i was thinking about it, more to do with rachel's post about her previous congregation making their building 'all nice for God.' i guess more on the misuse of funds argument.

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but i wanted the quote to stand for itself without too much explanation...

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I just want to chime in to agree w/ Rachel's (reformed) point about unused tat. Rather than melt it down to feed the poor, why not send it to poor parishes around the world so that they too can worship God in the beauty of holiness?

Regarding ND de Paris: I went to a wonderful mass there last September (packed to the gills and the congregation happily singing along with the gregorian chant) and while I'm sure they weren't using all their stuff (that's the American word for "tat"), they were certainly using some of it.

But the stuff in museums is another matter. I appreciate being able to go to, say, the Cluny Museum and seeing beautiful vestments and chalices that are now to fragile for use, but there is also a part of me that is saddened by seeing ritual objects being reduced (and I do mean reduced) to mere art. I sometimes wonder if we shouldn't reverently dispose of ritual objects when they can no longer be used in the corporate worship of God.

I recently was in Ghent and saw the magnificent van Eyck altarpiece at St. Baafs cathedral. It was incredibly beautiful. But I couldn't help regretting that it can no longer be seen for what it was meant to be by van Eyck: the backdrop to the even more incredibly beautiful celebration of the mass.

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There is an argument for using unbreakable stuff, Erin, and I did say earlier that I hoped some money went to the crafts-people; in the same way, constantly replacing things is OK, I think, as it contimues to give out income to the makers.

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But it's not feeding the poor!!

As Rachel_O has demonstrated it's not just the High Church traditions which spend money on worship - I know plenty of churches which started in simplicity, maybe in a hired hall or front room, and end up spending lots of money on a church building.

So, the church could destroy some of the 'art' in its possession in order to realise the value of the raw materials. Tricky. Scrap value not always that high against effort - will scraping the gold off the Lindisfarne Gospels really be worth the candle?

Ok, so safer to realise the value of its assets by becoming a player in the art market. The objects pass out of the realm where ordinary people might have touched them, drunk from them, prayed before them and they pass instead into a place where they are isolated, secularized, deracinated.

Well, never mind. The church is coming away from Sootheby's with all this dosh. A certain amount has to go to replace the objects that actually had function - but, obviously not with ones which are valuable, either in materials or artistic merit. Oh, and there's staff and estate and administrative overheads - but nevertheless money is turned into food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless.

So, the church as a sort of voluntary Social Services department, the power of beauty and creativity moved out into the benevolent custodianship of either Very Rich People or Institutions where it may be visited during stated hours.

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the power of beauty and creativity moved out into the benevolent custodianship of either Very Rich People or Institutions where it may be visited during stated hours.

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Originally posted by Old Fashioned Crab:
I was at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London recently. There is a fine collection of religious vestments and objects. Amongst them is a chalice which some clutz has labelled as follows " ...It WAS believed that the wine became the blood of Christ ... " ... WAS .... WAS !!!!

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I think this is what Rachel was getting at. This is SO not the way to treat a consecrated object - and even if you don't believe in consecration, which I don't particularly - it's not a mark of respect to one's beliefs to perform an act of minor desecration like that.

[fixed ubb]

This is also true of other Christian traditions. Although in my defense I put a lot into being a good Protestant (as these things go) and found it just didn't work for me. As I also said earlier, your mileage may vary. If anyone finds that they are steadily growing in godliness in their current Christian church, then more power to them, and may the good Lord have mercy upon us all.

Meanwhile I think Rachel has realized the problems with making sweeping statements about other people's traditions (something I could use a lesson or two in, as I'm sure you're all thinking :rolleyes and so this thread has served a good purpose. There are people for whom beautiful sacred objects are not mere "tat" but an important aid to worship.

Finally (a sigh of collective relief goes up from the crowd), one last question: why is keeping potters employed more important than keeping silversmiths employed?

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Originally posted by FCB:

... But the stuff in museums is another matter.... there is also a part of me that is saddened by seeing ritual objects being reduced (and I do mean reduced) to mere art. ...

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At the risk of derailing this thread and sending the hounds baying after the red herring of aesthetics, I would like to say categorically that there is no such thing as "mere" art.

There is, arguably, "good" art and "bad" art, but it's all art.

Now, art used in the service and worship of Almighty God may be employed for a higher purpose than, say, an Etruscan chamber pot, but both objects probably disclose more about the maker of the vessel and the millieu in which the vessel was made than they do about their intended purpose.

And I suspect that, in the case of the sacred objects at least, a certain transparency is valuable so that the object, as part of its artistic nature, points, not to its beauty, but to the beauty of God.

Recently, I had the privilege of praying in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Peter's. It's one of the Papal properties in Rome where perpetual adoration occurs.

Like the rest of the basilica, the Blessed Sacrament chapel is a baroque wonder. I must have spent perhaps 30 minutes to 3/4 of an hour there. Part of the time, I had my eyes closed, but a great deal of the time, I spent gazing at the Host, which was about the size of a large American pizza.

About a week after returning home, we were talking about our experiences, and I mentioned the time I had spent in prayer in the chapel. "Oh yes," said my friend, "the monstrance is by Bernini."

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Originally posted by mousethief:
This is also true of other Christian traditions. Although in my defense I put a lot into being a good Protestant (as these things go) and found it just didn't work for me. As I also said earlier, your mileage may vary. If anyone finds that they are steadily growing in godliness in their current Christian church, then more power to them, and may the good Lord have mercy upon us all.

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Amen to that, Mousethief.

(Wood slumps back into his chair, emotionally exhausted but ultimately vindicated. )

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Meanwhile I think Rachel has realized the problems with making sweeping statements about other people's traditions (something I could use a lesson or two in, as I'm sure you're all thinking )

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What? You, Reader Alexis? Really?

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and so this thread has served a good purpose. There are people for whom beautiful sacred objects are not mere "tat" but an important aid to worship.

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I think this is a good point, and you;re right. With all the talk about tat that goes around, I think that this fact was assumed by those who know and never explained, leaving those us who were unaware of its significance standing back, thinking you were all at best mad, at worst... well.

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Finally (a sigh of collective relief goes up from the crowd), one last question: why is keeping potters employed more important than keeping silversmiths employed?

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If a church looks carefully at its budget, it may find that a certain proportion of the money should be used on ceremony and bricks-and-mortar and stuff to look at. Certainly paying an organist is a common thing, and buying a chalice is a worthy thing.

But it is a matter of proportion. If most of the money is going into pretty stuff, and very little is going into ministry in the larger community--soup kitchens, Habitat for Humanity, evangelistic outreach--then perhaps we have an imbalance and some divestiture of the pretty stuff is a good idea.

If, however, the congregation is spending next to nothing on making worship a beautiful and uplifting experience, then that is out of balance, too.

Here's a picture of my church on Pentecost. You will see that there is tat: a banner over the altar, pipe organ, stained glass, a processional cross, flowers on the altar, pulpit and lectern hangings, communionware, candles. But there is also a bare concrete floor. Why don't we have carpet? Because we have consciously decided, as a church community, that our benevolence outside of the congregation is much more important than carpet.

This SHOULD be a picture of my church on Pentecost, the first image you see. I hope.

[deleted duplicate post with bad UBB.Inadvertently erased Nancy's comment about her church in the process. Sorry about that, Nancy.]

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Originally posted by mousethief:

Meanwhile I think Rachel has realized the problems with making sweeping statements about other people's traditions (something I could use a lesson or two in, as I'm sure you're all thinking :rolleyes and so this thread has served a good purpose. There are people for whom beautiful sacred objects are not mere "tat" but an important aid to worship.

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You are certainly right. I have learned and am learning. Now all I need to do is teach Fr. Cosmo not to make sweeping statements about charismatic evagelicals and the ship will be having an exceptionally good week.

It has to be said that I echo Wood's comment about the way tat is generally talked about on this ship - particularly for those of us who don't venture into MW very often for fear of drowning in the stuff. Quite apart from the fact that the very word - "tat" - for me conjures up images of cheap costume jewellry and other useless junk, the impression that you can easily get from some threads on board ship is that tat turns church into a cross between a South American Carnivale, a jeweller's shop and a fashion show! I now know better.

Erin of course is still blistering me and my like with sarcastic bile - and I'm sure that will add greatly to the learning experience.

I would still plead moderation in all these things - whether it be fancy projection systems, shiny chalices or pink paint. (But you really don't want to get me started on the pink paint).

All the best,

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Erin of course is still blistering me and my like with sarcastic bile - and I'm sure that will add greatly to the learning experience.

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Wah-freakin'-wah. In case you haven't figured it out, my last post was directed towards daisymay. And even if it wasn't, according to the guidelines in Hell, when you start a thread here (particularly a vitriolic one), you paint a nice big ol' target on your back.

Wood, it is lovely that you and Mousethief continue to disagree then make obsequious apologies to each other. Can you stop using my name in vain? I do not daub all evangelicals with the same "Diocese of Sydney" tar brush - indeed, until you addressed me directly with the "nine out of ten times" thing, I hadn't thought of my own/the Diocese of Sydney's position at all. Now I realise that you may actually have been making room for the possibility that SYdney Diocese evangelicals might be complete loonies (which I am not saying... mutter mutter, but might like to). But I really feel that was uncalled for.

I have followed the debate/conversation between Wood and Mousthief with interest. I have a little idea to inject quietly (for fear of then having Wood branish his BGF sword at me yet again):

I think the differences (or some of them) between catholic/Orthodox understanding of holiness and the protestant/evangelical view of the same is related to what role and how important the Incarnation is in their respective theologies...

Speaking from the cahtolic perspective, the Incarnation has dignified matter; it means that even more than before, matter can be the vehicle of bringing God to us, into our lives, and of having experiences with him/of him. Hence a more sacramental view of the world, wherein things and people can be holy and set apart, whether ceremonially, or by virtue of how they convey grace in our lives - eg a spring or Spring or various people or places we know. This gives more room for the apprehension of Mystery - for although God reveals himself, we cannot fully understand him, and so he is Mystery (just like he is Beauty and Truth, as well as Justice and Mercy). The created world, and our creations in reflection of this thereby serve to foster meditation on these things. This is especially so, as the Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ has redeemed us (and all the created order).

If onthe other hand you focus on "Salvation" - ie the central message of Christ's death and resurrection adn salvation from sin and death - then I think you lose the fullness of what I described above (this is not a criticism but an observation), theologically and practically as it is lived out. Mousethief, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Orthodox focus more on living a resurrected life and on the positive things of salvation, than on the negative aspects like "we are all sinners and utterly vile" - though that may be true, and it is recognised in the well known Jesus prayer (Lord Jesus CHrist, SOn of God, have mercy on me, a sinner repeated 3 times or so).

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Originally posted by Nunc_Dimittis:
Stooberry, a counter catholics would consider to your Amos quote, would be the final chapter of Malachi, which says stuff like "they will offer me right sacrifices" etc etc...

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ok... p'raps i should've put some of my thinkings in to my post instead of leaving the quote to speak for itself! u live and learn!

i wasn't posting it as an anti-apparell post, but instead as a right-priorities post. it was originally rachel's post about her previous congregation that put the passage into my mind.

what i think the malachi bit is getting at, (as well as the amos bit) is that God is much more concerned with our attitudes than our tradition (on either side of the high-low fence) of worship. the passage to which i think you're referring (Malachi 3:3) can also be read as "presenting offerings to the Lord in righteousness".

i think we're basically agreed that God in this passage is saying the people had got something wrong... from my reading of the bible, i believe it is our attitudes rather than our motions (hmmm... suddenly seeing this post transferring to Erin's toilet thread...)

Great thread though. So much in the course of three days. I reckon the starter for ten was worth it.

One other thought: there's the same sort of issue around the aristocratic great houses. The extravagence of the wealth attracts redistributive instincts, but equally, part of their attraction as visits is seeing it all in situ, and knowing it's part of a continuing thread of history.

I understand that all church buildings and religious property was nationalized by an anticlerical regime in the 19th Century, and that the churches are basically "made available" for religious services. Did this nationalization extend to the tat as well?

This may account for the accumulation of tat and its display/storage. State/public ownership of tat may complicate its disposal.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Meanwhile I think Rachel has realized the problems with making sweeping statements about other people's traditions

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Originally posted by rachel_o:
You are certainly right. I have learned and am learning. Now all I need to do is teach Fr. Cosmo not to make sweeping statements about charismatic evagelicals and the ship will be having an exceptionally good week.

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I don't recall him ever actually targetting *charismatic* evangelicals as such.

Funny comments (see pew thread in heaven) by him require payment in kind (see Wood's response). Steve's response is the unfortunate evangelical equivalent of the anglocatholic queeny fit. (In mitigation, I expect there's probably a good 6 months frustration in that post. And everyone's allowed to have a melt down occasionally). I'd hate to see Cosmo's humour purged of its gallows or chivvying aspects - then he would become just another mawkish christian. Perish the thought.

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Originally posted by rachel_o:
It has to be said that I echo Wood's comment about the way tat is generally talked about on this ship - particularly for those of us who don't venture into MW very often for fear of drowning in the stuff. Quite apart from the fact that the very word - "tat" - for me conjures up images of cheap costume jewellry and other useless junk, the impression that you can easily get from some threads on board ship is that tat turns church into a cross between a South American Carnivale, a jeweller's shop and a fashion show!

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I think it is useful to make a sweeping generalisation here -- that Anglo-Catholics tend to indulge in a fair amount of self-parody.

This leads to a great many misunderstandings. I can think of several instances where incendiary battles have erupted over a self-depracating remark, or a piss-take posted by an A/C that was taken very very seriously by someone else. This often results in an immoderate reply, which prompts a snide (sic) or vitriolic response, and the next thing you know you have people expressing hatred for each other in Heaven.

May I suggest that one of the fundamental misunderstandings we confront is not spiritual or theological or even aesthetic, but the simple fact that two groups of people, both professing to be Christians, see and react to each other in knee-jerk, negative ways:

Group A: "Group B are a bunch of self-important, narrow-minded, judgmental, intellectually shallow, prudish, holier-than-thou reductionists."

Group B: "Group A are a bunch of prissy, trivial, self-indulgent, hedonistic, narrow-minded, judgmental, spiritually shallow snobs."

Care to fill in the blanks here? And anyone notice any overlap?

See my post above. We are all subjective people. At some point one has to realise that God is incomprehensible, and different people respond to the incomprehensible in different ways. And at some point one has to stop asking "why do you do that" when the implied question is "why do you think it's better?"

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Originally posted by Nunc_Dimittis:
Wood, it is lovely that you and Mousethief continue to disagree then make obsequious apologies to each other.

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Didn't think they were *obsequious* as such.

For future reference, if you imagine Mousethief as Hardy and me as Laurel, it'll brighten up your day.

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Can you stop using my name in vain? I do not daub all evangelicals with the same "Diocese of Sydney" tar brush - indeed, until you addressed me directly with the "nine out of ten times" thing, I hadn't thought of my own/the Diocese of Sydney's position at all.

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Apologies. It's just that - and this may possibly be my own perception here - you have a real mad-on for the diocese of Sydney, and mention them an awful lot...

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Now I realise that you may actually have been making room for the possibility that SYdney Diocese evangelicals might be complete loonies

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Yup.

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(which I am not saying... mutter mutter, but might like to).

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See? See?

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But I really feel that was uncalled for.

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Apologies again. However, you do go on about them a bit.

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Speaking from the cahtolic perspective, the Incarnation has dignified matter; it means that even more than before, matter can be the vehicle of bringing God to us, into our lives, and of having experiences with him/of him.

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Rdr Alexis made a point about holy things and holy ground in the OT; and then, later, he talked about these things as being gifts of God to us - which (correct me if I'm wrong) is kind of what you're getting at here in a different way - yet, in the OT, yoou get the impression that these things are there because man and God are separated, and they are there in a mediating rôle. See the Pauline interpretations of the Law, for example.

The whole point - in the protestant's mind - of the Temple Veil being rent, is to show that we don't need this sort of thing anymore. But I repeat myself.

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Hence a more sacramental view of the world, wherein things and people can be holy and set apart, whether ceremonially, or by virtue of how they convey grace in our lives - eg a spring or Spring or various people or places we know.

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I still don't see how a lack of distinction drags everything down rather than lifting it up.

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If onthe other hand you focus on "Salvation" - ie the central message of Christ's death and resurrection adn salvation from sin and death - then I think you lose the fullness of what I described above (this is not a criticism but an observation), theologically and practically as it is lived out.

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I disagree. If the salvation of the church, corporately and individually is the centre as typified on the cross, you have the fullest representation of life in both its beauty and brutality. That's what I love about Christianity: it's a realistic faith, where (and let's face it) the symbolic reenactment of what is essentially the most dreadful of deaths can be the creation of beauty and healing. Life, too has beauty and horror.

We bring these things together as Christians and draw our truth from them, and I feel that the more austere forms of the faith work for me (and many others - my wife, for example, was brought up in a high Anglican church, but it was only the evangelical expression of the faith that brought her to a closer understanding of God).

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I say these things, because I think it is part of the thought behind whether or not one believes matter can be made holy/consecrated, whether it stays holy, and what one does with it once it has served its purpose. A difference in how we view the world...

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It is a difference and I respect that.

Err... very quickly:

Let's leave Cosmo and Steve out of this. That's another discussion, and frakly, dragging their recent altercation into this (along The Cosmo Hate Brigade and the We Love Cosmo Club) isn't going to do anyone any favours.

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Great thread though. So much in the course of three days. I reckon the starter for ten was worth it.

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Now see, this is where you and I disagree. I am the one who gets to clean up the messes when the evangelical- and catholic-bashing threads get started. I am the one who fields email complaints about how mean so-and-so (on BOTH sides of the fence) is. I am the one who has to listen to the evangelical camp screech with fury every time Cosmo or Fiddleback even mention the word "evangelical" in any post, regardless of what they actually say.

In light of all that, dear heart, the OP was NOT worth it.

here's my two pennys worth.

Giving your best to God, I feel (personally) is quite a dangerous expression, it has been used in my personal experience to insist that people dress in suits to come to church, cut their hair etc. With folks saying stuff like 'if you would dress smartly for the Quenn why don't you dress smartly for the King of Kings?', (sorry now to people who like Bush Jnr), my reply is 'I would also dress smartly for Mr Bush Jnr if I was ever invited into his company, however I consider him to be a murderer of the mentally handicapped, so why should i treat God the same as such a twisted man.'

However I find God in beautiful church buildings, (the Vineyard chruch I go to meets in an RC School hall). My wife is an english teacher and has taught me to leave behind my previous attitudes with regards to the relative worth of sceince and art. In the past I viewed science as great (its what I do) it saves lives and helps people, while art just looks nice and people ponce about over it and say flouncy things and give it very silly names. However she has persuaded me that the study of art and persuing art (in all forms) for its own sake is necessary for a health nation. Eg. burn all art soon leads to stop all dancing etc etc. More and more I find the rest and peace of beautiful old churches a place where I can rest and meet with God personally.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

Finally (a sigh of collective relief goes up from the crowd), one last question: why is keeping potters employed more important than keeping silversmiths employed?

Reader Alexis

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However famous Rachel has raised an important question. Given that a church has a limited amount of money to spend how much should be spent internally to enhance the worship (with a new monstrance or OHP - take your pick), and how much externally, in serving the world? Surely we all struggle with this, and none of us get it right all the time? Should I buy a new CD (or any other little luxury) or should I give that amount to charity?

This seems to me a reasonable question to ask. I thought Rachel raised the issue in a humourous way, appropriate to starting to thread in Hell, and I have been amazed at how much passion has stirred up by this. Despite frequent pleas from Wood to calm things down things have been uncomfortably hellish round here. Is this really such a serious issue that we have to lay into one another just because we have different views here?

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Originally posted by Huw:
However famous Rachel has raised an important question. Given that a church has a limited amount of money to spend how much should be spent internally to enhance the worship (with a new monstrance or OHP - take your pick), and how much externally, in serving the world?

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I want to reiterate a point I made in an earlier post. At all the churches I have belonged to, the tat has been given by
individuals, most commonly by the bereaved as a memorial to the one they've lost, or it has been bought with money from special funds which are not part of the regular church budget.

Some churches have memorial funds. When a church member dies, others make contributions to this fund. When the church needs new tat, the money comes from the memorial fund, which is to be used only for this purpose.

I have never belonged to a church where the vestry had to decide whether to help fund a soup kitchen or buy tat. The money for tat is not part of the regular church budget. The money used for tat is not fungible.

A few of us went to Paris last year – and also went to Notre Dame. My recollection of the labelling of some of the exhibits is slightly different from Rachel’s. There were labels – most of which were typed up on a manual type writer with the smallest typeface ever. This made them extremely difficult to read as the room was fairly crowded. Some of the labels were quite detailed, but mainly in French. The information in other languages contained such informative comments as, “Chalice”. Fortunately one of the group could speak French, so she helped us with some of the translation / additional background information which I thought I’d share:

Many of the objects had been in use previously – often for many hundreds of years – and had been retired as they were not considered too fragile for daily use. If you look closely at some of them, they are fairly battered.

Replicas had been created of some of the more valuable objects to prevent theft or damage – as well as enabling more people to see and enjoy them.

The objects locked in the side chapel would be items used regularly in services. They are stored where they can be moved and made ready for the service discretely and quickly by the priest officiating.

Many of the objects on display were gifts from the various crafts-guilds. Each year they would have a competition amongst themselves to make the best and most beautiful objects for the Church – giving their first and best fruits for the Lord. [A Biblical concept if ever there was one!]

Some of the other suggestions are interesting but not necessarily practical:

Sharing the objects with poorer churches is a nice idea but likely to make them a target for thieves and mean that they end up spending scare resources on security / insurance premiums. Or just not storing them properly which means they’d end up enjoying them for about a week.

Melting them down?! The value of the object is its history, appearance etc – while its scrap metal value is likely to be fairly small. And once all the unused objects have gone, how do you fund your social projects then … Surely exhibiting them and using the money raised for the work of the church [as they do in Notre Dame] is a better idea. Also, the objects I saw there seemed more “in context” than the same objects in a museum. At least in the church you got a sense of the object’s history and its role in the life of the church while the same object in a museum seems “dead”.

One of the things I’ve always wondered is why discussions on tat, worship etc seem to degenerate into Animal Farm rantings along the lines of this is okay but this is better … WHY is God worshipped better in a plain space than in a highly decorated one … [And visa versa]. [One of the main tenants of many alt w*ers is that although the hymn and sermon sandwich is very good on an intellectual level, it doesn’t always touch people who think / feel in different ways. Isn’t the rise of the “multi-media” service an indication that people also need visual stimuli – which tat provides].

Surely the important thing is that an individual meets with God rather than the how and where. WHY is spending money on missionary work always better than spending it on the upkeep of the church building. [Have been to many churches that are falling apart at the seams and then need to spend vast amounts of money on repair in order to keep going – when if they’d spend a little a year on upkeep they may have saved themselves a great deal of fund raising in the long term]

The objects are part of church life and history and melting them down is a denial of what we are / once were. They represent a spirituality which is still living and vibrant for some and part of the history [even if it’s rejected history] of other sections of the faith. To know where you’re going, you need to know where you’ve come from …

And quoting the history of iconolists is slightly one-sided. There were also people who were willing to risk life and limb to hide scared objects / carry on with particular styles of worship as there were who wanted to smash them or put a stop to what they saw as “Popery”.

Posting after a very good lunch and a glass of wine

In answer to the original question, In my opinion, TAT is used by Anglo Cath's to detract from the fact that the rest of the worship is pretty shallow.

After all if Father is wearing a nice chasuble, then what does it matter if the sermon is incomprehensible, and if we create enough smoke, who knows whats going on at the altar.

Liturgical vestment TAT is used because most anglo cath priests rather like the whole cross dressing in public idea.

The physical TAT (bells, monstrances etc) are all props in the play - for thats what Anglo Catholic worship is really about - its simply a play with no real depth to it.

If anglo's were really following what Jesus did, we'd all be outside worshipping in Tesco's car park (witnessing among the masses) with at least one arm up in the air.

I say burn the lot - TAT, buildings, - all of it.

Well you did start it.....

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Originally posted by mousethief:
He's full of it, that's for certain. But what does this phrase mean, "Taking the piss"?

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My apologies. British usage, synonymous with, "aving a larf", "taking the mickey", "extracting the michael", to wind a chosen victim up, often using sarcasm.

Yes, it hardly helps, Wood, for you to explain a Briticism by substituting other Briticisms.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Ahhhhhhhhh.

Yes, it hardly helps, Wood, for you to explain a Briticism by substituting other Briticisms.

Reader Alexis

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Perhaps he should have resorted to French (assuming he lacked access to the relevant US phrase book ?)

Returning to the topic dogedly, and my first year undergrad perspective (from when I was a first year undergrad), I remember being told about Bernard Williams (I think?) (a British philosopher resident somewhere New York way at that time) arguing that the utilitarian position would deprive the world of all sorts of Goods, such as friendship etc.

The question is the same here: there is a utilitarian position to melt down the tat/not upgrade the church to the latest charismatic design and instead feed the poor. There is the utilitarian (in Christian terms) position of using the money to buy tat/invest in an upgraded church/run a mission, in order to save souls. There are several non-utilitarian positions that say we should spend money on x (be it tat or mission) simply because we are commanded so to do (pick your verse here), or because that is what we are called (by God, by being "to your own self be true") to do.

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Originally posted by Orcadian:
I'd hate to think that there is a universal rule.

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Now THERE is a telling sentence. This could almost be used as a definition of something...

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Originally posted by Orcadian:
[QB]Tell me what! Tell me what!

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I was going to say "Anglican" but even in Hell I know my limits.

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Originally posted by Erin:
Now see, this is where you and I disagree. I am the one who gets to clean up the messes when the evangelical- and catholic-bashing threads get started. I am the one who fields email complaints about how mean so-and-so (on BOTH sides of the fence) is. I am the one who has to listen to the evangelical camp screech with fury every time Cosmo or Fiddleback even mention the word "evangelical" in any post, regardless of what they actually say.

In light of all that, dear heart, the OP was NOT worth it.

I would also appreciate it very much if I never run across another "yes, I know I am a sinner, but thank you God that I am not as big a sinner as Cosmo!" post ever again. If you want to take someone to task, you do it head on, with cites, or you don't do it at all. Are we clear?

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Erin -

I am very sorry about the worry and trouble this thread has caused you. I really hadn't realised how much trouble I was about to stur ip. This is partly because I meant the OP in the spirit in which Huw has take it:

quote:

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Originally posted by Huw:
I thought Rachel raised the issue in a humourous way, appropriate to starting to thread in Hell, and I have been amazed at how much passion has stirred up by this.

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and partly because I didn't think it through before I jumped in with both feet. Perhaps Huw's attitude relates in some way to the fact that he has met me in the flesh, and knows that I am curious about, rather than disdainful of the High Church form of worship. I should have realised that others, who know me (even) less well, would not realise the semi-humorous spirit of my inquiry. For this I apologise.

With regards to the comment about Fr Cosmo, this was actually meant entirely as a gentle joke, and should have has a smiley after it, which seems to have got lost due to my ineptitude. I apologise for any offence caused. At the time, I assumed that it would be water off a duck's back to the good father. I shall, eventually I am sure, learn not to make foolish assumptions in the same way that I am learning not to make foolish statements. I had not realised that Cosmo was currently engaged in an argument along these lines elsewhere in the Ship, and hence that this was currently a sensitive subject.

Again, my apologies,

All the best,