Posted on 07/06/2006 5:28:52 PM PDT by sionnsar
Somebody please put the Church of England out of my misery:
His dragon-slaying heroics have kept his legend alive through the centuries.
But the Church of England is considering rejecting England’s patron saint St George on the grounds that his image is
ALL TOGETHER NOW!!
too warlike and may offend Muslims.
Who does the C of E want to replace him with?
Clergy have started a campaign to replace George with St Alban, a Christian martyr in Roman Britain.
Apparently this blinkered philistine pig ignorance plan has some support.
The scheme, to be considered by the Church’s parliament, the General Synod, has met a cautious but sympathetic response from senior bishops.
The proposal has been put forward by the Rev Philip Chester, vicar of St Matthew’s, Westminster, who has called the use of St George as patron saint ’dotty’.
Pot? This is kettle. You're really black, you know that? While this pinheadedness idea may have backing among certain of the Few, the Spineless bishops, the comments following this story seem to indicate that if this goes through, Wells Cathedral will be on the market late next year. Dr. Williams got all Laodicean Anglican.
Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams indicated support for an upgrade for Alban, although he is said to be cautious about relegation for George.
He told the Sunday Times: ’I think St Alban is irreplaceable in the history of English Christianity. Perhaps we ought to raise his profile because it’s the beginning of the church in this country with martyrdom, wisdom and courage.’
This is one reason for this gutless, politically correct stupidity proposal.
The image of St George was used to foster patriotism in 1940, when King George VI inaugurated the George Cross for civilian acts of the greatest bravery. The medal bears a depiction of the saint slaying the dragon.
Which is apparently a bad thing in modern Europe.
However, George has become unfashionable among politicians and bureaucrats. His saint’s day, April 23, has no official celebration in England, and councils have banned the St George flag from their buildings and vehicles during the World Cup.
But this is what really hurts George's standing with the clueless pseudo Christian jellyfish bishops who run the C of E.
The saint became an English hero during the crusades against the Muslim armies that captured Jerusalem in the 11th century.
An apparition of George is said to have appeared to the crusader army at the Battle of Antioch in 1098.
And whatever they claim to pray to these days knows, the C of E won't defend the faith once delivered to the saints since they stopped believing it a long time ago. Consequently, they REALLY do like to grovel some.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Sionnsar, please forgive my apparent ignorance - I thought St. George was a mythological character. Am I wrong?
There appears not to be an absolute certainty, but the Roman Catholic online encyclopedia New Advent seem to think there seems ... no ground for doubting the historical existence of St. George. A search on Google will turn up many links...
Santiago Matamoros!
(let us be really politically incorrect!)
"Santiago y cierra España" eh!
"But the Church of England is considering rejecting England’s patron saint St George on the grounds that his image is too warlike and may offend Muslims."
Not to mention that dragons are an endagered species.
The original patron for the Americas!
But these pusillanimous pointy-hats throwing St. George overboard just makes me REALLY mad!
Not one.
Mr. Johnson is, ihmo, engaging in Chicken Little hystronics for the purpose of an article. Perhaps it was a slow week for him. After all, England did lose in the World Cup, thanks, in part to Rooney's groin shot, leaving England only 10 players on the field. There isn't a Brit in the Wimbledon finals, as usual. So, maybe riling up the folks with this whimical story from some feminist nut case filled the daily quota for article submission.
My 2 cents.
Curious. If you click through the link Chris provided, you end up at the Daily Mail (dailymail.co.uk), with an article titled "Will George be slayed as England's patron saint?" and containing the following:
The proposal has been put forward by the Rev Philip Chester, vicar of St Matthew's, Westminster, who has called the use of St George as patron saint 'dotty'.Just to be sure the location was in England, I found the website of St Matthew's, Westminster, London, and sure enough, they have a Fr. Philip Chester.
I'd say it looks like your assertion is incorrect -- although to be fair the website does not tell us if this Fr. Philip Chester of St Matthew's, Westminster, London SW1P 2BU is male or female.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_George#Muslim_world
wikipedia entry on st george:
"In Islamic cultures, the figure of al-Khadr (or al-Khidr; according to the Qur'an a companion of the prophet Moses), is associated with St.George, who is also venerated under that name by Christians among mainly Muslim people, especially Palestinian people, and mainly around Jerusalem, where according to tradition he lived and often prayed near the Temple Mount, and is venerated as a protector in times of crisis. His main monument is the elongated mosque Qubbat al-Khadr ('The Dome of al-Khadr') which stands isolated from any close neighbors on the northwest corner of the Dome of the Rock terrace in Jerusalem."
Well, it's an interesting phenomenon that I find on this site.
We spend a lot of time bashing the MSM and even more bashing the usuallly-leftist rags spawned in England.
Yet, when presented with information that we want to read or believe it, we choose to believe it, taking anecdotal evidence as fact. "Studies" themselves are so biased, slanted and "made-to-order" that we brush them off without a blink. But, the stuff that we would like to see as truth, we buy in a minute.
So, based on what I have seen and heard from vicars over the years, and from Epicopalians in general, my opinion stands.
Mind you, it's only an opinion, but I can't change it based on articles like these. I would have to meet, know and read a WHOLE lot more to change my mind about Episcopalians feeling that St. George was too macho.
I did see a documentary on the chapel gift shop at Windsor Castle. It WAS this year. The gift shop was to be re-done to bring it up to date with modern times.
They brought in a designer to give the shop a logo for the remodeling and other stuff. The logo HAD to be St. George, of course.
They used a logo based on one of the window pictures of him. So, they built up a nice, large logo and package to present to the committee that decided on such matters.
The eldest vicar, a man OBVIOUSLY of major rank, gave his opinion of the logo: (paraphrasing, but using his own words) "Too effeminate, too androgenous and it would not do."
So, the designer took a copy of a small statue in the gardens. It was one that showed a REAL male, like he would REALLY look in a stylized version of battle. The vicar approved of THAT St. George.
THAT is anecdotal too, of course, but the vicar was quite firm in his condemnation of the an effete St. George. That was another adjective he used to describe the first St. George.
THIS vicar was definitely a male, albeit a very old one.
Please see my post #17 to sionnsar.
The Catholic Church is making minor revisions in the Mass liturgy. They are RETURNING to previous, older words, cutting out the newer, P.C. versions. Our pastor gave us a few examples to appear in the next five years but I can't remember them.
My point is that the P.C. stuff is dissolving a bit returning to original Latin and Greek t translations. Mind you, it's not earth-shattering, but they are changes RETURNING to the older, not reaching farther into the bizarre P.C.ism of today's world.
I think (and I might be wrong.) that the Church of England will follow the trend set by the Catholic Church. Their 1978-9 disaster of allowing women priests won't be taken back, of course, but the prayers and Mass protocal MIGHT revert. I think that would be a good thing. I even liked the Latin Mass in the Roman Catholic Church.
When I was in Rome last month I went to St. Peter's all by myself and heard Mass a couple of times. The left apse of St. Peter's is St. John's altar and Mass is said with the priest facing away from the people.
When I traveled to Austria and Germany, some of the Masses (I was ONLY in the old basicilas and churches.) were said the same way, with priest's back to the people. In one, right near Marienplatz in Munich (The Frauenkirsche was unreachable because of a 10K run being put on, the morning RIGHT AFTER Germany beat Argentina in the World Cup last month.), not only was the priest's back to the people, those who took communion came up to the rail and either knelt or stood for communion. It was deja vu all over again. :o) I expected all the old ways to be changed. It was kinda nice to see some old ways still around. But then, I'm an old fogey-ess.
Pardon me for butting it. I don't mean to be forward.
Christian images DO abound in Islam.
Jesus is issa is Arabic and that name is seen quite often. There was an "issa's bazaar" in Saudi Arabia in our local town. It WASN'T defamatory either. Musa is Moses. Miriam is Mary. Dawood is David. In the Koran Jesus IS the Son of God (thought NOT God), born of the virgin Mary. His birth was announced by the angel Gabriel...but it was under a palm tree (lol).
It doesn't surprise me about St. George. The Crusaders were in the near east for a couple of hundred years and their influence is still seen. The Crusader castle at Karak (Syria) is amazing. Renaud de Châtillon, the French Crusader, really did build it. It's called the Raven Castle because a raven was part of HIS heraldry. There are others but that one is the largest and most preserved. It was used in the movie Heavenly Kingdom with Orlando Bloom. The Crusader green eyes are still seen in Arab faces.
The Templars began during that time and the monk-warriors left a lasting impression in the region.
People in this country know so little about middle-east cultures and assume that Arabs/Muslims/Palestinians are mostly like the media cast them.....much like the vision some of the world views Americans, that is, the crude cowboy image of Sleazywood: the flip side of the ignornant, hate-filled coin of the media-fed version of people. It DOES sell toothpaste and "agenda" and that's what the media do. I lived in Saudi Arabia five years. I also had the chance to visit Syria, Jordan, Egypt, the Emirates, Kuwait, India and much of the KSA. It opened MY eyes as to what the people were really like.
It pains me to hear of the bashing of Islam. There are 1 billion Muslims in the world, with only 25% of them as Arabs. The Arab culture PRE-DATED Islam by 1000 years and what's egregious in the Arab world stems MOSTLY from their culture, not their religion. Islam uplifted their culture...which tells you many things, most of them not good, about their ancient culture.
Most intelligent thinking humans would see the hate-Islam for what it is, knowing that Christians are often judged by the same kind of ignorance that brands Christians from the Crusades, or brands Catholicism by the Inquisition. The RELIGION isn't the problem, people are. Who doesn't know that? Our Old Testament sometimes reads a bit quirky but we don't condemn all of Judaism and Christianity because of it.
Oh well. I'm probably preaching to the choir, but thanks for listening.
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