Of all the Christmas carols the Church of England could have chosen to update for their #AtTheHeartOfChristmas campaign they chose Christina Rossetti's In the Bleak Midwinter.
Similarly the beauty of the Book of Common Prayer has not been surpassed by attempts to modernise it. Its language is timeless and comforting, presenting an otherness which modern attempts at revision frequently lack.
Ecumenical News reports that In England and Wales number of Christians falls to half the population, while in US similar pattern shows:
"Figures from 2019 show that only 51 percent of people in England and Wales are Christian, while those with no religion account for more than one-third., Christian Today reported on Dec. 17.
"A few days earlier, Pew Research Center published a survey showing that about three-in-ten U.S. Adults are now religiously unaffiliated, and self-identified Christians make up 63 percent of the U.S. population in 2021, down from 75 percent a decade ago."
This is in marked contrast to the #TeamBelieve campaign which would have us believe that everything in the twitter garden is rosy.
It probably is for career women in the Church who now have everything they wanted - while it lasts!
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| Source: Twitter |
Personally I wish they hadn't chosen "In the bleak winter" at all. I know that many people like it, but in my view it's poor poetry which reinforces sentimental views about Christmas. (Verse 2 is quite good though). Sorry!
ReplyDeleteOn the evening ofJanuary 2nd I shall have the great privilege of officiating at the service of Nine Lessons and Carols at Cranham parish church. Cranham was the Cotwold village where Gustav Holst's mother lived and he named the tune he composed to accompany the Carol "In the bleak mid-winter after the village. Without doubt that glorious carol with that wonderful tune will be included in the service.
ReplyDeleteEven so, Harold Darke's sublime tune is, rightly, becoming even more popular. Rosetti's poetry is equally of an extremely high order and her theology faultless, while the descriptions are so atmospheric.
ReplyDeleteRob
I like them all so you're all correct.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you Rob and Harold. My view was coloured by past experience of a church organist who delighted in playing 'the wrong' tune. The congregation would ready themselves to sing with gusto only to be silenced, wondering if the wrong number had been put on the hymn board, something I imagined would happen if the Rebecca Dale version were played.
ReplyDelete'... the beauty of the Book of Common Prayer has not been surpassed by attempts to modernise it. Its language is timeless and comforting, presenting an otherness which modern attempts at revision frequently lack.'
ReplyDeleteFair comment - at least in respect of the revisions from the 1980s onward,though I'd be prepared to argue that the early revisions in the 1960s and '70s - in Chancellor Parry's era - don't merit that criticism.
But the problem remains that the BCP represented a theology which had already started to become considerably unrepresentative of Anglican thinking and devotion even in 1662, and over time was destined to become yet more so. Some revision, in consequence, was surely both inevitable and necessary.