MetaCatholic

Update Sun 8 June evening. I think this will be my final update. Ruth Gledhill has since left an additional comment on Andrew Brown’s post. It is a remarkably honest and humble personal statement, and I commend it to you.

Update Sun 8 June. I feel my dilemma has only worsened in the light of Ruth Gledhill’s comment below. The trouble is I’ve intruded as an outsider in what seems almost like a family argument. Not for nothing do the police dislike getting involved in domestics. I invite you, however, to read it with due caution. At the very least it seems Ruth’s original remarks as quoted here, which she fairly quickly removed, should be read more as an expression of emotion on behalf of a friend, and not as a considered statement of opinion. 

Update Sat 7 June: In a comment on Andrew Brown’s blog Ruth Gledhill explains (in part at least) why the post refered to here has disappeared.

I took the post down on the advice of a friend whose judgement I trust.

This leaves me with a dilemma about what to do with my quotations. I have decided to leave them (since Ruth only seems to qualify the wisdom of posting them, rather than the content of what she says), but I think you should know the context if you decide to read any further. Ruth Gledhill, Damien Thompson and Andrew Brown all interact with each other over on Andrew’s blog.

What is interesting is that RG and DT claim respectively that senior journalists on the Times and the Telegraph were “shocked” and “disgusted” by AB’s comments. I can only assume, given the ease with which these papers attack anyone in even semi-public life is that what shocks and disgusts them is that it’s been done to a journalist, and one of their own.

So, if you want the original post, you can read on, but bear in mind that Ruth Gledhill has removed the remarks after second thoughts prompted by advice she trusts.

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Earlier today the Times religious correspondent went a bit over the top. Ruth Gledhill really doesn’t like Andrew Brown, who often uses his Church Times column to have a go at her and other religious affairs writers for what he regards as sloppy, fact-unchecked journalism. The proximate cause of this was a sort of obituary comment on her Sunday Times equivalent Chris Morgan who last week killed himself, apparently after a lengthy bout of depression. (May God be good to him.) Brown’s remarks were not exactly charitable, but neither as far as I can determine, were they untrue. It’s just that Ms Gledhill clearly believes in nil nisi bonum – although as far as I can tell she often only applies it to her friends.

Here are a sample of her remarks (with comment), that I preserve for posterity, since either she or the Times lawyers have taken them down,

It has always puzzled me that the Church Times should employ an atheist, but I guess the undoubted cleverness of Brown’s writing made up for any lack on the God front. Or maybe it just that the Church Times epitomises the style of Anglicanism where it actually does not matter much what you believe in, an antediluvian institution where failed liberal theologians sit around the editorial table under the 1960s-style delusion that atheism can be fashionable, daring even.

Hmm … Brown, a former religion correspondent for The Independent (back when it was worth reading) is asked to review the week’s media coverage of religion. In doing so he often calls the church to account for stupidity or media-naivety. Arguably the mix of his outsider status and professional experience makes him well-qualified to do so. You might think the Church Times should be applauded for inviting this kind of voice to comment.

I still find it extraordinary however that an atheist, Bedales-educated former drop-out who writes books on Darwinism but has no university degree, and who is not even a churchgoer, should become the effective spokesman for the frustrations of the liberal wing of an established church that hasn’t got the guts to tell journalists these things to our faces, or to look in the mirror and see therein the ugly beams, beams so large they’ve blighted their view of the world.

I believe this is called an ad hominem attack. Journalists attack the church all the time, but when someone attacks a journalist, shock and horror break out all over. Speaking of looking for beams …

At The Times, we cancelled one of our Church Times subscriptions some time ago. It seemed rather a waste of resources. The Church of England Newspaper is far better, in particular the monthly media column by Ruth Gledhill.

There is a fine dividing line between self-promoting chutzpah and egocentricity. I would suggest that this may have crossed over.

I can’t help but wonder what’s happened to the astonishing rant from which I took these excerpts. Perhaps Ruth Gledhill has thought better of them once she got over her initial reactions. Perhaps the lawyers have got involved. But isn’t it a sad comment on the state of things that my initial reaction is how like a newspaper or a journalist that something like this should disappear, but no apology be made in its place.