History has been 'feminised' says David Starkey as he launches Henry VIII series

British history has become "feminised" by female authors who concentrate on subjects like the six wives of Henry VIII rather than the king himself, Dr David Starkey has said.


By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent
Last Updated: 11:32PM BST 30 Mar 2009
History has been 'feminised' says David Starkey as he launches Henry VIII series
British history has become "feminised" by female authors who concentrate on subjects like the six wives of Henry VIII rather than the king himself, Dr David Starkey has said. Photo: MARTIN POPE

Speaking shortly before the launch of a new Channel 4 series to mark the 500th anniversary of the Tudor monarch's accession to the throne, Dr Starkey said he found it "bizarre" that so much historical effort was now focused on the monarch's wives.

In an interview with the Radio Times, out today, Dr Starkey said: "One of the great problems has been that Henry, in a sense, has been absorbed by his wives. Which is bizarre.

"But it's what you expect from feminised history, the fact that so many of the writers who write about this are women and so much of their audience is a female audience. Unhappy marriages are big box office."

He said that in his new series, Henry VIII: Mind of a Tyrant, "we're trying to say, 'Hang on a minute, Henry is centre stage.'

"This is Henry – wives appear simply to explain or complicate the story of Henry. This is his development, his psychology and, above all, why he matters."

Prominent female authors to write about Henry VIII and the Tudors include Lady Antonia Fraser, whose titles include the best-selling account The Six Wives of Henry VIII; Alison Weir, who wrote a book bearing the same title; and Jessie Childs, author of the prize-winning Henry VIII's Last Victim.

Talking to The Daily Telegraph, Dr Starkey said that while writing about Henry VIII, "even I fell into the trap of subjugating the history of Henry ... to that of his wives".

He said he did so because "they are a gift to the writer – you end up with six stories for the price of one."

But he warned that the "soap opera" of Henry's personal life should come second to the political consequences of his rule, such as the Reformation and the break with Rome.

Dr Starkey went further, by saying that modern attempts to paint many women in history as "power players" was to falsify the facts.

He said: "If you are to do a proper history of Europe before the last five minutes, it is a history of white males because they were the power players, and to pretend anything else is to falsify."

For example, while he considered Elizabeth I to be a great monarch, "the way she is presented as some sort of female icon is ludicrous".

During Victorian times her conduct was regarded as "perfectly deplorable", he added.

Dr Starkey insisted: "I'm not joining forces with Fathers for Justice, it is simply saying that our new world has its own set of prejudices, its set of distinctive lenses, and we need to be aware of them." Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

BNP to launch advertising campaign featuring Jesus Christ

The extremist British National Party (BNP) is to launch an advertising campaign featuring Jesus Christ.

The far-Right party will use the advert which features a bible verse quoting Jesus' words about persecution, in the run up to the European Elections in June.

It comes after the Church of England passed a resolution at its General Synod last month banning clergy from being members of the party.

The advert features a picture of Jesus Christ on the cross and quotes a part of a verse from John's Gospel (John 15:20) in which Jesus says: "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you". The verse comes in the context of Jesus' teaching about love.

The advert then asks: "What would Jesus do?".

The thinktank Ekklesia has monitored attempts by the BNP since 2003 to present itself as a ‘Christian Party’. It has also warned that misleading stories about ‘Christian persecution’ in the UK, as well as appeals by church leaders to recover the idea of 'Christian Britain', have played into the hands of the far-Right

In recent years the BNP has used religious rhetoric with increasing frequency. In recent local elections, the party's literature included copies of the controversial Mohammed cartoons. It also helped establish a 'Christian Council of Britain'.

The goal is to appeal to those in the population who identify with Christianity, but feel panicked both by 'liberal secularism' and the growth of Islam. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Tory councillor quizzed by police after making 'homophobic' joke about transsexuals

He thought he was just making a humorous remark.

But not everyone saw the funny side to Conservative councillor Jonathan Yardley's suggestion at a police liaison meeting that transexuals could call themselves both male and female.

Unbeknown to him, a transgender person was among the 50 members of the public present, and a complaint - thought to have been made by the person's partner - was later recieved by police about Mr Yardley's 'homophobic' comment.

It resulted, claims Mr Yardley, in him being 'put through the mill' by officers and told to be more careful what he jokes about.

Today Mr Yardley, 48, said: 'I find it ridiuclous you can get in trouble over an off the cuff remark with no malice intended. I didn't even know there was a transgender person there.

'There are much more important issues that the police should be spending their time on. These are the politically correct times we live in, you can¹t make jokes any more.'

At the meeting which landed him in hot water the public had been given handsets allowing them to electronically answer 36 questions that were being flashed up on screen as part of a presentation.

The first few questions, as is usual at the quarterly meetings in Wolverhampton chaired by Mr Yardley, the city council's Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Community Safety, were intended to establish the demographic of the audience.

The audience was told by a police authority worker: 'Let¹s start with an easy question to get us going: Press A if you're male or B if you're female'. The transgender person's partner then asked: 'What if you're transgendered?', and Mr Yardley said: 'You could press A and B together.' Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Save our churches by buying one

Twelve Churches, which opens at Bonhams in London tomorrow, will feature a series of paintings and limited-edition prints of historic churches by Gerard Stamp, the acclaimed artist.

All the works will be on sale to the public, with proceeds going to the Churches Conservation Trust (CCT), the charity that cares for historic churches across the country.

The Sunday Telegraph's Save our Churches campaign has called on the Government to increase the level of funding to preserve historic churches and allow church buildings to be made more suitable for community use.

The campaign has been supported by politicians, celebrities and church figures, including David Cameron, Archbishop Rowan Williams, Joanna Lumley and the CCT. Read more

No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Archbishop confronts BBC Director General over its treatment of religion

Dr Rowan Williams warned Mark Thompson at a meeting at Lambeth Palace that the broadcaster must not ignore its Christian audience.

His intervention comes amid mounting concern among senior members of the Church of England that the BBC is downgrading its religious output and giving preferential treatment to minority faiths.

The corporation recently sacked its head of religious programmes, Michael Wakelin, a Methodist preacher.

The emergence of a Muslim as the front-runner to succeed Mr Wakelin, along with the recent appointment of a Sikh to produce Songs of Praise, has raised fears within the Church that the Christian voice is being sidelined.

Mr Thompson caused controversy last year when he suggested that Islam should be treated more sensitively by the media than Christianity because Muslims are a minority religion. Read more

No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

We're in a state of sexual confusion

[...] It has been confusedly reported that the suggestion to televise advertisements for abortion clinics is an effort to "curb teenage pregnancies". This is not true, since an abortion clinic can only be of interest when pregnancy has already occurred. It is in fact an effort to curb live births to teenage mothers.

There is a grotesque and widening gulf in how society depicts pregnancy in mothers of different ages and classes. The pregnancy of an older, middle-class mother – a triumph over the dreaded spectre of infertility – or a wealthy celebrity is increasingly viewed by the media as a miraculous event: the world is beckoned in to relish vicariously everything from the first perceptible flutterings of foetal limbs to the gloriously expanding size of the bump.

If a 14-year-old girl should fall pregnant, however, sentimental cooing is replaced by cold functionality. The official line from the top down is: quick, get the damn thing "sorted out". If she agrees, the bemused girl is rushed to the nearest clinic for a termination, after which she is generally supposed to shut up about it and hug her shameful little secret close. Some girls may bounce back from such an experience with relative insouciance, others may find that it haunts them psychologically ever after. Responses to abortion are deep-rooted, complicated and rarely discussed in public: it's the sorrowful, silent side of sex.

I am not opposed to the provision of abortion services, sex education or contraception. I am, however, opposed to the persistent trivialising of both abortion and sex, particularly with regard to adolescents. The Government's policy of constant nagging about contraception has not solved the problem of teenage conception at all: it has made it worse. The line has been blurred between information and tacit encouragement. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Bishop of Rochester to step down

Bishop Michael announces his intention to step down as Bishop of Rochester

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali has announced his intention to step down as Bishop of Rochester as from 1st September 2009. He will have been Bishop in the Diocese for nearly 15 years and during this time has played a major part in the life of the church.

Bishop Michael is hoping to work with a number of church leaders from areas where the church is under pressure, particularly in minority situations, who have asked him to assist them with education and training for their particular situation. Details of this arrangement are still being worked out.

Bishop Michael, who will be 60 in August, is the 106th Bishop of Rochester. He is originally from Asia and was the first non-white Diocesan Bishop in the Church of England. He was appointed to Rochester in 1994. Before that he was the General Secretary of CMS from 1989-1994 and before that Bishop of Raiwind in Pakistan and theological Assistant to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Since 1999 he has also been a member of the House of Lords where he has been active in a number of areas of national and international concern.

Bishop Michael’s farewell service for the Diocese will be held at Rochester Cathedral on 12th September 2009 at 3.15 p.m. and further details will be circulated at a later date. Details about the process of appointing a new Bishop and the arrangements during the interregnum will also be published later.

Canon Tony Smith
Personal Chaplain and Press Officer to the Bishop of Rochester
 
Phone: 01634 814439
Fax: 01634 831136
Mobile: 07791 968819
chaplain@rochester.anglican.org
www.rochester.anglican.org


No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

The tyranny of liberalism

[...] Q: What about the distinction between Anglo-American liberalism and continental liberalism, and their different models of secularism? Is it inaccurate to lump everything together under the heading of "liberalism"?

Kalb: The fundamental principle is the same, so the distinction can’t be relied on.

In the English-speaking world the social order was traditionally less illiberal than on the continent.

King and state were less absolute, the Church had less independent authority, standing armies were out of favor, the aristocracy was less a separate caste, and the general outlook was more commercial and utilitarian.

Classical liberalism could be moderate and still get what it wanted.

Liberalism is progressive, though, so its demands keep growing. It eventually rejects all traditional ways as illiberal and becomes more and more radical.

For that reason state imposition of liberal norms has become at least as aggressive in Britain and Canada as on the continent.

The United States is still somewhat of an exception, but even among us aggressive forms of liberalism are gaining ground. They captured the academy, the elite bar and the media years ago, and they’re steadily gaining ground among the people.

The international dizziness about President Obama and the violent reaction to the narrow victory of Proposition 8 concerning same-sex marriage in California show the direction things are going. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Fulcrum leadership question inspectors' report on Wycliffe Hall

A member of the Open Evangelical group Fulcrum has challenged the assessment of Wycliffe Hall theological college presented by the Chair of the Church of England’s Ministry Division in a recent letter to the Church of England Newspaper.

Bishop Graham James had himself written to criticize the headline in the previous week’s CEN that Wycliffe had “failed” the inspection. This, Bishop James said, was “plainly wrong.” He continued,

On the contrary, the inspection team found Wycliffe Hall ‘fit for purpose’ displaying ‘a rich mosaic of evangelical traditions which come together in a community which shows respect for difference, and in which women are fully accepted and integrated’.

Now, however, Jody Stowell, one of the Fulcrum leadership team, has explicitly questioned that conclusion and the effectiveness of the inspection. Writing in a thread about the Bishop’s letter on the Fulcrum discussion forum, she stated,

i [sic] for one would be very interested to know the process by which it was determined that women are fully accepted and integrated.

which women were asked, if any? was this done in a way that the subtlety of power imbalance was avoided in order to get a true representation?

Challenged on this via another post, she responded that she,

... questioned the statement about the women because the way that it is articulated in the quotation [in the Bishop’s letter] removes it entirely from any context in which the women themselves define whether they feel accepted and fully integrated

Later she added,

i would like to know how the female ordinands feel, i would like to know the ‘atmosphere’ of the college, i would like to know that women called to be priests are still feeling able to attend wycliffe if they choose and that when they do they will not feel marginalised or neglected ... but accepted and fully integrated ...

Wycliffe Hall, and its Principal, Revd Dr Richard Turnbull, have come in for considerable criticism in Fulcrum discussion fora, particularly since the termination of the employment of two other members of the Fulcrum leadership, Drs Andrew Goddard and Elaine Storkey, as staff at Wycliffe Hall. Dr Storkey later went to an industrial tribunal, where Wycliffe Hall defended the dismissal, but acknowledged that it was unfair on the grounds that the statutory procedures had not been followed. Dr Storkey threatened a further claim for religious discrimination, but the case was eventually settled out of court.

Revd John Richardson
27 March 2009

No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Brown in talks to let women and Catholics inherit throne

Gordon Brown has opened talks with Buckingham Palace and Commonwealth leaders over abolishing the Act of Settlement which bars Catholics from the Royal Family.

Mr Brown is also pressing for collective action to end primogeniture which favours males over over female heirs to the British monarchy.

The bar on Catholics has long been regarded as a symbol of sectarian prejudice but according to some legal opinion its abolition requires legislation in every nation of which the Queen is sovereign. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Murder enquiry "hit a dead end"

I couldn't resist this one from The (Brighton?) Argus:

Bolney torso removed from Mid Sussex grave

An unidentified body has been removed from its grave after 15 years.

Police reopened the ‘Bolney torso’ murder inquiry this week in the hope of identifying the headless and handless corpse which baffled detectives in the early 1990s.

A hearse collected the coffin yesterday from the cemetery in Western Road, Haywards Heath, where it has lain since a three-year police investigation hit a dead end in 1994. Read it here.

No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Wycliffe Hall "did not fail inspection" - Chair of Ministry Division

Sir, Your front page headline in last week’s edition (20th March) was plainly wrong. Wycliffe Hall did not fail its recent inspection. On the contrary, the inspection team found Wycliffe Hall ‘fit for purpose’ displaying ‘a rich mosaic of evangelical traditions which come together in a community which shows respect for difference, and in which women are fully accepted and integrated’.

Under the revised inspection system (one of the revisions is the full publication of inspection reports for the first time) there are thirteen areas of enquiry. It was in only one of these that Wycliffe Hall registered a ‘no confidence’ judgement from the inspectors.

It is clear that the Wycliffe Hall Council and the Principal are alert to the need to address the concerns of the inspectors, and it is not simply misleading, but false, to translate that single judgement into the sort of headline you saw fit to publish last week. Such inaccurate reporting does little service to those of us who have been arguing for full public disclosure of inspection reports.

The Rt. Rev Graham James
Chair, Ministry Division.

Subscribe to the Church of England Newspaper. (The irony of this suggestion in the light of the above letter does not, however, escape me. I also wonder when the folks at Fulcrum who are still picking away at this will catch up with the Min Div's verdict. Ed)

No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Lambeth’s £288,000 deficit due to incompetence

POOR PLANNING, inexperienced management, and weak financial controls contributed
to a £288,000 deficit for the 2008 Lambeth Conference, a report released
last week by the Archbishops' Council and the Church Commissioners has concluded.
The management team, conference structure and business practices were not
up to the job, the report found, stating that the “arrangements in place for the 2008
conference were less robust than they needed to be.”

The conference's opaque management structure had left no one in charge, with
the result that there had been a “disconnect between design on the one hand, and capacity and execution on the other.” The lack of clear lines of authority had
led to cost overruns, with the financial team “not always aware” of the commitments
made by conference management staff. Two examples cited by the report were the “failure to recognise a commitment for expenditure of £411,000 on the
Big Top” the blue tent that served as the principle venue for conference meetings,
and IT support.

The conference finance director “did not know” about the Big Top bill, while the
conference “organiser did not know it wasnot in the budget.” Rather than charging a
flat fee for internet usage by conference goers, the University of Kent changed the
conference for individual log-ons, leading to a bill of £80,576---over £65,000 over budget.

Read more by subscribing to the Church of England Newspaper.


No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Religious tensions rising at universities

FAITH IS becoming increasingly polarized on university campuses according to both Christians and secularists. Students are becoming more animated about defending their individual world view rather than fighting Labour’s university fees or other hot issues. Speaking to the Church of England Newspaper, both UCCF and the British Humanist Society (BHA) admitted that the atmosphere in university had changed in recent years.

Pod Bhogul, press officer for UCCF said that the trend reflected the polarisation demonstrated in culture as a whole. He said: “Christian Unions exist to give every student in Great Britain an opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ whilst they’re at university.

Universities are, of course, a market-place of ideas where different views can be shared, providing a healthy context for dialogue, debate and discussion.”
He went on to say: “The expression of strongly held views, be they secular or spiritual, can only be a good thing for Christian Unions seeking to engage with these worldviews in a way that is meaningful, loving and honouring to the gospel.” Read more by subscribing to the Church of England Newspaper
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

God 'will not give happy ending'

God will not intervene to prevent humanity from wreaking disastrous damage to the environment, the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned.

In a lecture, Dr Rowan Williams urged a "radical change of heart" to prevent runaway climate change.

At York Minster he said humanity should turn away from the selfishness and greed that leads it to ignore its interdependence with the natural world.

And God would not guarantee a "happy ending", he warned. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Abortion advice ads 'to be aired'

Pregnancy advisory services - including abortion information - could be advertised on TV and radio under proposals due to be released.

Restrictions on condom adverts could also be relaxed, as part of plans aimed at reducing high UK rates of teenage pregnancy and sexual infections.

They suggest condom adverts could be shown before the 2100 watershed.

The idea is part of a review of advertising codes, which will now be put to the public for their views.

The review - by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee on Advertising Practice (BCAP) - has also proposed tighter controls over environmental claims and stricter rules to protect children. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

It’s the Christians who practise intolerance

The voices are becoming more shrill. Bishops and commentators and some parliamentarians have got themselves the same hymn sheet from which they are singing very loudly. The refrain, in essence, is that a monstrous regiment of British secularists is denying Christians the right to practice their faith freely while poisoning the well of social policy with immoral initiatives.

The outgoing leader of UK Catholics, Cormac Murphy O'Connor, recently spoke of "the new intolerance directed against those who maintain pro-life and pro-family views". They fret about Godless Britain across the pond, too.

This week, Peter Glover, in the online journal First Things, wrote of "an anti-Christian bias in Britain". And he felt moved to add that "by making Christian practice difficult, if not outright illegal in British public life, the British courts and public authorities have contributed to an increasing awareness that a vacuum exists where the nation's Judaeo-Christian spine used to be".

And then there is the gospel according to Christine Odone, former editor of the Catholic Herald and a still trenchant commentator on all matters theological. She rails against what she characterises "God-bashers", suggesting "for them it is not enough to exclude those who do not subscribe to their soulless scientism, or one-dimensional rationalism. Pariah status is only the first step in the punishment they mete out to those who refuse to follow their lead".

At which point I want to say: hang on - just who is practising intolerance here? Within the past couple of weeks the papal visit to Africa has been dominated by the pontiff's criticism of condom promotion in the campaign against HIV/Aids, and of countries where abortion has been made legal.

Where are the legal and moral rights of those who take a different view? Why should it be acceptable to suggest that those who do not embrace a particular world view are bound for the big bad fire? It seems to me you could make an entirely coherent case that the people under threat in Britain are the secularists. It is extremely irritating, to put it no higher, to be labelled extremist for holding the view that contextualised sex education is important, and that it is not for any church to condemn contraception use within communities who do not subscribe to the same beliefs. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Church has only itself to blame for ignorance of Christianity, says cleric

Churches only have themselves to blame for widespread ignorance of Christianity, according to The Very Rev Adrian Newman, the Dean of Rochester.

Mr Newman said the Church of England had just assumed that people would "absorb" knowledge of its traditions and teachings because it is the state religion.

But he said that the culture of the country has changed in recent decades and become more secular, with the result that young people are growing up without any understanding of Christianity.

This means that many of them have no idea that Easter is an important festival commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and not just an opportunity to enjoy a Bank Holiday or eat chocolate eggs.

Writing in the latest issue of Rochester Link, the diocese magazine, Mr Newman said: "As our culture has become distanced from our Christian roots, the meaning of Easter has somehow got lost in translation.

"These days, when people encounter the great Christian traditions, it's like they are stepping into a foreign country where the language and the customs are unfamiliar and odd."

He went on: "We in the churches have only ourselves to blame for this state of affairs. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

NIGERIA: Standing Committee stands in 'full communion' with conservative North American entity

The Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria declared at a recent meeting that it stands "in full and abiding communion" with the Anglican Church in North America, a conservative entity that is not officially recognized as a part of the Anglican Communion.

Members of several self-styled Anglican organizations, known collectively as the Common Cause Partnership, announced the new entity in December 2008 to serve Anglicans who have decided they no longer want to be a part of the Episcopal Church or Anglican Church of Canada for theological reasons.

Deposed Bishop of Pittsburgh Robert W. Duncan, moderator of the Common Cause Partnership and archbishop-designate for the Anglican Church in North America, told the Standing Committee that the new entity consists of "seven hundred congregations representing more than one hundred thousand Anglicans in the United States and Canada who have held true to the faith once delivered to the saints," according to a resolution from the March 11-14 meeting, held at Obafemi Awolowo University in Osun State, Nigeria.

The Church of Nigeria is led by Archbishop Peter J. Akinola, one of the Anglican Communion's leading critics of the Episcopal Church and its inclusive theology. Akinola has maintained that homosexuality is incompatible with Scripture and has supported legislation in Nigeria that would have gays and lesbians incarcerated for up to five years. He has called for the Episcopal Church to repent for such recent actions as the 2003 consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, a divorced gay man living in same-gender relationship, and some dioceses' provisions for the blessing of same-gender unions. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

The sound of silence: The Cuckoo is vanishing

[...] The one certainty is that, led by the cuckoo, the spring-bringers are rapidly being lost from our lives. I gradually began to focus less on the causes of it and more on the meaning – trying to work out why this particular wildlife loss seemed more disturbing than the others.

These birds mattered to us, I knew from the outset, because they signalled the most marvellous of all the season changes, and to hear the cuckoo, say, for the first time in a given spring was a moment of true exhilaration. Yet underlying the exhilaration there was something more, something deeper than mere delight; and eventually I realised that it was not simply the fact of the birds' arrival, and its marking of the seasonal shift, tremendous though that was – it was the recurring nature of this event.

For, in coming back year after year after year, against all the odds they face, the spring migrants are testaments to the earth's great cycle. They remind us that although death is certain, renewal is eternal; that although all life ends, new life comes as well. Perhaps what they mean to us, really, is hope – every one of the whole 16 million a feathered piece of hope, fresh from Africa.

But if the birds don't come back, then something is going awry at the heart of things. Something is going wrong with the earth's great cycle, something is going wrong with the spring itself – something is going wrong with the very working of the world.

Spinning around at a thousand miles an hour, on its axis tilted at 23 degrees to the plane of its orbit around the Sun, the earth in its motions has always seemed dependable to the last degree. In human history it has always worked entirely reliably, giving us day and then night, spring and then summer, autumn and then winter, with a regularity so unshakeable that these are the only real certainties, apart from death itself, in our uncertain lives.

That any of this should alter, other than on the Day of Judgement, has never been part of our intellectual currency. But here we have one of the world's profoundest motions, a living announcement of spring, coming to an end.

We have grown used to wildlife losses, but it will be far more than the loss of a species to say goodbye to the cuckoo, and to bid farewell to its fellow summer visitors, as we are now on course to do sooner rather than later. It will be something so momentous in its implications that perhaps it is better not to think it through. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

What do you get if you divide science by God?

A prize-winning quantum physicist says a spiritual reality is veiled from us, and science offers a glimpse behind that veil. So how do scientists investigating the fundamental nature of the universe assess any role of God, asks Mark Vernon.



The Templeton Prize, awarded for contributions to "affirming life's spiritual dimension", has been won by French physicist Bernard d'Espagnat, who has worked on quantum physics with some of the most famous names in modern science.

Quantum physics is a hugely successful theory: the predictions it makes about the behaviour of subatomic particles are extraordinarily accurate. And yet, it raises profound puzzles about reality that remain as yet to be understood.

The bizarre nature of quantum physics has attracted some speculations that are wacky but the theory suggests to some serious scientists that reality, at its most basic, is perfectly compatible with what might be called a spiritual view of things. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Church of Nigeria Formally Accepts Emerging Anglican Province

The Church of Nigeria, the largest province in the Anglican Communion, has become the first to formally accept a new orthodox province emerging in North America.

Although official recognition from the entire 77 million-member Anglican Communion is expected to take years, the Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria resolved unanimously to be in "full communion" with the emerging Anglican Church in North America and recognize it as a branch in the global body, according to an announcement on Friday.

Bishop Robert Duncan, who is to lead the Anglican Church in North America, praised the decision.

"In this one action, leaders representing every diocese in the Church of Nigeria, which in turn count as members more than a quarter of the world’s Anglicans, have declared themselves to be full partners of the Anglican Church in North America," Duncan said in a statement.

"They have stated clearly that we stand together on the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible, the historic creeds and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as our only Savior and Lord," he stated.

Duncan and a host of conservatives in North America as well overseas had been calling on The Episcopal Church – the U.S. arm of Anglicanism – to repent and get back in line with traditional Anglicanism and Scripture, particularly since it consecrated an openly gay bishop in 2003. But the conservative group saw little hope that the U.S. body would change direction from what breakaway Anglicans claim to be a departure from Christian orthodoxy. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Rwanda: ABp Kolini Lauded on Efforts Against Homosexuality

The leader of the Province, church of Uganda, Archbishop Luke Orombi has lauded the Primate of the Province of the Anglican church of Rwanda, Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini for his dedication in the fight against homosexuality in the Anglican Communion.

He said this on Thursday 19 during a farewell dinner organized by the Province of the Anglican church of Rwanda at Kigali extension guest house.

The prelate who was accompanied by his wife Mama Fibi Orombo was in the country for nine days.

He came to Rwanda to have a rest as well as learning from Rwanda's experience after the 1994 Mayhem which left over one million Tutsi dead.

"Kolini, you are a great leader. You have shown the whole world that God is powerful, may God keep using you at any time of need," Orombi said, adding that both Rwanda and Ugandan churches will continue fighting for the good cause of the bible.

He also commended the good leadership of President Paul Kagame, describing him a statesman and a unique leader on the African continent. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

The Anglican Network in Canada - a great burden lifted

[...] The 76 clergy, including four archdeacons and the three bishops, of the Anglican Network in Canada met in the first week of March for their fourth annual clergy retreat at a beautiful retreat centre just inside the USA south of Vancouver. They came from across Canada. Many had been part of the Network for just over a year. Some had joined in the last few months when their churches had voted to leave the ACoC. Had it been a painful experience? Those I spoke with said it had been just the opposite - a sense that a great burden had been lifted from their shoulders in dealing with a church that was well on the way to apostasy. It was such a new experience for them to attend a clergy retreat where they were not intimidated into silence for fear of what people might say from the front, or might say about them in response to their straightforward biblical faith.

A significant strength to this movement is St John’s Church Shaughnessy where a succession of evangelical pastors - Harry Robinson, now retired, Steve James, now a vicar in Manchester and now David Short from Australia - have not only built up a congregation of 700, but trained young people in leading churches and church plants so that many of these orthodox clergy are people who at some stage have been through St Johns. A teacher at St Johns for over 20 years has been Dr Jim Packer. While he was a great loss to Evangelical Anglicans in England when he migrated to teach in Vancouver, it can now be seen that God had his purpose in placing him at a strategic situation for when this crisis developed. Read more

No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

NI: No prosecution over 'gay' remarks

A Northern Ireland assembly member will not face prosecution over comments she made about homosexuals last year.

Iris Robinson, chair of the Stormont health committee, called for homosexuals to seek psychiatric counselling. Read more

No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Church of England on brink of 'losing' 24 million 'members'

Watch this Sky video and read the news report at Times Online about nurse John Hunt who is trying to get his baptism into the Church of England rescinded, with the support of the National Secular Society.

The case is significant because it could ultimately cost the Church of England and the other Anglican churches in the UK nearly all of their 25,336,000 official members, as recorded by the World Council of Churches, as counted by the Wakeham Commission on reform of the House of Lords and even by the Anglican Communion itself.

The Church of England claims it does not use baptismal figures in counting its membership, but clearly they are used by other bodies, and where bodies do use these figures, they are supplied by the church.

Dr Hunt does not want the Church of England to enjoy special privileges based on 25 million members counted by baptisms carried out on babies when, judging by church attendance of 1.1 million, most of these grown-up babies no longer profess. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Melanie Phillips: Beware The New Axis Of Evangelicals And Islamists

Melanie Phillips says there is a dangerous new alliance between anti-Israel Christians and radical Muslim groups, often plotting in secret against their common enemy

Last weekend the Revd Stephen Sizer, vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water appeared at an anti-Israel meeting with an Islamist called Ismail Patel. Patel has not only accused Israel of ‘genocide’ and ‘war crimes’ but considers Disney to be a Jewish plot and supports Hamas, Iran and Syria.

Sizer is a virulent opponent of Christian Zionism and of Israel, which he has said he hopes will disappear just as did the apartheid regime in South Africa. He has also applauded Iranian President Ahmadinejad for having ‘looked forward to the day when Zionism ceased to exist’. Nevertheless, the appearance of an Anglican churchman on a pro-Islamist platform in Britain is a new and significant development. The Church of England recently banned its clergy from joining the BNP; should it not equally ban them from siding with the forces of Islamofascism?

Sizer’s participation, however, must be seen in the context of a disturbing realignment in the services of the forces of darkness against the free world: the emergence of an axis between a body of evangelicals, the hard left, the Islamists — and the far right.

Last July, a discreet meeting was held by a group of influential Anglican evangelicals to co-ordinate a new church approach towards Islam. The meeting was convened by Bryan Knell, head of the missionary organisation Global Connections, and others from a group calling itself Christian Responses to Islam in Britain. The 22 participants, who met at All Nations Christian College in Ware, Hertfordshire, were sworn to secrecy. The aim of the meeting was to develop the ‘grace approach to Islam’, which ‘tries to let Muslims interpret Islam rather than telling them what their religion teaches’. The meeting had in its sights those ‘aggressive’ Christians who were ‘increasing the level of fear’ in many others by talking about the threat posed by radical Islam.

The aim was thus to discredit and stifle those Christians who warn against the Islamisation of Britain and Islam’s threat to the church. Those who do so include the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, the Africa specialist Baroness Cox, the Islam expert Dr Patrick Sookhdeo and the Maranatha Ministry. A few weeks ago, Dr Sookhdeo became a spectacular victim of precisely such a discrediting process. Dr Sookhdeo, an Anglican canon, a Muslim convert and one of this country’s premier authorities on Islam, runs the Barnabas Fund, an aid agency helping persecuted Christians. He has written many books about Islam of which the latest is Global Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam. Read more

Read some responses here.


No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Libby Purves: Josef Fritzl is the limit, the death of hope

It is a disconcerting moment when your liberal conscience hits the buffers and you are consumed by pure rage and hatred for a stranger. I supposed that I had typically modern, moderate, evolved ideas about civilisation and justice; I support prison reform, believe in the possibility of rehabilitation, am glad to live in a society whose criminal justice system takes account of serious mental illness.

Yet when those beliefs come up against Josef Fritzl, I and many other women I talk to find that every ideal goes up like straw, destroyed in the heat of pure, unadulterated hatred.

Intellectually, I am glad he has had a trial and a defence lawyer to speak for him. Emotionally - and it is real emotion - I want him dead. No, worse than dead: tormented for life, not snugged down in some cosy mental hospital but imprisoned, humiliated, preferably flogged, confronted daily by what he did. I can raise no enthusiasm for the “suicide watch” he is on, and would blame his guards not one bit if they turned away to eat their sandwiches. Nor am I glad a psychiatrist has been standing by to cheer him up in the gaps during his trial.

I do not believe, as he would like us to, that the experience of watching the video evidence from his daughter was punishment enough, and made him realise “for the first time” what his “unfulfilled needs” forced - ha! forced! - him to do. I think that is a load of self-serving hooey. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Confessing Anglicans plan summer UK meeting

From the latest REFORM newsletter:

Confessing Anglicans

Following the meeting at All Souls last July which informed us about the results of GAFCON (the Anglican meeting in Jerusalem last June), steps are being taken to build a movement here in the UK to put orthodox belief back at the centre of Anglicanism. Some planning meetings have already been held under the chairmanship of Paul Perkin and a big event to launch the movement is planned for 6th July in London. If you are in a position of church leadership or have a major role in your church (eg church warden), then please put the date in your diary. You will not want to miss this. It is hoped that we will have encouragement from international speakers and then clear examples of how we can make progress in the British Isles. The focus of the day will be very much on making the most of our Anglican identity to promote the gospel.

No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Philip Pullman faces his daemons

[...] His anger towards God remains undimmed. It can sound frightening and immoderate, given his impeccably polite diction. The occasional thud of an F-word is really very funny. His rage comes across as that of someone with an authority problem - someone who has evidently exercised his own as a teacher and a father with restraint. Was there a clue about all this when he mentioned the man who helped to bring him up before his mother remarried and took him off to North Wales - his grandfather, a Norfolk clergyman of the old school? No; it's unlikely that he's responsible for Pullman's take on the Almighty since he was “a man I really loved, one whom people looked up to and trusted”.

Besides, it's not really God he vilifies but the people who do terrible things in the name of religion. Yet aren't there other belief systems he should be fingering? The Magisterium of his trilogy is analogous to the historic Roman Catholic Church, which is arguably less menacing than modern Islamic extremism. “Well,” he replies, “it would be dishonest of me to start writing about Muslims or Jews, as I don't know about them. I don't even know the Catholic tradition. You call it a soft target. It is now, but go back a few hundred years and it was that that burnt you if you got on the wrong side. We are living in a little bubble of time. It might not last much longer, but it is a bubble of time that is still warmed by background radiation from the Enlightenment. We are very fortunate to live in a time and place where you don't get dismembered for having the wrong political convictions, and we should be thoroughly grateful for it every day of our lives.”

When people talk of his books and about those characters of his who carry their daemons like visible souls, they talk also of spirituality. They may know less of his views than of his creations, but it is a good job he can't hear them as this is what he says of the S-word: “I never use it. I never know what it means. It could mean any one of a whole raft of things, from vague feelings of emotional uplift...and then you're off into the realms of the ‘intense inane', as Shelley called it. I find it almost unbearably stupid when people talk about exploring their spirituality because I don't know what the f*** they mean. I think they mean ‘I'm no end of a fine fellow and you ought to respect me because I've got a higher dimension than you material people'.” Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Jade Goody and sons baptized by Buckhurst Hill minister

Read here on the Diocesan Website.

Jade Goody and her sons, Bobby and Freddie, were baptised today at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea by The Revd Corinne Brixton, Associate Minister of St John the Baptist Church in Buckhurst Hill, Essex.

The Revd Corinne Brixton has said: "Baptism is a sign of trust in Jesus and a sign of God’s immense love for us. We hope and pray that taking this step of baptism will bring new comfort and hope to Jade, Bobby, Freddie and the rest of the family."


No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Chelmsford Diocese votes against 'racist' BNP

From Hope not hate (this does not appear to be on the Diocesan website yet):

That the Synod of the Diocese of Chelmsford calls upon the parishes and people of the diocese to respond to God's call to love our neighbour, to serve all His people and to build His Kingdom. As we live this out, we urge that all take an active part in responding to the challenge posed by the BNP and similar racist political parties.

Church members are reminded to encourage all people of goodwill to register and cast their votes, not least because this reduces the proportion of votes which go a political party whose racist foundation is incompatible with Christian discipleship.

Parishes and people are urged to work with ecumenical and other partners to promote Christian values in all political dialogue and in particular:

* To ensure that respect, equality and justice for all people is part of the contribution made by parishes to local dialogue;
* To ensure that no literature or promotional material from any racist political party is permitted in any parish building nor placed on any parish notice board;
* To make respect for all people a component of regular Christian teaching, including through the observance of Racial Justice Sunday;
* To promote participation in public life, including standing for political office, as a vocation for some Christians;
* To co-operate with other groups and organisations working towards these goals;
* To urge all major political parties to address the issues which draw people to vote for far-right political parties.


This Synod agrees that this motion be circulated to all parishes and shared ecumenically in advance of forthcoming elections in Essex and East London.

Passed overwhelmingly by Chelmsford Diocesan Synod on March 7th 2009.

No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Words not what they used to be in the post-Windsor Anglican Communion

Friday, Mar 13, 2009 – Church of England newspaper

Playing with words

Words are no longer what they used to be in the post-Windsor Anglican Communion.

Am I just being nostalgic or can I really remember a time when we more or less knew the meaning of words across the Church?

Now it seems we are locked into a war over words as much as a battle of theological ideas. The Windsor Report pretty much started this by delivering an imprecise, committee-driven document by which words like ‘regret’ as opposed to more traditional ones like ‘repent’ were carefully inserted in order to secure agreement around a process, rather than a conclusion.

In the American House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans when The Episcopal Church faced its deadline to deal with terms like moratoria, ‘words’ were fiercely debated. How far could the House of Bishops go to deliver words which might placate the Anglican Communion without giving anything away? This was a studied course of dishonesty.

Now we have the most egregious example of all in the declaration by the Canadian diocese of Ottawa that it will allow a parish to perform same-sex blessings in order to ‘discern’ the way forward. Needless to say, it’s an odd kind of ‘discernment’ to do something you are not agreed upon in order to reach agreement. It seems like a recipe for division and conflict.

Furthermore, the diocese claims that it is not violating the moratorium on samesex blessings. “There is nothing in the moratorium that says we cannot continue to discern,” said Archdeacon Ross Moulton of Ottawa. It seems unnecessary to point out that the very meaning of the word ‘moratorium’ rules out this kind of discernment. But Archdeacon Moulton has a different dictionary it seems.

The press release from the diocese explaining its actions is even more ludicrous:

“Just as the Church was not able to come to a clear mind regarding the benefits of the ordination of women to the priesthood until it experienced the priestly ministry of women, Bishop Chapman has taken the process of discernment with regards to same-sex blessings to a place beyond discussion.”

This is, of course, simply not true in either the Anglican Church of Canada or the Church of England. Only in America did irregular and illegal ordinations of women occur leading later to the church being bounced into making a decision.

And here was I thinking that theological discussion was how the church reached conclusions. Instead it seems that ‘actions’ take the church to a ‘place beyond discussion’.

So here is the beginning of a glossary of words which have taken on a new slippery meaning in the post-Windsor Communion.

Authorise - This is a code word in modern Anglican documents. The call by Windsor for a moratorium on same-blessings might seem pretty plain and simple. If you insert the word ‘authorise’ the moratorium takes on a completely new meaning. In other words same-sex blessings can continue as long as new liturgies for same-sex blessings are not ‘authorised’. It’s a ‘get out of jail’ free card for the American Church.

Baptism - the most basic sacrament of the worldwide church and one on which previously there was almost universal, ecumenical agreement. ‘Baptism’ now has become mixed up with a ‘rights-based’ philosophy. If you are ‘baptised’, there is no further need for transformation, you have arrived. To deny any of the ministries, sacraments of the Church to anyone who is baptized is to question their baptism as well as their basic human rights. This is despite a very strong authoritative tradition in Anglicanism of excluding, both from sacraments and ministry, those whose lifestyle does not conform to gospel standards.

Listening - another word which has taken on a new meaning in the context of ‘listening’ to the ‘experience of homosexual persons’. ‘Listening’ isn’t just about ‘hearing’ what other people say and being allowed to disagree with them. After all, you haven’t ‘listened’ properly, you haven’t ‘heard’ about the authenticity and integrity of their experience, if you continue to disagree. The only way to ‘listen’ properly is to agree with those you are ‘hearing’ from. Needless to say ‘listening’ goes on and on until there is universal agreement.

Process - perhaps the slipperiest word of all cf. the listening process, the Windsor process. You might think there was something open-ended about a process, but not in Anglicanism. Process is clearly designed to avoid conflict, in fact to avoid divisive discussion altogether. Consequently, the Episcopal Church can say with confidence that in the election and consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson the process was followed as though this legitimized the decision. Process is therefore a means both of avoiding conflict and of delegitimizing opposition. So ‘process’ means to avoid conflict, and to trump theological decisionmaking. The final aspect of ‘process’ is a tactic of delay. The unending process (eg the Windsor process) delays any principled decision-making until hopefully we’ve all forgotten what decisions needed to be taken.

I intend to continue this glossary of Anglicanism in future weeks. Readers with further ‘slippery words’ can email me:

carey.andr@googlemail.com

No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Hindu extremists wreck plans for statue of "Christian" Charlie Chaplin

He fought fascism in the 1940s armed with little more than a crumpled suit, a bemused look and funny walk. Now Charlie Chaplin is embroiled in another battle of beliefs, this time with India’s Hindu extremists.

On Friday, Hindu radicals in the southern state of Karnataka stymied plans to erect a 20m (67ft) statue of the film star, on the grounds that he was a Christian. The move came amid a backlash against Western culture that has raised concerns that parts of India are at risk of being "Talebanised" by Hinduism’s far Right.

The Chaplin sculpture was being built at a cost of about 3.5 million rupees (£48,600) near the town of Udupi, the site of several Hindu temples. The structure was to form part of a film set, but work ground to a halt when Hindu activists chased the workers away and buried the building materials.

Hemant Hegde, the film-maker, told local reporters that he abandoned the project after being threatened by a mob of about 50 people, whose leader told him: "We will not allow you to construct a statue of a Christian actor." Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Inside the sex club for girls (or, how St Paul was right)

Camilla asked me first. “Would you go to Killing Kittens?” she said, curling her long legs into her chest conspiratorially and squaring her large green eyes up to mine. She had heard about the club, an exclusive members-only sex club run by and targeted at women and couples, and held in opulent splendour — a business that sells itself as a playpen for “the world’s sexual elite”. “Absolutely not,” I said, wondering when it became the norm for a night with the girls to end in a three-way with a criminal barrister and a Fulham blonde in an edible playsuit. “I’d never do anything like that.” And, before I could catch myself, I added a resounding “ever”.

But, since that question, I’d been approached by friends giggling into drinks, or confiding in me over supper, four times. All these girls are public-school products: intelligent, beautiful, high-flying. Girls I thought would dismiss out of hand the concept of going to a club to, as far as I could grasp, dress up, titillate and have sex with numerous men and women. Nonetheless, a month later I’m in a silky pink dress and a sparkling eye mask, surrounded by women in a towering Mayfair mansion ticking my name off the guest list on a table strewn with condoms and — bizarrely — Quality Street chocolates. I got in not, sadly, because I am in any way “sexually elite”, but because the club is run by Emma Sayle, an old roommate of mine from school — now a 30-year-old, 6ft blonde business entrepreneur, but back then a super-bright, sporty girls’ girl.

A week earlier, I’d caught up with her in a London cafe to try and grasp what she was up to.

If I had got the basics right — that she had chosen to profit from women by creating an environment for them to have sex with men — then this didn’t tally with the girl I knew at all. She explained the club rules, rules shared by Belle Baise, a similar swinging club based in Nottingham. Members — single women and couples from an AB demographic, but no single men — have to be conventionally good-looking; they must arrive masked, a man can’t get in unless he’s taken there by a woman; if a woman doesn’t bat her lashes and lead him away for a spot of “playing” then there’s not much he can do but watch. Even this he has to do in a couple, as parties have minders circulating to ensure there aren’t any lone males perving quietly in a corner. No drugs — you get thrown out if you’re found taking them. No cameras or mobile phones — this is a strictly secret event, so much so that the location of the venue is only released the day before a party — which makes it somewhat odd that she has allowed the Sunday Times Magazine photographer in at all.

Ed: And that's probably about all you need to read if you take St Paul's word for it, "Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

But if you ever thought he was exaggerating, read more

No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Alpha's Nicky Gumbel blasts London diocese

Alpha's Nicky Gumbel is the darling of the London diocese. Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, the Golden Goose of London with all its rich, young and beautiful worshippers in Knightsbridge, Kensington and countless "planted" offshoots, the Bishop of London Richard Chartres is fulsome in his praises of the merits of this evangelical stronghold. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, speaks there often. So what has inspired the star of numerous Alpha videos to weigh in against the diocese? It is, as we report, the proposed sale of St Mark's Mayfair to the developer of Covent Garden's Sanctuary, to be turned into an alternative health centre.

Even though Westminster has turned down Hammer's planning application - the pic here shows campaigners cheering outside after the planners met in December - the diocesan finance committee is expected to press ahead with its plan to sell the Grade-I listed church to Hammer on Monday evening. But the bombshell dropped by Gumbel today, in a letter to Archdeacon of Charing Cross Dr William Jacob, is that he was offered the church to house his abundant flock, and said 'yes'. If anyone can afford to restore this redundant wreck to its own and God's glory, it has to be HTB. But it seems like this is one battle in their spiritual war the evangelicals are not going to win. Read Nicky's letter in full, below, and the original missive that prompted it, Dr Jacob's own letter to Lady Sainsbury, a local resident and evangelical Christian backing the campaign to save St Mark's. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

ABp Akinola: America has no right to tell us how to live in Nigeria

Ed: From earlier this year (I think)

“Come, let us return to the Lord, for we all like sheep have gone astray”.

These words of Hosea 6:1 was the clarion call sent to all and sundry by some senior citizens of Nigeria by name Fellowship of Christian Patriots (FCP) to this year’s public lecture titled “Homosexuality and Religion”.

After all niceties have been extended by the organizing committee, the guest speaker, Professor Oyewale Tomori, Vice Chancellor Redeemer University, Redemption City, Ogun State set the ball rolling in a 12 - page research work which took the audience to a historical excursion into the world of homosexuality which he said had been in existence soon after Adam and Eve were chased out of the Garden of Eden. According to him the act is as old as religion itself. However, he said the condemnation of penetrative sex between males and predates Christian belief, as it was frequent in Ancient Greece, where the theme of “action against nature” traceable to Plato, originated in western societies. [...]

[...] While rounding up the programme, the Primate of all Nigeria, Anglican Communion, The Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola said the Homosexual problem is not peculiar to Anglicans or Christians alone, according to him, it is a global human problem, he said all hands should be on deck to teach and sensitize people on what evil same-sex union has brought to mankind. Archbishop Akinola challenged everybody who appears in public to approach this deluge of a problem of disobedience and make this nation a better place to live. He said there is the urgent need to do more research with a view to funding solution to the problem. He said today in the western world religion values teachings and symbols have been removed from public domain in the name of civil liberty and rights and they use the media.

He commended the presence of members of the Islamic religion who joined the gathering of Christian intellectuals to brainstorm on the way forward to the homosexual imbroglio. Primate Akinola admonished that events of this nature should come up more often on various issues that have been identified as precarious.

He challenged his colleagues (fellow bishops) and Imams to confront their congregation with the undiluted word of God in their pulpits bearing in mind that sin has been part of human experience and existence since Adam and Eve disobeyed God. According to him sin is sin and it can manifest himself in any form like homosexuality, stealing, adultery, fornication etc. He gave kudos to the Fellowship of Christian Patriots (FCP) for being the vanguard in this crusade, he urged them never to look back even when people call them names.

Primate Akinola raised a poser, and warned the National Assembly and the government not to succumb to serious pressures being mounted in the name of civil and human rights. He said that as long as Nigeria does not have the right to order England or the West on what to do likewise America has no right to tell us how to live in Nigeria. He said they have no conviction to teleguide us in an ungodly way. According to him Nigeria has multifarious problems in her hands corruption, bad roads, epileptic power failure, and Nigeria can not afford a new additional problem. Read more

No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Canadian diocese to go ahead with gay blessings

The Bishop of Niagara has informed the Archbishop of Canterbury that his south central Ontario diocese will begin blessing same-sex unions.

Writing in the March issue of his diocesan newspaper, the Rt. Rev. Michael Bird said that in January he met with Dr. Rowan Williams at Lambeth Palace to brief the archbishop on the work that diocese had undertaken on creating sacramental rites for the blessing of same-sex unions and that it was his intention to authorize gay blessings.

Bishop Bird wrote that he had related Niagara’s “experience of the incredible contribution that gay and lesbian people have made and continue to make in every aspect of our church’s life and witness, and expressed the overwhelming desire on the part of two synods to move forward with the blessings of committed same-sex relationships for couples who have been civilly married.”

He wrote that he told Dr. Williams the diocese’s call to “prophetic justice-making has made us even more determined to become a more open and inclusive church” and break the Canadian House of Bishops and Lambeth moratorium on the introduction of gay blessings. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Atheists call for "debaptism"

John Hunt was baptised in the parish church of St Jude with St Aidan in Thornton Heath in south-east London. But 50 years later he stands outside and regards its brick facade without much affection.

The “Baptism of Jesus” icon from the 18th century
Baptism represents death and rebirth for Christians

Mr Hunt was sent to Sunday school at St Jude's and later to confirmation classes, but he decided early on that he had no place in what he felt was a hypocritical organisation.

He recalls that his mother had to get lunch ready early for him to attend the classes.

"One Sunday I came back home and said 'Mum, you needn't get lunch early next Sunday because I'm not going to the class any more'. And she decided not to argue."

Now Mr Hunt has become the pioneer in a rejuvenated campaign for a way of cancelling baptisms given to children too young to decide for themselves whether they wanted this formal initiation into Christianity.

However, baptism is proving a difficult thing to undo.

The local Anglican diocese, Southwark, refused to amend the baptismal roll as Mr Hunt had wanted, on the grounds that it was a historical record.

"You can't remove from the record something that actually happened," said the Bishop of Croydon, the Right Reverend Nick Baines.

Expunging Trotsky

"Whether we agree whether it should have happened or not is a different matter.

"But it's a bit like trying to expunge Trotsky from the photos. Mr Hunt was baptised and that's a matter of public record."

Instead the diocese suggested that the best way for Mr Hunt to renounce his baptism was to advertise it in the London Gazette, a journal of record with an ancestry going back to the 17th Century.


I reject all its creeds and other such superstitions, in particular the perfidious belief that any baby needs to be cleansed of original sin...."
John Hunt

Bishop Baines is willing to see such notices inserted into the baptismal roll to indicate decisions such as Mr Hunt's, but the Church of England's national headquarters made clear that such a concession was not official policy.

A letter from the the Archbishops' Council said that the Church of England did not regard baptism as a sign of membership, so any amendment to the record would be unnecessary.

The Roman Catholic Church does view a person's baptism as incorporating them into the Church - and membership is later important to the Church if, for example, the same person wants to get married in a Catholic church.

It is willing to place an amendment in the record.

The National Secular Society would like the Church of England to devise a formal procedure for cancelling baptisms, with a change in the baptismal roll as part of it.

Debaptism certificate

In the face of resistance from the Church, the society has come up with a document of its own.

The "Certificate of Debaptism" has a deliberately home-made look, with its mock-official decoration and quasi-official language.

Sitting on a bench in the grounds of St Jude's Church, John Hunt intoned the opening lines.

"I, John Jeffrey Hunt, having been subjected to the rite of Christian baptism in infancy... hereby publicly revoke any implications of that rite. I reject all its creeds and other such superstitions in particular the perfidious belief that any baby needs to be cleansed of original sin."

The society's president, Terry Sanderson, says the certificate is not designed to be taken too seriously, and he suggests displaying it in the loo.

However, he says, it has now been downloaded more that 60,000 times, and has taken on a life of its own. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Student will face 'justice of mob' if released early

Ed: This reminds of those great lyrics by Jackson Browne to Solider of Plenty. The context was different, but 'the song remains the same':

God is great, God is good
He guards your neighborhood
Though it's generally understood
Not quite the way you would
You try to take the slack
Stay awake and watch his back
But something happens every now and then
And someone breaks into the promised land


Sayed Pervez Kambaksh will face mob justice in Afghanistan if he is ever released early, a leading religious scholar warned yesterday.

Mullah Enyatullah Balegh said the student journalist would be killed on the streets if his prayers for a presidential pardon come true. Mr Kambaksh, whose plight was brought to worldwide attention by a campaign in The Independent, must serve 20 years in jail after the country's Supreme Court upheld his blasphemy conviction without even hearing his defence.

Speaking at Kabul University's sharia faculty where he is a professor of Islamic law, Mullah Balegh said: "If he isn't punished, if he's released for any reason, the jihadis will kill him, the criminals will kill him, the Taliban will kill him, everyone will want to kill him."

Mullah Balegh, who sits on Afghanistan's influential Ulemma Council of Islamic Scholars, said Mr Kambaksh had committed a heinous crime against Islam. "If somebody attacks me with a knife, he is a criminal," he said. "If somebody attacks my religion, is he not a criminal too?" Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Jade Goody: 'I'm dying... but happy' says cancer-stricken reality TV star

Jade Goody, the reality television star, has sent a final public message that she is 'happy' despite facing death and wants to be remembered as "the girl who put up a fight".

The mother-of-two, whose cancer of the cervix is spreading through her body, said: "I can look back and be proud of what I've done. I've achieved more in 27 years than some achieve in their lifetime."
The Big Brother star is expected to make a final journey from the hospital where she has been receiving specialist cancer treatment to her home in Essex.

In an interview with OK! magazine she said: "I'm dying ... but I'm happy."

She said she was happy to be remembered as "the mouthy bird off the box" who "irritated and entertained people in equal measure".

However, she added: "I also want to be recalled as the girl who put up a fight and would never let herself get beaten down. I was given a death sentence, but I didn't let it kill me.

"I fought it, got married, got christened, I'm happy. I could bitch about dying young, but at the end of the day, I can look back on my life and be proud of what I have done." Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Julie Myerson: Monsters in the making?

[...] The rights and wrongs of whether Myerson should have published (she has certainly been damned for it) have become something of a side issue. What she has succeeded in doing is lifting the lid on our darkest fear, that through our own well-intentioned but wishy-washy parenting, we are creating a generation of teenage timebombs.

“I wish you weren’t my parents! I want to live with Phoebe’s parents. At least they respect her.”
As the door slams behind my furious six-year-old daughter (yes, that’s six, not 16) I am left wondering what on earth I’m supposed to do next. I have no idea. Should I run after her, rugby-tackle her on the stairs and demand she acquiesce to whatever request I had made – to hang up her coat perhaps, or tidy away her toy farm? Quite possibly, but I haven’t the energy, or, if I’m honest, the will.

I stand as guilty as the next modern parent of believing that benign is best, and if the price to be paid is picking up a few handfuls of 1:32 scale Friesians, then so be it. My daughter is generally a sunny, sweet child, so why make a fuss when she throws an occasional strop? Yet there remains a nagging suspicion that my generation of parents has got the balance wrong and that, far from our reasonable boundaries being adhered to by our hopefully reasonable children, we are in fact in danger of storing up a host of problems in years to come by treating our children so democratically now. Like many parents reading the Myerson story, I wonder: what can I do to avoid a full-scale teenage rebellion? And, just as importantly, am I already too late? Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Parents facing prosecution after removing their children from school in protest at 'Romeo and Julian' performance

Parents who pulled their children out of school in protest at lessons about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history fear they will be prosecuted after education bosses pledged to take 'action' against them.

Some 30 primary pupils are thought to have missed school during the week of special lessons which included secondary school pupils performing Romeo and Julian, an adapted version of the Shakespearian classic love story.

Council bosses said the protest resulted in 'unauthorised absences' and had 'taken action' against parents who pulled their youngsters out of George Tomlinson School in Leytonstone, east London, but refused to state what sanctions are being taken.

Pervez Latif, a 41-year-old accountant whose children Saleh, 10, and Abdurrahin, nine, attend the school, said his wife Shaheen, 38, was worried they could be taken to court.

He said: 'My wife is very concerned she might be prosecuted.

'As yet we haven't heard anything from the council about whether they are taking action.'

Schools across the country took part in events to mark LGBT History week, including a performance of Romeo and Julian by secondary school pupils at Leytonstone School. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Sufi Shrine 'blown up by Taleban'

Suspected Taleban militants in north-west Pakistan have blown up the shrine of a 17th Century Sufi poet of the Pashtun language, police say.

No casualties are reported but the poet Rahman Baba's grave has been destroyed and the shrine building badly damaged.

Rahman Baba is considered the most widely read and poet in Pashto speaking regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Taleban had warned they would blow up the shrine if women continued to visit it and pay their respects.

Historic popularity

Literary experts say the poet's popularity is due to his message of tolerance coupled with a powerful expression of love for God in a Sufi way.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that his lasting appeal reflects the historic popularity of Sufism in South Asia. Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

What is happening in the evangelical world today? I

‘Change is on the way, nonetheless. The refusal of a mature debate on sexuality is being questioned and jettisoned in many parts of the evangelical world: among young people involved in fresh "emerging" forms of church life, in discussions at festivals like Greenbelt, and even in the counsels of the heartlands.’ Simon Barrow Ekklesia

If readers have been tracking the latest ideological trajectories in blogworld and on news sites, they well might wonder at what is occurring in the wider evangelical world today. A very important article (’An evangelical change of heart on sexuality’) was written last week by Ekklesia’s Co-Director, Simon Barrow, which signalled the enormity and seriousness of the issue.

A version of the Ekklesia article was also reproduced in the Guardian and can be viewed here (’Evangelicals who love their gay neighbours’). Along with countless others, many ex-evangelicals have changed their sexual ethics and it would appear that not a few evangelicals are joining them. Simon is transparent about what his concept of ’love’ actually entails - which is very illuminative - and not what historic Christianity has maintained over the millenia. Using as his springboard the EA’s press release, Simon goes on to say (and I quote from the Ekklesia article)

This week, four [sic] evangelical organisations joined together to remind their fellow "Bible people" that opposing hate speech and hate crimes against homosexual people – in this case the antics of the bizarre Westboro Baptist sect – means too little if you are simultaneously defending forms of prejudice and discrimination within your own communities.

The prime mover in this, Accepting Evangelicals, is a network of Christians who take the Bible with great seriousness, but who argue that what the handful of verses deployed by anti-gay campaigners address is not modern same-sex relationships built on mutual commitment and self-giving love, but practices of pederasty, cultic prostitution and abuse in very different cultural and religious contexts.

They are supported in this view by considerable biblical scholarship and by Christians of other stripes who share the conviction that being followers of Jesus in the modern world involves responsible freedom not backward-looking fear.

The recent statement was also signed by the Network of Baptists Affirming Lesbian and Gay Christians, the Evangelical Fellowship for Lesbian and Gay Christians, Ekklesia (which has many evangelicals on board), and by Courage UK – an organisation that started out as an "ex-gay" ministry but which has now shifted towards acceptance and inclusion as a Gospel imperative …

It is strange indeed that opposition to same-sex relationships has become a litmus test for a certain kind of orthodoxy in some evangelical circles, despite the fact that Christ said nothing about it. On the contrary, he deliberately breached religious taboos against groups ostracised by the establishment, and he upheld actions like forgiveness and economic sharing as signs of authentic discipleship – not culture-based religious restrictions.

Change is on the way, nonetheless. The refusal of a mature debate on sexuality is being questioned and jettisoned in many parts of the evangelical world: among young people involved in fresh "emerging" forms of church life, in discussions at festivals like Greenbelt, and even in the counsels of the heartlands.

Read more
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.