The conservative-minded Anglican site VirtueOnline has got its knickers in a twist over a recent story concerning Spring Equinox celebrations held by the Mother Grove Goddess Temple in North Carolina. Why would the heretic-hunters at VirtueOnline care about what a bunch of Pagans are doing in North Carolina? Because of where they held the ritual.

“Members of Mother Grove Goddess Temple will celebrate at 7 p.m. Saturday with A Breath of Appalachian Spring: A Ritual in Celebration of the Spring Equinox, in the parish hall of the Episcopal Cathedral of All Souls in Biltmore Village.“

Que outrage:

“All Souls’ Cathedral is supposed to be God’s House, and it is disgusting that the Chapter should allow this pagan cult to meet anywhere on the premises! But of course, like all failing Episcopal congregations, they need the money, don’t they?”

It’s true that VirtueOnline is obsessed with heretics and pagans within the global Anglican communion, but this is hardly seems like a new case of “Episcopaganism”. I doubt the parish hall is consecrated ground, and I highly doubt the local clergy participated in anything “pagan”, so no real blasphemy (from a Christian perspective) was committed, and Mother Grove Goddess Temple describes itself as interfaith (united in honoring the divine feminine), so the real problem here is that these Episcopalians dared to tolerate other faiths meeting on/renting their grounds.

So the larger question is should Christian-owned halls and buildings refuse to rent out to non-Christian faiths and events? Should Pagan/Pagan-friendly organizations even approach a Christian hall, lest they cause problems for their hosts? In some towns is it even possible to rent a hall that isn’t owned by the local church? What do you think?

The Church of England has been having a hard time of it recently. Attendance levels are falling precipitously, women are leaving in massive droves, and hip outreach programs don’t seem to be making much of a difference. So the Anglican bishops have decided it’s time to get back into the old-school conversions business.

Anglicans were commanded to “go forth and evangelise” yesterday in a dramatic assertion of missionary fervour that could jeopardise carefully built-up relations with Muslims, Jews and other faiths. The established Church of England put decades of liberal-inspired political correctness behind it in a move that led one bishop to condemn in anger the “evangelistic rants” … The Church’s General Synod, meeting in London, overwhelmingly backed a motion to force its bishops to report on their “understanding of the uniqueness of Christ in Britain’s multifaith society” and offer guidance in sharing “the gospel of salvation” with people of other faiths and none.

If you think this move is going to cause some internal tensions, you’d be right. While some vicars see every person they meet as “a potential convert”, others are worried that a renewed stridency will only further hinder efforts at evangelistic outreach.

However, the Bishop of Hulme, Stephen Lowe, who leads the Church’s mission in urban life, told The Times that he was “saddened” by the debate. Condemning the “evangelistic rants” of some members, he said: “There are one or two contributions that worried me because they did not seem to have any understanding of the nature of relationship that precedes good evangelism.” He added: “There’s an element of people who have not got experience of living and spreading the gospel in a multicultural, multifaith context telling those who do have that experience how to do it. That makes me very uneasy.”

Will this re-evangelization effort bear fruit? Or will it simply further alienate those already dissatisfied with the church? Whichever the case, I can’t imagine this will do wonders for relations between the CoE and an increasingly multi-religious Britain. While some vicars complain that British Anglicans need “to recover our nerve” and get back to proclaiming the “truth”, they may find that doctrinal correctness could come at the price of an ever-shrinking audience of believers. As for British Pagans, they now know who to avoid at parties and other social functions.