Monday, January 29, 2007

Why I'm Not Into Church Politics

As far as I can tell, the main "political" groupings in the C of E are as follows:

  • Reform, who believe that no-one else believes the Bible and that it's more important to be right than to be loving
  • New Wine, who believe that no-one else has the Holy Spirit
  • Forward in Faith, who believe that women smell bad and that making fun of coloured bishops is a good thing
  • Affirming Catholicism, who believe that the most important thing is getting your clothes just right
  • Sea of Faith, who believe that it's important to believe that it doesn't matter what you believe
  • The Prayer Book Society, who believe that if we change anything from the way it was in 1662, we're dooooomed.
  • Fulcrum, who believe that it's important to be nasty to anyone involved with Reform, whatever they do

All the above descriptions are of course parodies, but all have at least an element of truth. And that's why I'm not into church politics.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

And Anvil ... ?

Anonymous said...

inclusive-church that agrees with everyone who agrees with them

John said...

Is an evangelical theological journal with strong links to Fulcrum.

Susan A said...

what about the dofsatswnicpbtaewoi ['despite-our-fragile-status-as-theology-students-we're-'not-into'-church-politics-because-they're-all-either-wrong-or-intolerant'] group? surely you have some affinity with them?

Anonymous said...

Church Society: Pretty similar to Reform
Fellowship of Word and Spirit: Also pretty similar to Reform (or at least, both of these were holding joint stuff with Reform last year)

Anglican Mainstream: FIFers and Reformandoes who agree about absolutely nothing, but unite around (a hatred of the wrong sort of) sex.

CEEN: Umbrella evangelical group who really annoyed Fulcrum over the whole CCE thang.

Any others?

John said...

Church Society is actually more like a cross between Reform and the Prayer Book Society.

FoWS is better compared to Anvil in that they're not explicitly political - they're meant to be about doing theology and stuff, but there is a lot of overlap with Reform.

Anglican Mainstream are political, do include both FiF and Reform, but also some others as well.