The process of inculturation in southern Africa has led some priests to introduce animal slaughter. Michael Bleby reports in Bringing new blood into church
There was also a related news story by Bill Bowder, Blood used to welcome ancestors
For many unmarried couples, christening of their children is a substitute for another service, Alan Billings finds in Why baptism parties are getting bigger
Boycotting Israel, especially its universities,would not have helped anyone, argues Ed Kessler in Sense triumphs in boycott row
The Kessler piece seems to hang itself very tenuously on the Association of University Teachers’ decisions. Having been at both the original conference (where I voted in favour of the boycott of Bar Ilan, and abstained on the motions regarding the other universities) and the recalled conference (room hire, fourteen quid a head for lunch, security men…), I shall only say that most of the press reports were wildly inaccurate. I shan’t expatiate at present on why those inaccuracies arose.