{Clerical Intellect [continued]}[26th January 1991]

[Redbook8:188-189][19910126:1116c]{Clerical Intellect [continued]}[26th January 1991]

19910126.1116

[continued]

*

This brilliant paragraph** sums up my two major concerns about the church as I have encountered it during my application to become an ordinand, and in the same order: first, that it had been overcome, the Spirit submerged, beneath the weight of bureaucracy, particularly as seen in the committee system, which has an almost indefeasible tendency to reach the lowest common denominator in the search for universal acceptability; and second, that it is becoming a refuge for those who are unhappy with (or incapable of) the difficult processes of thought required to make sense of the real world in the modern way, the way of the Western mind, and who want to convert and keep the Church as such a refuge.

The second point is more difficult to confirm in relation to particular individuals in the Church, such as those who sat on the Diocesan Selection Board for […] [Diocese], because they do not really engage in (or allow) dialogue; but if one takes as representative what they have said, the evidence for the second point down here in […] [Diocese] is overwhelming. And I have recently heard that the Archbishop, that great exception to the general rule, is to retire in June; and my sponsor [Canon][XQ] is retiring in August.

*T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement] [Biography and Letters] 19910125, 4582:3,4: Edward Norman, Chaplain of Christ Church Colleg of Education, Canterbury, ‘Taking leave of a worldly Church’, reviewing Adrian Hastings’ ‘Robert Runcie’ [ – A biography of Dr Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury 1980-1991]

**[which refers to the Church of England and the English branch of Anglicanism, of which the Diocese referred to in this journal is not a part]

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