UK government appoints new faith advisers
on Thursday, 7 January 2010 at 1.18 pm by Simon Sarmiento
categorised as News
Updated Saturday morning
John Denham announced yesterday the names of 13 new faith advisers who “will act as a ‘sounding board’ to advise on effective engagement with faith communities, and the impact of Communities and Local Government policy on faith communities.”
Read the full press release here.
The members of the panel are:
- Canon Dr Alan Billings – Formerly Director of the Centre for Ethics and Religion at the University of Lancaster.
- Dr Harriet Crabtree – Director of the Inter Faith Network for the UK.
- Marcia Dixon – Editor of Keep the Faith, a publication distributed to black majority churches.
- Dr Doreen Finneron – Founder and director of the Faith Based Regeneration Network.
- Jenny Kartupelis – Director of the East of England Faiths Council and Fellow of the Faiths and Civil Society Unit at Goldsmiths College.
- Wakkas Khan – Director of the Exploring Islam Foundation and a founding member of the Radical Middle Way.
- Alveena Malik – A Principal Associate at the Institute of Community Cohesion and a Trustee of the Muslim Institute.
- Mehri Niknam – Founder and director of the Joseph Interfaith Foundation.
- Rosalind Preston – President of the Jewish Volunteer Network and Chair of Nightingale House.
- Dr Jasdev Singh Rai – General Secretary of the British Sikh Consultative Forum and Director of the Sikh Human Rights Group.
- Bishop Tim Stevens – Anglican Bishop of Leicester and Founder and Chair of the Faith Leaders Forum of Leicester.
- Arjan Vekaria – President of Shree Kutch Leva Patel Community (UK) and the Hindu Forum of Britain.
- Prof Paul Weller – Head of Research and Commercial Development, Faculty of Education, Health and Sciences and Professor of Inter-Religious Relations, University of Derby.
So far, there appear to be no newspaper reports of this.
Update
Heresy Corner has collected biographical information about the panel members, see The God Squad.
“A liberal, he (Bishop Tim Stevens of Liecester) was one of a number of bishops publicly to support the appointment of gay canon Geoffrey John as Bishop of Reading and is now a leading proponent of women bishops” There having been no other response to this posting, I would venture to suggest that, from this bit of his biography, in the ‘God Squad’ article offered by Simon, Bishop Stevens would seem to be a very good choice as one of the Church of England representatives on the Inter-Faith Commission appointed by the British government. At least he will bring to… Read more »