David Keen writes about The Leading of the 5000: Redesigning the CofE.
And Sam Charles Norton says that The dying of a church is not a management problem.
Simon Barrow writes for Ekklesia about Why the church should back community schooling.
Alan Wilson blogs Overview and Inner View.
Peter Heslam writes for LICC (The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity) about Barclay’s Apology.
Giles Fraser writes on The guardian that An inclusive church is a fundamental gospel imperative.
Giles Fraser nails it! This to me, is what it means to be a practicing Christian. All are included and Giles Fraser explains it so beautifully. Oh, if only a man such a Giles Fraser could become the next Archbishop of Canterbury. This would be a truly great moment for Anglicanism. In realty, I know this would likely be impossible because those elitist elements within the Church hierarchy would never allow a man such Giles Fraser to be considered for the next ABC. Still, we can always hope that such a person might fill the shoes of the next ABC.
Thank you Giles for your comments from the coal face of South London. I spent over 15 yrs in South London, and agree with your experience.. Inclusivity was the watchword, and I learnt that Cinamonn should be added to all meat dishes.
Fr John
Giles I do agree with you about parishes being the centre of gravity. It is however not just the Bishops who fail to see this. Last Monday I sat in the gallery listening to General Synod debates in York. It felt like cloud cuckoo land. It was not at all like the parishes around Hexham where I help out. It was a church ‘against everything’ and not ‘for anything’ and one which is miles from where people in society are. Yet pathetically people kept on talking ahout our mission.To begin by being inclusive without legalism might help.
For preaching the Gospel, I see GilesF gets the usual Guardian treatment: condemnation by the Fundamentalists (of Roman and Prot flavors), or condemnation of ALL religion by the Cultured Despisers!
Keep up the Good (News) work, Giles. 0:-)
“The parish church is typically a more inclusive place than the church’s leadership understand. Here there is neither rich nor poor, black nor white, gay nor straight. The archbishops are out of touch. The parish is the centre of gravity of the church.” – Giles Fraser – And it is in the highways and byways of parish life that the reality of the Gospel can be encountered – not in the palaces of the bishops! God’s plan of redemption in Christ will not, however, be thwarted by the opponents of Women and Gays in the Church. While parish priests are… Read more »
@ Fr John: I learnt that Cinamonn should be added to all meat dishes.
A grating or two of nutmeg surely instead.
“The parish is the centre of gravity of the church” (Giles Fraser)
“making the deaneries the focus of mission” (Sam Norton)
In the Early Church there was only the Church Universal and the local church. If it comes to a choice between either the parish or the deanery – I think that the vast majority of active Christians would undoubtedly opt for the parish, in spite of Tiller’s entreaties.
I often wish the Queen as Supreme Governor of the Church of England would step up to the plate and voice her support for Women Bishops without that horrible amendment that was added by a select group within the Church. Perhaps also using her throne as a kind of “Bully pulpit” for more outreach to the glbt communities who have been disenfranchised for most of the Church’s history. I know this may be wishful thinking but I can see the positive impact this might have on the Church.
“I often wish the Queen as Supreme Governor of the Church of England would step up to the plate and voice her support for Women Bishops”
Except HM is widely believed to be rather conservative on this matter. IIRC, she banned women priests from serving in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Anyway, if the Queen graciously refrains from comment on whether or not her subjects should be sent off to pointless foreign wars, or left to freeze when their benefits get cut, it seems asking a bit much of her to make weighty pronouncements on pressing theological issues.
How do you think our gracious Queen has managed to reign for the past 60 years? By precisely NOT getting involved in political or religious disputations. As RJB points out none of the current Residentiary Canons of St. George’s Windsor are female. It is also widely held that H.M. did not get on so very well with her first and, so far, only woman Prime Minister. After all, there can only be one queen bee in this realm of ours.
Bishop Alan Wilson rightly points out the opinion of Bishop Desmond Tutu on the problem of the Church’s collusion with some African states in their brutal treatment of the LGBT community. He also, I feel, rightly comments on the admission of the Archbishop of Canterbury to his audience of youth at Lambeth Palace; that the Church has its own problems of dealing with issues such as Women’s Ordination and Same-Sex Partnerships. Both Archbishops are formidable influences in the Anglican Communion, but it seems that they have to be either retired, or nearing retirement, before they feel free to express their… Read more »
I’m going to shock rjb and Fr David by agreeing w/ them. I want to see called bishops-who-happen-to-be-women ASAP . . . but I do NOT believe this goal would be advanced by HMtQ stepping into it.
Calling women to all orders is about the EQUALITY male and female have in God’s eyes. An endorsement by the quintessentially UNEQUAL (super-equal) person, would be oxymoronic! [Said the Yank (small ‘r’) republican ;-/]
There’s a good discussion on David Keen’s article going on over at his place. As a Canadian Anglican who visits my aged parents in the UK frequently, my observation is that the C of E is trying to carry the burden of far too many parishes, aged buildings, and the whole ‘we are the Church for everyone in England’ idea, with shrinking clergy numbers and not enough resources (financial and otherwise) to be able to keep it up. These are complex issues that don’t admit of simple solutions, but surely there needs to be some serious study going on about… Read more »
How do we get rid of the aged buildings? I had a chat with an archdeacon about some issues in this regard, and the reply was something on the lines of,’If we made redundant the buildings which need to be made redundant, there’d be no money left in the diocese to pay the clergy’. If that’s the case, we’re stuck whatever we do.