David Torrance House of Commons Library What is the Ecclesiastical Committee?
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love The Evolution or Regression of the Church of England
Scarlet Cassock “All the money’s gone — must be the choir’s fault”
[This is part 2; part 1 was published in July.]
Bishop of Oxford An Open Letter to Nigel Farage
I live at St Margaret’s Bay, which is between Deal and Dover. It is the only place where migrant craft can land between Dover Beach (where few do land) and Walmer Beach (where a number do land). As such RNLI and other helicopters frequently fly over and – very occasionally – it is possible to see what may or may not be ‘boats’ coming across. This is a body of water with a very tragic history: the sea between the Downs, the Goodwin Sands and South Foreland is riddled with wrecks. I tend to see Reform as a symptom of… Read more »
Froghole, this is an interesting if very dense posting and it raises some huge questions. Can you tease out a bit what you mean about the uncomfortable questions raised by post WW2 investment in IF relations. I once lived in an area where where I could engage with the local CCJ as well as doing Christian-Muslim relations in my ministry. I wonder how that would all feel now. Also, you list 4 countries where you say the UK has helped create migrant crises, yet our response was not the same in each case. I am no liberal interventionist and strongly… Read more »
Many thanks. I think that one of the reasons why the bishops are extremely wary about speaking out with respect to impunity is that they are concerned that: (i) this will upset many in government who are worried about what the US thinks; and (ii) they feel that because a certain faith community is profoundly split over the issue, a very large section of it is still in sympathy with the ‘impunity’ and that if the Church intrudes in this then it risks undoing all the work done with that community over many decades and/or making itself open to the… Read more »
What is the double standard over Ukraine?
It has been very widely reported, though not in the MSM (which is largely composed of ‘stenographers to power’ who are active in the ‘management of consent’). However, to give one very obvious example, the ICC issued a warrant against Putin in March 2023 to widespread satisfaction on the part of Western powers. It also did so against Netanyahu and Gallant in November 2024, some 10 months after the ICJ declared that there was a plausible risk of genocide. It subsequently transpired that the very same Western powers who applauded the issue of a warrant against Putin threatened the ICC… Read more »
I have to admit I switch off when anyone derogates the ‘MSM’. The mainstream media (which I assume is what you mean) is not a monolithic entity with only one point of view. There are plenty of journalists with integrity left. And the situations in Ukraine and Israel/Gaza are not comparable. Ukraine was and is subject to an unprovoked invasion by a foreign power. The Israeli government and Hamas have both committed atrocities and war crimes over a number of years, and the roots of the conflict go back centuries – or even, arguably, to the time of Abraham. I… Read more »
Thank you. It had not been my intention to describe the MSM as a monolith (though the acronym is convenient shorthand for corporate media). No profession is ever completely monolithic, but in this case – yes – the overwhelming majority of the mainstream media in Western countries have failed abjectly and, yes, it is either because they have no integrity or they have suspended it with respect to this particular issue, chiefly out of fear and/or because they make assumptions which are themselves ‘painful’. As example of this occurred a month ago when the ‘highly respected’ BBC journalist John Simpson… Read more »
Froghole,
Regarding “200 killed journalists”, let us observe that there really is no definition of a journalist. If I want to be a doctor, I need a medical degree and state certification. If I want to be a lawyer, I need a law degree and admission to the bar. If I want to be a journalist, I need …. a mobile phone. Anyone can call himself a journalist. Tommy Robinson does. Perhaps you would dispute his self-designation?
@Froghole Proportionality in international law is not about comparing the number of Jews kills to the number of Palestinian killed. Israel is in no sense obliged to give Hamas the occasional victory in order to keep thing more “proportionate”. It is about the legitimate military gains compared to the degree of collateral damage involved. Every example, I’ve seen has to my mind been fine by this standard (although I know some disagree). If Hamas and Gaza are overwhelmingly losing the war, then that’s a reason for them to surrender. (Although, I understand that Hamas leadership won’t surrender while they view… Read more »
I would suggest that it is not, per the doctrine of ‘inherent proportionality’: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-51 and https://www.icrc.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/war-and-law/04_proportionality-0.pdf
You may have assessed the action taken to be ‘fine by this standard’ (or whatever standard you may wish to follow), but those who specialise in making such determinations would appear to differ: https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IAGS-Resolution-on-Gaza-FINAL.pdf (and this was approved by an overwhelming majority of the IAGS).
Those links support my point. Proportionality is about the ratio of legitimate military gain to incidental civilian damage. It has nothing to do with the ratio of Israeli harm to Gazan harm.
“and this was approved by an overwhelming majority of the IAGS” is simply wrong according to the BBC which says that only 28% of the IAGS even voted.
The IAGS has 500 members of whom 28% took part in the vote, and of those 86% voted in favour. Thus it was approved by 24.1% of the IAGS, which is not a majority.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o
The IAGS’ membership is indiscriminately open to everyone provided they can afford $30, emperor Palpatine has joined, famously.
Would that the surgery (the place of the OT) were so simple. Marcion tried this, and 90% of the NT went with it. He was left with Gospel and Epistle (probably Galatians). Luke was his Gospel, and it was shorn of the infancy narratives and the Road to Emmaus — too much OT.
Many thanks, as ever. I agree completely. If we were to discard the OT, then we would also be doing the attempted (and thankfully abortive) work of the Eisenacher Institute in 1939. As you rightly note, the NT would be left as a largely hollow shell. What I find ‘difficult’ is the use of Scripture to justify ‘impunity’ – not just in the present context but more generally. It risks tainting a whole faith community (a considerable proportion of which has been in the vanguard of challenging the ‘impunity’, especially in the US and Europe) in the eyes of those… Read more »
Land.and specifically Canaan, lies at the heart of God’s promises to Abraham as part of mutually biding agreement. Occupying the land is thus one of the threads that runs throughout the OT, as is the commandment to love your neighbour. Israel’s unfaithfulness broke this covenant and Isreal was eventually kicked out of the land by the Roman emperor Hadrian, but not before a new covenant had been established. Christian’s were subsequently thrown out by Muslims following the Crusades, before the UK helped establish a new state of Isreal after WW1 & 2 and the defeat of the Ottoman Caliphate. Now… Read more »
The short, medium and long-term impact of British (really English, actually) foreign policy is not calibrated into Croft’s thinking. Balfour and Palestine, interventions during the Great War in the Ottoman Empire, and post-WW2 interferences (Nasser, Suez etc) through to more recent campaigns create unstable environments that take decades to reify. When they do, and it might be civil war, our government/church is hardly in a position to lecture as though GB/England bears no responsibility in the first place. For the CofE it would surely be better to be asking what kinds of acts were perpetrated originating from these shores that… Read more »
Thank you, as always (and also for your recent book touching upon these themes which I have found very profitable). Yes, we should not be surprised if, at length, problems which we created boomerang back in our direction. Yet, in our overweening arrogance and blindness, we do not learn from our blunders: https://www.declassifieduk.org/britain-sent-over-500-spy-flights-to-gaza/ and https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-media-are-covering-up-british-spy-flights-for-israel/ The UK has endowments of coal and iron ore; it has largely dissipated its endowments of oil and natural gas (being a net importer since 2004). It has a small quantity of tin. Most of these endowments are of limited utility in a decarbonising economy.… Read more »
Croft isn’t thinking. His open letter makes no concrete suggestion for how to address the present circumstances, it just criticises Farage’s approach. Insofar as he recommends anything it is ‘to depoliticise this most toxic of issues and seek cross party agreement on solutions wherever possible‘. But he hasn’t even thought that through: if Farage builds a cross-party agreement in favour of Reform’s approach, I’ll be very surprised to see Croft write him a second open letter, congratulating him on having successfully depoliticised the issue. Until the CofE hierarchy begins to think clearly and develop actionable recommendations based on evidence, data… Read more »
Balfour – the Scotsman?
In response to Colin Coward’s support for “Enlightenment values” I’d suggest that although such values are inimical to right wing populism they are equally inimical to the basis of the Church of England’s theology in creedal doctrines and divine “revelation” in Scripture ?
Is Enlightenment thinking not most closely aligned to “Sea of Faith” style non-realist theology and the understanding of all religion as an entirely man-made creation?
In the light of Graham Linehan’s recent arrest, one wonders if the agents of the State are themselves just as active in the dismantling of ‘Enlightenment values’ (whatever exactly is meant by that phrase), as any ‘far-right’ actors.
The enlightenment served to rid religion of superstition with a stronger emphasis on studying the bible in the same way as other ancient texts are studied.
which is far from the manner in which the scriptures are being used in the current debate about same-sex relationships. Or the raising of the words of the Nicene Creed into the unchallengeable basis of dogma.
Further to my earlier comment I offer this from the C of E website – which is very far from reflecting “Enlightenment Values”. “The faith of the Church is revealed in the Holy Scriptures
and set forth in the words of the Apostles’ Creed”
The Bangor debacle just keeps on getting worse. The article was written before the choir staged a polite walk-out during a service, which put grievances right out in public. Reminds me that when I came out of the navy & went to work for a charity I was advised to join the relevant union. This turned out to be very good advice indeed, as charities tend to have a high & mighty attitude to the rights of those that they employ, and really hate it when you have the effrontery to call in your union rep. The CofE is every… Read more »
How does a ‘polite walk out during a service’ function? Isn’t it inevitably a self-indulgent, attention-seeking, worship-disturbing act of narcissistic selfishness? If you have a grievance which imperils your communion with a worship-leader, just don’t attend, rather than marring the worship of those who are happy to.
Congratulations on pushing the classic management line that workers are irresponsible & think only of themselves.
I was trying to articulate the classic Christian perspective that what we do in worship is about glorifying God, not pursuing our own grievances or agendas. Congratulations to you for embracing the impoverished perspective that relationships in the body of Christ are reducible to ‘workers’ and ‘managers’.
All overtaken by events. Director Of Music, who is going to half time, was already “away” before the walk out, and now whole choir is suspended for a month. Apparently consultation on redundancies etc was only 6 days (far short of norm in hard-nosed unchristian world of business) with no discussion allowed for any alternatives (such as fundraising for choir). There are suggestions of vindictiveness in choice of redundancies falling on those who spoke out loudest in the visitation. There also seems to be a rush to complete before new Dean takes post. She will thus wear the fall-out despite… Read more »
It is always difficult to know where truth lies in any given situation. I feel it is important to hear all sides of an argument and, for that reason, would like to share the following statement from the Bangor Cathedral Chapter, taken from the Cathedral’s website: Statement from the Chapter of Bangor Cathedral This past week has been difficult for all of us who are part of the mission and ministry of our Cathedral Church here in Bangor. The Chapter of our Cathedral met last Monday. Amongst other items, we reflected on the events during the 11am sacred act of… Read more »
Just came across this, which may demolish various myths.
https://www.facebook.com/simon.ogdon/
Thank you for posting the House of Commons Library item, publshed today and noting: The Ecclesiastical Committee … will consider the draft National Church Governance Measure on 4 September 2025. That is tomorrow. Members of the Ecclesiastical Committee need not be members of the CofE, and may indeed be antipathetic to it, its postures and its practices. It provides opportunity for members to ‘sound off’, and for ‘the Church’ to feel the temperature, or the heat. It is interesting (to some anyway) to contrast the place of this committee in the life of the nation with that of 26 Lords… Read more »
According to the paper by David Torrance, linked above, today’s meeting of the Ecclesiastical Committee was just to “receive an informal background briefing on the draft National Church Governance Measure.” The ‘Events’ page of the Ecclesiastical Committee’s website lists this as a ‘private meeting’, with an ‘oral evidence session’ timetabled for 12 November 2025. It would be interesting to know who was briefing the committee today, and the contents of that briefing. Mr Torrance’s paper also states that the committee “considered the draft Clergy Conduct Measure at a meeting on 7 July 2025.” That, too, was a private meeting and… Read more »
I had similar thoughts to Colin upon reading the Will Hutton articles that he refers to, but Colin has articulated those concerns so much better. I encourage him in his thinking on this subject and look forward to more blogging from him on this really important and urgent subject. He makes some really vital links between developments in church life and in the global political sphere.
Thank you for your comment focusing on the relationship between developments in church life (and for me, developments at every level, local and national in the Church of England) and the developments in national and global culture, political and economic. Everyone who comes to church and everyone involved in the governance of the church is being affected, consciously or unconsciously, by the secular culture in which we live.
Colin Coward’s tour of churches underlines for me the ongoing identity crisis the CofE is facing. Influential and well funded special interest para Church organisations have been part of Church of England story for most of its life, as has the complex relationship with money, patronage and power. HTB is one of the newer kids on the block and has waxed quickly as older more established organisations have waned. However this is about much much more than differing worship styles. It’s important to look carefully where the funding for para church organisations comes from, who has influence, and what political… Read more »
There are a number of online articles about Paul Marshall who owns GB news with its Farage platform, unHerd and the Spectator and who has supported a number of groups with right wing views. He is a massive donor to HTB and is supporting the kind of views which oppose anything regarded as progressive in society. Given the amount of funding to HTB with its massive bank account and links to international organisations which support right wing Christian Nationalist views, it does raise questions about the national CofE and where it is going and who is pulling the strings. It’s… Read more »