Last Saturday two more dioceses considered the proposal to approve the Anglican Covenant, and the motion passed in both cases.
In Sheffield the voting was:
Bishops: 2 for, 0 against
Clergy: 16 for, 6 against, 1 abstention
Laity: 31 for, 9 against, 0 abstentions
In Winchester the voting was:
Bishops: 3 for, 0 against
Clergy: 22 for, 11 against, 4 abstentions
Laity: 38 for, 10 against, 2 abstentions
Subsequently, the Yes to the Covenant campaign issued this press release:
34 CommentsImmediate release
BISHOPS RALLY TO SUPPORT ANGLICAN COVENANT CAMPAIGN AS TIDE TURNS
Supporters of the Anglican Communion Covenant expressed optimism this weekend, after Diocesan Synods in the Winchester and Sheffield dioceses voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Covenant. This represents a significant turnaround from only a week ago, when four dioceses voted against the Covenant.
The shift follows the establishment of the new grassroots campaign, ‘Yes to the Covenant’, whose Patrons are the Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd John Pritchard, and the Bishop of Sherborne, the Rt Revd Graham Kings. A number of other Bishops have also expressed their support, including the bishops of Peterborough, Southwell & Nottingham and Brixworth. Other high-profile supporters include eminent theologians Professor N T Wright (formerly Bishop of Durham) and Professor Oliver O’Donovan.
Prudence Dailey, co-founder of ‘Yes to the Covenant’, said the campaign had clearly succeeded in presenting a more balanced view, against a background of determined negative campaigning by a small group of detractors. Diocesan Synod members now stood a better chance of being fully informed before casting their votes, she said.
Voting now stands at 7 dioceses in favour and 10 against. If the Covenant is approved by a majority of the Church of England’s 44 dioceses, it will then go forward to the General Synod to decide whether to adopt it formally.
ENDS
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
The Anglican Communion Covenant is being promoted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to foster greater unity among Anglicans worldwide. The need for a Covenant was initially recognised as a result of divisions originating following the consecration of the actively gay Gene Robinson as a bishop in the USA. All Anglican Provinces are being encouraged to adopt the Covenant, as a way of establishing general mutual accountability by agreement.
Updated Tuesday evening
The All-Party Parliamentary Group named Christians in Parliament has published a report titled Clearing the Ground, and subtitled it: Preliminary report into the freedom of Christians in the UK.
This report and related documents can be found at the Evangelical Alliance website, here.
Writing in advance of the report’s publication, Jim Dobbin MP and Gary Streeter MP said in the Telegraph on Sunday that: We need reforms to protect the rights of Christians. There is an accompanying news story Britain failing to stand up for Christians, say MPs.
In the Mail on Sunday Jonathan Petre reported this story as Harriet Harman’s law on equality ‘is anti-Christian’ and unacceptable.
Today’s Independent has Committee claims rights laws leave out Christians by Nina Lakhani.
The BBC had Equality law ‘should be extended to cover faith’.
Today’s responses to the report so far include:
Ekklesia Report alleging discrimination against Christians ‘confused’
British Humanist Association British Humanist Association refutes findings of ‘Clearing the Ground’ report
Update
More responses:
Andrew Brown Cif belief Are Christians being marginalised?
Are Christians their own worst enemies in Britain today? This question is raised with unusual frankness in a couple of paragraphs of an all-party parliamentary group’s report into Christians and discrimination, which was launched yesterday.
It contains a really quite startling attack on Christian campaign groups:
“The actions of some campaign groups can discredit the Church in the UK and result in perceptions that Christians are seeking unfair exemptions. By bringing highly emotive cases to the fore, they also can add to the feeling among Christians that they are more marginalised than they actually are.
“On some occasions we perceive that campaigning becomes inflammatory or even counterproductive to Christian freedoms. This is due to factors such as: the strategically unwise selection of cases; a distorted presentation of facts for manipulation of the media; and most alarmingly, the deliberate misinforming of the church constituency in order to motivate support.”
But the report also maintains that there have been cases in which Christians have been unfairly treated, usually as a result of ignorance in the wider culture, rather than malevolence; and it demands a reshaping of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which evangelical Christians loathe…
National Secular Society Christian discrimination report is just another call for special privileges
17 CommentsThe Independent on Sunday carried this article ‘Even outstanding women struggle to rise in the CofE’ which refers to a Westminster Hall debate to be held tomorrow, Tuesday, of which information is now available here:
Tuesday 28 February
Subjects proposed to be raised on the Motion for the Adjournment:
9.30 am – 11.00 am Diana Johnson Women in the Church of England.
A press release from WATCH about it is reproduced below the fold.
10 CommentsUpdated 9 March
The Church Times reports this week on the progress of voting in English dioceses on the Anglican Covenant: Covenant tastes defeat in diocesan voting.
ALMOST a quarter of C of E dioceses have now voted against the Anglican Covenant.
It was debated last weekend by the diocesan synods of Leicester, Portsmouth, Salisbury, and Rochester, and rejected by all of them — in some cases, despite impassioned pleas from bishops.
Just five of 15 English dioceses have so far approved the Covenant, which must be debated by diocesan synods by the end of March.
Approval by 23 diocesan synods is required for the Covenant to return to the General Synod. Rejection by 22 dioceses would effectively derail approval of the Covenant by the Church of England…
And there is this:
in a letter in the Church Times today, the patron of the coalition, the Revd Dr Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church in the University of Oxford, writes: “Those bishops who back this ill-thought-out and potentially disastrous measure should get the message, and let the Covenant quietly subside into the swamp of bad ideas in Anglican history.”
The letters page is subscriber-only for another week but I expect this text will appear elsewhere shortly.
A splendid speech given last Saturday to Leicester diocesan synod by David Jennings is available here.
The Diocese of Norwich held an ‘Anglican Covenant Listening Seminar’. By far the best of these papers is the one by Andrew Davison available here (PDF).
Update That paper has since been revised to add some comments in response to the recent video from the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the new version is here (PDF).
There have been several comments about the new website:
And there have been several comments about the new videos published by the ACO:
And, from Scotland Kelvin Holdsworth has written Remember the Anglican Covenant?
6 Comments…In Scotland it is quite hard to find anyone arguing in favour of the Covenant. At last year’s General Synod we had pseudo-Indaba groups which reported pretty negatively on the whole business and it was difficult to find anyone from any of the groups who had encountered anyone at all who thought well of the proposal. The message which I’ve consistently heard since then from around the church is people saying that the Anglican Communion is very important to us but that the kind of communion that the Covenant proposes is not the kind of communion that we see as being desirable. Indeed, the strong message seems to be pro the Communion but against the kind of setup that would be a consequence of accepting the Covenant. The presumption that there would be widespread disagreement about the Covenant in Scotland doesn’t really seem at this stage to be holding up. So far as I can see, there isn’t a great deal of disagreement at all about it…
The Church Times reports today on the campaign organised under the title Coalition for Marriage: Petition against gay marriage attracts thousands of names.
THE Government came under sustained attack this week from a coalition of Christian groups and individuals over its plans to legalise same-sex marriage.
The coalition’s petition attracted about 23,000 signatures within 48 hours of its launch, including those of the Bishops of Carlisle, Chester, Exeter, and Hereford.
The Coalition for Marriage, established by the Christian Institute, with signatories from senior officials of Care, the Evangelical Alliance, Christian Concern, and other organisations, accuses the Government of rewriting the legal definition of marriage without widespread public support for the change…
John Bingham at the Telegraph reported earlier in the week: Gay marriage: David Cameron faces church backlash over ‘cultural vandalism’.
Last month the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, publicly voiced his opposition to same-sex marriage in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
But the Bishop of Salisbury, the Right Rev Nicholas Holtam, signalled a split within the Church of England on the subject by signalling his support for gay marriage.
Among those who have signed the Coalition For Marriage petition are the Rt Revd Peter Foster, the Bishop of Chester; the Rt Revd Anthony Priddis, Bishop of Hereford; the Rt Revd Michael Langrish, Bishop of Exeter and the Rt Revd James Newcome, Bishop of Carlisle.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has yet to set out his position on the issue publicly but a spokesman for the Church of England said yesterday: “The Church will respond in full to the government consultation when it is launched next month, and remains committed to the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman.
“Meanwhile, we hope people will think deeply about this question, which is more complicated than it is painted.
“While not standing in the way of same-sex couples in civil partnerships gaining equal rights and responsibilities to married heterosexual couples, the Church of England will continue to argue for the definition of marriage, which has supported society for so long, not to be changed.”
And today, the Bishop of Salisbury published this statement on his diocesan website: Marriage and same-sex relationships
Statement re: meeting with Dorset clergy on 14 February concerning the Bishop of Salisbury’s comments on same-sex relationships in The Times and on BBC Radio 4
The Bishop of Sherborne, the Archdeacon of Dorset and I met with 10 clergy from Dorset who had contacted me following my remarks on same-sex relationships in an interview published in The Times on 3 February, and on the BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme on 5 February.
Bishop Graham and I disagree about the appropriateness of using the word ‘marriage’ for same-sex relationships. He expressed his concerns to me privately and in the meeting. We are, however, committed to working together creatively…
Earlier, Bishop Holtam had delivered this presidential address to his diocesan synod. The topics covered include this one, as well as numerous others. But on this point he said:
34 CommentsI am sorry my comments about same sex relationships got such elevated treatment by The Times, when reporting a small part of a wider interview. I hope I got the tone and content clearer in the subsequent interview for BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Programme. When Civil Partnerships were introduced in 2005, I thought their distinction from heterosexual marriage was helpful. They are an important support to faithful love, and faithful love is a distinctive mark of Christianity because it reflects God’s love of us.
Because the quality and nature of some Civil Partnerships is similar, possibly the same as for married couples, I have come to see that the rapidly adopted name “gay marriage” may be appropriate. As we know, the Government begins its consultation about this next month and that they have already explicitly exempted religious communities from being forced to accept the conduct of homosexual marriage in addition to heterosexual marriage.
In saying what I did, I am trying to create the space for an honest conversation. We have no option but to recognise our context is changing and that we are talking about people, some of whom are within the life of the Church; that we are talking about ‘us’, not ‘them’.
For the avoidance of doubt, the position of the Church of England, House of Bishops and Diocese of Salisbury has not changed. There are no authorised services of blessing for same sex partnerships and it is not possible for Civil Partnerships to take place in Church of England churches. I will, of course, keep to the Church’s discipline whilst hoping that we find opportunity to explore the issues which divide us.
Gavin Drake has a detailed report in today’s Church Times Judgment by employment tribunal upholds clergy office-holder status. Earlier reports linked from here.
…The Bishop of Worcester, Dr John Inge, also welcomed the ruling. “Clergy themselves have repeatedly said that they do not see themselves as employees, and do not wish to be seen as such. This case has shown that Church of England vicars are not subject to any employment contract, but are free to exercise their ministry as they see best within the framework provided by the law of the land,” he said.
“We hope that Mr Sharpe and Unite will respect this judgment so that we can all draw a line under this.”
Mr Sharpe was represented throughout his dispute by the clergy section of the trade union Unite. The union’s national officer for its community, youth workers, and not-for-profit sector said: “We are very disappointed with the judgment. We will be discussing the implications with Mark Sharpe, and no further statement will be issued until we’ve had those discussions.”
In 2009, Unite called for the resignation of the Bishops of Worcester and Dudley for “presiding over a culture of neglect and bullying” in the diocese, and demanded intervention by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
This week, Bishop Inge said: “When I saw Unite’s claims, I asked the chair of the House of Clergy to conduct an investigation with the clergy of the diocese. He convened a small group, who sent an anonymous questionnaire to the clergy.
“They found there was absolutely no truth in this allegation. Not one person mentioned a culture of bullying in the diocese in the way alleged by Unite.”
There is a further report by Gavin Drake in the paper Clergy can join new association but this is subscriber-only until next Friday.
THE country’s largest union, Unite, announced the launch of the Church of England Clergy Association (CECA) on Monday. Despite four years of talks with the House of Clergy, however, it has received only a cautious welcome…
You can read more about the Church of England Clergy Association here, or even here. This new organisation is not to be confused with the long-established English Clergy Association.
Another report on the Sharpe case can be found here.
14 CommentsUpdated Wednesday evening
Update Anglican Communion Faith and Order body issues videos on the Covenant
Members of the Anglican Communion with Internet access can now watch three videos produced by the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order (IASCUFO) in which its members speak about the Covenant.
In one, members from Provinces including England, the West Indies, Central Africa and Southern Africa explain why they consider the Covenant important for the Communion.
In another the Church of Ceylon’s Rt Revd Kumara Ilangasinghe, recently retired Bishop of Kurunagala, shares his thoughts on the value of accountability.
In the third, members share their thoughts about the sections of the Covenant.
A group named Yes To The Covenant has been formed, and has a website. As explained here, this is the initiative of two members of the Church of England in the Diocese of Oxford.
The speech given in support of the Covenant at the Salisbury diocesan synod on Saturday by Bishop Graham Kings is available here, or here.
It has attracted several responses, including this detailed criticism from Tobias Haller, Should Anglicans Be Grapes Or Marbles? from LayAnglicana and In praise of Arranged Marriage… from Satirical Christian.
Jin Naughton has raised some more fundamental questions about the Covenant at Episcopal Café in Anglican Covenant: Due process and the lack thereof. He refers to an essay by Sally Johnson which he quotes in part:
In essence, the Standing Committee receives a question, receives assistance from unspecified “committees or commissions” mandated by unspecified authority, takes advice from any body or anybody it deems appropriate and decides whether to refer the question to the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting. The Standing Committee then decides whether to request a Church to “defer” a decision or action and what relational consequences should result if it does not. It then moves on to a determination of whether or not a Church’s action or decision is or would be “incompatible with the Covenant.” The Standing Committee does this “on the basis of advice received from the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting,” not on the basis of a process or procedure in which the Church whose action is in question participates in any way, other than to the extent it has representatives on the ACC (from which it could already be barred) and a primate at the Primates’ Meeting (from which its primate could have been excluded). …
Agreeing to an undefined, unspecified process in which the decision-making bodies have full discretion to act in any manner they deem best–not only as to the process but as to the standard and burden of proof, information considered, and all other aspects of the dispute resolution system–is what the covenant contemplates. In the words of the rule of law, there is no procedural due process and no substantive due process guaranteed by the covenant. The outcome is to be trusted and respected based on the persons/bodies making the decisions rather than a system based on how the decision is made. (italics added.)
Tobias Haller in another article, titled No[t This] Anglican Covenant repeats the argument he has made before, that there is an alternative.
…I am well-set in my mind against the current draft PAC, but I do not in the long run think the idea of a set of rules for the conduct of inter-provincial affairs in the Anglican Communion is in itself “un-Anglican.” We have, I think, a sufficient such arrangement in the by-laws of the ACC, but I am not averse, nor do I think it contrary to good sense or our traditions, to exploring other ways of working together across the Communion. But the current document is not it. As I’ve said in the past, I think the IASCOME Covenant for Mission or the Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening Process much more helpful towards edification; in particular as the PAC explicitly calls for de-edification (i.e., “relational consequences” that will decouple or lessen the “bonds of affection”).
And, Bosco Peters has written CofE Covenant vote 10-5 against. He questions the ecclesiology behind the Covenant:
…The ecclesiology of the Tony Blair-chosen Archbishop of Canterbury has come in for some battering in the women bishops debate. Although no one apparently has yet translated his latest speech into English, Rowan Williams appears unwilling to throw himself fully into the fullness of the catholic church being present in each diocese. The ecclesiology which hankers after an international “universal church” (a sort of international super-church, rather than a communion of dioceses) undergirds the “Anglican Covenant”. It’s a perfectly fine alternative ecclesiology, and has a perfectly fine exemplar in Roman Catholicism…
Finally, Cranmer writes about The death of the Anglican Covenant.
30 CommentsThe No Anglican Covenant Coalition has issued a news release: Momentum Shifting in Anglican Covenant Debate. (Full PDF version is over here.)
With one-third of English dioceses now having voted on the proposed Anglican Covenant, leaders of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition are detecting a significant shift in momentum. With last weekend’s clean sweep in Leicester, Portsmouth, Salisbury and Rochester, ten dioceses have rejected the Covenant while only five have approved it.
“When we launched the No Anglican Covenant Coalition just 16 months ago, it seemed like we were facing impossible odds,” said the Coalition’s Moderator, the Revd Dr Lesley Crawley. “But now the tide appears to be turning. The more church members learn about the Covenant, the less they like it.”
“I’m glad to see how perceptive the diocesan synods have been once well-rounded arguments are put to them,” said Coalition Patron and Oxford University Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch. “There were two Covenants in the Church of England’s seventeenth-century history, and in combination, they destroyed episcopacy until wiser counsels prevailed. It appears the dioceses are not interested in helping present-day bishops making it a hat trick.”
“It is heartening to see the dioceses rising up to their responsibilities instead of delegating their discernment to the House of Bishops and the archbishops,” according to former Oxford Professor and General Synod member Marilyn McCord Adams, who now teaches at the University of North Carolina. “Churches come to better decisions when parties feel free to disagree.” Professor McCord Adams is also a Patron of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition.
To date, the proposed Anglican Covenant has been approved by five dioceses of the Church of England (Lichfield; Durham; Europe; Bristol; Canterbury) and rejected by ten (Wakefield; St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich; Truro; Birmingham; Derby; Gloucester; Portsmouth; Rochester; Salisbury; Leicester). Approval by 23 diocesan synods is required for the Covenant to return to General Synod. Rejection by 22 dioceses would effectively derail approval of the Covenant by the Church of England.
Some historical background to the coalition can be found in this post by Malcolm French We happy few.
The current state of voting in the 44 Church of England dioceses is being tracked weekly by Modern Church at this page.
11 CommentsUpdated Thursday morning
The case of Bull & Bull v Hall & Preddy was decided at appeal.
On 10th February 2012, the Court of Appeal upheld a Judge’s ruling that a Christian couple, Peter and Hazelmary Bull, had discriminated against Martin Hall and Steven Preddy on grounds of sexual orientation when they refused them a double-bedded room at their hotel near Penzance.
Read the full judgment here.
Read the analysis by Marina Wheeler at UK Human Rights Blog here.
The case of Vejdeland and Others vs. Sweden was decided by the European Court of Human Rights.
Sweden’s Supreme Court (Högsta domstolen) was right to convict four men of hate crimes for distributing homophobic flyers at a school, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled.
See news report from The Local Swedes’ anti-gay flyers not free speech: court.
The full text of the judgment is available in English here.
See an analysis of the case by Antoine Buyse at ECHR Blog: Anti-Gay Speech Judgment.
The website of the Court has this useful factsheet on Hate Speech.
And there has been some interesting discussion over the weekend about a case involving our own UK schools. See this Observer news article by Jamie Doward: ‘Anti-gay’ book puts Gove at centre of faith school teaching row.
Adam Wagner analysed the situation at UK Human Rights Blog in Is it legal to teach gay hate in schools?:
…So the position is this. A school is permitted to teach about whatever subject it likes, so as not to inhibit it from teaching about a wide range of issues, including, it would seem, controversial views about homosexuality. However, the school must still ensure that those issues are not taught in a way which subjects pupils to discrimination.
So Mr Gove is entirely incorrect to say that “Any materials used in sex and relationship education lessons, therefore, will not be subject to the discrimination provisions of the act”. Schools are still not allowed to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation, religion or race and so have a responsibility to ensure that if they are going to introduce controversial material about gay sex being “directed against God’s natural purpose”, they have to be very careful indeed to balance that material so that gay students are not subjected to discrimination…
And he has further material at: Teaching Jewish children to cure gays – is it legal?
Update
It turns out that the Observer was selective in its quoting from Mr Gove’s letter and as explained here by Adam Wagner the full letter from Michael Gove (PDF) does contain a much better explanation of the law than the newspaper article as originally published.
Four dioceses in the Church of England voted today on the proposal to adopt the draft Anglican Covenant. Earlier results are reported here.
In Leicester the voting was:
Bishops: 2 for 0 against
Clergy: 15 for, 21 against, 3 abstentions
Laity: 21 for, 14 against, 4 abstentions
It appears that there was confusion at the synod in the interpretation of this outcome, but we believe that the defeat in the House of Clergy means that the motion is defeated, and that this will be confirmed in due course.
In Salisbury the voting was:
Bishops: 1 for, 1 against
Clergy: 11 for, 20 against, 2 abstentions
Laity: 19 for, 27 against, 0 abstentions
In Portsmouth the voting was:
Bishop: 1 for, 0 against
Clergy: 12 for, 17 against, 0 abstentions
Laity: 13 for, 17 against, 2 abstentions
In Rochester the voting was:
23 CommentsBishop: 1 for, 0 against
Clergy: 8 for, 30 against, 3 abstentions
Laity: 14 for, 26 against, 7 abstentions
The Reverend Mark Sharpe has lost his case against the Bishop and Diocese of Worcester.
Gavin Drake reports: Former Rector loses employment tribunal claim against bishop.
…The Revd Mark Sharpe, former Rector of the Teme Valley South benefice near Tenbury Wells, alleged that the bishop and diocese had failed to protect him from parishioners in his “toxic parish”. He claimed a catalogue of abuse and bullying, saying his dog had been poisoned, excrement had been smeared on his car, and his tyres had been slashed.
The diocese rejected his claims and, at a five-day preliminary hearing at the Birmingham employment tribunal last November, argued that Mr Sharpe had no right to bring a claim to an employment tribunal because, as a Church of England parish priest with freehold incumbent status, he was an office holder, and not an employee or a worker.
In a reserved judgement, published today, Employment Judge Alan McCarry agreed. He said: “I do not see that within the complex statutory structure of the Church of England it is possible to imply that any relationship between a freehold rector in the Church such as Mr Sharpe and any identifiable person or body which could be said to be consensual and contractual. Certainly, Mr Sharpe has failed to demonstrate to my satisfaction that such a relationship existed with either of the respondents.”
The judge said the Church of England, as the established church, “has occupied a central position in English Society for several hundred years.” He added: “Despite that, it has no legal personality. It cannot sue or be sued…
Diocesan press release: Result of the pre-hearing review for the Mark Sharpe Employment Tribunal
For earlier reports, see here, and also here.
Update Worcester Standard ‘Bullied’ vicar loses tribunal claims
5 CommentsGiles Fraser has written in this week’s Church Times about the Anglican Covenant.
…To recap: the Anglican Covenant is an international treaty, championed originally by the Bishop of Durham at that time, Dr Tom Wright, among others. It was a response to the threats by conservative Anglicans that they would walk away from the Communion if other provinces became more gay-friendly. It is rather like bankers’ saying that they would walk away from the City of London if they had to face the Tobin Tax. This sort of blackmail ought never to be pandered to.
Of course, the Covenant never was the only game in town. This is the type of emergency rhetoric that is often used to push through otherwise unpopular legislation. But the fact that the Anglican Communion has not fallen apart — it is just a bit dented — shows that a great deal of the huffing and puffing about walking away was just empty threats and so much posturing.
The idea that all the different Churches of the Communion can be held together only by signatures on a page rather than years of tradition and common baptism and liturgy is an unnecessary bureaucratisation of theology and fellowship.
If you allow one province a quasi-legal mechanism for pushing out another province, then you are providing a context for acrimony, not for reconciliation. Reconciliation comes when those divided by differences learn to see Christ at work in each other. Mostly, this is achieved through patient friendship and listening….
In other Anglican Covenant news, the No Anglican Covenant Coalition has announced another prominent academic Professor Marilyn McCord Adams has become a patron. See full press release here (PDF).
3 Comments“The proposed Anglican Covenant was conceived in moral indignation and pursued with disciplinary intent,” according to Professor McCord Adams. “Its global gate-keeping mechanisms would put a damper on the gospel agenda, which conscientious Anglicans should find intolerable. The Covenant is based on an alien ecclesiology, which thoughtful Anglicans have every reason to reject.”
Updated Friday evening
Two newspapers report recent remarks by Trevor Phillips head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, at a public debate on 8 February.
Telegraph Christians ‘aren’t above the law’, says equalities chief Trevor Phillips by John Bingham and Tim Ross.
Christians who want to be exempt from equality legislation are like Muslims trying to impose sharia on Britain, Trevor Phillips, the human rights watchdog, has declared.
Mail Equalities chief tells Christians: You’re no different to Muslims who want sharia law by Daniel Martin.
Christians who argue they should be exempt from equalities legislation are no different from Muslims who want to impose sharia law in Britain, a human rights chief has declared.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, said religious rules should end ‘at the door of the temple’ and give way to the ‘public law’ laid down by Parliament.
The entire proceedings of this debate are available from the Religion and Society website of the University of Lancaster. See Religious Identity in ‘Superdiverse’ Societies.
Britain is more religiously diverse than ever before. What does this mean for how we live together? Listen here to podcasts of the presentations, responses and discussion at this first debate. These are accessible at the foot of the page, together with texts of the academic presentations. You can also watch the full event below from YouTube. The debate was chaired by Charles Clarke and Linda Woodhead.
Update
Heresy Corner has actually checked these recordings and reports in What Trevor Phillips actually said has found that both newspapers and even the Tablet have not reported the event fully. Do read his article in full to discover what happened.
And Linda Woodhead also had this article in last week’s Church Times: The quiet revolution in UK faith.
THERE is a great deal of talk at the moment about the return of religion, desecularisation and post-secularism. The editor of The Economist, John Micklethwait, co-authored a book, God is Back (Penguin, 2009).
This raises some questions. Where did God go to — did he fall asleep like Rip Van Winkle? And now that he is back, does he look the same?
And the Telegraph has a further report, Trevor Phillips stands by ‘ridiculous’ Sharia comparison.
51 CommentsTrevor Phillips is standing by his claim that Christian groups seeking exemptions from equality laws are like Muslims who want sharia rule in parts of Britain, despite criticism that his comments were “strange” and ridiculous”.
The Telegraph had this leader comment on the speech by Baroness Warsi: Faith must not be driven from Britain’s public life
Baroness Warsi, the chairman of the Conservative Party, today leads a heavyweight ministerial delegation to the Vatican to mark the 30th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s decision to restore full diplomatic relations between our two states. She has used the opportunity to urge people to be far less timid about their faith and to challenge what she calls “militant secularisation”. It is unsurprising that it has taken a Muslim member of the Cabinet to speak out clearly and forcefully on the importance of faith in the life of the nation; followers of Islam tend to be less mealy-mouthed about their beliefs than many Christians.
Lady Warsi argues that society will be healthier if people “feel stronger in their religious identities and more confident in their creeds”. That means “individuals not diluting their faiths and nations not denying their religious heritages”. She makes an important point. Our history and culture are formed by the Christian faith. The way we are governed is linked directly to the schism in the Church almost half a millennium ago: in England, we have an Established Church of which the head of state is the Supreme Governor…
Andrew Brown wrote at Cif belief that Militant secularists fail to understand the rules of secular debate.
Reading Julian Baggini’s lucid defence of secularism in the light of three years of comments on Cif belief, the point becomes obvious that among the people who most misunderstand it are the militant atheist secularists. But who are they?
There are three kinds of people in Britain today who might be taken for militant secularists: that is to say people who are not just themselves unbelievers, but have an emotional investment in the extirpation of religious belief in others. There are the adolescents who have just discovered “rationality”; there are gay people who feel personally threatened by traditional monotheist morality; and, in this country, there are parents frustrated by the admissions policy of religiously controlled schools…
Catherine Pepinster interviewed Baroness Warsi for the Tablet: Slaying the secular dragon.
8 Comments…speaking to The Tablet the day before she left, she made it clear that problems with the place of women or sex in the Church was not on her agenda.
“Whenever we talk about faith, the debate always comes back to religion versus sexuality. But when we go to the Vatican that is not the important issue. There are so much more pressing ones,” she said. So forget the hot-button issues of the domestic agenda such as same-sex marriage. Instead she and her delegation spoke about climate change, poverty in the developing world, the environment and inter-faith dialogue.
But above all, Baroness Warsi was using the two-day visit to express her conviction that religion must have a clear role in public life and must not be pushed to the sidelines. In a speech to the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the school for papal diplomats, she endorsed Pope Benedict’s call for religion to have a place in society’s discourse. But the language she used was far more sensational than his, talking of “militant secularisation” gripping Europe. The day before, in her office at the House of Lords, though, her language was a little more thoughtful when she said: “I’m arguing for faith to have a seat at the table, for it to be a voice amongst other voices. More and more other voices are heard and the voice of faith is not heard.”
Lambeth Palace reports: The Queen attends multi-faith reception at Lambeth Palace
Archbishop Rowan Williams hosted a multi-faith reception today for Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Lambeth Palace.
His Grace The Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs Williams received Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh at the Main Doors of the Blore Building at Lambeth Palace. The Archbishop accompanied Her Majesty, and Mrs Williams accompanied His Royal Highness, to meet guests first to the State Drawing Room and then to the Pink Dining Room.
The royal couple met representatives of the eight non-Christian religions – the Baha’i, the Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and Zoroastrian communities – as well as Christian representatives. Each group of faith leaders was gathered around a sacred object selected by them for display at the Celebration as an object of particular significance to the faith or practice of their community, or their life in the United Kingdom…
Scroll down for the full texts of the speeches, and there are audio links as well.
The text of the Queen’s speech is also here.
And see also Sacred objects displayed by faith communities to the Queen.
Media reports:
Press Association Queen says the Church of England is misunderstood
Telegraph The Church is under-appreciated says the Queen and Value the Church’s role, says Queen
Guardian Editorial: Faith and the state: turn the other cheek
Mail Queen stands up for Christianity: ‘Church of England is misunderstood and under-appreciated’
BBC Queen highlights Church of England’s duty to all faiths
New Statesman Nelson Jones Defending the Faith
10 Comments…In such a context, it becomes politic for the monarch — whose own role is supposed to embody unity rather than division — to assert that the established church has been responsible for Britain’s tradition of religious tolerance and pluralism. Historically, however, this is at best misleading, at worst a deliberate distortion.
In truth, the Church of England fought for centuries to preserve, first its religious monopoly and later its privileged position in society. The right to worship — or not to worship — freely was wrested piecemeal from unwilling Anglican prelates. Well into the nineteenth century Roman Catholics and Jews had limited civil rights. Until the University Tests Act of 1871 — that’s 1871 — non-Anglicans were barred from fellowships at Oxford and Cambridge (though not at University College London, which was founded in 1826 on the radical principle that higher education need not be a monopoly of the established Church)…
Today the focus of media comment has moved to a speech given by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, who is leading the largest ever UK Government delegation to the Vatican, to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and the Holy See. In it she claimed that “a militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies”.
The full text of the speech is published by the Cabinet Office, and is also available here.
In advance of the speech, she also published this article at the Telegraph We stand side by side with the Pope in fighting for faith.
Channel 4 News published this FactCheck article: Is militant secularisation taking hold in Britain? And last night’s news broadcast had further coverage of the story.
Telegraph Baroness Warsi attacks ‘liberal elite’
Guardian Lady Warsi gets rapturous reception at Vatican for speech on faith
Some of the reactions to this:
Guardian Julian Baggini Is religion really under threat? and also
Giles Fraser Richard Dawkins and Lady Warsi should live and let live
Independent Mark Steel If religion is ‘marginal’, I’m the Pope
Spectator Douglas Murray Why Baroness Warsi has it wrong
Cranmer What kind of idiot does Baroness Warsi take the Pope for?
Mail Online George Pitcher Thank God for Baroness Warsi – a Muslim with the courage to defend our Christian nation
12 CommentsThere was a great deal of comment in the media on Tuesday about a poll undertaken by Ipsos MORI for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
You can read the survey results for yourself. Here is the Ipsos MORI summary:
A poll carried out by Ipsos MORI for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (UK) in the week after the 2011 Census focused on the beliefs, attitudes and practices of UK adults who say they were recorded as Christian in the 2011 Census (or would have recorded themselves as Christian had they answered the question).
Attitudes
UK Christians are overwhelmingly secular in their attitudes on a range of issues from gay rights to religion in public life, according to new research.
Religion and government
Three quarters (74%) strongly agree or tend to agree that religion should not have special influence on public policy, with only one in eight (12%) thinking that it should.
More oppose than support the idea of the UK having an official state religion, with nearly half (46%) against and only a third (32%) in favour. The same pattern is repeated with the question of seats being reserved for Church of England bishops in the House of Lords: 32% of respondents oppose, with only 25% in favour.
There is overwhelming support for religion being a private, not public, matter. Asked how strongly they support the statement that governments should not interfere in religion, 79% strongly agree or tend to agree, with only 8% strongly disagreeing or tending to disagree…
For full details, see the survey topline, and the full computer tables (both PDF).
Some informed comment about all this comes from Linda Woodhead in Richard Dawkins has uncovered a very British form of Christianity.
There’s nothing new in Richard Dawkins’s findings about the British way of being religious. But it’s always good to be reminded of the findings of a poll commissioned by his Foundation for Reason and Science: that most of us are not “true believers” in either religion or in secularism, and that Britain is neither a religious country nor a secular one, but an interesting mix of both. That doesn’t make us muddled, or woolly, or confused – it just makes us British.
We have always been instinctively wary of the bright-eyed, fanatical enthusiast, of whatever hue. We don’t really do big ideologies or revolutions – and when we do, we never see them through to their conclusion. We prefer modest proposals, pragmatic solutions, and a bit of muddle – so long as it works. As Kate Fox rightly observes in Watching the English, our natural response to anyone who believes in their own propaganda too much is: “Oh come off it.”
And see also Ekklesia ‘Census Christians’ not very committed, opinion research suggests.
18 CommentsWATCH Press Release 12.15pm Monday 13 February 2012
71 CommentsTo the Bishops: ‘Keep faith with the Dioceses’ – do not amend the draft legislation for women bishops.
We urge the House of Bishops not to make any change to the draft legislation that would further discriminate against women bishops and those male bishops who ordain women: if they do this then the Measure will be at serious risk of being voted down in July.
Over and over again last week speakers urged General Synod, and the House of Bishops in their deliberations in May, to acknowledge the huge majorities across the dioceses and not amend the draft legislation which already contains substantial provision for those opposed to the ordained ministry of women.
We trust that the House of Bishops has heard this message and in its discussions will leave the draft Measure unamended and in the form that the dioceses have debated and approved.
Reasons for standing by the present compromise
In WATCH’s view, anything in either the Code of Practice or the Measure that tries to spell out what kind of ‘male’ bishop should be offered to parishes that do not accept female bishops would be unacceptable. This is because it would set in law two strands of bishops in the Church of England: those who have had sacramental contact with women, and those who have not. On no other issue about which Bishops disagree (sometimes profoundly) has such a structure been written into law, indeed it is the essence of Anglicanism not to do so.This debate is about the place of women
The opposition to women bishops is based on their being women – whether that is about an interpretation of the Bible which maintains that women are forbidden to have authority over a man, or about following the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches in not recognising that women can represent Christ at the altar.Synod agrees that the Archbishops’ Amendment is not the right way forward
We are very pleased that the Archbishops’ Amendment has been fully debated by Synod for a second time, and that Synod has decisively voted not to follow that route.Women lead the debate
It was particularly significant to see two women leading the debate: surely a foretaste of the way that women will lead as bishops – with wisdom, grace and understanding for those who have difficulty in accepting their ministry.
ACNS carries four reports from the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa, which held its 11th meeting last week in Bujumbura, Burundi.
11th CAPA Council opens in Burundi
Hosted by the Province of the Anglican Church of Burundi, the 11th CAPA Council meeting is bringing together Primates or their representatives, clergy and lay people from the 12 Anglican Provinces of Africa along with partners and other observers from around the world.
The Council of the Anglican Provinces of Africa, whose secretariat is based in Nairobi, Kenya, is a continental body that brings together the twelve Provinces of the Anglican Church in Africa.
CAPA exists to effectively co-ordinate and provide a platform for that part of the Anglican Communion in Africa to celebrate life and consult and address challenges in the continent. Through fellowship and partnerships, capacity building and the promotion of good governance and social development it seeks to realize God’s promise of abundant life…
11th CAPA Council Meeting – Day 1
Delegations from Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, DR Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Central Africa, the diocese of Egypt, Tanzania, West Africa, South Africa, Indian Ocean, were introduced and brought news and greetings from their respective Provinces. Some of the key points mentioned included widespread numerical growth through evangelism, the need for believers to be nurtured, the need to raise the competence of clergy through training, the multi-dimensional needs of the new nation of South Sudan and the necessity for solidarity with the Christians in North Sudan, and the on-going challenges in Zimbabwe and North Africa.
Partners and observers from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office, the Anglican Alliance, the Anglican Communion Office, USPG, United Thank Offering, Netsforlife, Trinity Church, TEC, CMS Africa, Christian Aid, and ECoH were introduced. The Most Rev. John Chew from the Global South Primates was welcomed…
The final day of the 11th CAPA Council Meeting
The review of the CAPA Constitution was presented by the Rt. Rev. Trevor Mwamba from Botswana diocese, the Province of Central Africa. It was agreed that the current Constitution should remain in place so that further discussion can take place in the Provinces.
…Resolutions were passed, and a communiqué drafted along with an appeal for harmony in and greater understanding between Muslim and Christian communities. These will be released shortly.
The Most Rev. Ian Ernest thanked everyone for their support during his term of office, especially the General Secretary, the Rev. Canon Grace Kaiso and the CAPA secretariat. He wished the newly elected Chair, the Most Rev. Bernard Ntahoturi, Archbishop of Burundi, and Vice Chair, the Most Rev. Albert Chama, Archbishop of Central Africa, and other elected officers and Standing Committee members well and assured them of his support in the future.
It was decided that the next CAPA Council would be held in DR Congo…
African Anglicans appeal for harmony, understanding between Muslims and Christians
Anglican leaders from across the continent of Africa have made an emotional appeal to Muslim faith leaders to stand with them in opposition to “tragic violence that is destroying our communities”.
The appeal was issued at the end of a three-day meeting of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa in Burundi where conflict between the two faiths was high on the agenda…
Scroll down at the link above for the full text of the appeal.
Note that in all this there appears to be no mention of participation in the council by representatives of ACNA, GAFCON, AAC, or Anglican Mainstream.
CAPA’s own website is here.
3 CommentsUpdated Friday evening
UK Human Rights Blog Prayer in council meetings was unlawful, rules High Court by Rosalind English
The High Court today ruled that the Devonshire Council had overreached their powers under the Local Government Act 1972 by insisting on the practice of prayers as part of their formal meetings. The ruling will apply to the formal meetings of all councils in England and Wales, the majority of which are thought to conduct prayers as part of their meetings.
The full judgment is here (PDF).
More from Rosalind:
…The issue was solely about whether prayers can be said as a part of the formal business transacted by the Council at a meeting to which all Councillors are summoned. The claimants were not seeking to introduce a bar on acts of worship before the meeting, thus hindering the exercise by Councillors who wished to pray of their right to do so.
The judge granted the declaration sought, that the saying of prayers as part of the formal meeting of a Council is not lawful under s111 of the Local Government Act 1972, and there is no statutory power permitting the practice to continue…
and this:
In this careful and pragmatic judgment, Ousley J demonstrates just the sort of objectivity that Laws LJ identified as the sine qua non of adjudication, in his famous rebuttal of Lord Carey’s call for special protection for religious beliefs. The judge resisted a wider interpretation of the statutory powers, because this
would still require the Court to take a view about the extent to which public prayers in the formal Council meeting were likely to facilitate, or be conducive to or incidental to, the performance of the Council’s functions. That is not a view which the Court should form…It is not for a Court to rule upon the likelihood of divine, and presumptively beneficial, guidance being available or the effectiveness of Christian public prayer in obtaining it.
And she goes on to quote Laws LJ in McFarlane v Relate Avon. Follow the link above to read her whole analysis.
Some media coverage:
BBC Bideford Town Council prayers ruled unlawful
Guardian Council loses court battle over prayer sessions before meetings and Local councils have right to say their prayers, says Eric Pickles
Telegraph Prayers before council meetings ruled unlawful and Bishop of Exeter urges councils to use ‘prayer loophole’
Ekklesia Prayer cannot be made compulsory in councils, court ruling says and Council prayer ruling is about freedom of conscience
Friday evening updates
Heresy Corner Bideford Council: Carry On Praying?
The High Court’s decision in the Bideford council prayers case (brought by the NSS on behalf of an atheist former councillor, Clive Bone) has produced much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the Christian rights lobby: the Christian Institute, Christian Concern, various rentaquote bishops and so on. And it has, naturally, delighted secularists, including the NSS’s Keith Porteous Wood, who said that it sent a “clear secular message” about the separation of religion from politics.
The BBC’s Robert Piggott sees the decision as further evidence that “the tide has been flowing pretty firmly against Christianity in public life”.
But for two reasons I think this assessment is entirely wrong. For secular campaigners, this is a very Pyrrhic victory indeed…
Law and Lawyers Prayers at Council meetings
Religion Law Blog Council Prayers
15 Comments