In an almost dead heat, the Church of England and the Episcopal Church here in America, are spiraling downward in a total "who cares" state of affairs.
At the fourth post it appears the Church of England is leading by a nose with Rappin' Rowan at the reins:
In the beginning, the elders gathered and set up a mighty cry: How are we to get young people into church? And, lo, they decreed: Let there be rap.
In a move which risks ridicule, the Church of England has turned to street culture in the hope of attracting new blood.
A radio advert will appeal to the lapsed faithful to 'stop, turn around, walk back' to church on Sunday.
The spoken message, voiced by a series of actors, is described by the Church as 'a rap-style poem'.
The ad is the latest in a 15-year campaign by the C of E to use advertising to boost church attendances and attract the attention of those, in particular the young, who have no interest in Christianity.
Past efforts have met with mixed success. One mid-1990s slogan that declared Christmas to be a 'bad hair day' won universal mockery.
The C of E's usual Sunday attendance figures dropped below the one million figure at the turn of the millennium and have fallen at the most recent count to 871,000.
The new advert, produced by a Christian agency based in Bradford, aims to assure its young target audience that they do not need to dress up to go to church.
In defiance of the idea of Sunday best, the 40-second routine, which is not set to a drum beat, suggests that congregations where people make an effort to look smart could lack sincerity.
The grammar also does little credit to the C of E's efforts in the thousands of secondary and primary schools it helps run.
It says: 'Don't look to make no airs and graces. Faked up smiles and masked up faces. No need to make no innovation. Please accept this as your invitation.'
The poem won endorsement from Lambeth Palace, where the Archbishop of Canterbury's adviser on church growth, Canon Paul Bayes, said it was 'a great opportunity for churches to speak to their communities with the message of invitation.'
The advert will appear on commercial radio stations as part of a timeshare system in which parishes have been encouraged to club together with other local churches to buy airtime.
It is part of a 'Back to church Sunday' drive which hopes to bring in thousands of new worshippers on September 27. It is backed by churches in Scotland and Wales, Methodist and evangelical churches, although Roman Catholic leaders have not signed up.
Last year, its organisers say, some 37,000 lapsed members were drawn back to church on the campaign Sunday.
The Church of England (COE), which before the American Revolution demanded their priests pledge allegiance to the crown, was the reason for the First Amendment stating that Congress shall not establish a national religion ergo a national church. After the revolution, the Church of England was banned in America and replaced by the Episcopal Church (TEC).
(note, I was reared in the Episcopal Church, was an altar boy and loved the Church, but left when the church replaced religion with a secular progressive philosophy)
The "separation of church and state' phrase is not in the Bill of Rights or any other official document. The phrase, based on the philosophy of John Locke is in a letter to the Danbury Baptists authored by Thomas Jefferson.
I think a good visual showing the dichotomy or bi-polar sense of the church is Coventry Cathedral in England. The old cathedral of St Michael was destroyed by Nazi bombs during WWII and beginning in the 1950's the COE began designing an addition to the ruins for a new cathedral. The results are disastrous, a timelous example of historic FUGLYness and a shrine to COE's inability to reflect their mission of unity.
