The Tablet has an appreciation of Brother Roger by Alain Woodrow A man of peace cut down.
In the Telegraph Charles Moore thinks that Westminster Abbey was right to reject Hollywood’s 30 pieces of silver, while Christopher Howse discusses government attitudes to religion in A game that the Romans played, and a leader column discusses The Pope’s duty.
Dwight Longenecker writes in The Times about Roman Catholics in the USA: Roman road leads South to a brighter future.
More interesting than today’s godslot on Bible translation was the Guardian’s report yesterday Call to end state’s link with church. More about this is at the Fabian Society’s website, and the full article is Religion and the British state: a new settlement. Earlier in the week, Giles Fraser had written The idolatry of holy books which explores the parallels between Islam and the Christian reformers. He concludes:
For there can be few more chilling examples of theocratic fascism than Calvin’s Geneva. In toppling the authority of the clergy, he made it the responsibility of the civil magistrates to enforce the word of God. Spon, in his History of Geneva, writes: “In the year 1560, a citizen [of Geneva], having been condemned to the lash by the small council, for the crime of adultery, appealed from its sentence to the Two Hundred. His case was reconsidered, and the council, knowing that he had before committed the offence, and been against caught therein, condemned him to death, to the great astonishment of the criminal.” Elsewhere, Picot observes, “There were children publicly scourged, and hung, for having called their mother she-devil and thief. When the child had not attained the age of reason, they hung him by the armpits, to manifest that he deserved death.” Quite clearly, the fear that western liberals have of sharia law can hardly be appeased with reference to a reformed polity.
Rushdie’s suggestion that a reformed Islam might find a way beyond the besetting sins of anti-semitism, sexism and homophobia is also, alas, unlikely. Luther himself was famously and virulently anti-semitic. The Reformation did little for women, and the place to find the most neanderthal religious homophobia in Britain today is in an organisation called Reform. Until the Reformation finishes its work and trains its powerful commitment to iconoclasm on the sources of its own prejudice it will hardly be a model to hold up for other religious traditions to follow.
One of the most interesting articles this week is in the Church of England Newspaper: The hidden Bible – Mark Ireland asks why evangelists are neglecting the Bible. This reveals that:
One of the strange rules of thumb I’ve discovered, visiting many churches in my role as a diocesan missioner, is that the more evangelical the church is, the fewer verses of the Bible you are likely to hear read in worship. When I go to a church in the central or liberal tradition, I will always encounter two Bible readings. When I go to one of the catholic parishes in the diocese, I will usually hear four pieces of Scripture read – Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament and Gospel – with the words printed out on the service sheet for the people to follow. However, when I visit an evangelical parish, I will usually hear only one passage of the Bible.
And finally, the Financial Times reports on what happened when Jonathan Miller visited St Mary’s Primrose Hill: True disbeliever.
12 CommentsChristopher Howse writes in the Telegraph on the Foundations of fundamentalism
… ‘Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide.” Such a judgment would be unremarkable in the letters page of the Independent, perhaps. It is more surprising in a document for which Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was responsible before he was elected as Pope Benedict XVI…
In The Times Roderick Strange writes that Our understanding of Mary no longer need divide the Christian creeds
Ian Bradley writes in the Guardian about the British TV programme Songs of Praise, Praise, my soul, the king of heaven
The Independent may no longer have a godslot, but Andrew Buncombe reports on a visit to Lakewood Church in Houston: Jesus Inc. Welcome to the world’s biggest church
Philip Crispin writes in the Tablet about Faith’s French revolution which will sound rather familiar to English Anglicans
With the number of priests in steep decline, the laity is keeping the Catholic church alive in rural France. It’s a dramatic transformation borne of necessity…
A week ago, the Church Times carried this article by Kenneth Leech, Beware the bureaucrats. Here’s how it starts:
NEARLY ten years ago, an article by the then Bishop of Chichester, Dr Eric Kemp, “Following the example of Mammon”, appeared in the Church Times (17 November 1995). It warned about the centralisation of power in the Church of England, and the danger that archbishops would come to be seen as managing directors.
The following day, Professor Richard Roberts, writing in The Independent, described Archbishop Carey as “the John Birt of the Church of England”, and the Church as a managed, product-driven organisation.
These words still haunt me. They seem to confirm my worst fears about the Church. I am not attacking central institutions, or even bureaucrats as such, but questioning where our priorities should lie.
And an earlier article in Christianity Today by Doug LeBlanc about Peter Akinola, entitled Out of Africa
0 CommentsFor the weekend:
Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times about the CofE bishops and civil partnerships, Why you need love and more
Paul Oestreicher writes in the Guardian about The message of Hiroshima
George Coyne the Vatican’s chief astronomer writes in the Tablet about evolution in God’s chance creation
In The Times Jonathan Sacks has a column entitled ‘A clock seems to tick in the history of religions, sending crisis’
Damian Thompson writes in the Telegraph about Ancient fantasies that infect the internet and inspire suicide bombers and Christopher Howse has Christianity’s top 10 ideas
4 CommentsThree related items:
Christopher Howse in the Telegraph asks Who are the ummah?
Oliver McTernan in the Guardian discusses The textual analysis of terrorism
And from Fulcrum Graham Kings writes London Bombings:Warnings and Support
In The Times Geoffrey Rowell writes that The truth of Christian faith prevails in even our most faltering words
Also in The Times, an article by Nick Wyke on the Cammino di San Francesco (the URL within the article is wrongly spelled)
7 CommentsFrom The Times
Christian conservatives find a common crusade by Gordon Urquhart
We must continue in joy and hope — astonishingly optimistic or not by John Wilkins
From the Guardian
Fundamentally speaking by Giles Fraser
From the Telegraph
Islam: cut out and keep by Christopher Howse
From Fulcrum
General Synod Reflections July 2005 by Francis Bridger
From the Church Times
Feelings, nothing more than feelings? by Giles Fraser
From the Tablet
Islam’s ‘heart of darkness’ by Abdal Hakim Murad
Tom Wright writes in the Guardian on a Reason to be cheerful. This is mainly about the General Synod debate on women bishops, and what was wrong with it.
…Much of our contemporary discourse – I sat through two days of general synod a week ago – has degenerated into a competition between the relative woundedness of people’s feelings. I am not saying that wounded feelings do not matter, only that saying “I’m more hurt than you are” cannot settle an argument on a point of principle. Unfortunately, since victimhood is the only high moral ground left after the collapse of reasoned discourse, speeches become harangues, name-calling replaces respectful engagement and party spirit trumps public wisdom.
Not for the first time, the Church of England has copied the surrounding culture, greatly to its disadvantage. True, “reason” is sometimes overemphasised. Like “clarity”, it needs something to work on; in Christian thinking, scripture and tradition. But you would have thought we could at least apply it to our own documents.
Last week’s debate about women bishops mostly consisted of people making passionate speeches on a question that was not on the order paper. The official question was about a way of proceeding, not about whether we approved of women bishops. If people had wanted to debate that, they should have amended the motion…
Roderick Strange writes in The Times, Pray within your own solitude – however noisy it is
Also in The Times Jonathan Romain writes about The silliness and brilliance of religion on the box.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about Jews, Christians and Muslims.
6 CommentsTheo Hobson writes in the Guardian about A carnival of Christianity
The dominant trend of contemporary Christian theology might be called ecclesiastical fundamentalism. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is the conceptual primacy of “church”. Postmodern theology explains that this religion is not an abstract system but a set of actual practices, performed (a crucial word) by various churches. Such is the current theological orthodoxy.
This evades the crisis at the heart of “church”. All forms of church define a Christian as one who belongs to this special society. In practice, that means accepting the authority of a particular institution. An institution must have rules; it must promote an orthodoxy and exclude people who want to think or behave differently. The problem is that Christianity is about a vision of total peace, of universal brother- and sisterhood. It is meant to oppose authoritarianism, legalism and exclusion. Was not the kingdom of God announced by Jesus betrayed by authoritarian institutions?…
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about Pottering round old churches
Jonathan Sacks writes in The Times on the London bombings, Terrorism dishonours any cause which it claims to represent
Johann Hari wrote this, originally in the Independent but now available on his blog, The attacks on London – and the battles to come
9 CommentsJudith Maltby writes in the Guardian today about the need for women bishops in the Church of England, Time for bishop’s move. She concludes:
The debate on women bishops is not, at its heart, a matter of internal governance, but about what sort of sign the Church of England wants to be to the world. How can a church which continues to bury the talents, which have been freely given to it, stand as a sign to our neighbours of God’s bounty? Will we put our trust in our “achievements” or in God’s scandalous generosity?
The talents have been given to the church by an open-handed God – a God who, contrary to our way of thinking, knows that the more grace you give away, the more there is. One hopes that, in York, the Church of England will resist the temptation to break out the shovels.
Geoffrey Rowell, who has written elsewhere this week on women bishops, write in The Times about Cassian, in Chastity of mind is the bridle of our rampaging desires. This includes the following passage:
As desiring animals we human beings are curious to know, and the old Genesis story of the fall of Adam tells how forbidden knowledge led to expulsion from the garden of innocence. It is the story of the growing up of all of us, and equally a recognition that knowledge has power for good and evil. There is promiscuous knowing as well as promiscuous relationships.
The explosion of information technology, the unfettered and unregulated “knowledge” that the internet offers, demands of us ascetic disciplines, of a piece with ancient spiritual wisdom though having new applications. To be overwhelmed by tsunamis of emails, to communicate simply at the touch of a button just because it is possible, is a modern form of unrestrained desire. We need to learn a chastity of communication, a disciplined and loving sensitivity, in this area as in many others.
Newman and the leaders of the Oxford Movement emphasised the importance of “reserve” in communication. Mystery is destroyed by over-definition, and no less through salvation by slogans. God reveals himself gradually, and the wisdom of God can only be learnt by patient pilgrimage. To know another person we have to learn to attend, to listen and to receive. So it is with the God in whose image we are made.
In the Telegraph Christopher Howse has been reading this article in the Church Times and so writes his column on The vicars who sacrifice goats
Two fascinating items from the USA:
A recent New Yorker article profiling Patrick Henry College in Virginia, GOD AND COUNTRY by Hanna Rosin, plus some helpful links from Doug LeBlanc including an Independent report.
A column that first appeared in the New York Times by John C Danforth Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers.
1 CommentThe Guardian has a godslot column today by Richard Harries Jaw jaw on just war. It also has a column by Mark Lawson titled One miracle too many and subtitled The US is a theocracy suffering from galloping spiritual inflation.
The New York Times recently carried a major article What’s Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage?
Margaret Atkins writes the Credo column in The Times under the heading Beware the sword of rash judgment cuts both ways
In the Telegraph Christopher Howse’s column is Pegging out love’s laundry
The CEN has an interview of John Sentamu by Jonathan Wynne-Jones in two parts, here and here
14 CommentsRichard Chartres writes in The Times about church finances. In Church coffers are half full, not half empty he writes in part:
ALL Barchester has been roused by reports that a cash crisis in the Church of England could lead to a cut in clergy numbers by up to a third, with worshippers being directed to meet in one another’s homes. This doomsday scenario is mistaken, but despite Archdeacon Grantly’s derisive snorts, it is good to have a serious debate about the present state of the Church of England…
…The report which gave rise to the initial press reaction will be discussed by the General Synod next month. Its main thrust is that “the key challenge facing the Church is not financial but the need for it to develop a more dynamic mission emphasis”. This is the point on which we need the real debate to be focused.
The inhibiting factors have to be faced. One is the way the Church does its business, with the postwar explosion of boards, synods, councils and committees, all involved in a carousel of consultation,. John Sentamu, the new Archbishop of York, as Primate of England is just the right person to tackle this plate of spaghetti. His appointment is very good news…
Over in the Guardian Jane Shaw writes about the Anglican Communion in Rival bids for the Anglican franchise, and she concludes her column with:
…There is a new set of alignments, in which people want to be with other people who read the Bible like them more than they want to unite with all other Anglicans. These alignments cross national boundaries. We might call this the confessional versus the communion.
The bullying behaviour of those united in an alignment to oppose the North American decisions suggests that they have no interest in the integrity of the communion unless we all think like them.
The Windsor report, the 2004 document meant to sort out the divisions within the communion, attempts to do that by changing the nature of the communion. We need to be clear about that. We will go from being a “fairly loose federation of kindred spirits, often grateful for mutual fellowship but with each province reserving the right to make its own decisions”, as church historian Henry Chadwick described the communion in 1993, to one in which, as the report says “no province, diocese or parish has the right to introduce a novelty”.
Local differences, or dispersed authority as we understand it in Anglican terms, will have no place in this more authoritarian global structure. Someone’s version of Anglicanism will prevail, but whose? Who will own the Anglican franchise?
Christopher Howse in the Telegraph discusses Prayer and God’s rescue plan
6 CommentsAlex Wright, who is religion editor at IB Tauris has written in the Guardian godslot about Landscapes of the spirit
Christopher Howse in the Telegraph writes this week on Crying out for vengeance
In The Times Jonathan Sacks, who has today been knighted, writes about volunteering in Lifting others, we ourselves are lifted
This month in Harper’s Magazine Jeff Sharlet has a major article: Inside America’s most powerful megachurch. This was discussed in last week’s Church Times Press column by Andrew Brown in Where they queue to get in
Pastor Ted has been getting a lot of publicity lately in the USA, follow the links from The Church of No Questions
There’s a second article in that same Harper’s issue, Feeling the hate with the National Religious Broadcasters
5 CommentsThe process of inculturation in southern Africa has led some priests to introduce animal slaughter. Michael Bleby reports in Bringing new blood into church
There was also a related news story by Bill Bowder, Blood used to welcome ancestors
For many unmarried couples, christening of their children is a substitute for another service, Alan Billings finds in Why baptism parties are getting bigger
Boycotting Israel, especially its universities,would not have helped anyone, argues Ed Kessler in Sense triumphs in boycott row
1 CommentMike Russell, the Rector of All Souls Episcopal Church, San Diego, California, recently wrote the following short essay to explain why section B4 of the Windsor Report does not reflect the classic Anglican position on the authority of Scripture, which is to say the position of Richard Hooker.
Reproduced with Mike’s permission
For his credentials on Hooker see here
Another essay in the same vein is here
John Wilkins a former editor of the Tablet writes in The Times about the former editor of America in Full symphony of voices needs to be heard
Over at the Telegraph regular columnist Christopher Howse writes about FD Maurice in Moonshine and Spitzfindigkeit (another article occasioned by this same biography was in the Church Times recently)
In the Tablet Isabel de Bertodano interviews Cardinal Rodríguez of Honduras in Africa’s Latin champion
Both the Church Times and the Tablet have editorial opinions on the French vote against the European constitutional treaty:
Church Times Why the French voted no
Tablet Europe must go back to basics
and for good measure Giles Fraser added ‘Non’ also to Anglican bureaucracy in his op-ed column in the Church Times
0 CommentsRobin Gill wrote about human embryo cloning in Knowing the facts of life. He is Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology at the University of Kent.
Another feature article was Understanding Akinola by Canon Dr Stephen Fagbemi who is Honorary Curate of Murston with Bapchild and Tonge, in the diocese of Canterbury.
Addendum: The Nigerian Vision Statement mentioned is here (hat tip to KB)
Theo Hobson’s new book ANARCHY, CHURCH AND UTOPIA: Rowan Williams on church was reviewed by David Martin.
And edited extracts of the recent Fulcrum talks by Tom Wright and Jane Williams were printed. Full versions still available here
6 CommentsLast weekend, Trinity Sunday, Geoffrey Rowell wrote for The Times
Divine love may prosper in our daily chores
During the week, AKM Adam, who teaches at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary near Chicago, wrote this:
Truth, Error, and Varieties of Dissent
Subtitled Is it even possible to err, theologically? How would we know?, it has provoked interesting comments, both on his own blog and at titusonenine
Some earlier posts by AKMA on current Anglican disputes are also of interest:
Things To Come and a follow-up Still Working On It
More recently, Power and Powerlessness of Stories
In another vein completely, Jonny Baker recently wrote is it possible to get a church of england diocese to change? which discusses change in the Diocese of Lichfield.
0 CommentsLast week there was a major feature on FD Maurice ‘He was an inspiration for social witness’ by Jeremy Morris.
There was also this substantial extract from Mary:Grace and hope in Christ and this article Why there’s nothing to fear about Mary by Nicholas Sagovsky. (He also wrote that week on the same topic in the Tablet).
The previous week, there was a major article by Nicholas Holtam Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London about his parish church: Looking beyond the church. (This was an edited extract from this year’s Eric Abbott memorial lecture.)
Another feature that week concerned the cleaning of St Paul’s Cathedral: St Paul’s — how clean is this house?
0 CommentsThis weekend, there is no shortage of columns expressing Anglican views on the recently published ARCIC statement:
Peter Carnley preached this sermon in Seattle at the launch of the statement
Harriet Harris, chaplain of Wadham College, Oxford wrote this analysis in the Church of England Newspaper
Nicholas Sagovsky, Canon of Westminster, and commission member wrote this article in the Tablet
And the Church Times opinion was expressed in this leader
From the Roman Catholic side:
John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter interviewed Archbishop Brunett
Sarah Jane Boss of the University of Wales, Lampeter, wrote this article in the Tablet
And the editorial opinion of the Tablet is here
Christopher Howse in the Telegraph writes about Corpus Christi processions in England in Stepping on sweet herbs.
Roderick Strange writes about Pentecost in Fire of the spirit enlivens and forges bonds. Also in The Times Nick Wyke writes about Christian Aid Week in The collectors who believe in life before death.
Obituaries of Hugh Montefiore are in all the newspapers:
The Times
Telegraph
Guardian
Elsewhere, this lengthy (40 page)article, A Personal View of Anglican Uniatism, available only as PDF file, by Aidan Nichols, has attracted some attention.
Mark Harris has written for the Witness about moratoria, in Roses among the Thorns: The African Anglican Bishops’ Communiqué.
1 CommentChristopher Howse reviews a book by Rowan Williams: A life story to die for. The title of the book is Why Study the Past?
Jane Williams gave a presentation to the Fulcrum conference, and the full text is available: The Holy Spirit in the World. The CEN wrote about it Fulcrum hears plea for unity:
A passionate plea for Christian unity against the background of the crisis in the Anglican Communion, was made by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s wife, Jane Williams, at an evangelical conference last weekend…
The other speaker at the conference was Tom Wright whose presentation is also online: The Holy Spirit in the Church.
In The Times there is an article by Gordon Urquhart All aboard the lean, clean, missionary machine which discusses the relationship of the new pope to movements such as Opus Dei and the Neocatechumenate.
Pope Benedict is one of the staunchest supporters of the so-called “new movements”, the fundamentalist, traditionalist groups which began in southern Europe and grew exponentially in the second half of the 20th century, particularly during the reign of John Paul II — Opus Dei, Focolare, Communion and Liberation (CL), the Neocatechumenate (NC), Charismatic Renewal and others…
A column published earlier by two William Temple experts Alan Suggate and Wendy Dackson on the Via Media Dallas website: A Letter to Archbishop Rowan Williams.
And, Sarah Dylan Breuer’s notes of Diocesan Convention: Roger Ferlo’s first keynote and Roger Ferlo: second keynote:
0 CommentsThe official topic of this talk is “The Authority of Scripture”, but the unofficial title of this talk is “The Bible: Who knows what it means?” Who has the authority to interpret scripture, and who holds interpreters accountable? And why does it matter so much? What makes this text different from all other texts, that we spend so much time pondering questions like, “who knows what it means?” Who cares what it means, and why?