As previously mentioned, a joint meeting is being held near Leeds. An official statement has been issued.
Ruth Gledhill wrote an article about something else which mentions this. The BBC also reported it.
Tom Butler talked about this on the radio this morning. In this piece he also said (but do read it all to see the context):
So the question, “Do Anglicans on the East coast of America have to adopt the same norms and practices of Anglicans in rural Nigeria and vice versa?”, has been around in different forms since the start of the Church, and the best we can hope for is a cobbling together of some common sense solution which recognizes that Christian practice might show up in different ways in different cultures whilst being loyal to its core truths.
“Hitting. Shouting. And hitting and shouting.”
Wonderfully evocative phrase, +Tom! (There’s been far *too much* of that in the AC of late)
Ruth Gledhill’s article also had this in it: “Dr Rowan Williams will launch Britain’s first research project into the nature of the relationship between religion and civil society. The Manchester Research Institute for Religion and Civil Society will analyse how religion relates to public and private sector service provision, globalisation, political economy, democracy, belief, secularism and political action on climate change.” About time somebody did this. It would be good to have a number of similar projects being done in a number of different countries. The variety of reports and recommendations would help formulate some generic patterns. It would help… Read more »
Part of this civil society thing is Christian Unions being excluded from official recognition, either because they won’t change their names or seen to be discriminatory or the rather daft one of having to accept non-Christians (I suppose as they define them) on their boards. The point is this, and relevant to this Nigeria thing too: is it the mission of Christianity to uphold discrimination against various different people. If it is, then civil society will say, “OK you can stay as private groups maintaining this, but we are moving on thanks very much.” Trouble is I’d rather move on… Read more »