[Magdalen] Watching the Wheels Come Off

[Roger Stokes]

On 12/01/2016 21:56, Roy Murphy wrote:
> I've been praying for the Primate's Meeting apparently to no avail. I guess
> I should have resigned myself to this last summer. I was greatly pleased at
> the regularization of SSM. I've said for years that if we're going to do
> it, we should agree to do it.
>
> Tonight on Twitter I read that a dozen or more primates skipped Evensong.
> Pray for the Church.
>
> @PeterOuld: Easily 10+ Primates missing from Evensong. ++Canterbury spent
> large parts of service in prayer. Clearly something has happened.

Christ himself watched people walk away.  I am sure he had tears in his 
eyes as they did.  As it happens today I was reading part of Rowan 
Williams's "Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer" on my 
Kindle on the train.  So far I have read the bits on baptism and the 
Bible.  In the first he made it clear that as Christians we have to be 
immersed in the messiness of the world. The chapter on the Bible says 
that we need to engage with it so that we can ask what God is saying to 
us through it rather than simply looking at the words at face value, 
proof-texting.  Some are not willing to do that.

I find it particularly unfortunate if some have absented themselves from 
Evensong woth its biblical passages.  They might not feel able to 
receive Communion togetehr but not being prepared to sit together to 
hear the Bible is another matter altogether.

Roger