The Church of England Crisis Scale

The Church of England has, once again, been plunged into crisis.

"But why this time?" I hear you say. And I don't know. But it always is. Andrew Brown's article today, for example, is talking about the married vicar. It could be that but, as Andrew hasn't used the word "crisis" at any point in the article, maybe the crisis is something else. And I like to think that Andrew would never talk about being "plunged into" crisis. I know that in journalistese, one is always "plunging" into crisis, but since a "crisis" is, in origin, a decision point - a crossing with different paths to choose, if you will - then I don't see how one can be plunged into one. You can't be plunged into a decision. You can be led to one, I suppose. Or you can feel your way towards one. But plunge into one? It's not baptism. Although, under the right circumstances, this could cause a crisis in the Church of England (tm).

You know, the trouble with crises in the Church of England is they're like London Buses. You struggle to get on them with a lot of shopping. The actual members of the Church of England are so used to crises that they don't even notice them any more. A typical day in the life of the Archbishop of Canterbury consists of waking up, deal with a couple of crises, Morning Prayer, couple of crises, elevenses, crisis, luncheon, crisis and so on. Crises are meat and drink to the Church of England. This is a source of confusion, I believe. Many assume that a crisis is some kind of dangerous situation. The Church of England, rather, sees crisis as being like the air one breathes, or the water in which fish swim, or gravity - an ordinary feature of the environment, without which life would be very scary.

But for those that have to deal with reading the Daily Telegraph, Guardian or the Daily Mail , and are wondering just what kind of crisis the Church of England is dealing with from day to day, I offer the "Eileen Scale". On the basis of the Beaufort and Richter Scales, I have ranked the scale from zero upwards. Just hope the C of E doesn't make it all the way to 12.

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Rating	Description
1...................	The Ordinariate
2...................	Investing in a payday lender
3...................	Investing in an arms company
4...................	Changing the baptism service
5...................	Somebody getting upset in Africa
6...................	Celibate gay man maybe becoming bishop
7...................	Women not becoming bishops
8...................	Potential Disestablishment
9...................	A gay marriage nobody can do anything about
10...................	Abolition of the Book of Common Prayer
11...................	Dissolution of the Monasteries
12...................	Using the modern version of the Lord's Prayer