Let Them Jump While They Can

As the world turns, the church calendar brings us to Judgmenttide. Normally this happens twice in the year - once around St Peter's Day and once around Michaelmas - but in times of plague it can all be transferred to late September if required.

Judgementtide is when the pictures of newly-minted deacons and priests in the Church of England are released to the world. This used to have to wait until the Mercurius Rusticus woodcuts could be made and distributed to the quarters of the realm. However I believe in these modern times, the Church Times sends them out in paper form. 

And then the Judgers judge. The fresh-picked clergies jumping in the air in celebration are the main target of judging. And I have to admit, I have my sympathy. I would not have been jumping in the air at my Druid Creation ceremony, had I not just patted myself on the head with a copy of a Bob Flowerdew book while reciting some Latin to make myself Archdruid. But in my own connexion, the Beaker Folk's fresh-made druids tend to fall to the ground, clutching their heads as they realise the horrors that lie before them.

Other Judgers like to look at these pictures and criticise vestment crimes. Inappropriately personalised stoles, cassock-albs, birettas worn back to front - that kind of thing.  

The diocese of Bath And Wells seems to have taken this head on. As well as jumping deacons, we have enjoyed the sight of the new ministers and bishop heading across Wells Cathedral Green like a scene reinstated into the Director's Cut of Hot Fuzz. At one stage I thought they were in terrible danger of being knocked down by a massive bowling ball. No messing around there, no trying not to upset the terminally miserable. I suppose the cider makes them brave down there.

I wouldn't do it. But let them jump if they want to. It's a hard enough world. If you're going into a church context with a lot of vulnerable people and decide to keep the doors closed on Sunday, you're going to have some muscular-Christianity dudebro claiming it's more important that people get their in-bodily-form worship this particular Sunday, than that they survive to go to many services in the years to come. 

Worse, if you're a female new clergy (or even a newly-female clergy I suspect) on Social Media you're going to get the specially miserable types targeting you for specific criticism of your vestments, theology, hairstyles, living arrangements or whatever. Sometimes not even your genuine living arrangements - sometimes just the living arrangements that the Judgers would like to imagine you have.

So let them wear stoles without surplices if that's their thing. It's tough out there. They're going to need a couple of happy memories of liturgical faux pas to keep them warm through the coming winter.

Let them jump while they can.

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