Green clerical gauleiters are today's Scrooges
SPARE us from trendy clerics!
The Church of England has jumped on the green bandwagon, casting those who do not recycle or who dare illuminate their homes with festive lights, as sinners.
Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has even posted his New Year message – God “does not do waste” – on YouTube, allowing people worldwide to upload and share the video clip.
“Are we so fixated on keeping up with change that we lose any sense of our need for stability?” he asks.
Dr Williams said the need for a sustainable approach also underlines important truths about God and the world. “A lot of the time, we just don't let ourselves think about the future with realism. A culture of vast material waste and emotional short-termism is a culture that is a lot more fragile than it knows.
“A life that communicates a bit of what God is like is a life that doesn't give up, that doesn't settle down with a culture of waste and disposability - whether with people, or with things.”
Even worse came from the Rt. Rev. Graham James, Bishop of Norwich, who in front of the Queen in Sandringham yesterday condemned people who festoon their homes with Christmas lights for creating “minor ecological disaster zones.”
No thought for those to whom dressing their homes gives them pleasure and comfort, and to passers-by with their children who think the lights and decorations are wonderful.
I’m all for recycling if your local council – unlike mine, Suffolk Coastal – provides a first class kerbside collection service. But telling all to dim or extinguish Christmas lights is not going to save the planet unless the French, Germans, Italians, Estonians, Americans, Canadians, and Australians etc etc do the same.
Incidentally, the Sandringham estate was lit this year with half a mile of coloured lights which normally adorn the Golden Mile at Blackpool. Presumably, the Bishop of Norwich was not asked to bless them.