Roz Kaveney in The Guardian asks What are demons, really? Christians and Satanists are both divided about the reality of demons. But even liberal believers can be led to silliness by their beliefs.
And John Casey writes in The Tablet about Talk of the Devil: Satan in Catholic theology.
Mark Vernon writes in The Guardian about The eroticism of the Church of England. The BBC’s new sitcom, Rev, is a surprisingly realistic picture about the sexual undercurrents of normal Christianity.
Alex Klaushofer writes in The Guardian about New wine in old church buildings. All over the country small churches are growing while the large buildings that once housed them decay.
And Ian Jack writes, also in The Guardian, about Saving churches for their history – not religion. These buildings are an important part of our landscape – even if they are not used for worship.
Symon Hill writes in The Guardian about Queer, Christian and proud. Ultra-conservative anti-gay Christians are a just a noisy minority. That’s why this coming Pride, the rest of us should raise the roof.
Peter Stanford has this Face to faith article in The Guardian: Christianity, arrogance and ignorance. After decades of discussion on world faiths, how could I know so little of their core beliefs?
Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times about The football babies come home.
Jay Michaelson asks in Religion Dispatches Does the Bible Really Call Homosexuality an “Abomination”? This word, used for centuries to justify an anti-gay posture, has been badly translated and even more poorly understood.
This week’s The Question at The Guardian’s Comment is free belief is Should religions compete? Would the world be a better place if religions concerned themselves only with the crimes and follies of their own?
Here are the responses.
Monday: Alan Race Conversation demands mutual respect. Without trust we cannot talk about God, but to build trust we must avoid trying to convert or lecture people
Thursday Maggi Dawn Religions should not compete for power. The call for peace at the heart of most religions contrasts with the way they behave as competing communities.
Friday Mehdi Hasan
Islam should not be missionary. Muslims must shun the divisive idea of a marketplace of religions which all compete for believers.
The Times has now hidden itself behind its paywall.
Today the Diocese in Europe is keeping Simon Sarmiento in our prayers (he is our webmaster) so perhaps it would a good time for all of us to pray for Simon with grateful thanksgiving.
Giles Fraser again is razor sharp with his summation of England’s football player’s lack of maturity. If anything, it is worse in the states with our (U.S.) football players that regularly make news headlines crashing over-powered motorcycles and being involved in drug-related crimes. And it’s not limited to football, a certain golfer and his sexual escapades, two twin tennis players and their tantrums overseas, and then there are the baseball players and their newly discovered world of performance-enhancing drugs. We pay these people incredible sums of money (at least we do here in the U.S.) and it should come as… Read more »
Today the Diocese in Europe is keeping Simon Sarmiento in our prayers (he is our webmaster) so perhaps it would a good time for all of us to pray for Simon with grateful thanksgiving.
Posted by: Sara MacVane on Saturday, 3 July 2010 at 12:10pm B
Is all well with him ? Hope so.
Prayers of thanks for Simon, indeed.
I, for one, have been amazed at the amount of work and effort which has been put into this web-site by our esteemed web-masters – especially Simon Sarmiento. Without this particular site – recommended to me by a clergy relative in England – I would not be so motivated to ‘open-up’ in so public an arena as the internet provides. Bravo Simon and Company. Prayers and Blessings! And – thanks to our co-commentators on this site. I enjoy our conversations, and hope to learn more about the opinion of fellow Anglicans around the world. One cannot help but put one’s… Read more »
“Specifically, and not just in Africa, demonic possession, often transmitted by intercourse, is their explanation why people are gay or trans, and their perfect reply to the argument that Christianity is all about love and tolerance. Get the demons out, by any means necessary, and no more queers – problem solved.” – Roz Kaveney, The Guardian (CiF) – Haing in mind the behaviour of a certain African Bishop at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, when he tried to ‘exorcize’ a gay clergyman; one realizes the unhealthy basis of the primitive belief that homosexuality is a manifestation of the the devil. For… Read more »
What then, do you say about Jay Michaelson’s piece about Biblical translation in Religion Dispatches?
Peter Stanford can relax, the basic knowledge of the major religions is standard curriculum at GCSE level.