The Saint Barnabas’ Blog

Do Stormtroopers have wives? I ask, not because a desperate female acquaintance has a penchant for white plastic armour, but in order to note a difficult truth regarding the impact of modern media on society and religion. But before making my observation I should probably explain what a Stormtrooper is, in case you are largely ignorant of 1970’s film culture.

A stormtrooper is an iconic ‘bit part’ character from the hugely successful Star Wars trilogy which thrilled me repeatedly on VHS as a child. The principle villain is the infamous half machine/half human ‘Darth Vader’ who helps lead a vast and sinister Empire. This Empire is aided by a clone army of Stormtroopers who are impressive in their white military costume, pictured above. Time and again these stormtroopers chase a heroic rebellion led by Luke Skywalker, Princess Lei and Han Solo, only to lose men in vast number. Often hapless at hitting targets they are viewed as largely expendable to those who lord it over them.

So to my point. The heroes we place on silver screens so often embody the polar opposite of what Christian faith aims to nurture in humanity. Han Solo and James Bond may be attractive, brave and resourceful but they do not possess an iota of Christian humility, temperance and chastity. Yes they might be on the side of the ‘goodies’, often fighting one dimensional tyrants, but they rarely value true peace or foster reconciliation. Rather they a brutal bunch leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake. I wonder what message they really give to us and to our children?

It is a further salutary point that films delighting in high body count present no narrative as to the plight of the fallen. There is no remorse for the slaughtered and the dolling out death rarely has a discernable psychological effect on the life of our protagonists. The fallen are merely presented as ‘baddies’ allowing the audience to delight in the torture, maiming and butchering which is certain to befall them. One would hope that in real life such casual disregard for human life would both upset and appal us, no matter how right the cause of any chiselled jaw gun toting hero!

Of course there is nothing new in this as the butchered remains of Medea’s offspring remind us but the point is nevertheless worth pondering. Were Star Wars fact then every dead Stormtrooper would beg the question- what of his wife and children? It is only by pondering this silly point that we move closer to understanding the real impact of war. So futile, so grim, so hideous and so far reaching is the real loss of life where violence occurs in this world.

Why? Because we are so much more than our politics and viewpoints. Not all Germans serving Hitler were bad people, indeed many were decent family men caught up in the conflict of their day. Yet consider how Hollywood presents them in almost every war films that graced the 20th Century? They became cannon fodder, worthless beings to be dispatched by a plethora of American hunks.

The danger is that we slowly become accustomed to scenes of horrific violence and murder. Guns cease to be vile instruments of death and become bespoken items of adornment. ‘Han Solo’ would not be complete without cool blaster at his side. ‘Dirty Harry’ could not function without impressive weapon to point in the face of oppressors. Things that should shock become delightful when we glamorise war and violence. And who can argue that we have not, at various times, demonised Germans, Russians and Arabs? The question is, how important is all of this and how does it affect our society and faith?

Likely the answer is more subtle than we imagine. Certainly barbaric films and videogames (yes I am a secret gamer) do not make sane people violent. I am proof of that as are the many who delight in such media. But might they subtly undermine truth and faith? Might they have moved us away from a love of true heroes, those who worked for peace and lay down their lives for others? How can we present Maximilian Kolbe to an 8yr old child in a way that competes with superman? How can we speak of S. Dominic and make him as cool as the Incredible Hulk? These are serious question because unless we recapture the imagination of our young then the church will struggle in an age of mass media.

Two very pleasant young men from India have recently joined Saint Barnabas church both being practising Christians. They are both in employment in Tunbridge Wells having recently arrived in the country. Both present themselves well and are modest, polite, warm and friendly. And one of them is seeking accomodation and would like to find a room or flat to let.

Do you have space for a tenant? Do you know of some affordable and pleasant digs for this charming young man? If so do email me or leave your details on the comments thread and I will reply with his details. It would be brilliant if we could do this young man a good turn during his first weeks as a resident here.

Many people applaud Peter Tatchell for his outspoken views and willingness to speak up for his beliefs. I too can admire his bravery and consistency of position but, that said, Peter Tatchell has always struck me as a thoroughly unpleasant individual. His practice of publically ‘outing’ people demonstrates a complete lack of personal care and sensitivity and much of what he stands for is not only in direct contradiction to the Gospel of Christ but also repugnant to anyone, of all faiths and none, who values moral decency and ethical living. This sentiment of mine has nothing whatsoever to do with his sexuality, there are many decent moral and ethical homosexuals in this world, but has everything to do with his view of sex and humanity.

Take for example his implicit support for lowering the age of consent to 14 and decriminalising all sex that is claimed to be consensual, seen in his own writing, a tip of the biretta to Standfirm for drawing our attention to this by pointing to an item originally on Anglican Mainstream. In a book written by one of Britain’ leading campaigners for the paedophile movement, Peter Tatchell contributes an entire chapter entitled ‘Questioning ages of majority and consent’. It includes the following:

‘Shouldn’t we be preparing and educating children for greater rights and responsibilities at an earlier age; perhaps critically re-examining our concept of childhood and viewing children more as young citizens? Certainly in the realm of sexual ages of consent, we need to ask whether the law has any legitimate role to play in criminalising consenting victimless sexual activity.’

He goes on to argue that so long as children are protected from rape and coercive sex, as already covered for all people in law, then all is well. What an horrific worldview this is and, as a father, it sickens me to the pit of my stomach. It would mean that the clever paedophile who grooms a child to believe that abuse was their fault or that they somehow wanted it would be free of prosecution. Anyone who has any knowledge of the evil of child abuse will understand how many children would be placed at risk with long term damage to their lives.

Now consider the truly dreadful irony that Peter Tatchell, who promotes promiscuity, the lowering of the age of consent and the decriminalising of consentual man-boy relationships, is preparing to mount an assault on Pope Benedict who promotes chastity in family life or in celibacy, when he arrives in the UK. In one of the most twisted paradoxes of our age most of the secularised British populace, egged on by an anti-Christian press and buoyed by a zeal for advocating same sex relationships, will point at the innocent man of God shouting ‘paedophile’ and at the promoter of laws that lower the age of consent and thus aid paedophilia shouting ‘prophet’!

Clearly much damage was done by a foul minority of paedophiles within the church over several decades and the majority of decent priests must now begin the slow and painful job of winning back trust ‘one person at a time’. (It is worth noting however that Tatchell’s campaign for lowering consent to 14 would have cleared the vast majority) But that does not excuse the trend within society of singling out the Catholic church for a crime that is prevalent throughout society and actually advocated by many of those who will be mounting crusades against the holy father. And even more alarming is that some Christians are jumping on the bandwagon. Our own Poppytupper’s blog contains a recent post heralding Tatchell the hero and pouring insult on the Pope. Perhaps today’s post will enlighten people as to fact and help them reconsider who to herald as hero.

A note of caution to those adding comments. I will publish anything that tackles the subject in hand but will not publish posts that are overly strident in tone or which seem homophobic in any way and we should note here that many child abusers are married men who manage to worm their way into positions of power and authority over children. So think before you post- I am serious about a need to ensure we keep debate on the site but learn to respect each other better.

NB: I must stress that PT does not endorse peadophilia but the lowering of the age of consent and the decriminalising of consensual relationships. I apologise if I did not make this clear!

Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. These words of Jesus are easy to understand, easy to offer as advice in sermons but prove very difficult to enact in many situations in life. How does the Arab love the Israeli soldier who bulldozed his children’s home? How does the Israeli child forgive the family of the Palestinian suicide bomber whose act of aggression killed is parents? How do we love those with whom we have the most bitter disputes and disagreements?

I am fortunate in that I live in a relatively peaceful land in which nobody has ever caused me pain on the scale I mention in my opening paragraph. Though many people in this country do face such a scenario. We might ponder the mother of a raped child, the child of the mugged granny and so on and so forth. Sadly this fallen world is crammed full of victims of abuse, violence and oppression. It ever was and, until Christ returns in glory, I suspect it ever will be.

But despite being one of the fortunate in life, and with a strong faith, loving family, good health, good education and stimulating vocation I am so very fortunate , it does not mean that there aren’t people in life who I struggle with. Any long time reader of this blog will know that I find a certain form of modern liberalism within Christianity extremely difficult to stomach. Does this make the modern liberal Christian the enemy who I must love?

Before I answer I want to make a couple of things clear. Firstly my intolerance and criticism extends towards a particular strand of emerging Anglican theology and not towards its adherents. This is extremely important for people to understand. Yes I do publically attack what I see as a dangerous wolf in sheep’s clothing. That is the watered down version of faith- Christianity lite- which sits light to an historic understanding of the faith and encourages us to cherry pick the appealing parts of scripture and disregard the rest. I will always fight this cancerous bastardisation of the faith because it leads us to place our own faces on the throne of God. But I do not hate its adherents, far from it!

Understand then, from my perspective, Christianity lite is a cancer within the body of Christ. It ultimately leads to spiritual death because it puts forward an attractive proposition that faith is still in the process of being revealed. As if Jesus Christ and his Gospel are good, but not enough! The final authority then lies with humanly constructed committees and is decided by majority vote. I shudder at both the arrogance and naivety of such thinking. Could any one of us be trusted with such power? How do we ensure we really are enacting God’s will and not our own?

So yes I get quite animated by this strand of emerging theology. But that does not and can never mean I loathe or hate those who stand by it. No Christ calls me to love them sincerely and to pray for them each day. And that is why this blog has always criticised the theology and even asked hard questions of those who seem to disregard the faith but seek to serve as priests but it has never resorted to personal attacks on people. It is also why I try to allow all comments on this blog even when some commentators only seem to desire to discredit my every word and argument!

The truth is that all of us are loved by God and we can learn to love one another. I have many friends, some of them long standing, whose contribution to church life I value greatly even if I think they are in danger of upholding that which is not true. And because I am humans other liberals annoy me intensely and become a daily subject for my prayers. ‘Lord, I really do not warm to these people, indeed I positively dislike them, but please- help me to love them and pray for them!’ …but trust me this prayer is not reserved for liberals alone!!

Why mention all of this? Because there is a danger on the internet that we do not see each other face to face. I think this can heighten our displeasure of one another and we can all too easily let ourselves down. Of course not everyone desires the respect for one another that I do and dealing with them is all the harder- how do you love the criminal who has no desire to cease hurting you? It is a tough and tricky thing

If you are a passionate supporter of liberal Christianity please understand this. I cannot endorse your understanding of the faith anymore than you could probably endorse mine! But I really and sincerely wish you no harm. Indeed I pray for you each day for your wellbeing and good fortune. My reading of faith allows for nothing else!

My real desire, and probably yours, is to live a more holy life that fosters reconciliation and understanding. How could we do this? I wonder if the Ordinariate might prove a medicine of sorts for our church at this time. If Anglo-Catholics could be helped to enter its doors it would free the Anglican church to practice the liberal faith it now holds dear. But with a degree of separation, in which none of us is forced by the other to act in a way that compromises our integrity and belief, we might learn to love each other afresh. This is my prayer and my hope. A new life in the Ordinariate that I might forgive the Synod that finds it impossible to reach me and they might forgive me for failing to be convinced by their arguments. Ecumenism might work where pretending to be part of the same body cannot.

Just to remind parishioners that the Ordinariate Exploration Group starts up again on September 9th following the 7pm Low Mass. On this date Evangelium will be placed to one side that I might give a talk on ‘the life and work of John Henry Newman’ which will be accompanied by a Power Point presentation. I know that those fortunate enough to have tickets for the beatification are keen to swot up on him and I think a better understanding of his life will inspire us all at this time. Do put it in your diaries and I will endevour to make it interesting, understandable and useful to you!

Children are wonderful! I love mine very dearly and soak up every moment that I get to spend with them whilst they are still young, innocent and full of awe and wonder. One of our latest family projects has been to grow peas in order to chart their growth from seed until they reach the dinner table. I have been the least active of the family but the others have watered, planted, measured and thrilled at every single change along the way. Above we see Jemima enjoying the moment when they were finally ready to pick….

The shelling of the peas proved enormously popular. As you can see Jemima rolled up her sleeves and got stuck in. None of us knew the reason for the John Mackenroe impression, it just took her fancy that day!

This particular specimen was carefully set aside and later taken to nursery for a spot of ‘show and tell’. It was deemed so valuable that I was ordered to take it straight home lest any naughty child should damage it!

Finally the peas were all prepared and ready for cooking! This was a part of the excercise in which we all took an active interest. And even baby Benedict was able to tuck in and share in the joy- here he is pointing to his favourites. Alas we are too late to plant pumpkins but another vegetable must follow such was the success of ‘operation pea’!

The post on the biretta certainly aroused discussion and so I thought I would also give some attention to the oft neglected maniple. This is the garment worn on the left forearm during Mass. It may be worn by sub-deacon, deacon, priest and bishop but not by those in minor orders and it is specifically linked to the role of the sub-deacon.

Where somebody is ordained as a sub-deacon within the church (which would not happen in Anglican circles to my knowledge) then the vesting of the maniple is one of the central acts of the ordination service whereby the new sub deacon is handed a maniple by the bishop with the words: “Take the maniple, the symbol of the fruit of good works.” It would not ordinarily be worn by laity who may liturgically act as sub-deacons in the absence of an ordained one.

The maniple is worn for Mass but only at certain points. It is removed in procession, at Benediction, for the administration of the sacraments and when preaching. It is perhaps the most crucial of all the vestments worn for it is strongly linked to the notion of humble Christian service.

Somebody once remarked that it made priests look like waiters! Exactly, was my reply, it is meant to! Because the maniple represents the towel placed over the arm of Jesus at the foot washing and is a reminder to the ordained that we are primarily called to a life of service. How sad then, and perhaps revealing, that its use has dropped off during the last fifty years or so. An age in which humility was eclipsed by egoism. The vesting prayer for the maniple I provide in Latin….another thing that has regrettably almost disappeared from clerical life:

Merear, Domine, portare manipulum fletus et doloris; ut cum exsultatione recipiam mercedem laboris.

(translation) May I deserve, O Lord, to bear the maniple of weeping and sorrow in order that I may joyfully reap the reward of my labours

Today’ post is ‘churchy’ in the extreme and will appeal to a certain type. I apologise if you are not one of them!

The biretta has power, I say this because it can illicit such a range of strong opinions. There are those who think nothing of them because they have never heard of them and would never consider wearing one. There are those who will point and laugh and declare ‘holy headwear’ to be ludicrous. There are those who let everybody know they own one but, inexplicably, never use it liturgically! There are those who will wear them on special occasions or at a neighbouring parish. And then there are my sort- those who think nothing of them at all because they wear them for every mass and they therefore seem as normative as the chasuble or cassock. The biretta is normally black but a different coloured pom-pom denotes specific functions and orders. A purple pom-pom, for example, is allowed for a bishop.

Certainly liturgical use of the biretta marks a parish out as being traditionalist at its core for they are a Vatican 1 item and are more at home in the Eastward facing Solemn High Mass than the Westward facing folk mass with trendy choruses and multicoloured stoles. For this reason they have become an endangered species and sit on the liturgical ‘at risk’ register alongside their old friend the maniple, which is also in use here are Saint Barnabas! Praise God that the anticipated ‘reform of the reform’ should reinstate both garment s to many places of worship around the globe.

But even where the biretta is worn there is some confusion over its correct usage. Certainly it is worn in procession and when the priest is sat at the sedelia and never when the sacrament is exposed or if the priest is standing, speaking, censing or actively doing anything. Confusion arises over when it is removed during sermons and/or readings. I have encountered those who will remove the biretta at the first mention of the name of Jesus, replace it at the second and then leave it on regardless. I have met those who will lift it off momentarily at the name of Jesus three times and then leave it off. And I have met those who lift momentarily three times and then leave it on!! Perhaps this is one area where local custom is enough unless anyone can provide the definitive answer- I have not had the time to consult dear Fortescue and O’Connell but our custom is to raise three times and then keep it in place. Here is a picture of the biretta in use at a procession at Saint Barnabas:

The point I would want to make is that the biretta is worn seriously by those who do so. At theological college there was much giggling and play making that went alongside the biretta. ‘Ooh father I have bought a biretta!’ one ordinand would boast and everyone would feel thoroughly Catholic by applauding the purchase. But to my knowledge none of these have really been worn liturgically day by day. This is a shame for it relegates them to becoming curios and robs them of their appropriate function. I did not wear them as a curate for that was not the custom of the local parish but I do wear them here. And having done so for several years I now feel semi-naked without one. Personally I think they add to the ceremonial and professionalism of the liturgy. They get my vote and I would have them re-introduced in every parish in England. But you probably guessed as much!

Here is a photograph of Miss Sian Faulkner of Saint Barnabas’ parish in Tunbridge Wells shortly before she was transformed into Mrs. Sian Gabriel. The picture shows her bridesmaids and proud father just before the ceremony began. Unfortunately I neglected to get a photograph of the happy couple together, so there is no photographic evidence of husband Michael, but I can assure you he was present and that this was a very happy and solemn occasion.

New building developments within the parish boundary have led to a deluge of banns applications this year and I was delighted when a couple bloomed into parish weddings as well. Do please pray for Michael and Sian as they begin their married life together within the commnunity.

I am extremely alarmed to learn that there are plans, approved by the President of the United States of America no less, to build a mosque at ground zero. Honestly have the authorities not paused to consider the mixed messages that such a move would send out to the watching world?

For whilst the intentions behind this are doubtless pure with people wanting to show how loving, forgiving and open the American people can be, there is another conclusion that could be drawn and it is gravely troubling. I probably do not need to spell it out but let me do so anyway.

I do not think the West can afford to do anything that might allow a twisted mind to conclude that 9/11 was a ‘success’ in Islamic terms. If even one fanatic decided that a ‘Ground zero mosque’ was proof that terrorist activity made America more Muslim and not less then the door will be opened for further evil and barbaric activity. Mercy is good, forgiveness is essential but naivety is simply unacceptable and there are some very wicked people in the world today.

If there really were a passionate desire for the project then I would suggest that it were mooted to the Islamic world with a condition. That as America was embracing Islam and building its mosque on a historic site so Iran, Saudi Arabia and various other nations should begin to build Cathedrals and welcome Christians to worship. Otherwise the move is not a sign of a more open world at all.

Better still build a peace garden at Ground zero for the whole community. Dedicate it to the lives of all those who perished and must not be forgotten. Allow the relatives to open the recreational space and ensure it is a place where families can relax, play and grow closer together.

But please, whatever is built, do not make a gesture that can be misunderstood by fanatical people who will never respect or love the West until it is entirely dominated by Islam. They may not be representative of all Muslims but they certainly exist in sufficient number to warrant due care and attention. Am I alone in being dumbfounded by the lunacy of this suggestion? Have we learnt nothing from history at all? It does not do to let terrorism achieve its aims for that is the path to further violence and bloodshed.