I'm so angry I could spit

Much to the surprise of many folks who know me I am a regular reader of "The Living Church". I don't always agree with their editorial point of view but on the whole they are a reasonable voice of a more conservative view point than my own. My thoughts are often stimulated by what I read there.

Well we blew by "stimulated" with this morning's mail. As if often the case we received two copies over the weekend the July 27 and August 10 issues (the August 3 issue arrived last week - go figure). It was the July version that caught my eye. I've reproduced the cover here so you can judge for yourself.

The full cover is of young people attending EYE. The headline is EYE. I anticipated a nice article on this big event. I would think this is what any reasonable person would expect from a news magazine. Inside there was one additional photograph and a very short editorial. The editorial amounted to "We have young people in the church. They do cool stuff. We should keep doing that". The editorial was about three column inches long, the majority being a list of things that young people are doing in some parts of the church.

I was flabbergasted. I was dumbfounded. I was, well I don't use that kind of language on this blog. But I'll bet you can guess.

There was nothing about EYE, a gathering of over a thousand young people. An event where the Presiding Bishop appeared, hung out, worshiped with us before she left for Lambeth. If you don't know what EYE is you certainly won't find out by reading the TLC issue. There isn't any information there.

Once again young people are used as window dressing. It's gee, isn't that swell but let's not waste any of our resources on them. There's too many more important things going in the church.

And we wonder why the Sunday attendance is so old?

I'm so mad I want to swear. To throw things. To pound on something. When in the name of all that is Holy are we going to learn? I'm at a loss for words.

I'm sure the editors at TLC probably wish that were true. I just sent them a blistering letter (all very Anglican polite but seriously angry). We'll see if it shows up any time soon. If not I'll share it here at a later date.

What a rotten way to start a Monday.

Peace