I am reading Roger Scruton's England: An Elegy. It is, as its title suggests, a book lamenting the passing of an English character that once was and now no longer is.Put very briefly, the Church was domesticated in England, defined, like everything elses, by a place rather than a doctrine or a chain of command. It adapted to the core religous experience of the English, which was of the consecrated nature of their island. Its ceremonies and liturgies sanctified the English language, the English landscape, the English law and institutions and the English Crown - the mysterious corporation sole which is also the supreme fiction in this fairytale. p. 18
The Anglican religion in other words has helped formed the English social imaginery- to define its dreaming. The trouble is, if you shatter the myth, you lose the dreaming. And there is little you can find that will replace it...
Still, this is an explicitly religious view of Anglicanism, and one which shows how deeply unChristian Anglicanism can be ...
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The Anglican religion in other words has helped formed the English social imaginery
The quote from the book makes it sound as if the relationship started the other way round.
Interesting issue, taking note of the relationship between culture and faith. It hurts my head and sensibilities thinking about it; I start to get uncomfortable real quick.
Yep. I sometimes wonder, working in an Anglican church, full of stained glass pictures of Angloform Biblical heroes, whether all the Chinese people who come in notice at all.
Andrew
and one which shows how deeply unChristian Anglicanism can be ...
Do you mean un-Christian or (as it were) a-Christian?
Perhaps it would be more reasonable to say 'a-Christian': but I think the famed 'reasonableness' and 'balance' of Anglicanism is an attempt to fit Christianity to the prevailing culture that oftentimes betrays Christianity...
OK, I think this is what I had in mind.
One can discuss the extent to which "reasonableness" and "balance" cohere with Christian thought --- and surely one would have to do that case-by-case, rather than in general --- but it's clear enough that the emphasis on these traits is driven by a (sub?)-cultural preference.
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