(no subject)
(From an entertaining rant in the Guardian about being told what to do all the time…)
My council told churches in the borough last week that A5 no-smoking posters must be prominently displayed by church entrances in time for the ban. I love this: the council is bossing people to make them more bossy. They are insisting that priests tell their congregations what to do.
But do worshippers really need to be told not to smoke in church? Interestingly, one vicar interviewed by my local paper, David Silvester, of St Jude and St Paul's Church, Islington, remembered someone smoking in the pews - 22 years ago. "During a baptism service someone tried to light up - it was someone middle-aged," he said. "You would have thought they would know better."
Good point. If you don't realise that it's wrong to light up at a christening, no imperative injunction is going to change your behaviour. Don't do crack in the confessional. Don't have sex on the altar during morning worship.
Awwwww. But sex on the altar’d be fun. And worth at least 20 Goth Points…
My council told churches in the borough last week that A5 no-smoking posters must be prominently displayed by church entrances in time for the ban. I love this: the council is bossing people to make them more bossy. They are insisting that priests tell their congregations what to do.
But do worshippers really need to be told not to smoke in church? Interestingly, one vicar interviewed by my local paper, David Silvester, of St Jude and St Paul's Church, Islington, remembered someone smoking in the pews - 22 years ago. "During a baptism service someone tried to light up - it was someone middle-aged," he said. "You would have thought they would know better."
Good point. If you don't realise that it's wrong to light up at a christening, no imperative injunction is going to change your behaviour. Don't do crack in the confessional. Don't have sex on the altar during morning worship.
Awwwww. But sex on the altar’d be fun. And worth at least 20 Goth Points…