Statue of Virgin will be "reparation for Reformation destruction"

Plans have been unveiled for a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary to stand in London in reparation for the destruction of the medieval Catholic shrines during the Reformation.

The work will be called "Mary Most Holy" and will stand on land alongside the River Thames at Chelsea's Embankment Gardens that was once owned by St Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor who was beheaded in 1535.

It has been commissioned by the Art and Reconciliation Trust, a charity set up to promote awareness of the negative affects iconoclasm can have on culture. It will cost in the region of £1.25 million.

The sculptor is Paul Day, whose previous work includes a 2002 memorial of the Battle of Britain on the bank of the Thames in central London; the Meeting Place at St Pancras station, London, and a memorial to the Queen Mother outside Buckingham Palace in the Mall.

The proposed work, a bronze triptych on a granite plinth, will feature a statue of a "beautiful" Virgin Mary holding up the Child Jesus against the backdrop of ruins. Read more
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Universities to open Islam centres

(Ed: Can anyone imagine this happening for conservative Christianity (there being no Islamic equivalent of liberal Christianity?)

Two of the country's top universities have announced plans to create new research centres for Islamic studies.

The move by Edinburgh University and Cambridge University is funded by a £16 million endowment from Prince Alwaleed bin Albdulaziz Alsaud, chairman of the philanthropic organisation Kingdom Foundation.

The new centres will aim to carry out research and public engagements designed to increase understanding between the Muslim world and the West.

The agreement was formalised at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, a spokeswoman for the University of Edinburgh said. Read more
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Polly Toynbee: Resist the medievalists. Women's right to abortion is a private matter

(Ed: These are basically the same arguments put forward by the eugenicists a hundred years ago - improve society by 'birth control' which will decrease the number of the feckless.)

[...] There was the 27-year-old who arrived at just over 22 weeks' gestation. She already had a 10-month-old, a five-year-old and a six-year-old, all of them in foster care. She said the next baby would go straight into care, because she was a drug user. In a chaotic daze, she had left the abortion to the last minute. Then there was the woman who arrived at 22 weeks and four days, who had been drinking heavily and taking large doses of cocaine, unaware she was pregnant. The one rational choice these addicted women were fit to make was to know they were not fit to be mothers.

So any MPs who think it would do no harm to cut the legal limit by a week or two, should ask if those women would make good mothers. Many would soon be the same mothers vilified as useless scroungers and no-hopers in the very same newspapers that sentimentalise thumb-sucking foetuses. When these unwanted foetuses grow up into hoodie delinquents, the same newspapers are first to demand severe punishments, warning that the world's going to hell in a handcart. The Mail should look at the figures in Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics suggesting that crime fell when the number of unwanted babies reaching their teens fell after abortion in the US was made legal. Read more
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The Times: Sir Cliff celebrates His 50 greatest hits

Sir Cliff Richard marked the 50th anniversary of his start in showbusiness yesterday with the publication of a book containing his top 50 Bible stories for children.

The pop star, a devout Anglican, said that the Church of England could overcome its present difficulties over gays and declining attendance by letting go of the intellectual approach to faith and learning to keep it simple.

“I have always had a simplistic approach to faith because it is so simple to me,” he told a press conference of mostly Christian journalists at the Methodist Church Central Hall in Westminster, London.

Naming the story of Joseph and his coat of many colours as one of his favourites, he said all children should be given the chance to read the Bible. Western society was built on rules that come from the Bible, he said. Never to open a Bible or attempt to read it was “almost criminal”. Read more
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The Times: I've lost interest in sex after an abortion

DR THOMAS STUTTAFORD

A Lack of interest in sex after an abortion is so common that it can almost be said to be expected. Before long your libido is likely to have returned, but both you and your partner have to bear in mind that even now having an abortion is a huge event in anyone's life. It is possible, but by no means inevitable, that the changes this will have wrought in the way you feel about a future together may have irretrievably undermined your relationship. If this happens, neither of you should assume blame or feel guilty. Read more
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The Times: Premature baby study stokes row on abortion

[...] The MPs Dr Evan Harris, Jacqui Lait and Chris McCafferty, who are leading the campaign to defend the 24-week time limit for abortion, said: “This research completely blows out of the water the spurious claim of antiabortionists that the threshold of foetal viability has reduced from 24 weeks since the early 1990s.

“This reinforces the emerging findings from the nationwide EPICure 2 study which has also found no improvement in survival below 24 weeks when comparing all births in England in 2006 with 1995. The medical research literature is very clear that it is these whole-pop-ulation studies that provide the most reliable indication of survival rates.

“In contrast, single hospital figures, usually unpublished, that are cited by antiabortion groups are misleading because they preferentially select those cases which are likely to survive in the first case.” Read more
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CofE 'rubbishes' Christian Research predictions

See this earlier story.

[...] The Church of England moved to discredit the research last night, criticising its methodology and saying the results were "flawed and dangerously misleading".

A C of E spokesman said: "These sorts of statistics, based on dubious presumptions, do no one of any faith any favours.

"Faith communities are not in competition and simplistic research like this is misleading and unhelpful."

The research does not compare like with like, according to the spokesman. The number of practising Muslims, for instance, is based on the number of people who said they were active in the 2001 census.

If the same process were applied to Christians it would give a figure of 20 million active churchgoers, according to Church House, the headquarters of the C of E.

The study used the number of adults on the Church's parish-based formal voting lists as the sole measure of its active "members".

This omitted large numbers who worship every week and are involved in their churches in other ways, according to Church House.

The Rev Lynda Barley, head of research and statistics for the Archbishops' Council, said last night: "There are more than 1.7 million people worshipping in a Church of England church or cathedral each month, a figure which is 30 per cent higher than the electoral roll figures and has remained stable since 2000.

"More are involved in fresh expressions of church and chaplaincies across the country and we have no reason to believe that this will drop significantly in the next decade.

"These statistics are incomplete and represent only a partial picture of religious trends in Britain today." Read more
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The Times: God-shaped hole will lead to loss of national sense of identity

The crisis facing Britain’s Christian churches is linked directly to the crisis of British identity now being addressed by the Government.

Oaths of allegiance and citizenship ceremonies are under consideration. But one thing lacking from so many conversations about “Britishness” is any reference to a link between religious and ethnic identity.

In contrast to the decline of Christianity in Britain, Islam and Hinduism are thriving here. One reason is that for Muslims and Hindus, wherever they come from, their religion is inextricably linked with their sense of identity.

Even though the last Prime Minister was devout and converted to Roman Catholicism soon after he left office, and the present one is a son of the manse, the Government remains strongly secular. This is an inevitable result of the liberalising trends of the last century, and one not necessarily to be lamented.

But the consequences, good and bad, need to be faced. Read more
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Daily Telegraph: Neil Oliver: where have all the real men gone?

[...] According to Oliver, "manly men" have been "hunted to near-extinction in the British Isles. There's been some kind of politically correct revolution where we've forgotten - or discarded - the value of being manly men," he laments.

"When I was a wee boy, my dad didn't like it if I cried when I fell over, but now, boys, well…" He trails off. "It just feels like a Second World War way of being - Cub Scouts, campfires, stiff upper lip - has been eroded and forgotten."

One problem, says Oliver, is that British boys no longer have decent role models. "Who do young boys look up to?" he asks.

"When you look at people who've given their lives, that has a certain effect on you, instead of holding up as a hero someone who has managed to score from a free kick in the dying minutes of a football match.

"Being a serviceman or a lifeboat man - that kind of devotion is not deemed worthy of the same applause; they don't seem to matter. Now you even get servicemen discouraged from wearing their uniforms. I don't think you have to be an old Tory ex-colonel sabre-rattler to find that's wrong."

Oliver, 41, who lives in Stirling, central Scotland, with his partner, Trudi, and their two children, Evie, five, and Archie, two, also blames the new world of "stay-at-home dads" for the loss of old-fashioned, manly values. Read more
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Christian Today: Church Commissioners announce outstanding investment results

The Church Commissioners achieved a return of 9.4 per cent on their investments in 2007. This far exceeded the return of 7.0 per cent from the fund’s comparator group for that year, the WM All Funds Universe.

WM All Funds Universe is a collection of the investment results of UK pension funds and is widely used as an independent measure of the performance of funds.

Over the past 10 years, the Commissioners’ total return on their investments has averaged 9.5 per cent per year – placing them in the top two per cent of funds in the WM All Funds Universe for the decade.

As a result of this 10-year performance, the Commissioners’ asset value has grown to £5.67 billion, and the fund has been able to distribute £37 million more each year to the Church than if the investments had performed only at the industry average of 7.1 per cent per year over the last ten years. Read more
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The Catholic Herald: Anglicans must choose between Protestantism and tradition, says Vatican

The Vatican has said that the time has come for the Anglican Church to choose between Protestantism and the ancient churches of Rome and Orthodoxy.

Speaking on the day that the Archbishop of Canterbury met Benedict XVI in Rome, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council of Christian Unity, said it was time for Anglicanism to "clarify its identity".

He told the Catholic Herald: "Ultimately, it is a question of the identity of the Anglican Church. Where does it belong?

"Does it belong more to the churches of the first millennium -Catholic and Orthodox - or does it belong more to the Protestant churches of the 16th century? At the moment it is somewhere in between, but it must clarify its identity now and that will not be possible without certain difficult decisions."

He said he hoped that the Lambeth conference, an event which brings the worldwide Anglican Communion together every 10 years, would be the deciding moment for Anglicanism.

Cardinal Kasper, who has been asked to speak at the Lambeth Conference by the Archbishop of Canterbury, said: "We hope that certain fundamental questions will be clarified at the conference so that dialogue will be possible.

"We shall work and pray that it is possible, but I think that it is not sustainable to keep pushing decision-making back because it only extends the crisis."

His comments will be interpreted as an attempt by Rome to put pressure on the Church of England not to proceed with the ordination women bishops or to sanction gay partnerships, both serious obstacles to unity. Read more
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Bp of Chelmsford preaches at service honouring East End's pre-war 'housing angel'

PEOPLE from all over the country are gathering to celebrate the life of one of the East London’s beneficiaries who made her fortune from rented housing for the working classes.

They are coming to Tower Hamlets from the Lake District, Warwickshire, Hampshire and Essex, with a large contingent from the East End itself, to commemorate the life of Emily Pemberton-Barnes, who died during the Second World War 65 years ago.

The Bishop of Chelmsford is preaching at the service of thanksgiving at St John-on-Bethnal Green parish church on Saturday.

Emily died in Felixstowe in August, 1943, at the age of 90, having been living in Havering-atte-Bower near Romford, in Essex. Read more
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Guardian Comment: The Doctor [Who] goes to church

[...] For the Doctor, everything is explainable by recourse to reason, with religious sentimentality rejected everywhere it rears its ugly head. The idea of dead relatives coming back to life (later revealed to be an army of Cybermen) is dismissed by the Doctor: "I think it's horrific," he argues. "Travelling with you, I don't know the difference between right and wrong any more," worries Donna, before receiving the Doctor's consolation: "It's better that way," a far cry from the moral Manichaeism dominant in religious circles. In series two, the Doctor even meets the Devil itself, but is soon able to explain the origin of its existence, in what turns out to be a clever deconstruction of mythical accounts of purest evil. One might even call it biblical criticism.

Of course there are religious tropes in the episode: religion provides us with such a rich tapestry of magical stories that it would be hard to avoid them. So there are visions and resurrections and the occasional angel. But this does not make it a religious programme, or a very useful source for the church. Russell T Davies, who "resurrected" the programme after its 15-year disappearance from television screens, is quoted as describing religion as a "very primal instinct within humans, a very good one, part of our imagination," but this seems to be diplomatic (Doctor Who is still very family oriented). The guest star of this series will be Richard Dawkins himself; a man Davies describes having "brought atheism proudly out of the closet". Superstition is rejected at every stage, scientific knowledge is held up as the only supreme being in the universe. Read more
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The Times: Churchgoing on its knees as Christianity falls out of favour

Church attendance in Britain is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation, research published today suggests.

The fall - from the four million people who attend church at least once a month today - means that the Church of England, Catholicism and other denominations will become financially unviable. A lack of funds from the collection plate to support the Christian infrastructure, including church upkeep and ministers’ pay and pensions, will force church closures as ageing congregations die.

In contrast, the number of actively religious Muslims will have increased from about one million today to 1.96 million in 2035.

According to Religious Trends, a comprehensive statistical analysis of religious practice in Britain, published by Christian Research, even Hindus will come close to outnumbering churchgoers within a generation. Read more
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Peter Jensen: Marriage's "Unique union"

[...] If I understand the evidence correctly, this freedom we have granted ourselves is not good for us, for our children or for the community as a whole. We are far better off, generally speaking, living in families founded by a man and a woman who have made initial public promises of lifelong fidelity. It is the family so constituted that is the primary source for the love and care without which we cannot survive. It is this family that best meets our relationship needs. It is this family that provides children with the experience of the interaction of human maleness and femaleness. It is the children of this family who we may expect will look after their aged, lonely and sick.

Of course not all families are like that and no family is perfect. It so happens that for all sorts of good reasons men and women do not begin or sustain families of this nature. But if we ask ourselves what is best for the community as a whole, what should public policy encourage most of all, it will be the family so constituted.

If this is so, what sort of men and women do we need to be? You do not have to be in pastoral ministry long to realise that the biblical teaching against adultery is profoundly right. Read more
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Janet Street-Porter: Deep in rural England, fresh fields for the BNP

[...] The Labour party needs to do some soul-searching to reconnect with young voters in rural areas like this, otherwise it is clear that the BNP will press ahead and aim to fill a gap in places where low-paid locals are finding life increasingly difficult. Not because there are no jobs, but because they can't find anywhere to live, public transport is pathetic, and increasing fuel costs mean travel is prohibitively expensive.

A new (black) chief executive takes over running Harrogate council in August. He is Wallace Sampson, 44, who comes from a long and successful career at Bradford council.

Appointed unanimously last month, Mr Wallace will have to ensure that residents in far-flung areas like Upper Nidderdale don't feel marginalised – otherwise the BNP will be more successful next time around. Read more
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Janet Street-Porter: Deep in rural England, fresh fields for the BNP

[...] The Labour party needs to do some soul-searching to reconnect with young voters in rural areas like this, otherwise it is clear that the BNP will press ahead and aim to fill a gap in places where low-paid locals are finding life increasingly difficult. Not because there are no jobs, but because they can't find anywhere to live, public transport is pathetic, and increasing fuel costs mean travel is prohibitively expensive.

A new (black) chief executive takes over running Harrogate council in August. He is Wallace Sampson, 44, who comes from a long and successful career at Bradford council.

Appointed unanimously last month, Mr Wallace will have to ensure that residents in far-flung areas like Upper Nidderdale don't feel marginalised – otherwise the BNP will be more successful next time around. Read more
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Generation Young Canadian Anglicans: We believe ... a bunch of stuff

(Ed: The free-form heresies of DIY Anglicanism. How many can you count?)

We believe in the God of Life, who creates and loves people, who acts in history and who promises never to leave us alone.

We believe in Jesus of Nazareth, who is our brother, who wants not to be idolized but to be followed.

We believe that we dwell in the presence of the Holy Spirit; without her we are nothing; filled with her we are able to become creative, lively, and free.

We believe in the Church of Jesus Christ, a community where we find companions and courage for the struggles of life, where we grow in our understanding of the faith, through worship, prayer, nurture, and service.

We believe that God has a use for us in this time and place, that though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we are called to be instruments of God's presence.

We believe in living, hoping, laughing, and enjoying the good of the earth;

We believe that people can change, and God keeps pulling us to life and to a new world of joy and peace. Amen. Read more
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