Altar reverence

Source: Church Times

Church Times (£):
"THE consistory court of the diocese of Leicester has refused to grant a faculty for the introduction of a new altar frontal at St Nicholas’s, Leicester, displaying the Progress Pride flag and incorporating a cross in the design.

"The Progress Pride flag was 'not a Christian emblem', the Chancellor Naomi Gyane said. While it was 'a sign of welcome for people from the LGBTQIA+ community, and although not itself political,' it was, she said, 'a secular contemporary emblem used for many causes and contemporary discourse'."

From the same article:
"He [Dr Ian Paul. one of the objectors] stated that the purpose of the table at which holy communion was celebrated was to focus the congregation on remembering the death of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and not to focus on contemporary and political issues; and that the presence of the Progress Pride flag introduced a tension with the teachings of Jesus and the scriptures as a whole into the centre of the rite of communion."

Exactly! Take note the Church in Wales. See here and here.

 Church in Wales, St Augustine's Rumney                                                                   Source: Twitter

Misuse of the altar

Altar frontal!                                                                                                                                                     Source: Twitter

  

The main focus in a church is the altar where the eucharist is celebrated.

The altar frontal should be of the colour of the day, offering no distraction from Christ's sacrificial death.

Substituting a Progress Pride flag as the altar frontal diverts attention away from Christ's sacrifice to a form of political activism, in this case advancing the cause of a particular group engaged in activities contrary to biblical teaching. 

The Progress Pride flag differs from the gay pride in that it includes the Intersex community. What next one wonders?

Described as a "beautiful altar frontal in a friend's church" this is the second time I have seen it on Twitter of late. 

Presumably the 'friend' is @RevdJacquiT whose original tweet is no longer visible to all because the account owner has since limited access to approved followers. However, some of the responses to her original tweet are still visible here, including "God knew exactly what she was doing in calling you"!

We have been here before - see The big lie. Misuse of the sacred leads to indifference and loss of mystery, the 'otherness' that set the church apart.