Don’t let the facts…

Posted on February 23, 2010 
Filed under Opinion

“Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.” So goes the old saying. In Sunday’s Sun-Herald, Simon Webster writes –

“A vicar has sparked outrage in Britain by distributing a pamphlet urging women to do as their husbands tell them. Reports could not confirm whether he got his wife to deliver them for him. … Not to avoid members of the media – they would have been the least of his worries – but to steer clear of Mrs MacLeay. God only knows how she reacted when she read her husband’s musings.”

It would have been relatively easy to go to the St Nicholas’ website to hear the ‘offending’ sermons or to read this (which was posted a week ago) – The Rector of St. Nicholas’, Angus MacLeay, writes:

“On a different point another strand of headlines speak of the Rector telling women to be silent and of a leaflet written by him being distributed around the congregation in January. The reality is that I have written no leaflets, nothing has been distributed and no-one has ever told women to be silent.”

It’s worth reading both the article and the letter in their entirety, and then listening to the sermons (31 January and 14 February 2010).

And if this comes up in conversation, it’s a good opportunity to speak about the Lord Jesus, as Mark Oden does at the start of the first sermon.