Three Anglican bishops hold talks with the Vatican over apostolic constitution

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A Review of 'The World Turned Upside Down' by Melanie Phillips

In the West we are involved in a war of worldviews. On the one side is the Judeo-Christian worldview. Opposed to it are various contenders, chief of which are two main rivals: radical secular leftism, and radical Islam. Indeed, Phillips notes the many striking similarities between the Western progressives and the Islamists.

Both are a threat to the free West and to Judeo-Christian values because both are involved in coercive utopianism; both demonise any dissent from their ideology; and both have declared war against Israel and the Jewish people. And often these two forces find themselves working together in their assault on the Judeo-Christian West.

In this volume the incisive British journalist examines in detail these and related threats, and highlights how successful these attacks have been in the past few decades. Those familiar with her regular columns for the Spectator and other publications will find familiar ground here.

But this volume allows her to take her brief opinion pieces and develop them in much more depth and detail. In 18 meaty chapters she chronicles this war of worldviews, and demonstrates how very much at risk Western civilisation in fact is. She clearly delineates “The global battle over God, truth, and power” as the subtitle puts it. Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

As pregnancies on the frontline soar, MoD tells women soldiers: Carry a condom

The Ministry of Defence has launched a campaign warning female soldiers to carry condoms after an alarming number of pregnancies at bases in Afghanistan.

Adverts in the Army’s official magazine Soldier warn ‘on deployment, there’ll be 50 blokes to each woman’ and urge female squaddies, medics and administrative staff to use a condom or ‘face something you really don’t want to hear.’

Officially, a ‘no-touching’ rule bans military personnel from having sex in a war zone. But, according to senior officers, provided sexual relationships are between soldiers of a similar rank and do not impact on operations commanders often turn a blind eye.

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US Church set to ordain lesbian bishop

The Episcopal Church in the US is set to go ahead with the controversial ordination of an openly lesbian bishop.

Saturday's ordination comes despite warnings from the Archbishop of Canterbury that it will deepen an already bitter dispute on sexuality.

Canon Mary Glasspool, 56, will become an assistant bishop in Los Angeles, the first openly gay US bishop since Gene Robinson seven years ago.

Since then the Anglican Communion has been on course for a permanent split. Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Footage of police arresting Christian street preacher in Cumbria, England

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And just when did the British police start referring to members of the public as 'mate'?

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Magistrate told off for branding boys who desecrated cathedral 'absolute scum'

A magistrate who branded two boys 'absolute scum' after they desecrated a cathedral faces disciplinary action.

The 16-year-old boys wrote racist and sexually-abusive graffiti in prayer books, and bent a priceless John The Baptist cross out of shape at Blackburn Cathedral, causing £3,000 damage.

Pages were also torn out of the prayer books and insults written in the prayer and visitor books included: 'I will kill all Jews. Don’t underestimate me', and lurid sexual comments about ‘the vicar'.

They were caught after they wrote their names in the visitors' book.
Desecrated: Blackburn Cathedral where the two boys wrote racist and sexually-abusive comments in prayer books and bent a statue of John The Baptist

Chairman of the bench at Blackburn Magistrates' Court Austin Molloy labelled the boys 'absolute scum' during the sentencing yesterday at the Youth Court.

But he was immediately criticised by the court clerk who stood up and objected to the use of the 'inappropriate language'.

The mother of one of the boys said she would be making an official complaint.

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Church of England clergy asked to cut costs as recession takes toll

Clergy in the Church of England are being asked to cut their cloth to suit the economic times and to prepare for mergers and staff cuts that could drastically reduce pastoral care and worship.

A report on finances has found that a quarter of all 44 dioceses are running deficits and plundering reserves to pay stipends and pensions. A similar proportion has liquid reserves to last them one month or less.

High staffing levels of clegy and laity are highlighted. The Church of England spends £1 billion a year in salaries and pensions for clergy as well as the upkeep of its buildings, an amount roughly matched by donations from parishes. But rising pension costs mean that every year churchgoers are asked to increase donations. The report, commissioned to help churches to improve “efficiency and effectiveness”, suggests that finances are so finely balanced in some areas that parishoners will have to dig even deeper or face cuts in provision. “Cuts are not inevitable, but are an option that needs to be thought through,” said Paul Gibson, of the accountant Mazars, and the report’s author.

The study of 42 dioceses found that although the Church has assets valued at £3.5 billion, its cashflow is parlous. Between them the dioceses had an income of £388 million in 2008 and spent £384 million. While some are extremely wealthy, 14 dioceses are running deficits. Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Church of England Evangelical Council survey on "The Future Role of Bishops in the Church of England"

"The CEEC survey was completed by a reasonable number of respondents, 86% of whom were men, 69% of whom were ordained, and of whom half were aged 50 to 65 with a quarter who were either younger or older. Replies came especially where evangelicals are strongest.

The key dominant issue facing Bishops today was the need for mission, something re-inforced when respondents were asked what should be the top priority for Bishops. The answer was Mission and Teaching the faith. While the issue of declining attendance and the importance of speaking out in public were also seen as crucial they were nevertheless secondary to the key topic of mission."

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

'Fresh turmoil' over women bishops

The Church of England is facing fresh turmoil within its ranks as it published proposals paving the way for the consecration of women bishops.

Women bishops would be created without safeguards demanded by opponents under plans drawn up by a group working on the legislation.

The scheme, to be debated at the Church's national assembly, rejects measures such as new dioceses or a special class of bishops to cater for objectors.

Instead, women bishops who might be appointed in the future would retain the authority to make local arrangements for objectors if necessary after referring to a statutory code of practice.

The proposals are expected to spark a walkout by some Anglo-Catholics and conservative evangelicals in the Church of England if they are approved by the General Synod of the Church of England meeting in York in July. Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

So bad it's good: Why do we find evil so much more fascinating than goodness?

The Devil, so they say, has all the best tunes. Why is evil so irresistibly glamorous? Why is it that when I told my 12-year-old son that I was writing a book on evil he replied "Wicked!"? Virtue may be admirable, but it is vice we find sexy. Nobody would have an orange juice with Oliver Twist if they could have a beer with Fagin. As Oscar Wilde remarked, anyone who doesn't find the death of Dickens's saintly Little Nell uproariously funny must have a heart of stone. We all love to boo a villain, whether it's Colonel Gaddafi or Simon Cowell. Popular culture is obsessed with ghouls and vampires, zombies and monsters; this Friday, cinema's archetypal evil guy, Freddy Krueger, returns in a remake of Nightmare on Elm Street. Nothing is more delightful than being scared to death.

When did evil start to look so alluring? One answer might be: when goodness began to look boring. We can blame this on the puritanical middle classes. It is they who redefined virtue as thrift, prudence, meekness, abstinence, chastity and industriousness. It's not hard to see why some people should prefer zombies and vampires. Goodness came to seem negative and restrictive. As the poet Auden wryly remarked, the Ten Commandments consist in observing human behaviour and then inserting a "not".

Yet goodness hadn't always been as dreary as this. For some ancient thinkers such as Aristotle, it was really a matter of knowing how to enjoy yourself. It meant learning how to flourish as a human being, developing your humanity to its fullest, finest extent. Being human on this view is something you have to get good at, like playing the tuba or tolerating bores at sherry parties. For Aristotle, it had an intimate link with happiness. Being virtuous for him was the quickest route to well-being. The good man or woman is one who excels at the precarious business of being human. Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Don’t write the Restoration out of history

Samuel Pepys, my very favourite lecher, noted in his diary on May Day 350 years ago that London was ablaze with bonfires, that bells were ringing and that the streets were full of men sunk to their knees, drinking the King’s health. Pepys, ever the kettle-coloured pot, moralised that this excess of drinking was, “methinks a little too much”.

Charles II had been declared the rightful King and was on his way home, restoring the monarchy and setting a seal on the brief British republic, that strange and overlooked brush with theocracy and radicalism.

The poorly named English Civil War, which was in reality a British and Irish, many-stranded revolution, is unaccountably missing from our popular history narrative.

Think of revolution, and what comes to mind? Bolsheviks rampaging through the Winter Palace, stripping gilt from the walls? A Frenchwoman, drunk with blood lust, screaming for another aristocratic head to hit the bucket? Revolutions are for foreigners. They get all the glamour and all the turmoil of violent regime overthrow. The gutters of Paris and St Petersburg filled with revolutionary blood, not London’s.

This 350th anniversary of the Restoration is passing with barely a whimper. Our island story, as told in schools, on television, in fiction, seems to skip straight from Elizabeth I to Queen Victoria, from Virgin to Empress, with lots of apologies for slavery and empire en route. When our history meets our culture, only the Queens count. Read more

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Postmodernism: A Unified Theory of All the Trouble in the World

Like the "fatal error" message that pops up unexpectedly on a computer, the phrase itself is menacing: "post-normal science." I ran across the phrase as I was reading Climate Change and the Death of Science. The author's explanation did nothing to allay my anxiety.

Once there was modern science, which was hard work; now we have postmodern science, where the quest for real, absolute truth is outdated, and "science" is a wax nose that can be twisted in any direction to underpin the latest lying narrative in the pursuit of power. Except they didn't call it ‘postmodern' science because then we might smell a rat. They called it PNS (post-normal science) and hoped we wouldn't notice.


This death sentence for science left me with the same enervating feeling I get at the precise moment I realize my hard drive is crashing. How could science, too, fall into the grasp of postmodernism's insanity? The author continues:

What has become of science? We thought that science was about the pursuit of truth. Then we became perplexed at how quickly scientists have prostituted themselves in the service of political agendas ... scientists refusing to share their data, fiddling their results, and resorting to ad hominem attacks on those who have exposed their work to be fraudulent.


Science has succumbed to the same virus that beset literature, art, economics, and the rest of the social sciences: postmodernism. Postmodernism is a progressive virus that negates reason, objectivity, and truth -- replacing them with relativism, subjectivism, and pragmatism. Having colonized every other branch of academics decades ago, postmodernism has now come for science. Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Desmond Tutu: 'South Africa has lost its pride'

Desmond Tutu has delivered a withering verdict on the state of South Africa as the country prepares to host the continent's first football World Cup.

The archbishop emeritus, often described as South Africa's moral conscience, condemned rampant crime and corruption and said the legacy of racial apartheid was still being felt.

Nelson Mandela, the country's first black president, now a frail 91 and deep in retirement, would be deeply saddened if he was aware of recent events, he added.

"Something happened to us," Tutu, 78, told South Africa's Die Burger newspaper. "It looks like we have lost our pride. And it is not because of poverty.

"I don't want to make apartheid the scapegoat, but it might be that we are unaware of the damage that was caused. To all of us South Africans. "The damage to people who implemented such an inhuman policy, as well as the damage done to the victims." Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Thousands of Anglican churchgoers could cross over to Rome with bishops

Churchgoers in almost 300 parishes that disapprove of women priests may take advantage of Pope Benedict XVI’s offer to change denomination if their “flying bishops” lead the way.

However the Church of England is expected to make a last-ditch attempt to stop the disillusioned groups leaving, by offering them concessions over the introduction of female bishops.

As The Sunday Telegraph disclosed, the bishops of Fulham, Richborough and Ebbsfleet held a secret meeting with papal advisers last week to discuss plans for Anglicans to convert to the Roman Catholic Church en masse.

At least one key member of the English Catholic church’s commission on the Anglican Ordinariate – the Pope’s move to allow Anglicans to enter into full communion with the Holy See while retaining some of their spiritual heritage – was in Rome at the same time. Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Church warned that flag of Jesus is 'religious advertising'

Rev Mark Binney, vicar of St Andrew’s Church, Hampton, Worcs, said he had been told he needed planning permission if he wanted to fly a flag “advertising Christianity” in future.

The flag was put up outside the church in the week preceding Easter Sunday displaying the words 'This is Holy Week' and an image of Jesus on the cross.

Mr Binney said the warning was “appalling”, and he felt it was part of a gradual erosion of Christianity in Britain.

Wychavon council said it investigated a complaint from a member of the public and decided no consent was required. Read More No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Special legal protection of Christianity 'divisive, capricious and arbitrary'

Christianity deserves no protection in law above other faiths and to do so would be “irrational” , “divisive, capricious and arbitrary”, a senior judge said today, as he rejected a marriage guidance counsellor’s attempt to challenge his sacking for refusing to give sex therapy to gay couples.

In the latest clash between the judiciary and Christian believers, Lord Justice Laws said that laws could not be used to protect one religion above another.

He also delivered a robust dismissal to the former Archbishop of Canterbury who had warned that a series of recent court rulings against Christians could lead to “civil unrest.”

To give one religion legal protection over any other, “however long its tradition, however rich its culture, is deeply unprincipled”, the judge said.

It would give legal force to a “subjective opinion” and would lead to a “theocracy”, which is of necessity autocratic.” Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Relate therapist Gary McFarlane loses appeal bid

A relationship counsellor's bid to challenge his sacking for refusing to give sex therapy to gay couples has been turned down by the High Court.

Gary McFarlane, 48, from Bristol, was sacked by Relate Avon in 2008. He claimed the service had refused to accommodate his Christian beliefs.

Lord Justice Laws said legislation for the protection of views held purely on religious grounds cannot be justified.

He said it was irrational and "also divisive, capricious and arbitrary". Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

FCA General Secretary ABp Peter Jensen responds to the Global South to South Encounter

The image of the trumpet blast seems to be an over-dramatic description of the communiqué issued from the latest Global South Encounter. In fact, the response to it has been somewhat muted. But as a guest at the conference, I believe that it fully deserves the title ‘trumpet’ and will in time be regarded as an historic statement.

One reason why it fails to create a strong reaction is that it simply confirms the obvious. The crisis moment has now passed. Many of the Global South provinces have given up on the official North American Anglicans (TEC and the Canadian Church) and regard themselves as being out of communion with them. They renew the call for repentance but can see that, failing something like the Great Awakening, it will not occur. The positive side to this is that they are committed to achieving self-sufficiency so that they will cease to rely on the Western churches for aid. That is something the Global South has been working on for some time, with success.

In my judgment, the assembly was unresponsive to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s video greetings. I don’t think that what he said was obscure. It just seemed to be from another age, another world. His plea for patience misjudged the situation by several years and his talk of the Anglican covenant was not where the actual conference was at. He seemed to suggest that the consecration of a partnered lesbian Bishop will create a crisis. In fact the crisis itself has passed. We are now on the further side of the critical moment; the decisions have all been made; we are already living with the consequences. And it was in working out the consequences that the communiqué may eventually be seen to be historic. Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Would-be Tory MP Philip Lardner is sacked over anti-gay comments

A would-be Tory MP from Scotland has been suspended after describing gay people as not "normal”, it was disclosed today.

The comments made by Philip Lardner on his campaign website were branded “deeply offensive and unacceptable” by a party spokeswoman.

Under the heading "What I believe in", the North Ayrshire and Arran candidate had written: “Homosexuality is not ’normal behaviour’.”

The seat is a Labour stronghold, where Katy Clark was returned with a majority of more than 11,000 at the last general election.

The comments have now been removed from the website but the gay news service Pink News said Mr Lardner, a primary school teacher, declared his support for parents and teachers who do not want their children to be taught about gay rights. Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.

Shocking disgrace of Pope memo: God Save Our World

In The Sunday Times online we report that the Pope's advisers are starting to regret he ever accepted the invitation to come to Britain in September. This emerged following the Fantastic exclusive by my colleague in religious affairs, Jonathan Wynne-Jones at The Sunday Telegraph, on the astonishing memo dreamed up by some Oxbridge person at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. To Jonathan's revelations I can add one more line. The memo also suggested that, during the visit, the National Anthem be changed from God Save the Queen to God Save the World. For a commentary, former Ambassador to Italy Sir Ivor Roberts told me: 'I cannot think of a Papal visit anywhere in the world where the host government has had to apologise so profusely and abjectly in advancing for the appalling behaviour of one of its officials.'

He added: 'It is quite disturbing that they should be so badly organised to have someone in charge of the visit at the Foreign Office who has so little common sense and such a puerile sense of humour and who does not seem to realise he is in a department of state which by and large tries to improve relations between states and organisations, not make matters worse or create tensions where they did not exist. He or she might want to think about whether they should take another job, such as in the Treasury, where they can't do much harm.' Read more No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.