'Hooker has this at least in common with Luther, that he is profoundly suspicious of conditions other than baptism as a test of belonging to the Church; and he is in effect saying to his opponents [the Puritans] that they are not Protestant enough, if the touchstone of Protestantism is witness to the liberty and the priority of God's act.'
Rowan Williams, Why Study the Past, p. 78.
Drawing of Rowan Williams by Lesley Fellows.
H/T to Lesley Fellows at Lesley's Blog for the quote.
I'd have no post here without the awesome Lesley Fellows.
LOL - that made me laugh!
ReplyDeleteUnless I am completely off my rocker, doesn't this very quote negate the need for that Covenant that he is trying to sell to us?
ReplyDeleteVW = terse
Irony, Irony, Irony. . .
I´m suspicious of everything that comes out of Rowan Williams mouth these days/daze--I often wonder if during his six month visit/leave to Washington D.C./Georgetown he hooked up with ¨C¨ Street groupies and got wined, dined and reassigned from his more sensible progressiveness.
ReplyDeleteEven a very blind hen can find a corn...
ReplyDeleteLesley, I should have said the awesome Revd Lesley Fellows. Titles count. :-)
ReplyDeleteUnless I am completely off my rocker....
Susan, then I'm off your rocker, too.
I often wonder if during his six month visit/leave to Washington D.C./Georgetown he hooked up with ¨C¨ Street groupies and got wined, dined and reassigned from his more sensible progressiveness.
Leonardo, something happened. Was it simply that he was named Archbishop of Canterbury?
Even a very blind hen can find a corn...
ReplyDeleteAnother quote for the day, Göran! LOL!
Susan, then I'm off your rocker, too.
ReplyDeleteDearie me, is that a euphemism? Is this a beautiful relationship we've not been told about? ...
(I'm back on the single malt, if you want to know.)
wv - crazines - that's a girl band I'd like to belong to.
PS Rowan Willias is in effect negating the entire Covenant with that quote.
ReplyDelete(I'm back on the single malt, if you want to know.)
ReplyDeleteCathy, I knew it. You didn't have to tell me.
PS Rowan Willias is in effect negating the entire Covenant with that quote.
You're off Susan's rocker, too, Cathy.
I don't loan my rocker out to anyone, so you can both get your own. I have never been quite sure what that reference is, but I know it means that I'm a little off the beam, or don't have the rifle aimed quite true. Don't say anything Cathy. You can think anything you want, but keep it to yo'sef!
ReplyDeleteAnd Mimi, whatever you're thinking, what I said to Cathy applies to you too! Now I'm going to see if I can find the explanation, derivation, or whatever it's called.
Susan, be sure to get back to us on what you find out.
ReplyDeleteAre you really interested, Mimi?
ReplyDeleteSusan, I am.
ReplyDeleteOk, here goes. . .This is from my friend Jonathan(no, not that Jonathan)Harris. After pointing out that I could Google it, to which I replied that I had tried, but am inept when it comes to the Google, he wrote . . .
ReplyDelete"Here are two explanations (I like the first better, but who knows?). They both fit your "mechanical" hypothesis:
I have heard a proposed origin for the phrase 'off his rocker'... if memory serves the idea was that it came from early days of steam engine development....in particular beam engines....the beam engine rocks back and forth and if it comes off the pivot (rocker) it goes mad, flailing about and smashing up everything about it...."
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... the first appearance in print of OFF ONE’S TROLLEY in 1896 (see quote below) was followed less than one year later in 1897 (see quote above) by OFF ONE’S ROCKER. This, and the fact that electric trolleys were ‘off’ and running in the 1890s would seem to indicate that we might have more than just a coincidence here. And it strikes me that falling ‘asleep’ in one’s rocking chair is a much more likely event than ‘falling off one’s rocking chair’ – an occurrence seemingly too rare to warrant having an expression named after it – or the even rarer occurrence of somehow being ‘off the rocker’ on one’s rocking chair (whatever that might mean – it’s hard to visualize). On the other hand, even by the 1940s when I would pass three different trolley lines on my mile or so walk to my elementary school every day (yes, kids actually walked to school in those prehistoric times), I often saw men working on a stalled trolley trying to get that overhead, spring-loaded pole, back onto the power line where it belonged – it had gone OFF ITS ROCKER.
Susan, I love learning about how and where expressions originate. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI remember the pole on the street cars (trolleys) in New Orleans sometimes came off the wire. The car would then lose power and stop, and the driver had to get off to replace the pole on the electric line. I remember the rocking of the cars, too. The St. Charles Ave. street car was, and still is, such a pleasant ride.
The oldest reference the OED shows is from 1890, so these accounts seem to be on target. Their first "off one's trolley" is from 1896, and they attach it to Trolley in the sense of "A low truck without sides or ends, esp. one with flanged wheels for running on a railway, or a track of rails in a factory, etc."
ReplyDeleteBTW San Francisco still has a few lines of trolley *buses* as well as the streetcar lines that run up Market Street and out to the West end of town. Frisco: not all cable cars. And I assume that people still have to do the ritual of reconnecting to the wire when the pole loses its connection.
Porlock, thanks for the further information. It's fascinating to learn the about the roots of the figures of speech that we take so much for granted.
ReplyDeleteI am convinced the Archbishop is a pod person. He can not make such statements and then decide that while baptism is the test of belonging, the final exam is the Anglican Covenant.
ReplyDeleteSCG, Rowan cannot make the covenant the final exam. What an excellent way to put it. There is no logic in his double-mindedness that a rational person can accept. This statement is in addition to his previous positive commentary about persons in faithful same-sex relationships.
ReplyDelete