Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest?
Today’s Church of England is entirely down with co-opting their faith to further the whims of whichever barmy idea any modern-day Caesar has latched onto.
Given that the entirety of the mainstream Christian establishment is wetter than a damp rag left out overnight during a rainstorm, it seems almost churlish to pick on any individual in particular.
Yet, having so manifestly failed in their collective job description – that of spreading the word of God – and having willingly transformed themselves into another enforcement agency of the progressive left, it is almost impossible not to.
One of the key teachings of Christianity, as recorded in the gospel of Mark (in chapter twelve, verse seventeen), is to ‘render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.’ Today’s Church of England, however, is entirely down with co-opting their faith to further the whims of whichever barmy idea any modern-day Caesar has latched onto.
Perhaps it is all inevitable. Many have argued that the rabid tenacity of the modern-day leftist descends directly from non-conformist Christianity. This broad swathe of believers were once convinced of the possibility of recreating God’s paradise on earth, or at least having a good stab at it.
But as all such attempts inevitably failed (apparently they never got the ‘imperfectability of man’ part of the memo), with a few tens of millions of dead bodies thrown in along the way during the twentieth century, the energies of this fervent bunch were directed elsewhere; namely out of the eternal and into the day-to-day mundanities of politicking.
Covid has proven this beyond any reasonable doubt. Churches were dutifully barred shut and no attempt to reopen them was made. The church’s duty to tend to the eternity of the soul was put on ice in the face of a mild ailment of the body. Ignoring the commandment to worship no false idol, churches flew flags of the new national religion from their spires. Whereas Constantine emblazoned his shield with the Chi Rho, our churches are daubed with the initials of the busted flush of a nationalised health system that is the – sorry, our – NHS.
As head of this sorry and irreligious bunch, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has surely much to answer for. Rushing to stream services from his kitchen at the beginning of the pandemic was surely a low point, emphasising his desire to adhere to government mandate over and above the need to gather in person and worship as one. More practically, given the advanced age of many regular church-goers, abandoning in-person services meant abandoning the flock at the time of their greatest need amid government imposed isolation, fear and uncertainty.
Most recently Mr Welby has come implying that the unvaccinated are somehow immoral. ‘Loving one’s neighbour’ means you should go and get an armful of Pfizer, is how he phrased it, before asserting that Jesus would be fully pro-jab.
This spiritual blackmail left me cold. If you love your neighbour, you probably shouldn’t try and strong-arm them into having a vaccine for which there is no long-term data and whose potential harms outweigh any conceivable benefit for vast swathes of the population. Particularly considering the fact that vaccination does not appear to stop infection or transmission.
But it’s all for the birds. The likes of the archbishop will continue to preach solely on matters secular – get your jab, love the NHS, hug a migrant – with a thin varnish of Christian teaching on top.
Seeing the world around them lose faith in the traditional teachings of the Bible, their response is not to propagate the good word. Instead, they abandon their faith and become foot soldiers of each tawdry political battle that plays out on the public square, forever taking the side of those with no time for religion in the first place.
And with a national church like that, it isn’t hard to see why the pews stand increasingly empty. Why bother going to a church service – or watching Welby faff about in his kitchen – when you can get just the same waffle from any of the thousands of organs propagandising for the modern hegemonic liberal worldview?
