Rowan Williams wrote in The Times earlier this week that A society that does not allow crosses or veils in public is a dangerous one.
Charles Moore writing in the Telegraph today, disagrees with him: Church schools kerfuffle is just the veil wagging the dog.
Stephen Plant writes in The Times today about The political race between the Evangelical God and the ‘ordinary one’.
Theo Hobson writes in the Guardian’s Face to faith column that Secular Christianity can reconnect religion to our world.
Christopher Howse uses his Telegraph column to write about Michael Mayne in A song that went on to the end.
13 CommentsThe Guardian’s “Face to faith” column is by Colin Sedgwick who writes that Self-harm has no place in the Christian discipline.
Christopher Howse’s regular “Credo” column in the Telegraph is Kindness amid persecution.
In The Times Jonathan Sacks writes Danger ahead – there are good reasons why God created atheists.
Giles Fraser also writes about atheists (and Richard Dawkins) in his Church Times column Atheists’ delusions about God.
Patrick Noonan writes in The Tablet about the modern missionary – From soul catcher to adventurer.
Saturday evening Addition
David Goodhart writes about God’s big comeback in the Guardian’s Comment is free.
Sunday Addition
Cristina Odone in The Observer It’s my cross and I’m proud to bare it.
19 CommentsIn The Times Geoffrey Rowell writes this week’s “Credo” column about Egyptian desert monasticism: Amid the discipline and spirituality of the desert a saint was discovered.
Christopher Howse in his regular Saturday Telegraph column says that Prayer is what anyone can do.
The Guardian’s Face to Faith column is written by Trevor Dennis, and is about The Song of Songs.
Elsewhere, Theo Hobson wrote Anglicans, reform yourselves at commentisfree.
Christina Rees wrote about Women as Bishops for New Directions. See Unfolding Adventure.
And the Yorkshire Post interviewed Simon Lindley about hymns in Church music master hopes for chorus of approval.
15 CommentsChristopher Howse uses his Saturday Telegraph column to write about church schools in Debt of thanks to church schools. Ekklesia was less enthused about the Church of England’s recent press release as reported in Church schools policy dubbed ‘un-Christian’ as criticism grows.
Many people today are discussing what Jack Straw said about veils. The Guardian had a leader: Veiled issue. So does the Telegraph, Integration can’t be achieved behind the veil. And The Times has Veiled threat. Ruth Gledhill has a lot of background information and links here. Simon Barrow has an analysis at Good governance needs bridges not barriers in relating to Muslims.
In the Guardian’s Face to Faith column, John Coutts of the Salvation Army writes about the Caucasus.
4 CommentsThe Guardian has a Face to Faith column by Emma Klein and Judy Cooper who ask whether forgiveness is always appropriate.
The Times has a Credo column by Roderick Strange about prayer and unbearable pain.
In The Tablet Anthony Carroll, in Faith, reason and modernity, looks closely at what the Pope said in Regensburg earlier this month, and Elena Curti reports on the results of the paper’s survey on Christian-Muslim relations.
In his Sacred Mysteries column in the Telegraph Christopher Howse writes about a wallhanging in Girona cathedral depicting the creation.
In the Church Times the leader looks at the communiqué issued by the primates who met at Kigali. Giles Fraser writes about golf and Christianity, and makes a plea for more socializing by the bishops at the next Lambeth Conference.
Sunday addition
Nick Cohen in The Observer I can barely Adam and Eve it, but creationism’s catching on over here.
7 CommentsThe Times has The Pope still owes Muslims an apology — a different one by Timothy Bartel.
Earlier in the week, Jonathan Petre asked Did the Pope know what he was doing?
The Tablet has extensive coverage of the Pope/Islam story, including an editorial The possibility of dialogue. Also Mona Siddiqui On the path to mutual respect.
Furthermore, it has its own complete English translation of the original lecture.
The Church Times also had a leader column about this, Gaffes — and gaffe-finding.
The Guardian has a Face to Faith column by Stephen Heap, about religion in higher education.
And Stephen Bates wrote about something else entirely: A match made in heaven.
Sunday addition
Simon Barrow on Ekklesia Christendom remains the Pope’s real fallibility
Colin Slee writes in the Guardian’s Face to Faith column about how the recent guidance from bishops on same-sex civil partnerships is unworkable and totally wrong-headed.
Stephen Bates writes at the Guardian’s blogsite commentisfree about how the Pope has been misunderstood about Islam: Whoops, a pontiff.
Giles Fraser seems less sure of that in the Guardian itself: The unmistakable whiff of Christian triumphalism.
Damian Thompson also weighed in on this topic at the Telegraph in He bears no malice, but he is a worried man.
Ruth Gledhill also had an analysis on The Times website and more thoughts on her blog.
Addition
Andrew Brown has also written about the papal statement for commentisfree: Appealing to reason.
Simon Barrow has written a detailed analysis of the recent Rowan Williams Dutch interview: Why Rowan Williams helps stem the drift to idiocracy.
Geoffrey Rowell reports on what he found in Nicaragua this summer: Searching for the Garden of Eden in a remote corner of Nicaragua.
There’s been a lot of criticism of the decision of the Washington Cathedral to host a talk by Mohammed Khatami the former president of Iran. What he actually said can be read here. Almost as interesting is the involvement of President Bush in granting his visa. The cathedral’s reasons for doing this are explained here. Bishop Chane’s concluding remarks are here.
6 CommentsUpdated Sunday
Keith Ward writes in the Tablet about evolution and “intelligent design”: Beyond boundaries: the infinite creator. Time also has a column about The Pope and Darwin. The New Scientist has Papal summit to debate Darwinian evolution. Earlier the Guardian had Pope prepares to embrace theory of intelligent design.
Update But see what John Allen has to say about that article, here and his earlier interview with Dominique Tassot here.
In today’s Guardian Face to Faith is by Mark Pinsky who writes about American evangelicals.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about No comfort for Betjeman.
Andrew Louth writes in The Times that There is nothing untrue in the Protevangelion’s joyful, inaccurate tales.
13 CommentsThe Guardian considers John Betjeman’s poetry in a Face to Faith column by Terry Philpot.
So also does Charles Moore in a Telegraph column.
Christopher Howse has written about The Vatican’s war of words. For more on this, the Tablet article by Arthur Roche is here.
In The Times Ziauddin Sardar discusses Hezbollah.
Giles Fraser wrote in the Church Times about Dewi Zephaniah Phillips.
26 CommentsGuardian Glynn Cardy writes that Church liturgy needs to use more metaphors in order to help people communicate with God in new ways, in Face to Faith.
And Evolution forgot the democratic process by Barbara Toner which is a follow-up to this earlier article by Harriet Swain: How did we get here?
Telegraph Christopher Howse on Compo’s gimcrack Gothic chapel.
The Times Roderick Strange writes that A discriminating discrimination is one of the seven pillars of wisdom. Also, Darren Oldridge says that It takes two to beat words into ploughshares.
1 CommentSam Wells wrote in last week’s Church Times on Why our culture won’t heed the Church on sex.
Jonathan Sacks writes in The Times this week that Scripture tells us that we hold the Earth in trust for future generations.
David Self writes in today’s Guardian about the Christian right and its support for Israel in Face to Faith.
Christopher Howse writes about The Rapture Index in his Telegraph column headed It’s not the end of the world – or is it?
Last Sunday’s Observer had this article by Robert Pape What we still don’t understand about Hizbollah.
7 CommentsThe Guardian has John Penny who writes about forgiveness in Face to Faith.
In The Times the Credo column is written by Mohammad Elmi and is titled We need imams who can speak to young Muslims in their own words. Also, Alan Webster writes about The revolutionary idea that God backs the poor.
Christopher Howse explains in the Telegraph about the decision of the RC bishops of England and Wales to move Ascension, Epiphany, and Corpus Christi to the nearest Sunday (thus outdoing the CofE which already allows Epiphany to be moved, as an option): Staying in bed on January 6.
Giles Fraser wrote this week in the Church Times about No tears for Top of the Pops. And the previous week Alan Billings wrote Show the terrorists that violence can never win.
1 CommentGeoffrey Rowell writes in The Times that The example of Jesus points the way to a meaningful pattern of prayer.
Also, Michael Binyon writes about York’s local hero — the first Christian emperor. ( Yorkshire Post news report here.)
In the Guardian Nicholas Buxton, a participant in the BBC’s Monastery series, now an ordinand at Cambridge, writes Face to Faith.
Also, Karen Higginbottom writes about graduates who don’t want to enter the corporate world finding their true calling in religion, in Keeping the faith.
Christopher Howse in the Telegraph writes about Archbishop Milingo in Zambian archbishop reclaims Korean bride.
This week’s Church Times has Jonathan Bartley writing that Christians are in denial on faith hate.
75 CommentsStuart Kenworthy an American priest serving as a military chaplain in Iraq has written about this experience: Dispatches from the Iraqi desert.
Pete Tobias who is a Liberal Jewish rabbi, has written in Face to Faith in the Guardian that “We must acknowledge that ‘scripture’ was written by fallible humans if we are to solve the Middle East’s troubles.”
Louise Mitchell writes in The Times about interfaith work: ‘Do unto others’ is only the first step on a long and gruelling journey.
Alan Webster writes in The Times about ecumenism in France: French priests put the cordiale into the entente.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about an RH Benson novel in The palm trees of Armageddon.
Last week’s Church Times had this article by Marilyn McCord Adams: Waiting on others can stifle prophetic action.
7 CommentsTheo Hobson has written Sowing the seeds of change on commentisfree.
Michael Bordeaux writes in The Times about The religious maelstrom of modern Russia.
Also Jonathan Sacks writes that Bonds of friendship will prevail over those who seek to divide us.
Richard Frith writes in the Guardian about the Mission to Seafarers.
16 CommentsThe Times has Stephen Plant writing on If faiths are to parley they first have to get into each other’s good books, and also Conal Gregory writes about the York Mystery Plays in A marvellous quarry of medieval devotion.
Face to Faith in the Guardian is by Shaunaka Rishi Das and is about Hinduism.
The Guardian also has some letters to the editor, also here. There were more letters in The Times too.
Last week, the Church Times carried an extract from the Gore Lecture given by Peter Selby. The full text of the lecture is on the Westminster Abbey website. The title was: Structures of Disdain – and how they might be redeemed.
6 CommentsLast week I linked an article from Ekklesia about marriage. Nobody here commented at all. So first, here is another item a week old, which is a discussion of that on last week’s BBC Sunday radio programme:
Marriage
Under draft legislation to be debated by the church of England’s General Synod next month, couples should be able to marry in any church they like if they can show they have a connection with it.
The religious think tank Ekklesia suggests that the Church and society should go further. It suggests serious consideration should be given to the abolition of legal marriage and its replacement by a variety of civil partnerships through which couples could specify the type of legal commitment they wished to make to one another.
The Dean of Wakefield, The Very Reverend George Nairn-Briggs, sat on the working party which drafted the proposals to relax the rules on where couples can marry. He and Jonathan Bartley, director of Ekklesia, discuss these controversial proposals.
Listen (7m 4s)
This week, Geoffrey Rowell writes in The Times: The Church must not sway to the siren voice of postmodern culture
In the Guardian Face to Faith is written from a Quaker perspective by David Bryant.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about A helping hand from St John [the Baptist].
13 CommentsGiles Fraser writes about Hegel for the Guardian in Face to Faith that “Dialectical Anglicanism has many problems, foremost among them the damage to its champion – Rowan Williams.”
Another philosophy tutorial in The Times by John Cottingham Philosophers are finding fresh meanings in truth, beauty and goodness.
Christopher Howse in the Guardian has Gay divisions make Anglicans glum.
Giles Fraser again, this time in the Church Times: Why fervour makes me feel sick.
The Tablet has another editorial about the Church of England, Our friends’ problems.
At Ekklesia Simon Barrow and Jonathan Bartley have strong opinions about marriage: What future for marriage?
4 CommentsUpdated Monday
This is published later than usual, apologies.
The Tablet has an editorial about Women Bishops in the CofE: Kasper’s forthright warning.
The same journal published this interview with Linda Woodhead: Holistic spirit.
Christopher Howse writes about dogs in church.
The Archbishop of Southeast Asia, John Chew expressed his opinions to Ruth Gledhill in Anglicans look south for unity in diversity.
Two newspaper reports on Sunday refer to a speech by Lord Carey, expressing his opinion.
Sunday Telegraph Church has fallen apart since I was in charge, says Carey
Independent Carey blames successor for ‘strife’ dividing Anglicans
You can read his opinion in full here (the speech was delivered on 9 May).
Updated Monday morning
Two items related to the above:
Lord Carey has issued a statement complaining about the Sunday Telegraph report and
Stephen Bates has written about it in the Guardian with a wide range of persons quoted, in Oh dear. George is at it again.