Readers Digest psychic powers survey

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...

Comments

[Matt Stone]

“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 :-)