Islam and violence
An item from the BBC Radio 4 Today programme:
0832 What is it that motivates a suicide bomber? Jane Little explores what Islam has to say about violence.
Listen here with Real Audio 4.5 minutes
11 CommentsStigamup
Some small Parisian boys, back from their Saturday morning at the pictures almost half a century ago, were anxious to know the formula spoken by a cowboy holding a gun when he required someone to raise their hands in the air. The films had sub titles, rather than being dubbed, and the boys were convinced that there ought to be a definitive, universally understood expression. To their way of thinking, saying “Stigamup”, or something like it, usually guaranteed that in the lawless western frontiers of the USA, an unnecessary shooting was often avoided. Whilst the first application of this expression would be in their games, maybe they were thinking that, were they ever to travel to the wild west, they would need to recognise the one phrase which demanded instant obedience.
10 Commentsreactions to CP statement
Updated again Wednesday
News reports and press releases will be collected here as they appear.
The Times published this before the release of the statement
Gay clergy can ‘marry’ but no sex
and this onine (only?) afterwards (both Ruth Gledhill)
Catch 22 for gay clergy in new church sex code
LGCM issued this statement
Guardian Stephen Bates
Church struggles with the concept of celibacy in same-sex partnerships
and this column Stop the denial
The Church of England has announced that it will support civil partnerships for gay priests, as long as they don’t have sex for the rest of their lives. Here, Richard Haggis, a practising priest and homosexual, calls for his superiors to see the error of their ways
Letters in response to the above item
Telegraph Jonathan Petre
‘Marriages’ but no sex for gay clergy
Letters in response to this report
Eastern Daily Press (local paper in Norwich)
No blessings for gay marriages
Agence France-Presse
Church of England bans clergy from blessing gay civil partnerships
Scotsman
Church row over gay unions
(perhaps more a local reaction to this entirely separate Scottish story from the Herald Episcopal gay clergy row heads for tribunal hearings)
BBC Today radio programme
Two segments:
0724 Has the Church of England changed its policy towards recognising same-sex partnerships? Our Religious Affairs Correspondent Robert Pigott reports. Listen here (Real Audio – 3 minutes)
0856 Canon Dr Chris Sugden, Executive Secretary of Anglican Mainstream, and Rev Colin Coward, Director of Changing Attitude, discuss the Church of England’s stance on gay marriage. Listen here (Real Audio – 5 minutes)
Affirming Catholicism has Bishops’ statement on Civil Partnerships ‘deeply disappointing’
Ekklesia says Affirming Catholics challenge C of E on same-sex unions
Manchester Evening News
Church bans same-sex blessings
BBC Radio 4 News World at One:Interview with David Page, also short clip of Graham James Bp of Norwich, and comment from Ruth Gledhill.
This segment starts some 23 minutes into the 30 minute programme.
This link is no longer available.
InclusiveChurch has Bishops’ Pastoral Care Lacking
Anglican Mainstream has Need for clear teaching
BBC
Gay couples ‘will not be blessed’
The Times Ruth Gledhill comment column Bishops in the mire
2 CommentsCivil Partnerships statement
As expected the Church of England bishops issued their pastoral statement on civil partnerships this morning. You can read it here.
Another copy is here
The right, good old way
A couple of weeks ago, I visited Little Gidding. Not for the first time, and not, I hope, for the last, either. But it was the first time I had been in about five years, so it was good to be back.
A long time before, back in 1993, at the dawn of the popular internet, I wrote a piece about a visit to Little Gidding for an Anglican email list. (You can read a copy of that piece here.) At that time Little Gidding was the home of a small community, as well as a wider group of Friends, but in the intervening years the community disbanded and there was some dispute over the future ownership of the community buildings. But now the dispute has been settled, the Friends of Little Gidding have been reconstituted, new wardens installed in Ferrar House, and the ministry of hospitality continues.
So, on a lovely Sunday afternoon we headed up the A14, across the A1, turning off at Leighton Bromswold (to pay homage to George Herbert) and on to Little Gidding. The ‘dull facade’ looked almost beautiful in the late afternoon sun, the noticeboard (new since our last visit) slightly detracting from the composition. Inside, the sun shone brightly through the clear glass and the stained glass of the windows, and the old familiar place looked just the same. This is the place where the Ferrar family, led by Deacon Nicholas, came to say their prayers, morning and evening each day, the centre of their spiritual life. This is the place, hallowed by their community, where ‘prayer has been valid’, this is the place closest to us, now and in England.
Nicholas Ferrar lived in a time of increasing prosperity, with the foundations being laid for the later British commercial and imperial greatness. Ferrar himself came from a wealthy mercantile family, involved in foreign trade and the settlement of English colonies in North America.
It was also a time of religious turmoil in England. Just five years before his birth an attempted invasion by a foreign power aiming to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I and her protestant government had been foiled by a combination of the heroics of Sir Francis Drake and the stormy weather. When Ferrar was 12 a conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament and to kill the king and his government was only narrowly averted, thanks to careful intelligence and leaks from the inside. And not long after his death England erupted into civil war.
Ferrar’s response to this, like that of his contemporary George Herbert, was to live a quiet and godly life. He abandoned the pursuit of worldly wealth and status for a life of prayer and contemplation, in a community of family and other associates. But this was not escapism. Rather, it was an engagement in real life, an engagement with ordinary people and their everyday concerns, as a teacher, as a healer (Ferrar had studied medicine at Cambridge, Padua and Leipzig), as a counsellor. He and his community were consulted by the poor, by the politically active, and by the great and the good — right up to the king himself.
Although Nicholas Ferrar died in his 40s on 4 December 1637 and his community survived only another decade before it was ransacked by the victorious Puritans, and dissolved a further decade later at the death of Nicholas’s eldest brother John, his example still shines as a beacon of sanity in a complex and sometimes frightening world. A life of caring for ordinary people, of ministering to their needs, physical, intellectual and spiritual, a life of quiet, undemonstrative prayer and study, is one that we would all do well to emulate. ‘It is the right, good old way you are in,’ Nicholas Ferrar said to his brother, shortly before he died; ‘keep in it.’
1 Commentcivil partnerships and the CofE
The Church of England bishops are about to issue their promised pastoral statement on civil partnerships. This is expected to occur tomorrow. Two excellent briefing items have appeared.
The BBC Sunday programme had this item:
Gay Anglicans
Tomorrow the Church of England will reveal how it will deal with clergy who are in same sex relationships and who want to register their partnerships.
Report by Christopher Landau.
Listen (4m 35s) (Real Audio)
Fulcrum has published a Fulcrum response to the Civil Partnerships Act by Andrew Goddard. This is a comprehensive analysis of the UK civil partnership legislation and its implications for the Church of England, and also indicates the potential for a positive way forward.
9 Commentsfinal amendments to ordinal
As this information is not yet available online elsewhere, the textual amendments contained in GS 1535C are reproduced below the fold.
UPDATE (26 July 2005)
This paper (which includes an explanation of the bishops’ actions) is now available on the CofE website.
weekend columns of opinion
From The Times
Christian conservatives find a common crusade by Gordon Urquhart
We must continue in joy and hope — astonishingly optimistic or not by John Wilkins
From the Guardian
Fundamentally speaking by Giles Fraser
From the Telegraph
Islam: cut out and keep by Christopher Howse
From Fulcrum
General Synod Reflections July 2005 by Francis Bridger
From the Church Times
Feelings, nothing more than feelings? by Giles Fraser
From the Tablet
Islam’s ‘heart of darkness’ by Abdal Hakim Murad
A martyr in Connecticut?
Updated
There has been intensive coverage elsewhere this week of the disciplinary action taken by the Bishop of Connecticut towards the Reverend Mark Hansen, one of the Connecticut Six about whom TA has reported in the past.
The official diocesan statement is here, together with links to several other documents that give more background, and ENS earlier included a similar report in this diocesan news roundup.
The report by The Living Church magazine is here and further information is in this report.
The New York Times carried Episcopal Priest Is Removed in Connecticut
and the Associated Press had Episcopal bishop suspends one of six embattled priests
while the Bristol Press reported that Bishop suspends Episcopal priest
The CEN has this week reported the story as Mediating Panel not wanted in US diocese.
The Church Times also has a report, not yet available on the web except to its paid subscribers, titled Dispute over support for gay Bishop worsens, which says in part:
The six asked to be released from their ordination vows of obedience to the Bishop, and for suspension of selected canons, and withdrew their parish share.
They refused the terms of the offer of Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight approved by ECUSA’s House of Bishops last year, asking that the delegated rather than the diocesan bishop take responsibility for the future succession of clergy and future candidates for ordination in the diocese.
In March, the diocese determined that the six rectors had “abandoned communion” and recommended the inhibition of all six priests — the first step towards unfrocking. A meeting between Bishop Smith and the six in April reached an impasse, but the recommendation was not carried out (News, 22 April).
Mr Hansen has been on sabbatical leave since 10 April, having declared to his parishioners on 15 March that the day would be “my last Sunday as your priest”. Bishop Smith has declared his absence unauthorised.
The St John’s Church Vestry accused the Bishop on Sunday of violating canon, civil, and criminal law, and refused to accept the ministry as priest-in-charge of the Revd Susan McCone, the executive director of Affirming Catholicism.
Mr Hansen declared himself “personally devastated” by Bishop Smith’s action in inhibiting him on the grounds of abandonment of communion, and accused him of misrepresenting the facts. “The Bishop is fully aware that family circumstances necessitated a sabbatical leave. . . [He] has knowingly and wilfully endangered my family’s well-being and security,” he said.
Here is the website of the Connecticut Six which contains links to many who support them. They include the Moderator of NACDAP and the AAC and there is also this riveting eyewitness account of the events when the bishop came to the parish on Tuesday.
A comprehensive report from Fr Jake The Making of a Connecticut Martyr suggests that the facts are not as straightforward as the supporters of Fr Hansen have made out.
Kendall Harmon has expressed surprise more than once that so few people other than conservatives have criticised the bishop’s actions.
I do not think this is because there is widespread support for Smith, but rather that there is very little support for the position taken by the Connecticut Six in the first place.
See also this commentary from Alistair Highet in the Hartford Advocate.
And this criticism from AKMA.
36 CommentsGeneral Synod: church press coverage
Church Times
Women bishops clear first hurdle in Synod
Women bishops: law to be tackled
Admitting children to communion is ‘gaining ground’
Euthanasia rejected as ‘bad medicine’
Southwell name
Ordinal passed after last-minute changes
presidential address
Synod hears of impatience for unity
‘Learn from good interfaith experience’ Synod told
Fund launched to fight poverty gets Synod backing
Code for clergy discipline agreed
standing orders
‘In God we trust – but everybody else we audit’
synod revue
Hind follow-up
parochial fees
2006 budget
Farewells
Church of England Newspaper reports are below the fold.
0 CommentsGeneral Synod papers
The official record of the business done at this month’s General Synod is now online here.
0 CommentsEnglish bombers 1605-2005
The revelation that those who carried out the suicide bombings in London were British citizens is a shock. It would have been far easier to be able to regard the terrorists as people from out there, people who were totally different, people with whom we had nothing in common, and for whom were needed have no fellow feeling.
But we have been here before, and we need to learn from our history. This year marks the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, possibly the most audacious acts of terrorism ever planned. It was planned by Englishmen. It was planned not by the poor or the dispossessed, but by people who largely were privileged and comfortable.
At the accession of King James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603, those who wanted to worship as Catholics had hoped that the new king would be more sympathetic to them than Queen Elizabeth had been. At first James had appeared to favour them, but the Puritans objected to the new relaxed attitudes. James brought back the fines for those who would not worship as Anglicans, and expelled Catholic priests and Jesuits. This intolerance proved to be a breeding ground for extremism of the most audacious kind. And this was within the hearts of Englishmen who loved England. Like the men who successfully bombed London last week, they were indistinguishable from the rest of the population.
Today we have to learn from history. 400 years ago a religious war was beginning in England. The Puritans were determined to get the king to treat Catholics so harshly that they didn’t feel they had a future in England. The Gunpowder Plot led to more repression, partly to the Civil War, certainly to Cromwell’s hated campaigns in Ireland. In the city of Drogheda he ordered the death of every man in the garrison, describing this as “a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches”. In Wexford he slaughtered townspeople and garrison alike.
The legacy of the response to the gunpowder plot has been severe repression and hostility particularly in Ireland which has continued until our own day. It has set the native largely catholic population against the immigrant ruling protestant class for generation after generation. The two communities have been unable to trust each other, and the reason both catholic and protestant terrorists were able to function was that on both sides they knew no-one in their own community would betray them.
Today we stand at that same point in relation to the recent bombings in London as people stood on November 5th 1605. And today we have to reach out and acknowledge that people of Muslim faith have a legitimate and valuable part to play in British society today. We cannot afford to reject people of good will. We need them on our side if good is to triumph.
The Bush administration in the USA with its war on terror has been just as misguided as that of Oliver Cromwell. Its indiscriminate bombing, destruction of infrastructure and failure to establish a rule of law which could be trusted, its treatment of prisoners and detainees have all made things infinitely worse since 9-11.
Jesus tells a parable (Matthew 13.24-30,36-43) which is appropriate to today’s situation. An enemy comes by night and sows weeds in the field. The slaves of the household are up in arms, and want to rush into the field and gather up the weeds. But Jesus says “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.”
Our danger is that we could, as in the heavy handed and intolerant response to the gunpowder plot 400 years ago, rush in and make things infinitely worse, alienating good citizens of Muslim faith here, and breeding terrorists across the world. We have, fortunately, the good example of the dignified and appropriate response of Spain to the Madrid bombings as a much better example to follow.
The parable of the weeds sown in the crop has an important lesson. We are to live with those who are different. We do not know, and we do not decide which of us is ultimately the good seed which God will harvest at the end of the age. He sends his angels to do that. But we trample down those who are different at our peril, for in doing so, we spoil the good crop, we spoil even ourselves. We find our good intentions turned to hatred and our zeal to oppose what is wrong carries us away in a fury of righteous anger. And we become like an Oliver Cromwell, trampling on the whole of Ireland, turning people against each other for generation after generation.
Our task is to produce the good seed for the harvest, so that at the judgement we will be those whose response to God’s grace will find its fulfilment in his kingdom.
11 Commentswomen bishops: more radio discussion
The BBC Sunday programme had this piece:
Women Bishops
On Monday, The Church of England took its most significant step yet towards enabling women to become Bishops. Its General Synod authorised the drafting of legislation to remove obstacles that prevent women being enthroned. But a significant minority remain adamantly opposed to such a move. They have long argued for the creation of a separate or third province of the church to be created for them, which would have only male bishops and priests. Now the Bishop who leads them has said that if their demands aren’t met, they will consider setting up a church of their own. Christopher Landau reports.
Listen here with Real Audio
(nearly 6 minutes)
godslots on Saturday
Tom Wright writes in the Guardian on a Reason to be cheerful. This is mainly about the General Synod debate on women bishops, and what was wrong with it.
…Much of our contemporary discourse – I sat through two days of general synod a week ago – has degenerated into a competition between the relative woundedness of people’s feelings. I am not saying that wounded feelings do not matter, only that saying “I’m more hurt than you are” cannot settle an argument on a point of principle. Unfortunately, since victimhood is the only high moral ground left after the collapse of reasoned discourse, speeches become harangues, name-calling replaces respectful engagement and party spirit trumps public wisdom.
Not for the first time, the Church of England has copied the surrounding culture, greatly to its disadvantage. True, “reason” is sometimes overemphasised. Like “clarity”, it needs something to work on; in Christian thinking, scripture and tradition. But you would have thought we could at least apply it to our own documents.
Last week’s debate about women bishops mostly consisted of people making passionate speeches on a question that was not on the order paper. The official question was about a way of proceeding, not about whether we approved of women bishops. If people had wanted to debate that, they should have amended the motion…
Roderick Strange writes in The Times, Pray within your own solitude – however noisy it is
Also in The Times Jonathan Romain writes about The silliness and brilliance of religion on the box.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about Jews, Christians and Muslims.
6 CommentsPanel of Reference open for business
ACNS has issued this Communiqué from the Panel of Reference.
Further information about the panel can be found on its own web page here
Other detailed pages include the Reference Procedure which is new.
Dr Brian Hanson has been appointed as an additional secretary to the panel.
20 CommentsA matter of life or death
Some myths of course we haven’t believed for a long time. Few of us really thought that Britain was somehow exempt from terrorist attack. Nor did we seriously expect that on each and every occasion security forces would be able to prevent an atrocity before it happened. But the myth that many of us held until this week, and which we have now painfully had to relinquish, was that terrorists are radically different from you and me. As I write, the backgrounds of the four suicide bombers are beginning to become clear. From what we can tell at this stage these were ordinary young British men. Born and brought up in this country, educated here, from unremarkable law abiding families. Outwardly at least their interests were the same as those of many of their age and sex.
Chillingly, that closeness is not defined to their backgrounds. For those of us of religious conviction it is equally present in their motivations. Christianity is founded on the story of a man who gave up his life for the sake of others. Faith relativises death in two ways. Most religions declare it neither to be the end nor the most important factor to be considered. I guess that the bombers were like us too in wanting (and this is rightly especially prevalent among young adults) to feel that they were part of something huge – even the outworking of God’s plan itself. The motivations of the original crusaders (who detonated the first suicide bomb a thousand years ago) are not so different from those of these young men.
It’s only after having recognised our similarities that we should go on to focus on the differences. I am helped enormously by the comment of a brother bishop some years ago. He drew an illuminating distinction between “theologies of life” and “theologies of death”. Both are present in Christianity. Both have their place. And in any one of us both will be operating at the same time. One or other however will be the dominant.
Theologies of death focus on temptation, sin, the battle between the divine and the demonic. The central symbol is the cross with Jesus hanging bleeding on it. The world is the entity that nails him there.
Theologies of life by comparison focus on love, forgiveness, the rich abundance of God’s creation. The cross remains the central symbol but here it is empty. Christ is risen, gone before, leading his people. The world, and the rich diversity in it, is itself a pointer to God’s glory.
Those who detonate bombs killing themselves and innocent travellers are operating from within a theology of death. We are closer to them than is comfortable whenever we allow our faith to be more rooted or expressed in what we oppose than in what we affirm. As the scriptures reiterate again and again the mission of Jesus was to bring not death but life. If we are to seriously distinguish ourselves from terrorism it is a theology of life that must predominate, whatever the particular matters being debated.
Faith leaders are rarely to be found with rucksacks full of explosives strapped to their backs but when we propound theologies that place God’s creation under the control of the devil or we declare humanity to be utterly depraved and make that the lynchpin of our position we are ultimately providing the ideological underpinning for actions that in themselves we rightly abhor.
12 Commentscivil rights in Uganda
The Kampala Mail and Guardian carried this report on 7 July, Ugandan Parliament deals blow to gay rights. This report is amplified in an article from Human Rights Watch Uganda: Same-Sex Marriage Ban Deepens Repression. Other news reports that mention this are in the Kampala Monitor and the Kampala New Vision.
The LGBT community in Uganda had made representations to Parliament for inclusion in the list of recognised minorities for which the proposed constitutional amendments offered further protection and recognition of their special needs.
The actions now taken in response to this request are more extensive than were recommended in the white paper on constitutional amendments which only asked for the first declaration – marriage is between a man and woman – the second part criminalising those who enter a partnership is an additional action now taken by the Ugandan parliament without previous discussion.
Back in February, the primates of the Anglican Communion said:
…We also wish to make it quite clear that in our discussion and assessment of the moral appropriateness of specific human behaviours, we continue unreservedly to be committed to the pastoral support and care of homosexual people. The victimisation or diminishment of human beings whose affections happen to be ordered towards people of the same sex is anathema to us. We assure homosexual people that they are children of God, loved and valued by him, and deserving of the best we can give of pastoral care and friendship…
At the recent ACC meeting in Nottingham, Rowan Williams said:
…The Lambeth Resolution called for just this. It also condemned in clear terms, as did earlier Lambeth Conferences, the Windsor Report and the Primates’ Dromantine statement, violent and bigoted language about homosexual people – and this cannot be repeated too often. It is possible to uphold Lambeth ’98 and to oppose the shocking persecution of homosexuals in some countries, to defend measures that guarantee their civil liberties…
And again this week, in his presidential address at the General Synod in York, Rowan Williams also said:
If the listening process set up by the ACC is to be of any use, it must have the same character all round. And the point has perfectly rightly been made that it will fail if it does not listen to the voices of homosexual people within the developing world, so often horrifyingly at risk of violence and persecution, just as much as it will fail if it does not listen to those churches in the developing world that are struggling with great difficulty to find a pastoral way forward that is true to their convictions and does not expose their people to real danger.
Will any Anglican primate now speak up on this concrete example of civil rights abuse?
71 Commentswomen bishops: Tom Wright
The Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright has a letter to the editor of The Times published today in which he explains his position:
20 CommentsBishops’ views on women
From the Bishop of Durham
Sir, Anthony Howard (T2, July 12; see also report, same day) describes my action in signing, with 16 other bishops, an open letter pleading for fuller debate on women bishops as a “defection”. This is a complete misunderstanding. I have for some years argued strongly in favour of women bishops, in public and private, in person and in print. I have not changed my mind.The motion before us at the General Synod was not whether we were in favour of women bishops, but whether we favoured a particular way of proceeding towards that goal. I want the train to get to that destination not only as soon as it can, but with as many passengers as possible still on board. I therefore agreed with the other signatories not that we should have further delay for its own sake, but that we should have what synod had specifically asked for when commissioning the Rochester report on the subject, namely proper theological discussion before taking steps which presupposed such discussion.
The Church now copies the world in treating all issues in monochrome, with goodies, baddies and “defectors”. Like an examination candidate on a bad day, synod was determined to discuss the question it wanted to discuss rather than the question on the paper. I could not vote for the actual motion, but could not vote against the perceived one, and I therefore abstained.
That was not a “defection”. It was a silent vote for that reasoned discourse which, in company with the Archbishop of Canterbury, I still believe is the best hope as we move forward into uncharted territory.
THOMAS DUNELM
Auckland Castle, Co Durham
synod votes against euthanasia
On Saturday evening, the General Synod considered the subject of euthanasia, in the context of legislation recently before the UK Parliament. Christopher Herbert, Bishop of St Albans opened the debate with this speech.
The synod briefing document is Assisted Suicide and Voluntary Euthanasia (RTF format)
A press release from the Diocese of St Albans is here
Press coverage:
Daily Mail Synod prays after rejecting bill
Press Association
Synod prays after rejecting bill
Euthanasia ‘motivated by cost’
The Archbishop of Canterbury said he fears moves towards legalising voluntary euthanasia were being motivated by the need for cost-cutting in healthcare.
Dr Rowan Williams reaffirmed his opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide at a meeting of the the General Synod of the Church of England, in York.
The archbishop said: “This is not simply a debate about medical ethics, it’s also about economic ethics.
“In a climate where the pressure is all towards a functionalised, reduced style of healthcare provision, this (assisted dying) must be a very, very tempting option to save money and resources.
“We have to be honest about this but we have to recognise that this is also an economic question and therefore a question about power.”
Speaker after speaker at The Synod spoke against the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill which was introduced by Lord Joffe in the House of Lords last year and is likely to return to parliament later this year.
Many members gave moving personal accounts of the deaths of terminally ill relatives before The Synod voted resoundingly to continue The Church’s opposition.
In September last year, Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops issued a joint statement opposing Lord Joffe’s Bill which concluded: “It is deeply misguided to propose a law by which it would be legal for terminally ill people to be killed or assisted in suicide by those caring for them.”
The Synod voted by 293 votes to just one to support that stance.
Liverpool Daily Post Church leaders’ attack on voluntary euthanasia Bill
19 Commentsall ACC-13 resolutions online
The complete file of ACC-13 resolutions is now available on the ACO website at this address.
0 Comments