Theos the think tank
Updated Tuesday
A new religious British think tank was launched this week, named Theos. Its website is here. Its first published report is titled “Doing God”: A Future For Faith in the Public Square and it can be downloaded as a PDF file here (warning: over 1 Mbyte).
Press reports of this launch event:
Telegraph Jonathan Petre Majority views religion as force for good
Guardian See the leader listed here yesterday. And on Comment is free see Madeleine Bunting, Martin Newland, and AC Grayling.
BBC Leaders back faith in public life
The Times Ruth Gledhill Archbishops back campaign to promote religion and Wise men of the churches set out to keep Christ in Christmas
Ekklesia Theos think tank ‘gives hope to humanists’. Here is the BHS press release mentioned.
Theos has also published this article by Alister McGrath The Dawkins Delusion
The BBC radio programme Sunday covered this launch too, listen to Christopher Landau here (Real Audio, 5 minutes 46 seconds).
22 CommentsThe Fundamentalists
A Channel Four television programme with this title, lasting two hours, airs in the UK on Saturday at 7.15 pm. The presenter is Mark Dowd. The official publicity blurb reads:
Former Dominican friar Mark Dowd travels the world to explore the origins of and reasons for religious fundamentalism. Examining five different faiths and a century of history, Dowd strives to discover who fundamentalists are, what their common attributes might be, and why a literalist approach to the religious text is so important to them.
Mark Vernon who has seen the programme, has written this preview:
50 CommentsThe Fundamentalists – Channel 4, Saturday 9th Sept
Would you know a fundamentalist if you met one? A black hood and Kalashnikov might rouse your suspicion. But what of the peaceful sort, in regular clothes. What would give them away?
Four individuals featured in Mark Dowd’s film, ‘The Fundamentalists’, shatter preconceptions. For one thing they are women – a Hindi nationalist in India, a settler wife in Israel, an evangelical grandma in the US, and a Palestinian mum in Gaza. These four are also of four different religions – Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Fundamentalists are as likely to be Buddhist too, particularly if you live in Sri Lanka where they wear saffron robes. You needn’t go abroad for fundamentalism either. I recently spent the day with a fundamentalist from the home counties. He is white, middle class and a minister in the Church of England. We drank tea as he told me homosexuals are at risk of burning for all eternity.
From its origins in America, modern media have given the word fundamentalist global recognition in a few short decades, as Dowd shows when it is instantly recognised by people across four continents. Inspired by American fundamentalists, all sorts of people who feel politically embattled and/or personally unsure now turn to it for security. What fundamentalists have in common is breaking with the past: they do religion without tradition; something written or spoken two or three thousand years ago can be directly and unproblematically applied to today.
How should liberals respond to fundamentalism? Dowd shows how it is partly a political problem but it is also a spiritual problem. This leads him to make some pertinent suggestions. First, recognising that fundamentalism is here to stay, it is important to be savvy about their sense of the sacred to ensure that peaceable fundamentalists stay peaceable. Second, and more aggressively, it is important to challenge them religiously, particularly on the break with tradition: for example, as Jonathan Sacks puts it, God’s word without interpretation is like nuclear fuel without insulation. Third, we must strive for more spirituality enlightened times: the spiritual crudity of fundamentalism is a reflection of the spiritual crudity of materialism. As Dowd concludes, ultimately, only towering spiritual figures can lead fundamentalists away from their fears.
more about Getting Equal
In June, I linked here to the article for the Church Times that I wrote about the latest DTI consultation Getting Equal on outlawing discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation throughout the UK in the provision of goods and services.
Since then, the Roman Catholic Bishops of England and Wales also published their response to the DTI consultation. You can read it here (PDF ) and also the covering letter (another PDF). It is far more restrained in its language than the response from Anglican Mainstream or the even more extreme response of the Lawyers Christian Fellowship.
One specific RC concern is to do with child adoption services. This week, The Tablet has an interesting article which discusses how this issue has been handled by Roman Catholics in the USA: Dilemma of gay adoption by Terry Philpot. (Access to this PDF article is free, but requires registration.)
There is a related news report (only available on the web by subscription) concerning opposition to the anticipated regulations from the Scottish RC bishops on this score. But there is no mention there of the English RC objections which are contained in the document linked above. A Scottish RC press release is here.
The DTI response to the consultation is expected 12 weeks after the closure date of 5 June. That could be next week. This response will then be followed by the publication of draft regulations for parliamentary approval in October.
1 CommentRowan Williams on climate change
On the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme last Tuesday 28 March, the Archbishop of Canterbury expressed his concerns over the issue of climate change.
A full transcript of the interview is available on the CofE website. (Also on Lambeth Palace and ENS sites.)
You can also listen to the interview (Real Audio required) on the BBC website – 17 minutes total, but the archbishop comes first in sequence, and this lasts about 9 minutes. The other person interviewed is Margaret Beckett who is the UK Secretary of State for the Environment.
Church Times Dr Williams: Billions could die from climate change by Pat Ashworth
BBC Archbishop urges emissions cuts
A few nuggets on what the Church of England is doing about this itself can be found here.
1 CommentNigerian legislation and the Church of Nigeria
Updated Friday 10 March
First, the text of the draft Nigerian legislation that has been under discussion here and elsewhere is reproduced below the fold.
Second, this legislation was endorsed explicitly by the following statement:
The Bill against Homosexuality:
The Church commends the law-makers for their prompt reaction to outlaw same-sex relationships in Nigeria and calls for the bill to be passed since the idea expressed in the bill is the moral position of Nigerians regarding human sexuality.
This occurs in the MESSAGE TO THE NATION / COMMUNIQUE from the meeting of the Standing Committee held in Ibadan on 22-25 February, signed by the Primate, and posted on the official provincial website. That meeting was several days before the recent claims that he had made no public statement on this matter. Amended Wednesday 15 March
The PASTORAL LETTER TO THE CHURCH from the same source, dated 25 February, does not mention this topic.
Hat Tip: Mark Harris.
Addition Friday 10 March
The US Department of State issued this Press Statement back on 1 February: Nigerian Legislation Threatens to Limit Rights of Sexual Minorities.
map of Nigerian violence
Christianity Today’s weblog has comprehensive reporting of the Nigerian disturbances, and that includes a link to this annotated map showing where each reported event has occurred.
Hat Tip to GetReligion for this.
Tutu speaks out on Guantánamo
Update Saturday
‘The Americans are breaking international law… it is a society heading towards Animal Farm’ – Archbishop Sentamu on Guantanamo
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has joined in the growing chorus of condemnation of America’s Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
Read the BBC News report Tutu calls for Guantanamo closure and listen (Real Audio – 8+ minutes) to the Radio 4 Today interview:
6 CommentsArchbishop Desmond Tutu has been very critical of Britain’s way of dealing with the threat from terrorism and he too, along with Kofi Annan and many others, supports the mounting pressure to close Guantanamo Bay.
Sunday radio
The BBC radio programme Sunday has several items of Anglican interest today. Real Player required.
Rowan Williams is interviewed about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
It’s easy to understand why Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran theologian, is a hero, even a saint, to German Christians. Unlike so many of their religious leaders, Bonhoeffer’s opposition to the Nazis was unremitting and he paid for it with his life. He was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler and was executed in the last weeks of the war.
But what relevance does he have for non-Germans in the 21st century?
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has no doubt of the theologian’s importance. He has travelled to Germany and Poland to attend celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of Bonhoeffer’s birth.
Listen (5m 22s)
And two items previewing General Synod debates this week.
Rural churches
Perhaps next Tuesday afternoon’s debate at the General Synod should be held not in the chamber of Church House in Westminster but in a draughty parish hall in a remote country village. They’ll be talking about rural churches – something we might take for granted, but which in many places are facing crisis – just like every other kind of rural service. The synod debate follows an internal report on rural churches which often lose out on grants from government and other funding agencies.
Listen (6m 32s)
Slave trade
Next year will see the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Colonies and next week’s General Synod will debate a motion calling on the Church to help mark the anniversary and use it as an opportunity to campaign for an end to human trafficking and other modern forms of slavery. But an amendment to the motion will also be tabled. It will call on the Church of England to recognise the damage done by its own involvement in the Slave Trade. It will also urge the Church to address the legacy of the slave trade and offer an apology to the heirs of those who were enslaved.
Listen (4m 11s)
0 CommentsBritish press views of Roman Catholic statement
The Guardian today carried three items:
A news report by Stephen Bates Vatican rules firmly against gay priests
A magazine article by Emily Wilson How gay is too gay?
A leader: Distinctly without prejudice
Update see also Thursday’s letters to the editor
The Independent had a report: Pope restates ban on gay priests and says homosexuality is ‘disordered’
The Times had this: Pope’s gay priest ruling is hailed by moderates by Ruth Gledhill and Richard Owen
And in the Telegraph Jonathan Petre reported under the headline Vatican call to weed out practising gays
7 CommentsRoman Catholic statement
Earlier this week, the Roman Catholic Church issued somebody in Rome leaked a long-expected document about homosexuality and the RC clergy, or to give it its official title:
Instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education Concerning the Criteria of Vocational Discernment Regarding Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of their Admission to Seminaries and Orders
Original PDF in Italian released by the Italian news agency Adista
full web page copy of text in Italian
Unofficial translation from Italian into English by Robert Mickens of The Tablet
Update Official translation into English in PDF file as released by UCCB (hat tip to the Loggia again)
Article about it in The Tablet by Timothy Radcliffe Can gays be priests?
Article about it by John Allen in the National Catholic Reporter Vatican document bans most gays from priesthood and also this here.
Ruth Gledhill comments, Vatican bans gays from seminaries.
34 CommentsJames Jones and Human Sexuality
Hidden away on the Liverpool Diocesan website is the Bishop of Liverpool’s presidential address to his diocesan synod last month. He writes about his current position on the issue of human sexuality. His conciliatory views may surprise some.
21 CommentsIslam and violence
An item from the BBC Radio 4 Today programme:
0832 What is it that motivates a suicide bomber? Jane Little explores what Islam has to say about violence.
Listen here with Real Audio 4.5 minutes
11 CommentsMary: Hope and Grace in Christ
The Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission, a group originally set up by Archbishop Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI, and re-established by Archbishop Robert Runcie and Pope John Paul II has published its latest report Mary: Hope and Grace in Christ.
The publication was celebrated on Monday in Seattle by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Seattle, Alexander Brunett, and the Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, Peter Carnley.
ACNS has placed a summary introduction to the report by the Revd Canon Donald Bolen, Roman Catholic Co-Secretary of ARCIC on its website.
Update 20 May
The Church Times has published a lengthy article by Rachel Boulding summarising the document: Anglicans and Roman Catholics reach agreement about the Virgin Mary
more Roman reports
Two other sources of information about recent Anglican visitors to Rome:
The RC Diocese of Westminster has published excerpts from the press conference that Archbishop Rowan Williams and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor held on 25 April.
Anglicans Online has published Pierre Whalon’s Dispatch from Rome which also discusses the papal audience of that morning. Pierre Whalon’s earlier report was on the Sunday inauguration: Dispatch from St Peter’s Basilica.
Additional Item
Reuters has a video clip of the papal audience in which RW’s interaction with the Pope is clearly shown. This may not work correctly in some browsers: it worked for me in Internet Explorer 6 on WinXP. The Reuters video page has a strip marked Vatican Channel and the clip is labelled Pope Meets Religious Leaders.
ENS catches up
Anglican leaders meet with Pope Benedict XVI
Roman diary, part 2
Bishop John Flack, Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s representative to the Holy See wrote earlier about his time in Rome during the death and funeral of Pope John Paul II. Now he writes again, this time about the election and inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI, the comings and goings of Anglican dignitaries, and shaking hands with the new pope.
Read on…
0 CommentsAnglicans meet the Pope
Various reports concerning the inauguration of the new pope yesterday and his meeting today with ecumenical leaders including an Anglican delegation that included two ECUSA bishops as well as several prominent Anglican conservatives.
BBC
Anglican leaders greet new Pope
Catholic News Service
Anglican leader says pope to give energy to united Christian witness includes extensive quotes from RW
Guardian
Andrew Brown Opus Dei will be in the ascendancy in Pope Benedict XVI’s church
John Hooper in Rome and Stephen Bates Williams to meet new pope today
The Times
Richard Owen New Pope seeks a spiritual revival as he takes the throne
Ruth Gledhill Words of inspiration not lost in translation
Addition
Richard Owen Pope prayed: ‘God, don’t do this to me’
Telegraph
Jonathan Petre Williams looks to build bridges with Catholicism
Bruce Johnson Humanity has lost its way, says new Pope
Sunday Telegraph
Damian Thompson Then came the name ‘Josephum’ and gloom set in
Sunday Times
Christopher Morgan and John Follain Pope in talks with rebel Anglicans
And for a different perspective, Appointment of Pope Benedict sits uneasily with Arabs on Aljazeera.com
Update
An earlier column that I missed: Andrew Brown on opendemocracy.org Cardinal Chernenko?
Critical reaction to election of Pope Benedict
“The election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope comes as an enormous disappointment for all those who hoped for a reformist and pastoral Pope.
“But we must wait and see, for experience shows that the role of the Papacy in the Catholic Church today is so challenging that it can change anyone. Someone who enters the conclave a progressive cardinal can emerge as a conservative (such as Montini – Pope Paul VI), and someone who enters the conclave a conservative cardinal can, indeed, emerge as a progressive (Roncalli – Pope John XXIII).”
Küng goes on to discuss which first signals from the new pope will be important, and the problems which were not tackled by his predecessor.
There are others who are not happy with the outcome of the election.
Reuters “South Africa’s Tutu Disappointed at Pope Choice”
The Scotsman “Bishop [of Oxford] Denounces New Pope’s Election”
The Telegraph, in “Pope Benedict offers olive branch to critics” carries all three criticisms.
The Times reports that the pope’s elder brother is not happy either.
3 CommentsPope Benedict to work for Christian unity
In his first sermon as pope, Benedict XVI has said that he intends to work tirelessly for Christian unity, suggesting that ‘concrete gestures’ are needed. He also sent greetings to the representatives of other ‘Churches and ecclesial communities’
He said that he…
assumes as his primary commitment that of working tirelessly towards the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers. This is his ambition, this is his compelling duty. He is aware that to do so, expressions of good feelings are not enough. Concrete gestures are required to penetrate souls and move consciences, encouraging everyone to that interior conversion which is the basis for all progress on the road of ecumenism.
Theological dialogue is necessary. A profound examination of the historical reasons behind past choices is also indispensable. But even more urgent is that ‘purification of memory,’ which was so often evoked by John Paul II, and which alone can dispose souls to welcome the full truth of Christ. It is before Him, supreme Judge of all living things, that each of us must stand, in the awareness that one day we must explain to Him what we did and what we did not do for the great good that is the full and visible unity of all His disciples.
The current Successor of Peter feels himself to be personally implicated in this question and is disposed to do all in his power to promote the fundamental cause of ecumenism. In the wake of his predecessors, he is fully determined to cultivate any initiative that may seem appropriate to promote contact and agreement with representatives from the various Churches and ecclesial communities. Indeed, on this occasion too, he sends them his most cordial greetings in Christ, the one Lord of all.
The full sermon (in English translation from the spoken Latin) is available ‘below the fold’…
10 CommentsBenedict XVI – Anglican Reaction
Official Anglican reaction to the election of Pope Benedict XVI
England: Archbishop of Canterbury
We wish Pope Benedict XVI every blessing in the immense responsibilities he is about to assume on behalf of Roman Catholics round the world.
His election is also of great significance to Christians everywhere. I look forward to meeting him and working together to build on the legacy of his predecessor, as we seek to promote shared understanding between our churches in the service of the Gospel and the goal of Christian unity.
He is a theologian of great stature, who has written some profound reflections on the nature of God and the church. His choice of the name Benedict suggests that he wants to connect his vision of the Church to the monastic spirit of service and contemplation.
He will be in much in our prayers in the days and weeks ahead.
USA: Presiding Bishop (Most Revd Frank Griswold)
Along with many others, both within and beyond the Roman Catholic Church, I offer my prayers for Pope Benedict XVI as he takes up the august responsibility of his office. I pray that the Holy Spirit will guide him in his words and his actions and that he may become a focus of unity and a minister of reconciliation in a church and a world in which faithfulness and truth wear many faces.
Scotland: senior bishop (Rt Rev Idris Jones, Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway)
On behalf of the Scottish Episcopal Church, I offer the warmest of welcomes to the new Pope – Pope Benedict XVI. We send the assurance of our prayers for him as he leads his Church forward. Our hope will be that under his leadership the church will continue to work for the poor and underprivileged in the world, and that the cause of unity among all Christians will be encouraged, as well as co-operation with those of other faiths.
Ireland: Archbishop of Armagh (Rt Revd Robin Eames)
As Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland I extend to Archbishop Sean Brady, the clergy and people of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, the prayerful good wishes of the Church of Ireland on the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI.
I pray that God will bless and guide him as he takes up his new privileges and heavy responsibilities at this time.
Other reaction from the Church of Ireland
Archbishop of Dublin
Chair of the Christian Unity Committee of the Church of Ireland
Canada: Primate (Most Revd Andrew Hutchinson)
I welcome the election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as new Bishop of Rome and leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Our two churches have a long history of ecumenical co-operation for the proclamation of the Gospel and the development of humanity. I look forward to continuing our work together and for opportunities to conduct dialogue at every level of the church.
The new Pope has chosen the name Benedict, which derives from the Latin word for “blessed”. We offer our prayers and best wishes to our sisters and brothers in the Roman Catholic Church. I invite all Anglicans to join me in celebrating this election. May all of us be truly blessed by his pontificate.
Australia: Primate (Most Revd Peter Carnley, Archbishop of Perth and Anglican co-chair of ARCIC)
The presence of such a distinguished theologian will help sharpen the dialogue between Anglicans and the Roman Catholic Church. We certainly hope that the ecumenical progress achieved over the last quarter century may be further developed and brought to fruition with the help of the new Pope’s incisive mind.
Meanwhile, we all rejoice with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters that the conclave came to such a speedy decision and we pray earnestly for Cardinal Ratzinger as he prepares for his important new work.
1 CommentConclave stories
Today’s news is all about the preparations for the Conclave which begins at 4.30pm Italian time today (2.30pm GMT). If the cardinals decide to hold a vote this evening then it is possible that white smoke will be seen over the Sistine Chapel later today. News stories include
- the BBC: Mass begins new pontiff election
- The Times: Cardinals prepare to enter conclave with special Mass; How a new pope is elected; Progressive cardinals try to block Ratzinger
- the Guardian Cardinals start choosing new pope
- the Telegraph: Conclave meets to elect new pope
Update
Fulcrum has published an article by Oliver O’Donovan on Pope John-Paul II