A bitter feud between the villagers of Tillingham and their vicar continues to rage after a letter from the Bishop of Chelmsford backing the Rev Lorna Smith appeared in their parish magazine.Oh, boy….
More than 300 villagers added their signatures to a petition – which accused Rev Smith of rudeness and inefficiency – and sent it to Bishop Stephen Cottrell last month.Unfortunately, unlike other services, you can’t just expect the area general manager to say ‘Oooh, mustn’t upset the customers!’ and move the errant employee.
In the letter, Bishop Stephen writes: "I am sorry that Mr Keane and the other petitioners have raised this issue again, and have been so personal in their attack on the vicar.
"I am not proposing to meet any of the petitioners and the church must be allowed to make its own decisions."Ooooh! Get her!
What’s the problem, anyway?
From the ‘Telegraph’, we learn that this is a clash of new vs old:
The final straw in the increasingly bitter divide between Mrs Smith’s backers and her critics was her decision to remove the Victorian pews from the church, and replace them with plastic chairs, as well as installing under-floor heating, a toilet and meeting room under the bell tower.
The plan, announced late last year, led to clash between the residents who are traditional in their thinking and Mrs Smith, who is from an evangelical background.Oh, so, clearly the right person for the job? Good skillset-matching there, Bish!
Last night, Mrs Smith, who was among the first female clergy to be ordained and has been priest-in-charge at St Nicholas since 2004, was defiant, saying she had no plans to quit the parish.
“While the congregation and the bishop want me to stay, I’ll stay,” she said.
“The people who signed the petition don’t come to the church and won’t come to the church.
“I appreciate the support I’ve received from my congregation and the bishop.”Not a lot of love lost there, eh?
Mind you, seems par for the course in Essex:
A parish priest has criticised fellow believers who try and force him to adopt their ideas about the Bible.
Father Paul Fox, of the English Martyrs church, Danbury, accused them of being "bigoted and stupid" in this month's edition (September) of Little Baddow News, the village magazine.Gosh, it’s a mystery to me why the church is losing followers like Stephen Fry on a Twitterrant…
"I am sure this is why our Sacred Scriptures have lost so much respect – bigoted and stupid people thinking they have all the answers wanting to change others and become like them. Oh dear."Oh, right. It’s not trendy vicars forcing unwanted change on their congregations, then?
OK, Paul, if you say so…
Father Fox warned readers: "Never use the Bible so arrogantly as to use it to change other people's lives, thinking you have the one and only correct interpretation."Because there’s only one possible correct interpretation and it’s not yours. Get it?
I bet it’s Father Paul’s, though….
23 comments:
The answer is simple .. hit the Bish where it hurts ..
Stop going to his poxy churches, thereby depriving his collection plates of cash ..
He'll soon see sense when his sky-pixie organisation starts losing money ..
I know one shouldn't be lookist but 'computer says 'No'
Call me a cynic, but I assume the plastic chairs, underfloor heating, toilet and meeting room were paid for by the sale of valuable antique pews? With possibly a little sweetener for the Bish?
Never use the Bible so arrogantly as to use it to change other people's lives, thinking you have the one and only correct interpretation
Sounds to me very much like what the clergy have been doing for 2,000 years tbh.
wv: confige <-- seems somewhat appropriate...
If you want to put in a toilet and even underfloor heating, there will be no problem.
Since at least 1988 it has been known that if you touch the pews you will be in trouble, and you'll deserve it because only a numptie would replace good organic wooden long-life pews with oil-based scummy plastic chairs. I believe there is a special circle of hell for vicars who desecrate church fittings where they are made to sit on squeeky-wheeled typing chairs which are lined with hedgehog skin and have to sit in empty churches while begging for the passing souls to come in for all eternity.
Some of them won't even realize they are dead.
I am loath to think of myself as opportunist....but this week I am paying top prices for sheet lead with free removal thrown in.
Bring back Matthew Hopkins, I say. Lets prick a few warts and check ladies for strange moles. Got any firelighters?
"losing followers like Stephen Fry"?
You mean Stephen Fry the famous atheist comedian? That Stephen Fry?
@Prodicus
I think if you read the rest of that sentence you'll see that it was meant that the church could lose followers at the same rate that Stephen Fry loses followers when going off on a twitter rant.
Religious tolerance being tested in Tower Hamlets by lots of oddly dressed chaps, attempting to board a bus already fully laden with devout Christians, Julia.
Normal people would simply not bother with this kind of crazy situation... whenever you see anyone set this kind of game up around them, you're dealing with a narcissist psychopath.
As I commend previosuly, when did the CoE become another division of righteous lefties?
One answer is when the vicars and bishops start behaving like fully entitled public sector twats..
Christ has no vicar, except the Holy Spirit, and if He did, it would not be a female.
Ripping out pews? How stupid can some people be? Why not chuck a brick through the stained glass windows while you are at it?
Didn't we go through all this in The ARchers last year? Nearly traumatised Ambridge let alone all us eavesdroppers. Bloody CofE, like a loony left council these days presided over by a mentalist druid.
Ah, this one's been bubbling away for some time, has it not?
O/T sorry but up late... and thought I was overtired and seeing things... but this is true...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033944/Judge-orders-Camden-Council-publish-list-homes.html
Like... :O
"Stop going to his poxy churches, thereby depriving his collection plates of cash .."
It seems that's exactly what many have done!
"With possibly a little sweetener for the Bish?"
I couldn't possibly comment!
"Sounds to me very much like what the clergy have been doing for 2,000 years tbh."
Indeed! Perhaps they just hate competition?
"Some of them won't even realize they are dead."
HEH!
"...when the vicars and bishops start behaving like fully entitled public sector twats.."
There is a startling resemblance, isn't there?
"Why not chuck a brick through the stained glass windows while you are at it?"
Don't give them ideas!
"...thought I was overtired and seeing things... but this is true..."
*boggle*
I vote we retaliate by releasing a list of judge's houses.
So exactly who should the local church be run for? The people who turn up several times a week or the hatch / match / dispatch crew who claim to have inherited their stall at the Village Fete from their granny but spend their Sunday's worshipping at the alter of the Sunday Mail?
The pews. Big problem with elderly and disabled parishoners. Already ripped out? So either Rev Smith is flouting planning laws or the pews weren't exactly of the quality that gets the interior listed. Luckily, several priests ago we had one who had trained as a joiner - so we lost several pews, on was halved to provide a wheelchair space etc. But that's quite expensive to do if you can't get the labour for free.
Oh, and our pews - victorian and hideous. Choir stalls are okay-ish though.
w/v nearly very good - claphy.
Damn grocers. Get everywhere :(
If she didn't have the support of the PCC then there might have been a different response. But as the news story indicates she has the support of the PCC I suspect those complaining don't go to Church. If they did, they would be able to elect people to the PCC who reflect their views. They hold annual elections to PCC in the C of E.
The Church pays its own way, unlike the public sector. Church of England parishes need approval to do major works - they're called Faculties - and these need approval from the Diocese which also requires public notices and consultations, in addition to any requirements from planning or building regulations or English Heritage. Part of the approval process is approval by the PCC of the work before application to the Diocese. The story indicates that that the Church leapt through all the required hoops. Maybe the priest could have done more to keep the local community onside, but without knowing the size of the congregation and how she has done since appointed I can't tell if she has done a good job in ministering to Christians in Tillingham and growing the Church.
Religion, in all it's forms, is for the simple minded.
RantinRab:
'Religion, in all it's forms, is for the simple minded.'
From a guy who doesn't know how to use an apostrophe.
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