Anglicanism
Peter Hitchens has something interesting to say about the Church of England:
Yet many are not keen, but are interested. The man or woman who has been out in the world a little, and now in the light of experience feels the stirrings of a long-ignored, long-suppressed curiosity about Christianity, wants to be able to slip quietly in at the back, to hear familiar words and sounds. He or she may also want a little beauty in music and architecture, a certain permission to be less than specific, a chance to savour the spaces between words, the paradoxes, rhythms and ambiguities in which truth is often to be found. Such people do not want to be hugged, handshaked or approached by enthusiasts on their way out and pestered to socialise or fill in forms. They even welcome those little patches of unmodernised shadow, behind a pillar or in a corner, so that they can slip out as unobtrusively as they went in. If allowed to do so, they may actually come back.
The Cathedrals, for the most part, still provide most of these things. And if, this Christmas or at any other time, you are lucky enough to be near one of these buildings, which in many cases are among the great historic treasures of all mankind, not just of this country, may I make a suggestion, even if you are an atheist? That you try to attend the service called Choral Evensong? You may - just - catch something, very faint, very distant and very old, that is worth hearing and worth thinking about. In any case, I do not think anyone will bother you or demand to know if you are saved, born again or anything like that. And in any case, Happy Christmas.
Churches are often very beautiful and I am constantly astonished by the aesthetic quality of many places of worship. I have visited many of Europe's greatest religious buildings - the Vatican, St Marks in Venice, Milan's Duomo, Notre Dam and St Michaels Church in Munich. Whilst I believe these great works of art were built under the mistaken belief of a deity, they are still wondrous to look at.
The Church is the possessor and keeper of much (in my view false) wisdom and knowledge passed down through the ages. It would do well to not throw all that away in a last ditch attempt to regain the followers who have (righty) abandoned it because of its reactionary nature. They are lost forever.
-posted by Adam
