Losing my Religion?

Ordinangst is sure that the blogosphere is going to be alive with comments on Anne Widdecombe's telly programme on the future of Christianity which aired last night.  Ever a herd animal, Ordinangst thought he would put his pennies' worth in.  Now Ordinangst secretly quite likes Widdie and her fearlessness and the fact that she managed to keep the joke firmly on the programme and not herself in Strictly, which she should have won incidentally.

But it was a rather depressing programme.  Depressing because it presented stark statistics of a projected ongoing decline in Church attendance, (by 2020 Ordinangst thinks he is going to have to become a hermit (an hermit?) because there aren't going to be any other Christians left) and the UK Christian church is now only being shored up by Polish Catholic Immigrants and Pentecostals, or somesuch.  Depressing because Widdie herself presented a view of Christianity which missed the point entirely.  Ordinangst paraphrases, but she said something like:  "I believe that Jesus was the Son of God, who came to earth in human form (OK so far) was crucified and rose again (topical and correct) and as a result we are expected to live according to the bible, and especially the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes.   And?  And?  Hmm. 

Ordinangst smells a rat here.  Widdie's omission of the God's grace, of justification, and of forgiveness clearly plants her in the realms of James and away from Galatians.  Either way, it didn't describe Ordinangst's faith or, I suspect the faith of the majority of Christians in the UK.  It also struck Ordinangst that Widdie's brand of Christianity was thoroughly unattractive, and she, as a follower of Christ, missed a golden opportunity to advertise the good news to the nation.  Instead she presented Christianity as a blueprint for living and not a route to eternal life, against a backdrop of Churches closing and a nation that is totally disinterested in spirituality. Which is a shame.

Ordinangst was quite cross by the end and found himself wishing the Widdie had stuck to tripping the light fantastic in duchesse satin.  Her bit on Alpha and HTB and @_nickygumbel and the church plant in Brighton filled with people didn't explicitly tie this exciting movement (that, incidentally brought the hapless Ordinangst to faith fifteen years ago) to the Church of England.  This struck Ordinangst as a bit unfair given her focus on growth in the Catholic and Pentecostal Church.  A hidden agenda perhaps?

Another thing that leapt out to Ordinangst was quite how bad our esteemed Archbishop is at aggressive television interviews.  Ordinangst has nothing against ++Rowan, who has an impossible job, a brain larger than Wales and also is apparently a good bloke,  but Ordinangst wishes that he wouldn't "do" as much media, like the Pope who very rarely talks to the press.  ++Rowan's problem last night was that he was the one lone voice who tried to bring God into the proceedings.  Shame on Widdie for not doing it in the first place, but ++Rowan's position - that declining Church numbers are not a cause for panic because God has a plan and the Church always has and always will bounce back - whilst probably right seemed very odd against the context of the rest of the programme  that  treated the  fall of Christianity as more of an inevitable sociological phenomenon than a question for spiritual reflection.  It also fell rather flat because, dare I say it, ++Rowan lacks the television "presence" to carry a message like that and make it stick.