Damon is an apprentice devil tasked with learning to undermine and weaken the Church of England and wider Anglicanism. Lucius is a senior devil mentoring apprentices overseeing the work on all denominations. Lucius refers to the Church of England as the ‘English Patient’. Lucius is particularly keen to encourage the Church of England’s peculiar ecclesionomics, bloated ecclesiocracy and unaccountable episcocrats. Lucius draws on C. S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, published in 1942. These letters are published by Lucius for the benefit of new apprentices. – Lucius.
Worship Workshop
Dear Lucius,
As you know, we have had a lot of success over the past fifty years with our long-term strategy of encouraging the churches to thin out the content of hymns, and replacing them with bland modern choruses that largely describe how the worshipper feels about G*d, and they would like G*d to feel about them. These choruses are often sung repetitively, have little core dogma, so from our point of view are very time-consuming and content-lite, which is ideal. The choruses are promoted by the churches under the banner of ‘relevance’’, which is also helpful, as the content increasingly has no relevance to core Christian teaching.
Admittedly we did not devise this strategy. But it is another one of these ‘bold initiatives’ of the church that we have been happy to support, as it has divided congregations whilst also gradually undermining shared Christian teachings and creating a vacuum where personal feelings and individualism can flourish.
Of course, I always worry that our PR team and Spin-Meisters go too far when they suggest novel projects like the Laodiciean Hymnal, with new hymns for the 21st century changed slightly to get away from the stuffiness of the 19th century. Some Christians might not notice the likes of ‘Take My Life and Let Me Be’, ‘O God Our Enabler in Ages Past’, and ‘All Hail the Influence of Jesus’ Name’ sneaking under the radar. But we still have some way to go before the likes of ‘What an Acquaintance We Have in Jesus’, ‘Sit Up, Sit up for Jesus’, ‘Spirit of the Living God, Fall Somewhere Near Me’, and ‘Be Thou My Hobby’ feel normal.
We are also some distance from the kind of rendering of Oh Jesus I have Promised that we committed ourselves to at the last Apprentice Conference. You may remember Diablo proposed some new words before he graduated and went to work on American Methodism:
Oh Jesus I have tentatively committed
To serve thee for an agreed period of time,
(subject to review)
Be thou ever near me,
(but not too close, cause I need my space)
My colleague and my friend.
I do actually fear the battle
On grounds of health and safety
I and I will only wander from the pathway occasionally,
For some shopping and a coffee break
For which you can still be my guide.
I think as we agreed at the time, although these words are accurate in terms of where we want believers to land, the hymn doesn’t scan to any of the tunes Christians use. So I have been developing my thinking as part of my portfolio for assessment later this year, and specifically from the module on Worship Disruption, which has been superbly taught. Not only is the history of liturgical and hymnody conflict well presented, we have also been able to liaise with students studying Anti-Pastoral Theology and Deliturgical Studies.
Can I therefore run this by you for informal assessment? It is set to the tune and metre of Michael Saward’s ‘Ch***t Triumphant’ and I have rewritten this for our English Patient as ‘Church Triumphal’. I think this works well, but before I submit for formal assessment I wonder if you could take a look and comment? I’d be most grateful. Your Servant, Damon
1. Church triumphal, ere’ mansplaining,
Ruling everything!
Just the greatest, Ever English
Hear us as we sing,
We’re the greatest show in town
Such high renown, with eternal fame.
2. Church of England, ever glorious
Super-Duper-Thing!
Best of churches, none our equal
Hear the others whinge!
We’re the greatest show…
3. We’ve got bishops and cathedrals
Lots of pretty bling
None can match us, we’re fantastic
See the others cringe!
We’re the greatest show…
4. We’re not Baptists, nor like Papists
All those others err
We are best and loved by God
His True Church on Earth!
We’re the greatest show…
5. Church Established, Truly Awesome!
Our Leader is the King!
Nonconformists can’t do ritual
Incense! Censors! Swing!
We’re the greatest show…
6. Church of England, slightly sexist
Soaring on our wings!
Pompous, classist, condescending
Loves to do its thing.
We’re the greatest show…
7. Self-regarding, few Remaining
Slightly short of cash
Give us all your hard-won earnings
Help restore our stash.
We’re the greatest show…
8. Hopeless bishops, stuck for ever
Enthroned on High above
Sin and Faults and Hell shall never
Shut their PR up!
We’re the greatest show…
9. Hearts and voices ever-whingeing
Through the aeons long
All is lost through steady phasing –
Still, we’re never wrong!
We’re the greatest show in town
Such high renown, with eternal fame.
Dear Damon
Your new hymn perfectly captures the essence – indeed, the very worshipping heart – of your English Patient. The patient is in love with themselves, and like Narcissus, just besotted with how they look to others and how they appear to themselves. So, well done on putting into a hymn such ignoble truths! I can see that this portfolio of yours is going to be a rich and rewarding read. Naturally, I can’t see the English Patients ever singing your revised hymn collectively and out loud. But under their breath, smugly, they’ll be humming it all the time.
What I think you could usefully develop in your portfolio a little bit more is to explore how and why all the best ideas to undermine the church actually come from within the church itself. We really don’t need to do a lot, other than encourage every manoeuvre that the English Patient makes.
Perhaps your portfolio might want to reflect on this a little bit more? I mean, we obviously teach Anti-Pastoral Theology as an art. But if you take a look at how an ordinary diocesan HQ works these days, the theory, art and practice are all areas we could hardly improve on.
Also, our Anti-Pastoral Theology is an optional module. But your English Patient has made this a compulsory subject and one that is permanently assessed, and inflicts all manner of box-ticking pointless bureaucratic nonsense on churches, and frightful organisational migraines on ordinary clergy and congregations. Hell would be sheer hell if it was run like that! Honestly, if we were devising a strategy from scratch to demoralise churches, I have to say the hierarchy of the English Patient beat us to it long ago, and we could hardly better their results.
I think the ‘Lessons Learned’ (pun intended) review of our module and your portfolio for assessment is already clear. Less is more? Your English Patient is the architect and expert of their own implosion. All you need do is encourage them to keep digging. As you can surely see, the holes just get deeper. Anyway, many thanks for the new hymn, which I will cheerfully hum in my lunchbreak.
Your Mentor, Lucius.
Delicious! It reminds me of the late American satirist Joseph Bayly’s 1970 column on what we would sing if we were really being honest:
‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound/that saved a wretch like you.’
‘The strife is o-er, the battle done/our church has split and our side won.’
‘When morning gilds the skies/my heart awaking cries/oh no, another day.’
‘Peace, perfect peace/in this dark world of sin/the door is locked and I’ve a gun within.’
‘The Church’s one foundation/ is tax-deductible.’
There is also the classic
“Like a mighty tortoise moves the church of God,
Brothers we are treading where we’ve always trod.
We are all divided, many bodies we
Mighty strong on doctrine, weak on charity”…….
The only fault with that is the comparison with a tortoise. My grandson has two, which must be the GT model – the speed with which they can move (when they want to) is amazing!
***ARCHBISHOP JOHN McDOWELL, Church of Ireland Primate, for Gold!!!!???????***
Which branch of UK and Irish Anglicanism should win the coveted Gold Medal for most adeptly covering up maltreatment of Church members in recent years?
Justin Welby and the John Smyth QC scandal cover up is quite an achievement.
There is the Church in Wales, under the recently departed Archbishop Andrew John, and a toxic bullying scandal at Bangor Abbey.
Aberdeen Diocese and Bishop Dyer could be of interest, if allegations of bullying are ever proven right.
But the Irish Anglican cover up of child abuse, by the late Canon W G Neely, for almost 50 years, is quite an achievement. How did this one evolve?
Neely was a Canon at a young age and a Diocesan Missioner, and even gets mentioned in chapter 19 of the late David Watson’s biography.
But Neely vanished to Tipperary, at around the same time the Scouts gave him a lifetime ban from working with children.
KRWLAW posted: ‘Neely abuse: Church of Ireland Bishop ‘apologises’ for unnamed rector – ignores Belfast-Tipperary transfer’.
Neely later moved to Armagh Diocese, was made Missioner, became a Canon and now lies buried in the national cathedral grounds at Armagh.
A 2020 ‘New Primate’ statement in Church of Ireland Notes (Irish Times, 17 April 2020) carries this line: ‘The new Primate is a native of East Belfast where his faith was nurtured in Mount Merrion parish where the rector was the late Canon Billy Neely.’
I have, in recent days, formally asked the ‘New Primate’, Primate John McDowell, to clarify if his enthronement as Primate has been accompanied by written texts referring to ‘Canon W G Neely’.
But Archbishop John McDowell appears unable to answer my remarkably simple question. Is the reference to ‘Canon Billy Neely’ to a different person, or is it to ‘Canon W G Neely’, who is now recognised as a child abusing cleric?
In 2023 the Church of Ireland was involved in litigation with a now deceased victim, who
allegedly received £100K in compensation just before their death.
Does it beggar belief how an Anglican Church hierarchy can decline to name a child abuser cleric, even after giving £100K compensation to a victim? Also, Archbishop John McDowell, what exactly is the wider cost to Church finances here when legal fees are included?
Does the 1970’s decision to cover up child abuse by Neely come at a very heavy cost, both financial and also to the reputation of the Church of Ireland and its clerics?
This isn’t a new story … except for the inaction by TPTB when the allegations first broke.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3vz2nkvq9vo