The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday strongly defended Jewish settlement construction in East Jerusalem in the face of US pressure and what one of his own top diplomats described as the worst crisis in relations with Washington for more than three decades.
A defiant Mr Netanyahu appeared to be digging in despite clear indications that the Obama administration is now demanding the scrapping of plans for 1,600 new Jewish homes, whose announcement overshadowed last week's visit to Israel by the US Vice-President Joe Biden. Mr Netanyahu's stance appeared to guarantee, after a highly charged week, the protraction of a stand-off in which a full-scale diplomatic row blew up at the start of Mr Biden's visit and appeared to abate at the end of it. But it was then reignited by demands from Hillary Clinton and an angry White House that Israel make amends for the "insulting" announcement just as indirect negotiations with the Palestinians had finally been arranged. Read more
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Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Obama runs out of patience with Israel
Saturday, 13 March 2010
Growing fears over Muslim prison 'gangs'
The Muslim prison population in England and Wales has sharply increased in recent years. The BBC's Ushma Mistry hears from former inmates and prison officers who claim gangs of Muslim prisoners are an increasingly powerful force.
"Muslims run it. Muslims run the prisons and there's nothing the screws can do about it. For a Muslim you'd say it's good but for a non-Muslim, it's very, very bad," a former inmate called Jay says.
'Jay' has spent many years inside various prisons in the South of England
It is a claim which is backed by former prison officers and other inmates.
Jay, 24, is a Muslim and has been in and out of prison for most of his life. He openly admits to helping to convert non-Muslim inmates to Islam and has meted out violence against anyone who dares to "disrespect" his religion.
He first went to prison when he was 15 and said there were hardly any Muslims inmates back then.
"At the beginning not many knew about Islam. There weren't many converts. The mosque was empty, but nowadays jails are run mostly by the Muslims," he said. Read more
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Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Rethinking rehab: can 'evil' children be made good?
In my opinion, nobody is born evil (although nobody knows for sure) Everyone is born human, and human nature contains both aggressive urges and altruistic urges. We have a deep need to affiliate, to be around people, and no creature spends as much of its life depending on others as we do. Emotion and reason are the twin engines of motivation for children and adults; and emotion is ten times more powerful. Children are fuelled by emotion and learn to be reasonable, whereas adults try to be reasonable and are flooded with emotion.
If no child is born evil, we must account for terrible acts of aggression by a combination of factors: personality, which includes genetics; environmental circumstances, particularly the role models a child had between birth and the age of 7 or 8, which is a crucial time, and whether a child has been harmed or hurt by others; and whatever the opposite of luck is. The fact is, you can have the environmental cocktails but you need an opportunity too. Read more
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Monday, 8 March 2010
Accepting Ethical Diversity?: A Critical Appraisal of the Bishop of Liverpool’s Presidential Address
The Presidential Address of the Bishop of Liverpool is a significant development in the evangelical and wider Anglican debates about sexuality. It draws attention to key questions and is driven by a passionate concern for unity and more Christ-like patterns of discussion. It is, however, seriously flawed in its response to these concerns, unconvincing in its arguments and offers a way forward that in reality threatens to create greater incoherence and division.
This response sketches Bishop James Jones’ journey over the last decade before demonstrating the flaws in his central argument that Anglicans should “accept a diversity of ethical convictions about human sexuality”. Both in what it says and in what it fails to say the address apparently marks a significant step away from the traditional biblical, evangelical and catholic understanding of sexuality and the church’s teaching and discipline in this area. The heart of his case is an appeal to differences between Christians over just war and pacifism. This argument is shown to be inadequate in various ways but most basically because an appeal to diversity on one ethical issue cannot justify diversity on a quite different ethical issue. Read more
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Sunday, 7 March 2010
Bishop James Jones: Liverpool’s Muddy Waters flow towards Africa
[...] what is particularly arresting about the Bishop of Liverpool’s address is its scope. It presents a vision which does not stop at the boundaries of his own diocese. His plea is ‘that the Church of England and the Anglican Communion must allow a variety of ethical views on the subject as in this Diocese we do’ and he adds ‘This is I believe the next chapter to be written in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. It is the chapter that is already being written in our Partnership in Mission with the Diocese of Virginia and with the Diocese of Akure in Nigeria.’
A partnership with this aim constitutes a serious challenge to the Church of Nigeria in particular and the GAFCON Primates as a whole who have as a matter of principle withdrawn from sharing ‘the same cup of salvation’ at Primate’s Meetings with those Primates who are sponsoring sexual immorality. It illustrates the subtle reality of the way that false teaching spreads; an evangelical bishop who has learned to accommodate himself to the secular pressures of England nonetheless retains a certain credibility with fellow evangelicals in Africa and then seeks to present partnership as collusion with his compromise.
In this light we see the wisdom of clause 13 of the GAFCON Jerusalem Declaration which affirmed the need to break communion with those who deny the orthodox faith in word or deed. The commentary on this clause (Being Faithful, p64) calls for action which is precisely the opposite of James Jones’ strategy for the Communion when it states ’there is a moral obligation to reject any teaching that denies or undermines the authority of God as revealed in the Scriptures, to expose its falsity and to break fellowship with those who promote it (Ephesians 5:11, Titus 3:10).’ Read more
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Bishop Jones's "Pre-emptive Surrender"
[...] Here’s the difference, Jim. I can opt out of killing foreigners. But I don’t get to choose my own Anglican bishop.
If I think that homosexual sex is a sin and my Episcopal Diocese is saddled with a practicing homosexual bishop, there’s no mechanism for someone like me to say, “I don’t want an unrepentant sinner confirming my kids. Bring in someone else.”
I can either let an unrepentant sinner confirm my kids or my kids don’t get confirmed.
It’s been pointed out here more than once that the church that did nothing about John Shelby Spong has no business complaining about Gene Robinson. Which is true(tolerate it and you might as well advocate it) although some of us pointed out that TEO merely let Spongy rave while in Robbie’s case, it acted officially and corporately.
That’s the key. When a church gives a pointy hat and hooked stick to a practicing, unrepentant homosexual, it has taken an official stand on the issue of homosexuality whether it thinks it has or not. And if no one is allowed to meaningfully dissent from that homosexual’s “episcopal” standing, then merely being allowed to hold a contrary opinion is worthless. Read more
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Saturday, 27 February 2010
Outraged atheists lose faith in Dawkins as he censors website
Talking of surprising outcomes on internet forums, Friday's Times reports regarding RichardDawkins.net, "the official Richard Dawkins website", that "a schism seems to have opened up within the atheist community who make up his fan-base." The story explains that,
The split occurred after he announced that a discussion section on his website, considered one of the busiest online atheist forums, would in future be tightly moderated and “irrelevant postings and frivolous gossip” would no longer be allowed.
The change was scheduled for next month but such was the torrent of abuse after the announcement that the forum had to be locked down, deepening the rift between Professor Dawkins and his 85,000 online fans.
As Ruth Gledhill reports, this criticism was largely directed at one of those responsible for the website, calling him an “utter twat” a “suppurating rectum. A suppurating rat’s rectum. A suppurating rat’s rectum inside a dead skunk that’s been shoved up a week-old dead rhino’s twat.”
However, Dawkins himself was apparently not immune, with someone remarking that he possesses, “a slack jawed turd in the mouth mug if ever I saw one.”
Interestingly, the story was picked up by Andrew Brown, who helps run the Guardian's Comment is Free section, where writers' opinions are opened up to, often vituperative, public comment. As it happens, as an occasional contributer I had recently written to Andrew bewailing the fact that most of the comments are hardly worth reading, since there is so little engagement with debate.
Some of those commenting on the Dawkins website, however, display an apparent difficulty in seeing the problem. One of those referred to by Dawkins objected elsewhere that he had not been fairly quoted in full:
Here is what he [Dawkins] quoted "Or suppose that somebody on the same website expressed a “sudden urge to ram a fistful of nails” down your throat"So that clears that up! Hell, it seems, hath no fury like atheist bloggers scorned.
My post in full "When someone tells me that change can be frightening in order to at both times shut me up and patronise me, I get a sudden urge to ram a fistful of nails down their throat"
John Richardson
27 February 2010
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Fulcrum forum captured by Conservative Evangelicals
If this is to be believed.(Pluralist did actually do a cartoon of me once, based on an old photo I absolutely hate, and which the Guardian uses every time they publish a 'Comment is Free' article by me. I assure you the reality is not as grim!)
John Richardson
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Friday, 26 February 2010
Danish newspaper provokes uproar with apology over Muhammad cartoon
A leading Danish newspaper was today accused of betraying the freedom of the press after breaking ranks with its rivals to offer an apology to Muslims for publishing a cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban.
Politiken issued the apology after settling with a Saudi lawyer representing eight Muslim groups that complained after the cartoon was reprinted by 11 Danish papers in solidarity with the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who received death threats last year.
Outrage at the move was led by Denmark’s Prime Minister and by Mr Westergaard, 74, who survived an alleged assassination attempt by an Islamic axeman at his home last month.
Politiken responded that it was apologising for the offence caused, not the decision to publish, in an attempt to reduce tensions with the Muslim world.
Lars Loekke Rasmussen, the Prime Minister, expressed surprise at Politiken's move, saying he was worried that the Danish media were no longer “standing shoulder to shoulder” on the issue. Read more
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Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Former Bp of Chelmsford urges civil partnership rights for synagogues, etc
See this Letter to the Times.
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Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Jews leave Swedish city after sharp rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes
When she first arrived in Sweden after her rescue from a Nazi concentration camp, Judith Popinski was treated with great kindness.
She raised a family in the city of Malmo, and for the next six decades lived happily in her adopted homeland - until last year.
In 2009, a chapel serving the city's 700-strong Jewish community was set ablaze. Jewish cemeteries were repeatedly desecrated, worshippers were abused on their way home from prayer, and "Hitler" was mockingly chanted in the streets by masked men.
"I never thought I would see this hatred again in my lifetime, not in Sweden anyway," Mrs Popinski told The Sunday Telegraph.
"This new hatred comes from Muslim immigrants. The Jewish people are afraid now."
Malmo's Jews, however, do not just point the finger at bigoted Muslims and their fellow racists in the country's Neo-Nazi fringe. They also accuse Ilmar Reepalu, the Left-wing mayor who has been in power for 15 years, of failing to protect them. Read more
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Monday, 22 February 2010
Friends of the Anglican Ordinariate
Friends of the Ordinariate
We are Anglicans in the UK who are members ofThe Church of England - The Church in Wales
The Scottish Episcopal Church - The Church of Ireland
and we invite you to join with us as Friends of the Ordinariate in order to signify your interest in the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.
By joining us you will not be committing yourself to any course of action, present or future.
We are a group of concerned Anglicans and we guarantee complete confidentiality and will not share your details with anyone else.
We may occasionally send you an email inviting you to visit this website for further news.
You are also free to unsubscribe and remove your details at any time.
See here
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Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Bisexuals: putting the B back in LGBT
Bisexuality is often dismissed or disparaged, so many come out as gay instead. But the UK bi scene is finding its feet
I'm constantly baffled by the exclusion of bisexuals. I blame bad science, or rather bad scientists. Every year it seems there's a new study on "what makes people gay". Oddly, this is expected to be an on-off switch, and the researchers look in the genes, or the brain or the length of fingers for a sign that one set of people will be queer, now and for always, and another proving the rest will remain 100% straight. It takes a special kind of rigidity of outlook to construct a survey on finger length and decide beforehand there's no middle ground. They then say everyone's "straight, gay or lying" but for that to be true there would have to be an awful lot of liars out there. The last Observer poll on sexual attitudes showed that 4% of people – one in 25 – identified as homosexual, and half as many again identified separately as bisexual.
But this sort of thinking fuels the mythical status of bi people. People are quick to tinker with the definition of bisexual until it's not something anyone would willingly pick for themselves. Bisexuals are supposed to be equally attracted to men and women – always androgyny, but never to trans people – and always at the same time. They supposedly need to have identical amounts of sex with both, and don't notice the differences between them (which might get painful in bed, I reckon). We're all told bisexuality is a phase that everyone goes through and grows out of, and no one's a "proper" bisexual, even though "everyone's bisexual really". Bisexuals are depicted as the monsters spreading Aids, and breaking the hearts of partners inevitably cast aside for a different gender. Who'd want to be bi! Read more
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The cloak and dagger Catholics
An extraordinary correspondence has fallen into my hands showing some of the detail of the Anglo-Catholic intrigues about their departure from the Church of England. It shows the Anglican "flying bishop" of Ebbsfleet, Andrew Burnham, conspiring with a sympathetic Roman Catholic bishop in Australia to work behind the back of the Catholic bishops here. He talks about his "cloak and dagger" correspondence with a sympathiser in the Vatican, and suggests that he can write personally to Pope Benedict XVI to smooth things over if his correspondent is caught. This may come as news to the pope.
The Australian bishop, Peter Elliott, is himself an Anglican convert, and is in charge of the pope's outreach to Anglican opponents of women priests in Australia. Most of these are grouped in a body called the Traditional Anglican Communion, which claims to have half a million members world wide: Burnham warns Bishop Elliott against complete confidence in their leader, Archbishop Hepworth ("clearly a charming man … but not everything he says … synchronises fully with what we know from other sources"). Read more
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Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Don't brand Brick Lane
London's local councils have never been known for good sense or sagacity, and yet they continuously manage to surprise me with new levels of folly. Illustrating this point, Tower Hamlets council is planning to install two hijab-shaped arches at each end of Brick Lane – at a reported cost of £1.85m.
The proposed structures are planned as part of a cultural trail aimed at celebrating the area's rich cultural history. Also a vehicle for increasing tourism, the arches will be bankrolled by money paid to the council following the development of Bishops Square and Spitalfields market.
The proposal has understandably ruffled a few feathers, not only because of the associated cost, but because of the symbol chosen to represent the area. The hijab, highly symbolic of Islam, will brand the area with a single identity, casting aside the diversity that makes the area what it is. Muslims account for more than 30% of the local population, which is, of course, relatively high, but that is little justification. Would the council think to erect two massive crosses for the area's Christian population or two yarmulkes to represent its links with the Jewish community? Read more
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The virtual mob spreading spite online
n biblical times, Syrian villagers would ritually chase a goat from their midst to atone for their sins. Last week Andrea Charman found out what it is like to be a modern day scapegoat, or in her case perhaps it should be scapesheep.
She was the well-respected head teacher in Romney Marsh, Kent who became subject to a hate campaign. So vicious was the abuse she received – both through her letter box, and particularly onto her computer – that she felt compelled to leave her post.
The cause of the hate was Marcus, a sheep that the school had reared to teach the children about the food chain. The pupils had voted for Marcus to be sent to slaughter and turned into chops and shanks, but a handful of parents complained. In times gone by a fractious parents’ meeting would have been enough for the objectors to air their views.
Now, we have the web. An online campaign was started. The comments on “Remove Andrea Charman from ever teaching again” duly rolled in, not just from parents in Kent, but from Belgium, and France and Los Angeles. A not untypical message was: “i’m gonna spit on her grave (thats gonna be very soon)”. Others threatened to burn the school down.
Last week, despite the overwhelming support of the pupils, teachers and governors, she decided to step down.
She is just one of an increasing number of people who have become caught up in what the internet community call “flame wars” – online petitions, or disagreements between two camps, that can spiral out of control.
The line between vigorous, heartfelt protest and mob rule has become ever thinner thanks to modern technology.
And those caught on the wrong side of the barricades often don’t know what’s hit them, as any hapless Mumsnetter – the term for the 850,000 women who use the online networking site Mumsnet – will tell you if they have posted a comment that other, more ferocious users disagree with. The site, which celebrates its 10th birthday next month, has been likened to a playground, in which bullies circle like sharks. Only last week, one woman was viciously, and very personally, derided when she lamented the crass language that has permeated the website.
Professor Barrie Gunter, head of mass communications at Leicester University, points out that the technology itself is not to blame for such viciousness. “The problem stems from the way people are able to operate anonymously; it is this that can be used as a force for evil. People can behave in a way online that they would never do in the normal, offline world. In the real world, social etiquette restrains people from doing and saying certain things. That restraint does not seem to be apparent on the internet.” Read more
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Friday, 12 February 2010
Curate outrages congregation by telling women to 'be silent and submit to your husbands'
With Valentine's Day approaching, the parishioners might have expected a more heartwarming message.
Instead, they got a sermon at St Nicholas Church in Sevenoaks, Kent, urging women to 'submit' to their husbands.
The apparent lack of obedience of 'modern women' was also blamed for Britain's high divorce rate.
In a sermon entitled 'Marriage and women' last Sunday, the curate Mark Oden, a married father of three, told the congregation: 'We know marriage is not working. We only need to look at figures - one in four children have divorced parents.
It is understood that some women parishioners - and possibly even their husbands - have vowed never to attend services at the church again.
The church's vicar is Angus MacLeay, 50, a married father of two who is a leading member of the evangelical group Reform, which is opposed to the appointment of women clergy.
The group has produced a leaflet, called 'The role of women in the local church', which uses Biblical quotes urging them to 'remain silent' and informing them 'wives are to submit to their husbands in everything.'
One section of the leaflet, quoting Corinthians, said: 'It would seem that women should remain silent in the public weighing of prophecy or if their questions could legitimately be answered by their husbands at home.'
Another, referring to a passage from Ephesians, said: 'Because of the order and purpose of their creation, wives are to submit to their husbands in everything in recognition of the fact that husbands are head of the family as Christ is head of the church.....
Read more
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Christian BA worker loses cross appeal
A Christian lost her appeal today against a ruling which cleared British Airways of discrimination by stopping her wearing a cross visibly at work.
Nadia Eweida, 58, from Twickenham, south west London, had wanted three judges to overturn a decision by the Employment Appeal Tribunal that she was not a victim of indirect religion or belief discrimination. Read more
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Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Labour's 'secret plan' to lure migrants
The release of a previously unseen document suggested that Labour’s migration policy over the past decade had been aimed not just at meeting the country’s economic needs, but also the Government’s “social objectives”.
The paper said migration would “enhance economic growth” and made clear that trying to halt or reverse it could be “economically damaging”. But it also stated that immigration had general “benefits” and that a new policy framework was needed to “maximise” the contribution of migration to the Government’s wider social aims.
The Government has always denied that social engineering played a part in its migration policy.
However, the paper, which was written in 2000 at a time when immigration began to increase dramatically, said controls were contrary to its policy objectives and could lead to “social exclusion”.
Last night, the Conservatives demanded an independent inquiry into the issue. It was alleged that the document showed that Labour had overseen a deliberate open-door policy on immigration to boost multi-culturalism.
Voting trends indicate that migrants and their descendants are much more likely to vote Labour. Read more
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Lorna Ashworth interviewed by Ruth Gledhill on her Motion at General Synod on ACNA
Also Archbishop of Canterbury issues 'profound' apology to LGBTs
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Clifford Swartz: A response to the Bishop of Sherborne on the ACNA debate
Dear Graham,
I read with interest your interview with the Church of England Newspaper. For your consideration and that of Fulcrum readers, especially Synod members:
1. The Church of England is in communion with those churches as determined by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York (see Canons, p 208). The resolution before the Synod is therefore appropriate, while the amended resolution is not. The resolution states the desire to be in communion, which would leave it to the Archbishops to decide. The amended resolution asks the Archbishops to report to Synod, which is inappropriate given the decision making process.
2. The Church of England is in communion with member churches of the Anglican Communion, but also with other categories of churches, such as Extra-Provincial Dioceses (eg, Bermuda), United Churches incorporating former Anglican churches (eg, South India), Churches signing the Porvoo Declaration, and Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht. The resolution before the Synod thus does not imply membership in the Anglican Communion, but an affirmation of common theology. Synod members might ask if they share the same theology as the Anglican Church of North America, which affirms the doctrinal basis of the Church of England (Articles of Religion, BCP and Ordinal), noting that the Episcopal Church views these as historical documents with no authority in matters of doctrine. Read more
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Tuesday, 9 February 2010
CHURCH OF UGANDA’S POSITION ON THE ANTI HOMOSEXUALITY BILL 2009
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Dr Rowan Williams to challenge infighting over gays and women bishops
The Archbishop of Canterbury will fight threats of disintegration in the Church of England with what is expected to be a forceful intervention at the General Synod today.
Dr Rowan Williams is determined to challenge the increasingly bitter infighting sparked by disagreements over women bishops in England and gay ordinations in the US.
In one of the most important presidential addresses of his seven-year archiepiscopacy, described by one insider as a “brilliant piece of work”, the Archbishop is expected to salvage hope from the despair felt by many Anglicans over pressure brought by the liberal, evangelical and Catholic wings of the established Church.
Anglican leaders are increasingly concerned at the way that the Church’s tussles over women and gays is hindering its mission to proclaim the gospel to the nation. The synod was told yesterday that the Church of England was suffering a “testosterone deficit” caused by a “seriously out-of- line” gender balance. The synod heard anecdotal evidence suggesting that women are playing an increasingly important role in the Church, and when it comes to attendance bishops should be actively pursuing missions directed at men.
Related Links
Dr Williams’s address comes after a decision to proceed with the ordination of women bishops with no significant concessions to traditionalists. Read more
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REFORM LETTER TO SYNOD HIGHLIGHTS ‘HUGE PRACTICAL PROBLEMS’ WITH WOMEN BISHOPS
Monday 8th February 2010
Dear Bishops and Synod members,
As 50 incumbents of Church of England churches we are writing to say why, in our view, the consecration of women bishops would be a mistake and would raise for us great difficulties of conscience and practice, as well as being wrong for our Church as a whole.
Our concern is derived from Scripture. It seems to us that the Apostolic teaching on male headship in church and family (as in 1 Corinthians 11-14, Ephesians 5, 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Peter 3) is clear enough in its principles: overall leadership in the church is to be exercised by men. The fierce debates that have surrounded the gender issue over the last twenty years or so have stimulated much careful analysis of these texts, and have only served to show that mainstream translations such as NRSV, NIV, REB and ESV are correct in their translation and may (and should) be taken as they stand.
It is, of course, right to say that these passages in Paul and Peter have a particular cultural setting; but to make them prisoners of that culture and thus unable to challenge our culture, seems to us implicitly to deny the authority of Scripture. It is surely the genius of the New Testament that what was spoken in a particular context is at one and the same time also God’s word to us. Far from being a prisoner of his culture, Paul is not afraid to challenge it, warning his readers “not to live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking” (Eph 4:17). Why, then, is it assumed he will uncritically reflect their values on this issue of gender?
Therefore we think the historic, reasoned reflection of Christians down the ages (including the historic position of the Church of England) has been correct; we fear that the current pressure to overturn it comes not for biblical reasons but because we are losing our nerve in the face of pressure from society.
In saying all this, we emphasise again that we are NOT for a moment saying women are less valuable than men, and nor does the Scripture. This, in our experience, is the point which we find hardest to communicate, since the world about us equates value with power. Just by making this point we are thought to be “anti-women”. On the contrary, it is both possible and right to affirm that we are “all one in Christ Jesus”, while at the same time affirming different roles. For the Bible separates roles and worth: our Lord Jesus himself submitted to the Father, but is, of course, no less God than he is.
There are, of course, questions about how precisely to honour this teaching in some details of the life of our churches today, but few would doubt, surely, that the office of bishop is indeed very much a leadership function!
In our own churches we are glad to teach these passages of Scripture as they stand, and include a ‘complementary’ view of gender roles in our teaching on marriage, family life and church. Gently ordering our shared life this way is, in our view, vital to our witness to a Christian understanding of family life. Our churches contain many members - and very many women as well as men - who are glad of this teaching, which is all the more important in a world which is so confused about gender roles and sexuality in general. In such a context, the oversight of a woman bishop would be enormously hard to explain, however great her merits in other regards. Again and again, in our youth groups, at marriage preparation and whenever covering the relevant passages in homegroups and from the pulpit, we would find ourselves having to answer people’s question, “Why does the Church of England go against this?” This would fester on for as long as people have Bibles in their hands.
In the end, this is an issue about our view of Holy Scripture, and this is why it matters to us so much, as ministers of the Word.
As matters stand, it seems likely that General Synod will be invited to vote on legislative proposals that threaten our ministries. An illustration of the practical problems we will face should a Measure fail to provide adequate safeguards, can be seen with future ordinands. At the moment we are encouraging young men into the ordained ministry in the knowledge that they cannot be discriminated against if they hold convictions about male headship. While this remains the case, we have encouraged them to believe that there is a worthwhile future for their ministries in the Church of England. However, we will be unable to do this if inadequately protective legislation is passed. The issue that will then arise is how to encourage these men to develop their ministries if they cannot do so within the formal structures of the Church of England. The answer must be to encourage them to undertake training for ministries outside those formal structures, although hopefully still within an Anglican tradition. We will, of course, have to help them with the financing of their training.
Our congregations will inevitably start asking questions about their own place within the Church of England if they see us encouraging people into training for alternative ministries. This will come into sharp focus when the issue of succession to an incumbency arises. Since we cannot take an oath of canonical obedience to a female bishop, we are unlikely to be appointed to future incumbencies. We see nothing but difficulty facing us. In these circumstances we will have to discuss with our congregations how to foster and protect the ministry they wish to receive. This is likely to generate a need for the creation of new independent charitable trusts whose purpose will be to finance our future ministries, when the need arises.
These twin developments will need to be financed from current congregational giving. This will inevitably put a severe strain on our ability to continue to contribute financially to Diocesan funds. Where we are unable to contribute as before some will see this as a form of retaliation. However, that could not be further from the truth. We long to contribute to the well being of the Church of England. Over the last ten years we have encouraged more than 180 young men into the ordained ministry, over 50% of whom were under the age of 30. We have together contributed a gross figure of more than £22million to Diocesan funds.
Finally, for those of us ordained since 1992, our understanding, in good faith, was that proper legal provision would be made for those who did not agree that women should have the overall leadership of a church (Resolution B, etc). It seems to us a matter of simple integrity that Synod should now keep its word to us in this and not force us down a road none of us wish to tread.
Yours in Christ,
Rev’d Rod Thomas St Matthew’s Elburton, Exeter
(Chairman of Reform)
and 49 other signatories, which follow
Rev’d Michael Andreyev St Peter’s Stapenhill, Derby
Rev’d Nigel Atkinson St John’s Knutsford, Chester
Rev’d Simon Austen St John’s and St Peter’s, Carlisle
Rev’d Martin Bailey All Saints Riseley, Peterborough
Rev’d Iain Baker St Thomas Kidsgrove, Lichfield
Rev’d Hugh Balfour Christ Church Peckham, Southwark
Rev’d David Banting St Peter’s Harold Wood, Chelmsford
Rev’d Neil Barber St Giles Normanton, Derby
Rev’d Robert Bashford St James Westgate,Canterbury
Rev’d John Birchall Christ Church Surbiton Hill, Southwark
Rev’d Iain Broomfield Christ Church Bromley, Rochester
Rev’d Mark Burkill Christ Church Leytonstone, Chelmsford
Rev’d John Cheeseman Holy Trinity Eastbourne, Chichester
Rev’d CJ Davis St NicholasTooting, Southwark
Rev’d Steve Donald St John the Evangelist, Carlisle
Rev’d Richard Espin-Bradley St Luke’s Wolverhampton, Birmingham
Rev’d Jonathan Fletcher Emmanuel Church Wimbledon,Southwark
Rev’d Simon Gales St John s Lindow, Chester
Rev’d David Gibb St Andrews Leyland, Blackburn
Rev’d David Harris St Leonards, Exeter
Rev’d Clive Hawkins St Mary’s Eastrop, Winchester
Rev’d Chris Hobbs St Stephen’s Selly Park, Birmingham
Rev’d Christopher Hobbs St Thomas Oakwood, London
Rev’d Jonathan Juckes St Andrew’s Kirk Ella, York
Rev’d Jeremy Leffler St Ambrose Widnes, Liverpool
Rev’d James Leggett St James, Ryde, Portsmouth
Rev’d Ian Lewis St Bartholomews, Bath
Rev’d Angus MacLeay St Nicholas Sevenoaks, Rochester
Rev’d Julian Mann Oughtibridge Parish Church, Sheffield
Rev’d Ed Moll St George’s Wembdon, Bath
Rev’d Darren Moore St Catherine’s Tranmere, Chester
Rev’d Ken Moulder St Oswalds, Newcastle
Rev’d Robert Munro Cheadle Parish Church, Chester
Rev’d Alasdair Paine Christ Church Westbourne, Winchester
Rev’d Andrew Raynes Christ Church, Blackburn
Rev’d Mike Reith Dagenham Parish Church, Chelmsford
Rev’d Vaughan Roberts St Ebbe's, Oxford
Rev’d Simon Scott All Saints Little Shelford, Cambridge
Rev’d John Simmons Christ Church Chadderton, Manchester
Rev’d Simon Smallwood St George’s Dagenahm, Chelmsford
Rev’d Will Stileman St Mary’s Maidenhead, Oxford
Rev’d William Taylor St Helen’s Bishopsgate, London
Rev’d Melvin Tinker St John's Newlands, York
Rev’d Alistair Tresidder St Luke's Hampstead, London
Rev’d Philip Venables St Andrew’s Bebington,Chester
Rev’d Stephen Walton St Michaels’s Marbury, Chester
Rev’d Tim Ward Holy Trinity Hinkley, Leicester
Rev’d Mike Warren St Peters Tunbridge Wells, Rochester
Rev’d Gordon Warren St Anne’s Limehouse, London
(The Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Rev’d Wallace Benn, also wishes to be associated with this letter)
A briefing paper from Reform on the different roles of men and women in ministry can be found at: http://www.reform.org.uk/pdf/tm/the_role_of_women.pdf
Contact:
Revd Paul Dawson, Reform Media Officer
T: 07791 495824, E: paul@standrewschelsea.org
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12-year-old Saudi girl in divorce battle with 80-year-old husband
A 12-year-old girl fighting to divorce her 80-year-old husband in Saudi Arabia is to receive legal assistance from the Government in what could become a test case for banning child marriage in the kingdom.
The state-run Human Rights Commission has hired a lawyer to represent the girl when she takes her case to court in Buraidah, a conservative town near the capital Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia has no minimum legal age for marriage and it is common in poorer, tribal areas for girls to be married off. However, it is rare for a child bride to challenge the match.
A draft law prohibiting child marriage is under discussion and activists hope that the case will be a watershed in the campaign to ban the practice. Read More
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Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Cat predicts 50 deaths in nursing home
Dr David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, said that five years of records showed Oscar rarely erring, sometimes proving medical staff at the New England nursing home wrong in their predictions over which patients were close to death.
The cat, now five and generally unsociable, was adopted as a kitten at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Providence, Rhode Island, which specialises in caring for people with severe dementia.
Dr Dosa first publicised Oscar's gift in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007. Since then, the cat has gone on to double the number of imminent deaths it has sensed and convinced the geriatrician that it is no fluke. Read more
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Monday, 1 February 2010
Bishop Mouneer Anis resigns from Anglican Joint Standing Committee
... I have come to the sad realization that there is no desire within the ACC and the SCAC to follow through on the recommendations that have been taken by the other Instruments of Communion to sort out the problems which face the Anglican Communion and which are tearing its fabric apart. Moreover, the SCAC, formerly known as the join Standing Committee (JSC), has continually questioned the authority of the other Instruments of Communion, especially the Primates Meeting and the Lambeth Conference.
…
Some may say that the provinces within the Anglican Communion are autonomous, and each province is free to make its own resolutions. While I agree and accept the autonomous nature of each province, I believe that the participation in the decision making process that affects the life of the Anglican Communion should be for those who show respect in word and deed to the whole Communion – not those who turn their backs to every appeal and warning. Read more (as pdf)
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Friday, 29 January 2010
Driver fined for blowing his nose
A businessman has been fined £60 and had his driving licence endorsed for blowing his nose while stuck in a traffic jam.
Michael Mancini, a furniture restorer from Prestwick, Ayrshire, was given the fixed penalty and docked three penalty points after leaning over and pulling out a paper handkerchief to wipe his nose when stuck in Ayr High Street. Mancini said that his van was in neutral with its handbrake on, and that he was flabbergasted when he was signalled into a parking bay by an approaching policeman.
Matters became “a little bit surreal”, he said, when he wound down his window and was promptly charged by the stern-faced PC Stuart Gray, a man known locally as “Shiny Buttons” in recognition of his zealous attention to detail. “I honestly thought it was a joke,” said Mancini, 39, who was booked for failing to be in control of his vehicle.
“I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding’. But he was absolutely deadpan. He’s a policeman, so you’re not going to start shouting abuse at him. I thought, ‘What is the world coming to?’ You pick the papers up every day and they are full of horror stories — but this bloke has nothing more to do with his time.”
PC Gray earned notoriety for doling out a £50 fine to Stewart Smith, another Ayr man, who dropped a £10 note from his back pocket. Mr Smith was charged with littering. Read more
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Thursday, 28 January 2010
Iran executes two men arrested in presidential election unrest for 'waging war against God'
Iran has executed two men arrested during June's presidential unrest and convicted of 'waging war against God'.
The executions appear to be the first of people tried in the Islamic courts in connection with the bloody election protests that gripped the country last year.
The two men were hung today at dawn.
They were among a group of 11 people sentenced to death on charges including waging war against God, trying to overthrow the Islamic establishment and being members of armed groups, Iranian media said.
The lawyer of one of those executed said 19-year-old Arash Rahmanipour was detained before the election.
Nasrin Sotoudeh described the charges as 'political' and the verdict as 'illegal and unjust.'
Read more
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Notes from the Future: Evangelical Liberalism in the UK
The Lord Jesus called me into his kingdom in April 1974 in a Baptist church in Southampton, England. He had blessed me with a Christian family, and my conversion was very much a humble acceptance in my heart of truths I had long known in my head. Then, almost immediately after my conversion, I found myself (as a 15 year old) having to resist liberal theology from my fellow pupils at school, and even more so from my teachers.
I've used the word "liberal," though it felt very different from the liberalism I now see and sense. To get a grip on where things might go in the future, as far as human wisdom allows, I want to think about the difference between liberalism then and now (typical Englishman, looking at history to see the future!). This is my personal perspective, limited by place (England and part of Australia), and by ignorance of much work going on in those places. And, despite the problems outlined here, there is much that is thoroughly encouraging.
OLD-STYLE LIBERALS
Back then, theological liberals inside and outside the Church of England were very clear they were not evangelicals. I found them often intelligent, frequently generous, and oddly tolerant of my views, although sometimes patronizingly. For them, my evangelicalism betrayed my personal immaturity and, God willing, I would outgrow it. They set great store on the human intellect. What did not commend itself to their intellects could not be true, even if said by Scripture. With the benefit of hindsight I see this was the legacy of the nineteenth-century "liberal catholic" theological school, led by Charles Gore.
Five things strike me about this legacy. First, I'm struck by the legacy's conservatism. That sounds odd. But on the ethical issues of the day (abortion, drugs, promiscuity) and on much theology (Is there a God? Did Jesus rise? Is sin a real problem?) it returned conservative answers. That disguised both to them and us the gulf that lay between us. Read more
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The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
A few years ago I edited a volume of essays on the doctrine of Scripture with Paul Helm. Just before the deadline for submissions, the project was "named and shamed" by a speaker at an influential evangelical theological conference as being a modern attempt to reaffirm B.B. Warfield's doctrine of Scripture. Within days, one of the contributors emailed me, concerned that his name was going to be associated with such a project. I was able to reassure him that the project was not intended as a defense of Warfield's position but as an exploration of the notion of trustworthiness as it connects both to God and to his Word. The gentleman was reassured and remained on board, but the incident simply served to confirm in my mind what I had long suspected: too many evangelical academics want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the piety, and perhaps the platform, which evangelicalism provides them, but they also want to be accepted by those who hang around the senior common room in the university.
The problem, of course, is that one cannot serve two masters: as someone once said, one ends up hating one and loving the other, or being devoted to one and despising the other. Read more
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Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Guardian/ICM poll: Conservatives show vulnerability in class battle
The Conservatives are losing the battle over class, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today, which shows a third of voters see the Tories as the party of the upper classes.
Overall, Labour has failed to dent the Conservative poll lead despite a month of political skirmishing, with voters apparently still ready to give David Cameron a narrow majority.
The poll will give some reassurance to opposition leaders, with the Tory lead widening slightly to 11 points thanks to an increase in the Liberal Democrat vote at Labour's expense. It also shows voters back the party's proposals on marriage and think Gordon Brown's leadership made the recession worse. They agree overwhelmingly, too, that it is time for a change of government.
But there are signs that Labour's attack on Tory toffs is sticking with a substantial minority identifying the party with the upper classes, even though almost no one in Britain admits belonging to this group. Read more
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The Edlington boys are not beyond redemption
What does the judge know, after all? In passing sentence on the Edlington boys last week Mr Justice Keith described the case as “exceptional”. But in a speech in Gillingham, David Cameron appeared to suggest that it was anything but. Citing a small number of not completely similar instances, including Baby Peter and Ben Kinsella, the Conservative leader argued that it was a sign of the “social recession” — the more think-tanky way of talking about “Broken Britain”.
Mr Cameron asked: “On each occasion, are we just going to say this is an individual case? That there aren’t any links to what is going wrong in our wider society, in terms of family breakdown, in terms of drug and alcohol abuse, in terms of violent videos, in terms of many of the things that were going wrong in that particular family?”
That Mr Cameron should make a blanket reference in the same speech to “rising violent crime” just when the murder rate has fallen to its lowest for 20 years (including a drop of 102 deaths between 2007-08 and 2008-09, suggesting that medical advance is an inadequate explanation) reminds us that this is a highly politicised moment in our discussion of family. As did the decision of the Home Secretary to announce the extension of the popular Sarah’s Law, allowing parents to check if anyone in contact with their child has a sex offence conviction, just a few weeks before the general election is called. Read more
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Church of England counts cost of New York property deal
The Church of England has suffered a £40 million loss on a disastrous investment in a New York apartment complex that was acquired by a consortium in 2006 for $5.4 billion — the biggest single residential property deal in the United States.
A spokesman for the Church Commissioners said that it had written off the entire value of its investment and added that the commissioners were “looking carefully” at the lessons to be learnt. “The investment was made in June 2007, which, with hindsight, was at the top of the property market and immediately before the credit crunch,” the spokesman said. He added that the Church had undertaken detailed due diligence in conjunction with external professional advisers.
The loss amounts to nearly 1 per cent of the total £4.4 billion assets held by the Church Commissioners to sustain the nationwide ministry of the Church. It follows a 19.6 per cent fall in the value of the commissioners’ investments in 2008 and comes as the Church faces criticism for allowing the build up of a £352 million shortfall in its pension fund, which is invested entirely in equities. Read more
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Monday, 25 January 2010
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: The cloak of darkness is no exercise of civil liberties
It is gratifying that so many white British liberals have come out to defend shrouded Muslim women. Their generosity of spirit and messianic belief in liberty makes them recoil from a state ban on the burka.
France under Sarkozy is set to take this step to be followed swiftly, I am sure, by some other EU countries. In Egypt too, top theologian, Sheikh Tantawi, of al-Azhar university is pushing for an anti-burka injunction, and Turkey remains ferociously divided over the militant secularism instated by its founding fathers.
Here, we are reassured, such a ban would be impossible. OK, the bonkers UKIP lot and rabid BNP bang on about it; noisy nuisances, easily ignored. Liberals say it just isn't British to prohibit and limit the personal choices of freeborn citizens.
Really? The British never accept any curtailment of individual preferences? So how has it come to pass that in this green and free land, we have more state surveillance and imposed restrictions and regulations than any other EU country ? Why, we can't even take snaps in the streets without a hand of authority falling on the shoulder. Could it be that authoritarianism is not resisted because the British are naturally obedient, following social rules and legal sanctions? From queuing, to drink-drive laws, most of us do what is expected. We surrender personal autonomy, sometimes for reasons that are clearly for the greater good – the anti-smoking laws – and sometimes because our rulers, like all rulers, wish to grab more power.
Naturists would love, I'm sure, to wander down Oxford Street, just window-shopping of course. They can't, because for most people that would be too much out there. Women in the full burka are the other side of that same coin. They give too little out there and, using passive violence, disconnect from the humanity around them.
Then the creed of liberalism, that passion for freedom and choice which sustains and vitalises Western civilisations. Ever more precious and fragile in today's world, I can see why it must be honoured and sheltered from the armies of repression.
However does liberalism have any duty to those who use liberal values as weapons to promote illiberalism? Is it obliged to become a suicide bomber, to self-destruct to prove itself?
We Muslims worldwide are engaged in ideological struggles against the Saudi Wahabis who have the cash and cunning to lure disenchanted middle-class and impoverished, powerless Muslims into their caves, where light itself fears to enter. Yet some liberal Westerners take dilettante positions on freedom because their own lives are unaffected. Instead of standing with modernists, the staunchest defenders of freedom, they defect to the enemy. The retrogressive Muslim Council of Britain is now back in bed with the Government. Read more
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Haiti earthquake: religion fills the void left by aid agencies
A fierce gust of wind lashes across the sprawling camp, carrying with it the bitter aroma of pepper spray and faeces. Above, Black Hawk helicopters clatter through the cobalt blue sky. On the ground clusters of homeless Haitians with hammers and rusty saws set about cobbling together improvised shacks out of corrugated iron and shreds of plastic sheeting.
Welcome to Pont-Rouge, a refugee camp for about 15,000 displaced people, and one of Port-au-Prince's most recent shanty towns. It is here, on waste land near the city's international airport, among rickety shacks and smouldering campfires, that an evangelical revolution is gathering speed.
With the government's presence all but invisible, and humanitarian agencies and the UN struggling to cope with the demand for aid, groups of preachers are moving in to fill the void.
"I've started a school and we are trying to give people food and clothes," said Reverend Sauverne Apollon, 75, whose church Рthe Eglise Mission foi Carib̩enne Independence d'Haiti Рwas one of the first to be constructed in the slum after its headquarters was destroyed in the quake.
"The people need hospital help, food and homes. I'm trying to do what I can," Apollon added. Read more
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God celebrates saving, says Church of England priest
The Rev John Strain said savers are being “ignored” and “neglected” and that is was time for justice.
Mr Strain is launching saveoursavers.co.uk, which is calling for a range of measures including greater rewards for savers, better pensions and greater support for a savings culture in Britain.
He said: “Savers have been the prudent ones but they are simply being ignored. We’re not banks but we’re being punished.” Read more
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It’s as if they want me executed, says culture chief enduring hate campaign
The letters and emails come in a daily tide. “Filth!” they cry. “Shame on you”; “You are a very sick person”; “The soul that sinneth shall DIE”. For the past six months, the head of Glasgow’s museums and art has been under siege from Christian fundamentalists, who have vowed to oust her from her job.
Dr Bridget McConnell, head of Culture and Sport Glasgow (CSG), the £100 million charity in charge of the city’s culture, says she is alarmed by what she describes as a “personal witchhunt” against her.
“It is almost like being phsyically abused,” she said. “You get knocked down by it every day and you pick yourself up, but then you come in the next morning and it happens all over again. It’s attrition.”
Since July, when a row broke out over an art exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) featuring homosexuality and religion in which comments were written on a Bible, Dr McConnell — whose organisation funded the exhibition — has been targeted by an organised group of protesters. Read more
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Saturday, 23 January 2010
Calgary Church Loses Charity Status: Opposition to Abortion, Homosexuality Cited as Reasons
CALGARY, Alberta, January 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has revoked the charitable status of Kings Glory Fellowship (KGF), a Christian church in Calgary. CRA cites a number of issues with KGF's application, but the decision is based, in part, on the ground that certain KGF Board members have spoken out strongly against abortion, and other moral issues.
"The members of the Board of Directors espouse strong negative views about sensitive and controversial issues, which may also be viewed as political, such as abortion, homosexuality, divorce, etc.,” wrote CRA agent Dian Prodanov in an October 29th letter.
These “political” views make the church ineligible because, according to the agent, a registered charity “may only engage in non-partisan political activities as long as it devotes substantially all (usually 90% or more) of its resources to charitable activities."
KGF's pastor, Artur Pawlowski, is also the founder and pastor of Street Church Ministries, which has made headlines because of its battle with the city of Calgary to uphold its right to preach to and serve the city's poor. Read more
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Why every school should have its own policeman (or woman)
[...] No government, can legislate for good behaviour. My big idea is to provide every primary school in the country with a policeman or woman, and on a permanent basis. Now don’t throw your hands up in horror. I’m not an apologist for any authoritarian tendency. It’s quite simply this; get the youngsters and police to build up excellent relationships at the earliest possible opportunity, helping to foster and nuture respect, responsibility and understanding. This builds perfectly upon the work already undertaken by Labour investing in Early Years - Sure Start, Children’s Fund, Family Centres and so on.
Oodles of evidence points to the fact where primary schools have adopted local cops; there’s a noticeable drop in crime rates in that area in later years. Head Teachers I’ve spoken to love the idea.
It’s not of course a panacea and needs to work in conjunction with other initiatives such as restorative justice schemes.
Crucially though allowing each primary school a police officer is simple and is not rocket science. Yes it’s costly and it’s not just for one term. There’s a cost too to letting the status quo rule. No one said democracy was cheap. The long term benefits will surely be manifestly clear, and be something in time we can all celebrate." Read more
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That deep maternal urge . . . to kill your child
True love, I’ve grown to believe, is when you experience someone else’s pain as your own. There is no synaptic pause between their grave news and the summoning of empathy. Your reaction is visceral, involuntary: a winded blow when your wife loses her job, a sickened disappointment when your daughter is the sole girl not asked to the party. The proper seat of love is not the heart but the guts.
It would be a foolhardy woman who claimed a mother feels a child’s suffering more than its father. So I’ll let a man do it. Simon Carr, whose wife died, leaving him to raise his sons alone — and whose memoir The Boys Are Back in Town has been made into a film — said this week he believes a mother is more protective, less able to permit risky japes, because the child’s body came from her own body, flesh of her flesh, and will always be so. Certainly when my sons were small I found myself grasping my own knees after they fell.
And I’ve come to wonder how much of modern overweaning coddling of our kids, never letting them free to roam, is not motivated so much by fear of what might happen to them, but self-protection: a terror of the bereavement we know would obliterate our own lives. The mortality of one’s children, the notion that they will ever die at all — even years after your own death — is, as Martin Amis says in Experience, “immensely onerous to contemplate”. Read more
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Should we tell jokes about gays and lesbians? BBC asks the nation
The BBC is to ask the nation if its comedians should be allowed to tell jokes about lesbians and gays. The issue will be part of the most wideranging piece of research on sexuality that the corporation has commissioned.
Tim Davie, BBC director of audio and music, will chair a working group on the portrayal and inclusion of lesbian, gay and bisexual people. It will examine how they are reflected in the corporation’s use of language, tone, stereotyping, humour and scheduling.
The report was commissioned last August, months before the corporation received hundreds of complaints over a headline on the BBC News website relating to a debate on Ugandan government policy. It asked: “Should homosexuals face execution?” The corporation apologised and amended the headline. Read more
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Friday, 22 January 2010
Judge is refused care authorities’ report in Edlington torture case
Care authorities have refused to allow a High Court judge to read a confidential report into their handling of two young brothers who sadistically tortured two children and left them for dead.
The report, prompted by an horrific attack on two children aged 9 and 11 in Edlington, near Doncaster, is said to reveal numerous failings by care professionals who dealt with the brothers and their violent family over years. A copy was leaked to the BBC, which says the report details 31 occasions on which nine different agencies failed to take action over the brother’s offending behaviour before the Edlington attack last April.
The brothers, who were aged 10 and 11 when the assault took place, will be sentenced today after jointly admitting grievous bodily harm, robbery and causing a child to engage in sexual activity.
A request for a copy of the report was made by Sheffield Crown Court at the request of Peter Kelson, QC, representing the elder of the siblings, who had urged the judge, Mr Justice Keith, to read it before passing sentence.
He said that a study of the boy’s case by a consultant child psychiatrist, Susan Bailey, had found “a causal link” between the failings of the care authorities and the brothers’ grotesque violence.
A request for a copy of the full serious case review was made on Wednesday to the Doncaster Safeguarding Children Board, a multi-agency body including representatives from Doncaster Council, South Yorkshire Police and health agencies. Mr Justice Keith told the court yesterday: “I have been informed that I won’t be supplied with the document.” Read more
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Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Row over 'Biblical' rifle sights for UK troops
British soldiers fighting in Afghanistan will be issued with rifle sights bearing Biblical references, it emerged today.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it was not aware of the significance of the markings on the advanced combat optical gunsights (ACOGs) when it placed an order for 400 from US firm Trijicon.
There are fears that the inscriptions could lead to allegations that the battle for Afghanistan is a "religious war". Read more
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Far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders on trial for anti-Muslim stance
The Dutch far-right MP Geert Wilders was greeted with applause from the public gallery as he faced court for the first day of his landmark trial on charges of inciting racial hatred against Muslims.
Mr Wilders, 46, sat impassively as his lawyer argued that the leader of the Freedom Party, which made big gains at last summer's European elections, had made his critical remarks about Islam in his role as an elected Member of Parliament.
Bram Moszkowicz said that Mr Wilders had a mandate to speak out against what he saw as the Islamisation of the Netherlands and argued that he had not discriminated against a specific national group, saving his attacks for the ideology of political Islam.
Around 200 supporters of Mr Wilders had travelled from as far as Cologne in Germany to hold up placards declaring that free speech was under assault by Islam and by the politically correct. The case is being watched as a test of the limits of political tolerance in the Netherlands after years of relaxed immigration policies which have seen the Musim population rise to around 1 million out of 16 million.
"This case is about more than Mr Wilders," Mr Moszkowicz told Amsterdam District Court this morning. "It touches us all. It is such an important and principled question that could have far-reaching consequences." Read more
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Tuesday, 19 January 2010
West turns Africa into gay battlefield
The trial of a young male couple charged with unnatural practices and gross indecency after announcing their engagement in Malawi was adjourned last week when one of the accused collapsed in court while enduring jeers from the public gallery.
Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, was made to return with a mop to clean up his own vomit, even though he has malaria.
He and his boyfriend, Steven Monjeza, 26, have been held in Chichiri prison, Blantyre, for more than a week — in order, the judge says, to protect them from mob violence.
Chichiri has a reputation for overcrowding, disease and homosexual rape. The couple say they have been badly beaten and Peter Tatchell, the British gay activist, describes their conditions as appalling.
Such scenes will only increase the pressure from western human rights activists and donor countries on Malawi’s government to moderate its draconian anti-gay laws, for which the couple have provided a test case. They face up to 14 years in jail. Read more
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