Tomorrow the House of Commons begins debating the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, an updated version of the current legislation which became law in 1990.
See Embryology Bill: the key points at the BBC.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has written in the Mail on Sunday about the issues involved, see We condemn torture, rape - anything that uses another’s body for our own purpose - Shouldn’t we show embryos similar respect?
Update The same Daily Mail text is now on the Lambeth Palace site as well.
Here is the earlier TA report on what was said when the House of Lords considered this bill.
Rather surprisingly, the Medical Research Council is discouraging scientists from attending Parliament, see BBC Scientists’ protest discouraged.
Updated again Friday evening
A body called Christian Research has made a number of claims that have been reported by newspapers:
The Times Ruth Gledhill Churchgoing on its knees as Christianity falls out of favour and also commentary at God-shaped hole will lead to loss of national sense of identity.
Daily Telegraph George Pitcher Practising Muslims ‘will outnumber Christians by 2035’
Daily Mail Ben Clerkin ‘More practising Muslims than Christians in Britain by 2035’
But are these claims true? And why are quotation marks used in the headlines?
The Church of England issued a statement Latest Religious Trends publication ‘flawed and dangerously misleading’. This says:
…Across Christian denominations and other faiths, the research does not compare like with like. The number of active Muslims, for example, is an estimated projection based on halving the number of people who said they were Muslim at the last national government census in 2001. The same process for those who said they were Christian at the last census would yield about 20 million active Christians of whom around 14 million are active Anglicans (based on recent national surveys).
Instead, this research estimates Christian ‘membership’ using, for example, the number of adults on the Church of England’s local parish based formal voting lists as the sole measure of its active ‘members’. Huge numbers of people worshipping every week and involved in their churches in all sorts of other ways are consequently missed…
David Keen has a blog post Why Christian Research is Wrong and Dave Walker has more at Is the church in decline?
Update Thursday evening
Andrew Brown has published an article on Comment is free titled Prayers for the fearful in which he criticises this research:
…These extrapolations are all based on present trends continuing, which tells us that they are certainly wrong. It is an absolutely safe bet that society will have changed drastically in the next 40 years and in ways that we can’t foresee. Present trends will not continue. They may get worse, of course, for Christianity, but I doubt it.
The real lesson of these figures is not that the Church of England may cease to exist, or even that Islam is on the rise. It is that religion does not exist as a distinct mode of thought or existence. Religious allegiance is not a matter of theology; it’s not even, really, a matter of spirituality.
What really drives it is its function of ritualising and dramatising moral values and stories about society. This means that any church, any mosque, and so on, serves as a focus for a particular community and is embedded with all sort of extra-religious cultural assumptions and practices. If the community disappears, so does the church. The community will disappear when it no longer has an economic or political function and when the cost of membership seems to exceed the benefits…
And now, the author of the original research is disputing the Ruth Gledhill article:
The Times has ran a double page feature from Ruth Gledhill on declining church attendance, and compares it to the rising number of Muslims and Hindus attending worship. Benita Hewitt is the new director of Christian Research Association, whose Religious Trends have been quoted, describes the article as very misleading. Church attendance once a week is compared to mosque attendance once a year, and no allowance has been made for once a month, once a year, midweek and FX church attendance…
Update Friday morning
David Keen has drawn attention in the comments to this sample article featured in the March 2008 issue of Quadrant, which contains data that doesn’t match the newspaper reports. See David’s own blog article about this here.
Update Friday evening
Ruth Gledhill has posted Latest religious trends which includes two tables taken from the report (click on the tables to enlarge them). See also the comments to this blog article for more information.
Letters to The Times can be found here.
Dave Walker has obtained more comment from Benita Hewitt which is available here.
Last week, the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered a lecture at the London School of Economics. The title was Religious faith and human rights.
You can read the full text of the lecture here.
Natalie Hanman has written at Comment is free about this lecture. Her article is titled Cross purposes. In the article she asks which comes first: gender equality before the law, or religious liberty?
This article also explains about the current UK legislation imposing a “public sector equality duty” and the proposals to extend this duty into more areas.
Theo Hobson wrote on Comment is free that
Church reformers must come to terms with the fact that it is a fundamentally reactionary institution…
Read O thou great irredeemable.
Andrew Brown wrote on helmintholog a piece unhelpfully titled Anglican Anorak post. It is in fact a discussion of the Manchester report including this:
The real story is that the ordination of women priests was bought on credit, and the church can’t ever pay down more than the interest on the bill. When women priests were ordained, the Church of England was only held together, to the extent that it was, by both sides making solemn promises that they didn’t believe they would ever be called on and had no real intention of delivering. In particular, the supporters of women priests solemnly promised that there would always be an honoured place for their opponents within the church, even though they thought of the arrangements as entirely transitional; in return the opponents solemnly declared that women priests were legally and validly priests, even though they did not believe this could possibly be true. They still don’t.
Two articles by Pat Ashworth in today’s Church Times set out to explain what the Manchester report really says. See
Women bishops: choose path you want, says group
Manchester report: the conclusions summarised
Updated again Friday evening
The Lead has published Williams won’t allow Robinson to function as priest in England in which it is said that:
…the Archbishop of Canterbury has refused to grant Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the right to preach or preside at the eucharist in England. Robinson received the news in an email yesterday morning.
Sources familiar with the email say Williams cites the Windsor Report and recent statements from the Primates Meeting in refusing to grant Robinson permission to exercise his priestly functions during his current trip to England, or during the trip he plans during the Lambeth Conference in July and August…
In the Church of England, the legal position on preaching is not the same as the position on “exercising priestly functions” and it appears that an overseas bishop would not necessarily need permission from anybody but the incumbent of the parish in order to simply preach there.
Nevertheless Bishop Robinson is respecting the wishes of the archbishop and is declining all invitations to preach in England.
Such respect is not to be found everywhere. The Lead continues:
Sources familiar with the email, which came to Robinson through a Lambeth official, say Williams believes that giving Robinson permission to preach and preside at the Eucharist would be construed as an acceptance of the ministry of a controversial figure within the Communion.
Williams has not denied permission to preach and preside to Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who gave his support to a failed legislative attempt to limit the rights of Nigerian gays and their supporters to speak, assemble and worship God collectively. Akinola has yet to respond to an Atlantic magazine article which suggests he may have had prior knowledge of plans for retributive violence against Muslims in his country that resulted in the massacre of more than 650 people in Yelwa, Nigeria.
Williams has not denied permission to preach and preside to Bishop Bernard Malango, the retired primate of Central Africa and one of the authors of the Windsor Report. Malango dismissed without reason the ecclesiastical court convened to try pro-Mugabe Bishop Nolbert Kunonga for incitement to murder and other charges.
Williams has not denied permission to preach and preside to Bishop Gregory Venables, primate of the Southern Cone, who has now claimed as his own, churches in three others provinces in the Anglican Communion (Brazil, Canada and the United States). Nor has he denied permission to preach and preside to Archbishops Henry Orombi of Uganda, Emanuel Kolini of Rwanda, or Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, all of whom have ignored the Windsor Report’s plea not to claim churches within other provinces of the Communion.
Ruth Gledhill has elaborated on the “banning” question in Bishop Gene ‘banned’.
The Living Church has an article about this also, No Pulpit Ban for Bishop Robinson by George Conger.
Episcopal Café has a quibble about this.
The Guardian had an item about it also, see here.
The Bishop of New Hampshire is currently in England for the UK launch of his book, In the Eye of the Storm.
There has been extensive press and broadcast coverage:
BBC Williams criticised by gay bishop
The Hardtalk interview can be viewed here but only for a week after transmission date.
He was also interviewed on the Sunday radio programme:
Gene Robinson
The issue of homosexuality continues to tear the Anglican Communion apart in the build-up to the 2008 Lambeth Conference. In June the conservatives who oppose the ordination of gay priests will meet in Jerusalem, in what some see as an alternative conference. Many of these will refuse to go on to Canterbury for the main meeting in July.Meanwhile the gay Bishop, Gene Robinson, whose consecration brought this dispute to a head, shows no sign of backing out of the limelight. His latest book In the Eye of the Storm is published this week by the Canterbury Press. He explained why he wrote it.
Listen here (7 minutes).
Guardian Riazat Butt Williams disappoints God in not taking a stand, says gay bishop
The Times Gay rites; New Hampshire’s Bishop Gene Robinson is about to enter into a civil union
Daily Telegraph Gene Robinson: ‘It is a sin to treat me this way’
And the Church Times blog is following the story, here, and again in Can Lambeth bar Gene Robinson from preaching in England?
Bishop Robinson did speak in London, in a church, in 2005. It caused a fuss then, see here. And was reported fully in the Church Times as shown here.
About the book:
Read the preface by Desmond Tutu here.
Read three quotes printed on the back cover here.
In the Daily Telegraph George Pitcher has written an article headlined Rowan Williams will not be driven out of office which is in fact about the Manchester report. It also rather debunks most earlier reports. (And it is not written by the newly appointed religion specialist.)
…As ever, the truth is somewhat different. Deeply considered (and, I might say, deeply boring) documentation has been published at Church House, morsels are torn from its body and partially digested, and those with corners to fight duly back into them, barking.
The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, as chair of the numbingly named Legislative Drafting Group, has offered up a typically chewy tome.
In it, far from proposing a church like a Victorian playground, with gates marked in stone for Boys and Girls, he offers three approaches to the introduction of women bishops: a simple change in the law with no alternative arrangements for those who demur; legislation that would make some special arrangements for those “unable to receive the ministry of women bishops”; and, finally, legislation that would create structures for these conscientious objectors.
The group is at pains to say that it’s not offering a recommendation, but analysing the pros and cons of each approach.
To infer from this that the church is set to split itself along gender lines is, at best, ambitious. But what is important is the difference between what is said in this report, which is dull, and what is perceived to have been said…
The Times has some letters.
Updated again Tuesday morning
The Report of the Women Bishops Legislative Drafting Group is now available online.
Unfortunately, it is provided only as a series of separate, mostly .doc files. Perhaps the situation will improve later.
Update on this
An html copy of Chapters 1 to 6 can now be found here.
And Annex G the spreadsheet containing the January 2008 count of “Resolutions parishes” can be found here.
There is a press release which summarises the report, which can be found at Women in the Episcopate – Manchester Report published.
First reaction to this from Forward in Faith UK is here. Second reaction is here.
First reaction from WATCH is here.
First press reports:
Press Association Church faces ‘serious decisions’ on women bishops
Associated Press Church of England panel calls for decision on structures for including women as bishops
Daily Mail Church of England delays consecration of first woman bishop by four years
The Times Report sets out roadmap for women bishops and later ‘Gender havens’ to avert split in Church
Daily Telegraph Church plans ‘men only’ breakaway dioceses
The Archbishop of Canterbury appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Today before giving a speech in the House of Lords.
The Lambeth Palace website has:
Interview with Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme on credit, debt & inequality including a full transcript and an audio recording of the interview with John Humphrys.
Archbishop - Protect the Poorest From the Effects of Economic Downturn a press release about the House of Lords speech.
Two items on this today in the Church Times, both by Pat Ashworth:
A detailed report of the Trumpington case is headlined Ambrose caused parish breakdown, says tribunal.
And there is a preview of the guidelines on bullying that are to be published soon by the Archbishops’ Council, Parish guidelines aim to end bullying.
Elsewhere Alan Wilson has written a highly informative article on his blog at Bully pulpit — On baiting of the Clergy. (The comments there are also interesting.)
Lord Harries of Pentregarth, aka Richard Harries, former Bishop of Oxford had a discussion with Simon Jenkins in the Guardian last weekend, see Atheist versus Bishop.
As religious objections to the embryology bill mark the latest skirmish between faith and reason, Simon Jenkins and Richard Harries confront their differences head-on.
Several press reports from North-East England about this:
Northern Echo Bishop’s warning over threat of BNP
Newcastle Journal Bishop joins fight against nationalists
Sunderland Echo Bishop warns people ‘giving up hope’ by voting BNP
Northumberland Gazette BNP voters disaffected with main parties - Bishop
Here is the full text of the email that Tom Wright sent to his clergy:
13 April 2008
Subject: Local elections and BNP from Bishop Tom
Dear FriendsWith local elections coming up, we face again the unwelcome news of the BNP making potential inroads in our region. Splendid work has been done to counter this by several clergy working with local community leaders, for instance in distributing the pamphlet, ‘Hope Not Hate’. I want to urge all of you to get involved in this effort in whatever local sphere you can.
However, we should also be aware that the reason the BNP can even gain a foothold in people’s affections is because many people in our region feel so disaffected after the last thirty years of national politics that they are in danger of giving up hope in our regular main parties. This isn’t anybody’s fault in particular. But when a party like the BNP seems to be gaining ground we should all ask the question, Why is there a vacuum there that the other parties aren’t filling? What frustrations are there that the BNP are exploiting, and what are the wise ways of reacting to, or even meeting, those needs?
It is one thing to point out, as many have already done, the neo-Nazi tendencies of the BNP, and to warn with a shudder against our society even taking a small step in any such direction. It is another to say, How can we drain the swamp so that this kind of ideology won’t breed again?
None of us (in other words) can be complacent. Opposing the BNP isn’t simply a matter of saying ‘the status quo is working fine, so please reject these idiots’. It should be a matter of saying, What does a healthy society look like and how can we make it clear to our whole population that we are working in the best ways towards that goal? Part of the calling of the churches, following Jesus in his work of bringing God’s kingdom, must be to help communities ask that question and to work with them towards finding robust and positive answers.
Warm greetings and good wishes,
Bishop Tom
The Bishop of Durham, Auckland Castle.
The BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme carried an item with this title.
Parish bullies
Earlier this week the Rev Tom Ambrose, Vicar of St Mary and St Michael Church at Trumpington, was ordered to leave his post by the Bishop of Ely. The Bishop wrote “I am astonished and dismayed that there are two recorded occasions on which it is said that Dr Ambrose spat at parishioners, allegations which were not challenged in cross examination”.But, according to the General Secretary of the trade union Unite, Rachel Maskell, it is often clergy who are being victimised by their parishioners, and she claims that the church, its structures and its Bishops don’t help their priests. Rachel Maskell joined Sunday along with one of those Bishops, John Packer, Bishop of Leeds and Ripon, who chairs the committee of the Archbishops’ Council which deals with clergy conditions of service.
See also these media reports:
BBC Clergy ‘bullied by parishioners’
Religious Intelligence Trade Union claims parishioners are bullying clergy
Independent Union accuses bishops of failing to help bullied vicars and a leading article: Unholy rows
Cambridge Evening News Vicar backs attack on ‘disloyal’ bishops
Here are some links to earlier articles on this topic:
December 2006 Ruth Gledhill Evil-minded parishioners making life hell for clergy
February 2007 Rachel Harden What price priesthood?
May 2007 Ruth Gledhill The parishioners who won’t spend a penny
The Cambridge Evening News reported this week:
Vicar of Trumpington ordered to leave parish and
I’ll see you in court, axed vicar tells bishop and
Opponents of ‘spitting vicar’ glad he’s going.
The Diocese of Ely published the following items:
Press Release 9 April The Parish of Trumpington
Report of the Tribunal (PDF) December 2007
Reasons for the Decision of the Bishop (PDF) April 2008
In June 2007 the Bishop of Ely had made this statement to the Diocesan Synod.
And this press release was issued in January 2008: Trumpington Tribunal.
Affirming Catholicism has issued this press release:
10/04/08 – for immediate release
Vote on women bishops in Church in Wales exposes a key issue for the Church of England too.
Affirming Catholicism shares the disappointment of most members of the Church in Wales that the move to ordain women as bishops did not receive a large enough majority to be passed. We regret that the God-given gifts that women have to offer as bishops for the Church in Wales continue to be refused.
Hendrik Haye, convenor of Affirming Catholicism South Wales, said: ‘Although we are saddened by the result, we are glad that there was no compromise on the principle that women bishops must be accepted on exactly the same terms as men’.
Rev’d Jonathan Clark, a member of the General Synod of the Church of England and of Affirming Catholicism’s Board, said: ‘We believe that the church can and should include, as it does now, people who disagree about this issue. But the debate in the Church in Wales has highlighted the problem also facing the Church of England: some members don’t believe their own church has the right to make decisions about who will be ordained. The issue was fudged when women were ordained as priests: now it has come out into the open.’
The Church of England’s General Synod is expected to debate the ordination of women as bishops at its meeting in July.
• Affirming Catholicism is ‘a movement of inspiration and hope in the Anglican Communion, seeking to bring together and strengthen lay and ordained people who recognize the positive, inclusive and joyful currents in the Catholic tradition of Christianity.’
Simon Barrow wrote this article for the Wardman Wire: Flexing the Faith Muscle: Thinking Aloud. In it he looks at the style and tenor of church engagement with public life and the realm of politics - arguing that flexing the faith muscle in an overbearing way ends up being profoundly counter-productive.
Mary Warnock who among other things is a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s advisory group on medical ethics, wrote an article for the New Statesman which has been titled The politics of religion. In this she argues that religious belief is no basis for law-making.
The New Statesman carries a major article by Sholto Byrnes which has been given this title: ”Jesus will appear again as judge of the world and the dead will be raised”. The magazine introduces the article this way:
Tom Wright’s literal belief in the Resurrection makes him a hero to conservative Christians worldwide. Here he declares war on militant atheists and liberals, and explains why heaven is not the end of the world.
Accompanying this is a background article on Christianity in Britain by Stephen Bates and published under the title Fundamental change:
Both politically and theologically, conservative Christianity is now a militant and rapidly growing force, in Britain and globally.
A previous article linked to a page which linked to the transcripts of three lectures given by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Westminster Abbey.
The Lambeth Palace website has now also published transcripts of the Question and Answer sessions which followed each lecture.
Faith and Science Questions & Answers Session
Faith & Politics Questions & Answers Session
Faith and History Questions & Answers Session
Canterbury Press cordially invite friends and supporters of Thinking Anglicans to ‘An Evening with Bishop Gene Robinson’
To celebrate publication of: ‘IN THE EYE OF THE STORM’ By Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire
on Tuesday 29th April 2008 at 7 p.m. prompt
at: St Mary’s Church, Putney High Street, London SW15 1SN
(next to the river at the southern end of Putney Bridge)
RSVP by Wednesday 16th April 2008 to
Michael Addison, Canterbury Press: Michael@scm-canterburypress.co.uk
Telephone 0207 776 7551.
Please note: If you wish to attend this reception it is essential that you reply so that your name may be placed on the guest list. Admission will be restricted to named individuals on the list.
Copies of the book will be on sale on the night and there will be an opportunity for signing.
If you are unable to attend, the book is available from all good bookshops or direct from the publisher on 01603 612914 or visit www.canterburypress.co.uk priced £12.99.
The Tablet has published an excellent article by Mary Seller who happens to be both a geneticist and an Anglican priest.
Legislators are trying to keep up with scientists who have found a way to make animal-human hybrid embryos for use in medical research. But is such use of animal and human material ethical? Here a leading geneticist and priest explains why she thinks scientists should indeed play God
Read Slipping on the slope of progress.
TA reported earlier on this dispute between a journalist and a bishop, here.
Tom Wright has now responded to David Aaronovitch here in The Times under the headline Euthanasia - a murky moral world.
As noted in an earlier comment, the full text of the original Wright quote which was under attack was this:
The irony is that this secular utopianism is based on a belief in an unstoppable human ability to make a better world, while at the same time it believes that we (it’s interesting to ask who ‘we’ might be at this point) have the right to kill unborn children and surplus old people, and to play games with the humanity of those in between.
The full text of three lectures given in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of Canterbury during Holy Week are now available online. Go to Archbishop gives Lent lectures at Westminster Abbey to find the links to the transcripts.
The lectures focused on the relationship between faith and science, faith and politics and faith and history and the implications each of these subjects has on the individual and society. Dr Williams introduced the lecture series saying, ‘I have given this series the title ‘A Question of Faith’. The faith about which I shall mostly be speaking is my own, which is Christianity. But I hope that there will be in the discussion some matters which are no less relevant to other faiths and their relationship to the twenty-first century, its culture and its problems’. Following each lecture there was an opportunity for the audience to submit their questions to the Archbishop and a selection covering the variety of themes were answered.
Updated Wednesday afternoon
Several newspapers report the remarks of a General Synod member for London diocese, Alison Ruoff.
The Church Times has a recent picture of her, available here.
The Times Ruth Gledhill ‘No more mosques’ says Synod member and Church of England Synod member’s call to ban the building of any new mosques
Daily Telegraph Jonathan Petre No more mosques, says senior Synod member
Daily Mail Steve Doughty Church leader calls for building of mosques to be banned because of risk ‘Britain will become an ‘Islamic state’
Daily Express Tom Whitehead ‘STOP BUILDING MOSQUES IN UK’
Sun Christian’s call to ban mosques
Only the Telegraph has comments from official church spokespersons:
The former magistrate, who was one of the strongest critics of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s speech on Islamic law earlier this year, added that sharia would be introduced into Britain “if we don’t watch out”.
Apart from being a Synod member, Mrs Ruoff, a conservative evangelical, also sits on the Bishop’s Council, which advises the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres.
Although her views are representative of a small minority on the Synod, and Church spokesmen moved quickly to isolate her yesterday, they may exacerbate tensions over the place of Muslims in society.
A spokesman for the Diocese of London said: “Mrs Ruoff’s comments are her own and do not reflect the views of the Diocese of London, which enjoys excellent inter-faith relations across the capital.”
A Church of England spokesman added: “These are her personal comments, speaking as an individual.” But senior Muslims had already reacted angrily to her comments, saying they were more typical of a member of the British National Party than the Anglican Church.
Mrs Ruoff, speaking in an interview with Premier Radio, the Christian radio station, said: “No more mosques in the UK. We are constantly building new mosques, which are paid for by the money that comes from oil states.
“We have only in this country, as far as we know, 3.5 to four million Muslims. There are enough mosques for Muslims in this country, they don’t need any more.
“We don’t need to have sharia law which would come with more mosques imposed upon our nation, if we don’t watch out, that would happen. If we want to become an Islamic state, this is the way to go.
“You build a mosque and then what happens?
“You have Muslim people moving into that area, all the shops will then become Islamic, all the housing will then become Islamic and as the Bishop of Rochester has so wisely pointed out, that will be a no go area for anyone else.
“They will bring in Islamic law. We cannot allow that to happen.”
Wednesday afternoon update
Inayat Bunglawala No more mosques?
I linked previously to David Aaronovitch’s criticism of the Bishop of Durham, who responded in an oddly snarky letter to the editor last Thursday.
Sir, I will happily respond to David Aaronovitch’s challenge (Comment, March 25) when he will answer me these questions.
First, does he think that there is any difference between humans and other animals, and does this difference matter? Secondly, what makes him think he can reduce the function of religion (which Jews, Christians and Muslims have traditionally seen as being about public truth) to the provision of “comfort and companionship”? Thirdly, where in St Paul’s letters to the Corinthians — or anywhere else for that matter — does the Apostle attack the “sinful mixing” which Mr Aaronovitch seems to think is the sole subject matter of Leviticus?
The Right Rev Tom Wright
Bishop of Durham
Today, David Aaronovitch replies to the bishop in Who wants to kill the elderly?
Last week, irked by what I saw as the use of wild exaggeration by church leaders in the embryology Bill debate, I challenged one of them - the Bishop of Durham - to justify one of his more outrageous claims. Tom Wright had accused the “militantly atheist and secularist lobby” behind the Bill (a Bill, as it happens, supported and sponsored by many practising Christians) of believing “that we have the right to kill unborn children and surplus old people.”
I didn’t choose to quarrel with Dr Wright’s characterisation of abortion. What I did ask for, however, was any evidence whatsoever that any significant secular or atheist body of opinion advocates “the right to kill surplus old people”.
Bishop Wright’s reply to my challenge, carried on Thursday’s letters page in The Times, was to refuse to reply to it until I had answered a further series of questions that he set for me. This is, of course, odd. A cynic might think that the Bishop was playing for time while a diocesan search squad parsed the texts of old Polly Toynbee columns looking for gerontocide.
So let me answer the Bishop’s questions…
Another primer on the science can be found at this NHS page, Embryology Bill controversy.
Meanwhile, the Press Association reports that Cardinal agrees stem cell meeting, and the full text of Cardinal O’Brien’s remarks can be found here.
The Independent on Sunday has a news report and a leader article about this.
First the news report:
Exclusive: right-wing Christian group pays for Commons researchers
An evangelical Christian charity leading opposition to new laws on embryo research is funding interns in MPs’ offices, an investigation by The Independent on Sunday has discovered.
Christian Action, Research and Education (Care) faces inquiries into its lobbying activities by the Charity Commission and the House of Commons standards watchdog after accessing Parliament at the highest levels.
Twelve research assistants sponsored by Care are Commons pass-holders, allowing them unrestricted access to Westminster in the run-up to highly sensitive and potentially close votes on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Bill next month. At least two MPs face questions after they omitted to declare they have Care-sponsored staff.
Charities are allowed to carry out political campaigning, but Charity Commission rules state they “must not give support or funding to a political party, or to a candidate or politician”.
Then, the leader column: Leading article: An unsuitable case for charity
The Charity Commission guidance on political activity could hardly be clearer: “A charity must not give support or funding to a political party, nor to a candidate or politician.” Our report today that Care, the Christian charity, has been paying the salaries of research assistants for at least eight MPs appears on the face of it to suggest that the law has been broken…
The whole matter is discussed at greater length on the Church Times blog under Charity Commission investigates evangelical Parliamentary interns.
Updated again Saturday morning
The Church Times has a report by Bill Bowder Bishops attack embryos Bill and also a Leader: Church fails its Biology exam. (Another comment article by Paul Vallely is subscriber-only until next week.)
The news report refers to earlier evidence given to Parliament by the CofE Mission and Public Affairs Council, last June, on a separate but related topic. See this press release Church says IVF children need fathers and the PDF with the full text here.
And Dave Walker on the Church Times blog draws attention to a report by Jonathan Petre on 18 March of some remarks made by Rowan Williams, Society can’t handle science, and a rather more useful contribution made this week by Alan Wilson Embryo Wars — five critical questions.
Update Friday evening
The Tablet carries this article by Colin Blakemore For pity’s sake.
Update Saturday morning
The Times carries this article: Sir Leszek Borysiewicz says Church is wrong on hybrid embryo Bill:
The most senior Roman Catholic scientist in Britain has attacked his Church’s opposition to proposed laws that will allow the creation of human-animal embryos for research.
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz made a passionate defence of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill and the science that it will make possible…
The earlier Green Paper was reported here.
The subsequent consultation paper from the archbishops is here, and the General Synod document considered in February is here as an RTF file.
What this week’s White Paper (full document as PDF here) said on Church of England Appointments:
254. The Government proposed in The Governance of Britain that the Prime Minister’s role in ecclesiastical appointments in the Church of England should be significantly reduced.At present,he receives two names from the Crown Nominations Commission for appointment as new Diocesan Bishops. In future, he will ask for only one name which he will then forward to Her Majesty The Queen. The Government undertook to discuss with the Church any necessary consequential changes to procedures.This discussion also considered the role of the Prime Minister and of his Appointments Secretary in the appointments process for cathedral deans, where the Appointments Secretary was responsible for conducting the appointments process and making the final recommendations, and some other senior appointments in the Church.
255. Following an internal consultation exercise, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York put proposals to the meeting of the General Synod in February 2008. Synod approved the proposed modifications to the appointments process.They called for a continuing role for a senior civil servant at the heart of Government to help in ensuring that the wider needs of the church and of the community continued to be given adequate weight in the appointments process. However, they agreed that in future the decisive voice in all appointments would be that of the Church itself. In relation to diocesan bishops, the Crown Nominations Commission would continue itself to select two names – a preferred name and a reserve – but would forward to the Prime Minister only the preferred name. In relation to appointments to Cathedral Deaneries, there would in future be a selection panel chaired by a layperson selected by the archbishop of the province after consultation with the diocesan bishop and the proposed Crown appointments adviser. It was proposed that the Government would continue to provide administrative support for the process of appointments to Crown parochial livings (in the same way as, for example, where a bishop has the right of presentation the church authorities would provide support to the parish in the process). The Government is discussing with the Church future long-term arrangements within government in the light of the Synod’s decisions.
256. The changes to the appointments processes for Diocesan Bishops and Cathedral Deans are internal Church procedures and require no legislation. The Church will itself legislate by Measure for a number of consequential changes. These are to remove the requirement for two names to be forwarded for appointment to Suffragan Bishoprics (a requirement of a 1534 Act); to bring crown parochial appointments into line with all others by allowing the parish representatives a right of veto; and to remove the right of the Crown to appoint to certain positions which have become vacant through the preferment of the incumbent to a diocesan bishopric, or where there is a vacancy in the episcopal see which would normally have the right of appointment.
In connection with the above, the Lord Chancellor said this in the House of Commons:
Appointments to the Church of England: the Government remain committed to the establishment of the Church of England, and greatly value the role played by the church in our national life. Appointments to senior church positions will continue to be made by Her Majesty the Queen, who should continue to be advised on the exercise of her powers of appointment by one of her Ministers, who will usually be the Prime Minister. We are very grateful to the General Synod for its proposals on how new appointments procedures should work and the Government are discussing with the church future long-term arrangements.
Updated Tuesday afternoon
Several Church of England bishops have stepped into the controversy generated by the UK government’s proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (see this PDF for how the bill actually alters existing legislation).
The Bishop of St Albans is quoted in today’s Daily Mail see Embryos: Church of England demands free vote on controversial research plans and in this Press Association report.
The Bishop of Lichfield has issued this press statement, Bishop adds voice to free vote calls on human-animal embryos and got a mention in the Birmingham Mail Scientists to meet church leaders over embryo research and in The Times David Cameron: Catholics should not misrepresent embryo Bill.
The Bishop of Durham preached this Easter Day sermon, which was reported in the Newcastle Chronicle as Embryo research an issue for all Christians and attacked furiously in The Times by David Aaronovitch under the headline Wicked untruths from the Church.
Some useful background articles:
The Times
Q&A: Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill
Embryology Bill: Bishop’s ‘Frankenstein’ attack smacks of ignorance, say scientists
Letters, including one from Colin Blakemore former head of the Medical Research Council.
Guardian
Leader: Conscientious objections
Simon Barrow Cardinal vices and virtues
Tuesday afternoon update
The Archbishop of Canterbury has expressed his opinion on this matter, see Archbishop on Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Full text below the fold.
Archbishop on Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill
Tuesday 25 March 2008
Interview with the Press Association
Dr Williams attacked proposals in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which could open the door to research into hybrid embryos and which would remove the reference to the need for a father when under going fertility treatment.
He said: “The hybrid question - there has been a lot of rather extreme and alarmist talk about this and I fully accept that it is not about the breeding of monsters, but at the same time, I think there remains this very instrumentalist view of the human embryo: we use it for something and then destroy it, and I find that ethically very hard to accept.
“The hybrid embryos is just an aspect of overall attitudes to embryo research.
“In this country, more than in many others we seem to be taking for granted that it is all right to regard the human embryo as something to be used instrumentally - that is my big moral concern.”
He said he “regretted” the proposals on removing the need for a father, saying it was a “downgrading of the ordinary processes of reproduction and upbringing” in favour of a “highly technological view” of what human reproduction was about.
Dr Williams also called for the Government to allow a free vote on the “big issues” of conscience, posed by the proposals on hybrid embryos in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill and the removal of the clause on the need for a father.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Easter Day Sermon is here.
And he also wrote this article published in today’s Observer newspaper, We live in a culture of blame - but there is another way.
The Law Gazette ran an article entitled Sharia unveiled by Polly Botsford, and also there was a news item, Sharia councils regulation call and a letter to the editor earlier.
In the week following the Archbishop of Canterbury’s provocative recent speech on sharia law, Mahmud Al-Rashid, spokesman for the Association of Muslim Lawyers (AML), called for the regulation of the growing number of sharia councils, as reported in the Gazette (see Gazette [2008], 14 February, 4). They were both bringing to the fore the interplay between religious freedoms and a secular state.
The issue of religious communities having their own set of rules, even their own courts governing areas such as marriage and divorce within the secular state, is a complex one, not least because each community has many voices and, naturally, they are not all seeking the same thing. But what Dr Williams and others have done is to start a public debate, the conclusion of which may yet be a long way off…
More recently, Trevor Grundy reported that Archbishop of Canterbury gets praise from Nigerian Islamic leader:
Mauled by the media for suggesting aspects of Sharia Law should be incorporated into the British legal system, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has become something of a hero — even a Christian legend — in Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria.
Speaking at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London on March 6, the leader of the multi-million strong Qadiriyyah wing of the Islamic faith, Nigerian Sheikh Qaribullahi Nasiru Kabara, told academics and diplomats that he felt “very good” when he heard what Williams had to say at a February lecture.
“I felt very good,” the sheikh said. “The people of northern Nigeria are very happy. It shows the recent upward rating of the British and the way they see Islam…That call from the Archbishop of Canterbury caused a serious round of celebrations because people feel, ‘These people are now listening to us. Let us look at them and talk to them properly…’”
Updated again Friday morning
The two archbishops have issued this statement on the current government consultation, which includes the full text of their response to the government: Archbishops’ response to Government consultation on blasphemy.
News reports on this response:
The Times 29 Feb Archbishops have ‘serious reservations’ about blasphemy repeal by Ruth Gledhill
Guardian 4 March Archbishops question timing of plans to abolish blasphemy laws by Alan Travis
Update Also, there is an audio file of a discussion between Alan Travis and Giles Fraser available here.
In connection with this, there are also these reports:
The Times ‘Most Britons belong to no religion’ by Ruth Gledhill
Religious Intelligence UK warned over religious rights by George Conger
The UN report mentioned can be found as a PDF here.
Friday morning update
The Church Times has a full report on the debate in the House of Lords on Wednesday, see Archbishops warn of symbolic charge of blasphemy law by Pat Ashworth and Simon Caldwell.
The official record of the debate is here, or you can read it in a PDF file here.
The detailed Church Times reports of this month’s debates at General Synod are now available online. They are spread over two issues and are linked from these pages.
Reports in Issue 7561
Reports in Issue 7562
Or you can go directly to the individual articles.
Presidential Address: Sorry if I was clumsy — Dr Williams’s address in full
Hope
Bibles: ‘Place Bibles in every church’
Code of practice
Mary Tanner
Casinos: Synod urges fight on gambling
Ecclesiastical fees: Synod holds up fees decision
Terms of service: Synod votes down moving parsonages to dioceses
Detention of terror suspects: Case is ‘flimsy’ for extending detention
Farewell
The Dioceses
Mental health: ‘Prisons are the new asylums’
Communion in LEPs: Dispensing with a C of E Easter eucharist
Children’s liturgy: Eucharistic prayers sought for children
Anglican Covenant: New Covenant draft welcomed more warmly
Crown appointments: Synod feels its way towards a greater self-determination
Relations with Rome: Spirit of gloom descends on Rome discussions
The Bishop of Carlisle, Graham Dow has issued a statement, snappily entitled Statement from the Bishop of Carlisle clarifying remarks about the Government.
…While people are of course free to make choices, at the heart of the problem is the fact that our society is institutionalising these changes in marriage and sexual morality with legislation. In a meeting where almost all of those attending look to the Bible for moral teaching, I reminded those present of the difference attitude towards the Roman state between the Letter to the Romans and the Book of Revelation.
By way of clarification I would want to say that the Government has certainly been “God’s instrument for good” (Romans 13), for example in the promotion of the equality and in social inclusion, in its support for poorer nations and its emphasis on the environment. However in the last year or two it has been imposing its own moral agenda in a way that is contrary to long standing Christian morality and the significant voice of Christian churches…
Earlier reports about the event to which he refers can be found here.
A different view of the book which was being launched can be read here.
