Psalm 96:7-10
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7 Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!
8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts!
9 Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth!
10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.”
That is what movies are.... play. Then they are "based upon a true story".
In the movie theatres right now we have..... Hadewiijch - getting 75% movie critic approval and roughly 3 out of 5 regular viewers like it. "A novice nun, Hadewiich, shocks the mother superior of her convent with her ecstatic blind faith, and is kicked out of the order. Hadewijch becomes Celine again, a young Parisian girl and daughter of a diplomat, and is led down dangerous paths in the real world, balancing between grace and madness in her rage and passionate love for God."
Okay. Jesus Freaks are Nuts. Obviously!
Then, I had to say I loved Colin Firth in "The King's Speech". It's based upon a true story. Really - the future king had a speech impediment, which was worked upon 10 years.... "before" he became king. George VI became good friends with his speech therapist - Lionel Logue. In 1935, after 24 years of revolutionizing speech therapy by establishing exercise and "super-human" sympathy, Lionel Logue co-founded the British Society of Speech Therapists. 2 years before George VI was crowned.
Not so in the movie; In the movie the nasty, toady Archbishop of Canterbury, William Cosmo Gordon Lang, is the dastardly spoiler of the wonderful friendship of the King with Lionel Logue. Again in the movie, Lionel Logue had no real credentials other than life experience and the nasty Archbishop "tells" the King, Lionel has been replaced with a real speech therapist. The Archbishop is incensed the mere King would want Westminster Abby to himself to rehearse for the Coronation. Also - the movie, the Archbishop tells the future king, Edward, Prince of Wales (Edward VIII) the Archbishop is helping Edward with his own father's poor opinions of Edward. The Prince of Wales neatly tells the priest he is a sycophant without using that exact phrase.
Obviously! Men of God are nasty, rude, imperious, self-seeking, power hungry, friendship destroyers - with career destroying thrown in for good fun. It is true Lionel once felt very insulted when Bishop Lang questioned him about if he should be addressed as doctor. The time and situation of the question isn't true. Based upon a true story..... what is Archbishop Lang's history.....really:
O families of the peoples, we are a Christian family, speak up when Christians are used as the device to depict self-centered aggrandizement! Speak up when we are falsely labeled. !!!!!
- His first Church - rejected an offer of the chaplaincy of All Souls as he wanted to be "up and doing" in a tough parish. Lang & fellow curates fashioned a clergy house from a derelict pub. He later moved next door, into a condemned property - his home for his remaining service in Leeds.
- Then the Church in Portsmouth, a dockside parish of 40,000 people, with a mix of housing from neat terraces to squalid slums
- Establishment of parochial church councils long before they were given legal status in 1919. To give the Churches better order to be better functioning.
- Chaplain to the local prison & Acting Chaplain to the 2nd Hampshire Royal Artillery Volunteer Corps.
- Supported campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty.
- Appointed suffragan Bishop of Stepney, Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral - "East End" 2,000,000 people. Almost all were poor, and housed in overcrowded and insanitary conditions. Lang saw & was troubled by the squalor he saw traveling around the district, usually by bus and tram.
- Chairman of the Church of England Mens' Society (CEMS) - society to fund lay workers to help in the poorest Churches to combat poverty issues. Later Lang became critical of the Church's failure to use this movement effectively, calling it one of the Church's lost opportunities.
- Lang was appointed to Archbishop of York, the 2nd highest position in the Church of England. *** Believing the Diocese of York was too large, he proposed reducing it, which after several years' work was reduced in size.
- Lang spoke out on a range of social and economic issues, and in support of improved working conditions.
- As Archbishop of Canterbury, critics began to comment he was "more courtier than cleric". His love of ceremony, and concern for how an archbishop should look and live, began to obscure other aspects of his ministry; He began to act as a "prince of the church".
- His portrait was painted; after sitting for Orpen, Lang remarked to Bishop of Durham the portrait showed him as "proud, prelatical and pompous". Henson's reply was "To which of these epithets does Your Grace take exception?"
- Lang wrote for the Sixth Lambeth Conference an "Appeal to all Christian People" - "We ... ask that all should unite in a new and great endeavor to recover and to manifest to the world the unity of the Body of Christ for which He prayed."
- Near the end of his term in office Lang led a deputation from several church groups to the Ministry of Education, to present a five-point plan for the teaching of religion in state schools; it was adopted into law.
- Lang confided in his diary "he agonized over whether he could, with good conscience, administer the Coronation Oath to the king" who was not living in a state of grace, as his coronation would make him Head of the Church of England. Another man reported the Prince of Wales troubles to the press.
An undeserved satirical rhyme was published:
- When the next, younger prince became King, he wrote in his diary of George VI: "I was now sure that to the solemn words of the Coronation there would now be a sincere response." Lang was a long time friend to the future Queen Mother from the early 1920s.My Lord Archbishop, what a scold you are!
And when your man is down, how bold you are!
Of charity how oddly scant you are!
How Lang O Lord, how full of Cantuar!
- Summer of 1941 Lang retired, his main concern was "perhaps the most fateful Lambeth Conference ever held" – would be called, Lang felt too old to lead it and wanted to make way for a younger man.
- In October 1944 Lang was greatly distressed by the sudden death of William Temple, his successor at Canterbury, writing: "I don't like to think of the loss to the Church and Nation ... But 'God knows and God reigns'."
Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!
I loved the movie "The King's Speech" but it is time for the family of God to speak out at the treatment of fellow Christians. They are spoken of in unflattering terms in any way the truth can be manipulated. It is a mild form of hate crime. Speak up.
Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.”
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