The Archbishop of Canterbury preached at a Service for the New UK Parliament at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey: Sermon for the New Parliament.
George Pitcher in the Telegraph has this comment on the archbishop’s sermon: Rowan Williams challenges George Osborne to be more than a little Caesar – I hope he’s up to it.
Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times: Redeemed from the dark corner.
Also in the Church Times Penelope Fleming-Fido argues that Paganism is not a distant or very different religion.
Theo Hobson writes in The Guardian about How religious liberty works. Complaints of persecution by the semi-fascist secular state must be rejected as historically ignorant (or dishonest) alarmism.
Peter Singer writes in The Guardian about Religion’s regressive hold on animal rights issues. How are we to promote the need for improved animal welfare when battling religious views formed centuries ago?
Mary Midgley writes in The Guradian about The abuses of science. Is the evolutionary argument against God’s existence any stronger than Isaac Newton’s in favour?
Roderick Strange has a Credo column in the Times: The call may not be welcome but it cannot be resisted. If our instinct is to shun failure, who would want to be associated with Catholic priesthood?
This week’s The Question at The Guardian’s Comment is free belief is Who’s your favourite heretic? Of those cast out by the mainstream religions, whose thinking are you most intrigued by?
And here are the responses.
Monday: Tina Beattie Porete: a forgotten female voice. Marguerite Porete was a pious French mystic burned to death for her book, The Mirror of Simple Souls.
Tuesday: DD Guttenplan Einstein, heretical thinker. Unlike those we usually think of as heretics, Einstein set himself against the workings of the physical universe.
Thursday: Harriet Baber Origen, radical biblical scholar. Genesis is obviously metaphorical, according to Origen, for whom modern-day Christianity would be unrecognisable.
Friday: Stephen Tomkins Ebion, the fictional heretic. The Ebionites, said to follow a non-existent Ebion, remained closer to Jesus’s Jewishness than other Christians.
Pope Rowan should listen to himself ocassionally.
I am sure that one day animal rights will be enshrined in codes of law at the European Court, Strasbourg and around the globe. Our descendants will marvel with disbelief at our current ignorance and moral blindness– even as we find past violations of human rights hard to take.
Pete Singer and Revd Prof Andrew Linzey are great witnesses to this.
I love Simon’s weekly collection of columns theological. But, I can’t help myself …
Did Marguerite Porete begin the Beguines?
“Being ordained is not something calculated, like a smart career move. Instead, a conviction arises among those discerning their calling that this is what they have to do, if they are to be true to themselves. Sometimes the call may not even be welcome; but it cannot be resisted. The lives of the people seeking ordination make that plain.” – Fr. Roderick Strange, Times ‘Credo’ – This statement, from a Roman Catholic priest in a ‘Times’ article, is as true for a woman or a gay person as it ever was for a male Roman Catholic. This needs to be… Read more »
It’s Peter Owen who now edits this weekly roundup, not me.
If anyone is looking for a good laugh – from the web-site of a noted ex-Baptist, who proclaims himself as ‘The Voice of Anglican Orthodoxy’, just peep into his latest blogging on ‘virtueonline’, under the heading ‘Exclusives’, and read his ’47 Articles of Faith’, under the following heading:
“WHY THE GLOBAL SOUTH WILL TRIUMPH IN THE ANGLICAN CULTURE WARS”
This man really is deluded, but he IS Funny!