Thread: Anglican Church is the worship of Britishness Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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I was reading a fairly dull prize-winning novel at the weekend - but was struck by this idea that the Anglican church was less about worshipping a deity and more about worshipping British culture - parish life, village greens, cricket and warm beer. I was thinking this is a grotesque parody of the reality of Britishness - who actually likes warm beer these days?
But then I was also thinking that there is something about organised religion and the intersection of nationalism which seems particularly strong in the UK. And that this trend is not solely found in the Anglican church, many different styles of religion seem to reflect different aspects of Britishness and culture.
Sometimes it is overt. Remembrance Day, for example. Sometimes it is a more subtle retelling of a national narrative which is harder to pin down, but involves old ladies spending money on elaborate flower arrangements, large booming musical instruments and correct postures.
Is there something about the way the British do religion, or is it reflected in every culture?
[ 06. June 2012, 20:38: Message edited by: Ancient Mariner ]
Posted by Zacchaeus (# 14454) on
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Surely every culture does religion with it's own flavour?
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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Well, I'm sure that is true. I guess I'm wondering if we Brits have become unable to see the difference between religion and nationalism, the extent that we confuse one with the other.
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
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It came pretty close over here last Sunday. My parish church flew the Union Jack, prayed for HM in the collect, and we sung GSTQ at the end of the service.
![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
Posted by anne (# 73) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I was reading a fairly dull prize-winning novel at the weekend - but was struck by this idea that the Anglican church was less about worshipping a deity and more about worshipping British culture - parish life, village greens, cricket and warm beer. I was thinking this is a grotesque parody of the reality of Britishness - who actually likes warm beer these days?
But then I was also thinking that there is something about organised religion and the intersection of nationalism which seems particularly strong in the UK. And that this trend is not solely found in the Anglican church, many different styles of religion seem to reflect different aspects of Britishness and culture.
Sometimes it is overt. Remembrance Day, for example. Sometimes it is a more subtle retelling of a national narrative which is harder to pin down, but involves old ladies spending money on elaborate flower arrangements, large booming musical instruments and correct postures.
Is there something about the way the British do religion, or is it reflected in every culture?
If you turn on your telly right now you will be able to see the Supreme Governor of the Church of England arrive at St Pauls for a service of thanksgiving for her diamond jubilee.
If you do turn on the telly you will be one of millions of British people, christians, members of other faiths and none, who will watch an Anglican church service, hear hymns and listen to a sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury. For many,it may be the first sermon they've heard since last years royal wedding.
It's not how the British always "do religion" - perhaps it's more about the how the established church (in part of Britain) "does Britishness."
anne
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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anne, I don't think that is entirely fair. The Jubilee is not led by the Established Church as much as the Establishment, of which the Church is a privileged part. I have a hard time believing this would happen in the Netherlands.
Posted by Zacchaeus (# 14454) on
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Well we did sing GSTQ - after the service had ended.
However our emphasis was on living in a country where we are free to worship in public, are free to be a royalist or be free to say I am not a royalist. Without fear or favour.
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on
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I'm struggling to grasp why embeddedness in local culture should be an issue for an incarnational faith?
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Well, I'm sure that is true. I guess I'm wondering if we Brits have become unable to see the difference between religion and nationalism, the extent that we confuse one with the other.
The diamond jubilee service would be proof of this, I'd say.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
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I find it quite possible to be an Anglican in Britain without having to be either a nationalist or a monarchist. The church is what it always was: part of one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, but with practices adapated to local needs.
Certainly the establishment of the church, particularly in England, has meant that cultural Christianity has tended to accrete around Anglicanism instead of other denominations, but that doesn't tell you anything about Anglicanism itself. The Church of Scotland (where we were also subjected to GSTQ after the service on Sunday) has a lot of the same in Scotland, and the Roman Catholic church in Ireland.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
I'm struggling to grasp why embeddedness in local culture should be an issue for an incarnational faith?
There is a big difference in being 'embedded with' and actually worshipping the culture.
Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on
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I am reminded of this. (The Youtube videos no longer show in the UK, hence this link. Just get beyond the 30-second advert and you'll be fine.)
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
...who actually likes warm beer these days?
Me, for one, and most of those who turned up at The Compasses for beer festival this weekend, I would guess.
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
...who actually likes warm beer these days?
Me, for one, and most of those who turned up at The Compasses for beer festival this weekend, I would guess.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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OK, I am willing to accept the rebuke that some people like warm beer. I am not going to accept that it is a majority of beer-drinking Brits, though.
Hence if it is a worship of Britishness, it is of an idealised fictional Britain.
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
OK, I am willing to accept the rebuke that some people like warm beer. I am not going to accept that it is a majority of beer-drinking Brits, though.
Hence if it is a worship of Britishness, it is of an idealised fictional Britain.
Since the majority of beer drinking Brits drink "bloody lager" - as it is called in this house - their preferences can be discounted.
I agree with the premise of your OP, though.
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger
There is a big difference in being 'embedded with' and actually worshipping the culture.
While I am sure it's true that there are some Anglicans who "worship the culture", I find it difficult to accept that we can make such a generalisation about the Anglican Church per se. I speak as an Anglican.
I would say that, if anything, it's more about affirming the particular sub-culture associated with that particular parish. I belong to an Anglican Church that would be called "middle-of-the-road" - i.e. traditional, Bible believing in a low-key non-fundie way, eucharistic (meaning we celebrate the eucharist every week, which is what attracted me to the church, given that I regard the eucharist as the central Christian act of worship), but not really Anglo-Catholic. Of course, the style of the service is a bit "stiff upper lip", but that would be true of any obviously traditional church anywhere in the world.
I have been involved with two other Anglican churches in the past - one was more evangelical in the "Reform" mould ('fraid not my kind of evangelicalism), and the other was evangelical cum soft (Jungian inspired) charismaticism with a good dollop of good ol' middle class champagne socialism. Both these churches drew on different aspects of British sub-cultures.
The fact is that churches which are attended by British people will be "British". What do you expect?
Your argument would make a lot of sense, if it could be shown that this interrelationship between church and culture was not true (to the same extent) in other countries. But clearly it is. Surely we can see that certain forms of evangelicalism / fundamentalism in the USA seem to be a "worship" of a certain kind of American culture. To paraphrase Revelation 4:10 (re "casting their crowns before the throne") - would such Christians really be prepared to cast the Stars and Stripes down before the Cross of Christ? From attitudes I have seen, I am not so sure.
So give the Anglican Church a break. It's a mess, because freedom is a mess. And people will bring their cultural baggage to church, because that is who we are. Everybody does it. It's just that some churches may be able to hide it, and pretend that their particular culture is really more "spiritual" (or more authentically "New Testament") than others. It isn't.
(Talking about worshipping a culture: I remember once going to a local restorationist church, which met in a school hall. It seemed to me that anyone who turned up in a suit and tie would be regarded as very "bound up". Bermuda shorts were the order of the day. Apparently they're more spiritual!! Clearly this church involved a glorification of "the culture of informality", which is, of course, nothing more than a psychological reaction against "Old Church". Gimme a break!)
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
The fact is that churches which are attended by British people will be "British". What do you expect?
It isn't so much that they are 'British' cultural activities but that they're actually being worshipped in a Christian church.
And I thought I'd made it fairly clear that I'm not only talking about British Anglican churches.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Your argument would make a lot of sense, if it could be shown that this interrelationship between church and culture was not true (to the same extent) in other countries. But clearly it is. Surely we can see that certain forms of evangelicalism / fundamentalism in the USA seem to be a "worship" of a certain kind of American culture. To paraphrase Revelation 4:10 (re "casting their crowns before the throne") - would such Christians really be prepared to cast the Stars and Stripes down before the Cross of Christ? From attitudes I have seen, I am not so sure.
Also about this - you should try talking to people about taking down military standards in Anglican churches. I don't think there is a material difference in your description of USAmerican churches and the reality in many/most Anglican churches in the UK.
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I have a hard time believing this would happen in the Netherlands.
For better or worse, this is not the Netherlands. And you need to establish why there should be a problem with fondness for local culture being included in the way people express their faith.
The point about being incarnational has to do with God becoming one with all of humanity's life and experience. For some of it, we have to repent; for others, we are allowed to be glad in him.
I think what lies at the core of my aversion to your OP is that it lacks the generosity I would like to aspire to when looking at people's faith. Why should they not see God in warm beer as much as I might see God on a mountain-top? And why should they not relate that experience to God's presence in a crucified and risen Christ?
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
For better or worse, this is not the Netherlands. And you need to establish why there should be a problem with fondness for local culture being included in the way people express their faith.
The problem is when the 'fondness' spills into worship. I think I have been fairly clear about this, to be honest with you.
quote:
The point about being incarnational has to do with God becoming one with all of humanity's life and experience. For some of it, we have to repent; for others, we are allowed to be glad in him.
I think any time we replace worship of God with worship of anything else, we need to repent. End of story.
quote:
I think what lies at the core of my aversion to your OP is that it lacks the generosity I would like to aspire to when looking at people's faith. Why should they not see God in warm beer as much as I might see God on a mountain-top? And why should they not relate that experience to God's presence in a crucified and risen Christ?
Hard cheese. I'm not as generous as you are of idolatory. How is that an argument?
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Hard cheese. I'm not as generous as you are of idolatory. How is that an argument?
Clearly you have decided your own limits for God and God's presence in people's lives. If you have already decided that the matters you describe in your OP are idolatrous, then you are making a circular argument; if you don't want to listen to an alternative view - that's fine.
Now that's clear, I'll get on with my idolatrous life... ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on
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Am I the only one to think that the OP should have said English?
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on
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So, tlr, why don't we just get on with disdaining your lack of generosity regarding "idolatry" and allow you to get on with disdaining the (large number of) people who appear to enjoy a bit of pomp and circumstance?
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
...prayed for HM in the collect...
You DIDN'T???!!! ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Really, I am utterly horrified!! You must have BNP members in your midst!
Seriously, the Russian Orthodox Church (and Greek etc.) in the UK, pray for our Queen in EVERY service. Not because we are nationalists, but because it is our christian obligation.
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
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...having said that, some of the Anglican churches I have experienced in the past hardly ever pray for the Queen, and the clergy turn out to be (no kidding) anti-royalist marxist revolutionaries! (I may be able to supply the long ranger with some contacts if he's interested.)
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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Mark Betts -
First piss off.
Second, I am not a marxist revolutionary.
Do you have anything to contribute to this discussion or is thought beyond your feeble mental abilities?
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Your argument would make a lot of sense, if it could be shown that this interrelationship between church and culture was not true (to the same extent) in other countries. But clearly it is. Surely we can see that certain forms of evangelicalism / fundamentalism in the USA seem to be a "worship" of a certain kind of American culture. To paraphrase Revelation 4:10 (re "casting their crowns before the throne") - would such Christians really be prepared to cast the Stars and Stripes down before the Cross of Christ? From attitudes I have seen, I am not so sure.
Also about this - you should try talking to people about taking down military standards in Anglican churches. I don't think there is a material difference in your description of USAmerican churches and the reality in many/most Anglican churches in the UK.
Errm... I was actually applying Revelation 4:10 metaphorically.
As in... jingoistic attitudes being sacrificed for the sake of the gospel.
I must admit that when I attend my church, I am not overwhelmed by a desire to look down on other nations or cultures. Nor am I encouraged to do so. In fact, not once in the many years I have been attending Anglican Churches has any such idea been even remotely insinuated (quite the opposite, in fact).
So I think your references to "nationalism" and "idolatry" are completely unwarranted.
Posted by Lothiriel (# 15561) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Is there something about the way the British do religion, or is it reflected in every culture?
In the United States, there is what Robert Bellah has called Civil Religion in America. In this 1966 essay, he differentiates between "civil religion" and "church religion".
I think it could be argued (and I'm not familiar enough with his later work to say whether Bellah himself argues) that civil and church religion in the United States have converged over the past 40 or so years. We see this in the increasing politicization of religious conservatives following Roe v. Wade in 1973 to the situation today, where in some circles faith is virtually indistinguishable from toeing the Republican party line.
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
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Has anybody noticed that the title of this thread can be sung to 'O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness'?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Alogon - CHEERS! Was at a wedding reception yesterday. Nightmare. Bloody KEGGY WEGGY! Until I found three bottles of Doom Bar. Splendid.
Mark Betts - God bless YOU !
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Mark Betts -
First piss off.
Second, I am not a marxist revolutionary.
Do you have anything to contribute to this discussion or is thought beyond your feeble mental abilities?
Thanks - I hope you have a nice day as well! Let me put it this way - In my experience, many inner city Anglican churches are the exact opposite to the way you have portrayed them, although the clergy smile sweetly for photos if there happens to be a royal visit. I don't like the hypocracy any more than you do, but I can assure you that is my experiece.
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
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Where is the hypocrisy in being courteous to a visitor, whatever one thinks of his/her status?
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Where is the hypocrisy in being courteous to a visitor, whatever one thinks of his/her status?
Well, he portrayed the C of E in the way we see it in the media, rather than the state of how it really is in reality. I'm sorry the long ranger if I misunderstood you, I honestly thought the things which I'd seen were how you wanted things to be.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
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We don't worship the culture, we worship through our culture. The CofE is under pressure these days to be more like African culture (free and easy, swing along to the music), which may suit many extroverts. But the British traditional way of worshipping is more suited to the style of introverts, who still make up a significant part of our culture, despite the pressure to make us more Mediterranean or African in style.
You only need to see the distress when an extrovert leader takes over a church full of mostly introvert worshippers to see a clash of cultures and an increase in the level of stress.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I was thinking this is a grotesque parody of the reality of Britishness - who actually likes warm beer these days?
Me. And a few million other people. (For values of "warm" between maybe 5 and 15 C)
There may well be Anglican churches that work the way you describe. But then we live in a city, and we don't have a village green. Admittedly our curate does play cricket, very, very well, but then he's not British...
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on
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quote:
We don't worship the culture, we worship through our culture. The CofE is under pressure these days to be more like African culture (free and easy, swing along to the music), which may suit many extroverts. But the British traditional way of worshipping is more suited to the style of introverts, who still make up a significant part of our culture, despite the pressure to make us more Mediterranean or African in style.
It is very much a cultural thing isn't it? Coming from a culture (Irish) which tends to be noticeably more informal, open and extrovert, I'll cheerfully admit that traditional parish Anglicanism would suck the life out of me (give me the Africans anyday ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
). I think the charismatic movement within the British churches could be understood partly as a rebellion against a particular type of Englishness, which to some extent reflects a shift towards greatly informality and emotion in the wider culture.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
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What's with this "warm beer" bollocks? The whole idea is a social construct, dreamt up by countries whose own beers are so lamentably poor (you know who you are) they can only be drunk if frozen to buggery. Beers are supposed to be stored in a cellar, and mysteriously, often still are. That puts them several degrees below room temperature, or 12C on average for the UK.
Now carry on...
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
a particular type of Englishness,
is what it is. There's no shortage of extrovert behaviour outside the stiff-upper-lip middle classes and cap-doffing lower orders. As an introvert myself I shy away from the happy-clappy in church, and similar secular contexts, but I don't pretend it's inferior to more restrained behaviour.
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
I was reading a fairly dull prize-winning novel at the weekend - but was struck by this idea that the Anglican church was less about worshipping a deity and more about worshipping British culture - parish life, village greens, cricket and warm beer. I was thinking this is a grotesque parody of the reality of Britishness - who actually likes warm beer these days?
But then I was also thinking that there is something about organised religion and the intersection of nationalism which seems particularly strong in the UK. And that this trend is not solely found in the Anglican church, many different styles of religion seem to reflect different aspects of Britishness and culture.
Sometimes it is overt. Remembrance Day, for example. Sometimes it is a more subtle retelling of a national narrative which is harder to pin down, but involves old ladies spending money on elaborate flower arrangements, large booming musical instruments and correct postures.
Is there something about the way the British do religion, or is it reflected in every culture?
There's something about the particular flavor of American evangelicalism (especially that of the Baptists) which gets wrapped up with a narrow stereotypical Americana. Whenever you see "Middle America" in documentaries or right-wing populist propaganda, they don't show the Catholic parish or the big Gothic Episcopal building downtown; they show the little wooden chapel out in the fields.
That particular flavor of religion correlates strongly today with the Republican Party and with a certain brand of (White) American nationalism. It's a much more "patriotic" brand of Christianity that gets mingled with the idea of what it means to be a real "American." Every major Republican candidate panders overtly to this tradition, and many Southern Democrats at least pay it lip-service.
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
What's with this "warm beer" bollocks? The whole idea is a social construct, dreamt up by countries whose own beers are so lamentably poor (you know who you are) they can only be drunk if frozen to buggery. Beers are supposed to be stored in a cellar, and mysteriously, often still are. That puts them several degrees below room temperature, or 12C on average for the UK.
Now carry on...
Would "tepid beer" suffice?
My complaint about beer in the UK is not the temperature, but the relative flatness and the weird flavors that sometimes crop up (but that could be due more to dirty tap equipment at the bars I went to than to the brewers).
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
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Well, our beers are mostly session beers, so they are not supposed to be stuffed full of CO2 which makes you bloat and fart. Though it does sound like you may have got some faulty beers there for which I can only (vicariously) apologise. But perhaps I should bow out of this tangent before I try too many people's patience.
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
?My complaint about beer in the UK is not the temperature, but the relative flatness and the weird flavors that sometimes crop up (but that could be due more to dirty tap equipment at the bars I went to than to the brewers).
You mean that it isn't fizzy piss-water that tastes like it was invented in a laboratory. (I am in no way approving of badly kept ale - the purveyors of which should be tarred and feathered IMNSHO).
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
?My complaint about beer in the UK is not the temperature, but the relative flatness and the weird flavors that sometimes crop up (but that could be due more to dirty tap equipment at the bars I went to than to the brewers).
You mean that it isn't fizzy piss-water that tastes like it was invented in a laboratory. (I am in no way approving of badly kept ale - the purveyors of which should be tarred and feathered IMNSHO).
I'm with you that Standard American Light Beer is garbage... an Indian-British friend of mine in college described "American beer" as a "mildly alcoholic soda." But there are plenty of good beers in the U.S. outside of the old suspects which have good flavor AND a decent head.
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on
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I took great pleasure yesterday in crowning a splendid Diamond Jubilee Thanksgiving Service with a pint of Leeds Jubilee IPA - just at the right temperature.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
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Clearly the essence of Britishness is the consumption of beer at the correct temperature. It's useful that future generations yet to come should know this, lest they be drawn into the ways of wickedness and iniquity.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
[T]he Anglican church was less about worshipping a deity and more about worshipping British culture - parish life, village greens, cricket and warm beer. I was thinking this is a grotesque parody of the reality of Britishness - who actually likes warm beer these days?
But then I was also thinking that there is something about organised religion and the intersection of nationalism which seems particularly strong in the UK. And that this trend is not solely found in the Anglican church, many different styles of religion seem to reflect different aspects of Britishness and culture.
[...]
Is there something about the way the British do religion, or is it reflected in every culture?
The dominant British church culture these days tends to be middle class, and I would assert that Britishness is also dominated by middle class values and experiences. (One might say that working class culture is a sort of subculture of Britishness, but it doesn't seem to hold equal place with ideas about middle class culture.) So it's perhaps unsurprising that church culture seems to be about promoting Britishness.
I think that over time the historical non-conformist churches have become closer to the CofE, theologically, culturally and ecumenically, so they would experience similar phenomena. (The new churches might be more ambivalent, especially if they're heavily influenced by American Christianity.)
And then, despite the British history of founding new denominations, and of periodical revivals, the typical British attitude towards religion is rather low-key and restrained. Getting openly enthusiastic about cultural or patriotic events is acceptable in a way that open enthusiasm about God isn't quite, even for churchgoers. Even British street preachers, although evangelical by definition, have a certain restrained quality about them. (The ones with ethnic minority origins seem somewhat livelier, which makes my point.)
Posted by Organ Builder (# 12478) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Has anybody noticed that the title of this thread can be sung to 'O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness'?
That's actually pretty wonderful...and no, I hadn't noticed it until you mentioned it.
If you could come up with a few more lines (or a whole verse) it might be the best thing to come out of this thread!
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
What's with this "warm beer" bollocks?
Its what some sad lager drinkers call real beer. As I said, best between about 5 & 15 degrees.
And Mr Mockingale should stop mocking good ale if he knows what's good for him!
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
What's with this "warm beer" bollocks?
Its what some sad lager drinkers call real beer. As I said, best between about 5 & 15 degrees.
And Mr Mockingale should stop mocking good ale if he knows what's good for him!
Tell you what - next time I'm in England you can introduce me to the good stuff, so that I might in the fullness of time come to know that true Anglican faith. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posted by Steve H (# 17102) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Has anybody noticed that the title of this thread can be sung to 'O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness'?
The Anglican Church is the worship of Britishness
So let us all have a nice cup of tea,
And thank God we're British with all of our twittishness
For God is a Briton, just like you and me.
Our English and Welshness, our Irish and Scottishness -
Cricket and Rugby and Scotch and warm beer
(But not too much, dear, for we can't abide sottishness) -
These are the things that we'll always hold dear.
The French and the Germans, the Poles and the Japanese
(Foreigners all, and some Papists as well)
Are all filled with envy that we lack their crappyness:
We're off to heaven, while they're off to hell.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
enough with the beer and the cod poetry ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Posted by Steve H (# 17102) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Has anybody noticed that the title of this thread can be sung to 'O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness'?
That's actually pretty wonderful...and no, I hadn't noticed it until you mentioned it.
If you could come up with a few more lines (or a whole verse) it might be the best thing to come out of this thread!
Your wish is my command. See above.
Posted by Steve H (# 17102) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
enough with the beer and the cod poetry
Cod is a fish that we British like battering
Plus chips and vinegar, from the chip shop.
And we like beer, if it's warm, with a smattering
Of some pork scratchings, to eat till we drop.
Revision to verse 1, above: delete "For", line 2, so that it fits the tune better.
[ 05. June 2012, 17:47: Message edited by: Steve H ]
Posted by wilson (# 37) on
:
Just popping up to point out that "introvert" does not necessarily mean "likes formal, liturgical, traditional worship". I'm definitely an introvert socially but have always preferred something more informal, and latterly, more charismatic in terms of worship style.
Also I'm British and that doesn't mean those things either.
Posted by Steve H (# 17102) on
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Also, insert a colon after "twittishness".
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve H:
The Anglican Church is the worship of Britishness
So let us all have a nice cup of tea,
And thank God we're British with all of our twittishness
For God is a Briton, just like you and me.
Our English and Welshness, our Irish and Scottishness -
Cricket and Rugby and Scotch and warm beer
(But not too much, dear, for we can't abide sottishness) -
These are the things that we'll always hold dear.
The French and the Germans, the Poles and the Japanese
(Foreigners all, and some Papists as well)
Are all filled with envy that we lack their crappyness:
We're off to heaven, while they're off to hell.
It started off well...
Posted by pete173 (# 4622) on
:
Lager?
Pah!
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
:
Well, the Church of England was set up, quite deliberately as a national church, where the Pope (until then supreme head honcho in the West) explicitly had no authority. That, to me, has always defined it.
Historically it was the Church the upper classes (except the recusants) attended. Shopkeepers etc. tended towards Dissent.
In Australia these days you still have a strange attitude, amongst the most unusual people, that, because they are Anglican and Anglo-Saxon they are somehow socially "superior" to the Micks down the road who they regard as descendants of the Irish and therefore ipso facto "lower class". They'd certainly be surprised to meet English Catholics like the Duke of Norfolk! Chase away that assumed social superiority in no time!
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
The fact is that churches which are attended by British people will be "British". What do you expect?
This is nothing new, either. The pre-reformation church in England had ways of doing various things that differed from those on the continent. The apologia for the Church of England depends upon its continuing this heritage-- a point stressed, I think, by Percy Dearmer in The Paron's Handbook, as well as certainly by the Tractarians. In part, cherishing national and local customs has historically struck a blow for freedom from Rome.
quote:
certain forms of evangelicalism / fundamentalism in the USA seem to be a "worship" of a certain kind of American culture.
You bet. I'd guess that we have a much worse problem in the U.S. in this regard than anything now characterizing the Church of England. The C of E probably went overboard with jingoism in the early 20th century and still suffers from the resulting fallout. Perhaps it was a chastening lesson.
I want to agree entirely with AberVicar. However, we must remember that Incarnational theology affirms physicality. Images, ideologies, and institutions are really something else, as William Stringfellow warned.
Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Clearly the essence of Britishness is the consumption of beer at the correct temperature. It's useful that future generations yet to come should know this, lest they be drawn into the ways of wickedness and iniquity.
Amen! Preach it, brother!
Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve H:
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Has anybody noticed that the title of this thread can be sung to 'O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness'?
The Anglican Church is the worship of Britishness
So let us all have a nice cup of tea,
And thank God we're British with all of our twittishness
For God is a Briton, just like you and me.
Our English and Welshness, our Irish and Scottishness -
Cricket and Rugby and Scotch and warm beer
(But not too much, dear, for we can't abide sottishness) -
These are the things that we'll always hold dear.
The French and the Germans, the Poles and the Japanese
(Foreigners all, and some Papists as well)
Are all filled with envy that we lack their crappyness:
We're off to heaven, while they're off to hell.
Flanders and Swann would be proud of you!
What our National Anthem SHOULD be
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
I want to agree entirely with AberVicar. However, we must remember that Incarnational theology affirms physicality. Images, ideologies, and institutions are really something else, as William Stringfellow warned.
Glad you want to agree with me. Stringfellow's warning is at odds with Paul (Col 1.15-20; Eph 1.15-22 are the most obvious passages). What understanding of 'all things' allows the exclusion of any part of creation?
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
Britishness, up until recently, has been Christianity expressed in culture and politics. That is out of date now due to many people from other cultures and other faiths joining us.
Nevertheless, the majority of the British people expect and respect the fact that Anglicanism is indeed the way the British 'do' God.
Britain without Anglican Christianity would not be British.
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
:
Notwithstanding the exaggerated caricature of the OP, and the fact that many, probably most anglicans, don't conform to it, pursuing the frivolous tangent in that vein:
Our country is noted for grey skies and raininess,
Picnics and flags as the mercury dips;
So our churchfolk are renowned for their zaniness:
Hymns of praise forced through their stiff upper lips.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Is there something about the way the British do religion, or is it reflected in every culture?
I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. John Major notoriously including spinsters cycling to communion in his list of things he thought were particularly British or English (I think he was quoting Orwell at the time). But a certain idea of the Church of England is included within a certain idea of Englishness. The idea has very little to do with most of the people living in England or indeed with most of the Church of England.
You use the word 'Britishness' as if there's no problem in treating it as the same as 'Englishness'. That's a sign that something's wonky.
Here in Scotland I'm attending an Episcopal church. The flavour is recognisably the same as most high-up-the-candle CofE churches; yet there's no sense that we really wish we were in England. We could quite legitimately be celebrating Bonnie Prince Charlie (the Scottish Episcopal Church was started because the bishops were all loyal to his father), yet there's not much celebrating Romantic Scottishness either. So, no, I don't think the practices you're objecting to are about celebrating Britishness.
No doubt it varies between church to church depending on the congregation and clergy.
Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Clearly the essence of Britishness is the consumption of beer at the correct temperature.
Yes, it keeps us off the gin for five minutes...
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Here in Scotland I'm attending an Episcopal church. The flavour is recognisably the same as most high-up-the-candle CofE churches; yet there's no sense that we really wish we were in England. We could quite legitimately be celebrating Bonnie Prince Charlie (the Scottish Episcopal Church was started because the bishops were all loyal to his father), yet there's not much celebrating Romantic Scottishness either. So, no, I don't think the practices you're objecting to are about celebrating Britishness.
IN what way is Scotland or the Scottish Episcopal Church not British? Just as British as England is.
Anyway, the real point about the stereotypes of the CofE in the OP is that they are those held by the secular majority who never go to church and have no explicit Christian belief. The actual CofE churches mostly aren't like that at all.
And remember, worldwide the average Anglican is an evangelical. And she's black.
Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
(snip)
Britain without Anglican Christianity would not be British.
Oh dear. So Britain before Henry VIII wasn't British?
K.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
(snip)
Britain without Anglican Christianity would not be British.
Oh dear. So Britain before Henry VIII wasn't British?
No. Before Henry VIII the Pope was still an Anglican.
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
:
Um, well, no it wasn't actually (except - possibly- as a then slightly archaic geographical expression, or, later in the C16, as a conscious reference back to a supposed Arthurian past). It was England+ Wales, and Scotland. You really start being able to talk about 'Britishness' maybe after the Union of the Crowns 1603, more likely after the Act/Treaty of Union of 1707.
Although, as Linda Colley has shown, once 'Britishness' does come in, it is closely associated with, among other things, being Protestant (although not necessarily CofE because the whole point of 'Britishness' for Colley is that it's an additional identity which can be shared by English & Scots) rather than, like the French, Spanish etc, RC. (Cross-posted with ken.)
[ 06. June 2012, 13:17: Message edited by: Albertus ]
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
OK, seriously, Mudfrog was talking rubbish. Even more so than the OP was. The classic Church of England, back in the 18th and early 19th centuries when it was at its most distinctive was surely a huge part of Englishness, and its residue still is. And that version of the Church of England was hugely nationalistic and very much (though not exclusively) the church of the ruling class. The masters rather than the servants. And its bishops were as much politicians as preachers. Many governments relied on their votes in the Lords, and most Prime Ministers, before the end of the 19th century if not the begining of the 20th would appoint bishops for their party loyalty more than their doctrine.
That really existed ( a sort of English Shinto I once called it) it was dominant in the 18th and much of the 19th century, and it dragged on into the 20th, but its gone now. The Church of England is not like that any more. Maybe those outside it think it is, or it ought to be. But those who are actually members of CofE churches aren't like that. It is very much about worship and proclamation and stuff chruches do. And since Bishops have been selected for sacred rather than secular reasons they've on the whole been far to the left of the governments that authorised their appointment.
We can't say there is no Englishness without it because no more than about a third of the English people have been members of the Church of England since the 17th century. OK, lots of them were baptised in it, and a few of them married in it, but of those that went to church probably half have been Nonconformists and increasingly large numbers Roman Catholic. Congregationalism and Methoidism - there are two utterly English ways of doing religion.
But even if we forget the current or former realities of the Church of England and stick with the toasted-teacake version, a vast amount of what is now thought of as Anglicanism, at least at the Anglo-Catholic end, is recently imported from Rome and not culturally English at all. Down to and including choirboys in surplices. (There probably weren't twenty parish churches in England that did that when Queen Victoria came to the throne, and most of them cathedrals. The ordinary parish experience was said Morning and Evening prayer with chanted psalms led by a parish band if you were lucky. The more evangelical places might have had gallery singers - adult men and women singing stuff that sounds a bit like what the Americans call shape-note music, and a bit liek the twiddly bits at the ends) And no candles, no robes, Holy Communion four times a year and not many people taking it. Thats the true genius of English church life is the Protestant Hymn Sandwich. The Salvation Army -as Mudfrog ought to know - is in many ways more distinctively English than MOTR catholic-lite Christmas-card Anglicanism is.
And anyway, even if the whole OP guff was true, which it isn't, you can only say there is no Britishness without it unless you think that Scots and Welsh are merely a kind of failed English who will grow out of it one day and become properly English like the rest of us. The Kirk - there is a truly British institution!
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
Ken wrote: quote:
a vast amount of what is now thought of as Anglicanism, at least at the Anglo-Catholic end, is recently imported from Rome and not culturally English at all. Down to and including choirboys in surplices.
You may have just overstated that one a bit, Ken. Surpliced choirboys were certainly in evidence well after the reformation. There are paintings of various choirs from the 17th century around. If memory serves, the choir dress for the chapel royal at that time was cassock, surplice and fur shoulder-cape. The famous Laudian "surplice wars" were about the very subject matter - there wouldn't have been surplice wars if people still hadn't been wearing them in choir.
Probably also true in places like abbey churches and royal peculiars. In fact, incense was used in a few cathedrals up into the 18th century, when its use ceased. I've no idea how that one got past the puritans, but perhaps they just hid it meanwhile.
Stuff like lace, loads of candles and the like - well, fair enough. Roman influence. But I don't think you can say that the recovery of an indigenous practice constitutes a foreign import.
Don't let my detailed quibble detract from the rest of your post, however. I agree with your thumbnail sketch about what the average parish church service would have looked like.
There are numerous other foreign imports. The use of a preaching "Geneva" gown was a foreign import, though that one seems to have gone away from Anglicanism in its British manifestation.
The replacement of hymns (largely, then totally for a spell) by metrical psalms was very much a reformed import from Geneva. Though they in turn were influenced by the thoughts of Erasmus, who remained a catholic. Not that hymns went away - there are records of them being sung by the very same west-end choirs, though outside the liturgy.
CofE Anglicanism has never been immune from foreign influences or indeed direct imports, in any of its manifestations, evangelical, catholic or otherwise. Probably all balanced on the export side too of course.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
Stringfellow's warning is at odds with Paul (Col 1.15-20; Eph 1.15-22 are the most obvious passages). What understanding of 'all things' allows the exclusion of any part of creation?
Then somehow Paul is at odds with Paul, too. Where does Eph. 6:12 fit in? "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." God created all the angels, including Satan. Then something happened.
[ 06. June 2012, 15:14: Message edited by: Alogon ]
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
Stringfellow's warning is at odds with Paul (Col 1.15-20; Eph 1.15-22 are the most obvious passages). What understanding of 'all things' allows the exclusion of any part of creation?
Then somehow Paul is at odds with Paul, too. Where does Eph. 6:12 fit in? "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." God created all the angels, including Satan. Then something happened.
Indeed: and Paul's point is that it is all to be drawn to God in Christ.
And my point is that you and I are not qualified to make distinctions over what may or may not be in Christ, even though our experience might suggest that some things are clean contrary to everything that is holy.
Posted by jordan32404 (# 15833) on
:
I think there's probably some worship of "Britishness" among some who worship in Anglican churches, particularly at choral evensongs. But I think good worship is a central point in our ethos as Anglicans. Worshiping the Lord "in the beauty of holiness" is one of our trademarks and I just happen to think that we can put on a good show, so to speak, meaning we do liturgy well, high, broad, or low, you'll find a good liturgy in Anglicanism. I always say, I'm no fan of High Masses but if I were to want a High Mass, I'd take an Anglican one over a Roman one any day.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
IN what way is Scotland or the Scottish Episcopal Church not British? Just as British as England is.
They are British. What I said was that they don't seem to be about celebrating any definite notion of British national identity, either English or Scottish. I suppose I didn't explicitly rule out some less definite notion of Britishness but I'm not altogether sure what that would mean.
Anyway, the rest of what you said.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
Being a regular churchgoer of any denomination in Britain today is something of a counter cultural position to be in. This surely limits the extent to which churches can consciously promote Britishness.
On the other hand, only the CofE has a cultural and historical presence that non-churchgoers still recognise on a wide scale. The Nonconformists have mostly disappeared from public consciousness. So for non-churchgoing Christians, the CofE, more than any other church, represents Britishness. I get the impression that the Anglican clergy mostly appreciate this position. They appreciate being the first Christian port of call for British people.
This representation of Britishness doesn't have much to do with what actually happens in Anglican churches, since most people don't really know what happens.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by jordan32404:
I think there's probably some worship of "Britishness" among some who worship in Anglican churches, particularly at choral evensongs.
It seems to me that the outlook at evensong, at least in cathedrals, is too universal and cosmopolitan to deserve "particularly." The canticle repertoire is almost entirely British by necessity: no one but Anglicans pair Mag and Nunc, and the chanting is also called Anglican; but the anthems have long ventured far beyond the British Isles. Bach, Brahms, and Palestrina, for instance, would be no surprise at all.
quote:
But I think good worship is a central point in our ethos as Anglicans. Worshiping the Lord "in the beauty of holiness" is one of our trademarks
Definitely, although it is mostly by default. Liturgical rubrics and manuals in Roman Catholicism (among others) commend equal care and dignity, but rarely do those in charge pay much attention. In the case of the Irish, it has been suggested that they glory in poor taste because good taste is British. Alas, Irish influence is the rule in the RCC in the U.S. Another problem: many RC congregations still stubbornly refuse to sing hymns audibly because of Irish ancestors who were afraid to make that much sound at mass. American parishes catering to other nationalities are exceptions, but they can be dramatic ones (at least in the past) regarding the liturgy.
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
...So for non-churchgoing Christians, the CofE, more than any other church, represents Britishness. I get the impression that the Anglican clergy mostly appreciate this position. They appreciate being the first Christian port of call for British people.
Yes... indeed, this is the trap I fell into and remained in shackles for many years.
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
...So for non-churchgoing Christians, the CofE, more than any other church, represents Britishness. I get the impression that the Anglican clergy mostly appreciate this position. They appreciate being the first Christian port of call for British people.
Yes... indeed, this is the trap I fell into and remained in shackles for many years.
If this is a trap, perhaps you could suggest a better alternative?
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
...So for non-churchgoing Christians, the CofE, more than any other church, represents Britishness. I get the impression that the Anglican clergy mostly appreciate this position. They appreciate being the first Christian port of call for British people.
Yes... indeed, this is the trap I fell into and remained in shackles for many years.
If this is a trap, perhaps you could suggest a better alternative?
That's a hard one... I had to go through much trauma to cut my ties... I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but I am beginning to understand how God moves in mysterious ways. I have found an alternative - Orthodoxy.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
:
Britishness is alive and well in flagship Anglican services eg. those for the Royal Family or other special events in Westminster Abbey and other cathedrals. Other Anglican churches are busy shooting themselves in the foot by trying too hard to be just like the Methodists/Baptists/Pentecostals/Choose-your-other-denom.-here group. They have forgotten that unity can best be found in diversity and are watering down what the Anglican church can distinctively offer. In my own humble opinion, of course.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Orthodoxy.
Well there's a group of people that have no difficulties whatsoever confusing national identity and faith.
[ 06. June 2012, 20:25: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Orthodoxy.
Well there's a group of people that have no difficulties whatsoever confusing national identity and faith.
In England???
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
So Orthodoxy is only appropriate in England? You'd go Anglican in Greece and Quaker in Russia?
Anyway, among immigrant communities in the UK, yes there is a great deal of ethnic and national identity bound up in Orthodox groups.
Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Well, I'm sure that is true. I guess I'm wondering if we Brits have become unable to see the difference between religion and nationalism, the extent that we confuse one with the other.
Jerusalem booming over the loudspeakers in Morrisons supermarket this evening (no they didn't; next daft question please) then I realised that it sounded as though it was recorded at a football stadium - so presumably it'll be played several times a day until we get knocked out of/win the European Championship.
quote:
who actually likes warm beer these days?
Not my tipple - but if you have to drink it so cold that you can't actually taste it perhaps you're drinking the wrong drink?
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
So Orthodoxy is only appropriate in England? You'd go Anglican in Greece and Quaker in Russia?
Anyway, among immigrant communities in the UK, yes there is a great deal of ethnic and national identity bound up in Orthodox groups.
Times have changed. There were ethnic problems in the Orthodox Church, especially with the Greeks, but the Russian Orthodox Church always uses the language of the host country, in the spirit of St.s Cyril and Methodius. We leave our ethnicity at the door before we come into Church - and I feel this is how it should always be.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Britishness is alive and well in flagship Anglican services eg. those for the Royal Family or other special events in Westminster Abbey and other cathedrals. Other Anglican churches are busy shooting themselves in the foot by trying too hard to be just like the Methodists/Baptists/Pentecostals/Choose-your-other-denom.-here group. They have forgotten that unity can best be found in diversity and are watering down what the Anglican church can distinctively offer. In my own humble opinion, of course.
Your point is paradoxical, because the CofE is well-known for its internal diversity! What you seem to be saying is that the CofE should just be known for one thing.
The CofE may become more uniform in the future if the different elements can no longer find the will to stay part of the same institution. My bet is that the CofE will splinter if it's disestablished. But if that happens then the part that still calls itself the CofE will no longer be representative of Britishness in the same way; it'll just be one more church among others.
A much as you may admire cathedral-style worship, do you really want all the 'Methodists/Baptists/Pentecostals/Choose-your-other-denom.' who currently find a home in the CofE to leave? Can the CofE be said to represent the nation if it can only contemplate one kind of worship and theology? Again, if so, that would be quite paradoxical.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
There were ethnic problems in the Orthodox Church
Who clicked their fingers?
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Russian Orthodox Church always uses the language of the host country, in the spirit of St.s Cyril and Methodius.
Well in the spirit of St Babel the Anglicans have been doing that for a while. Well done for catching up.
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
We leave our ethnicity at the door before we come into Church - and I feel this is how it should always be.
How does that work? And do you pick it up again over coffee or do you wait until you get home?
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
We leave our ethnicity at the door before we come into Church - and I feel this is how it should always be.
How does that work? And do you pick it up again over coffee or do you wait until you get home?
I think you know very well what I mean. Is the Anglican Church like this? Hopefully these days, yes, so where's the problem?
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
I think that should read: "we leave our ethnics at the door of the church", in Russia at least.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
Well I leave all my ethics at the door.
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
We leave our ethnicity at the door before we come into Church - and I feel this is how it should always be.
Do we also leave our humanity at the door? And if not, how can we have a non-ethnic, nameless, language-free, disembodied humanity? Incarnation implies that everything we are is valued by God and is part of the self we bring to worship.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
Indeed. To be serious for a moment, I don't really know what it means to leave our ethnicity at the door, and don't see that it would be desirable.
I think we are certainly called to leave ethnic division at the door, but ethnicity is an aspect of identity. As such it can be used to sow division, but also celebrated as a gift from God for good.
I don't quite see what leaving it at the door would mean. Does it mean no characteristic ethnic or national dress? No references allowed to ethnicity whilst in the church? I really don't get it.
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
Speaking as a descendant of several of Her Majesty's former English and Scots subjects resident in the former rebel colonies of America --
And as the attendee of an Anglo-Catholic Episcopal parish on the east coast of said former rebel colonies --
Yes, Anglicanism and British culture are strongly intertwined. For example, my parish has a small chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Walsingham, and organizes pilgrimages to England every year to visit the Anglican shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. And we have at least one priest who is originally from England.
Now that is pretty extreme -- most Episcopal Church USA (TEC) churches are not Anglo-Catholic -- but the ties to cultural 'Britishness' still exist throughout the TEC.
And the anti-ordination of women and gays American Anglican churches that broke away from the TEC over the last ten years -- mostly evangelical in their outlook -- are very attached to the Thirty-Nine Articles inherited from the Elizabethan era and object to the TEC shelving them as a "historical document."
(No offense, breakaway Anglicans -- have family members who belong to you!)
So all wings of the TEC still bear the imprint of our British parent, the CofE. Which does not prevent us from annoying the heck out of the rest of the Anglican Communion from time to time, as in the TEC's opposition to the Anglican Covenant.
As the offspring of a Jewish-Christian intermarriage, my own deep personal and scholarly attachment to British culture and history and the CofE's roots in them -- is a very restorative and positive and healing feeling ---
![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
after decades of exposure to an Israeli Jewish nationalism that has tragically replaced God in many Jewish settings, led to serious harm for interfaith families and Palestinians in Israel and the overseas Jewish communities, and causes horrific communal infighting, as more of us came to question 'Israelolatry' and object to directives from the Israeli government to the overseas Jewish communities to oppose peace initiatives between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The fusion of Israeli nationalism with Judaism was one reason I finally left Judaism and returned to Christianity.
![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
The British connection to the American TEC goes far beyond pictures of villagers drinking warm beer and playing cricket among TEC members.
Personally, I've been reading many sermons by British Anglican mystics and theologians from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries with great pleasure.
Thanks to the internet, I can now get hold of many treatises by 17th through 19th century British divines that were out of print or hideously expensive prior to being stored in internet libraries.
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
The American TEC and its breakaway Anglican groups are also home to many Episcopalians from other former British colonies, including new American citizens from Africa.
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think we are certainly called to leave ethnic division at the door...
This is what I really meant.
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
One more thought -- I don't know if many Anglicans living in the UK are aware of this --
But one reason why Americans intervened on the side of the UK during WWI and WWII was due to the huge British cultural ties among all classes of Americans in that era.
Even Americans with no ethnic or religious ties to the UK at all were given texts in our schools that focused heavily on writings from or inspired by the "Mother Country" until the 1970s.
And the American ruling classes, until the 1970s, were heavily Episcopalian -- sometimes products of Episcopalian boarding schools, and often attendees of TEC churches -- and among the wealthy, frequently married into the Anglo-American aristocracy --
so when the UK needed allies during WWI and WWII, those ties helped tilt Americans away from isolationism towards aligning with the British.
So there have been positive practical consequences to the fusion of British culture and the CofE outside of the UK that go beyond warm beer and cricket matches.
[ 07. June 2012, 10:02: Message edited by: Ship's Stowaway ]
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ship's Stowaway:
...But one reason why Americans intervened on the side of the UK during WWI and WWII was due to the huge British cultural ties among all classes of Americans in that era.
Nothing to do with Pearl Harbour then?
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think we are certainly called to leave ethnic division at the door...
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
This is what I really meant.
I which case I don't really see how the Orthodox church compares favourably with the Anglican church in that regard.
That isn't to say I don't see all sorts of reasons to prefer Orthodox worship and theology to Anglican worship and theology, I do see those, but escaping traps relating to ethnic identity doesn't seem to be an especially strong driver towards Orthodoxy to me.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
Anglicanism is not British but English, and its culture was firmly established in the Tudor, pre-Union period. The British monarch when she travels north of the border is a member (merely) of the (presbyterian) Church of Scotland. Scottish episcopalians were marginalised by politico-religious settlement 1689-1707 from the concept of Britishness, which established the presbyterian kirk in Scotland. In Wales and Ireland, (which was not part of Britain, but part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland), the established Protestant episcopal churches were regarded by most natives (both Catholic and Non-conformist) as an expression of English cultural imperialism. The confusion between Anglicanism and Britishness is because the English for the most part do not make a distinction between Englishness and Britishness.
What united the protestant churches across the British Isles was the King James authorised version of the bible. Britain and the United Kingdom, therefore, emerged as a Protestant but not an Anglican state. The refusal of Irish Catholics to accept that cultural hegemony led to Irish independence. The decline of Protestantism in Scotland has been a significant factor in the rise Scottish Nationalism.
Though Anglicanism may be quintessentially English and historically the dominant religious culture, there are many English at variance with it. Non-conformity has played a major role in English culture, establishing religious pluralism against the monopolistic claims of Anglicanism, thereby laying the seeds of pluralist democracy.
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
The sinking of the Lusitania (1915) and the attack on Pearl Harbor (1941) were key catalysts to America's entry into both wars.
But if you look back into American history, there was a great deal of admiration and affection for the UK and sympathy in both conflicts prior to US entry into the war(s).
I attribute some of that to our TEC ties to the UK, which reinforced our general cultural links to the UK.
There was also a very able British pre-WWII propaganda effort to sway American public opinion away from isolationism and our entrenched suspicion of the UK as a classist society. <internet smile>
But Americans could, for example, have entered both wars very grudgingly and given the UK as little help as possible.
In actually, we sent the equivalent in modern dollars of $31.4 billion in WWII Lend-Lease aid to England, far more than to any other ally. The Russians were in very dire straits and only received about $11 billion.
As an interesting side note, President Franklin Roosevelt, who was president during WWII, was an Episcopalian, and had attended an Episcopalian boarding school as a child. He said that the school had been a powerful positive influence on him.
So the 'worship of Britishness' within the worldwide Anglican Communion has had some good results for the UK at key junctures in its history.
I should also mention that the King James Version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer had a strong influence on American culture.
Other Protestant denominations in America borrowed material from the BCP for their prayer books, and except for the Catholics and the Mormons, most American Christians used the KJV version of the Bible heavily until newer 20th century translations appeared.
Example: my public library, when I was a child, had a copy of Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" -- not exactly an American text.
Another interesting angle -- Cardinal Newman felt that the Anglo-Catholic movement did not originate with the English Tractarians. As a teen, he had dinner with a visiting bishop from the TEC, who spoke of developments in the TEC that were reviving semi-Catholic traditions, pre-dating the Tractarians.
So there was cross-pollination between the TEC and the CofE.
As a child I was raised in my Episcopalian parent's faith, and my family subscribed to British newspapers and magazines, and we listened to recordings of UK music. We owned many books on English history.
To this day, Americans are still watching tons of BBC historical films and comedies, most of which have at least a passing mention of the CofE.
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
Here is another example of British spiritual and cultural influence on Americans -- a website offering specialized "church tours" -- with tours specifically for Episcopalians, "Methodist Heritage," and other denominations:
http://www.casterbridgetours.com/index.php/church_tours/protestant_heritage/episcopalian_roots
While not specifically an "Anglican worship of Britishness" -- it is more like a "multi-denominational worship of Britishness" in some ways.
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ship's Stowaway:
Here is another example of British spiritual and cultural influence on Americans -- a website offering specialized "church tours" -- with tours specifically for Episcopalians, "Methodist Heritage," and other denominations:
http://www.casterbridgetours.com/index.php/church_tours/protestant_heritage/episcopalian_roots
While not specifically an "Anglican worship of Britishness" -- it is more like a "multi-denominational worship of Britishness" in some ways.
The home of Francis Asbury, the major evangelist and first bishop of American Methodism, is in my neck of the woods. I was under the impression that most of the visitors to the house are likely to be American, since British Methodists aren't really aware of him, and British people in general probably know even less.
In my google searches of historical interest in Methodism there's far more stuff from the USA than from the UK. Plays, films and novels about John Wesley are far more likely to be generated in the USA.
It would seem that foreigners are more aware of the Britishness of British churches than many British people are!
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ship's Stowaway:
Example: my public library, when I was a child, had a copy of Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" -- not exactly an American text.
Never heard of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Mayflower? They came right out of that culture, and went to America because of fear that the killing times would come again.
Ironic that they were running away from the same King James that many of their spiritual descendents now revere, but there we are.
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
Svitlana V2 said: The home of Francis Asbury, the major evangelist and first bishop of American Methodism, is in my neck of the woods . . . In my google searches of historical interest in Methodism there's far more stuff from the USA than from the UK. Plays, films and novels about John Wesley are far more likely to be generated in the USA.
It would seem that foreigners are more aware of the Britishness of British churches than many British people are!
Ship's Stowaway replies: That is very interesting. Perhaps the British are overwhelmed simply by the huge and lengthy history of Christianity in the UK,hundreds of years older than American Christianity?
Also, Wesley and Whitfield occupy a different niche in US history than UK history -- contemporary US accounts are: "here are those impressive Methodist men of God founding a new movement who have come all the way from England to see us!" -- whereas contemporary British accounts are: "Here are those annoying enthusiast Methodist preachers, disturbing social order and disrupting CofE!"
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
Ken,Ship's Roundhead said: Never heard of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Mayflower? They came right out of that culture, and went to America because of fear that the killing times would come again.
Ironic that they were running away from the same King James that many of their spiritual descendents now revere, but there we are.
Ship's Stowaway replied: Every American school child -- at least when I was a child -- was given an ultra-complete account of the Pilgrims, the Mayflower, etc., and the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay. Our entire holiday of Thanksgiving rooted in the Pilgrims.
Ironic indeed that so many evangelical Americans love the King James Bible. I doubt they would enjoy a personal meeting with King James himself.
His theology was semi-Calvinist, but his openly bi/gay lifestyle? His fondness for episcopacy? His monarchist views on non-conformists? It would not be a pretty encounter. I never see these things discussed when they praise the KJV.<internet smile>
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
Getting back to Anglicans and the worship of Britishness -- if the UK was attacked by a foreign enemy again tomorrow -- not terrorism, but some type of declaration of war/invasion threat -- I believe Americans would be return to offer help in 15 nanoseconds.
There is an early WWII American propaganda poster with a picture of a British soldier that says something like: "THIS MAN IS OUR FRIEND -- HE IS FIGHTING FOR US"
I think it is partly due to the TEC-CofE British culture connection, a connection also shared with the Methodists and other denominations.
Now I will say that the Anglican worship of Britishness has had some very bad moments. I have read some 19th century British Anglican sermons referring to other colonized cultures as "the heathen bows down to wood and stone" --
where both British and American Anglicans with "white man's burden" ideas did tremendous harm to other cultures and faiths. Not minimizing!
I think the Bad Old Days, in which TEC forced African-American Episcopalians to worship in separate churches from the white Episcopalians -- to cite one example among hundreds -- were Really Bad.
Not even discussing African-American slavery and forced transport of Native American children to abusive boarding schools.
But the affectionate regard for the UK and its British culture and ancestral church history that many American TECs, Methodists and others have today, is very benign and positive, and usually not used to exclude people of other races and ethnicities.
The regard is shared in ways one might not expect -- one relative who joined a U.S. breakaway Anglican church said half of its members were Africans from Ghana who had been CofE and then come to the U.S.
I know that Archbishop Rowan Williams would likely beg leave to differ about feeling the love from the American TEC -- as in "not feeling it!" --
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
But it is still there. Anyone attacks the UK in a big way, and even the American TEC will (temporarily) drop its difficulties with the Anglican Communion and come to your assistance.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
Can anybody on this thread explain what exactly they mean by "worshipping Britishness"?
Some of us might really like being British, and even show that fact by doing the things that we consider are characteristic of Britishness with enthusiasm, but that's not the same thing as "worshipping Britishness".
Posted by Zacchaeus (# 14454) on
:
I've reading this with interest as I have a relative married to someone of Greek orthodox extraction. He was born in the UK but his mother is Greek. His culture and identity for him is definitely bound up in his orthodoxy. He is not particularly religious, but any worship he does is tied in with revering his heritage
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
...So for non-churchgoing Christians, the CofE, more than any other church, represents Britishness. I get the impression that the Anglican clergy mostly appreciate this position. They appreciate being the first Christian port of call for British people.
Yes... indeed, this is the trap I fell into and remained in shackles for many years.
I wonder, what's the view like from upon your cross?
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
I've reading this with interest as I have a relative married to someone of Greek orthodox extraction. He was born in the UK but his mother is Greek. His culture and identity for him is definitely bound up in his orthodoxy. He is not particularly religious, but any worship he does is tied in with revering his heritage
I think that's not unusual. Which is why I was surprised that Orthodoxy was considered an appropriate "escape" from this sort of problem. I realise that wouldn't be a danger for an Englishmen in a Greek Orthodox church, but the logical conclusion to that reasoning is that we should all join churches as distant as possible from our own culture.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ship's Stowaway:
Wesley and Whitfield occupy a different niche in US history than UK history -- contemporary US accounts are: "here are those impressive Methodist men of God founding a new movement who have come all the way from England to see us!" -- whereas contemporary British accounts are: "Here are those annoying enthusiast Methodist preachers, disturbing social order and disrupting CofE!"
It's probably true that Wesley and Whitfield represent a more problematic presence in the UK, as far as historians are concerned. Both Anglican and Marxist historians in Britain are inclined to downplay the importance of Methodism on British society. There's either the sense that it wasn't very influential overall, or that it was an ambiguous, untrustworthy movement that wanted to be both of the establishment and of the people, ultimately stalling the rise of class consciousness among the workers. Then there are the largely forgotten Methodist historians, who created a more positive self-image of the church.
Today, British Methodism is known through a small set of cliches and stereotypes.
Firstly, almost everyone supposes that the Methodists are or were teetotal. This has never been entirely true, but in any case, teetotalism is NOT generally deemed to be a component of Britishness! Maybe a subset of British eccentricity, but that's it!
Secondly, many have heard the saying that 'the Labour party owed more to Methodism than to Marxism'. This is flattering to Methodism, but it refers not to the main denomination, the Wesleyans, but to a breakaway movt., the Primitive Methodists. And in any case, by the time the Labour Party was formed, Methodism in its various forms was already entering a slow decline, so it's not clear that church life of itself benefitted from this association.
Thirdly, Methodism has a 'Northern' image. Northernness is another subset of Britishness, but not a dominant component. British culture, even working class culture, has tended to be dominated by what happens in London. Methodism was never strong in London.
Culturally, in the mid-late 19th c. Methodism acquired an image of dour upper-working/lower-middle class respectability which, despite the legacy of fine hymns and buildings, never tried to contribute to high culture, so it could easily be dismissed and even mocked by the British taste-forming classes. And it didn't turn heads by creating world class theologicans because, according to another cliche, 'Methodists sing their theology'.
Working class Christianity is no longer connected to either Britishness or to Methodism in the popular mind. Irish and Polish Catholicism and black Pentecostalism are now better representatives of working class faith, with the added appeal of bringing multicultural flavour to the British table.
Ultimately, I think British Methodism suffers for being a movement that grew very fast and then fizzled away. The numbers have gone, and the cultural legacy, being hidden, is mostly unknown.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Can anybody on this thread explain what exactly they mean by "worshipping Britishness"?
It means "I don't like the Church of England but they are mostly harmless so I will bitch at them for being posh".
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Can anybody on this thread explain what exactly they mean by "worshipping Britishness"?
It means "I don't like the Church of England but they are mostly harmless so I will bitch at them for being posh".
No it doesn't. It means exactly what it says - instead of worshipping God, worshipping the idea of Britishness.
As has been shown, we struggle to even find words to articulate the difference between Christian worship and nationalism and monarchy at times.
It seems to me that it has very little to do with Anglicanism, so I've been a bit surprised that the conversation has been going in that direction.
But hey, ken, if you don't want to attack or discuss the subject as I've written it, why not just create your own straw man to destroy?
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
It seems to me that it has very little to do with Anglicanism, so I've been a bit surprised that the conversation has been going in that direction.
I know we don't always keep to the topic, but since the thread is called "Anglican Church is the worship of Britishness" it perhaps isn't that left-of-field to find that the conversation centres on the Anglican church and Britishness.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Secondly, many have heard the saying that 'the Labour party owed more to Methodism than to Marxism'. This is flattering to Methodism, but it refers not to the main denomination, the Wesleyans, but to a breakaway movt., the Primitive Methodists. And in any case, by the time the Labour Party was formed, Methodism in its various forms was already entering a slow decline, so it's not clear that church life of itself benefitted from this association.
I think the phrase mentiones Methodists for the alliteration!
Its certainly true that the Labour and Trade Union movement mostly grew up in Nonconformist churches, but the Methodists weren't particularly more involved than anyone else. If anything the Congregationalsts were. And, because so much of the early history of the Labour Party happened in Scotland, the Scottish Presbyterians (in their various guises)
quote:
Originally posted by Ship's Stowaway:
Getting back to Anglicans and the worship of Britishness
[...]
I think the Bad Old Days, in which TEC forced African-American Episcopalians to worship in separate churches from the white Episcopalians -- to cite one example among hundreds -- were Really Bad.
What's pro-British about that? It never happened here in England. That's something the Americans dreamed up all for themselves.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
:
There appear to be fewer and fewer Anglican churches now which can be described as holding typical British worship. State occasions (such as Royal Weddings and Jubilees) and traditional events such as Rush Sunday (St. Mary Redcliffe) are some that spring to mind. But most Anglican churches have been turning more and more informal over time (a source of grief to many).
In many ways, the idea of 'worshipping Britishness' is laughable, as British people (and particularly English people) are often criticised for almost being ashamed of their Nationality, and national pride is very much damped down compared with other nations. I did detect this year, for a change, an unselfconscious pride in being British for the first time - probably to do with the Jubilee and the Olympics coinciding. But this was very definitely out in the public arena rather than in the churches.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
As has been shown, we struggle to even find words to articulate the difference between Christian worship and nationalism and monarchy at times.
No, we don't. You might, but most of us don't.
Anyway, as the OP stands this discussion is alomost certainly either going to be a rant against the Church of England or else twee jokiness about spinsters on bicycles and bellringing. A more serious topic might have been why the overwhelmingly secular British establishment is so keen to hold on to the remnants of religiosity. But that's not the same thing at all.
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Ship's Stowaway:
Getting back to Anglicans and the worship of Britishness
[...]
I think the Bad Old Days, in which TEC forced African-American Episcopalians to worship in separate churches from the white Episcopalians -- to cite one example among hundreds -- were Really Bad.
What's pro-British about that? It never happened here in England.
Well, not officially of course. But I know of Caribbean immigrants in the 1950s who were politely (or not-so-politely) informed that the particular church they visited was 'not for the likes of them.'
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Secondly, many have heard the saying that 'the Labour party owed more to Methodism than to Marxism'. This is flattering to Methodism, but it refers not to the main denomination, the Wesleyans, but to a breakaway movt., the Primitive Methodists. And in any case, by the time the Labour Party was formed, Methodism in its various forms was already entering a slow decline, so it's not clear that church life of itself benefitted from this association.
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
I think the phrase mentiones Methodists for the alliteration!
Its certainly true that the Labour and Trade Union movement mostly grew up in Nonconformist churches, but the Methodists weren't particularly more involved than anyone else. If anything the Congregationalsts were. And, because so much of the early history of the Labour Party happened in Scotland, the Scottish Presbyterians (in their various guises)
Maybe this statement (attributed to Hugh Gaitskell, the Labour politician) is just one more inaccurate stereotype, then! But it doesn't have to be read as asserting the domination of Methodism over any other kind of spirituality; the statement is more about the subordinacy of Marxism than anything else. I imagine that most Labour people were Anglicans, like most other Britons. It's just that Nonconformists often had a degree of influence out of proportion to their actual numbers.
As I say above, one source I've found says the influence of Methodism was really the influence of the Primitive Methodists. Since the Prims have long since disappeared and most British people probably don't know much about them, I'd be reluctant to dismiss Gaitskell's statement, because that would just relegate the Prims to obscurity once again. I don't think the Congregationalists would benefit from this. True, they've probably suffered from the decline of Nonconformity even more than the Methodists. But at least they still exist, whereas the Prims don't.
http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/radical-objects-2/
Posted by Eleanor Jane (# 13102) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Can anybody on this thread explain what exactly they mean by "worshipping Britishness"?
It means "I don't like the Church of England but they are mostly harmless so I will bitch at them for being posh".
No it doesn't. It means exactly what it says - instead of worshipping God, worshipping the idea of Britishness.
My two cents, I certainly found the services I attended last Sunday to be... well, I don't know that we were worshipping anything but God was pretty tagental to the whole thing IMHO.
The morning service had primary school children dressed as a king and queen and a mock coronation. There was a short talk by the Vicar which mainly consistented of 'isn't it nice that the church is full and isn't this a lovely day'. It was an enjoyable event (we got to blast through the Hallelujah chorus) but there was very little of an overtly religious nature. Hopefully it was a good experience for all the children and parents who came.
The evening service was billed as a 'Songs of Praise' type event with hymns from around the UK including God Save the Queen, a couple of readings and a prayer for her. Again, lots of fun to be involved with, but it didn't touch me like a normal church service would.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
Ken [/QUOTE] quote:
Its certainly true that the Labour and Trade Union movement mostly grew up in Nonconformist churches, but the Methodists weren't particularly more involved than anyone else. If anything the Congregationalsts were. And, because so much of the early history of the Labour Party happened in Scotland, the Scottish Presbyterians (in their various guises)
Although it is the case the there were presbyterians among the Independent Labour Party pioneers in Scotland, Presbyterianism did not provide a natural culture within which the Scottish Labour movement could develop. Indeed, Presbyterianism was mostly hostile because it was strongly British and strongly Unionist.
The Scottish Reformation pushed Scotland towards England because it could defend its reformation against foreign intervention, notably France, Scotland's traditional ally against England. Knox believed Elizabeth was a new Constantine though whom the reformation would triumph across Europe. The Scottish Presbyterians were the major beneficiaries of the dynastic and religious struggles which led to the creation of Britain through the Treaty of Union, 1707, because confirmation of establishment enabled the presbyterians to persecute and reduce the Episcopal (Reformed) Church. Consequently, the Scottish presbyterian establishment had every interest in promoting the British state because it secured its position within Scotland and outside it offered security and prospects in the emerging Empire. Thus, as the Church of England became the Tory Party at prayer in Episcopalian England, the Kirk (to simplify its various strands) became the Whig Party at prayer in Presbyterian Scotland. The Whigs and their later transformation into the Liberal Party represented the establishment, so that Scottish Liberalism was more conservative than elsewhere.
The dominance of Liberalism amongst the Protestant working class inhibited the emergence of Labour in Scotland because Labour, through its identification with Catholic Irish immigrants and support for Irish Home Rule, which threatened the Scottish- originating presbyterian minority in the North of Ireland, was seen as a cultural threat to the dominant protestant culture in Scotland, too. Despite the legend of Red Clydeside, the Labour Party polled relatively poorly in Scotland given the class composition of the electorate until the 1970s because it was seen as the party of Irish Catholic immigrants. Labour was not patriotic because it was supported by a community hostile to the British state. Presbyterianism increasingly emerged as the defender of a threatened protestant culture, and was closely allied to the Unionist Party, the local expression of Conservatism.
Although Methodism was weak in Scotland, it is perhaps noteworthy that early Labour leaders, both Protestant and Catholic, were mostly teetotal: further evidence of the counter-cultural nature of the Labour movement in Scotland!
The severe decline of presbyterianism, which saw Britain as the guarantor of Scottishness as defined by politico-religious outcome of the Reformation, is an important factor in the rise of Scottish Nationalism as separateness.
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eleanor Jane:
....but it didn't touch me like a normal church service would.
Sounds pretty bog-standard, once in sixty years or more accurately twice in the history of the monarchy type Sunday to me. For crying out loud, what on earth do you expect on the Sunday of the Diamond Jubilee. I bet you a pound to a penny next Sunday will stagger you with its normality.
Posted by poileplume (# 16438) on
:
I read somewhere in an article I regrettable lost, that the Anglican Church was held together by a sense of Britishness. After the initial decolonialisation, this sense of cultural identity and unity continued in the ex-colonies. But now after a generation, it has been lost. Thus the glue that held the church together has become unstuck.
I must admit I have some sympathy with this argument. What is Anglicanism in a francophone environment, still basking in the afterglow of traditional Catholicism? Not a theoretical nicety but our very real problem here in Quebec.
In fact, I have a sympathy for the African bishops facing apparently a similar dominance of the Anglo establishment, though from the completely opposite direction. We are too liberal; they are too conservative for the Anglos. In our separate ways neither of us fit in, but then should we have to fit in?
Personally I don’t care what the C of E does. They can sign God Save the Queen or Pop Goes the Weasel, for all I care. Similarly for their alliance across the Atlantic. However it does feel that sometimes they are ganging up on the non English. So can we work out please what is Anglicanism in a non Anglo culture, not just mine, but Africa, Asia and in fact the most of the rest of the world?
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
quote:
Originally posted by Eleanor Jane:
....but it didn't touch me like a normal church service would.
Sounds pretty bog-standard, once in sixty years or more accurately twice in the history of the monarchy type Sunday to me. For crying out loud, what on earth do you expect on the Sunday of the Diamond Jubilee. I bet you a pound to a penny next Sunday will stagger you with its normality.
I would have expected the Feast of the Holy Trinity. What did you [a]expect, and [b] get?
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
Dear SvitlanaV2 and Kwesi:
Thank you for sharing the history of the Methodists and the Presbyterians in the UK. While I know a great deal about CofE history in the UK, including the Scottish Episcopal Church, but I am still on a learning curve for Non-conformist UK history. I will be learning more as time goes on.
In the US, the Methodists and the Presbyterians are deeply rooted. John Wesley, his brother Charles and Whitfield show up in history books as well as denominational texts.
I had not heard about UK Marxist-oriented historians feeling that the Methodists temporarily prevented the working classes from asserting themselves or the stereotype that all Methodists avoided alcohol. I will make an effort to learn more.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
It means exactly what it says - instead of worshipping God, worshipping the idea of Britishness.
But what do you mean by that? Does your church have a scale model of the Palace of Westminster instead of an altar? Instead of a crucifix do you have a picture of the Queen? Does your Holy Communion consist of roast beef and a cup of tea?
quote:
As has been shown, we struggle to even find words to articulate the difference between Christian worship and nationalism and monarchy at times.
Rubbish, rot and balderdash. There's no more perfect example of the difference than the fact that we pray to God but we pray for the nation.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Does your Holy Communion consist of roast beef and a cup of tea?
With horseradish sauce, surely? I mean, what sort of sick heretic are you?
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ship's Stowaway:
... I know a great deal about CofE history in the UK, including the Scottish Episcopal Church...
The Scottish Episcopal Church is emphatically not part of the Church of England. They regard themselves as "sister churches" but, though similar, do have a different history.
Episcopalians in Scotland are not members of the legally Established Church in their country: that is the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
Ship's Stowaway quote:
I had not heard about UK Marxist-oriented historians feeling that the Methodists temporarily prevented the working classes from asserting themselves
Of course, this assertion is a lot of tosh. Just another case of Marxist historians covering up the weakness of their theories with the concept of "false consciousness".
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Ship's Stowaway quote:
I had not heard about UK Marxist-oriented historians feeling that the Methodists temporarily prevented the working classes from asserting themselves
Of course, this assertion is a lot of tosh. Just another case of Marxist historians covering up the weakness of their theories with the concept of "false consciousness".
False consciousness makes a lot of sense as an idea. The use of propaganda to make people believe they are part of a different class affects how they vote. Convincing people that they are middle class rather than working class skews their voting, even if they are not any better off financially than they were before (perhaps they work in an office rather than on the factory floor but they don't get paid any more). The media and successive governments have spent the last 30 years promoting false consciousness to undermine the power of the organised working class - very successfully.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
...but how do you decide what right-thinking and acting ought to be? All the Marxists are saying is that the British working class did not think and behave as their theory of history predicted. Unlike scientists they can't accept that the empirical evidence questions their theory because is not scientific but ideological in character.
It is patronising to say that manual workers are deceived into supporting right-wing parties. Capitalism, after all, has been far more successful than socialism in producing goods and services, a fact which socialist parties have increasingly recognised. The right might have more competent politicans and administrators than their leftwing opponents. The working class might think the right has a better mix of policies relating to the appropriate balance between economic equality and individual incentive. Rightwing parties might be better at preserving law and order than the left, better at defending non-material cultural values, and more careful in defending the rule of law and individual liberties. A Christian working class voter might not wish to support a lefwing party that was anticlerical and hostile to religion. In other words there are all sorts of rational self-interested reasons why a manual voter might support the right.
Rousseau thought that people should be forced to be free: to be forced to act in ways that were against their natural inclinations because that is what they would desire if only they knew it. That is precisely what the Communist Party of the Soviet Union claimed to be doing on behalf of their working class.
Experience suggests that by and large British working class suspicion of Marxism has been well-founded, and that its interests have been better pursued within a liberal capitalist democratic welfare state. If Methodism has contributed to that then it has not promoted a false consciousness but the common good. To argue that Methodism prevented the rapid emergence of a Marxist state is to suggest a cause not remotely supported by the facts.
On the question of 30 years of rightwing propoganda undermining working class solidarity, one might ask why 70 years of monopolistic propoganda by the Communists Parties of eastern europe failed to convince their citizens of the merits of Communism. Propoganda only succeeds when it has some basis in the recipients experience.
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
Episcopalians in Scotland are not members of the legally Established Church in their country: that is the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland.
I think the Church of Scotland was disestablished in the 1920s. Wikipedia records an odd comment that questions whether the CoS was ever legally established.
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
The confusion between Anglicanism and Britishness is because the English for the most part do not make a distinction between Englishness and Britishness.
I think this is unfortunately not true any longer. I saw "unfortunately" because it reflects that shrill nationalism that has increasingly cheapened British politics over the course of my life.
quote:
Though Anglicanism may be quintessentially English and historically the dominant religious culture, there are many English at variance with it. Non-conformity has played a major role in English culture, establishing religious pluralism against the monopolistic claims of Anglicanism, thereby laying the seeds of pluralist democracy.
This.
If Anglicanism reflects anything, it is the establishment and is perhaps reflects the culture of south-east England more strongly than any other (which suits me as that's where I'm from).
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
@Ken, for someone who generally has a good grasp of history, your historical detail can be pretty flakey at times.
The 'killing times' you refer to didn't happen in the reign of King James I. They were the name the Covenanters gave to the persecutions they suffered during the reigns of Charles II and James II.
There is one line of historical interpretation that suggests that the Pilgrim Fathers set off for the New World in 1620 not so much to establish freedom of religion for themselves as to deny it to anyone else. They weren't allowed to persecute anyone in England so they set off for what became New England so they could do it with impunity there.
For all their heroism and stoicism I think you'll find that the early settlers could be quite bastardly towards Native Americans (even using the Book of Judges to justify the genocide of Native American villages in the 1630s) and indeed towards anyone who disagreed with them. The New England hanged Quakers later on in the century and we all know about the Salem Witch Trails.
Sure, we can roll our eyes at the Stuart monarchs and their nefarious practices but some of these Puritans would have made the Taliban look liberal.
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
Episcopalians in Scotland are not members of the legally Established Church in their country: that is the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland.
I think the Church of Scotland was disestablished in the 1920s...
Good grief! And you only tell me this now.
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
It may be true in Britain that Anglicanism is seen as reflecting SE England, but I've attended Anglican churches in East Africa where no-one thinks there is the slightest British flavour to worship, and the cultural regional variations within Britain would be irrelevant.
The hall-mark of Anglicanism there is a use of liturgy in worship, regular communion, singing hymns (often not in English or by English writers), and wearing robes. The only other church that would look similar would be the Roman Catholic church, but many would (for better or worse) like to maintain a more protestant theology while maintaining the style of worship just described.
The other substantial difference between the Anglican church and other Protestant churches (yes, I know) is church discipline - having a structure where a bishop can sort out an errant vicar is in great contrast to the situation where pastors run churches like their personal fiefdom.
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
:
A rather "High" view of Anglicanism's essentials, if I may say so, mdijon and one I suspect many Evangelicals would disagree with. Some quite vehemently.
I believe Lutherans have a similar disciplinary structure but I could be wrong.
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
Here is an example of the Anglican worship of Britishness from an American Anglo-Catholic Episcopalian parish --
I was reading my parish's email newsletter -- just signed up for it recently -- and the priest who wrote it this month -- it is a large parish with several clergy -- made a reference to a theological point made in a sermon given by a CofE missionary bishop in England early in the 20th century before a group of Anglo-Catholics in a well-known -- at least to Anglophiles -- British conference center of that era.
He made this reference without any apparent worry that our church's American email newsletter readers would write back: "Britain who?" or "why should we care what British CofE Anglo-Catholics thought about this theological point nearly 90 years ago? Sure, we're Anglo-Catholics, but isn't this a bit far in the past?"
He then tied this historical reference to an appeal for funds for missionary work in the area that the long-dead CofE missionary bishop had pastored.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
A rather "High" view of Anglicanism's essentials, if I may say so, mdijon and one I suspect many Evangelicals would disagree with. Some quite vehemently.
I believe Lutherans have a similar disciplinary structure but I could be wrong.
Perhaps it could be characterized as high, but that's how it looks in a different cultural landscape. It's not necessarily my view.
I imagine Lutheran churches would fill a similar role, but are a bit more thinly spread in East Africa than Anglican churches.
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
:
I must confess I wasn't thinking of the East African perspective.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I really don't get this.
Of course there's something very 'English' about the Church of England. British too, by extension.
There's something very Russian about the Russian Orthodox and very Greek about the Greek Orthodox.
Is the Pope a Catholic? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
There's something very American about US Baptist churches or Pentecostal churches or any other type of US church. Something very Australian, no doubt, about churches based in Australian, Singaporean about churches in Singapore, Mongolian about ...
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
I can see what the OP is driving at but I'm wondering what 'idolatorous' planks it overlooks whilst removing the spec from the Anglican eye?
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
How general is the appellation "Anglican" used outside England. In Scotland there is a " Scottish Episcopal Church" which, though in Communion with the Church of England, is quite separate from it, bowing neither to York or Canterbury.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
Gamaliel quote:
Of course there's something very 'English' about the Church of England. British too, by extension.
No! No! No! The whole point is that it is not British by extension but redeemably, one hopes, English. Indeed as Cod suggests its culture is most firmly rooted in the Tory Home Counties. Britain includes Scotland and Wales, which are certainly not Anglican either in law or culture.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
quote:
Originally posted by Eleanor Jane:
....but it didn't touch me like a normal church service would.
Sounds pretty bog-standard, once in sixty years or more accurately twice in the history of the monarchy type Sunday to me. For crying out loud, what on earth do you expect on the Sunday of the Diamond Jubilee. I bet you a pound to a penny next Sunday will stagger you with its normality.
We. to my regret, sang the national anthem. But the sermon and the rest of the service was about God the Holy Trinity, as it should have been.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
It means exactly what it says - instead of worshipping God, worshipping the idea of Britishness.
But what do you mean by that? Does your church have a scale model of the Palace of Westminster instead of an altar? Instead of a crucifix do you have a picture of the Queen? Does your Holy Communion consist of roast beef and a cup of tea?
quote:
As has been shown, we struggle to even find words to articulate the difference between Christian worship and nationalism and monarchy at times.
Rubbish, rot and balderdash. There's no more perfect example of the difference than the fact that we pray to God but we pray for the nation.
QED I think. Game, set, and match.
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Does your Holy Communion consist of roast beef and a cup of tea?
With horseradish sauce, surely? I mean, what sort of sick heretic are you?
Tea and toast is the True Food of the British. This roast beef idea is just a blind we put up to fool the French.
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on
:
quote:
How general is the appellation "Anglican" used outside England.
It's the only word used for that church in English-speaking Canada.
Somehow, I had the idea that French-speakers use a variation of "Episcopalian", but this would not seem to back that up.
[ 09. June 2012, 15:03: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
its culture is most firmly rooted in the Tory Home Counties. Britain includes Scotland and Wales, which are certainly not Anglican either in law or culture.
I would suggest that this is just as much tosh as the other generalisations that seem to be flourishing in this thread. Many parts of the North-East, South West, North, Midlands and East Anglia have flourishing churches which owe nothing to the culture of the South-East.
People have pronounced on Scotland here, and as I don't know enough I shan't comment, but here in Wales I would wonder what you mean by saying we are certainly not Anglican in law or culture. The Church in Wales has exactly the same legal duties and obligations with regard to marriages and burials as the Church of England, and I would suggest that there are just as many communities that consider their church an essential element of life as there are in England. We suffer from the same issues of severe decline and patchy growth - and our cathedrals are used for great events in the same way as those in England, yet we are disestablished and clearly Welsh in flavour.
BTW, the only nod to HMQ here last Sunday was in the intercessions (as we properly do each Sunday). But we had a wonderful Jubilee Thanksgiving Service on Monday, supported by people from across the community, and very clearly a service of prayer and thanksgiving to God.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Kwesi, I grew up in South Wales, not far from where Abervicar has his parish, so I ought to know what I'm talking about to some extent.
There was always something more 'English' about the Anglican Church in Wales when compared with the non-conformist denominations, although I get the impression that nowadays there's more of a 'Welsh' flavour about the Church in Wales than there used to be. Abervicar will correct me if I'm wrong. I've lived outside the Principality for most of my adult life, but I still have the 'hiraeth'.
The point I was making was the same as others have made, we can't expect any church to exist in a vacuum and not pick up the features of the surrounding or dominant culture.
This can be a problem, for all Mark Betts's protestations to the contrary, most Orthodox I know will admit that 'phyletism' is a major issue within their Church, with ethnic and political infighting between the various jurisdictions marring their witness and effectiveness to a greater or lesser extent in various parts of the world.
Recognising that it can be a problem is part of the solution.
I don't know why the CofE has been singled out for particular censure, although it has certainly been very Erastian at stages in its history - note the Hanoverian coats-of-arms in many Georgian churches.
I knew of a Pentecostal church in Gibraltar which had links to a large Pentie church in Newport, South Wales. People told me that it was more like a South Walian Pentecostal church in lots of ways than the 'mother church' back in South Wales.
These things happen. None of us are immune.
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
:
Sadly, Gamaliel, in many ways Australian churches have not IMO detached the cultural tow lines from their skiffs to the ships of their countries of origin and really grown deep local roots.
Consequently the Anglican Church in Australia (until 1981 the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania) is very pretentious and faux "English" about the most irrelevant issues whilst lacking much of the C of E's real spiritual and intellectual depth. It is a Church in danger of becoming mainly a social club and support group for those afraid to confront the everyday realities of hedonistic, utterly materialistic 21st Century Australia. The par blind leading the bland towards the cliff of irrelevance and destruction, I very much fear.
The other Churches: Roman Catholics, Uniting, Pentecostal are very similar, I also fear.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
Gamiel, if I gave the impression I was singling out and criticising Anglicanism for its cultural distinctiveness that was not my intention. Indeed, I firmly believe that God speaks to us in our own language, and that our ethnic distinctivenesses add to wider spiritual understandings. The prayer book and choral evensong may be Anglican in origin, but that does not diminish them as a means of grace to the wider Christian world.
The purpose of my posts was simply to factually point out that Britain was more than England and that the religious culture of Anglicanism does not have a dominant role in the Celtic peripheries. The disestablishment of the church in Wales surely demonstrated a lesser status in the principality. I would also continue to hold against the protestations of Abervicar that there are regional differences in the strength of Anglicanism within England that have a long history, and that its heart is in southern England.
Thus, my dispute with the formulation of the original question is that the Anglican Church is in no position to articulate the worship of Britishness; and that while it might from time to time lapse into a worship of the English nation it is much more than that, and that other denominations are not without sin.
Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve H:
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Has anybody noticed that the title of this thread can be sung to 'O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness'?
The Anglican Church is the worship of Britishness
So let us all have a nice cup of tea,
And thank God we're British with all of our twittishness
For God is a Briton, just like you and me.
Our English and Welshness, our Irish and Scottishness -
Cricket and Rugby and Scotch and warm beer
(But not too much, dear, for we can't abide sottishness) -
These are the things that we'll always hold dear.
The French and the Germans, the Poles and the Japanese
(Foreigners all, and some Papists as well)
Are all filled with envy that we lack their crappyness:
We're off to heaven, while they're off to hell.
Delightful!
May I share this among my organist friends so that we may play this every Jubilee service?
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
:
Not only delightful but impossible to get out of your head - even allowing for the wicked calumny that Papists are, by definition, not British.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
The disestablishment of the church in Wales surely demonstrated a lesser status in the principality.
I have read, however, that since disestablishment, the Church in Wales has taken a larger share of active church life than previously. Perhaps this is because Welsh Nonconformity has declined dramatically since then. The CofW benefits from more stability, and has probably absorbed quite a few members from Nonconformist churches that have closed. So perhaps one might say that the CofW has become more Welsh since disestablishment.
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
The purpose of my posts was simply to factually point out that Britain was more than England and that the religious culture of Anglicanism does not have a dominant role in the Celtic peripheries. The disestablishment of the church in Wales surely demonstrated a lesser status in the principality. I would also continue to hold against the protestations of Abervicar that there are regional differences in the strength of Anglicanism within England that have a long history, and that its heart is in southern England.
I think you give away the weakness in your argument when you use such language as 'Celtic peripheries', and then when you appeal to perceptions of history. The first is an easy stereotype, and the latter is often full of the same.
Establishment or disestablishment do not necessarily offer a key to understanding anything beyond the legal matters which tie a Church to the State. I don't think Rome would ever wish to say that it had any less real hold over its dioceses in countries where in whatever way the RCC was established?
And the position of the Church in the 21st century in the UK is very different from the way it may have been perceived in the 19th century (usually this is where the historical stereotypes have their basis). Where is the evidence that the C of E is more dominant in the South-East of Eangland? To give just one example: is Durham any less Anglican than Winchester?
Nevertheless, I do agree with Kwesi that the Anglican Church could not now sum up what it means to be British, English or Welsh - nor has it ever been able to, except in the perception of people who don't really know.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I suspect this might very well be the case, SvitlanaV2.
@Trisagion, you'll have experienced this more than I have, but I have certainly come across a particular kind of 'County set' wannabe who appears to regard the RC Church as somehow more 'continental' and not the kind of Church one would wish to belong to unless one were Irish, Polish or Italian ...
Conversely, I've also come across RC priests with a soft-spot for the older, aristocratic English Catholic families and have a somewhat dismissive, ambivalent or even snobbish attitude towards Catholics of largely Irish descent who - until very recently - made up the bulk of their congregations.
@Kwesi, yes, I can see where you are coming from. I'm somewhere between you and Abervicar on this one. There are always exceptions to every rule, though and I think he's right that we could find thriving Anglican parishes in the North-East and elsewhere with few cultural ties or affinities with the Anglican heartlands of south-east England.
The picture is very mixed.
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
The disestablishment of the church in Wales surely demonstrated a lesser status in the principality.
I have read, however, that since disestablishment, the Church in Wales has taken a larger share of active church life than previously. Perhaps this is because Welsh Nonconformity has declined dramatically since then. The CofW benefits from more stability, and has probably absorbed quite a few members from Nonconformist churches that have closed. So perhaps one might say that the CofW has become more Welsh since disestablishment.
When I was a child - late 60s and early 70s - the CinW still felt rather more English than Welsh and certainly when compared with the chapel culture in which I was brought up and which was then declining very fast. When I go home now, and when I speak with relatives who still live there, the CinW feels very Welsh indeed, often more so than the surrounding culture, at least in South Wales.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
That's interesting, Trisagion.
I've not attended a CinW service in South East Wales for some time - but did attend a communion service in a village near Tenby in Pembrokeshire a few years ago. I was struck by overhearing a conversation between the vicar and a visitor afterwards during which he claimed the CinW to be 'Catholic but not Roman Catholic' and a direct descendant of the Celtic churches of the immediate post-Roman period ...
Sure, I know that's a common Anglican position but it's one that wouldn't have been familiar to me from my nominally Anglican boyhood. Although, that said, many CinW parishes were deliberately 'high'-ish to distinguish themselves from the surrounding 'chapel' culture.
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Trisagion, you'll have experienced this more than I have, but I have certainly come across a particular kind of 'County set' wannabe who appears to regard the RC Church as somehow more 'continental' and not the kind of Church one would wish to belong to unless one were Irish, Polish or Italian ...
Yes, that is very prevalent, particularly in rural Southern England, where the "Oh, you're a Roman Catholic" remark is usually the precursor to some kind of patronising stupidity, ignorant prejudice or social exclusion. It is an attitude just below the surface in a surprising number of CofE clergy too.
quote:
Conversely, I've also come across RC priests with a soft-spot for the older, aristocratic English Catholic families and have a somewhat dismissive, ambivalent or even snobbish attitude towards Catholics of largely Irish descent who - until very recently - made up the bulk of their congregations.
An attitude doomed to failure since the recusant families I've known treat all priests who didn't teach them at Downside, Ampleforth or Stonyhurst with very polite coolness. The attitude of the Marchmains in Brideshead is spot-on.
[ 10. June 2012, 12:09: Message edited by: Trisagion ]
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
the "Oh, you're a Roman Catholic" remark is usually the precursor to some kind of patronising stupidity, ignorant prejudice or social exclusion. It is an attitude just below the surface in a surprising number of CofE clergy too.
Sadly, only too true. Particularly (or maybe just more noticeably) it's those who profess to be 'liberal' or 'ecumenical' who are among the worst offenders. When I encounter it I usually try to stick up for youse Papists.
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Sadly, only too true. Particularly (or maybe just more noticeably) it's those who profess to be 'liberal' or 'ecumenical' who are among the worst offenders. When I encounter it I usually try to stick up for youse Papists.
I am obliged. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Just this afternoon I was asked - by a senior Anglican cleric - "Didn't you feel rather left out during the diamond jubilee, Romans being...(embarrassed pause)..well...not really at home with all that civic religion. Do you feel....well....a bit exotic?". I asked her whether "exotic" meant "not really British". After a deal of flustered excuses and apologies, the answer seemed to be yes.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
That's interesting, Trisagion.
I've not attended a CinW service in South East Wales for some time - but did attend a communion service in a village near Tenby in Pembrokeshire a few years ago. I was struck by overhearing a conversation between the vicar and a visitor afterwards during which he claimed the CinW to be 'Catholic but not Roman Catholic' and a direct descendant of the Celtic churches of the immediate post-Roman period ...
Sure, I know that's a common Anglican position but it's one that wouldn't have been familiar to me from my nominally Anglican boyhood. Although, that said, many CinW parishes were deliberately 'high'-ish to distinguish themselves from the surrounding 'chapel' culture.
As a cradle English, CofE Prod, I've always taken it for granted that the saints of the Anglo-Saxon/Celtic period are ours. They have been, and are, always, presented that way. There's also been an implicit - and sometimes explicit by those who lack historical imagination - that the Celtic ones particularly, the ones that lost at Whitby, were all proto-Protestants anyway.
I believe UK Orthodox congregations similarly regard them all as 'really Orthodox anyway', particularly since they predate the Great Schism.
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion
Just this afternoon I was asked - by a senior Anglican cleric - "Didn't you feel rather left out during the diamond jubilee, Romans being...(embarrassed pause)..well...not really at home with all that civic religion. Do you feel....well....a bit exotic?". I asked her whether "exotic" meant "not really British". After a deal of flustered excuses and apologies, the answer seemed to be yes.
In Catholic countries like Eire, rather than secular ones like France, presumably the Roman church performs this civic role. Does it do it in the same way?
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
In Catholic countries like Eire, rather than secular ones like France, presumably the Roman church performs this civic role. Does it do it in the same way?
Probably but not really my point. What I was being told, in an embarrassed but unambiguous way, was that I wasn't really British.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
What I was being told, in an embarrassed but unambiguous way, was that I wasn't really British.
It seems to me that what you were being asked was whether it made you feel not really British? In other words, you were being asked to confirm or deny how disestablishmentarians think in theory it should make you feel.
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
What I was being told, in an embarrassed but unambiguous way, was that I wasn't really British.
It seems to me that what you were being asked was whether it made you feel not really British? In other words, you were being asked to confirm or deny how disestablishmentarians think in theory it should make you feel.
Yes, probably so. In any event, I thought it bloody rude. I wonder whether the Venerable Woman would have felt able to say the same to our local Rabbi or Imam.
Posted by seasick (# 48) on
:
I would regard not being at home with civic religion as rather a plus point...
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
What I was being told, in an embarrassed but unambiguous way, was that I wasn't really British.
It seems to me that what you were being asked was whether it made you feel not really British? In other words, you were being asked to confirm or deny how disestablishmentarians think in theory it should make you feel.
Yes, probably so. In any event, I thought it bloody rude. I wonder whether the Venerable Woman would have felt able to say the same to our local Rabbi or Imam.
Probably not, but then the Roman Catholic church has been heavily involved in condoning plots against the British crown in a way that mainstream Jewish and Muslim organisations have not, and while it may be a few centuries old, it's still there. When the monarchy is at the heart of the historical schism between the Roman and English churches, it's not entirely unsurprising to expect Roman Catholicism might make someone more hostile to the monarchy; especially given the association of Irish republicanism and Roman Catholicism.
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by seasick:
I would regard not being at home with civic religion as rather a plus point...
Seasick, it was quite clear that she thought there some way in which my Catholicism made me less British...and not in a way that she, at least, thought creditable.
Posted by seasick (# 48) on
:
Sorry, I wasn't doubting your interpretation of it. It was a criticism of her and a certain strain of Anglicanism not Catholicism. The supercilious attitude of some Anglicans to non-Anglicans doesn't stop at Catholics, so I know something of the experience.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
AberVicar quote:
And the position of the Church in the 21st century in the UK is very different from the way it may have been perceived in the 19th century (usually this is where the historical stereotypes have their basis). Where is the evidence that the C of E is more dominant in the South-East of Eangland? To give just one example: is Durham any less Anglican than Winchester?
I think you make an important point regarding the 21st Century, and it would be most instructive to learn what the answer is. With regard to the contrast between Durham and Winchester, I fear the question would have to be "Is Durham any less Christian than Winchester?" Both places, one fears, are equally secular and de-Christianised.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
she thought there some way in which my Catholicism made me less British...and not in a way that she, at least, thought creditable.
That attitude seems Understandable if held by someone who hasn't thought about Catholicism since learning Tudor history in school.
But I'd thought one of the achievements of the late Basil Hume was to disprove that stereotype by being the very English public face of Catholicism in England.
Best wishes,
Russ
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
That attitude seems Understandable if held by someone who hasn't thought about Catholicism since learning Tudor history in school.
That attitude seems under stable if held by someone who hasn't thought about Catholicism since learning a certain sort of Tudor history in school.
quote:
But I'd thought one of the achievements of the late Basil Hume was to disprove that stereotype by being the very English public face of Catholicism in England.
Best wishes,
Russ
A particular achievement for a man whose Father was a scot and whose Mother was French.
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Probably not, but then the Roman Catholic church has been heavily involved in condoning plots against the British crown in a way that mainstream Jewish and Muslim organisations have not, and while it may be a few centuries old, it's still there. When the monarchy is at the heart of the historical schism between the Roman and English churches, it's not entirely unsurprising to expect Roman Catholicism might make someone more hostile to the monarchy; especially given the association of Irish republicanism and Roman Catholicism.
This isn't an entirely incorrect view - but the relationship of post-Reformation Catholicism in England to monarchy and civic life was extremely complex. I can't really speak to the more modern situation of how Britain regarded the connection of Irish terrorism and their own indigenous Catholic population. I'm maybe just a bit too close to that, to see objectively how it went over on 'the mainland'! But the earlier history of Catholicism in Reformation England started the ball rolling, naturally.
Yes, the Popes in Rome during Tudor times did not do their English flock any great favours in their provocative proclamations and political/religious machinations (though everyone was into that!). And there where very serious instances of Catholic-instigated rebellion. But these tended to be small groups of almost fanatical individuals, usually badly advised, with poor intelligence sources and over-optimistic expectations of support from Catholic nationals. Not even the presence of Mary, Queen of Scots, or the Catholic James II, could attract sufficient concrete support from the foreign Catholic nations (eg, Spain or France). The Armada - certainly was a Catholic attempt at the life of Protestant England - but the threat, when it came, was not from within.
The most famous attempt by national Catholics against the Protestant ascendancy, perhaps, was the Northern Rebellion. But for the most part the Catholic population - peers and ordinary folk - remained loyal to Elizabeth. And the attempt fell apart almost as soon as it started.
The fear of Catholics and Catholicism - the notion of them being unEnglish and potentially disloyal, was always there right enough, as you say. From Elizabeth's time definitely the PR machinery of the establishment worked the theme hard, that Catholics had a higher loyalty to the Bishop of Rome than their own sovereign. Mary Tudor set an unhappy precedent for Protestant scaremongers to hold up as 'typical' of Catholic interference in national politics and religion.
But - while Catholicism certainly was a real focus for trouble in the kingdom - I would suggest that the majority of Catholic England was remarkable in enduring the difficult - really no-win - situations they faced; mainly quietly and loyally. Especially considering that the difficulties came from both their own monarch and state (even if debateably, understandable given the times), and their own Pontiff, safe in Rome, issuing warlike statements to the very country they were trying to live in peacefully!
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
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Oh, indeed Anselmina, I'm just trying to pick up apart why someone with a reasonable but non-specialist knowledge of history might have reason to suspect some antipathy from Roman Catholics towards the monarchy. You don't even have to go back to the Tudors or James II, at late as the '45 Jacobite rebellion there was still hope from Jacobites and fear from Hannoverians that English Catholics in the North would back Charles Edward Stuart against the House of Hannover.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
In Catholic countries like Eire, rather than secular ones like France, presumably the Roman church performs this civic role. Does it do it in the same way?
Probably but not really my point. What I was being told, in an embarrassed but unambiguous way, was that I wasn't really British.
Trisagion, I slightly wonder if you might not be being a little bit over-sensitive on this.
I'd be delighted if Anselmina were to say that isn't so. Nevertheless, I get the distinct impression that a lot of the inhabitants of Eire regard Protestants as much less really Irish, than we might feel the Duke of Norfolk is not quite really British.
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Oh, indeed Anselmina, I'm just trying to pick up apart why someone with a reasonable but non-specialist knowledge of history might have reason to suspect some antipathy from Roman Catholics towards the monarchy. You don't even have to go back to the Tudors or James II, at late as the '45 Jacobite rebellion there was still hope from Jacobites and fear from Hannoverians that English Catholics in the North would back Charles Edward Stuart against the House of Hannover.
Indeed. I suppose I'm a bit disabled in this subject, because I'm not an English Protestant so don't have a 'feeling' of how Catholics may be regarded in the way you describe.
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
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And in fact, of course, quite a lot of the staunch support for the House of Stuart in the North came from old-fashioned Anglicans (non-jurors) and, north of the Border, Episcopalians.
I wonder whether the low profile that many English RCs kept during the C18 and early C19 contributed, paradoxically, to the continued perception of 'foreignness' after 1850-ish- by which I mean that a lot of the visible RC population and I would guess practice was Irish, with a lot of Italian influence on converts. So those carefully unobtrusive and very English 'old' RCs, with their blue-coated clergy addressed as 'Mr', were overlooked and the popular (Protestant) consciousness could jump straight from Gunpowder treason and the Young Pretender to Irish immigrants and Dominic Barbieri. Or am I wrong about all this?
Curious how these things hang on. I am afraid that I still have a feeling somewhere deep down that the RCC is somehow a little bit alien and, for instance, I get cross when Radio 3 very occasionally replaces Choral Evensong with RC Choral Vespers. I am, I hasten to add, not proud of this gut feeling and wish I did not have it.
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
In Catholic countries like Eire, rather than secular ones like France, presumably the Roman church performs this civic role. Does it do it in the same way?
Probably but not really my point. What I was being told, in an embarrassed but unambiguous way, was that I wasn't really British.
Trisagion, I slightly wonder if you might not be being a little bit over-sensitive on this.
I'd be delighted if Anselmina were to say that isn't so. Nevertheless, I get the distinct impression that a lot of the inhabitants of Eire regard Protestants as much less really Irish, than we might feel the Duke of Norfolk is not quite really British.
Probably needs a whole nother thread! And there are other posters here who are actually born and bred Southern Irish Protestants who could give a much better picture than I could. But suffice to say, that in this wee corner of the Ireland, there is some re-thinking around this issue, along the lines of 'actually, being Protestant doesn't necessarily make you a second-level Irishman'.
Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Trisagion, I slightly wonder if you might not be being a little bit over-sensitive on this.
You keep on slightly wondering then, my old darling.
quote:
I'd be delighted if Anselmina were to say that isn't so. Nevertheless, I get the distinct impression that a lot of the inhabitants of Eire regard Protestants as much less really Irish, than we might feel the Duke of Norfolk is not quite really British.
If that's what you think about a man whose family have served the Crown for nearly a thousand years then you really are pushing your luck.
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
With regard to the contrast between Durham and Winchester, I fear the question would have to be "Is Durham any less Christian than Winchester?" Both places, one fears, are equally secular and de-Christianised.
No doubt. But my (admittedly personal, selective and anecdotal) impression is that in the north east of England the vibrant Christian tradition of Cuthbert, Bede, Hilda and the like is still part of folk memory, in a way that may not be true for the more 'establishment' parts of the south east. I have still got an exercise book from junior school in north east Yorkshire (not a church school) which shows that we were taught about Caedmon, Hilda and Whitby as part of our tradition. And further north, Holy Island impinges on general consciousness more than, I would guess, the shrine of St Swithun.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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15 years ago, the Durham diocese syllabus for Tyne and Wear included the Northern Saints as part of the primary syllabus.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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Angloid quote:
But my (admittedly personal, selective and anecdotal) impression is that in the north east of England the vibrant Christian tradition of Cuthbert, Bede, Hilda and the like is still part of folk memory, in a way that may not be true for the more 'establishment' parts of the south east.
It would be nice to believe that to be the case, and raises the question as to the persistence of historic cultural fault-lines, in this case between the Celtic and Roman Church. In a different context can we cite the Pilgrimage of Grace as another example of (failed) resistance to the southern centre? Or, later, nonconformity in northern industrial areas as contrasting with a more Anglican south? AberVicar, however, reminds of the danger of assuming that a past religious geography remains in the present century.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Or, later, nonconformity in northern industrial areas as contrasting with a more Anglican south? AberVicar, however, reminds of the danger of assuming that a past religious geography remains in the present century.
Up to a point Lord Copper. Before the Industrial Revolution, apart from the East Riding, the north was less populated and economically and socially more backward than the south and east. It was predominantly royalist in the Civil War. Dissent in the south and east went back to the Civil War, and is Old Dissent, now represented by Baptists and URC. Dissent didn't happen much in the north until the Methodist revivals of the C18 which coincided with the start of the Industrial Revolution. So it tends to be Methodist.
Although there were new innovations, in the C19, people tended to turn to what was already there in their area.
Quite a lot of the rural south missed out on the Industrial Revolution. In the C19 it was more backward and traditional than the north.
So the pattern is more, rural areas, in the south, Welsh borders, etc, CofE, dissent weak, urban communities in East Anglia, East Midlands, South and South West, dominant flavour of Dissent, Old, urban communities in the north, dominant flavour of Dissent, New.
Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on
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Kwesi, I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to see you scrutinising British Christianity from your vantage point. I think all Western Christianity could well do with similar intelligent outside scrutiny. Unfortunately you have not, as yet, tuned your incisive and insightful vision on Australia.
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Old, urban communities in the north, dominant flavour of Dissent, New.
Unless you include RCs in with Dissent, this is not true of the North-west.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Old, urban communities in the north, dominant flavour of Dissent, New.
Unless you include RCs in with Dissent, this is not true of the North-west.
I did think of adding this, but thought it might make my post too long.
Pre-industrial Lancashire, though, was remote and often condemned as backward and Popery was a survival from before the Reformation. I would query whether many conventionally CofE people in Lancashire of the sort that would have chosen dissent in the C18/19 became RC rather than Methodist or some other form of Protestant dissent - and particularly not at a time when there was so much immigration from Ireland.
Posted by Amos (# 44) on
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Quite a lot of Congregationalists in Lancashire, as well as Quakers. Catholics, as said before, very strong: Pilgrimage of Grace was pretty major, as was the memory of its end. At present, of course, parts of Lancs. are in the Diocese of Bradford (low) and parts in the Diocese of Blackburn (Chichester North), so it's got its own peculiarities.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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I thought Liverpool and Manchester also have dioceses?
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
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Neither of which are in Lancashire as currently constituted (though both dioceses have bits of their rural hinterland there.) West Lancs default folk-religion is as likely to be RC as anything. The nearer you get to the Pennines the stronger is the Protestant influence.
The dominant religion (both in the sense of popular culture and number of active adherents) in Merseyside is Roman Catholic. It's strong in Greater Manchester too but I think traditional nonconformity is or was quite strong there as well.
As for Blackburn diocese being 'Chichester North": that is a vast oversimplification. The episcopal leadership in recent years has been strongly of that flavour, and clearly there are many traditional Anglo-catholic parishes. My impression though is that the diocese is more generally conservative in ethos, and encompasses much of what used to be called the 'Lanky-low' tradition.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
No doubt. But my (admittedly personal, selective and anecdotal) impression is that in the north east of England the vibrant Christian tradition of Cuthbert, Bede, Hilda and the like is still part of folk memory, in a way that may not be true for the more 'establishment' parts of the south east.
There is certainly more visible Christian presence in the centre of Durham, the university and cathedral area, than anywhere else I've seen in Britain. And not just the buildings - real people actually go to all those churches. Even if most of them are students in term time.
But I'm not at all sure that the rest of the North-East is any less secular than anywhere else. And the part of Britain with the highest proportion of churchgoers in the population is almost certainly the inner suburbs of London. (The lowest was Sheffield not long ago)
Though its certainly true that Bede and Oswald and Cuthbert and Aidan are more present in public culture in the north-east of England than, say, Wilfrid or Boniface or Dunstan would be in the south. Or at any rate less absent. At least some people woould have heard of them.
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