ and head of the CoE at the same … it would be a conflict of interest … so he steps down from his role as head of the Anglican Church. This effectively opens the door for the Anglican Church to untether it’s strict ties to British soil, and the Archbishop no longer has to be British or from a country of the British Commonwealth …. the Archbishop doesn’t even have to be one person, the role is shared … even across the globe … in this day and age with technological advances and the way communications are going … much is possible which wasn’t possible before …
And so the Anglican church naturally transforms from a traditional hierarchical, colonial organization into a church of the people.
But this is not all …
in celebration of the king, and out of deep respect for his leadership and example … the Anglican church itself becomes a ‘defender of the faiths’ … all faiths, all beliefs … all people, all communities … an open and welcoming embrace of all people …
And how does this astonishing event take place … ? A king, even his own subjects have written him off as a bit of a ditz, a man who’s messed up … has the courage to place a very small letter ‘s’ on the end of a very old title and so changes to course of history …
June 7, 2012 at 12:41 am
lindsay
Oh, this is so much fun … you see, perhaps we don’t need a stalwart, sensible king, perhaps, albeit even if only for a short time we need a king with a just a touch of madness … and his son … the King of Hearts ….
June 7, 2012 at 12:42 am
lindsay
Anything is possible …