• The Christian Year and Social Media

    I do love the way that the Christian Year is becoming more important to Christians because of social media.

    When I check my facebook and twitter feeds in a morning I can be pretty sure that there will be something there which relates to what season or more likely what day we have got to in the cycle of faith.

    Today for example, I checked my facebook feed and found a lovely description of St Margaret of Scotland posted by Kirstin Freeman.

    Today is St Margaret’s Feast Day and I can remember a time when most people simply wouldn’t participate in such a festival. Now, if you follow a few Christian bloggers and social media mavens you get little reminders of the heros of faith – comment and pictures and all kinds of good things just arriving before your eyes.

    Passive learning is a big feature of the new knowledge economy. I find it odd that lots of people in the church still don’t get it and still think that learning is about people coming to hear them spout. It can be far more dynamic and far more interesting, even if spouting is still part of what the church has to offer.

5 responses to “Silly headline”

  1. Zebadee Avatar
    Zebadee

    The BBC and certain ‘academics’ are only about three hundred years behind the times. Of course the tune IS still being used today to sing this wonderful carol. We only wish that we could be in St Marys on Christmas Day to sing it with you.

  2. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    I remember being very confused the first time I heard the carol sung to a tune that wasn’t On Ilkla’ Moor, and thinking that they did things rather oddly on this charming island.

  3. Tim Avatar

    Well, congratulations to them for actually having had the balls to talk to an academic, if not the brains to make much of the story. That’s half a step up from the bulk of modern journalism.

    Form the article: He said carols – many of which have folk roots –

    Actually, *all* carols have to be a mediaeval (round) dance tune, otherwise they’re merely Christmas hymns (cf Away in a Manger only dating from around 1885). Natch.

  4. chris Avatar

    The Ilkla’ Moor tune has also been sung in the Cathedral of The Isles, in recent years.

  5. kelvin Avatar

    of course it has – and in many a place of good taste.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Riling the Nuns

    Oh no, I’ve managed to rile the nun-lobby in my previous post. You never know who you are going to upset when you start blogging. It was my comment about three nuns sitting around singing kum-by-yah that did it. And I was quoting someone else too. For the record, a good deal of my training…

  • Back to work

    Back to work yesterday. Today was spent answering or dealing with all but 12 of the 150 e-mails that were waiting for me. (None of those 150 were spam, either). I had a lovely holiday, thank you for asking. It is one’s duty to be able to say that you have enjoyed a lovely holiday…

  • Holy George

    Today is St George’s Day and as I live in St George’s Cross, I feel as though I should make some effort to mark the fact. There is a statue of him just around the corner from me. His iconography is as usual here – beardless, riding on a horse and slaying a dragon. There…