Changing sides
ASH WEDNESDAY went off very well this year. Morning and evening services at the church, and then to a care home in the afternoon — though I must admit that telling particularly elderly people that to dust they shall return always makes me hesitate for a fraction of a second.
Hundreds of years ago, when I was at school, a vicar would come to administer ashes to those who were interested. Both teachers and pupils would participate, but they were in a minority. One year, the school rogue asked to take part, and we were all amazed that the little thug showed such enthusiasm.
He came back from the temporary chapel, dipped his finger in a desk inkwell — yes, I’m that old — and turned the cross on his forehead into the letters WHU, standing for his favourite football team, West Ham United. When the teacher came back, the hooligan was sent to the headmaster’s office, but received only a telling-off and a detention. Given what he was like, a Reformation heresy trial would have been more fitting.
Mixed motives
THIS year is the 500th anniversary of William Tyndale’s English New Testament, which, in turn, had an enormous influence on the King James Bible. Some of the prose is lyrical and timeless, and Tyndale was as much poet as linguist.
The poor man was, however, yet another victim of Henry VIII, as it was the old brute who had him taken prisoner in Antwerp. In 1536, he was strangled and then burned at the stake. Henry wasn’t a forgiving man. Tyndale had opposed the annulment of the royal marriage to Catherine of Aragon because he considered it unscriptural.
Also, while the King wanted to eliminate papal control of the English Church — a far from unique desire in Catholic Europe — he was certainly no Protestant. It’s one of the reasons that so many Catholic bishops and lay leaders supported him in his reforms, and that martyrs such as Thomas More and John Fisher were heroic, but unusual. It is all far more nuanced than some modern Roman Catholic online warriors would have us believe.
Distant view
HERE, in Canada, it is difficult not to look at the agonising decisions over same-sex blessings or even marriage in the Church of England and wonder what all the fuss is about.
I mean no insult, and fully understand the contrary arguments, and how seriously they are taken, but the reality is that if such changes were adopted — in my diocese, I doubt there’s a church that wouldn’t marry a gay couple — surely nothing earth-shattering would happen. I cannot think of a single aspect of my ministry and my evangelism that has changed since we gave churches individual choice on this subject — apart, that is, from the way in which the Christian message has become more appealing to younger people, who cannot comprehend opposition to the equality of their gay friends.
On a personal note, as a straight man married for 38 years, and with four straight children, I owe more to gay clergy in my formation and faith than I can ever say. I honestly don’t think I would have been ordained without their guidance and inspiration.
More or less
I HAVE been on a diet for most of my adult life — which means that I’ve failed in dieting for most of my adult life. But this time it worked! Seemingly without effort, and with relatively few changes to my eating habits, I lost two stone. Could it be a miracle? Caring, concerned people at church asked whether I was OK. “I’ve never felt so healthy,” I replied, “and, at last, the diet is working.”
It was only when our youngest daughter hugged me one day and said that there was nothing of me — a lie, because 12 stone is hardly nothing — that I reluctantly agreed to see our lovely doctor. He phoned me after my blood-test results came in. “Nothing to worry about, medication will likely deal with it, but you’ve got hyperthyroidism. Rapid, unexplained weight-loss is a major symptom.”
I asked whether the meds would mean that I regained the weight. Long pause. “Maybe not all of it.” In other words, not a miracle at all. God really does move in mysterious — and sometimes deeply annoying — ways.
Priests and infidels
I SEE that the punchily eccentric Calvin Robinson has made a few ripples again, being received to minister in yet another small, but, I’m sure, charming, Church (News, 20 February).
I met him in 2022 when I was on holiday in London, and he asked me to appear on a show that he then hosted on GB News. The panel discussion concerned buffer zones around abortion clinics that prevent protest and even prayer taking place too close to the facility.
I said that, while I wished that abortion rates would drop — which can be achieved through economic support for women, modern sex education in schools, enforced child support, and so on — I supported reproductive choice, and certainly didn’t want a return to former times. Often frightened and vulnerable women had a right, I continued, to enter a clinic without harassment. Pray by all means, I insisted.
Prayer is sacred, prayer forms the centre of my life, but God hears prayers wherever they are said. It is about sincerity, not proximity; and, anyway, we have to be able to compromise and empathise on these divisive issues.
After I left the studio, Calvin wrote on X to his then 232,000 followers, that “For a Christian to be pro-abortion and anti-prayer is bad enough; for a priest it is unfathomable.” And, “Twisting scripture like that is wicked. . . judgment awaits. I pray he repents.” Hardly an accurate description of what I thought and had said.
For the next two days, I received abuse, threats, attacks on my family, and promises of violence — all of it entirely predictable, of course. I do hope Calvin is happy in his new denomination.
Mind the gap
LENT is upon us. Believe it or not, I once fasted for the entire season: a glass of tomato juice and a vitamin pill each day, but otherwise nothing. I would never do it again, and I don’t mention this to give any sort of approval. I was relatively young and healthy, I found it much easier than I’d expected, and there were certainly powerful spiritual consequences — and also very bad breath.
One thing that I did learn was that actors who portray eating after long-term hunger always get it wrong. Pouncing ravenously on food simply isn’t what happens. I now believe that Lenten behaviour is far subtler and more delicate — and consequently more profound.
Denying oneself something has to be intensely personal and is often intangible. It is less the action itself than the vacuum, the absence, that it provides, and whether it can be filled with God and prayer and self-reflection. We have to ask whether, in our sacrifices, we can come closer to Christ — and are we always aware that it’s not the act itself that matters, but what it can achieve regarding our relationship with our Creator?
Whatever you decide, I wish you blessings and growth as you tread these Lenten lands. It’s a grand journey.
The Revd Michael Coren is a journalist, and a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada.
