Changing Attitude has published a lengthy and detailed analysis on the number of civil partnerships of Church of England members reported to it. You can read the whole report here: Changing Attitude reveals results of Civil Partnership Survey.
They report a total of 87 Anglican events out of an English total of 14,084. (UK total 15,672). (That’s 0.6 % of the English total.)
The official national statistics can be found here.
30 CommentsThe Church Times reports on the covenant shenanigans with Conservative Evangelicals lay their cards on the table.
The Church of England Newspaper has an article which is reproduced elsewhere, e.g. at Global South Anglican titled Evangelicals deliver claim for alternative structures.
Stephen Bates managed to squeeze in a reference to it during his Guardian article Action by Tanzanian bishops risks new gay priests row.
Ekklesia had Keep Church of England open, bishops and leaders urged.
Changing Attitude has published this press release: A response to the conservative evangelical Covenant.
And, a couple of blog entries: MadPriest called it A Covenant Of Straw and Dave Walker had presciently blogged this: Reform website.
2 CommentsAffirming Catholicism has responded to the covenant consultation paper initiated some time ago by the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and of the Primates’ Meeting, with a press release, Covenant could cause division and a more lengthy document, available here in Word format.
Affirming Catholicism is also holding a day conference in January to discuss ‘Anglicanism: Unity and Diversity’.
The document “Towards an Anglican Covenant”, to which this is responding can be found at the ACO website. See also this ACNS press release.
InclusiveChurch has also responded to the ACO request, and its response ‘Towards an Anglican Covenant’: A Response from InclusiveChurch By Rev. Canon Vincent Strudwick can be found here and here.
3 CommentsFulcrum has published this Initial Response to the ‘Covenant for the Church of England’.
Fulcrum’s own forum discussion on this matter can be found here.
4 CommentsAnglican Mainstream has published the following statistics, under the heading: Who are the evangelical and charismatic churches?.
They start with this comment (my emphasis added):
We are often asked about the numbers that our networks represent. In one sense the question is impossible and unnecessary because we seek to speak for all who uphold and seek orthodox teaching and leadership. However, a prominent researcher in the field of church membership, Peter Brierley, has given these figures:
The numbers then given, which are copied below, are Peter Brierley’s totals for three categories of evangelicals. This is interesting information, but it is not necessarily an answer to the second question posed above.
27 CommentsThe English Church Census of 2005
Total number of Anglican churches 16247
Mainstream evangelicals (largely conservative) 1998 1045 2005 1411
Charismatic evangelicals 1998 1002 2005 1308
Evangelical broad 1998 1542 2005 1554Total in 2005 4273 percentage 26%
Total worshippers
Whole of Church of England 1998 980,000 2005 870,600
Mainstream evangelicals 1998 72,500 2005 77,400
Charismatic evangelicals 1998 114,700 2005 114,900
Evangelical broad 1998 121,400 2005 105,200Total in 2005 297,500, percentage 34%
Average size of congregation
Mainstream evangelicals 1998 55
Charismatic evangelicals 1998 88
Evangelical broad 1998 68Of the 160 largest churches, (1% of the total number of churches) with a membership of over 350, who make up 10% of the membership of the CofE, 83% are evangelical.
The English Church Census 2005 is available in Pulling out of the Nose Dive by Peter Brierley and Religious Trends Number 6, by Peter Brierley, published by Christian Research, September 2006.
Updated again Thursday morning
The meeting mentioned in a newspaper report last Sunday took place today at Lambeth Palace. The report had forecast that:
Leading evangelicals will meet the Most Rev Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, on Tuesday to deliver papers laying out the plans for a restructuring of the Church.
However, according to the Anglican Mainstream website what happened was:
A small group met with the Archbishop of Canterbury on Tuesday December 12 and presented A Covenant for the Church of England on behalf of a wide group of Evangelical and Charismatic members of the Church of England with the support of a number of Anglo-Catholic leaders.
The Covenant is the fruit of an ongoing process reacting not to a few local or immediate difficulties but responding to widespread concerns in the national and global church.
The group were listened to carefully and as a result of the meeting it was agreed that there would be further discussion of the issues raised in the Covenant to find a way to maintain the unity of the Church of England.
The document that this group presented is published on the Reform website, and can be read in its entirety at A Covenant for the Church of England.
The press release is described as follows:
It is not a Reform press release as such but a press release by a wide group of Evangelical and Charismatic members of the Church of England with the support of a number of Anglo-Catholic leaders.
Update Wednesday evening
It is now revealed that:
The Covenant was drafted by a group under the following leadership:
Rev David Banting, Chair of Reform
Rev John Coles, Director of New Wine Networks
Rev Paul Perkin, Member of General Synod
Rev David Phillips, Director of Church Society
Rev Vaughan Roberts, Rector of St Ebbes’ Oxford
Canon Dr Chris Sugden, Executive Secretary, Anglican Mainstream
Rev William Taylor, Rector of St Helen’s Bishopsgate
Rev Dr Richard Turnbull, Chair of the Church of England Evangelical Council
Rev Dr Simon Vibert, Chair of the Fellowship of Word and Spirit
This list can also be found at the website of the Church of England Evangelical Council where it is claimed that:
“CEEC President and Chairman sign new Covenant on behalf of CEEC”
Update Thursday morning
Jonathan Petre in the Telegraph has this report: Williams warned of Church anarchy:
77 CommentsThe Church of England was plunged into a fresh crisis yesterday after evangelical leaders representing 2,000 churches told the Archbishop of Canterbury to allow them to bypass liberal bishops or face widespread anarchy.
The group, whose supporters include the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, warned Dr Rowan Williams that the crisis over issues such as gay clerics was escalating fast and could descend into schism.
At a confidential meeting at Lambeth Palace on Tuesday, they urged Dr Williams to create a parallel structure to free them from the interference of liberal bishops or risk a revolt against his authority…
For the second week running, English bishops are criticised by an Observer columnist. This time, Mary Riddell has a piece titled Integrate? Tell that to the Christian church, Mr Blair. Here’s an excerpt:
…Even so, the bishops are on the prowl. The Bishop of Rochester criticises diversity legislation, while lamenting the lack of Christmas celebrations in that hotbed of Saturnalia, the nation’s SureStart schemes. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, announces that ‘illiberal atheists’ and ‘aggressive secularists’ have stolen Christmas. On a point of semantics, secularists do not wish to harm religion or deny its great cultural influence. They simply want it to know its place.
Which, in the view of many bishops, is in every corner of the public realm. In the current Times Higher Education Supplement, the Archbishop of Canterbury defends Christian campus groups which risk banishment because of their attitudes to gay sex. ‘It isn’t as though sexual activity were any different from any other conscious choice,’ writes Dr Rowan Williams, likening any threat to such groups to banning CND. Public organisations should operate within the statute. On 1 January, laws protecting gay people in Northern Ireland will be tightened. Ruth Kelly, who plans weaker, later rules for the rest of the UK, has bowed to religious leaders complaining that the pillars of Christendom will totter unless Christian adoption agencies, bookshops and hotels are allowed free rein for prejudice. Islamist extremism is obviously never to be compared to the behaviour of peaceful citizens. Even so, the harmonious society Mr Blair desires is not best served by Christian leaders passing themselves off as a persecuted minority and the whipping boy of multicultural Britain.
This is purest fallacy. The might of bishops trickles down from the House of Lords, where they sit without a fig leaf of democratic legitimacy. Cathedrals are forecasting record attendances this Christmas. In a fearful, divided country, religion is the beneficiary. Mr Blair, though recognising that shift, was too selective and too timid in his remedies. He condemned radical Muslim schools, quite rightly, but omitted to say that creationism in Christian ones is deplorable, too. He demanded that faith schools must abide by guidelines requiring tolerance and respect for other faiths…
The article by Rowan Williams to which she refers can be found in the Times Higher Education Supplement which is read largely by university academics and administrators. The article is trailed on the front page of the weekly journal this way:
The Archbishop of Canterbury has hit out at the “suppression” of Christian unions on university campuses with an impassioned defence of free speech in an exclusive article for The Times Higher.
and the background to it is summarised in a news article entitled Archbishop hits back.
Rowan Williams’ article is titled It is not a crime to hold traditional values. A couple of excerpts (but read it all, please):
…But beyond this, we sometimes seem to be unclear. Quite often in discussion of Christian attitudes to homosexuality (and this is often the presenting issue where Christian unions are concerned), it is taken for granted that any statement that a form of behaviour might be sinful is on a par with the expression of hate, so that it is impossible for a conservative Christian, Catholic or Protestant or, for that matter, an orthodox Muslim to state the traditional position of their faith without being accused of something akin to holocaust denial or racial bigotry.
Yet the truth surely is that while it is wholly indefensible to deny respect to a person as such, any person’s choices are bound to be open to challenge. Any kind of behaviour or policy freely opted for by a responsible adult is likely to be challenged from somewhere; it isn’t as though sexual activity were different from any other area of conscious choice. And to challenge behaviour may be deeply unwelcome and offensive in a personal sense, but it is not a matter for legislative action…
and this:
…Christian unions, like most student associations, can be a nuisance. As a university chaplain many years ago, I was blessed with good relations with members of the Christian union, thanks to the maturity and warmth of the local leadership; but I know that not every chaplain in higher education has the same good fortune. Questions about tests for orthodoxy recur regularly in the histories of Christian unions, and every few years there is likely to be some degree of conflict and sometimes schism (as in other societies – I can also remember the ferocity of debates in the 1970s within a university Labour Club at the time leading up to the formation of the Social Democrat Party). Furthermore, there is real debate and divergence among Christians about the ethics of same-sex relationships, and some more liberal Christians will find it embarrassing that the traditional position of the Christian union can be seen by the rest of the student world as something like an unquestioned Christian line. Christian unions can appear detached from the rest of student life in some campuses (by no means all); or they can lay themselves open to charges of insensitive recruitment; and so on. But the basic question remains. Is there a straightforward right of association for people with these convictions? …
Other material relating to the current dispute over Christian Unions on British university campuses can be found in this excellent report from Ekklesia (PDF file), which was also written up in the Guardian in Christian unions warned against legal action. See also Simon Barrow here.
32 CommentsThis week The Tablet has a very interesting interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, conducted by the editor, Catherine Pepinster. Read it at Ambivalent archbishop.
Previously, the Church Times had this report of the visit: ‘Definite progress’ as Williams visit exceeds expectations by Rupert Shortt.
Earlier reports of the visit are collected here.
7 CommentsUpdated Wednesday 13 December
According to the Church of England Newspaper, this is the case.
The report is reproduced in full on Global South Anglican and can be read at Archbishop of Nigeria “banned” from preaching in Sheffield – CEN.
And Anglican Mainstream has a further column by Andrew Carey An Apology is in Order.
Update Wednesday 13 December
The Sheffield Star reports: Bishop’s ‘snub’ claims rejected by Lucy Ashton
CLAIMS that the Bishop of Sheffield barred a visiting foreign Archbishop from preaching at a service in the city were today dismissed as “total rubbish”.
The report reads in part:
43 Comments…The Reverend Rob Marshall said: “There are clear rules that if an Archbishop is visiting the province he must get the Archbishop of York’s permission to preach. Protocol has to be followed and it’s also courtesy.
“The Archbishop asked Bishop Jack’s permission but he couldn’t say yes or no because it wasn’t his decision to make.
“It’s total rubbish about Bishop Jack barring him, he simply told him to contact the Archbishop of York.”
If an Archbishop wants to preach in another province, it usually just takes a phone call.
Mr. Marshall added: “The Bishop was very relaxed and simply said he had to follow protocol and all they had to do was ring the Archbishop of York’s office.
“It’s total nonsense to say he barred him.”
Mr. Marshall said there should have been plenty of time to arrange for the Archbishop to preach.
“We had this conversation on the Thursday before the service was taking place on the Sunday but you never have just three days notice of a visit.
“Normally Archbishops’ visits are planned months, sometimes two years in advance, so all this could have been arranged in advance…”
It was previously announced that the Bishop of Manchester would chair the new group formed to draft legislation for the introduction of women bishops in the Church of England.
Today, the membership of the Women Bishops Legislative Drafting Group was announced:
The Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester (chair)
The Ven Donald Allister, Archdeacon of Chester
The Revd Jonathan Baker
The Rt Worshipful Dr Sheila Cameron, Dean of the Arches
The Very Revd Vivienne Faull, Dean of Leicester
Dr Paula Gooder
Mrs Margaret Swinson
Sister Anne Williams
The Rt Revd Trevor Willmott, Bishop of Basingstoke
Update Thursday
Women and the Church has issued a press release commenting on this. A copy is below the fold.
Today’s Observer contains a leader and an opinion column both of which respond to the remarks of the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali as quoted last week in the Daily Mail.
First, a reminder of the Daily Mail report by Steve Doughty:
A senior Church of England bishop have warned that Anglican youth clubs, welfare projects and charities may close because of new gay rights laws.
The Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, said that the Church of England’s charities would be “affected” by the rules, which will force them to give equal treatment to homosexuals.
He declared: “It will be the poor and disadvantaged who will be the losers….”
…Pakistani-born Dr Nazir-Ali said: “I welcome warmly what the Roman Catholic Bishop of Birmingham has said about the Sexual Orientation Regulations.
“In the proposed regulations there is no clear exemption for religious belief even though it is widely known that several of the faiths in this country will have serious difficulty.”
He added: “Religion affects every area of life and cannot be reduced to just worship.
“These regulations will certainly affect a great deal of charitable work done by the churches and others. It is the poor and disadvantaged who will be the losers.”
Now, today’s Observer. First, Nick Cohen in Let’s not sleepwalk with the Christian soldiers says:
…Last week, full-page adverts launched a histrionic campaign from the church’s evangelical wing against New Labour’s attempts to secure equality for homosexuals. The low point came when the Bishop of Rochester claimed ‘the poor and disadvantaged will be the losers’ if religious charities are forced to treat gays fairly.
Much can change before 25 December, but after the past fortnight, there is a fair chance that the hedonism and family quarrels of the traditional British Christmas will be overshadowed by religion, of all things.
Only the Tory press sympathised with the wild assault on equality under the law for homosexuals, but hardly anyone defended British Airways. Tellingly, only now can you see widespread anger at the failure to call Christmas by its proper name, although Birmingham City Council has been burbling about ‘Winterval’ since 1998.
The ferocity of the Church of England’s internal conflicts could make a Balkan warlord blanch. However, Ekklesia, a think-tank on the church’s left, and Anglican Mainstream, from its evangelical right, agreed on one point. They both told me that committed Christians with a sincere faith were just another minority – somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent of the population. But beyond them there were millions of people who could be glad that Christians were asserting themselves under special circumstances…
and the leader column The government must not buckle over gay rights said:
…It says much about modern Britain that civil partnerships were introduced without a rumpus. The law was not forcing liberal values on a reactionary society, it was catching up with attitudes that had already changed. Prejudice still exists, but there is no doubt that Britain in 2006 is a much better place in which to be gay than it was 10 years ago…
…In the same spirit a law has been drafted that would ban discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Hotels, for example, would not be able to deny rooms to gay couples. Schools would not be able to deny places to gay pupils. The changes were due to be introduced earlier this year but have been postponed because of lobbying by church groups.
Last week the Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nichols attacked the government for what he called the imposition of its moral agenda on the church. The Anglican Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, warned that church-based charities would be forced to close their doors if the government insisted they let in gay people. ‘It is the poor and disadvantaged who will be the losers,’ he said.
The churches are thus trying to depict the Sexual Orientation Regulations as an assault on their philanthropic work, including faith schools and adoption agencies. That is a tendentious argument. ‘The poor and disadvantaged’ would only lose out if the churches choose to hate homosexuality more than they like good works. Their objection to the new law is not, as they like to see it, self-defence against a meddling government. It is a threat by powerful institutions to withhold their charity out of prejudice.
Churches are free to preach that homosexuality is a sin and their followers are free to believe it in private. But the elected government of Britain does not share that view and has rightly sought to give gay citizens the same public rights as everyone else. Or at least it has done thus far. On this latest measure the cabinet is divided. Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly, a devout Catholic, is the minister responsible for the new law and is sympathetic to the idea of exempting churches. The Prime Minister is also thought to be amenable to religious petitioning…
To judge for yourself whether or not “there is no clear exemption for religious belief” read the regulations as published for Northern Ireland, from this page (which has links to the full text).
25 CommentsSpeaking on a local radio station in York, the Archbishop of York has dismissed newspaper gossip that he wants to take over as Archbishop of Canterbury.
Archbishop denies Canterbury tale
What is he talking about? See here, and also here.
4 CommentsThe penetrating analysis of the Catholic Herald interview, and its spinoffs in the Telegraph and The Times, that appeared in the Church Times, is now on public view: Press: What Dr Williams didn’t mean by Andrew Brown.
Everyone who has followed the story of women priests knows that every archbishop has to pretend that there is a chance that the decision to ordain women might be reversed. That is the figleaf of “reception”, which allows Forward in Faith and Reform, in their turn, to pretend to be part of the Church of England.
You may think that this is a silly bargain, but it is the one that the Synod and the Church as a whole have signed up to. This is well understood by all the journalists who, despite that, wrote last week’s story as if it were significantly true: Ruth Gledhill, Jonathan Petre, and its originator, Damian Thompson. They all covered the vote in 1992. Ruth, on her blog, and Jonathan, in the course of his story, made it quite clear that they saw no truth in their own headlines.
Much of the Catholic Herald material has rotated off its website. But you can still find the interview itself here (third URL since inception).
Update
And also, there was this article by Damian Thompson which appeared in the Guardian No wonder the Archbishop of Canterbury chose to speak to us. For background on another Catholic Herald columnist go here.
Earlier in the week, there was this Daily Telegraph news story by Andrew Pierce Williams may quit over ‘criticism from Carey’ and this comment piece by Damian Thompson The archbishop’s days are numbered.
This article appeared in the Sunday Telegraph today:
I support Rowan: we are working together by George Carey.
The November Fulcrum newsletter has also appeared this week in the Church of England Newspaper. It is titled
Splitters United or Patient Pressure? by Graham Kings.
The Splitters reference is to Truro Church and The Falls Church. Fulcrum thinks they and anyone else should stay and participate in the making of an Anglican covenant.
1 CommentSeveral reports today of new academic research:
BBC Church ‘in need of women priests’
Reuters Women priests given “dregs” in Church of England
Press Association Women priests ‘could save Church’
Economic & Social Research Council press release Women priests will ‘save church from sinking’
Updated twice Saturday
More on the British Airways affair.
Earlier today, both Giles Fraser and Stephen Bates expressed opinions:
Christians urgently need to offer a better account of the cross than simply that it’s a badge of identity
A cross BA has to bear.
News reports of developments in the story flowed all day:
BBC Bishop condemns BA’s cross policy,
Evening Standard 13 bishops join the chorus against BA’s ban on cross.
This afternoon, the CofE issued Archbishop of Canterbury comments on British Airways.
This was quickly picked up in the media, e.g. Reuters Anglicans review ties to British Airways over cross.
And then, British Airways announced: British Airways to review uniform policy.
Saturday reports
The Times BA responds to backlash by lifting ban on small crosses
Guardian How the archbishop took on the world’s favourite airline – and won
Telegraph BA will review uniform policy after crucifix row (Note to Damian T: please tell your headline writers the difference between a cross and a crucifix)
Update The Daily Mail reported crucial additional information:
18 CommentsArchbishop Peter Akinola, Anglican leader in Nigeria, said: ‘As far as we are concerned the decision to ban the cross by BA has religious undercurrents.
‘The trend in your country is to devalue its religious heritage. If BA says no to the cross, we shall start using another airline. I shall do everything I can to urge Christian leaders to boycott BA.’
The Archbishop of York has issued this press release: ARCHBISHOP DERIDES ”FLAWED REASONING” OF BA CROSS DECISION.
This responds to the decision announced today concerning a British Airways employee, see for example, BBC Woman loses fight to wear cross.
Some other press reports:
Press Association BA criticised in cross row
Associated Press British Airways employee loses appeal to wear cross necklace at work
Reuters BA worker loses appeal over right to wear crucifix
BBC Archbishop attacks BA cross rules
The Times BA worker loses appeal in row over cross
Telegraph Archbishop blasts BA as employee loses cross appeal
Guardian BA woman loses appeal against ban on wearing a cross at work
The official British Airways response is not on the web, but a copy of it that was emailed to me is below the fold.
33 CommentsJudith Maltby writes in Comment is free about the Catholic Herald interview: A tall order.
The BBC radio programme Sunday had coverage of it too. Christina Rees and Lucy Winkett are interviewed. Listen here (Real Audio, about 3.5 minutes). It’s also discussed later in the programme, in connection with the forthcoming visit of Rowan Williams to the Pope, in an interview with Stephen Bates. That item can be heard here (3.5 minutes).
In the Sunday Telegraph June Osborne writes, What we really need are women bishops.
In the Independent Peter Stanford The Sunday Profile: Rowan Williams
3 CommentsPaul Handley talked to Rowan Williams.
Less a Roman holiday, more an Italian job
13 Comments