Resurging Anglicanism: Signs of Hope

Liturgical worship is coming back (anglicanmom)

There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth regarding the collapse of British society. There are widespread allegations that the British elites condemn displays of patriotism but look the other way at immigrant grooming gangs and rape culture.

There is reason for hope: there are signs of a resurgent Christianity, led by Anglicanism, that can counter the Islamist wave and beat back the secularism that has dominated British culture in the second half of the 20th century. [bold added]

Across Britain, a wealth of evidence tells of a modest but real Christian revival.

Anglican clergy regularly describe a “steady trickle” of new parishioners seeking to know more about the faith. Some Catholic dioceses note a sharp increase in adults asking to be baptized. In July, the coastal town of Bournemouth witnessed a mass baptism of 92 new Christians in the sea. More than 1,000 attended the service—a striking display in a society where faith tends to be privately nurtured more than it is publicly proclaimed.

Ms. [Jo] Gilbert works for a parish in Brighton and coordinates the Catholic chaplaincy team for the town’s two universities. She has worked with students and young people for two decades. The past few years, she says, have seen a marked change. “A lot of us working in pastoral ministry, and a lot of people in a lot of churches, are saying we’re seeing a renewed interest and spiritual openness, and more new converts.”

...Such stories have been brought into focus by a controversial study from YouGov, one of the U.K.’s most respected polling companies. The study, titled “The Quiet Revival,” claimed that churchgoing surged from 3.7 million in 2018 to 5.8 million in 2024—a 56% increase. The most marked change, according to the data, was among 18- to 24-year-olds, among whom churchgoing was said to have quadrupled.

It's still early days, and indeed some of the enthusiasm with which this trend has been received may be inflated by wishful thinking, but I, for one, prefer to hope than despair.

The Bread of Life

Today's Gospel was from John 6:

Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The lady minister discussed Holy Communion, the sacrament in which Christians partake of bread and wine that represent the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

Then she gave a quick overview of transubstantiation and consubstantiation, doctrines that Christians have argued about for centuries. The former is the Catholic tenet that the bread and wine are actually transformed into Jesus' body and blood, while the latter is a belief that the bread and wine remain intact but are joined with Jesus' body and blood during the mass.

Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I (1533-1603), before she became Queen of England, rejected both doctrines and accepted the Calvinist principle that the bread and wine were but symbols; Jesus Himself wasn't physically present during Communion, though God was. She wrote:

Twas God the Word that spake it,
He took the Bread and brake it:
And what that Word did make it,
That I believe and take it.

Elizabeth I of England, along with Isabella of Spain, were among the greatest--and keenest--monarchs in European history. Their actions (financing Columbus' expeditions, driving the Moors out of Iberia during the Spanish Inquisition, defeating the Spanish armada and keeping England independent from Spain) shaped the world today.

Four centuries before women's rights, these powerful women didn't understand that they should have stepped aside to let white males control everything.

The Golden Spoon

The new king's official title is:

Charles III, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.

The last phrase, Defender of the Faith, sounds quaint, but it is steeped in history.

Though the English dispensed with the divine right of kings when they deposed Charles I in 1649, they haven’t done away with the ideas of divinity, right and kingship. Consecrated, this mild-mannered constitutional monarch emerged from the abbey as one of the world’s few priest-kings. Charles is the head of the state and its church. He symbolically fuses the secular and spiritual, like the pharaohs of Egypt, the despots of Assyria and his late mother.

...Though Charles swore to serve his people, an anointed monarch’s first duty is to God. Charles is the fidei defensor—defender of the faith—in this case the Anglican confession.

The golden coronation spoon is 800-1000 years old

A world-wide audience viewed the coronation, but Charles' anointment as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England was hidden from the cameras:

Behind a hand-woven screen in Westminster Abbey, Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, took up the oldest item in the coronation regalia—a golden spoon—and anointed the king’s hands, chest and head with holy oil...

The crowning was the style, but the Christian rite was the symbolic content. Anointing with chrism reaches back to the prophet Samuel’s anointing of Saul as the first king of ancient Israel, and further back, to the origins of political and religious authority in the kingdoms of the early Bronze Age.

The American founders gave great consideration to how the government they were creating would differ from England's. One obvious change is the omission of the monarchy. The second difference is the prohibition of an "establishment of religion," aka a "wall of separation" between "church and state." The union of the two most powerful institutions in Great Britain, according to American observers at the time, made errors impossible to rectify.

Over two centuries later the passions have subsided. The British monarchy is now largely ceremonial, and the Anglican church is but a shadow of its former self ("UK Church membership has declined from 10.6 million in 1930 to 5.5 Million in 2010, or as a percentage of the population; from about 30% to 11.2%.")

We can admire without reservation the relics of power, like the golden spoon, knowing that their power has dissipated.

English Breakfast: Good, But Once Was Plenty

On my first business trip to London in the 1990's the stereotype about English food ("bland, soggy, overcooked, and visually unappealing") I found generally true. But I was pleasantly surprised by the English breakfast.

The full English breakfast has been a staple of the nation’s diet for hundreds of years, but no one can quite agree on what should be included—or left out...

Almost everyone agrees sausages and bacon belong on the plate, but after that things get more complicated. What about mushrooms, fried bread or grilled tomatoes? Should eggs be fried, scrambled or poached? Hasn’t anyone heard of vegetables?

The breakfast that was served to me had fried tomatoes and beans but no blood sausage. In a bow to American sensibilities the restaurant offered, and I gratefully accepted, coffee. (I'd rather have eaten the blood sausage than drunk the abominable tea-with-milk-and-sugar.)

The English breakfast was expensive--£12, when the exchange rate was about $1.60 / £1 and it was 30 years ago--and the travel policy covered it. Given the quantity of food, I refrained from having another "full English" and contented myself with a croissant for breakfast the rest of the trip. It was good, but once was plenty.

Queen of Hearts

1954: Winston Churchill, Charles, Anne (WSJ)

The world spins on, but days after her death Queen Elizabeth II still commands space on front pages and magazine covers and lead minutes on broadcasts.

And deservedly so.

She has been in the public eye since the day she was born, her life spanned nearly a century, and she conducted herself throughout with dignity and refinement. Her first Prime Minister was Winston Churchill, and her 15th was Liz Truss, whom the Queen appointed two days before she died.

Hers was a life of pomp, circumstance, and privilege, yet few would view that as acceptable payment if it meant perpetual responsibility and never-ending scrutiny.

It's difficult to put into words what she meant not only to Britons but her admirers around the world. From an American-British citizen:

2022: Liz Truss (WSJ)

Queen Elizabeth’s great gift was her ability to maintain that affection over so many decades, many of them very difficult for her country. She did this by being constantly present in the nation’s life without ever seeming overbearing, and by taking care to stay out of politics.

This allowed her to ask for, and receive, the love of her people without demanding of them the impossible—toleration for a suffocating presence or assent to political positions they might not share.

Peggy Noonan:

She wanted to be a queen the country adhered to and was proud of, so she maintained dignity. She knew her role. She didn’t show moods or take sides, never tried to win the crowd, didn’t attempt to establish a reputation for wit or good nature. She was in her public dealings placid, as a great nation’s queen would be.

...The great of Britain have been talking for years about how sad it will be when she departs. They’re about to be taken aback by how deep and pervasive the mourning is.

I shall not look upon [her] like again.---Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2

We Will Miss Her More Than We Realize

The Queen's coronation, 1953 (photo from Royal Family website)

There are significant events from 1952, my birth year. Ike was elected, the Korean War continued, the U.S. set off the first hydrogen bomb—-but for my money the most significant event in retrospect was Queen Elizabeth II’s ascension to the throne.

Today Queen Elizabeth II passed away. Through all the tumult of the past 70 years she was rock-steady in her demeanor and graciousness. We will miss her more than we realize.

The Queen's platinum jubilee, 2022 (photo from Royal Family website)

Persuasion by Netflix

Not your grandmother's Jane Austen: Dakota Johnson's
Anne Elliot breaks the fourth wall and holds a rabbit
throughout the film.

Still a Jane Austen neophyte, I watched Netflix' Persuasion this month. Like the screen versions of Pride and Prejudice, the movie necessarily dispenses with the nuances of the novel in order to tell the story in under two hours. If inspired to move on to the book, the viewer can then savor the subtleties of the characters as they navigate the rules of Regency society.

To get right to the point, I liked the film. It had outrageously self-absorbed characters that provided the grist for protagonist Anne Elliot's ironic observations, and the requisite Austen plot twists that provided a happy ending for most of the players.

But it's a good thing that I didn't read the reviews first. They slammed the movie because of the modern dialogue ("He's a 10" "Now we're strangers, worse than strangers, we're exes") and the 21st-century sensibility of Anne Elliot.

Here's an example of movie dialogue that would never come from the pen of Jane Austen.

[Male character]: He [Wentworth] could be an admiral some day, great service to the Crown and all that it holds dear, but instead he'd rather fart around inland for the rest of his life.

[Woman character] Oh, let the man fart where he likes.

It's obvious why diehard Austen fans ("Janeites") are outraged, but I'm not so wedded to historical authenticity. It's fiction.

A Woman Sits Alone

The Queen has 16 "regnal titles". In Great Britain her regnal title is:

Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.

On Saturday she was a 94-year-old widow, sitting alone in St. George's chapel, mourning the loss of her husband of 73 years.

Among the nearly 8 billion people in the world, Queen Elizabeth II is without equal in rank, wealth, and privilege. Those who have ideological blinders find it impossible to look beyond the symbol. But the vast majority, I hope and believe, see the person, remember their own sorrows, and share the heartbreak.

Doing His Duty

Prince Philip (21) in 1942

For decades there have been a raft of movies and books about women who labored behind the scenes during great historical events. Usually men took the credit for their work, and the women, unacknowledged, took their place in the background. Values may have changed over the decades, but one that hasn't is the special regard for those who strive for the greater good without seeking praise for their own contributions

If we honor those self-effacing women, what shall we say about Prince Philip (1921-2021) who stood in the shadow of Queen Elizabeth II for 73 years? The Prince consort knew his duty to be loyal, supportive, and in the background. It wasn't easy for a young man of accomplishment:

In 1940 Prince Philip joined the Royal Navy, serving with distinction in World War II in the Mediterranean and the Pacific. During a 1941 battle off the coast of Greece, his skillful manning of his ship's searchlight helped his crew sink two Italian cruisers in five minutes, [biographer Ben] Pimlott writes. In 1942, at the age of 21, he was one of the youngest officers ever named first lieutenant and second-in-command of a destroyer.

He began wooing Princess Elizabeth in earnest toward the end of the war...Around the time of his marriage to Elizabeth in 1947, Prince Philip became a naturalized British citizen and was named Duke of Edinburgh.

When Elizabeth became queen in 1952, Prince Philip gave up his active naval career for full-time royal duties, serving as his wife's consort and as patron to charitable organizations. Asked about his life in a 1992 interview, he betrayed some regret about the trade-offs. "I didn't want to be President of the World Wildlife Fund," he said. "I'd much rather have stayed in the navy, frankly."

Before the war Philip's life did not conform to the stereotypical image of a royal life.

Philip had a relatively rough childhood. While he was still an infant, a Greek revolutionary court sentenced his father, Prince Andrew, to banishment for life for disobeying a miltary order during a battle with Turkey. That forced the family of seven to flee the country...

They lived an "impoverished" life in exile in a house provided by a relative on the outskirts of Paris...

Prince Philip's father effectively abandoned the family when the prince was 9, and his mother suffered a nervous breakdown and spent many years in mental-health clinics.

Philip married into privilege, perhaps the most archetypically privileged family in the world. Membership, however, comes at a high price, and, as younger family members have shown, a price not everyone is willing to bear. Philip accepted his responsibilities for nearly 100 years. R.I.P.

Pride and Prejudice: Getting Unstuck

In June I described why I found the novel Pride and Prejudice to be heavy going:

I find English manners in the 19th century to be stupefying, when women can only meet the male object of their desire by being properly introduced through a mutual acquaintance, they spend chapters discussing how they can manipulate the mutual acquaintance, woman and man have the meeting where a few words are spoken, then the women discuss for chapters what the words meant. Arrggh.

Though Jane Austen's prose wasn't difficult, the various story lines moved at a glacial pace. Finally I got unstuck by watching the 2005 movie, which by necessity had to dispense with wordy nuance and even some minor characters in order to do justice to the major plot lines within the two-hour running time.

One example: a pivotal point in the book, about halfway through, is the letter that Mr. Darcy writes to Elizabeth Bennett. One chapter is a recitation of the text of the letter, and the next chapter is devoted to Elizabeth's thoughts about it. Just one minute of the film is spent on both, as the letter is reduced to a few bullet points while the actress Keira Knightley's facial expressions communicate her reaction to each revelation.

Once I knew where the novel was going, I resumed reading. With the impetus of finding-out-what-happens removed, I could better appreciate the descriptions of early 19th century England, the obsession with class and wealth in a world where learned but unmarried women had few property rights and could easily fall into a life of desperate poverty, and the interior monologues of the Bennett women (Jane Austen's narrator wasn't privy to the thoughts of the male characters).

The younger me would have refused to see the movie or read the Cliff's Notes version in order experience the novel as the writer intended. The older me is more interested in finishing things, and not necessarily in the best way possible. When the clock is running out, you use the tools at your disposal to get unstuck.

British Foods That are Hard to Find Here

In America we don't serve these British foods partly because their names can't even be printed on the menu.

Faggots and groaty dick: Why some foods travel and others don't

Faggots are a kind of meatball

Michelin starred chef Glynn Purnell...said the recent surge in "nose-to-tail" eating - a movement which looks to cook the whole animal rather than focus on choice cuts - has seen faggots popping up at eateries across the UK. "It is estimated that tens of millions of faggots are eaten every year, so they can't be that unpopular"...

Groaty dick: firms up after cooling

The thick meat porridge - sometimes known as groaty pudding - found its way to the Black Country, where it is still made at the Black Country Living Museum's bonfire night.

Made from oat husks, leeks, onions stock and cheap cuts of beef, its appeal once lay in the fact it was "calorie heavy, cheap to make and could be left on the range for hours while out at work or looking after children," said curator Grant Bird....

"In the olden days they'd cook this so thick, let it get cold, then cut it like a cake...the man would take a slice of this in his satchel to work and munch on it."

Both dishes have British working-class origins and are the antithesis of the low-carb plant-based organic foods that the educated folk are eating. If I could find them in the Bay Area, I'd give them a try.

The Plague Village

Eyam plague cottage (geograph.org.uk image)

Geraldine Brooks researched the English village of Eyam when she wrote her historical novel. Eyam (pronounced "eem", like seem without the s) was devastated by the plague 3½ centuries ago: [bold added]

In the parish church of St. Lawrence, a small, stark display told the story of the cottagers’ ordeal in 1665, when bubonic plague struck the village.

The disease, thought to have been carried from London in a bolt of infected cloth ordered by an itinerant tailor, began to take hold. Convinced by their pastor, the villagers took the unique decision to voluntarily quarantine themselves rather than flee, which would have spread the contagion. For a year, they lived cut off from the world, their supplies left at a boundary stone at the village edge. Illness racked the population, killing an estimated two-thirds of the 300 souls who resided there but sparing the surrounding communities.

There are few written records from that period because "In 1665, most villagers were illiterate miners or shepherds who could leave no account of their year in isolation."

Coincidentally the existence of microbes was discovered in 1665, but it wasn't until two centuries later that microorganisms were identified as the cause of disease, food spoilage, and other afflictions of humanity.

The villagers of Eyam had a limited understanding of plague, but they did know physical distancing would slow its spread. They could flee and save their own lives, or isolate themselves to save others. They chose the latter.

We have vastly greater medical knowledge and resources than the long-ago people of Eyam, who like today's frontline workers, didn't let fear rule their decisions.

They were better people than we are.

Held Up Very Well

(Image from Smithsonian Magazine)

The first Christmas card was created by Sir Henry Cole in 1843. The Londoner was facing the daunting task of answering "stacks" of holiday correspondence.

He approached an artist friend, J.C. Horsley, and asked him to design an idea that Cole had sketched out in his mind. Cole then took Horsley’s illustration—a triptych showing a family at table celebrating the holiday flanked by images of people helping the poor—and had a thousand copies made by a London printer. The image was printed on a piece of stiff cardboard 5 1/8 x 3 1/4 inches in size. At the top of each was the salutation, “TO:_____” allowing Cole to personalize his responses, which included the generic greeting “A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year To You.”

The themes have proved to be durable: family, charity, conviviality, and a simple "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year", with no religious or commercial messaging. After 176 years and many variations, the original design seems humdrum, but when you think about it, it's held up very well.

Note: the local angle is that John Crichton of San Francisco owns one of the few surviving copies of the card and is lending it to the Charles Dickens Museum in London.

Blake's Time

"Albion Rose", 1793: a modern sensibility

WSJ on the William Blake exhibition at London's Tate Britain museum:

William Blake (1757-1827)....elaborated a complex mythology about a world full of angels and demons who battled for control of the human soul.

In my undergraduate years I often visited the university art museum, which had a renowned British collection. I did like Blake, but for the most part British art never evoked much of a response.

As with British food, William Blake's time may be now.

[His] muscle-bound, mutable heroes, such as Urizen and Orc, are shown undergoing mythological adventures of intricate complexity, which baffled readers at the end of the 18th century.

But they seem fit to be rediscovered now. “You think of how Blake’s imagery and universe anticipates graphic novels and superhero comics perhaps more directly than fine art practice,” [Curator Martin] Myrone said. “That, you might say, is one of the places where Blake’s legacy has ended up.”

Was It a Typo?

(Dreamstime)

In a story about the number of Anglican worshippers by country:

Unsurprisingly, the country with the largest population of followers is the foundering state, the United Kingdom. The Church of England has an incredible following of 26,000,000 people. In the second position, the Church of Nigeria has about 18,000,000 believers...

The writer meant founding ("the activity or process of beginning an institution"), not foundering ("To fail utterly; collapse: a marriage that soon foundered").

Given the sorry condition of Britain's ship of state (Brexit, immigration), however, foundering may be the correct usage.

The Perfect Princess for A Hashtag World

Still sparkling (her not him) after the wedding
vows (Daily Mail)

Time:

at thirty-six...Meghan is not only three years older than her husband-to-be, she is a fully-formed adult who has already had a successful career...

One of the reasons that Meghan has settled so quickly into royal life is that she already knows what it’s like to look down the barrel of a dozen telephoto lenses and smile as if she hasn’t a care in the world. Anyone who has worked the red carpet for years will be inoculated against the spiteful tabloid comments about a glimpse of cellulite, or a stray gray hair.

Not many civilians can adjust seamlessly into the rigors of working for ‘The Firm’, as the Royal Family is sometimes nicknamed. But as a successful television actress, Meghan already knows what it is like to be in the public eye, and how to say the same thing over and over again as if she means it.

As if it were professionally arranged, Harry has picked the perfect princess for a hashtag world.

Grape Expectations

Growing grapes in Somerset (SW England)

Climate change will not be bad for everyone. One winner could be the British wine industry.

Warmer temperatures in the U.K. due to man-made climate change could make the country a leading wine producer by the end of the century, according to new research.

In 80 years Britons won't be traveling to Provence for sunshine and chardonnay but somewhere closer to home. Maybe the French will be summering in Britain!(?)

Sacre bleu!

Hexit Before Brexit

Henry VIII (biography.com)

England has separated from Europe before.

“In 1534, the Act of Supremacy declares the king to be the head of the Church of England, completing the break with Rome.”
------ Kenneth C. Davis. “America's Hidden History.” HarperCollins.

Henry VIII founded the Anglican Church when Pope Clement VII would not annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In one of the most famous divorces in history Henry divorced Catherine and married Anne Boleyn.

In 1517 Martin Luther had birthed the Reformation by posting the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle church. A few years later, but before the events of 1534, Henry defended the Roman Catholic Church against Luther's heresies in one of history's ironies. (The Pope rewarded England's monarch with the title "Defender of the Faith").

The fracturing of Western Christianity has lasted nearly 500 years. Henry's exit ("Hexit"?) was far more consequential than Brexit is ever likely to be.

The Upper Hand

The major stock market averages are down about 3% three hours before the close. Yesterday's British referendum to leave the European Union ("Brexit") has injected a huge dose of uncertainty. Normally, your humble small investor would view the current circumstances as a buying opportunity, but the problems may well extend beyond the impact on Great Britain.

According to British WSJ columnist James Mackintosh we can foresee either a short correction or a "rolling crisis": [bold added]

If the world sees Brexit as a cry of anguish from a small island somewhere to the northwest of the world’s biggest trading bloc, then the market correction elsewhere could be nasty and brutish, but short.

As a British passport holder I tend to think an impending disaster for the world’s fifth-largest economy could be the next round of the rolling crisis that started with U.S. subprime, crushed Lehman and then the eurozone before flattening emerging markets. Each showed the weaknesses in the global economy, and prompted proper arm-waving panic before central banks got them under control. I may be biased, but it feels as though there could be a lot further to fall before the central banks can stabilize markets.

The market is driven by both fear and greed, and fear is holding the upper hand.