Anglican church tries a "God" experiment

This summer, the Reverend Francis Heppenstall, Anglican Vicar of Twing, has decided to try something new in order to attract congregations to his church. Instead of touristy gimmicks, he is planning to conduct a new type of service in which Christianity will play a major part.

Out go the crazy golf courses. In comes God!

The Church of England's main role, since the Reformation, has been to make it easier for people to divorce their wives and, if necessary, to behead them, but it has always tried to focus on FUN as well (after all, Henry VIII was a keen crazy golf player, as well as a sex maniac). That future saint, John Henry Newman, in his Anglican days, published various tracts on "Let's take religion seriously," but in the end he gave up his Anglican mission and became a Catholic instead.

Out go the helter skelters. Is nothing sacred?

Said Mr Bertram Wooster, a parishioner of Father Heppenstall, "The jolly old Anglican in the pew wants more than just funfairs and circuses; so we have asked old Heppers to liven up things with his forty-five minute sermon on Brotherly Love. That's the sort of thing to give the troops!"

It will be interesting to see whether this new "God" experiment will succeed in attracting the crowds back to Anglicanism. Many have already joined Cardinal Newman in the Catholic Church, where clown Masses, puppet Masses, and LGBT Masses are providing the spiritual nourishment they require. Heppenstall does have the surprising backing of Giles Fraser, the celebrity "loose canon," who is also considering the introduction of hymns and prayers as an alternative to coconut shies and "pin the tail on the donkey." It seems possible, therefore, that this innovation may catch on: we'll keep you informed.

An end to lunar gimmicks in our ancient cathedrals?

Why don't Anglicans go to church on Sundays?

Many sages, including the Anglican Archdruid Eileen and the Catholic Fr Longenecker, have wondered why Anglicans don't like to go to church on Sundays. After all, wouldn't you expect Janet and John Anglican to leap out of bed on a Sunday morning, with a dialogue something like the following?

Come on... no need for everyone to sit at the back!

"Hurrah! It's the 21st Sunday after Trinity today! Let's rush down to St Tharg's for Morning Prayer!"

"Hey, we've got a simply great Collect today. We're going to beseech God to grant us pardon and peace; that we may be cleansed from all our sins, and serve Him with a quiet mind!"

"Splendid! I'm fed up with serving Him with a noisy mind! What's the Epistle?"

"A good solid chunk of Ephesians, dear. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth..."

"Yes, I'm just putting on my trousers. Anything interesting in the Gospel?"

"Yes, Jesus meets a certain nobleman, whose son is sick at Capernaum."

"Does He heal the son?"

"Oh... you've heard that one before!"

"Nothing but repeats... let's not bother."

Jesus heals the hypochondriac by giving him two aspirins.

As it happens I do occasionally find myself in an Anglican service. The last time, it was indeed a Matins (which seems to have the advantage that there is no Kiss of Peace, even if there's not much spiritual nourishment either). The priest started chatting about something else - I think it was the fact that he had a sore throat - and then hastily turned to the "liturgy" and said "I suppose we'd better say this bit" before getting down to the script. Yes he did.

To be fair, he preached a rather good sermon - far better than many Catholic sermons I've heard, and probably just as orthodox. I can't remember what it was about, but that's fine. You're not supposed to remember. If you do, how can the priest use the same sermon next year?

The classic way to make sermons more interesting.

The hymns... well, they were be produced by the I'm Sorry, I haven't a Clue team. In other words, we had unfamiliar words sung to the tunes of familiar hymns. I think the problem is that old (traditional) hymns are no longer considered acceptable - especially not ones about God smiting sinners - and so we have to have anodyne rubbish about how we welcome God's Light in when we're brushing our teeth.

This was a small village church, with a congregation of about 15. Afterwards, we went out and threw bricks through the windows of everyone who hadn't turned up. No, actually I made that bit up. However, it might have been better if the priest was in the habit of knocking on doors, saying "We haven't seen you in church lately, Mr Mohammed; have you been unwell?" Who knows what might have happened?

The St Tharg's Press Gang drags in a reluctant worshipper.

Fr X's blog

Fr X's blog - what does the priest really say?

Posted by Fr John Xylophone

I have been sent a pamphlet called The Great Sermon Handicap, apparently the memoirs of a British theologian called Bertram Wooster. In it I was horrified to detect a number of grave liturgical errors, signs of modernism, and other heresies. As usual, my highlighting in the extracts printed below is in bold and my comments are in red.

---

"There are about a dozen hamlets within a radius of six miles, and each hamlet has a church and each church has a parson [the correct term is "priest"] and each parson preaches a sermon [only one?] every Sunday. [No mention of holy days of obligation?] Tomorrow week – Sunday the twenty-third – we're running off the great Sermon Handicap. [They are in a state of mortal sin, discussing a priest's spiritual nourishment of his flock in these terms.] Steggles is making the book. Each parson is to be clocked by a reliable steward of the course, [are they unaware that "clocking" was forbidden by Pope Tempus III in 930?] and the one that preaches the longest sermon wins."

A priest dares to ahow himself in public without proper vestments.

"Why, it’s a sitter for old Heppenstall," I said. [Show respect! The correct term is "Father Heppenstall," or perhaps "Fr H" if he has his own blog.] "He’s got the event sewed up in a parcel. There isn’t a parson [!!] in the land who could give him eight minutes. Your pal Steggles must be an ass, giving him a handicap like that. Why, in the days when I was with him, old Heppenstall [see above] never used to preach under half an hour, and there was one sermon of his on Brotherly Love [I trust that he preached in Latin. However, this is a very dubious subject for a homily] which lasted forty-five minutes if it lasted a second. Has he lost his vim [Latin for "power." We'll let this pass] lately, or what is it?"

The Sermon on the Mount. Vim habet Jesus.

"Why," said Claude, "the first Sunday we were here, we all went to Twingchurch, [a parish unknown to me. Doubtless heretical] and old Heppenstall preached a sermon that was well under twenty minutes. [As agreed at the Synod of Basingstoke (the 1362 rite), all sermons should last exactly ten minutes.] This is what happened. Steggles didn’t notice it, and the Rev. [an insulting term for one of the Church's ordained priests] didn’t notice it himself, but Eustace and I both spotted that he had dropped a chunk of at least half a dozen pages out of his sermon-case as he was walking up to the pulpit. [As mere laymen, they were right not to interrupt the service by drawing attention to the missing pages.]

He sort of flickered [flickered? Such activities are generally regarded as liturgical abuses] when he got to the gap in the manuscript, but carried on all right, and Steggles went away with the impression that twenty minutes or a bit under was his usual form. The next Sunday we heard Tucker and Starkie, [priests unknown to me, so probably dangerous liberals] and they both went well over the thirty-five minutes, so Steggles arranged the handicapping as you see on the card." [At this point I gave up the book in disgust, and drafted a letter to the Pope demanding that this work of blasphemy be banned by the Vatican.]

Another blow against secularism.

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