Giles Fraser got Lent off to a good start with his Thought for the Day on Thursday on the BBC.
Some newspaper columns look at recent events in various lights. The Times has Jonathan Sacks writing about One thing a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian and a humanist can agree on. The Guardian has Ian Bradley comparing the recent Lib Dem leadership contest to contemporary British Christianity in Face to Faith. Earlier this week, the Guardian had an interesting column by Madeleine Bunting on British multiculturalism, It takes more than tea and biscuits to overcome indifference and fear.
Christopher Howse in the Telegraph reviews a book: Can hope save you from hell?
More substantial is this article from the Economist by Matthew Bishop The business of giving.
0 CommentsRecently, the Scottish RC bishops issued a Pastoral Letter on Family Law. This is a response to the Civil Partnership Act 2004.
That letter was discussed in an article by Aidan O’Neill originally published under the title Ties that bind. This article first appeared on 11 February 2006 in The Tablet, the Catholic weekly. www.thetablet.co.uk, and is reproduced here with permission.
Aidan O’Neill is a QC based in Scotland.
The article will I believe be of interest to Anglicans.
4 CommentsTraditional religious values are emphasized in this week’s contributions.
In The Times Geoffrey Rowell writes Lent is a good time to celebrate the old-fashioned virtue of courtesy.
Alison Leonard writes for Face to Faith in the Guardian that the Quaker approach of open dialogue could help to improve the relationship between faiths.
And the Telegraph’s Christopher Howse writes about The view from Wittenham Clumps.
The Times also carries an extract from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book 2006: Forgiveness in a culture stripped of grace by Miroslav Volf director of the Yale Centre for Faith and Culture.
3 CommentsFirst of all, Rowan Williams gave an address yesterday to the World Council of Churches meeting, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The archbishop’s website has the full text.
For more background on this meeting, see the ACNS report, and also the WCC assembly website itself. Earlier Lambeth Palace press release here. Subsequent WCC press release here. And see also this. Update And this WCC press release.
Back in England, the newspapers offer:
Guardian David Monkton Methodist chaplain to Nottingham police, writes about his work in Face to Faith.
The Times Tony Bayfield thinks that Believers are at home in a secular society and Lavinia Byrne says The internet is new ground for the Gospels — some stony, some good.
In the Tablet Robert Mickens has an interesting piece on Indulgences, He who holds the keys to the kingdom.
6 CommentsOvercoming fear is the first step towards a cure for wounds of the soul is the title of the column by Roderick Strange in The Times.
Christopher Howse writes about RC re-organisation in London in Time for a tricky bit of rewiring.
Giles Fraser writes in the Guardian about how iconoclasm links Milton, Marx and the Sex Pistols with the Jewish and Islamic worlds in Face to Faith.
Alain Woodrow writes in the Tablet about the cartoons, Sacred and profane.
0 CommentsEditorial comment on the British government’s defeat over the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is found in both the Church Times and the Tablet.
The Guardian discusses the papal encyclical in a Face to Faith column by Catherine Pepinster, editor of The Tablet. More about this topic is found in The Tablet itself in this article by Robert Mickens. There’s also a piece in the Telegraph by Christopher Howse.
The Times considers Dietrich Bonhoeffer in an article by Stephen Plant and in an extract from (with broken link to) the speech given in Poland yesterday by Rowan Williams.
0 CommentsIn The Times Geoffrey Rowell discusses The dangers of unbalancing the ‘broad church’ of Anglicanism.
Paul Oestreicher writes in the Guardian about how both sides committed atrocities in WW2: Face to Faith. Related to this is the piece in The Times by Rabbi William Wolff on Nazi sites in Germany, Germany must not neglect its terrible past. Rowan Williams issued this statement on Holocaust Day.
This week also saw a major Lambeth initiative:Inaugural meeting of the Christian-Muslim Forum.
Returning to Saturday newspapers, we have a few surprising items. The Telegraph has an article arguing that Intelligent design is not creationism and Christopher Howse discusses a new book about Rome in Pagan Rome’s son of God.
Addition for another article on Intelligent Design, see How to probe the science of creation by Keith Ward from last week’s Church Times.
The Guardian has this rather odd piece by John Crace Who’d be a vicar?
For those who want to read comment on this week’s papal encyclical, there is an editorial and another article in The Tablet and beliefnet has a useful overview here.
10 CommentsClifford Longley recently wrote a column in The Tablet which was headed with this pullquote:
Love is always good, said Cardinal Hume, including love of the same sex.
The column is about civil partnerships and how the church should deal with them.
Although Mr Longley is a Roman Catholic and is writing for a Roman Catholic journal, the article may be of interest to Anglican readers. The Tablet has kindly given TA permission to republish the article. The full text is below the fold.
8 CommentsFrom the Guardian’s Face to Faith column: Martyn Percy writes about Anglican diversity.
In The Times William Taylor of St Ethelburga’s Centre asks How do Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders work together to sort out hate crimes? in Honesty will help to prevent acts which bring shame on the community.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about psychoanalysis and religion in Sharing a couch with believers.
The Tablet has Keith Ward writing about the recent Richard Dawkins TV programmes in Faith, hype and a lack of clarity.
The Tablet also has a review by Owen Gingerich of Exploring Reality: the intertwining of science and religion by John Polkinghorne in Evolving, unfolding world.
1 CommentIn The Times Rod Strange writes about gifts, Unearned, undeserved and sometimes unexpected, faith is a gift for life.
Christopher Howse in the Telegraph writes about A papal storm in a Santa hat.
Giles Fraser’s column in the Church Times asks Can war be moral?.
And in last week’s CT Robin Griffith-Jones finds presences and meaning in T. S. Eliot’s poem Journey of the Magi: ‘Eliot takes his readers far from Andrewes’s settled confidence’, Travelling to another death.
Late Addition
Face to faith from Saturday’s Guardian only arrived online today. Gilbert Márkus writes about Intelligent Design.
In The Times Jonathan Sacks writes about daily prayer: Prayers from the past and present can shape our world of the future.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about Manger, wine and water.
The Guardian again has multiple items on religion:
Face to Faith is written by an Anglican priest, Ruth Scott, in which she talks about a “safe distance”.
The Essay slot has an article by Ian Buruma titled Cross Purposes in which he suggests that Conflicting views about religion threaten to divide Europe from the US.
And Madeleine Bunting has a very critical review of the forthcoming TV programmes about religion by Richard Dawkins in No wonder atheists are angry: they seem ready to believe anything.
From the British newspapers:
Geoffrey Rowell in The Times writes that The calendar of commercialism does not reflect our spiritual rhythms.
Andrew Brown in the Guardian asks, in an essay entitled Belief systems: Are we hardwired for religion, or is it just a psychological and social need?
Two columns deal with the forthcoming 350th anniversary of the “resettlement” of the Jews in England:
Guardian Geoffrey Alderman in the Face to Faith column; and
The Times Jonathan Romain The timeless question: consolidate or integrate?
In the Telegraph, Christopher Howse writes about Naming the birds of heaven.
As it is New Year’s Eve today, the papers have articles about the New Year, like these:
Ruth Gledhill in The Times Bishops resolve to fight the flab – and end world poverty (see more about this column here), while Jonathan Petre in yesterday’s Telegraph was more sombre.
BBC Radio 4’s Analysis: Is God on their Side?, was broadcast on Thursday, 29 December, 2005 at 20:30 GMT.
Analysis explores the beliefs, the world view and the aspirations of the politically religious in America to discover why so many have come to believe that God, uniquely, is on their side.
Presenter: Andrew Brown
More information from the BBC about the programme
More information from the presenter
Listen to the programme (Real Audio – just under 28 minutes long)
0 CommentsTwo weeks ago, TA linked to the first part of a report by Ian Mayes, in his Open Door column, on the Guardian’s coverage of religion. The second part of this got delayed by a Chomskyian diversion, but appeared last Monday. Here it is.
On Wednesday, Richard Chartres talked about Christmas on BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day.
Today, the Guardian also carried an interview with Nicholas Holtam under the headline Motley Pew, and a column by Giles Fraser entitled Don’t leave those kids alone.
There was another good Thought for the Day on Friday, by Angela Tilby. The text of this is currently lost in the post, but you can hear it here (Real Audio): Darwin didn’t think that his theory of evolution dealt a death-blow to religious faith.
And The Times had another leader today: Very civil partnerships.
0 CommentsIn The Times the Archbishop of York John Sentamu writes the Credo column: Like children, we will be surprised and overwhelmed. Also, the Bishop of Colombo Duleep de Chickera looks back at the tsunami, Wave of division that defies God’s timeless love. The Times leader is headed O come, all ye faithful.
In the Guardian the leader is titled In praise of … Bethlehem. The Face to Faith column by Pete Tobias is about Hanukah falling this year on Christmas Day. Another leader is on Living and giving after the tsunami.
The Telegraph leader is titled Christmas and the end of history. Christopher Howse writes about What the bells told Toby Veck.
1 CommentThe Times has an interesting feature article about women’s ordination, titled The sisterhood. Interviews with three Anglicans are included: Joanne Grenfell, Lucy Winkett and Jessica Swift.
Elsewhere in The Times Roderick Strange writes about Christmas and Ruth Gledhill writes about St Nicholas.
Michael Burleigh’s piece in the Times titled Peer into today’s Aladdin’s cave and try to detect a spiritual life contrasts with Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor writing in the Observer about an Outbreak of faith.
The Guardian’s Face to Faith column is by David Self and is about civil partnerships.
In the Telegraph on Saturday, Christopher Howse wrote about The Christmas law of gravity. But much more interesting is the article by John Sentamu in the Sunday edition, This year, Christmas should last a lifetime.
1 CommentThe Guardian has had several items of a religious nature this week:
St Andrews researcher questions belief in hell
Oliver Cromwell and the Jews: a correction
and today’s Face to Faith column by Malachi O’Doherty
But even more interesting was this from the Readers Editor, Ian Mayes:
Open door
The readers’ editor on … a charge that the paper is no longer secular.
Christopher Howse writes today in the Telegraph about Fashions in sexuality and Charles Moore writes about Rowan Williams’ visit to Pakistan in But, Archbishop, this is the bleak mid-winter for many Christians.
Jonathan Sacks writes in The Times about Different freedoms, or why religion and politics should never mix. Michael Binyon writes on Bridge between the mosque and the synagogue.
2 CommentsIn The Times Geoffrey Rowell writes about Advent: Advent reminds us to stay watchful as we await the kingdom of God.
Also, Valerie Grove interviews Timothy Radcliffe ‘Christians should puzzle and intrigue people’.
Steve Parish raises questions about the link between church and state in the Guardian’s Face to Faith column.
Christopher Howse writes about C. S. Lewis: The saint and the dinosaur in the Telegraph. There was also an interesting article earlier in the week about Anglicans in Baghdad: Reflections of a ‘cheap warmaker’ by Danny Kruger.
2 CommentsFrom the Independent today, Sarah Meyrick interviews John Sentamu
John Sentamu: Pilgrim’s progress
Judith Maltby writes in the Guardian’s Face to Faith column about Advent.
Also in the Guardian Martin Kettle reports on a New York City exhibition on Darwin’s life and work, America is caught in a conflict between science and God.
From the Telegraph The Chinese Marco Polo by Christopher Howse
The Times has material from two Orthodox bishops: Teaching the world to sing in perfect symphonia is a report of a visit to London by the Patriarch of Constantinople. And Bishop Basil of Sergievo writes the Credo column: Our tainted lives are a worthy gift to God, thanks to the Fiat of Mary.
2 CommentsFrom the Telegraph:
Simon Heffer comments on the visit of The Queen to the General Synod, More mediaevalism wouldn’t go amiss
Christopher Howse remembers Peter Anson, A failure, though sharply observant
From the Guardian:
Nicholas Buxton writes on secularism in Face to Faith
From The Times:
Roderick Strange Bleak November is the month to consider, and apportion, our talents
Ruth Gledhill interviewed Gene Robinson, ‘In the end, there is no one God does not love’
From the Church Times
Paul Vallely on Priest Idol, Give the priest a proper chance
Robin Gill The patient doesn’t always know best
Mark Vernon Partnerships could save marriage
1 Comment