Side hugs for all!
There's a blog I enjoy reading called Stuff Christian Culture Likes. Specifically, American Evangelical Christian culture.
This is an important distinction, because American Evangelical Christianity bears almost no resemblance whatsoever to the Church of England, the form of Christianity with which I am most familiar. It's full of stuff that I just can't imagine in the C of E - worship leaders with cheesy hair and silk-screened shirts, giant plasma screens, Guitar Praise (the Christian rock version rip-off of Guitar Hero), purity balls, leaving gospel tracts instead of tips in restaurants, opposing national healthcare...
So I found myself wondering, what exactly does C of E culture like. My experience of growing up in it was limited - Mum fought a losing battle as she dragged me off to church and Sunday school every week until eventually she gave up on it and went back to the usual Christmas and Easter attendance. So I'm hardly an expert, but I did manage to think of a few things. So lets see how it turns out. Feel free to disagree, if your experience is different to mine.
#1 Flower arranging
It's rare to walk into a C of E church and not find at least one flower arrangement. There may be one individual doing it, or a whole team of competitive flower arrangers, all striving to create the most impressive display. The flowers go overboard at Christmas and Easter, the two times of year when the church is likely to be packed full to overflowing, and it would be easy to assume that a C of E couple aren't properly married without an explosion of blooms covering all available surfaces.
Whether this has anything to do with religion isn't clear. One could suppose that it's intended to illustrate the glory of the Lord's creation, but to me a more likely explanation is that the people running the churches just really like flowers, and there's nothing like a few daffodils to brighten up otherwise rather gloomy buildings.
I'm all in favour of this, since I love flowers too, but if you suffer from severe hayfever, this may not be the religion for you.
This is an important distinction, because American Evangelical Christianity bears almost no resemblance whatsoever to the Church of England, the form of Christianity with which I am most familiar. It's full of stuff that I just can't imagine in the C of E - worship leaders with cheesy hair and silk-screened shirts, giant plasma screens, Guitar Praise (the Christian rock version rip-off of Guitar Hero), purity balls, leaving gospel tracts instead of tips in restaurants, opposing national healthcare...
So I found myself wondering, what exactly does C of E culture like. My experience of growing up in it was limited - Mum fought a losing battle as she dragged me off to church and Sunday school every week until eventually she gave up on it and went back to the usual Christmas and Easter attendance. So I'm hardly an expert, but I did manage to think of a few things. So lets see how it turns out. Feel free to disagree, if your experience is different to mine.
#1 Flower arranging
It's rare to walk into a C of E church and not find at least one flower arrangement. There may be one individual doing it, or a whole team of competitive flower arrangers, all striving to create the most impressive display. The flowers go overboard at Christmas and Easter, the two times of year when the church is likely to be packed full to overflowing, and it would be easy to assume that a C of E couple aren't properly married without an explosion of blooms covering all available surfaces.
Whether this has anything to do with religion isn't clear. One could suppose that it's intended to illustrate the glory of the Lord's creation, but to me a more likely explanation is that the people running the churches just really like flowers, and there's nothing like a few daffodils to brighten up otherwise rather gloomy buildings.
I'm all in favour of this, since I love flowers too, but if you suffer from severe hayfever, this may not be the religion for you.