Friday, February 18, 2005
(11:31 AM) | Anonymous:
Too much talk.
It's odd how one can be so self-contradictory and hypocritical just by making a suggestion, but I've just one to make.I would entirely approve if anybody that has anything to do with the Anglican 'communion' right now refused to contact anybody else within that communion except by face to face contact, only attainable by boat (no engine allowed) or horse or on foot or by bicycle. In an emergency, a letter might be allowed, but the delivery service would only be allowed to use the above methods of transport too.
That way, we might be allowed to discover and receive our different practices over a greater length of time, instead of constantly jabbering away by telephone and the internet, telling tales on everybody else. Also, we might be able to develop /local/ practices, and receive the gospel into our cultures, instead of trying to achieve this univeral worldview approach. Not that I don't think the universal worldview is impressive, it just seems to me to be quite unsustainable in the long-term without allowing a greater variation of local practice (eg. most westerners ignore the ban on contraception). At the moment, the universal worldview (or appearance of one) is achieved by one set of (usually) richer authorities wielding power over the poorer set, and by consciously 'ignoring' practices (eg. the co-existence in Africa of marriages involving multiple partners).
If my proposal was accepted, one would really have to make an effort to communicate, and would only bother over matters of substance. And when you or the messenger had left, you'd have no idea what people were up to when you weren't there.
Now, I'd like to suggest that a start be made by refusal to use the telephone or internet or any kind of text-services for the next year. But it's not going to happen because I, for one, am not going to do that. Also, probably, the internet isn't the best place to make the proposal.
However, I'm tired of global culture.
