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LONDON: Terry Waite joins Quakers to escape ‘chirpy’ vicars
by Christopher Morgan
The Sunday Times
October 8, 2006
TERRY WAITE, one of the world’s best-known Anglicans, has taken to attending the simple prayer meetings of the Quakers because he is fed up with the antics of Church of England services in which vicars act like “television hosts”.
Waite, who was held hostage in Lebanon from 1987-91 when acting as peace envoy for Robert Runcie, then Archbishop of Canterbury, believes that Anglican services have become too “regimented” and lack the time for peaceful reflection because they are trying to “emulate popular entertainment”.
When Waite is at his home near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, he shuns the Anglican services and instead attends the local Friends’ Meeting House.
In contrast with the elaborate rituals of Anglican and Catholic churches, Quakerism, broadly Christian, established in 1648 as the Religious Society of Friends, has no formal orders of service.
Instead, meetings consist of members sitting in a simple room, often in silence, to communicate directly with God, guided by what they call the “inward light”.
“While I understand the importance of ritual in traditional worship there is a need in the spiritual life for straightforward simplicity,” said Waite.
“The contemporary Church of England has made everybody so busy jumping up and down all the time in its services. In the days before all the changes to the services you could often remain on your knees for an entire service of holy communion. In that time you could respond spiritually in the way you wanted.”
Modern services are filled with instructions on when to stand and sit and what page to turn to in which book, often interspersed with chirpy comments from priests worried that their congregations might be getting bored.
Waite said: “In so many circumstances the church has tried to emulate popular entertainment . . . the clergyman is trying to act as a television host. It may well have attractions for those who have never been in a church but it does not help those who want to worship God in a quiet way.”
Waite, who recently completed a period as visiting fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, said that some traditional Anglican services such as evensong in the college chapel gave him the opportunity for quiet reflection, but he had found himself increasingly alienated from mainstream Anglican worship.
“I am not just talking about having silences within the services. It is extremely distracting to be told to stand up and sit down repeatedly. I often disobey. Why should I stand up?” he said.
“The old-style communion service allowed for quiet contemplation. We need space. It is this space and quietness of the Quakers which appeal to me.”
Asked whether he prefers the Friends’ Meeting House in Bury or the nearby cathedral, Waite said: “I certainly don’t go to the cathedral. It would be the meeting house. I am very ecumenical. I remain an Anglican.”
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