#ra

Incidentally, one of the most worrying problems in the impact of Western modernity on traditional culture is that it quite rapidly communicates its own indifference or anxiety or even hostility about age and ageing. ↗

— Rowan D. Williams

#age #ageing #anxiety #communicates #culture

It is impossible to deny that Christians and Muslims have a common agenda here: both faiths have at their heart the living image of a community raised up by God's call to reveal to the world what God's purpose is for humanity. ↗

— Rowan D. Williams

#both #call #christians #common #community

In sharp contrast to the idea that this stage of life is enviable, we hear high levels of anxiety about getting old, anxieties about health, mobility, access to facilities, simple routine care and attention. ↗

— Rowan D. Williams

#access #anxieties #anxiety #attention #care

The Church is the new creation, it is life and joy, it is the sacramental fellowship in which we share the ultimate purpose of God, made real for us now in our hearing the Word and sharing the Sacrament. ↗

— Rowan D. Williams

#creation #fellowship #god #hearing #joy

The twentieth century may tell us that we have nothing to be complacent about in the recent history of humankind; but it also tells us that there is nothing inevitable about tyranny. ↗

— Rowan D. Williams

#also #century #complacent #history #humankind

Quite a lot of our contemporary culture is actually shot through with a resentment of limits and the passage of time, anger at what we can't do, fear or even disgust at growing old. ↗

— Rowan Williams

#anger #contemporary #culture #disgust #even

Whether something is old-fashioned or not doesn't resolve the question of whether it's true or not. I can see the temptation of simply thinking, 'Well, there's a cultural mainstream which flows neatly in one direction. You just align with it'. And that really won't do. ↗

— Rowan Williams

#cultural #direction #flows #i #i can

At the end of the Middle Ages, nobody would ever have expected the monasteries to vanish from the scene within a generation - yet they did. Change does happen. ↗

— Rowan Williams

#change #did #does #end #ever

I do feel that federation, loose parallel processes, are less than we've got, less than we could have and, in the very long run, less than what God wants in the Church. ↗

— Rowan Williams

#could #federation #feel #god #got

Institutions develop because people put a lot of trust in them, they meet real needs, they represent important aspirations, whether it's monasteries, media, or banks, people begin by trusting these institutions, and gradually the suspicion develops that actually they're working for themselves, not for the community. ↗

— Rowan Williams

#aspirations #banks #because #begin #community