11 February 2010

Being Cool with the Cool Kids

The Anglican Church of Canada provides progressive Catholics in the U.S. with an important object lesson:

The report, prepared for the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia, calls Canada a post-Christian society in which Anglicanism is declining faster than any other denomination. It says the church has been “moved to the far margins of public life.”

So, in a misguided effort to "get in steps with the times," the leadership of the ACA adopted progressively more secular policies and practices.  Rather than confront the culture with the gospel, they abandoned the gospel to accommodate the culture.  And once the ACA was thoroughly, fundamentally changed into nothing much more than a politicized-therapeutic group with colorful vestments, the culture said "bye-bye."

The lesson?  When the Church tries to Be Cool in the public arena by adopting the behaviors and attitudes of the Cool Kids, what counts as cool changes.  Rather than destroying who we are as Catholics in order to appease the fickle manufacturers of culture, we should be strengthening our counter-cultural witness as men and women steeped in a 2,000 year old philosophical and theological tradition.  

There's nothing more pathetic than a senior citizen trying to be hip among the professional hipsters.

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6 comments:

  1. gonna email you something along those lines...look for it. it's a video.

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  2. "Rather than destroying who we are as Catholics in order to appease the fickle manufacturers of culture, we should be strengthening our counter-cultural witness as men and women steeped in a 2,000 year old philosophical and theological tradition."

    Just how counter-cultural are we willing to be?

    Are we prepared to speak boldly about divorce?

    Isn't it the Church's teaching that, fundamentally, divorce is impossible? Once two become one, one cannot then become two (or something like that).

    The Pope's recent remarks to the Roman Rota about the possible sacrifice of justice/truth to false charity or false compassion are sobering. The Church is already counter-cultural in her teachings on sexuality (contraception, abortion, etc.) and many (most?) Catholics ignore her. Is it time to "step up to the plate" and affirm that the Church doesn't recognize divorce?

    Just being provocative...

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  3. As Chris Rock once pointed out:

    "Every man has to settle down eventually. You know why you gotta settle down eventually? Because you don't want to be the old guy in the club. You know what I'm talking about. Every club you go into, there's always some old guy. He ain't really old, just a little too old to be in the club."

    it seems the Anglican/Episcopal church has fallen into the perennial baby boomer faux pas: acting on the illusion of immortality/eternal youth.

    if only they would open up the scriptures again and read where real eternal life comes from.

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  4. Anonymous3:41 PM

    Is it time to "step up to the plate" and affirm that the Church doesn't recognize divorce?

    I'm all for it. I remember a similar discussion when someone in favor of same-sex marriage threw out the the divorce card. He assumed that I would be reluctant to support abolish legalized divorce. I said show me the legislation and I'll support it. I added the caveat that the legislation take into account that the Church recognizes the truth of invalid marriages and how would that work. Never heard from him again.


    Scott W.

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  5. Maybe Catholic churches in the USA that are in need of nice, traditional church furnishings, could buy the beautiful artifacts that will soon be for sale in those closed Anglican parishes.

    Old Anglican parish buildings tend to have some nice church furnishings (communion rails, statues, and altars, etc).

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  6. Tolerance with the truth is a travesty. Just as being more concerned with butts in the seats than with the true Gospel.

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