Logic Fail: National Secular Society and the Coronation Oath

He (Keith Porteous Wood) added: "We object almost as much to Prince Charles's intention to be 'defender of faith'; that is like saying he doesn't care about half of the population who are not religious or are religiously unconcerned."

from this piece on the latest National Secular Society headline-grabber. If Mr Porteous Wood intends to defend the rights of a town councillor who doesn't want to pray in a public meeting, does that therefore mean that he doesn't care about anyone else in the country? The suggestion that Charles will only rule (if he ever does) on behalf of people with faith is ridiculous.

UK Snapshot: post-christian christenings, faith-based politics, changing churches.

1. The BBC has a piece on '10 ways christenings have changed', in advance of Prince Georges baptism later today. The last 2 of the 10 are an improvement, but I'm not sure about the rest! One thing is certain, we've moved on a long way from the original idea of godparents as potential surrogate parents who would step in if a childs birth parents were martyred for their faith.

update: one of the trends - increasing numbers of godparents - is followed religiously (if that's the right word) by Prince George, who has 7. That makes for an interesting precedent: the most I've ever agreed to is 6 (bartered down from an original 16!), and I encourage people to aim for 2-4. 

2. Labour MP Stephen Timms highlights a recent Demos report (free download) which argues that faith groups are more likely to be sympathetic to left-wing perspectives than those of the right, and that "faith is a very good starting point for politics, and for progressive politics in particular, because faith inspires, on a large scale, exactly the values that can make politics work: responsibility, solidarity, patience, compassion and truthfulness."

3. Christian Today has an interview with Phil Potter, new national head of Fresh Expressions for the Anglican church. "my vision is to see the culture of the church itself change. That change would see it becoming a culture which welcomes and embraces an ongoing cycle of transformation and renewal for the sake of the Gospel." You might almost suspect he's been talking to his boss. The CofE has tended to change in nausea-inducing lurches, we don't seem to be able to celebrate anything good without erecting a Grade 1 listed monument over it. 

To review, decide, plan and change on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual cycle is a good spiritual discipline both for the church, and for individual Christians. The irony is, we have the resources in our tradition to do this: from the Catholic side, Ignatian prayer (with the practice of a daily 'examen of conscience', a spiritual review), and from the Protestant side the idea of 'semper reformanda' (such fun we still cit it in Latin) - 'constant reformation' as the guiding principle of the church. But it's our attitude to those same traditions, our idolisation of them, that makes change such hard work. 

Justin Welby on Baptism & the Prince

Vid specially produced by the ABofC for Prince George's baptism.

"God's love is offered without qualification, without price, without cost, to all people in all circumstances always."

Interesting what isn't in here. Both the cross and the baptism in water are marks of death as well as new life. Even the future king needs to be born again to see the Kingdom of God. Surprisingly, it's down to the Guardian to point all this out.

But it's worth watching the clip to the end, the final words are excellent (see below), I might start using them in our services.

There's a baptism enquiry evening at our place tonight, wondering if there'll be a sudden influx through the West Country rain. (update 2: no rain, no influx. Having said that, we do encourage people to come along on Sunday first and meet one of the clergy, and that would have been quite tricky to manage between 9am and 7.30pm on a Tuesday. I did have an enquiry about a renewal of marriage vows at a school parents evening though, not sure if that counts.)

update: here's the text of that closing prayer
For you Jesus Christ came into the world

For you He lived and showed God’s love

For you He suffered the darkness of Calvary and cried at the last “it is accomplished”

For you He triumphed over death and rose to new life

For you He reigns at God’s right hand

All this He did for you,
   though you do not know it yet.