Diary – 10 December 2011

Recently, telling myself I must cure my allergy to the banal language employed by the Church of England these days, I went to a service in a local Norman church. The visiting preacher was a grey-haired woman. Her soporiferous sermon induced instant lethargy until she gave a sudden shriek. ‘…and God went WOW!’ she shouted, and repeated this dubious claim twice. Incomprehension skittered among the congregation of six elderly ladies. I suppose the preacher believed that, if she used contemporary colloquial language, the picture she was trying to conjure of a recognisable God would be easier for us to imagine than if she used the language of the King James Bible. Her mistake was not to have checked out the general age of her listeners. They knew ‘Wow!’ had never come into the Bible. It was not a convincing picture of the Almighty. No wonder they looked affronted.

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This week eight requests for money for charity came through the post.