Month: January 2008

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No access to Jordan

No immersion in the waters of the Jordan River this year for Orthodox believers who gathered on its shores to celebrate the Feast Day of the Baptism of Jesus. They were prevented by Israeli security forces.

Several thousands of pilgrims were able never the less to take part in a prayer service celebrated by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilus III at the Qasr el-Yahud Monastery dedicated to St John the Baptist on the west bank of the river, a site which the Israelis closed at the start of the second Intifada in 2000 and have generally kept off limits ever since. Even on this exceptional occasion Israeli soldiers were all over the place.

At the end of the ceremony the faithful walked in procession to the river bank where according to tradition Jesus was baptised.

Asia News

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Priest, pray, don't chat

In the not so distant past, I attended a Mass. It was a typical parish Mass. There was a choir in the back, there were Eucharistic ministers, there were lay lectors, there were altar servers. There was laity galore.

But the impression I took away with me – after an hour and a half – was the person of the priest. His voice echoed in my ears, his presence dominated my memory of that time. He introduced the Mass, he explained things, there was an RCIA rite, so he explained that, he preached a 25 minute homily, and at the end of Mass, after the lector ran through 6 announcements, he stood and added two rather lengthy announcements of his own.

I’m not kidding when I say that my reaction, at one point was, If you want to turn around, face the crucifix and whisper for a while, THAT WOULD BE FINE WITH ME. PLEASE. FEEL FREE.

It’s possible for a priest to allow his own personality to be subsumed into the liturgical rites as they are presently constructed. I’ve seen it done, often. But the opposite temptation is intensely evident in the present structure, and it seems to me to be a temptation that is not necessarily succumbed to out of ego – there is just a space and an expectation there that the priest’s personality is an essential element of the liturgy – if you read articles on this from the 70’s, it’s very clearly stated. Personally, the pressure involved in that seems unimaginable and exhausting to me.

Amy Welbourn A brief note on clericalism

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Church and vacuum

Dr Nazir-Ali does not simply blame the Saudis, or other foreign governments who might have been funding militant Islam in the mosques of Great Britain, for the rise in Muslim chauvinism in this country. He blames the British people themselves, arguing that there has been a catastrophic collapse in Christian-based morality and spirituality in this country over the past 40 or so years and that this has created a “moral vacuum” in society as a whole, which has been increasingly filled – at least in the minds of impressionable youth – by fundamentalist Islam.

Here, as a leading figure in the Church of England, Dr Nazir-Ali is swimming in dangerous waters. Is it the British people who should be blamed for deserting, in their millions, the once-dominant Church of England? Or should not the Church of England look at its own performance and try to understand why it has lost such a vast proportion of its audience – at least as defined by regular churchgoing, rather than notional affiliation?

Dominic Lawson

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Maryvale

The Maryvale Institute – our International Catholic College for Catechesis, Theology, Philosophy and Religious Education at Birmingham shows more energy than any other Catholic institution in the UK than I am aware of. Maryvale wants to see ‘the proclamation of the Catholic faith in its fullness and integrity‘. In the UK, this sounds like a bold new start.

Maryvale is advertising for a Director of its Marriage and Family Life Programme.

The Maryvale Centre for Marriage and Family Life is a new initiative set up following discussions between the John Paul II Institute in Rome and the Maryvale Institute. Its purpose is to make available, within the Maryvale Institute, a range of courses, modules and suitable educational materials pertaining to the teachings of the Catholic Church on marriage and family life. The range will cover basic parenting information, through a ‘ladder’ of initiatives, co-ordinating with some existing courses already available at Maryvale, leading to the development of a new MA Course in Marriage and Family Life studies, modelled on those of the John Paul II Institute’s Theology of the Body Programme.

I would really like to see this sort of initiative here in London. I suppose I will have to be content with Spes – the School for Evangelism at St Patrick’s Soho.

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Who sets the production goals for all those cultural factories of meaning?

Does the Harvard-educated manager of cultures function too much as a Nietzschean Ã?bermensch, operating upon the raw material of humanity from the supposed heights of critical understanding rather than leading from within the ranks? Will a person in a position of power who â??readsâ?? his fellow man, rather than listening to what he actually says, end up manipulating rather than serving? And toward what will the Harvard graduate manage culture? Who sets the production goals for all those cultural factories of meaning? Am I too cynical when I suspect that it will be the naked self-interest of those who have convinced themselves that culture makes no real claim of truth upon the human soul? In other words, is the new vision for general education at Harvard alarmingly illiberal?

R. R. Reno Harvard’s Postmodern Curriculum

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Providence

The Providence conference at Aberdeen was just as wonderful as anticipated. Though there were seventeen speakers, it was a comparatively small affair, and thanks to Francesca Murphy’s amazing powers of organisation and hospitality it was all most relaxed and convivial. Champions of wildly contrasting approaches chuntered happily away at every interval and supper.

Trouble is, I suppose, that it was wonderful because it was small, and it was small because so few folk from other British universities appeared, presumably because they had decided that Aberdeen was too far to go. But as Stephen Webb pointed out, only Brits would think that the journey to Aberdeen was long: Americans would consider that just a local journey .

Of the speakers, I was impressed by Charles Matthews, Stephen Webb and Philip Ziegler for extremely articulate accounts of the doctrine of providence in public theology. I particularly enjoyed talking to Matthew Levering, Hans Reinders, David Hart, Don Wood, Andy McGowan, Scott Prather, James Merrick and as ever Brian Brock.

I got drafted in to do a paper at the last minute. Here it is.

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New professorship in theology & ministry

Chair in Theology, Ministry and Education at King’s College London

The Dept of Education and Professional Studies (DEPS) invites applications from scholars to join one of its most successful and expanding research cohorts – the Centre for Theology Religion and Culture. (CTRC).

Founded by Professor Andrew Walker in 1995 CTRC is a research and teaching centre dedicated to excellence in the fields of Theological Education, Professional Development in Church ministry and Religious Education in schools. The Centre is committed to a multi-disciplinary approach to religion and culture with particular emphasis on Christian theology, social science, and philosophy. The Centre continues to oversee a large and successful MPhil/PhD programme.