by Anon

The Lucius Letters: Chapter Two

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.

Mutual Flourishing

Dear Lucius

I am getting very concerned about some of the press releases I keep seeing from a handful of Church of England dioceses.  These seem to indicate that women clergy work quite well with male clergy who don’t actually think women can be proper clergy.  But in some pictures from these dioceses, the women clergy look ever so happy, and say things like how lovely and nice their bishop is, even though that same bishop clearly doesn’t think women can be proper clergy. I’m worried that the overt discrimination is getting camouflaged by a veneer of politeness and a heavy cloak of niceness. We should be able to expose the Church of England for discrimination, but they seem to be getting away with by smiling a lot and talking about ‘mutual flourishing’.  How can we expose this duplicity?

Your Servant, Damon

Dear Damon,

You honestly don’t need to worry. The sacramental efficacy of women priests and bishops is clearly doubted by these proponents of ‘traditionalist’ views, and in no uncertain terms. A recent Church of England report said this:

“The basis of…objection to women’s ordination is the authority and unity of the Church.  The Church of England is part of the one holy catholic Church of God and that imposes limits on what it can and can’t decide unilaterally. Extending the historic threefold order to women constitutes a major doctrinal change and thus, whilst it may be the way the Spirit is calling the Church, it is an action that the Church of England does not have the unilateral authority to undertake”.

It is hilarious to cite ordination as the factor in the “authority and unity” of the One Holy Catholic Church. The official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the sanctity of life – conception, contraception and so forth – and the proper ordering of family life are major tenets of Catholicism.  The Church of England departed from such positions decades ago – “decide(ing) unilaterally” – that managing the size of a family through artificial means (i.e., contraception) was not wrong or sinful.  Roman Catholic orthodoxy disagrees. 

Traditionalist Anglicans are just liberals pimped up in liturgical bling.  They choose to ignore many major Roman Catholic doctrines, yet they accept others. They are fully signed up to Pick-and-Mix Anglicanism. They just don’t like to admit it.

The bishops are like some modern-day King Solomon rabbit caught in the headlights. Faced with a moral dilemma, such as what to do with two women arguing over one baby and who is the real mother, the bishops fudge it. They’ll recommend joint custody or try and broker some coparenting arrangement. They’d call that ‘mutual flourishing’ too. Why make a hard moral choice when you can fudge the issues and delay a difficult decision? 

Trying to impose ‘mutual flourishing’ makes no moral sense. It would be like forcing somebody to sign up for a peace treaty that they objected to and then telling them that they then had to sign another document saying they were happy with the terms of the imposed truce, even though they had resisted the treaty. And if they weren’t happy, they’d be told they’d end up with even less…so please pose for the camera next to the grinning man who doesn’t think you should be in the picture wearing a dog collar, and smile nicely!

The important thing to remember, Damon, is that the public don’t buy this for a second.  That’s why the congregations who are against women clergy are so careful not to mention this on their websites or on their notice boards.  The phrase ‘mutual flourishing’ is only meant to stop people inside the Church of England arguing more, and somebody actually making a clear moral decision. 

This is a huge fillip to us – and to the One whose Name Must Not Be Spoken. The Church of England has compromised on every important moral matter in recent times. On sexuality, gender, equal marriage and even the remarriage of divorcees, the Church of England won’t ever give a clear moral lead. They then just dress this up in silly phrases like ‘mutual flourishing’ which are imposed without consent.

Frankly, the Church of England does such a great job of undermining itself, and slowly losing the trust and confidence of its people and the wider population, you need do nothing other than sit back and watch them destroy themselves.

So, Damon, there’s no need to worry. The best thing to do with the English Patient is let them carry on releasing glib press releases with smiling women clergy next to grinning male clergy who don’t really believe the clergywomen should be in the picture at all. Just leave the church leaders to their vain PR and comms strategies. 

Keep stroking their egos. The church leaders think they are running a VIABLE Church – a Very Important And Big Long-term Enterprise. But in truth, your English Patient is just suffering from long-term cognitive impairment. So the gaps between fantasy and reality keep growing and will cause your patient to gradually unravel. Trust me. You just need to be patient.

Your Mentor, Lucius.