Hi Jon, I belong to an Anglican parish here but have never spiked the vicar's tea.
Besides most of the clergy here are hooked on coffee. The term "vicar" here is used to denote the head clergyman/woman of a "mission" congregation, i.e. one that is not self-supporting and which receives financial support from the diocese. The two most common reasons for mission status are:
1. parish in a newly developed area which is still trying to grow and get on its own two feet
2. parish in an area that is becoming lower income, with middle class moving out, and thus seeing a decline in its tithing revenues.
Churches here do not receive state funding, nor is there a payroll withhold tax that goes to one's church, as in the case in many European countries (Germany, Italy, Sweden, etc.). All donations are voluntary, but ARE tax-deductible up to a limit (I think it's like 40 or 50% of one's income). Say someone earns $100K per annum but donates $10K to registered charities (one's parish, Red Cross, Cancer Fund, whatever). The taxable income will be only $90K and the last $10K would avoid taxation.
It is not uncommon here to see people who donate 5-10% of their annual income to various charities, including churches, but then again it's interesting how the tax regulations bring out the generosity in so many people.
Very wealthy people, who still have lots of money left over after donations, often donate much larger % amounts, 20-40% or more.
The result for a particular parish here is that its financial fortunes hinge largely on the size and prosperity of its congregation. The bishop can help fund a financially distressed parish if he/she (yes, we have female Anglican bishops here....the Los Angeles diocese has two women Suffragan Bishops) wishes to keep a church presence in the area, and such parishes revert to "mission" status. I believe in this situation that the bishop can directly make hiring decisions re: clergy, whereas in a parish this is the decision of the Vestry.
PS when I have asked in the past WHY the tea kettle HAS to be Russell Hobbs, the answer is always "because it's Russell Hobbs." Um, yeah, right.
The other amusing aspect is when relatives from the UK visit here and whinge about how slow our tea kettles are....forgetting that we are cooking with 120V and not 240V (i.e. 1500-1800 Watts rather than 3000 Watts). Their "only the UK knows how to do things right" attitude is actually the result of their poor education in Basic Physics.
PS#2 I have a relative in London who is a physician who still insists that Nobel Prize winner James Watson was British (despite having been born in Chicago to American parents). His co-winner and collaborator Francis Crick WAS British, but my cousin is convinced that Mother England has a monopoly on the structure of DNA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Watson
Disclaimer: while Anglican churches in USA respect the Archbishop of Canterbury as head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, HM The Queen is NOT the legal head of the church here (and prayers for the Royal Family have been purposefully deleted from the American version of the Book of Common Prayer). This was necessary after the Revolutionary War in order to save the many existing Anglican parishes from extinction. For one, clergy had had (pre-war) to make loyalty oaths to the King, and any faith that regarded the British monarch as its head would not have long to survive. The 39 Articles were re-written to omit royal references. The newly independent church was rechristened The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States (today: The Episcopal Church) and eventually was admitted into the Anglican Communion (remember, this was new territory for the Church of England, the first time a colony had rebelled successfully, so there was no procedure of what do to if they had many parishes in a newly independent country). On major occasions, HM is invited as an honorary guest to cut ribbons and open things. For example, when construction was completed on Washington's National (Episcopal) Cathedral, HM cut the ribbon and dedicated the completed structure. (no one asked her what she thought of the Darth Vader gargoyles carved into one of the columns....).
The article gives details of HM's 1977 dedication visit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cathedral
[this post was last edited: 8/11/2010-14:48]
