A Quote by Monty Don
I was brought up a strict Christian. My father was a lay preacher, my mother a church warden. The rhythm and ritual of the Anglican Church was part of our lives.
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My mother's family is Christian: her father was a Baptist lay preacher, and her brother, in a leap of Anglican upward mobility, became a vicar in the Church of Wales. But my mother converted to Islam on marrying my father. She was not obliged to; Muslim men are free to marry ahl al-kitab, or people of the Book - among them, Jews and Christians.
I was getting tired about what the preacher called Christian. Anything he did was Christian, and the people in his church believed it, too. If he stole some book he didn't like from the library, or made the radio station play only part of the day on Sunday, or took somebody off to the state poor home, he called it Christian. I never had much religious training, and I never went to Sunday school because we didn't belong to the church when I was old enough to go, but I thought I knew what believing in Christ meant, and it wasn't half the things the preacher did.
Is the Church of England an Anglican church? The church did not start in Canterbury, the church did not start in Rome. Whether Canterbury is Anglican or not is immaterial. We are Anglicans. They are the Church of England.
My father has a beautiful, beautiful voice. His father was a pastor of a church. He sang in church. My mother sang in a church choir. I can take no credit for my vocal talent, because, both my father, and mother have beautiful, beautiful voices.
My father was a first reader in the Christian Science Church, which is similar to being a preacher. There was no drinking, smoking or cursing.
Probably one of the strongest movements of the Holy Spirit is in the Roman Catholic Church, so there's not a huge theological difference between the official teaching of the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church.
The Catholic Church is a weird church. Much mysticism is sown broadspread from its ritual mysteries till it extends into the very lives of its constituents and parishoners.
If we all gave all our goods to the poor, the church would fall apart. If we all hated our father and mother, as Jesus told us to, there'd be an end of the church's emphasis on the family as being the one important thing holding the whole society together. There are all sorts of ways in which the church's teachings contradict directly what Jesus says in the Gospel.
My father was an itinerant preacher who traveled the country's heartland preaching from town to town and church to church.
The Roman Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone - for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do.
The Christian life is not just our own private affair. If we have been born again into God's family, not only has he become our Father but every other Christian believer in the world, whatever his nation or denomination, has become our brother or sister in Christ. But it is no good supposing that membership of the universal Church of Christ is enough; we must belong to some local branch of it. Every Christian's place is in a local church. sharing in its worship, its fellowship, and its witness.
My parents were terrific - mother was a church organist and my father was probably the most respected person in our church outside of the minister and sometimes maybe that much. The neighbors all called him - a gentleman.
Are you getting a big kick out of the Enron scandal? I find this interesting that whenever a big crisis starts, people start showing up in church. So, Ken Lay shows up in church this weekend. Church officials are still looking for the collection plates.
As regards my own 'philosophy,' I continue to be inspired by the music, liturgy and architectural tradition of the Anglican Church in which I was brought up. No one can fail to be uplifted by great cathedrals - such as that at Ely, near my home in Cambridge.
I really do feel that these people are brothers and sisters in God's family. I am looking to build bridges with the Orthodox Church, looking to build bridges with the Catholic Church, with the Anglican church.
But I like going to church. If you've been brought up in the Church of England, it feels like visiting an elderly relative. And I think it's important that part of the kids' education is knowing about the Bible.
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