Calling Eliot As Witness

[poliphilo]

Actually, so what if Canon Fraser is a tuft hunter as my friend wemyss suggests? I don't suppose you can reach the upper levels of the C of E without putting yourself about a bit. As a former Anglican vicar myself, I saw some of the politicking and brown-nosing that goes on. If most of our senior clergy are morally compromised careerists there's nothing to be surprised about. I've dealt with Bishops. Most of them are unimpressive.

Who knows why Canon Fraser took the stand he did? Perhaps he did it to get noticed. Perhaps he's thinking, "I'll take this hit now and suffer the glory of career martyrdom and wind up with a mitre in another couple of moves." Quite possible. But then who knows why anyone does anything? The peeling back of layer after layer of motive is such a nineteenth century game. Human beings aren't that rational. And even if his resignation is only a cunning move in the chess of self-advancement, what's so bad about doing "the right deed for the wrong reason"? That's a quote from Eliot- whose Thomas Becket agonises over the question as he waits for the knights to come and kill him.  He admits to ambition, to wanting the glory of being a saint and then pushes all that febrile stuff aside, because the right deed is still the right deed however self-interested one's motives for doing it. 

Comments

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

i don't think that he needs to "get noticed" - his profile is pretty high already. If anything, I'd say that this could have damaged it

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He may be well known in church circles, but I'd never heard of him. The events of this week have given him a national profile.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

He broadcasts regularly on radio 4

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Good for him! A real example of WWJD.
But what is a tuft hunter???

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's an old-fashioned term for a sycophant.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

I gather that he did it, because he doesn't want the camp evicted - but the fact that no-one seems to be sure about that does suggest that it's a misguided action

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He welcomed the protesters and then the Dean and chapter went over his head and told them to clear off. I guess thatmade his position untenable. I got the feeling from the interviews he gave that he'd like to have have made his support for the protest a little more nuanced than newspaper headlines allow.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Um- but the Dean has resigned now too -
I thought that it was Elf and Sayftee and the police who were telling them to clear off - it was certainly E and S who made them close up -