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.
5 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.
What is strange about this phenomenon is that churches are despised by secular leftism. It's like the Communist folk singers you had posted about earlier. By supporting Communism, they are helping to destroy what they ostensibly care about. Likewise, why would someone want to be the lowest, most despised member of the secular leftist establishment, rather than being autonomous in your own area that you ostensibly value?
It's a form of insanity.
@NLR - I suppose there is an element of personal fantasy about it.
And there is the class system. In the case of Archbishop of C, you are officially second in precedence to the King or Queen, at major ceremonies - and will move in that kind of circle; so that's no mystery.
For a long time; to be a CofE clergyman was automatically to be a gentleman, able to dine with aristocrats etc. The only other professions where this was the case was an Army or Navy officer, or a barrister at law (not a solicitor; and not most doctors - because apart from a few University educated physicians, most "doctors" were of tradesmen status).
A lot of this is a kind of residual status, actual three or four generations ago; but remembered from childhood and from books or TV about older days.
It's like the status accorded to being called Professor in the UK, despite there being at least 100-fold more Professors, and most of them in very low status institutions and fields. Or the idea that "a scientist" will be highly intelligent and intellectually honest.
There is a considerable lag before people adjust inwardly. And most of modern culture respects "the position" far more than actual achievement.
In sum - there is a combination of class-privilege/snobbery with the unearned "radicalism" of being "the first woman" or "a pioneer woman" - pseudo-courageous-heroism and public-recognition in one package - that most bureaucrats find irresistible.
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