18 July 2025

Bijan Omrani has written an article in ‘The Critic’ entitled, ‘Striving for the Divine’. His opening illustration was a summary of a sermon preached by what he called ‘a senior Church of England clergyman to a large congregation of hoary-haired church volunteers’.

The clergyman invited the congregation to make a prayer fist and proceeded to invite them to wiggle their thumb, their forefinger etc. With each wiggle, he talked about a different aspect of prayer. The wiggly thumb is for thumbs up i.e. things for which to give thanks!

You have probably heard this address hopefully not in a sermon but in a piece  for children. The idea of ‘a senior clergyman’ speaking to a group of church volunteers in this patronising way makes me thoroughly embarrassed.

Omrani writes, ‘Certainly, there are many individual clergy who do justice to the ‘lively oracles of God’. Yet, all too often, the Church of England now smacks of a primary school.’ Is there some of this in the Kirk. I should say so. The senior clergyman in question was far too concerned with entertainment than theological reflection.

There is no excuse for this. The vocation of the minister is all tied up with sharing the good news, understanding the Word,  reflecting theologically on what is going on locally and globally and sharing all of this in an interesting but not patronising way.

It takes time to do this thoroughly – and it sometimes causes the brain to ache. Striving to find words which convey deep insights in an understandable way is something which requires work. The thumbs up to experienced volunteers diminished their intelligence and the value of their indispensable vocation.