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[Willfor]

It sounds like Loud Whispers has experience with very small protestant churches in rural or suburban centres. These tend to be very factional and micro-political places where personal interactions, family feuds, and clan lines are often a major part of who wants to be in a church with whom. I can easily see how differences of opinion on decoration could cause a small church split. Though it's not nearly the same in comparison to the CoE. The Church of England has a far more authoritarian structure which allows for a certain amount of control over the amount of splitting that goes on. When the CoE splits it's a chasm on an international scale.

The small protestant churches will often be controlled by very vocal members of the local church more than an outside organizational structure. Pastors of these churches will only have a place as long as they tow the community line, and stay in favour enough to earn their keep. Tensions between these very vocal members of the church (or between vocal members of the church and the pastor) are often cause of splits within small churches. So yes, an argument over the drapes could very well split a small church like that.

It will NOT split the Church of England though, where the power resides more in the hands of people who have often gotten n education in Theology. The metaphorical difference is between two fans arguing about football, and two sports commentators arguing about football. One is going to physically split on far more occasions than the other.



Post-point edit: Both my mother and father are ordained ministers. I'm a little bit biased on this issue because it's been completely resolved within the church I attend since before I was even born, so it's rather difficult for me to comment on the problems facing the Church of England without going "why is this even still an issue...?"

[Ancre]

- interesting explanation -

Ah, ok. That makes sense. I come from a catholic family, so I haven't even considered that he could be talking about protestant communities -they're not churches in my head. I was racking up my brain, trying to find a schism that didn't involve complex theological issues, or political considerations, or things on that level.

[Loud Whispers]

It sounds like Loud Whispers has experience with very small protestant churches in rural or suburban centres. These tend to be very factional and micro-political places where personal interactions, family feuds, and clan lines are often a major part of who wants to be in a church with whom.

The very kind!

[Pnx]

Naaah, I don't really see it happening. The church of England tends to be fairly accepting and open minded (for a denomination of a religion that's not known for its open mindedness or acceptance at least), there might be some parishes that try to split or make trouble, but frankly a lot of people would object if their parish made trouble because their arch-bishop doesn't have a Y chromosome.

... at least I hope I'm right about that.

[Zrk2]

Well isn't that shocking. It wouldn't be like the Church has split countless times over trivial things like decorations now...

Like what ? I'm really curious now. I know of the major splits, but I have never heard of a split over decorations.

The iconoclasty debacle solidified the split between Orthodox and Catholic Christianity. IIRC.

Thanks a lot Friends for this discussion. I got lot of information form here.

TV Installation

Spambot? Spambot.

[Loud Whispers]

That was the sad bot spam bot ;(

[Ancre]

Bad spambot ! Go get your own thread !

Well isn't that shocking. It wouldn't be like the Church has split countless times over trivial things like decorations now...

Like what ? I'm really curious now. I know of the major splits, but I have never heard of a split over decorations.

The iconoclasty debacle solidified the split between Orthodox and Catholic Christianity. IIRC.

Yeah ... but it concern more things than just decoration. There's a theological debate underneath, about the representation of God. It's not just a matter of taste - besides, both Orthodoxy and Catholicism are pretty accommodating when it comes to that, what with all the different rites and whatnot.

And it just solidified the split, not caused it

[Leafsnail]

It will NOT split the Church of England though, where the power resides more in the hands of people who have often gotten n education in Theology. The metaphorical difference is between two fans arguing about football, and two sports commentators arguing about football. One is going to physically split on far more occasions than the other.

There comes a point where you kindof wish they'd just split though.  I mean, as it is the leadership has to constantly work to appease the anti-female/gay bishops (nevermind that there are already gay bishops and the church hasn't collapsed) crowd.  It means you get silly compromises such as the one described in the OP that could effectively lead to a split due to the supposed memetic virus caused by female bishops.

[Starver]

On a more on topic note, I'd like to add a few details about the Church of England that are absent from Starver's otherwise excellently informative post. Basically, its surprisingly liberal.

Ah, good point.  As someone who (areligiously) is used to the whole CofE thing (Vicar's Tea Parties, Village Fêtes, Jumble Sales, etc) it's something I take for granted.  "Liberal"[1] is what I'd assign to the Woodcraft Folk-type of CofE workshippers.  You know: guitars, clothing styles from the '60s, as likely to be worshipping in a field surrounded by tents as in any plain[3] stone-church, perhaps a little bit to the right of that church-bus crowd in the film Convoy, and with more kids running round screaming.

Mind you, on the 'conservative' side of the CofE I'd extend it up to those Little Britain-series 'Women's Institute' members who have an instant emetic reaction to any hint that 'minorities' of various kinds have been preparing their now-consumed food.

I suppose you might well say that it's "a broad church".



I suspect that is both its blessing and its curse.  By encompassing a whole range of views (and I'm just talking about CofE here, not the whole worldwide Anglican community, which I cannot even say that I've much experience of all the different aspects), there's likely to be both bible-bashers and willow-weavers in even the same congregation, until, of course, there's something untenable that can't be resolved, and some New Free Church or other gets formed in order to meet in the church hall, from now on, while the more traditionalist get to go back to singing more of the dirgeful hymns that they 'like'.


But I think the football pundits/fans analogy sounds about right, whoever said that again.  Though when pundits do spat, it's often very public.


[1] Not, by the way, a dirty word in the UK[2], i.e. not "Pinko Commie Marxist Bastard" like some in the US are known to think is an equivalent.

[2] Or wasn't, until the Con-Dem alliance, but that's for the opposite reasons...

[3] Doubtless actually much decorated, until the time of Cromwell!  They're still finding highly decorative mosaics, paintings and carvings under areas of old plaster, in some churches...

[Wayward Device]

Starver, that's disturbingly accurate. 'Cept you missed out the people sitting awkwardly at the back, only there so that they can get their kids into St whatevers, desperately trying to not give away the fact that they believe in iphones and their mortgages more than any unseen creator. And that tea and cake is the basic unit of the CoE, upon which the pillars of mighty cathedrals rest*.

*Not, of course, literally.

[ggamer]

It sounds like Loud Whispers has experience with very small protestant churches in rural or suburban centres. These tend to be very factional and micro-political places where personal interactions, family feuds, and clan lines are often a major part of who wants to be in a church with whom.

^This^

I don't have much experience with the smaller, more fractional churches.