Two for the price of one

A leap of faith for weddings

The Church of England's plan to offer a joint wedding and baptism service is practical - and could be taken further.

The Church of England has announced that it is going to offer a kind of job lot in its wedding services. Get married and you can throw in the baptism of your children born out of wedlock, or maybe just a thanksgiving for the gift of a child. In one sense, this is eminently practical; statistics released this year showed that the number of young women having children outstrips the number getting married. Some 44 per cent of all babies are now born to unmarried mothers. So the Church is meeting people where they are, rather than where it has traditionally taught that they should be, which is at the altar for holy matrimony before they produce children.

One view will hold that this is the kind of moral compromise that has come to characterise the Church of England, which should play no part in the encouragement of having illegitimate children. But it is also a central tenet of the Christian faith that anyone, anywhere has access to God's grace. And apparent sins of the parents can hardly be visited on a child offered for baptism.

Our clergy are noting that, for some unmarried couples, the baptism service now fulfils a desire for a public event that demonstrates and rejoices in their commitment to family life. Both sides of the family turn out in their Sunday best, take photos of the event and celebrate with parties afterwards that are not dissimilar to wedding receptions.

We would suggest respectfully that our established Church might take one step further. As well as offering baptisms alongside marriages, it might also offer a wedding rather more robustly to those who are unmarried and bring their children to baptism. Those who are increasingly willing to celebrate their faith publicly through the baptism of their child might also like to consider the sacramental value of marriage.

Debaptism

Debaptise Yourself!

Liberate yourself from the Original Mumbo-Jumbo that liberated you from the Original Sin you never had!

Our hugely popular Certificate of Debaptism (over 100,000 downloads!) is now available to buy online. Get your very own certificate, printed on quality parchment paper.
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"The growing amount of interest in the concept of de-baptism indicates that people are not just indifferent to religion – which has been the traditional British approach – but are actually becoming quite hostile to it."

- Terry Sanderson. President, National Secular Society

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The certficate declares:
I ________ having been subjected to the Rite of Christian Baptism in infancy (before reaching an age of consent), hereby publicly revoke any implications of that Rite and renounce the Church that carried it out. In the name of human reason, I reject all its Creeds and all other such superstition in particular, the perfidious belief that any baby needs to be cleansed by Baptism of alleged ORIGINAL SIN, and the evil power of supposed demons. I wish to be excluded henceforth from enhanced claims of church membership numbers based on past baptismal statistics used, for example, for the purpose of securing legislative privilege.”

 

Annie Dillard

(reference in next Sunday's sermon)

Annie Dillard  Biography
Picture above taken from http://www.wardy.org/dillard.html
Annie Dillard was born in 1945, and is now forty-nine and living and teaching in Connecticut (for perspective, Tinker Creek was written in 1974, when she was twenty-nine). She has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, it seems. Often she reads over 100 books a year, on just about any topic imaginable. She's been this way from her childhood on. Annie is the oldest of three daughters, born to affluent parents. Her parents encouraged her to be creative and explore her surroundings. They taught her to have a good sense of humor. Her mother was defiant, a non-conformist, and incredibly energetic. Her father taught her everything from plumbing to economics to the intricacies of the novel On The Road. Annie enjoyed a childhood filled with many good memories - days of piano and dance classes, and rock and bug collecting. But there were also many troubles -- like Hitler's rise and the horrors of war. During her high school years, Annie rebelled against her affluent, country club upbringing. She hated everyone, got into trouble in school a lot. Around this time, her academic interests turned to poetry. She read all sorts of poetry, and was particularly interested in Ralph Waldo Emerson. She also wrote a lot of poetry on her own, sometimes using her own style, sometimes trying to imitate her favorite authors. Her interests in wildlife continued as well - with Annie still rereading her longtime favorite book once a year - The Field Book of Ponds & Streams. Next, Annie went to college at Hollins College, near Roanoke, Virginia and studied English, theology, and creative writing. She married her writing teacher, Richard Dillard (her maiden name is Doak) -- the person she says "taught her everything she knows" {Smith, 7} about writing. In 1968 she graduated with a Masters in English, after creating a 40-page thesis on Thoreau's Walden, which focused on the use of Walden Pond as "the central image and focal point for Thoreau's narrative movement between heaven and earth." {Smith, 7} When you read Tinker Creek it's obvious that Thoreau had an enormous influence on her own style of writing. The next couple of years after graduation, Annie spent painting, and writing, having several poems published. One thing I should mention now is Annie's religious background. Her family attended Presbyterian church when she was a child. She spent a few summers at a fundamentalist summer camp. During her rebellious teenage years, she quit her church because of the "hypocrisy". But, her priest was able to lure her back the next month with a well-thought-out argument based on the works of CS Lewis. After her college years, Annie became, as she says, "spiritually promiscuous," incorporating the ideas of many religious systems into her own personal religious world-view. Not only are there references to Christ, and the Bible in Tinker Creek, but also to Sufism, Buddhism, the Eskimo's religious system, and Hasidic Jews, just to name a few. She tries to look at every situation from every angle. (Just recently, Annie has converted to the Catholic Church.)		Annie's writing Tinker Creek was indirectly influenced by a near fatal attack of pneumonia which she was stricken with in 1971. After she recovered, Annie decided that she needed to experience life more fully. She spent four seasons living near Tinker Creek, an area surrounded by forests, creeks, mountains, and a myriad of animal life. She spent her time outdoors mostly, walking and camping, just being there with the nature. When she was inside, she mostly read. After living there for about a year, Annie began to write about her experiences there by the creek (challenged to write a book herself because the one she was reading at the moment was particularly bad). She started by writing a journal of her experiences, then transposed it all to notecards when the journal reached 20-plus volumes. It took her about 8 months to turn the notecards into the well-crafted Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Towards the end of the 8 months she was so absorbed that she was spending 15, 16 hours a day writing, cut off from society, not even keeping up with the latest world news, living on coffee and coke. She lost 30 pounds and all of her plants died - she was so absorbed she forgot about everything else. Annie was timid about presenting her book to the public. She even thought of publishing it under a man's name, because she was worried that a theology book by a woman would not be well-received. But, she was worrying for no reason. The book was incredibly well-received. In 1975 she was awarded the Pulitzer for general non-fiction. The fame that came along with a Pulitzer winning book did not sit well with Annie. She didn't trust it. For example, she was bothered by all of the people who were coming to her wanting poems -- that had rejected her works in the past before she was famous. She moved to an isolated cabin on an island in the Pugent Sound, and lived there for a while before moving to Connecticut to teach. In 1982 she was honored with an invitation to take part in a cultural delegation of scholars, traveling with them to China. Since Tinker Creek, Annie has continued to write. Some of her other works include Ticket for a Prayer Wheel, a book of poetry, and An American Childhood, an autobiography of her early years. Her writing continues to meet with critical acclaim. She has been divorced and has remarried several times, and has a daughter now, born in 1984. The latest information I could find says that her current husband is a man named Robert who wrote "the best biography she had ever read" {Smith, 14} on Thoreau. Annie now works at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, as an adjunct professor of English and a writer-in-residence.   [Written by Sandra Stahlman Elliott] [This biography taken from http://www.well.com/user/elliotts/smse_dillard.html]

The Annotine Easter

My Ordo says today is 'The Annotine Easter'. What is that? you ask.



The Annotine Easter is the commemoration of the preceeding Easter.

If it falls in Lent it is transferred.

The origin of its institution seems to be the natural wish of those baptised at Easter to celebrate the first anniversary of their spiritual illumination.

Holy Saturday

On Holy Saturday, the Church waits at the Lord's tomb, meditating on his suuefring and death. The altar is left bare, and the mass is not celebrated until after the solemn vigil during the night, held then in anticipation of the resurrection. Only then does the Easter celebration begin, with a spirit of joy that overflows into the following period of fifty days. The early church continued to fast through Holy Saturday.

The Easter Vigil

Some may think of the Easter Vigil as just a longer mass but this is only part of the story. There are things we do at the Easter Vigil that we do at no other time in the church year.

We light the new Easter Candle from a large fire outside to remind us that Jesus is our light in the darkness, we then process into the darkened church. We hear the great hymn of praise called the 'Exultet', in which we praise Christ for saving us. The hymn says that we would greatly prefer a fallen universe with Christ to a perfect one without him. 'O Happy fault which deserved so great a Saviour'. We hear more readings than usual on this night, recounting the history of our salvation. Most significantly we welcome new members into the Church and with them we all renew our Baptismal promises.

We need time to do all these things well, so we begin a fifty day season of feasting with this long liturgy that is packed with all the riches the Church has to offer.

Parable of the Wedding Feast

Matthew 22.1-14

The king represents God. The servants who are dispatched first are the prophets; those dispatched second are the apostles and martyrs. The message they carry invites guests to come to a wedding feast. This is ignored by some while others respond violently, first attacking then murdering the messengers. The king raises the town to the ground where these ungrateful guests live as Jerusalem is sacked in AD70. Then the king invites anybody and everybody to the feast just as all are invited into the Church.

When the feast gets underway the king is critical of a guest not wearing wedding garments. These would have been provided so this guest is judges for refusing to wear what was offered.
They represent baptism and confirmation or possibly holiness and righteousness. "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord...for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation" (Isaiah 61.10).

Lord Jesus thank you for inviting me to the wedding banquet of your Son. Thank you for choosing me to be a disciple. I praise your holy name for the gift of baptism which is such a powerful work of grace in our lives that the devil does not dare look at us because he sees the light blazing from your head and blinding his eyes.

Joy to the world

I have been confined to the flat these last two days with a chest infection. I have not been sorry to miss two chapel eucharists on these days as one was celebrates by an invalid priest i.e. a female and one by a discredited bishop i.e. divorced and remarried. What a joy to emerge for a Roman catholic celebration of Epiphany and an Anglo Catholic celebration of the Baptism of the Lord.

Epiphany
"I would not have sought you, if I had not already found you" (St Augustine)
Jesus, to search for you is to find you and to find you is to search for you. You are the Light of the World and the light of my life.

Baptism of the Lord
"Father, all powerful and ever living God,
we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks.

You celebrated your new gift of baptism
by signs and wonders at the Jordan.
Your voice was heard from heaven
to awaken faith in the presence among us
of the Word made man.

Your Spirit was seen as a dove,
revealing Jesus as your servant,
and anointing him with joy as the Christ,
sent to bring to the poor
the good news of salvation.

In our undending joy we echo on earth
the song of the angels in heaven
as they praise your glory for ever."