Fashion over faith

You just have to love the English press and the English Church. “This could be one religious commandment that a congregation might find very easy to follow,” explained the Daily Mail shortly before Easter. “Fr. Phil Ritchie from All Saints Church in Hove, East Sussex, has said Easter Sunday is the perfect time for staying in bed, eating chocolate and having sex. The vicar gave the alternative suggestion for a way to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ after admitting that church just isn’t cool and funky.” The poor fellow was lamenting the decline in Anglican attendance, where not only more Catholics attend services than do Anglicans, but now followers of Islam are more numerous than the Church of England.

It’s a great shame, because the Anglican are, or were, a nice bunch, with lots of lovely buildings and some delightful traditions. Mind you, herein is a problem. I was in Salisbury Cathedral earlier this year, where in place of the Catholic chapels, statues and shrines, the Anglicans have inserted all sorts of things to try to disguise the fact that this and numerous other historic buildings once belonged to Rome.

One massive part of the medieval structure contains a window devoted to Amnesty International. This is an example of what is wrong. Amnesty was at one time a reliable, non-partisan organization that campaigned for all prisoners of conscience.

But it has become radicalized, supports only certain prisoners and embraces a variety of unsavoury causes. It claims that a country that doesn’t fund abortion is akin to one that arrests dissidents. Baby slaughter, it seems, is a human right.

In other words, once we root ourselves in fashion rather than faith, in journeys rather than Jesus, we’re bound for trouble. It could be windows devoted to extremism, having chocolate sex or even thinking that Jesus was a social democrat who guaranteed salvation if we campaign for inflation-linked pensions for school teachers. It’s all nonsense.

C.S. Lewis had it right — as he did with almost everything — when he warned us about embracing the “Christianity and” idol. Christianity and revolution, Christianity and capitalism, Christianity and whatever is on your mind at any given time. The almost universal demise of liberal Protestantism is because those churches — Anglican, United, Presbyterian, etc. — have abandoned orthodox Christianity for fad, and then wonder why churches are empty.

Evangelicals face a different dilemma. They rest their often admirable religion on a personal relationship with Christ, with no interference from Church or Pope. But what tends to happen in the relationship is that Christ comes to resemble them, rather than they resembling Christ. It’s why evangelical churches divide over issues as cosmetic as music. “I want Him and His Church to be like me, me, me.”

Fr. Ritchie says that sex, sleep and confectionary might be a fun way to celebrate Easter, when in fact he means that sex, sleep and confectionary are fun things to do. They are. But have nothing to do with Easter, and the good minister and his comrades have confused fun and self-devotion with praise and worship. Yet it’s not always about fun, but it’s always about faith.

The largest and most successful evangelical churches boast good coffee. “We serve Starbucks,” was how one Ontario church promoted itself. Fair enough, but what if I prefer Second Cup? Or infant to believer’s baptism, female ordination, dancing around an altar? It’s not about what we want but what we need, and if it were easy and instantly gratifying the churches would always be full. Not, however, heaven. Filling paradise requires something a little more demanding. Namely, a belief in Christ, revealed and clarified to us by the Church He left us, the branches of which can be clearly seen all over the place because they have the name “Roman Catholic” above them.

Those who scream about their interpretation, their version, their understanding are not offering an addition but an alternative to truth, and that’s as wrong and dangerous as spending the entire day in bed eating candy. As for the sex, let’s leave that for another column.