I glimpsed this fascinating stats report/ survey on the BBC news site the other day.
More than half of Britons believe in psychic powers such as mind-reading and premonitions, a survey suggests. Of 1,006 adults polled for Readers Digest Magazine, 43% reported reading others' thoughts or having theirs read. More than half had had a dream or premonition of an event before it happened and 26% said they had sensed when a loved-one was ill or in trouble. A fifth said they had seen a ghost and 29% believed near-death experiences were evidence there was an afterlife.
And so on – it makes for some interesting reading, esp. about the differences in perception between older and younger people, and men and women. And buried at the bottom of the article, on the very last line and after some views refuting the idea from the deputy editor the New Humanist magazine, is this gem:
“A Church of England spokesman said it was not the type of subject the Church could comment on.”
Which, for me, rather leaves the question, so what “type of subject” should the Church be commenting on, or getting involved in discussion about? It brought to mind some lyrics from Martyn Joseph’s song, He Never Said, about the words that some people have wanted to put into the mouth of the divinely human person of Jesus Christ:
...He never said Archbishops should stick to theology
He never said put your faith in the lottery
He never said by any means necessary
He never said my country right or wrong
He never said send your money to me
Touch the screen and your gonna be healed
He never said every one's got a price
Do you want to make a deal?
He said…
Answer a stranger’s cry for help
Love each other as you loved yourself
You only have to seek and you will find
Forgive your enemies drop that grudge
Don’t judge others and you won’t be judged
Only knock and the door will open wide, open wide...
“A Church of England spokesman said it was not the type of subject the Church could comment on.” A sad, sad, confession of theological and cultural disconnection is it not? Yet is the Emerging Church really all that much better, as a whole? It seems to me that most EC bloggers are primarily concerned with deconstructing their fundie past and precious few are genuinely interacting with the emerging spiritualities face to face and grappling with the issues that inevitably raises. Keep asking those questions :-)
Posted by: Matt Stone | June 09, 2006 at 05:31 AM