Mrs Pickles the Senior-Steward-for-life at Tat Bank Road Methodist Church, the one church circuit originally created to solve a "stationing problem" and shared between two districts on a Penguin Island basis, has just been on the phone. She sounded like a dog anxious to share a big helping of Winnalot.
"Mrs Smedley's nephew, he's into computers, has had a read of your blog about the President of Conference's idea we should all join the Church of England," she said breathlessly.
"Can you put a stop to it?" she asked pointedly.
I tried to explain to her that I had absolutely no influence in the Methodist Church, in fact some of the big wigs want me to stop blogging altogether. But she would have none of it.
"Well you know that you are banned from our church?" she responded. I didn't know this and wondered why she hadn't been in touch to invite me to fill in on "local arrangements". I must say that when I saw Mrs Spittle in the car park at Sainsbury last week she seemed a bit coy.
"Haven't you heard? We've become a "local ecumenical partnership". It means the Anglicans have taken over. We now share a vicar with St Jezebels-at -Rood End, except they've sold for it demolition so that Rhodia can turn it into a staff car park!"
I asked her to stop. I explained that churches in that particular area were having a hard time. The Tat Bank Road cause barely got more than ten each week. Last I heard the Anglicans were down to six. Even the Titford Canalside Christian Fellowship was down to less than 1800. It was obvious that churches had to work together on a local basis.
"I heard all that" she replied, "but its been really difficult. Vi Marchmont said it reminded her of when the Wesleyans from Dog Kennel Lane moved in. They tried to disband the Band of Hope and there was a terrible row."
Now that is all in the past, I explained. Many Anglicans have views that are no different from ours and it must be so encouraging to be "on mission" with other Christians just as David Gamble proposed.
"Well its not like that at all. Firstly only three from St Jezebels actually came over to us. The other four have joined the Catholic church just by the Public.
"The vicar insists we call him The Most Reverend Father Doctor Martinez Windsor-Smythe, although we can call him Father Doctor on informal occasions.
"He's bought six big candlesticks and a load of models from St Jezebels......."
I could hear no more. I explained to Mrs Pickles that we were going to have to make these new arrangements work. There will have to be some accomodation and we can't let our non-conformist bigotry get in the way.
"But he doesn't like women. He sacked Mrs Spittle as communion steward, purely because she was a woman, and made Arthur Collinson altar boy. Altar boy! Arthur is 82 but he's the only man left. Its embarrassing seeing him out at the front with the robes getting tangled in the wheels on his walking frame
"And we've got a "flying bishop" who comes up from Fulham dressed in a red frock and tells us that he will never accept women bishops or women clergy. If David Gamble goes round with the begging bowl to these Anglicans we'll have to sack all the women Methodist Ministers.
"And there's another thing. He says communion in Latin. At first I thought he was speaking in tongues like they do at the Canalside Fellowship but Arthur did Latin at King Edwards and he says its in Latin. What's wrong with English?
"And there's another thing. He is making us all talk to him privately for "confession". Mrs Smedley told him she couldn't stand the sight of Arthur's sister and he made her read the Sermon on the Mount backwards, at least I thinks thats what she said.
"And there's another thing. Mrs Naylor has got a nasty case of astma and everytime he swings the incense she starts coughing. A couple of weeks ago she had a nasty turn and hasn't been back since....", she continued.
I could stand no more. I promised that I would make her feelings felt. This seemed to placate her.
"Terr ra a bit", she said in the easy to understand local vernacular, and put the phone down.
Somehow I don't feel that the Methodist-Anglican Covenant has got quite the support at the grass roots that some of our leaders imagine.
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4 comments:
I do not want to become part of the Anglican Church, but I have to say that the characterization of the Anglican Church that I see here was not my experience.
One Anglican Church asked me - jokingly - to be their vicar when I decided to return to the UK. One of my Anglican colleagues remains in my head the "benchmark" of a good minister: always approachable, always ready to listen, had time for anyone and everyone even when he didn't have time, radiated the love of God, laughed easily and often.
I want to stay a Methodist minister because I think the Methodist Church has distinctives that the world needs. But not because I want to "do down" Anglicanism.
Thanks Pam, As I make clear elsewhere there are many Anglicans that i respect. In fact I came to faith through the persistence and encouragement of an Anglican rector, and for may years worshiped in that Anglican church. However once I moved away from the distinctive church that served our working class community I became very disillusioned with what I found.
My first contact with Methodism was with Donald Soper at Hyde park Corner - though it was easier to talk to Donald on a Wednesday lunchtime at Tower Hill.
After I moved to the West Midlands I drifted around for three or four years until I found a very lively down to earth Methodist church which served one of the poorer sections of inner city Birmingham. That church also had a pioneering vision for a church in a multi-cultural society - something that today we take for granted but at that time was quite unusual.
The point I'm trying to make is that the Anglican church is not an a unified entity. There are parts of the Anglican church that will not fit well with Methodism. Trying to make a shot gun marriage work will simply lead to an even bigger disaster.
We should use the pain and despair of decline as an opportunity to rethink our faith. We should not shy away from asking ourselves and God what has gone wrong. What has gone right. Where do we go from here?
Above all we should pray for the type of revival that did so much in the eighteenth century to change broken communities for the better.
The point I'm trying to make is that the Anglican church is not an a unified entity.
I'm not sure the Methodist Church is "a unified entity" either; only our extremes are not as extreme as the Anglican Church.
There are parts of the Anglican church that will not fit well with Methodism.
I agree which is why I don't see the point of merging.
Trying to make a shot gun marriage work will simply lead to an even bigger disaster.
Eight years of Covenant isn't exactly a "shotgun marriage". David Gamble didn't say anything that hasn't been said at countless Annual Conferences. And the President of Conference has zero power to "make" things happen.
By the way, can I also raise an objection to the statement "Their problem seems to stem from having a fairly tenuous grasp of Christianity, they are therefore unable to understand the distinctive life, mission and purpose of the Methodist Church as part of the universal Body of Christ." Again, people CAN actually hold a different view from you without having a tenuous grasp of the matter. I disagree with institutional unity but I don't think that the people who favour it are uneducated in Methodism or in Christian theology.
If you want to see a working Methodist/Anglican LEP try here: http://www.churches.lichfield.anglican.org/westbrom/standrews/index.htm
It has the reputation of being evangelical.
When I googled 'Anglican Latin Mass it all seems to be in the USA.
You are destroying a straw man. Some Methodist Churches and ministers can be quite 'high' in their practice.
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