Blogging about the royal wedding over at the Corner yesterday, I noted that the C of E needed a little less church and a little more England.
Via the Daily Telegraph, here’s the sort of thing I meant:
Jerusalem, a hymn which has been banned, been an official anthem of the England football team and was once chosen by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown for Desert Island Discs, was hailed as one of the triumphs of today’s royal wedding.
And quite rightly so, the twinning of William Blake’s madcap, lovely words with a majestic, somewhat martial tune written—in the middle of the First World War—almost a century later, makes ‘Jerusalem’ one of the finest of English hymns (and there are plenty to choose from) and, for, that matter, a pretty good alternative English national anthem. Under the circumstances we should not, I suppose, be surprised that some clerics have objected:
The verses were banned in 2008 from being sung by choirs or congregations at Southwark Cathedral because the words do not praise God and are too nationalistic, according to senior clergy. The Dean of Southwark, the Very Rev Colin Slee, advised guests at a private memorial service that the hymn would not be sung because it was “not in the glory of God”.
Jerusalem had been banned before by clergymen who do not believe Blake’s poetry to be Christian. In 2001 it was banned from the wedding of a couple in Manchester because the vicar deemed it to be too nationalistic and inappropriate to a marriage ceremony.
To repeat myself, less church, more England, please.