Culture & Society Archives - Anglicanism.org

‘In God we Trust’ – Editorial, Easter 2023

‘In God we Trust’ – Editorial, Easter 2023

The Editor,The Rev'd Dr. Nicholas Henderson writes in the Easter Editorial: ‘In God we Trust’– a phrase that appears on American banknotes and coinage – was first approved by Congress in 1864 during the American Civil War. The provenance of the phrase isn’t biblical but comes rather from the American National Anthem, a stanza at the end of the fourth and final rarely sung verse: “And this be our motto: In God is our trust. And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” The anthem is itself an exposition of a poem ‘The Defence of Fort McHenry’ by Frances Scott Key during the War of 1812 against the British. It seems today that the banknote rather than the motto has elicited more faith than a sinking conventional religious affiliation and patriotism. All over the Western world something similar has been happening for at least the last 70 years and arguably longer. Traditional denominational Christianity is in slow and perhaps terminal decline. Of course, this is always countered by the claim that conservative evangelical church congregations are supposedly growing and flourishing. Whatever, it is obvious that the critical mass of Christian observance is shifting out of Europe and North America southwards and towards what is generally called the developing world. No one has satisfactorily explained the reason why people are choosing a non-affiliated secular way of life. ...

2023-03-31T21:34:38+00:00By Henderson, The Rev'd Dr. Nicholas|Tags: Anglican identity|

A Marian Odyssey

A Marian Odyssey

Professor James Stevens Curl writes on the origins and enduring status of Marian devotions: Having spent a considerable part of a life immersed in ecclesiology in rural England, I could hardly be left unaware of the remaining legacy of the widespread devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary that had managed to survive the iconoclasm of the 16th and 17th centuries, not just in terms of the enormous numbers of churches given Her name, but the evidence that remained in sculptures, symbols, glass, illuminated manuscripts, and music. ... As the Christian Church developed its rituals, terms such as eucharistia and ecclesiæ would have been familiar to devotees of Isis and Serapis, so the move from the Nilotic religions to that of Christ would not have been a huge jump for an Isiac in the Græco-Roman world. With the acceptance of Egyptian deities into the Roman religious systems, a certain blurring of identities occurred (the association of Isis with Diana of Ephesus is just one example), and it was nothing extraordinary to see Isis/Diana/Hathor/Aphrodite as a prototypical Madonna. There were precedents in plenty. ... This blurring continued after Christianity had become the State Religion, and the fact that Isis shares so many titles and attribute with the Madonna cannot be overlooked. Isis continued to attract her devotees, and her symbols, including the lily and the fountain, proliferated, as did her names. Significantly, the cult of the Virgin Mary dates from a time very near the period of the destruction of the Alexandrian Serapeion and other Nilotic shrines. The Gnostics held that Isis and the Virgin Mary shared attributes, and when the dogma of the All-Holy Virgin Mother of God was adopted in 431 at Ephesus (of all places), the theologians could not have been unaware of the importance of Isis and of Diana, the Great Goddess. Indeed, the Council of Ephesus, anxious to resolve the Nestorian controversy, first gave official recognition to the elevation of Christ’s Mother, and in so doing acknowledged the position of Isis throughout the civilised world, for such an œcumenical goddess was a challenge to Christianity and its ascetic philosophies that were repugnant to many in the Empire. ...

2023-03-01T09:51:06+00:00By Curl, Professor James Stevens|Tags: Cults, Saints|

Pope Benedict XVI and Modernism—an assessment

Pope Benedict XVI and Modernism—an assessment

Professor James Stevens Curl assesses Pope Benedict XVI in the light of today's modernism: The death of Joseph Maria Aloisius Ratzinger (1927-2022), who reigned as Pope Benedict XVI from 2005 until 2013, triggered various sobering thoughts in these benighted times. A diligent scholar, with a fine mind, he was unusual: a Pope of Æsthetics, a lover of Bach and Mozart, he reminded an increasingly ugly and debased world that there is such a thing as beauty, a term which Modernism denies has any validity, because relativism has devalued it, even questioned its very existence. He connected the Church with Art, championed Latin and Tradition, and valued the Tridentine Mass. Given that Southern Germany possesses a wealth of delicious Baroque and Rococo churches, the architectural parallels of the music of Bach and Mozart, it is hardly surprising that Ratzinger responded to their astonishing, joyous, exquisite beauty. ...

2023-02-14T15:22:55+00:00By Curl, Professor James Stevens|Tags: Anglican/Roman Catholic|

Dreaming of World Peace

Dreaming of World Peace

Bishop Trevor Mwamba writes: In October 1962 the United States and the Soviet Union wobbled dangerously close towards a nuclear war caused by the Cuban Missile crisis. However, because of intelligent leadership the catastrophe was avoided. The Soviet Union had placed missiles in Cuba after the United States had placed Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Italy. To resolve the crisis a secret pact was agreed in which the Soviet Union removed their missiles from Cuba and the United States quietly from Turkey and Italy months later. Being a secret pact many in the West thought the Americans won the confrontation through an unrelenting display of power and the threat of nuclear escalation. To the contrary a nuclear war was prevented because of compromise on both sides. It was possible because both President John F. Kennedy and Chairman Khrushchev in good faith were able to negotiate with each. This good faith is reflected in a letter Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy wrote to Chairman Nikita Khrushchev on December 1st 1963. It was one of her last nights in the White House after the assassination of her husband. It’s inspiring, it’s elegant, it’s moving, especially in its idea of big men and little men and the consequences of leadership thereof. ...

2023-01-24T13:29:04+00:00By Mwamba, The Rt Rev'd Trevor|Tags: African, War & Peace|

Dear Heart-broken, Dear Confused: Agony Aunts and Problem Pages as Implicit Religion

Dear Heart-broken, Dear Confused: Agony Aunts and Problem Pages as Implicit Religion

The Very Rev'd Professor Martyn Percy writes: Such is the extent of secularization in modern Britain, it will now come as a surprise to quite a number of folk that modern hospitals have religious foundations – St. Thomas or St. Bartholomew come to mind. Also, Halloween seems to have morphed into a secular celebration of light-hearted horror-genres, replete with pumpkins. For most, the remembrance of all souls has become quite detached. The religious origins of Oxbridge Colleges and other educational establishments are perhaps easier to grasp. Though I do recall interviewing a student for entry into Cambridge some decades ago, who had declined Jesus, Christ’s, Trinity and other colleges because of their religious names but had chosen Emmanuel. I truly wish this were an urban myth, but it isn’t. ...

2022-11-18T16:42:10+00:00By Percy, The Very Rev'd Professor Martyn|Tags: Believable Christianity, Same-sex marriage|

Did we die without noticing it?

Did we die without noticing it?

Canon Rosie Harper writes: When I was a teenager growing up in Norwich, prayer meetings were a very significant part of life. Looking back, I wish I’d spent more time with boys and less time in my non-conformist church. It’s a bit late now! Even at the time I realised that those meetings revealed far more about what folk really believed than the fine Sunday words. People prayed about what mattered to them. They were a lovely bunch, mostly, and talked to God about the people they loved, about missionaries in far flung countries, about homeless people. The prayers were also sometimes unknowingly racist and sexist. A very common theme was revival. By this they meant not so much that the power of the spirit would sweep across the country, rather that there would be revival in the Church of England. It was impossible for them to conceive of an authentic church that ran on different software from theirs. Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour was the bottom line and with it came the whole substitutionary atonement script.

2022-10-25T20:56:37+00:00By Harper, The Rev'd Canon Rosie|Tags: Anglican identity, Same-sex marriage|

Are we heading for World War III?

Are we heading for World War III?

The Rev'd Dr. Nicholas Henderson (Editor: Anglicanism.org) writes: Amongst the many crises currently gripping the world a good number are linked directly or indirectly to the unprovoked disastrous invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin. It is important to attribute the onslaught on Ukraine to one man as, despite the existence of ultra-nationalists of a fascist disposition in Russia, broadly speaking the invasion does not seem to have universal enthusiastic support on the part of the people. Moreover, in a country starved of non-state impartial media many seem simply to have accepted (but little more) the official line. Of course, it is difficult to ascertain exactly what is going on and the famous dictum of Churchill in 1939 that Russian is “a riddle, wrapped inside a mystery, inside an enigma” still stands.

2022-10-21T22:17:58+00:00By Henderson, The Rev'd Dr. Nicholas|

The long view – How retired clergy can harvest their experience and become encouragers to those who minister in a very different ‘now’.

The long view – How retired clergy can harvest their experience and become encouragers to those who minister in a very different ‘now’.

The Rev'd Mark Rudall writes: The Grace of God is a central concept in Christian theology, but at every level of society there will always be failure if some level of its human outworking is missing ... retired clergy, who have seen the best and the worst of human dynamics in daily life and ministry over many years, are well placed to enter retirement equipped to be of real use in any groups, Christian or otherwise, that they might join.

2022-10-21T22:23:20+00:00By Rudall, The Rev'd Mark|Tags: Clergy|

Is equality of opportunity ever achievable without tighter regulations on targeted marketing? – Is there more we can do to protect the vulnerable?

Is equality of opportunity ever achievable without tighter regulations on targeted marketing? – Is there more we can do to protect the vulnerable?

Nicola Hughes writes: For every student studying business since 1980 Kotler and Armstrong’s Principles of Marketing has been a necessary purchase – Marketing as an industry is constantly changing and in an unsurprisingly business savvy way K&A regularly updated the ‘’Marketing Bible” so students couldn’t borrow outdated copies from the library. I didn’t have the same problem while studying Theology!

2022-11-17T23:59:31+00:00By Hughes Nicola|

The Pope’s Pet Subject

The Pope’s Pet Subject

Jane Kelly, has serious reservations about the Pope's pronouncement on 'selfish couples' who 'substitute dogs for children' ... The lack of the initial strong maternal bond may be a key to why so many people now grow up unable to form close relations with other humans and lack the emotional resilience the Pope recognises is needed to tackle complex adult relationships such as being parents. We are all sad, lonely children now, needing our teddy bears and our puppy for comfort!

2022-11-18T21:11:46+00:00By Kelly, Jane|