From Yes Prime Minister (The Bishops Gambit) 1986
James Hacker: Humphrey, what’s a Modernist in the Church of England?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Ah, well, the word “Modernist” is code for non-believer.
James Hacker: You mean an atheist?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: No, Prime Minister. An atheist clergyman couldn’t continue to draw his stipend. So, when they stop believing in God, they call themselves “Modernists”.
James Hacker: How could the Church of England suggest an atheist as Bishop of Bury St Edmunds?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, very easily. The Church of England is primarily a social organization, not a religious one.
James Hacker: Is it?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Oh yes. It’s part of the rich social fabric of this country. So bishops need to be the sorts of chaps who speak properly and know which knife and fork to use. The sort of people one can look up to.
Bury St Edmunds is in Suffolk, near Ipswich...
I was in Ipswich in October and on the Sunday attended the same 800 year old Anglican Church my grandfather was baptized in as a baby...
They had Communion and adhered to the teachings from the Bible and the rest of the service was just like I had experience as a child...
Later I enjoyed a time of “fellowship” meeting distance cousins and talking about the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior..
Not all churches have submitted...
what a profoundly great series. Nigel Hawthorne was masterly as the unctuous apparatchik.
Thank you for posting that. (It could describe Pelosi's idea of the Catholic Church in this country.)