Bits I cut from my essays

Traditions; any large organisation has an inertia, the result of which is to discourage change until a strong weakness is seen.

(of the unity scheme in the 1960s) If the reconciliation service was not in fact a re-ordination then it achieved nothing and was therefore pointless.

"They protest against submitting ... to the unlimited authority of the preachers ... there has been no instance in the history of the Christian church in which spiritual tyranny has not been fatal to the interests of religion, the character of its ministers and privileges of the people." (Wesleyan Protestant Methodists, Tenth Point, c.1828)

There was also a quote which I can't find again amounting to: "How can you take a twentysomething young man, give him three or four years' ministerial training and expect that to last him through his career?" (written before there were female ministers).