Inclusivism Frenzy

A Church of England book published this week says bald and overweight people should be regarded as worshippers with "special needs" alongside the blind, the deaf and worshippers in wheelchairs. The advice is an attempt to make churches more friendly to newcomers and therefore increase attendance at services.

The book, Everybody Welcome, warns that bald people could be "in trouble from those overhead radiant heaters some churches have unwittingly installed" and that special arrangements may need to be made for people who are overweight. "Some pew spaces and chairs are embarrassingly inadequate for what is known in church circles as 'the wider community'," the book says.

Also, consideration should be given to recovering alcoholics who want to receive communion wine, it suggests, and for those who "find loud noises from organs or music groups distressing".

The Church's drive also includes ideas such as encouraging worshippers to make eye contact, to smile and to remember people's names. - The Telegraph

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"[the church], for example, is more concerned with being inclusive than being the church. We do not have the slightest idea what we mean by being inclusive other than some vague idea that inclusivity has something to do with being accepting and loving. Inclusivity is, of course, a necessary strategy for survival in what is religiously a buyers' market." - Stanley Hauerwas