I’ve been gardening furiously all day, as one does when the growing season has, for some reason, begun three weeks early. My gorgeous peony, which I love, looks like it is dying a painful and pitiful death.
So is the Church of England, as we have noted many times before, dying pitifully and painfully. To illustrate this great sadness:
It is my understanding that for posting this, the Reverend Brett Murphy was brought up on various charges, of which he was subsequently exonerated, but the whole ordeal was such a hassle that he left and joined the Free Church of England. You can read about the whole saga here.
Speaking as a woman, I am so deeply offended by this “prayer of approach” that I cannot barely even. Let’s just take a gander at it, alongside literally any scripture the Bible might have on hand, to get ourselves into a better frame of mind. The writer of the “prayer” begins:
Holy God, chuckling wise woman, tender and strange, we bless you.
Not to be pedantic, but I did review that book about how God is not a man, and so I think we may also safely say that God is definitely not a woman, The Shack notwithstanding. Especially not a witchy kind of woman who chuckles and who is “tender and strange.” That’s not a person any of us would be very comfortable around, let alone God. God is holy though. Thrice holy, as we discover in that place in the Bible when the Cherubim sing in endless praise “Holy Holy Holy” before a Being so holy that to come into his presence (for he has, as I’m sure you know, picked male pronouns for himself) is to feel oneself coming apart at the seams. For noticing that God is holy, we may give the author of this “prayer” one point. It is good to bless God’s holy name, but not like this. This is more like having to go to hell.
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