THE PANDEMIC is still with us, affecting our everyday lives more than we could have imagined a year ago - and its effect on our worship is likely to continue indefinitely. Our first three articles reflect on current and future developments, styles and possibilities, some cautious, some adventurous - all thoughtful. Two C of I clergy, Stephen Farrell and Christopher West, consider how parish worship has adjusted and may continue to change while Soline Humbert looks at a radical online experiment in eucharistic worship. Clearly there is further work to be done in this area in all traditions.
But the pandemic overshadows more than our worship and extends world-wide. From the USA, Richard K Fenn reflects on its malign effect on public life there, exposing the pernicious inter-racial fault-line in the American psyche. And from the UK Paul Ballard offers observations on the relation of faith to work in our troubled society today.Existential anxiety has become a feature of our everyday lives. Will we and our loved ones still be here this time next week? And if not, where will we be? Some of us are more confident than others about a future existence and its conditions. In this context Andrew Campbell comes out strongly against nihilist objections that Heaven, if it exists, can only boring; then Katie Brown of TCD looks at what the Bible (rather than the Church) has to say about the ultimate destiny of those who commit suicide. Is Judas Iscariot truly beyond redemption?Looking to the future, we conclude with two articles which connect with the thinking behind the subject of our Colloquium, “Who is my Neighbour?”, planned for April. This lies in the WCC’s’ document “Serving a Wounded World in Interreligious Solidarity” with its call to an extension of pandemic neighbourliness to the outsider - those of all faiths, races and cultures. The first, by Paul Draper, challenges us to eschew all “othering” and to embrace all those in need; the second by Bishop Kenneth Kearon reflects on how ‘first world’ gifts are used in the receiving communities, whose priorities may be more immediate than those of the donors.A lively Liturgica and a goodly crop of book reviews conclude the issue. Enjoy! Hoping to see many SEARCH people on my screen for our April 17th Colloquium. For details see p 64 and inside back cover.
Contents
Worship in ‘Corona-tide’: to help face uncertainty - new skills and old treasures
IN MY rather touching naiveté, I spoke with the editor of this esteemed organ in March about writing something in late spring about the post-Covid Church. This ludicrous deadline had to be extended to the summer and then to autumn and now I find myself in winter, writing not about what happens after Covid, but about how the Church can adapt to this new long season of Corona-tide, and what we may have learnt thus far.
DISCUSSIONS about ‘The Body of Christ’ are steeped in the language of embodiment. The difficult realities of human embodiment have been brought home to us in the past year - in the Church, in news stories, and our personal experience of suffering and loss.
I AM WRITING these lines in Ireland at the very end of a year marked by a pandemic, on the cusp of a new year where our hope for the resumption of any form of safe physical human contact depends on mass vaccination. Our church buildings are presently closed again to group worship, as they have been on and off throughout the past ten months.
THE COVID 19 pandemic, by collapsing our normal activities, has, among other things, radically exposed the part that work, as employment, plays in our lives. It is through work that we are locked into the socio- economic structures, receiving from and contributing to society.
America’s Gethsemane moment - time to face the darkness together
MANY OF us would agree with Archbishop John McDowell, writing for SEARCH recently, that the pandemic requires us to search for life and light in the midst of a very real and enduring darkness.
Heavenly monotony? A response to philosophical objections to immortality
2020 SAW the airing of the finale of the sitcom “The Good Place.” Created by Michael Schur, the show received cult status as it explored questions of ethics and philosophy. The show tells the story of six protagonists navigating the after-life in search of “The Good Place” or to use traditional Christian language, Heaven.
Suicide and the Bible: Judas Iscariot from Matthew to today
THERE ARE few tragedies that are as emotionally weighted as suicide. Unfortunately, too many are forced to grapple with it in our wider communities today.
Exclusion or Embrace: learning from the Prodigal Son
While many of the pithy sayings of the Fathers seem eccentric, they are distilled from lives in the “laboratory of the Spirit”, relinquishing control, privilege and judgement. Focus is often put on their ascetic lifestyles while missing their radical kindness and tenderness to all humanity.
SOME OF the very real pleasures of my 10 years as Secretary General of the Anglican Communion were the many opportunities to share, for a few days, in regular church life with an Anglican diocese or parish.
SOME years ago, I agreed, against my own better judgement, to perform tympani extemporisations during the reading of the Passion on Good Friday. I look back on this with a certain horror, and not just because I am not a trained percussionist.
