Adrian Hilton
Message from Anton
Jack, old chap, if Ian Paul will permit a brief off-topic from me, you might like to inform regulars at your own blog that Adrian Hilton re-activated his dormant blog to repost articles he has had accepted (typically every few months) by the Spectator, Telegraph etc. He permits comments beneath them.
The site: Adrian HiltonIt's a Wordpress account - so to comment you'll need to go here to create an account.
Thank you, Jack. It's good news that the former Archbishop Cranmer is back in circulation online, even though on a very limited scale.
ReplyDeleteHJ misses his dry and pompous Cranmer articles and, to be honest, winding him up. The community was good though and the friendly - and some times not so friendly - disputes. Not sure he'd appreciate HJ commenting on his "resurrected" site.
DeleteI hope that Dr. Hilton is keeping well, wasn't there a hint at some health issues on his Twitter last year? He doesn't seem to have posted to his resurrected blog since last December.
ReplyDeleteThe demise of Cranmer was a shame; I appreciated Dr. Hilton's eccentricities. Most other theology blogs, such as Drs. Fesser's and Paul's, take themselves far too seriously. I am amazed at how much time and energy Ian Paul has to write about the Church of England, and participate in lengthy debates (with equally convinced interlocutors) about matters that were decided millennia ago in the Apostolic Churches. I fail to understand why evangelicals, who don't require - and, indeed, often reject - any kind of priestly hierarchy, are still in the CofE when the direction it's taking is both unchangeable and so directly at odds with the evangelical 'gospel'.
Christ told us to let the dead bury their own dead, not to make a living critiquing their spades and burial practices.
"Christ told us to let the dead bury their own dead, not to make a living critiquing their spades and burial practices."
DeleteWonderful comment, Lain, and from one so young.
Yes, I went through a period of posting regularly on Ian Paul's blog but it was akin to the internet's version of Groundhog Day but without any resolution! Now I adopt the tactics of the insurgent - the occasional hit and withdrawal.
Cranmer's eccentricities encouraged wackiness in others! That's what made it such fun amidst its seriousness.
I feel as though the CofE has been arguing about sexuality and gender my entire life. It must be abundantly clear to anyone with even a slightly 'traditionalist' view on these matters that these arguments will never resolve in their favour (if they ever resolve at all). The most conservatives can hope for in the CofE is to be quietly tolerated until they die out. The idea of staying to 'fight from within' lost credibility decades ago.
DeleteI’ve looked up Adrian Hilton, and his blog of Sept 2022:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.adrianhilton.com/index.php/kirill-crusade-against-ukraine-is-more-jihadi-than-christian/
I am reminded of the incident when
“Pussy Riot appeared in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in February 2012, to perform an obscenity-laced song called Punk Prayer which attacked the Orthodox Church's support for President Vladimir Putin.” [BBC news]
To Orthodox believers, it must have appeared as if “It seemed as when men wield upwards axes in a thicket of trees“ (Psalm 74:5). But I wondered if it might be like when in Old Testament times God was speaking to the Israelites through the actions of the surrounding pagan nations.
One thing about the blog, though. A.Hilton writes:
“This is a perversion of the gospel of Christ, who came to bring peace, not a sword. It is also contrary to the Orthodox understanding of war and peace.”
Hasn’t he got something wrong there — isn’t it “not peace, but a sword”?
Matt. 10:34-36: 'Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’
DeleteThe 'sword' here doesn't refer to wars in the worldly sense, as in Russia and Ukraine, but something more spiritual (although it also has a material outworking). St. John Chrysostom compares the 'sword' here to the surgeon's saw, amputating diseased material. He writes:
What sort of peace is it that Jesus asks them to pronounce upon entering each house? And what kind of peace is it of which the angels sing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace”? And if Jesus came not to bring peace, why did all the prophets publish peace as good news? Because this more than anything is peace: when the disease is removed. This is peace: when the cancer is cut away. Only with such radical surgery is it possible for heaven to be reunited to earth. Only in this way does the physician preserve the healthy tissue of the body. The incurable part must be amputated. Only in this way does the military commander preserve the peace: by cutting off those in rebellion. Thus it was also in the case of the tower of Babel, that their evil peace was ended by their good discord. Peace therefore was accomplished.
Christ does come to bring peace, but our divisive response to Christ (starting with the slaughter of the Holy Innocents) brings the sword. This passage doesn't justify what Putin, for example, is doing.
There are many Russians who are unhappy with the Russian Orthodox Church's support of Putin. Unfortunately, like the CofE, the ROC has never managed to untangle itself from the Russian state Peter the Great's 'reforms' turned the church into an organ of the state. In that sense, yes, there is a sense of 'prophets from other nations' in those protests.
Adrian is very good when he's writing about British politics (albeit he has a Thatcherite bias that occasionally blinds him to some of the realities of his chosen party) and about matters Anglican. He's on shakier ground when he's writing about Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which he doesn't really understand and upon which he tries to force an Anglican hermeneutic. But we all have our blind spots.
I watched quite a large part of the Olympics opening ceremony yesterday, but I didn't see this. Did anyone here see it?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/258428/catholics-others-respond-to-mockery-of-last-supper-at-paris-olympics
Just posted a new article on this.
Delete