Will Self on anti-antidisestablishmentarianism.
But what’s the point of disestablishing the CoE? Does it matter enough, anymore, to bother? Self selflessly applauds the Archbishop’s condonation of sharia law. I say so, because, were it to come about, Self’s authorship would disappear entirely. Then again, suicide is the ultimate self-possession.
Related: Daughter of famous author wants to make us go through Obama years sober.
Besides the Test Acts and such, wasn’t one of the sore points about the established church that you were required to pay tithes to the CoE even if you were (e.g.) Buddhist?
If that’s no longer the case (and I suspect that it is), it seems about as harmful as having an official breakfast cereal.
“If that’s no longer the case (and I suspect that it is), it seems about as harmful as having an official breakfast cereal.”
Someone managed to make establishment of religion prohibited here. Seems like a good idea. People get testy about this sort of lifestyle choice shit. Way more than cereal.
Someone managed to make establishment of religion prohibited here.
Someone managed to get the quartering of soldiers prohibited here, too, but I haven’t noticed a big problem with that in recent centuries.
We’re not talking about us, anyway. We’re talking about the British. Why do they have to be just like us? Isn’t that one of the leftoid’s perpetual hobbyhorses? That we should “respect other cultures”?
If you want to work against an official state religion, I suggest you start with Saudi Arabia and Iran.
But you might want to be really careful about opening your mail.
Had a certain universality.
If you’re incredibly obtuse, perhaps.
do think it would be quite a nice experiment for us to engage in. All those people who pat each other on the back over ‘faith’ would get to finally argue about who is going to hell and who isn’t. All with state ‘officialdom.’ Much more fun than cereal!
Because, that’s how it works in England, right?
We’re not discussing enacting such a thing. We’re discussing doing-away with it.
People like meya would rather fight symbolic evil than real evil.
It’s much safer.
While the Established Church in the UK (which has been Anglican, Catholic, Puritan, and (IIRC) Presbyterian at various points in history) has certainly engaged in oppressive tactics in the past (which I acknowledged in my first post, by mentioning the Test Acts and so forth), in practice it doesn’t do those things any more, and hasn’t for close to two centuries (the Test Acts were repealed in 1829).
However, the CoE isn’t likely to send people to saw off your head with a machete if you disrespect them.
People like meya would rather fight symbolic evil than real evil.
It’s much safer.
Yep.
“People like meya would rather fight symbolic evil than real evil.
It’s much safer.”
Thus, I blog. Anonymously.
I don’t blog anonymously. My husband did 20 years in the military, and my bil is in Afghanistan right now. I’d watch who you accuse, ’cause there more than a few members of the military here.
Spies don’t “blog” anonymously, he comments as such. So what? Jeff’s name is on the masthead. Care to explain how commenting under a screen name invalidates what one argues? Or, that it has any affect on what does IRL.
As it happens, meya, I’ve seen people lose their jobs for their political opinions, even if they have tenure (which I don’t).
So you can bite me, m’kay?
Bye-the-bye, if I didn’t love teaching and feel a duty to my students, I’d chuck it all.
I’m working on a long-term project to rectify that, but it’s not ready just yet.
From the article:
That tiresome white man’s burden gets heavier every century, doesn’t it?
Thank heaven Self has something to be sanctimonious about. Otherwise he’d just be hateful.
Will Self isn’t paying very close attention. The Anglican Communion is indeed tearing itself apart at the moment, but in slow motion. Large numbers of parishes have dissociated themselves from The Episcopal Church, and entire dioceses have departed for other Provinces. A new Province has been set up in America for orthodox Anglicans (of which I am one). Many Primates, representing over half of the Communion, did not attend Lambeth this year.
What’s the point of disestablishment? To separate Canterbury from the Prime Minister, frankly. Rowan Williams has been an unmitigated disaster for the Communion precisely because he is an empty suit, a chin-tugging equivocator who has lost the trust of all factions and who has allowed a small infection to make entire limbs of the Communion gangrenous. The Communion’s worst enemy could hardly have done more damage to it.
A disestablished Church will be more democratic, and that means a more orthodox ABoC will be forthcoming, and that means the shenanigans of TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada will be over.
Rowan Williams, aka the “Arch-Druid of Canterbury”?
Sadly, I disagree. Teaching authority disconnected from its apostolic origins will drift into error always, and the ECUSA, ACC, and the CoE are all examples of the process. A more democratic church is simply more of the same mess since teaching authority rises not from the bottom but was commissioned to the top, the apostles, the first bishops.
Jeff- the spell check is cool.