A Word about … Signs of the ‘Times’

Abstract

A popular saying of my rural childhood was "You can see a lot by looking." The gist of this homespun aphorism is that a great deal of useful information is available to the truly attentive person. The saying rang true recently when I received a new perspective on the mission of the church in the pages of the Sunday New York Times.Reading the Sunday Times is a pleasure I rarely get to enjoy. For all the benefits of living in an idyllic collegiate village, it is nevertheless thirty miles round trip to the nearest Times outlet. Traveling that distance never seems to be a good use of Sabbath time or carbon emissions. A recent weekend getaway, however, provided the opportunity to spend a leisurely morning in an urban coffeehouse with a great cup of joe and "all the news that's fit to print." Two items in the "Week in Review" section, however, redirected my thoughts from my brief vacation back to the great vocation of the Church's mission in the world. Liquidating the Church of England?The first item was obvious enough as a reminder of the challenges the church faces in an increasingly post-Christian culture. An opinion writer pondered what to do with the vast properties of the Church of England in light of its seemingly irreversible decline in worshippers and finances. The writer quickly moved to a meditation (obituary?) on the decline of England's national church. The Church of England was once the religious embodiment of England's national identity, its bishops flanking the king and queen on the chess board of society. Currently, however, it is threatened with possible obsolescence by a culture that has moved beyond even a nominal Christian identity and is more reflective of the cultural kaleidoscope of the British Empire than the Anglo culture of the church's history, leadership, and liturgy.