As the Church of England appoints yet another mediocre middle manager as its Chief Executive - indeed, aside from being called "Sarah"; this one is as close to an archetypal Karen is is humanly possible.
(Even within the National Health Service - that most bureaucratic of bureaucracies - I speak from experience; to be a career "Nursing Officer" is near the very pinnacle of officious dysfunctionality, dullness and futility.)
This appointment is representative of the CofE's mainstream roadmap of institutional survival - which is to convert church buildings into "community centres" - with meeting and social rooms for hire, café, musical events (my local church will soon be hosting a Miley Cyrus "tribute" concert...); with church activities focused on mainstream-left-approved socio-political "activism".
At this point it might be worth reflecting upon what a any Christians who still exist within the major church structures might instead do - other than the alternative MBA-approved path of appointing as "leader" some kind of a charismatic, asset-stripping, con-artist, and psychopath*.
The answer is simple, but unpopular - which is to strive by all possible means to make church activities deep, serious, and spiritual.
A place where the services are intended to induce fundamental thought; and where it is hoped (if possible) to encourage a higher and spiritual consciousness.
This assumes that there are at least some people who are motivated to want this - perhaps want it with a profound yearning; but who find depth, seriousness and spiritual consciousness to be utterly lacking in the superficialities and sloganism of mainstream culture and mainstream churches.
Such a change cannot possibly come from appointing a church leader from any conceivable list of qualified and/or acceptable candidates - since none of these people even desire what is needed but the opposite; all of these have been selected, propagandized, and trained to serve the requirements of our totalitarian System.
The trouble is that most church-goers, including those most active; apparently seek almost Anything But what I have suggested.
They want instead a nice and social situation, a sensation of "doing good" in some generically-approved fashion; with some cheerful singing and a bit of picturesque or colourful "ceremony".
My "advice" to churches will strike actually-existing church-members as analogous to that of Caroline Bingley in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice:
“I should like balls infinitely better," she replied, "if they were carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of they day."
"Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so much like a ball.”
Actual churches want to stage a series of "balls" - whereas my suggestions are so radical as to make church nothing like a ball!
*The USA is re-experiencing just how delusive it is to expect, or even hope, that such persons will act as guides and exemplars; in situations when this entails System-inexpedient, long-termist, principled behaviour. When we need a hero to save their people; we need to recognize that psychopaths are never heroes, they do not willingly suffer, or even take risks, for their people - because ultimately they are always motivated by working for themselves.
3 comments:
No one could have predicted this appointment.
The Church of England clearly has a death wish.
The idea of a female "archbishop" is so obviously ridiculous -- I think even the wokest of the woke must feel this at a pre-rational level -- that it's hard to see this as anything but a deliberate desecration, like Antiochus slaughtering a pig in the Holy of Holies.
@Wm and William - Well, yes, but this aspect was so baked-in as to be certain.
The CofE is in the midst of a long dying that began and has not reversed since the 1950s. William Oddie's excellent book "Crockford's File" was published in 1989, and he set out the reasons why the left-liberal (not-Christian) faction was going to prevail; and how the ultimate women takeover of the priest's "job" was already mandatory among the large and growing majority of those with power.
re William's comment about death wish: What is interesting, but happens a lot, is that here, as in so many areas, the managerial bureaucracy finds ever additional ways to hasten the death of the organization - as the ever-shortening time horizons of generic bureaucratic careerism means that the easy short-term option is always pursued, even when this hastens medium-long-term destruction.
This woman has, as an obedient senior middle-manager, served the totalitarian puppetmasters in the annihilation of functional UK medical services; then in midlife seamlessly moved across to continue the run-down of a different kind of state bureaucracy.
This is seen everywhere nowadays. Once our civilization gave up on the idea of genuine functionality - on the excuse of left-secular ideology - then all social systems are regarded as slight variants on a generic and purely managerial bureaucracy; with the same managerial systems everywhere.
This is why, under totalitarianism, all the major churches have ceased to be functionally Christian - it is the same reason that science is no longer scientific, health services strategically cause (and ignore) pathology, schools and colleges do not educate, that the legal system is unjust etc.
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