1Co 13:1 KJV Though I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling
cymbal.
Luk 7:32 KJV They are like unto children sitting in the
marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you,
and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.
++C CoE Bishops vs Parliament
Human inconsistency both tragic
and comic
Drama was divided into tragedy and comedy in ancient times for the
convenience of playgoers. They could make a choice on the basis of their own
perceived entertainment needs. Was it a time for them to laugh or to consider? (Ecc
7.14)
But human inconsistency gives rise to both tragedy and comedy. One of
the world's great plays, O'Casey's "Juno and the Paycock", gives us
both in full measure.
First Corinthians 13.1 reminds us of the tragedy of magnificent and
truthful speech without love.
Luke 7:32 reminds us of the humor in the inconsistencies that come
about when judging others.
The frequent inconsistencies in the speech of children is comic.
Inconsistencies in the mature is often tragic.
The excellent web logger ++Cranmer excels in presenting both the tragic
and comic aspects of human inconsistency in the political and ecclesiastical affairs
of his nation.
The effect of an established religion in his nation seems to have made
human inconsistency more obvious in public affairs, and thus enhanced both the
comic and the tragic literature.
Like O'Casey, ++Cranmer does an excellent job in showing the intermingling
of the comic and the tragic in the real life of humanity.
As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said when informed of the assassination of
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, "You don't have to be Irish to know that the
world will break your heart.
"Here's to the ferrybank piper, / May his sad songs never die, /
May his gay songs lift your weary heart, / 'Til in the grave you lie." - Robbie
O'Connell
++Cranmer: Why don't bishops just pick up the phone to ministers?
[Web log introduction:] Archbishop
Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s
interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral
issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in
public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex
symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues.
Why don't bishops just pick up the phone to ministers?
Another bishop has bashed the Government. This time it's the Rt Rev'd
Dr Peter Forster, Bishop of Chester, who is of the view that stay-at-home
mothers and carers are being discriminated against in the tax and benefits
system. And so The Independent gleefully conveys the damning critique:
"married couples with only one earner keep less of every extra pound they
earn in the UK than in any other country in the developed world."
This follows hard upon the 27 bishops (actually, 35) who clobbered the
Coalition over the rise of food-banks: "Britain is the world’s seventh
largest economy and yet people are going hungry," they wrote to the Daily
Mirror.
And let us not forget Cardinal Vincent Nichols, leader of the Roman
Catholic Church in England and Wales, who referred to Iain Duncan Smith's
welfare reforms as “frankly a disgrace". He explained to the Telegraph:
"..the basic safety net that was there to guarantee that people would not
be left in hunger or in destitution has actually been torn apart."
It gives His Grace no pleasure when the most senior Roman Catholic in
England and Wales tears strips off the most senior Roman Catholic in the
Government. And it must have been a cause of grief in the heavenlies when the
Secretary of State's delivered a withering response (via the Sunday Politics)
which was steeped in incredulity and contempt for the Cardinal's concerns:
"I'm not quite sure what he thinks welfare is about," the Minister
scoffed, after entreating: "It would be good if he actually called me
before he made these attacks."
Quite why Cardinal Nichols chose to smear a very prominent Conservative
minister in the Telegraph before discussing his manifold concerns with a
co-religionist is something of a mystery. Unless, of course, the Cardinal is
allowing his personal socialist-inclination to cloud his discernment and
nullify expressions of basic courtesy. Christian brothers are, after all,
supposed to treat one another with kindness - except, it seems, when one hails
from inner-city Birmingham via the Thatcher-loathing tenements of Liverpool,
and the other from ultra-Tory Chingford via the Royal Military Academy,
Sandhurst. Perhaps they simply can't be bothered to test each other's grasp of
Roman Catholic social teaching.
But there is no excuse at all for bishops of the Church of England not
to pick up the phone to MPs, ministers and secretaries of state before sounding
brass and tinkling their cymbals in the left-wing tabloids. This is the
Established Church, after all. The Bishop of Chester even sits in the House of
Lords: it's not as though he lacks parliamentary nous or an extension number.
As His Grace wrote a few weeks ago: "Conservative politicians do
themselves no favours when they try to lecture the Church on social thought
when they clearly have little understanding of the depth and long history of
Christian social thinking. But Anglican bishops do themselves no favours when
they fail even to entertain the moral philosophical stream from which
conservative thought proceeds. If the poor are homeless and hungry, there is
nothing to be gained by bishops and politicians ranting at each other in public
denunciations of their mutual ignorance."
Successive broadsides in the media render mature discussion and debate
almost impossible, for each bombardment magnifies distrust, and the crossfire
yields nothing but mutual enmity and loathing. And while God's holy warriors
and belligerent politicians are scrapping over the definition of justice, the
poor go hungry and the homeless shiver in urine-drenched doorways, wondering
why God has abandoned them.
So, for God's sake, Your Graces and Eminences, pick up the phone. It's
good to talk.
posted byArchbishop Cranmer at 8:50 am Permalink
34 Comments: [At above link. Many quite interesting.]
Related Notes [Retained from my Clearly / EverNote copy of above post]
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I2C 140311a aa 1Co 13v1 Luk 7v32 ppC Bishops
Politics / I2C / 140311 1807 / 1Cor 13:1 Luke 7:32 ++C CoE Bishops vs
Parliament / Human inconsistency both tragic and comic
