Giles Fraser in the Church Times Family love is a model of injustice
Robert O’Neill asks in The Guardian Do we need a global Anglican communion?. His answer is a resounding and heartfelt “yes”.
Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah in a Face to faith article in The Guardian Judaism has had to evolve to survive, and Anglicanism must too. She asks “Is Anglicanism a form of progressive Christianity – and if so, what are its progressive credentials?”
Roderick Strange in the credo column at the Times Genuine conversion unveils our hidden depths
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph that the bees are back at Lambeth Palace. The riddle of the golden syrup tin
Stephen Bates in The Guardian Barack Obama and the Jesus Machine – “Televangelist James Dobson has come out against Obama. But the Democrat might just carry religious voters with him anyway.”
Good articles. Robert O’Neill wrote “We live in a world plagued by division, conflict, and violence, much of it rationalised, justified, and glorified in the name of God. Indeed our world is starving for a more transcendent vision itself. So how about something new? How about a global communion that reveals a deeply challenging but wonderfully divine truth.” How about a global communion that remembers and honours Jesus’ missive to be the Prince of Peace, Comforter and Counsellor to all the peopleS of all the nationS? How about a communion that comprehends that galut means that no religious community can… Read more »
The Now Show on BBC R4 had a nice piece by Mitch Benn on the goings on in Jerusalem.
About 5 mins in.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.shtml?http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/nowshow
Kennedy
ps the rest of the show is pretty funny as well.
“One of the angriest [disputes] was between Peter and Paul, whom we commemorate together on Sunday…Their row was about power, as all our rows are. Who shall have the last word on matters of doctrine, and who shall determine who will and will not be saved?” – John Pridmore, Church Times
By eroding the hegemony of two millennia of patriarchal power, it might be said that the twin olive branches are represented nowadays by women bishops and openly gay bishops…
Re: Stephen Bates on James Dobson: (1) JD is not primarily an ‘evangelist’ – he has a teaching and pastorla/family ministry. The kind of stereotyping that conjures up visions of Jim Bakker every time the cliche ‘televangelist’ is used is not of a high intellectual calibre. Besides, all one has to do to be a televangelist is to be an evangelist and appear on the telly. Does that automatically make one guilty by association of all the crimes of Swaggart, [at times] Roberts, Bakker et al.? Is it intelligent people who stereotype? (2) It is unarguable that America and the… Read more »
Seriously, no scorn here, but when we say “progressive”, we are referring to modern societal cultural norms. We are convinced that our societal and cultural norms are forward and somehow enlightened. Well, it was once thought enlightened to burn women because in so doing we were saving their souls. It was once thought progressive and modern to believe illnesses could be caused by a surfeit of melancholy humours. Why is our “progressive” any better then the “progressive” of two centuries ago? This is not to say that things like acceptance of gay people or women’s rights or religious freedom or… Read more »
Well Mr. O’Neill nicely takes a stance for global communion – but his central question is not easily answered these days: Will folks on the middle rights to far rights in our communion let themselves be in any meaningful relationships – and here the famously localized network of inter-Anglican connections comes to mind, no doubt – with folks in other sorts of middles to lefts to far lefts? All around the planet? The only thing that will heal – no matter how long it takes – the rifts between, say, Akinola or Orombi or Jensen or Nazir-Alir or Minns or… Read more »
Yes, the rabbi offers a much needed challenge to anglicanism, with clarity and optimism. So does the Now show.
She challenges anglicans to be progressive !!
As for the Now Show (radio 4) it was great !!
I agree drdanfee The book of Numbers keeps coming to mind, where the Israelites were warned to draw back from the camp of Korech. The earth might not swallow this camp, but God can make clear they are power-grabbers, argumentative, violent and disrespectful like Korech’s camp. Thanks for the posting Hugh, hegemmonious patriarchy has been around for longer than two millenia, unfortunately. That’s why there were Jews in Jesus’ time who had been so brought off by “the system” and had thus become whitewashers and justifiers of complacency and selfishness. I always like Isaiah 49, it reminds us that we… Read more »
I have just seen Christopher Shell’s lofty dismissal of my article. Whether my account of Dobson is not of high intellectual calibre or not is for others to judge – and of course Shell does not hesitate to do that – but it seems to me incontestable that Dobson is an evangelist for a particular religious point of view and that it is a highly partisan and politicised one. He has in the past sought to deny this, but has in recent years taken both to endorsing candidates (though only Republican ones) and, in the case of the Bush administration’s… Read more »
Christopher Schell, given the kinds of things you say about gay people, your comments on stereotyping are, to say the least, ironic! Not only that, when you decry the loss of family orientation in American society, you ignore that the party that has consistently opposed any measures of government support for the family are the Republicans, whose major support base is these so-called “family values” Fundamentalists. If they were so family oriented, they’d be trying to ge the richest most powerful government on Earth to allot some of its resources to supporting families, not opposing any kind of government help.… Read more »
Several points here: (1) The Guardian itself is culpably biased in terms of the meagre pro-arguments for abortion and the other anti-family trends. Whether individual Guardian or ex-Guardian journalists share that ‘position’ one can’t immediately tell, and one is tempted (over-tempted, in fact) to assume that they are on the basis of their overall philosphy seeming to be a 1960s-based rather than Christian-based one. (2) Ford re Republicans’ track-record is informative & surprises me little in that they have failed to deliver on their pro-life / pro-family position – not that that’s easy. The UK situation is different: slightly more… Read more »
Readers may notice the casual dishonesty of Christopher Shell’s attempted clarification. He excuses his ignorant and disingenuous earlier comment on my beliefs by seeking to claim that all Guardian journalists are the same, so must think the same. The rest of his latest comment is muddled, incoherent and practically illiterate. If he can’t express himself clearly, he clearly can’t think clearly either. I still await his apology for his lazy assumption of what I must believe but, frankly do not expect him to have the courtesy or common decency to retract his smear now he has been exposed as peddling… Read more »
Hi SB- What I said was the opposite – that I had been over-tempted to classify Guardian journalists together without enough differentiation, although in your case this was attributable in part to the greater congruity of some of your views with those of the mythical average Guardian reader as opposed to the mythical average Christian. Any clarifications you need of any remarks, just ask – as I tend to have a habit of writing very elliptically and telegramatically born of the need to keep within word-limits. Sorry if I mischaracterised your views on family matters. I’m not sure whether or… Read more »
My central point, however (aside from pettier gripes about the annoying way that the words ‘evangelist’ and ‘evangelical’ are confused with one another or made to overlap too greatly in semantic range) is that in a world where a good deal of our problems arise from the dissing of the trad family, and in a world where there are 7bn people, if one had a mind to target anyone, one would never get round to targeting those who are fighting *for* the trad family. Of all these 7 bn people, these would be among the last to be targeted: they’d… Read more »
Great, Christopher. I look forward to your support of the stable, loving and secure family my partner and I are giving my children, the care and love their father and his wife give them, and the mature way in which both families work together despite our personal differences to bring our children up together.
It’s good to know you’re on our side.
They are not a ‘family’ – not all related to one another. That implies agreement with a state of sin e.g. separation or divorce (the separation being amendable, reversible and reconcilable, but the acceptance of it and agreement with it being something else altogether). I.e. it implies calling division good and reconciliation bad. I.e. calling black white. Secondly there is the biological fact that no child was ever produced other than by one man and one woman. In a world where simple patterns of facts are hard to find this one is reassuringly simple and universal.