A Gratuitious Swipe from Milbank?

This is the opening paragraph from Milbank's recent article "Stale Expressions: The Management Shaped Church" in Studies in Christian Ethics 21 (2008), 117-128.  Bear in mind that Milbank is an Anglican, that the article is about an Anglican initiative (Fresh Expressions), that the keywords for the article include Anglican, church and England.  He writes:

"The man next to you on the GNER train going north, wired up to his laptop and his mobile simultaneously: issuing instructions about hiring, firing, sidelining, expanding here and reducing here, letting so and so in on the latest developments, leaving so and so out of them, making cautious inquiries concerning new development opportunities, closing down an unprofitable field before it sinks too many resources. Yes, he may well be a systems manager for an information technology firm. Or, he may equally well be a Baptist minister . . ."

Bloody cheek!  Although the article has lots of interesting things to say.  Actually, looking at the picture Milbank could easily pass for a Baptist minister - the glasses, beard and jumper combo are dead right.  All he needs is a guitar.  All together now "These are the days of Elijah....cos' Radical Orthodoxy rules".

Comments

[David Southall]

Sorry to join the debate late but Millbank seems on target to me- at least in this respect. You ask most BM's what they want and they will say church growth. And almost all will have a copy of Rick Warren next to them. Perhaps we might all do better if we stuck to being ordained ministers who celebrate and prioritise the sacraments rather than produce strategy after strategy for growth ...Yawn.
Oh and as for one who has just joined the bearded community and who scowls quite a lot - especially when singing Days of Elijah (which I never choose) - Millbank looks fine to me!

[Curtis Freeman]

I gave up reading Milbank almost a decade ago. He was invited to speak at the North American Karl Barth society on the topic of Barth and Radical Orthodoxy. Instead, he talked about G.K. Chesterton and Magic. He was invited the year before by George Hunsinger at a big session of the AAR right after the Radical Orthodoxy book came out. His lecture at the Barth meeting was actually more intelligible than most of what I've heard from him, which is usually pretty dense, but I figured if he wouldn't take seriously Karl Barth and the over 250 people who showed up to hear his talk on Barth, then he didn't deserve to be taken seriously. The good news is I haven't missed Milbank and company at all, which is imho neither radical nor orthodox. So the fact that Milbank even knows that there are Baptists is an improvement. It probably means he takes Baptists more seriously than his quip might suggest.

[Lucy]

He looks too sulky to be a Baptist minister!

[Catriona]

How could Milbank be a Baptist minister he's scowling! Or is it only blogging Baptist ministers who smile? Or is it that we find the only smiley photo we have to post on our blogs...?

Anyway, if he met a Baptist minister on a train he wouldn't recognise her. ;-)

[Doug Chaplin]

Amazing! Can I congratulate you, Sean, on having found a sentence written by Millbank that can be understood by someone without three PhDs.

[andy jones]

What's all this about beards and guitars? I haven't played Kumbaya for weeks!

[Glen Marshall]

Utter prejudice, arrogant stereotyping, typical Anglican ... oops!

[scott]

Perhaps a swipe, but as one reared in Baptist churches, I can attest that he's at least not wrong.

[John Lyons]

At least there is something going on in Baptist churches and the example makes a perverse kind of sense. Can you imagine an Anglican minister sitting there on the train, firing off calls, texts, and e-mails to the PCC? Firing? I wish!

Of course, I can only say that and get away with it cos I is C of E! :)