A joint response to the Guildford report has been issued by:
Church Society, Fellowship of Word and Spirit, and Reform.
The response can be found either here, or over here.
1 CommentIn addition to their frosty response to AffCath/Watch, Forward in Faith has published TEA – the theological response. This complements the legal response previously published.
32 CommentsUpdate Wednesday
Forward in Faith has issued a press release in response to this.
Groups agree fundamental plans for women bishops in the Church of England
Joint press release by Affirming Catholicism and WATCH
A campaigning group and a network of Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England have agreed the fundamental principles by which women should be appointed as bishops. For the first time, the leadership and members of the Executive Committees of Affirming Catholicism and WATCH (Women and the Church), which between them represent nearly half the members of the Church of England’s General Synod, have jointly drawn up a list of key, non-negotiable principles for moving forward on women bishops.
Affirming Catholicism and WATCH had previously submitted separate proposals to the House of Bishops working party which consulted on proposals set out in the Guildford Report published earlier this year. The joint key principles draw heavily on their separate submissions and challenge the scope of the Guildford proposals which would, if implemented, provide a ‘women bishops free zone’ for those opposed to the ordination of women.
Christina Rees, Chair of National WATCH said: “The Church is currently discussing proposals which so limit the ministry of women bishops in order to take account of those who won’t accept them, that there is a danger of creating a second class of bishops who are women. Our principles – which we regard as non-negotiable – call for the Church to affirm unequivocally its confidence in the ordination of women by not discriminating against them.â€
The formal consultation process on women bishops began in 2000 with the setting up a House of Bishops’ Working Party on Women in the Episcopate, but the journey began over 30 years ago when General Synod agreed that there was ‘no fundamental objection to the ordination of women to the priesthood.’ There are now over 2,500 clergy women in the Church of England. For the past two years there have been equal numbers of women and men being trained for the ordained ministry in the Church of England.
The Rev’d Richard Jenkins, Director of Affirming Catholicism said: “The Church of England has always made room for different opinions. But the theology and law of the Church must give priority to the fact that we are a Church which has now joyfully accepted and overwhelmingly received the ordination of women. Our principles suggest ways in which those who are opposed can be given security and space, but still remain recognisably within one Church.â€
The groups now aim to discuss their principles with evangelicals and other groups in the Church in order to reach the widest possible agreement about how to move forward. The House of Bishops will meet again at the beginning of June to discuss the results of their consultation. The bishops will then produce a revised plan to be debated by the General Synod in July.
20 CommentsReuters British parliament blocks assisted suicide law
Associated Press British Lawmakers Reject Right-To-Die Bill
The Times David Charter The religious and the righteous unite in a moral crusade and Greg Hurst Peers wreck Bill to legalise euthanasia for terminally ill
And this leader: Means to an end
Telegraph Graeme Wilson Peers split as assisted dying Bill is derailed
Guardian Will Woodward Lords vote to block assisted suicide bill for terminally ill
Independent Ben Russell Lords vote against ‘right to die’ Bill after impassioned debate and this leader: Peer pressure
New York Times Alan Cowell British Religious Leaders Urge Defeat of Assisted-Suicide Bill
0 CommentsHere are Hansard links to:
Archbishop of Canterbury
Bishop of St Albans
Bishop of Portsmouth
Lord Carey of Clifton
Lord Habgood
To read these in the context of the entire debate, start here.
1 CommentUpdate
The amendment by Lord Carlisle was passed by 148 to 100 votes.
BBC Lords block assisted dying bill
The Times Lords block mercy killings Bill
Guardian Lords block right to die bill
Telegraph Lords reject right to die Bill
Archbishop of Canterbury Extracts from a speech given in the House of Lords debate on Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill.
The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of Westminster appeared together on the BBC radio programme Today this morning. Link here (Real Audio, 15+ minutes total). Or link here to download an mp3 file. Or read a transcript on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s website.
Together with the Chief Rabbi they also have a joint letter published in The Times this morning. You can read the letter here.
Related news story by Ruth Gledhill: Religious leaders fear ‘right to die’ law would turn into ‘duty to die’.
The Telegraph is editorially opposed to the bill.
Related news story by Graeme Wilson Should doctors help patients to die?
The Guardian is editorially in favour of the bill.
Reuters Three-quarters support assisted dying -poll
Press Association Lords to clash on right-to-die Bill
BBC Lords debate assisted dying bill
As I mentioned last Saturday, the Church of England is opposed to the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill to be considered in the House of Lords on Friday. A lot of information is available here.
According to Anglican Mainstream:
In a surprise development regarding Lord Joffe’s Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill, Lord Carlisle tabled an amendment yesterday ‘that the bill should now be read a second time this day six months hence’ . This, in effect, kicks the bill into the long grass and will kill it. The vote will take place after the debate on Friday. We expect it to occur sometime after 3pm.
The Care Not Killing petition has been signed by over 100,000 people so far.
This legislation is also heavily opposed by the membership of the Royal College of Physicians. See RCP cannot support legal change on assisted dying – survey results.
The bill is also opposed by many disabled people, see Not Dead Yet in the U.K. – Disability Coalition Opposes Assisted Suicide Bill. And also this.
6 CommentsJonathan Petre reports that Williams turns to ‘wise men’ in crisis over gays by which he means:
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has quietly appointed four “wise men” to advise him on the crisis over homosexuals that is threatening to tear the worldwide Anglican Church apart.
They have yet to be named, but are expected to include the liberal Primate of Wales, Archbishop Barry Morgan, and the conservative Primate of Central Africa, Archbishop Bernard Malango.
The group will play a pivotal role following next month’s General Convention of the US Episcopal Church, the American equivalent of the Church of England’s General Synod…
Stephen Bates in the Guardian reports on Anglican relief as California diocese elects straight bishop:
…The election was greeted with some relief in senior church circles but not by the conservative American Anglican Council, which hopes to overturn the Episcopal leadership. A statement said that California remained a “bastion of amorphous Christianity” and criticised all the candidates for not pledging to withhold consent for “same-sex partnered individuals” as bishops.
James Bone in The Times Anglicans avert clash over gays
Meanwhile back in England, Ruth Gledhill reports Church seeks spirituality of youth . . . and doesn’t like what it finds:
THE Church of England has debunked the widely held view that young people are spiritual seekers on a journey to find transcendent truths to fill the “God-shaped hole†within them.
A report published by the Church today indicates that young people are quite happy with a life without God and prefer car boot sales to church…
The book is Making Sense of Generation Y. The Church of England press release is here.
Ruth has also written on her blog about the California election in US election makes schism unlikely.
39 CommentsThe Church Times has a report today by Bill Bowder: Dioceses asked to find £10m to shore up pensions
The letter referred to in the article can be found on the Church of England web site linked from this page.
WARNING the .rtf file there is (at present) 4.3 Megabytes in size. [file size now fixed] You may find it more convenient to read the letter below the fold here.
There are reports of the hearing of the appeal being made by Richard Coekin against the action of Bishop Tom Butler of Southwark.
The Times Vicar defends protest against gay marriage
Church Times Scott-Joynt hears Southwark appeal
Church of England Newspaper Southwark appeal hearing for vicar
Meanwhile Mr Coekin is busy as described by the CEN in Why reaching men with the Gospel is no picnic in the park as well of course as here.
6 CommentsChristopher Landau interviewed John Sentamu for the BBC Sunday programme.
You can hear that interview by going 19 minutes foward into this recording (Real Audio). Better and more permanent link from the BBC now available here. The segment is nearly 7 minutes long.
This took place at the Fulcrum conference on in Islington last Friday, at which the archbishop was a main speaker. You can find out all about the conference at this page.
Update CEN report of conference: Finding a place for the Gospel in modern day Europe
0 CommentsAvailable to download are full and summary versions of the Church Commissioners’ report and accounts for 2005.
Both are in the format of a PDF file.
Full version 3.2 M.
Summary version 720K.
More information here.
ABCD: a way ahead for the C of E was the title of an article written by David Edwards and printed in last week’s Church Times.
David L. Edwards sets out his vision for the future of the Church: ‘If the Anglican experiment is to be a failure, the tragedy should not be underestimated’.
The letters stand for Activities, Blessing, Conferences, and Discretion.
37 CommentsThere are reports on Ekklesia and BBC London tonight about this.
Ekklesia Church of England faces embarrassment over homes sale:
The Church of England is facing embarrassment today after it was reported that a company to which it sold social housing just a month ago – with public reassurances about its long-term future – may sell almost half the properties…
BBC New estates owner mulls sell-off:
Hundreds of low-income homes at south London’s Octavia Hill estates may be sold after a consortium bought them off the Church of England.
Just a month after the properties were bought by Grainger Gen Invest, it has told tenants it may have to sell 400 of them to cover the cost of the purchase…
Here is the transcript of the recent General Synod Questions and Answers on this topic. (original in RTF format here.)
1 CommentUpdate
I deliberately didn’t mention this before because it wasn’t working initially, but now I can report that this site also provides a separate RSS feed for each bishop’s Recent Appearances. This makes it even easier for you to track your favourite (or non-favourite) bishop’s remarks.
I have gathered these feeds together into a blogroll which is currently viewable here. Open the list by clicking on the + sign at the left labelled Bishops in the Lords.
The excellent website TheyWorkForYou.com has extended its services to the House of Lords. Now anyone can track the activities of a Church of England bishop by signing up for an email notification of their remarks.
See for example:
The Archbishop of Canterbury
The Bishop of London
The Bishop of Chelmsford
The Bishop of Chester
Lord Carey of Clifton
Yesterday, as an example, the Bishop of Coventry spoke about Nigeria. Here is what he said. As you can see he didn’t mention many of the things reported here.
2 CommentsThe Archbishop of Canterbury’s Sermon for Easter Day is published in full here.
The Bishop of Oxford preached this sermon on Tuesday in Holy Week, and also has an article in the Observer Science does not challenge my faith – it strengthens it.
The Bishop of Durham preached this sermon on Maundy Thursday.
The Archbishop of York preached this sermon on Maundy Thursday, this one on Good Friday and this sermon on Easter Day. And you can also read Archbishop Sentamu’s Good Friday article for the Yorkshire Post.
5 CommentsThe church newspapers publish a day early this week, because of Good Friday. So today we have:
Church Times ECUSA commission backtracks on gays and the resolutions are republished here.
Church of England Newspaper ECUSA to slow liberal agenda by George Conger.
12 CommentsForward in Faith has published TEA – a further examination which contains the report of the Forward in Faith Legal Working Party on the Guildford Group report GS 1605. The report lists nine numbered paragraphs containing what the working party considers to be fundamental defects of TEA, and then continues with a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the report.
Earlier, FiF had published TEA – an interim commentary.
15 CommentsUpdated Monday evening
The interview of Rowan Williams, conducted by Alan Rusbridger editor of the Guardian, was analysed in some detail in the Church Times last week, by Andrew Brown. The column was headlined Man not born to be king. Andrew wrote in part:
…If the interview had a theme, it was not the warnings and denunciations contained in the news story; it was a portrait of a man who doesn’t want to be a leader, and doesn’t believe that leadership is even possible in most situations.
It is enormously refreshing to find an Archbishop who doesn’t believe his own propaganda. But I think it’s wrong of an Archbishop not to take advantage, at least intermittently, of the fact that other people do believe his propaganda, and want to. Equally, there is a danger that a man who does not believe his own propaganda will find himself repeating the propaganda of others. How else is one to interpret this exchange:
Rusbridger: “The Archbishop of Nigeria recently told Nigerian Muslims, in the aftermath of the Muhammad cartoon furore, that they did not have a monopoly on violence and that Christians might strike back. Coincidentally or not, the remark was followed within days by a spate of attacks on Muslims by Christians which left 80 dead.”
Williams: “Hmmm, I think that what he – what he meant was, so to speak, an abstract warning – you know, ‘Don’t be provocative because in an unstable situation it’s as likely the Christians will resort to violence as Muslims will.’
“It was taken by some as open provocation, encouragement, a threat. I think I know him well enough to take his good faith on what he meant. He did not mean to stir up the violence that happened. He’s a man who will speak very directly and immediately into crises. I think he meant to issue a warning, which has been taken as a threat, to have meant a provocation. Others in the Nigerian Church have, I think, found other ways of saying that which have been more measured.”
Giles Fraser had a column in the Church Times headed The Church needs some sort of leadership. Part of that reads:
…We know the Communion is in critical trouble. We hear Chinese whispers of meetings and phone calls trying to broker deals. Last week, I phoned Lambeth with a worry about a rumour. “Trust us,†comes the reply. OK, I have to; we all have to. And what I am trusting in, as much as anything, is the Archbishop himself. He might not like this over-investment in him personally, but there it is.
I don’t want a fantasy archbishop on a white charger, a deus ex machina who appears to make everything well. But the mood among many ordinary Christians is one of apprehension: are we being sold out? After the Jeffrey John disaster, the worry is that the Archbishop allows himself to be bullied off the ball. Yet, despite all this, trust to keep on believing in this Church remains for many of us a trust in the Archbishop. It’s a trust that’s in need of a bit of help. And that, surely, is the essence of leadership.
Update
In the original interview, there is this:
Rusbridger: And have you got a strategy for going forward as to how, given the media is always with us, what is your strategy for engaging with it in the future?
Williams: It’s a big question to ask really and I know that I’m not the world’s greatest strategist of thinking forward, but I think I need to take more advice on what makes sense or what sounds alright, a great temptation to try and do everything or be good at everything you can’t be.
A response to this is to be found today on the Guardian website (not in the paper edition) where Andrew Brown has written a letter of advice to the archbishop, in his regular Monday column. A fragment:
10 Comments…So I think that the media strategy you need is plain. You need to explain to the rest of us, who believed you inhabited our moral universe, just why sharing a church with gay bishops is a matter of theological gravity comparable to sharing it with enthusiastic Nazis and in the end just as much incompatible with real Christianity. You need to explain just what the arguments were that persuaded you, after 30 years of standing up for the outcast, that God really is on the side of the big battalions in your church…
Updated Thursday evening
Some blog reactions also:
Jeff Jarvis on Comment is Free First church of media
PZ Myers on Pharyngula Archbishop of Canterbury, anti-creationist, hat tip to Andrew Brown who has on helmintholog written Rowan, PZ, creationism.
Other newspapers have followed up on the creationism aspect of the original interview:
Telegraph Jonathan Petre reported: Clarke opposes creation teaching which came twinned with a leader Intelligent by Design. The Mirror seemed not to understand at all, with BAN BIBLE SCIENCE IN SCHOOL’.
The BBC gave more background with Fears over teaching creationism.
The Scotsman found another supporter: Scots church leader joins row over teaching of creationism in schools. In Glasgow, the Herald tried to explain all this in a feature article by Ron Ferguson: A battle that is all of their own creation.
Sarah Lyall in the New York Times had Anglican Leader Says the Schools Shouldn’t Teach Creationism while the Associated Press had Archbishop Opposed to Teaching Creationism.
Reuters Paul Majendie said Anglican leader opposes creationism in schools.
The Guardian itself had a number of letters to the editor.
5 Comments