The Anglican Conundrum
A video in my YouTube feed caught my eye, from a UK channel that's usually pretty highbrow in its tone. As you can see, its title is "Church sings for the first time God save the King ". This actually didn't strike me as an earth-shattering event, since it mainly involved some gender pronouns, but I decided to watch it, just because we ex-Anglicans like that sort of church music. What struck me was that the actual singing wasn't going to take place until well into the service, and it was preceded by extended reflections from the celebrant meant to prepare those attending for this change. The celebrant was wearing a purple chasuble. I looked this up, and in the US Roman Catholic Church, white, purple, or black vestments may be worn at masses for the dead, so this is OK -- but it was hard for me to shake the idea that the Queen's death had a special quasi-sacramental character, especially as related to the pronouns in the national anthem. The Queen is the su...