Perfunctoriness. You’d have thought that it was a made up word. It’s not. Microsoft Word underlines it in red. But it’s wrong.
Apathetic. When you put an “a” in front of a word, it sometimes makes it mean “a lack of”. For example, “amoral” may be taken to mean “a lack of morals”. But actually, apathetic doesn’t mean a lack of being pathetic. Actually, it sort of means the opposite of that – so, it means to be pathetic? Well, that’s more a consequence of apathy.
The two words are synonyms. Some suggest that they mean “a lack of interest and enthusiasm”.
I travelled to York last weekend. York is home to the largest (Gothic) cathedral in Northern Europe. I expected this to mean that for the service at 8:00am, there would be a large crowd. Instead, the streets of York on Saturday night were filled with drunkards and when a Muslim friend and I joined the Church service at the Cathedral on Sunday morning, we were found to be amongst just 25 people. Some would classify York to be the second largest Christian city in the country – afterall, there is the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York. Yet the number of people attending the Sunday morning service was 25 from a population of about 200 000 (75% of which is said to be Christian [UK Census 2001]).
Should we then be surprised at the number of people that attend the mosque on a Friday night? Why is it that people are drawn away from mosques and churches? Has religion (or possibly religious service) gone out of fashion?
What is it that we can do to once again drive the interest and enthusiasm of the population to encourage them to attend the religious centres that once used to be the hub of society? What can we do to encourage people to take part in the religious institutions – to provide and work for the community and to help build a society that revolves around morality?
Salaams and Duas for all ia. I was recently in Aberdeen and did a walk about on a warm Saturday night. I was amazed at the number of beautiful churches from various periods dotted all around a compact city centre. I saw the churches were well lighted and brimming with people and looked dazzling. I first thought this seems a devout city! I then went to have a closer look and guess what I found? One ‘church’ was actually a casino! Yet another was a wine bar and a third was a night club! This pattern was repeated throughout the town centre. One actually had been turned into a nice looking restaurant, which was tempting to try out with its beautiful stained glass window but I had already had dinner and was rather full.
Then in the middle of a particularly busy alley I came across a parked trailer by which I saw a board asking passers by to walk if they needed help of the emotional sort- a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, a problem to share ……….
Whilst browsing, a chap came to talk to me and I enquired what they represented? He answered that some 16 odd churches of all denominations in the city had joined up together to be there on weekend nights to provide on the street counselling and support to passers by and revellers alike. Aberdeen had a lot of churches as people were at one time ‘devout’ and congregations were large, but as the city developed and wealth flowed, church attendances declined to the point were the upkeep of the old churches became expensive and therefore they were sold off for alternative uses.
The churches were now working together to get the people of Aberdeen to come back to the church and God.
With increasing secularisation and individualisation of Muslim communities and the ostrich like attitude in many of our mosques are we increasingly going to face the same fate? Are our attachments simply emotional and as we get more settled and Britons get more comfortable with our presence will be become as irreverent as them to religion? Are we even ready to ask these ??s
greetings, superior blog page, and a great understand! just one for my book marks.