Why the fear?
John Richardson
When being reminded of the deadline for my
Anglican Update this month, I was asked,
among other things, to stay off the already
much reported topic of gay marriage. This,
however, is actually quite hard to do.
One of the websites I regularly visit to get
a ‘feel’ for what is going on in the Church of
England
is grandiosely
titled
‘Thinking
Anglicans’. It is resoundingly liberal in its
theology and utterly persuaded of its own
wisdom, but it is depressingly short on variety when it comes to content. Thus their coverage of
the
recent
election of
a new
Archbishop of Sydney focussed ultimately on
his attitude to women’s ordination and same-sex relations. But then that is true of the website as a whole, where these two issues provide the mainstay of news and comment.
Coronation oath?
John Richardson
The 60th anniversary celebrations of the
Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II were
both a demonstration of the ability of the
Church of England to rise to the state occasion and a poignant reminder of how far we
have declined as a nation in the lifetime of
our reigning monarch.
Watching TV footage of the coronation, I
heard more than one commentator remark
on the oil with which the Queen was anointed,
symbolising
that monarchy was conferred on her by God.