I admire the Bishops of the Church of England
No man can be a Bishop of the Church of England
And a fool.
A man can be a Bishop of the Church of England
And a knave.
But
Fortunately
Few if any of the Bishops of the Church of England
Are men of ill will.
They do their best
To resolve wisely
To govern effectively.
They are the butt of the ignoramus,
Of the sentimentalist,
Of the man who makes
Of his own bad temper and incompetency
A Movement for the Amelioration of the Sufferings
Of the Oppressed Members of the Lower Middle Classes.
Stevie Smith (1902-71), The Bishops of the Church of England, 1978.
Andrew Brown puts the safeguarding failures of bishops down to 'managerialism'. He writes (13thFebruary 2025): 'The bishops of the Church of England are often useless but seldom malevolent. They try, sincerely, to perform impossible tasks. They are slow learners but they sometimes learn. If you really believe they are wicked incompetents why are you still in their church?' Many 'Baby Boomers' (born 1944-64) who have stopped going to church, and read Steve Smith's question-begging view of the church's leadership, will share her scepticism! Famous for her poem, 'Not Waving but Drowning' (posted in this anthology), the author neither fully accepted nor abandoned the Anglican church in which she was nurtured. She even described herself as a 'lapsed atheist'! She confessed, ' There is a God in whom I do not believe. Yet to this God my love stretches....'
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