Credo - non angela sed anglicana

I don't often post twice in one day, and I scarcely talk about religion on this blog, for all kinds of good, valid, and complicated reasons. I am breaking all my self-imposed rules today, however, because I have been reorganising (subtly, and you may well not have noticed) my sidebar, and there is a new category called "Believing Blogs".

I chose the name for entirely frivolous reasons, because all my other headings contained participles. I don't intend to privilege my own faith over any others, but it would not be inappropriate in the circumstances to define my faith a little further, for ease of reference.

I am an Anglican first and foremost, but in the current state of the Anglican church further labels are sadly necessary. I am very much at the liberal end of the Anglican church (happy to ordain anyone willing to wear a dress, which would pretty much mean women and gay men). (That is a very cheap joke. Sorry). In a past life I tried to be an evangelical of a rather fundamentalist persuasion. It didn't work, but it left a nasty taste in the mouth. These days I tend to find myself in Anglo-Catholic services, because that is where most of the liberals hang out. Whilst I like a bit of incense as much as the next man or woman (and more than the local fire brigade do), I actually quite like guitars, modern music, and gratuitous tea-lights. In a happier former life, I was involved in what was then called Alternative Worship. I also like a bit of Palestrina, even if singing it leaves me with the feeling that my vocal cords have been tied in a celtic knot.

I love the Church of England for its shabbiness, humanity, uncertainty. I love its embrace of all kinds of faiths. I want it to stay that way. Sadly, I'm not sure it can. But if the Schism comes, sign me up for the Episcopalians.

"For now we see as through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known."