Guardian Judith Maltby Face to Faith is about listening.
The Times Lavinia Byrne The Spirit is benign, subtle, toxic – and can be found in the back of a cab
Telegraph Christopher Howse The letters on the brick wall
And, from the Tablet an article by James Alison The wild ride
5 CommentsHere’s a column from the Northern Echo:
At Your Service: Giving succour to flocks of all kinds
In The Times Roderick Strange writes Forty days is an eternity which reminds us of a transcendent dimension. Also Sholto Byrnes reports on An agnostic happy to nurse the ‘vice’ of religion.
Stewart Dakers reflects in the Guardian’s Face to Faith column about Christian Aid Week.
The Telegraph has Christopher Howse writing on intercessory prayer in Sun for the wedding, please.
0 CommentsNo cinema reviews here.
In The Times Stephen Plant Hope for the hereafter nourishes the urge to live better in a grime present
In the Telegraph Christopher Howse The lives and souls of the nation
In the Guardian Alec Gilmore writes in Face to Faith about religious liberty.
In the Church Times Giles Fraser writes about The subtle sin of lay presidency
23 CommentsGeoffrey Rowell writes about dance: Let us ignore the mantras of modernity and dance the sacred dances.
Michael Binyon writes about a tent: London opens its desert tent of timelessness.
Christopher Howse writes about the Hidden life of Charterhouse.
Bob Holman writes about obituaries in Face to Faith.
Earlier in the week, following this news report, Simon Jenkins wrote about church buildings: The most important financial appeal I know is new roofs for old churches. This caused some letters in response today.
7 CommentsI refer of course to the ECUSA episcopal elections.
Back here in England, we have columns of opinion:
The Times Jonathan Sacks The Jewish tradition is firmly opposed to assisted dying.
This is the view of the Church of England (see also this page on What Can I Do?) and also see the remarks of the Bishop of St Albans. And if you agree you can sign up at Care NOT Killing.
Also in The Times we have Ian Hislop on Broad of church and broad of mind.
In the Telegraph Christopher Howse reports on a new opera about Thomas Becket in King’s friend and victim.
The Guardian has a Face to Faith column by Simon Rocker in which he argues in favour of state funding for faith schools.
Earlier in the week, the Guardian had a column by Giles Fraser titled God is the God of all about the relationship between the BNP and evangelical Christians. The Methodist Church website to which he refers can be found here.
Addendum some more detail on the BNP/Christian issue can be found here.
Bishop Basil of Sergievo writes in The Times that Christians should not be trying to escape from the material world.
Undaunted, Christopher Howse in the Telegraph writes about Suicide club to tropical island.
In the Guardian’s Face to Faith column, Julian Baggini writes that
Part of the problem with assessing how religious we are is that it is not clear what “being religious” means.
Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times about Dealing with people who stop mission.
Robert Mickens in the Tablet reports on what Cardinal Martini has been saying in Clarion call on condoms.
0 CommentsThe Times today carries an article by Andrew Linzey entitled ‘The logic of all purity movements is to exclude’. The strapline reads Our correspondent suggests that Anglicans listen to the Holy Spirit, and not to the schismatic fundamentalists. No doubt TA readers will have something to say about this…
The Credo column is by Rod Strange, The doubt of Thomas was not a lack of faith but a deeper love.
In the Guardian the Face to Faith column is also critical of dogmatism. David Haslam writes that The risks of rigid methods of parenting have echoes in the dangers of the more dogmatic forms of religion.
Madeleine Bunting had a really interesting article on Friday about the Anglican church angles on The constitutional crisis we face when the Queen is gone.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about Yorkshire’s own chosen Emperor. The exhibition to which he refers Constantine the Great has its own website here.
26 CommentsJane Williams has the Face to Faith column in Saturday’s Guardian.
And here is her husband’s Easter Message to his Diocese.
Andrew White writes the Credo column in The Times today: Faith makes for safety in Baghdad, the most dangerous parish in the world.
Christopher Howse writes on The tragic-comedy of Richard Sibthorp.
Charles Curran writes in the Tablet about Benedict XVI’s first year: From division to unity.
1 Commentcommentisfree is the Guardian’s new collective group blog. Madeleine Bunting and Andrew Brown have just had an exchange of views there:
In Sugar or saccharine? Madeleine asks:
What role does religion play for societies and individuals? And is it a good thing?
In Stronger stuff Andrew replies that
Madeleine Bunting is mistaken. Religious is neither sugar nor saccharine, but good old nineteenth century opium.
Giles Fraser wrote a column on Thursday Resurgent religion has done away with the country vicar. This has provoked many website comments and some letters in the paper (scroll down) on Friday. The Guardian carried a Good Friday editorial Fight the good fight. which refers to the above article, and concludes thus:
…Religious liberals support the values of the modern secular state. They oppose racism and homophobia, they advocate the separation of church and state, they promote tolerance. This is why the current tension in the Anglican church should matter to everyone. If Rowan Williams were to decide that the Anglican Communion could only be saved by a lurch to conservatism, liberal secularism would be one of the losers. It may be that only 2 million regularly go to church, but three-quarters of Britons still regard themselves as Christian. The fight for women bishops and gay clergy is part of the wider fight for equality and tolerance throughout society. Religious liberals and defenders of the secular are fighting on the same side. In these pages yesterday, the vicar of Putney, Giles Fraser, called for liberals to rediscover their fight. So too must the defenders of secularism.
Rowan Williams broadcast this Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4 on Good Friday.
Mark Sisk Bishop of New York preached this sermon earlier in the week at the diocesan Chrism Mass: What then is the spirit of our age?
The Times also had a leader on Good Friday. So did the Telegraph : Truth brings all honest people into an alliance.
On Ekklesia Simon Barrow has How Easter brings regime change.
This week in the Church Times Giles Fraser has The limits of silence at the cross.
1 CommentChristopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about how dreadful publishers are in using quotes from book reviews out of context. Read Now I know how theatre critics feel.
In The Times Jonathan Sacks writes about Next year in Jerusalem – teaching children the story of their people.
Bryan Appleyard wrote an article in the New Statesman entitled Religion: who needs it?
Lucy Winkett preached a sermon recently at St Mary Islington on Confession and Absolution.
The Guardian’s Face to Faith column is by Theo Hobson.
1 CommentApologies to anyone who noticed this weekly feature was omitted last Saturday when I was on holiday. The most significant article it would have contained was the Guardian Face to Faith written by Marilyn McCord Adams that carried this strap Liberal Anglicans should not sacrifice their beliefs in order to hold on to church unity at all costs.
During the week Madeleine Bunting wrote a Guardian column Why the intelligent design lobby thanks God for Richard Dawkins. Today, the Face to Faith column is written by Colin Sedgwick and is about why Trying to be hilarious by being hurtful to other people or by being crude is really no laughing matter.
Over at The Times Jonathan Romain wonders how Moses would have coped with the duplicity of the internet age in Electronic false prophets tell lies in His name. Geoffrey Rowell writes that Christian Communion celebrates love in the midst of Man’s betrayal.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about An elephant in the Tower.
The BBC Sunday radio programme had a splendid 5 minute piece by Diarmaid MacCulloch on the 450th anniversary of the death of Thomas Cranmer. Listen here (Real audio).
7 CommentsFace to Faith in today’s Guardian is written by Jonathan Romain and considers prostitution in Hebrew scripture.
Diarmaid MacCulloch reviews a new book by Karen Armstrong in The axis of goodness.
The same book is also reviewed today in the Independent by Peter Stanford.
Stephen Plant writes in The Times Credo column Let all churches enjoy the feedom to teach.
There is also an extract from the new book by Edward Stourton in From the Cold War to the Council: the making of a Polish Pope and this sidebar.
Christopher Howse write in the Telegraph about the new winner of the Templeton prize, John Barrow in Space means not dread but life.
1 CommentFrom The Times:
The Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali talks to Michael Binyon about Muslim and Christian relations Missionary faiths need reciprocity and detente.
Roderick Strange writes the Credo column, Temptation offers short cuts to happiness, but it is actually corroding us.
In the Guardian Fred Sedgwick writes the Face to Faith column: If we pray with brutal honesty, we might find God, and the ‘acute peace beyond the unendurable’.
Also Karen Armstrong writes a column that argues: We can defuse this tension between competing conceptions of the sacred.
Christopher Howse in his Telegraph column retells the story of Sexual politics at Lake Malawi, quoting from the Church Times.
0 CommentsGiles 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 Comments