Clifford Longley recently wrote a column in The Tablet which was headed with this pullquote:
Love is always good, said Cardinal Hume, including love of the same sex.
The column is about civil partnerships and how the church should deal with them.
Although Mr Longley is a Roman Catholic and is writing for a Roman Catholic journal, the article may be of interest to Anglican readers. The Tablet has kindly given TA permission to republish the article. The full text is below the fold.
8 CommentsFrom the Guardian’s Face to Faith column: Martyn Percy writes about Anglican diversity.
In The Times William Taylor of St Ethelburga’s Centre asks How do Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders work together to sort out hate crimes? in Honesty will help to prevent acts which bring shame on the community.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about psychoanalysis and religion in Sharing a couch with believers.
The Tablet has Keith Ward writing about the recent Richard Dawkins TV programmes in Faith, hype and a lack of clarity.
The Tablet also has a review by Owen Gingerich of Exploring Reality: the intertwining of science and religion by John Polkinghorne in Evolving, unfolding world.
1 CommentIn The Times Rod Strange writes about gifts, Unearned, undeserved and sometimes unexpected, faith is a gift for life.
Christopher Howse in the Telegraph writes about A papal storm in a Santa hat.
Giles Fraser’s column in the Church Times asks Can war be moral?.
And in last week’s CT Robin Griffith-Jones finds presences and meaning in T. S. Eliot’s poem Journey of the Magi: ‘Eliot takes his readers far from Andrewes’s settled confidence’, Travelling to another death.
Late Addition
Face to faith from Saturday’s Guardian only arrived online today. Gilbert Márkus writes about Intelligent Design.
In The Times Jonathan Sacks writes about daily prayer: Prayers from the past and present can shape our world of the future.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about Manger, wine and water.
The Guardian again has multiple items on religion:
Face to Faith is written by an Anglican priest, Ruth Scott, in which she talks about a “safe distance”.
The Essay slot has an article by Ian Buruma titled Cross Purposes in which he suggests that Conflicting views about religion threaten to divide Europe from the US.
And Madeleine Bunting has a very critical review of the forthcoming TV programmes about religion by Richard Dawkins in No wonder atheists are angry: they seem ready to believe anything.
From the British newspapers:
Geoffrey Rowell in The Times writes that The calendar of commercialism does not reflect our spiritual rhythms.
Andrew Brown in the Guardian asks, in an essay entitled Belief systems: Are we hardwired for religion, or is it just a psychological and social need?
Two columns deal with the forthcoming 350th anniversary of the “resettlement” of the Jews in England:
Guardian Geoffrey Alderman in the Face to Faith column; and
The Times Jonathan Romain The timeless question: consolidate or integrate?
In the Telegraph, Christopher Howse writes about Naming the birds of heaven.
As it is New Year’s Eve today, the papers have articles about the New Year, like these:
Ruth Gledhill in The Times Bishops resolve to fight the flab – and end world poverty (see more about this column here), while Jonathan Petre in yesterday’s Telegraph was more sombre.
BBC Radio 4’s Analysis: Is God on their Side?, was broadcast on Thursday, 29 December, 2005 at 20:30 GMT.
Analysis explores the beliefs, the world view and the aspirations of the politically religious in America to discover why so many have come to believe that God, uniquely, is on their side.
Presenter: Andrew Brown
More information from the BBC about the programme
More information from the presenter
Listen to the programme (Real Audio – just under 28 minutes long)
0 CommentsTwo weeks ago, TA linked to the first part of a report by Ian Mayes, in his Open Door column, on the Guardian’s coverage of religion. The second part of this got delayed by a Chomskyian diversion, but appeared last Monday. Here it is.
On Wednesday, Richard Chartres talked about Christmas on BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day.
Today, the Guardian also carried an interview with Nicholas Holtam under the headline Motley Pew, and a column by Giles Fraser entitled Don’t leave those kids alone.
There was another good Thought for the Day on Friday, by Angela Tilby. The text of this is currently lost in the post, but you can hear it here (Real Audio): Darwin didn’t think that his theory of evolution dealt a death-blow to religious faith.
And The Times had another leader today: Very civil partnerships.
0 CommentsIn The Times the Archbishop of York John Sentamu writes the Credo column: Like children, we will be surprised and overwhelmed. Also, the Bishop of Colombo Duleep de Chickera looks back at the tsunami, Wave of division that defies God’s timeless love. The Times leader is headed O come, all ye faithful.
In the Guardian the leader is titled In praise of … Bethlehem. The Face to Faith column by Pete Tobias is about Hanukah falling this year on Christmas Day. Another leader is on Living and giving after the tsunami.
The Telegraph leader is titled Christmas and the end of history. Christopher Howse writes about What the bells told Toby Veck.
1 CommentThe Times has an interesting feature article about women’s ordination, titled The sisterhood. Interviews with three Anglicans are included: Joanne Grenfell, Lucy Winkett and Jessica Swift.
Elsewhere in The Times Roderick Strange writes about Christmas and Ruth Gledhill writes about St Nicholas.
Michael Burleigh’s piece in the Times titled Peer into today’s Aladdin’s cave and try to detect a spiritual life contrasts with Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor writing in the Observer about an Outbreak of faith.
The Guardian’s Face to Faith column is by David Self and is about civil partnerships.
In the Telegraph on Saturday, Christopher Howse wrote about The Christmas law of gravity. But much more interesting is the article by John Sentamu in the Sunday edition, This year, Christmas should last a lifetime.
1 CommentThe Guardian has had several items of a religious nature this week:
St Andrews researcher questions belief in hell
Oliver Cromwell and the Jews: a correction
and today’s Face to Faith column by Malachi O’Doherty
But even more interesting was this from the Readers Editor, Ian Mayes:
Open door
The readers’ editor on … a charge that the paper is no longer secular.
Christopher Howse writes today in the Telegraph about Fashions in sexuality and Charles Moore writes about Rowan Williams’ visit to Pakistan in But, Archbishop, this is the bleak mid-winter for many Christians.
Jonathan Sacks writes in The Times about Different freedoms, or why religion and politics should never mix. Michael Binyon writes on Bridge between the mosque and the synagogue.
2 CommentsIn The Times Geoffrey Rowell writes about Advent: Advent reminds us to stay watchful as we await the kingdom of God.
Also, Valerie Grove interviews Timothy Radcliffe ‘Christians should puzzle and intrigue people’.
Steve Parish raises questions about the link between church and state in the Guardian’s Face to Faith column.
Christopher Howse writes about C. S. Lewis: The saint and the dinosaur in the Telegraph. There was also an interesting article earlier in the week about Anglicans in Baghdad: Reflections of a ‘cheap warmaker’ by Danny Kruger.
2 CommentsFrom the Independent today, Sarah Meyrick interviews John Sentamu
John Sentamu: Pilgrim’s progress
Judith Maltby writes in the Guardian’s Face to Faith column about Advent.
Also in the Guardian Martin Kettle reports on a New York City exhibition on Darwin’s life and work, America is caught in a conflict between science and God.
From the Telegraph The Chinese Marco Polo by Christopher Howse
The Times has material from two Orthodox bishops: Teaching the world to sing in perfect symphonia is a report of a visit to London by the Patriarch of Constantinople. And Bishop Basil of Sergievo writes the Credo column: Our tainted lives are a worthy gift to God, thanks to the Fiat of Mary.
2 CommentsFrom the Telegraph:
Simon Heffer comments on the visit of The Queen to the General Synod, More mediaevalism wouldn’t go amiss
Christopher Howse remembers Peter Anson, A failure, though sharply observant
From the Guardian:
Nicholas Buxton writes on secularism in Face to Faith
From The Times:
Roderick Strange Bleak November is the month to consider, and apportion, our talents
Ruth Gledhill interviewed Gene Robinson, ‘In the end, there is no one God does not love’
From the Church Times
Paul Vallely on Priest Idol, Give the priest a proper chance
Robin Gill The patient doesn’t always know best
Mark Vernon Partnerships could save marriage
1 CommentFirst, the Face to Faith column in the Guardian is by Martyn Percy. It’s about Remembrance.
In the Telegraph Christopher Howse writes about a well-known hymn in Hashish-drunk hymn lyrics.
The Times has Jonathan Sacks commenting on the French riots in We are in danger of forgetting that waiting comes before wanting.
Also in The Times Ruth Gledhill reports on what Rowan Williams said when asked about his journey of faith, in Archbishop reveals his unorthodox way to God.
Giles Fraser wrote in the Church Times that we should Beware the Bible traffic Wardens.
3 CommentsSeveral this weekend are about the 400th anniversary of the gunpowder plot. In the Guardian Catherine Pepinster (who is editor of The Tablet) wrote about this and in The Times Geoffrey Rowell wrote Remember, remember the legacy of suspicion, intolerance and hostility.
Christopher Howse however, wrote about The vision of Magnus Martyr.
In The Tablet *Michael Barnes continues the gunpowder theme with Terror, treason and plot and there are also book reviews. related to this.
Giles Fraser in the Church Times asks Is Sandy Millar a Trojan horse?
The gunpowder theme even extends to Peter Steinfels in the New York Times with A Day to Think About a Case of Faith-Based Terrorism. (hat tip KH)
18 CommentsAlister McGrath writes in The Times about atheism: The Enlightenment is over, and atheism has lost its moral cutting edge.
Paul Oestreicher writes in the Guardian about the rebuilding of Dresden’s cathedral.
Christopher Howse summarises what Rowan Williams said to Mary Midgley about Gaia in a dialogue at St Paul’s Cathedral in Living on the skin of Gaia (you can read more about the book here).
Those who found Rowan Williams’ remarks about Islam in the context of Richard Hooker interesting may also find this critique by Colin Chapman of last summer’s Spectator article on Islam of interest: An Open Letter to Patrick Sookhdeo, while Madeleine Bunting has an interview today in the Guardian with Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Speaking of Williams and Hooker, Graham Kings’ review of Anglican Identities has been republished:‘Passionate Patience’.
0 CommentsThe Guardian has now published on its website the Face to Faith column by Giles Fraser that was in the Saturday paper with the strapline:
Secularists who dismiss Christianity as the choice of the stupid should turn their critical gaze a little closer to home…
Here’s a part of it:
While the ordinary atheist remains indifferent to religion and all its ways, the born-again atheist has adopted the worst arrogance of Christian fundamentalists – just in negative.
Part of the problem is that many born-again atheists remain trapped in a 19th-century time warp, reheating the standard refutations of religious belief based on a form of rationalism that harks back to an era of fob-watches and long sideburns. One Oxford don has called the website of the National Secular Society a “museum of modernity, untroubled by the awkward rise of postmodernity”. Ignoring the fact that at least three generations of thought have challenged an uncritical faith in rationality, the society continues to build its temples to reason, deaf to claims that it is building on sand.
This commitment to Victorian philosophy turns to farce when campaigning secularists describe themselves as freethinkers. In truth, atheism is about as alternative as Rod Stewart. The joke is that many who were converted at university via Richard Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene think of themselves as agents of some subversive counterculturalism. This is ridiculous to Da Vinci Code proportions. Contemporary atheism is mainstream stuff. As John Updike put it: “Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position.”
(More about the “Secularist of the Year” award mentioned can be found here)
24 CommentsFirst, two journals have reviewed the same book today: Earthly Powers: religion and politics in Europe from the French Revolution to the Great War by Michael Burleigh.
Diarmaid MacCulloch reviews it in the Guardian Holy and profane
Owen Chadwick reviews it in the Tablet The idolatry of nationhood
Second, in the godslots, we have
Christopher Howse in the Telegraph writing about Cherie’s love of Chesterton
Bernard Crick in the Guardian saying that This age of fanaticism is no time for non-believers to make enemies
and Roderick Strange in The Times By loving our enemies we come as close as we can to God’s perfection.
The October Fulcrum newsletter is by Francis Bridger and is entitled The Anglican Communion and the Evangelical Centre. This reflects on the recent Eames lectures.
And here is the speech that Rowan Williams delivered earlier this month at the confirmation of the election of John Sentamu as Archbishop of York.
1 CommentSex seems to be on several people’s minds.
Ruth Gledhill reports in The Times that Enjoy good sex on a Sunday, Church course recommends which may raise an eyebrow here and there.
The Guardian godslot has Colin Sedgwick saying that “sexual lust will never banish our yearning for love”.
To balance this, The Times also has Jonathan Sacks considering the earthquake in After even the worst disasters, we will hear the still voice of hope and in the Telegraph Christopher Howse considers Human sacrifice in London.
The Times further reports on a nightclub in Maidstone [sic] with a Church Army chaplain, see Who’s in the house? Enter a new kind of spirit.
Of course, there is plenty of critical comment on religion in the newspapers as well. Yesterday in the Guardian, Polly Toynbee wrote this diatribe against the bishops who spoke in the euthanasia debate: The bishops have no right to restrict our right to die.
More gently, Robert Winston trailed his new TV series and book in Why do we believe in God?
And earlier in the week, Magnus Linklater had written in The Times about Church, old, bankrupt, empty, seeks saviour to which George Carey responded with this letter today: Church progress.
(The original report of his lecture was by Jonathan Petre in the Telegraph Churches near last rites, says Carey.)
Before the Sentamu confirmation event, Stephen Bates wrote this piece for the Guardian: A pivotal moment which asks whether the Church of England’s first black archbishop can bring new impetus to a communion on the brink of schism…
After the service, Geoffrey Rowell wrote A new knot in the net that links communities in fellowship
for the Credo slot in The Times.
Ruth Gledhill reviews two books about Opus Dei in A wholesome reality shines beyond the dark conspiracy.
Earlier in the week Simon Jenkins had written in the Guardian that: London should keep its hands off the treasures of the north which deals mainly, but not exclusively, with the Zurbaran pictures at Auckland Castle. He says:
I am sure the Church of England would never think of selling its London treasures to meet its property losses. It would never part with the Westminster Abbey reredos, the Litlyngton Missal or the Charter of Offa. In St Paul’s Cathedral, works by Grinling Gibbons, Jean Tijou and Henry Moore are, we can assume, secure for the time being.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about A burglary in the Abbey but this turns out to have been in an earlier period.
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