Charity facing closure over bus ad campaign

Transcription

An historic year for the
Church of England
THE
CHURCHOF
ENGLAND
The year in review
p5
Newspaper
01.01.16
£1.50
No: 6311
AVAILABLE ON
⌦ NEWSSTAND
A Happy New Year to all our readers, advertisers and contributors
Charity facing closure
over bus ad campaign
By a staff reporter
THE NORTHERN IRELAND charity
that took Transport for London to court
over bus adverts is facing a bill of over
£100,000 in court costs over their failed
case.
Just before Christmas the leader of the
Core Issue Trust, Mike Davidson, said
that legal action had been taken that
meant all the resources of the charity are
now in possession of the Enforcement of
Judgements Office.
The initial amount of £8,870.87 will be
recouped first, but that will be followed
by a demand for a sum ‘in excess of
£100,000’.
The charity took the Mayor of London
and Transport for London to court after
they rejected an advert they intended to
post on London buses.
The saga arose after an advertising
campaign by Stonewall that read ‘Some
people are gay. Get over it.’ Core Issues
Trust, together with the Christian Legal
Centre and Christian Concern, planned a
riposte reading ‘Post-gay and proud. Get
over it.’
Now after the court battles, the charity
is having to pay the court costs.
Mr Davidson said that the demand is
‘punitive, and intended to cripple and
silence both the Trust and myself with
the intention of closing down our registered charitable work.’
Although the court case was backed
by Christian Concern and the Christian
Legal Centre, Mr Davidson said he did
not intend to ask them to help with the
costs. “The financial responsibility for
the consequences of this action do not
belong to them and I am therefore beginning a financial appeal to help our cause
on my own initiative,” he said.
He claimed that legal experts had sug-
gested that they might win an appeal at
the European Court of Human Rights,
but said that their objective now was to
avoid further costs.
In appealing for funds, he conceded
that their campaign had not been supported by many churches.
“I respect their views, and ask their
understanding that we have different
perspectives and understandings of
scripture on the matter.”
However, he maintained that it was
important that “the right to hold a contrary view in the public space needs to be
defended.”
Ellie Goulding is patron of Church Army project
SINGER Ellie Goulding
is pictured with Mark
Russell, as she was
appointed the first-ever
Church
of
Patron
for
project
Army’s
experiencing
women
homelessness in London, one of the largest of
its kind in the United
Kingdom.
announcement
The
follows Ellie’s recent
visit to the Marylebone
Project, where she chatted to the women and
staff about their experiences.
Ellie said: “I am so
pleased to be the firstever Patron of the
Project.
Marylebone
This amazing place
serves hundreds of
homeless women every
week and helps them
make a fresh start. I love
how the project empowers women to make the
changes to transform
their own lives.
“I saw this for myself
when I visited a few
weeks ago and was
inspired by the stories of
the women I met.”
Church Army Chief
Executive, Mark Russell, said: I am so excited
that Ellie has accepted
my invitation to become
the Patron of the
Project.
Marylebone
She is such an amazing
advocate for homeless
people and she is passionate about helping
those in need. All our
clients are so excited
that Ellie wants to be
part of our project. We
are so grateful for her
[email protected]
fantastic support.”
Ellie even volunteered
at Marylebone over the
Christmas period to get
to know the women,
staff and objectives of
the project better.
Ellie and homeless
charity, Streets of London, recently donated
£15,000 to the Marylebone Project, which will
be used for its Women
into Work, a programme
designed to train, support and guide women
on their journey towards
Around
employment.
110 women a year benefit from the Women into
Work programme.
The Marylebone Project was able to offer
40,515 bed nights to vulnerable women during
the past financial year.
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2
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Friday January 1, 2016
THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND
THE
Bonne Année! Gelukkig
NieuwJaar! Happy New Year! DIARY
John Wilkinson
Canon Pastor
Whatever happens in the
course of 2016 in the UK, the
Church of England will be at
the heart of Europe, in Brussels, where it has been since
1814, along with the other
Anglican churches throughout Belgium, some of which
are even older.
Holy Trinity, Brussels
(HTB) is one of the ProCathedrals in the Diocese in
Europe. Our bishop, Robert Innes, formerly the senior chaplain, has his office just up the road. We are
served, alongside many volunteers, by three clergy, a
team of readers and Sunday school leaders, with this
year a CEMES intern preparing for ministerial selection.
Brussels is home both to the EU and NATO, with
the thousands who work in them alongside people in
business, the professions, and in the universities in
and near Brussels.
The ecumenical work of the Chapel for Europe,
hosted by the Roman Catholic church has a particular
ministry into the European Institutions; we and especially our outreach worker are very involved.
There are also people working in NGOs and civil
rights activists, artists and musicians. Brussels is a
city where alongside the Belgian population there are
many expatriates; migrants and refugees; the jobless
and the homeless.
In many parts of Brussels you are as likely to hear
as much English being spoken as Nederlands and
Français. HTB and the other English-speaking
churches in Brussels seek to share the good news of
Christ in word and action, in partnership with the
national and other international churches.
We watch with prayerful interest and concern the
process initiated by the UK government; by no means
all of us will be able to vote on this matter that affects
us directly, because we have lived outside the UK for
longer than 15 years. Holy Trinity does not take a particular view on the issue though the majority of our
members would probably be on one side of the argument!
The church building with its meeting rooms and
offices are hidden away through an archway in the
rue Captaine Crespel / Kapitein Crespelstraat. The
premises are used by a number of local groups during
the week. We have four Sunday services: a quiet Holy
Communion, a large mid-morning congregation with
Sunday school, a bilingual service for English and
French speakers, largely with roots in Anglican
churches in Africa; and an informal evening service
attended by a number of young professionals. Some
300 families and individuals drawn from almost 30
nations, each with their own traditions and languages,
make for a vibrant community. The issues that face
the Anglican Communion do not dominate our life
together but they do inform who we are and what we
do.
We
began
2015 working
towards
the
appointment of
a new Canon
Chancellor and
Senior Chaplain.
Canon
Paul Vrolijk’s
arrival, a native
of the Netherlands who had
been ministering in France, heralded a new phase in the life of Holy
Trinity.
But things hadn’t been quiet before his arrival. Wide
consultation about future directions of ministry led us
to a clear sense of our calling to serve the city, using
our buildings and outside our buildings, which are in
the process of renovation. The arrival of many
refugees in the city, has highlighted this vocation.
Our congregation have been involved serving
refugees in a temporary encampment in Brussels,
some have welcomed families into their homes and we
continue to seek the best way that we can respond as
the situation changes. Brussels churches work individually and with other churches are part of a citywide
attempt to meet a huge need by offering accommodation, food and administrative help.
Paul Vrolijk and HTB have just featured in a magazine, highlighting religions in Brussels, published by
the Capital Region as part of an educational response
following the terrorist atrocities this year in Paris, in
which the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek has been
implicated. This educational initiative will continue in
February 2016, with HTB’s Canon Theologian Jack
McDonald taking part in a three-day prayer vigil for
peace and understanding, with the leaders of the
recognised religions in Belgium hosted by Brussels
churches, synagogues and mosques.
We hosted a Community Dinner in October in partnership with Serve the City for residents in an emergency centre for families and an asylum seeker centre,
which we hope to repeat in the new year.
We held a large-scale consultation on our children
and youth ministry in which in the year 2014/2015
there were over 100 registered.
All this is against the background of regular worship
and Christian teaching in services, home groups and
young people’s groups. Our strong musical tradition is
a core part of our worship, with Jazz Carols, Carol
Service and performances of Handel’s Messiah, and
Bach’s St Matthew Passion on Good Friday.
October saw the centenary of the death of Edith
Cavell in Brussels. Nurse Cavell had sung briefly in
the choir at Holy Trinity (then known as Christ
Church) when the other Church of England church in
Brussels closed during World War I. One of the main
events was a performance of a Mass in her honour,
composed by our Music Director, David Mitchell.
It’s been a good year for Holy Trinity, Brussels and
we are trusting God for his work in and through us in
2016.
Government praised for role in Paris agreement
THE GOVERNMENT has been
praised for its involvement in the
historic agreement on climate
change, agreed in Paris last
month.
Speaking in the House of Lords,
the Rt Rev Nicholas Holtam however said that Britain is at a ‘tipping
point’ towards a low carbon economy and this convergence needs to
be reflected in government policy
and recognised by the Treasury.
The Church of England’s lead
bishop on the environment, he
congratulated the Government’s
decision to curb the Feed in Tariff
at a rate lower than had been
feared by environmentalists.
Bishop Holtam said the Government needs to ‘think hard’ about
the renewable energy transition.
He said: “Markets do not exist in
a vacuum: they are created or
made,” as he encouraged the Gov-
[email protected]
ernment to think about subsidies
of renewable energy.
Bishop Holtam praised the Paris
deal for $100 billion of climate
finance for poor countries. He said
that amongst faith communities,
there had been ‘a striking convergence’ of views around climate
change.
“All people of faith and of no faith
are able to act together in the care
of our common home,” he said.
Send your events to
[email protected]
or Tweet @churchnewspaper
Send your events to
[email protected]
or Tweet @churchnewspaper
6 January
9:15am Science and Religion in the Local Church. St
Edmund’s College, Cambridge CB3 0BN
(until 8th).
16 January
10am
Islam for An
A glicans, a Critical Introduction
Part 1 - led by Stephen Laird. Godmersham &
Crundale Village Hall, Canterbury, Kent.
26 January
10am
1pm
‘Near Neighbours: Learning for our Future’.
Carriageworks Theatre, Le
L eds, with keynote
speeches from Imam Qari Asim MBE and the
Rt Revd Nick Baines, Bishop of L
Leeds.
Science, Faith and God: The Big Questions.
Prof Al
A ister McGrath lectures on ‘Cosmology
g
and Creation’ at Barnard’s Inn Hall, EC1N
2HH. Free
30 January
10am to 4pm: Discipleship in Action day at Corby
Business Academy, Gretton Road, Corby,
NN17 5EB. Free admission. Organised by
Peterborough Diocese.
23 January
1pm
Prof Alister McGrath lectures on ‘Darwin,
Evollutiion and
d God
d’ at Barnard
d’s Inn Halll,
EC1N 2HH. Free
5 April
1pm
Prof Alister McGrath lectures on ‘Religion,
morality and meaning’ at Barnard’s Inn Hall,
EC1N 2HH. Free
10 May
1pm
Prof Alister McGrath lectures on ‘Why God
won’t go away’ at Barnard’s Inn Hall, EC1N
2HH. Free
Correction
Under the article entitled Archbishop says Syria is
a ‘just war’, (11 December) we erroneously ascribed the
comments concerning a response to the Autun
Statement to Bishop Christopher Cocksworth. The
comments were, in fact, made by the Bishop of
Portsmouth, the Rt Rev Christopher Foster. We
apologise for the error.
@churchnewspaper
NEWS
Friday January 1,2016
3
Rival groups sing from same hymn book on freedom of speech threat
A GRIM warning about the dangers to free speech
were highlighted in a rare joint statement from the
Christian Institute and the National Secular Society.
The two are part of a wider coalition targeting the
Government’s planned Extremism Disruption Orders
(EDOs).
But the leaders of both organizations said that if they
are introduced then ‘the writing could be on the wall for
free speech.’
They claim that the orders are ‘overly broad’ and
could end up turning millions of ordinary citizens into
extremists ‘overnight’.
Colin Hart of the Christian Institute joined with Keith
Porteous Wood of the NSS to affirm: “The vital importance of free speech is an issue on which both our
organisations have always agreed.”
They added: “We have previously been able to see off
an attempt to make it illegal to be ‘annoying’ in public.
We have prevented prosecutions for mere ‘insults’ by
helping to secure changes to Section 5 of the Public
Order Act.
“Extremism Disruption Orders are as bad as anything we have seen in the past – probably worse. It is
another attempt by a Government to clamp down on
free speech in the guise of combating extremism.”
The new Extremism Disruption Orders are aimed at
those sympathetic with jihad and those sympathetic to
Islamic State, but Colin Hart said: “Every time ministers talk about extremism they seem to want to go
much wider than tackling terrorists and their sympathisers.”
He said that Christians in particular could be caught
Greek Church leader blames Jews
for same-sex marriage push
AN INTERNATIONAL Jewish
conspiracy is behind the push
to legalise same-sex marriage
in Greece, the Metropolitan
Seraphim of Piraeus has
warned.
In a statement published on
his diocesan website, he called
the proposed Cohabitation Bill
before the Greek parliament
the latest battle in the “constant war against the true faith”
waged by “the international
Zionist monster” which he
claims controls the EU and
Greek government.
Seraphim further threatened
to excommunicate any legislator who supported the bill,
which was due to come up for
vote on 22 December.
In a 2011 television interview, Seraphim said Jews are
to blame for a host of the
world’s ills, from homosexuality to the Holocaust. He blamed
Greece’s financial meltdown
on an international Zionist conspiracy and a cabal of Jewish
bankers who sought to
“enslave Greece and Christian
Orthodoxy.”
Seraphim further stated that
the mark of the deviousness of
the Jewish conspiracy was that
Adolf Hitler was an agent of
Zionism.
“Adolf Hitler was an instrument of world Zionism and was
financed from the renowned
Rothschild family with the sole
purpose of convincing the Jews
to leave the shores of Europe
and go to Israel to establish the
new Empire,” the bishop told
the MEGA television station.
Jewish bankers like “Rockefeller, Rothschild and Soros
control the international banking system that controls globalization,” the bishop added.
out because of the ‘vague’ definitions of extremism that
Government ministers refer to.
He claimed that the new measures could actually be
counter-productive.
“Broad-brush counter-extremism policies catch ordinary citizens and are actually a waste of resources.
They do not make us safer. They make us less safe by
distracting the authorities from focusing on genuine
threats.”
Keith Porteous-Wood added: “Political activists, environmental campaigners, as well as groups like ours,
could all be branded ‘extremists’ under the Government’s massively broad proposals.”
The two men stressed that there were already
enough measures to catch extremists, but claimed that
these were not being fully used.
Church receives reassurance
that ethos of failing schools
‘will remain religious’
THE CHURCH has received
reassurances that if any of its failing schools are turned into academies, the religious ethos of the
school will be preserved.
The revelation was made in the
House of Lords where the Bishop
of Ely said he was satisfied with
the reassurance.
Bishop Conway said that
Church of England schools offer
both ethos and religious literacy.
He offered an example of a
Church of England school in
Moss Side, Manchester, which
was named primary school of the
year having come bottom in the
north-west league school tables.
The Bishop also pointed out that
St Luke’s in Bury has a Jewish
head teacher and a majority Muslim intake, while St Chrysostom’s
in Manchester has an intake of
around 40 per cent Muslim students.
“This is to demonstrate that the
Church of England is engaged in
education because parishes and
generations of citizens have provided land, buildings and teachers to ensure that Christian
values could be shared with
future generations and to give
poor, disadvantaged children
with no previous access to education the chance to receive that
wonderful gift as a matter of
right,” he said.
Bishop Conway said that Stretton Church of England Academy,
sponsored and managed by the
Diocese of Coventry multi-academy trust, went from special measures to outstanding in less than
three years.
“That commitment to serving
the common good and providing
excellent education for all is the
driving force of the Church of
England’s involvement in education,” he told peers.
Lord Nash told him that the
Government is ‘keen’ to protect
the religious character of
schools, and that laws will seek to
protect their ethos when intervention is necessary.
Lord Nash said that when a
Church of England school ‘joins a
non-faith led trust’, a ‘faith object’
— seeking to ensure the trust’s
commitment that the Church of
England character will be maintained — will be added to the
trust’s articles of association.
Pressure on mining companies to be transparent
THE CHURCH Investors Group has called on
mining companies to adopt a transparent disclosure practice towards their investors about
their response to a low carbon economy.
The push comes after the ‘Aiming for A’
investor coalition secured a vote for what was
called a ‘shareholders democracy’ earlier this
year, calling for further transparency from oil
giant BP around its operational emissions management and public policy activity related to climate change.
After shareholders’ resolutions at both BP
and Shell, the Aiming for A coalition, which has
£230bn assets under management is calling for
‘supportive but stretching’ agreements for
major mining groups such as Anglo American,
Glencore and Rio Tinto to support the low carbon transition.
The coalition is significant, not least because
it includes the three Church of England National Investing Bodies (the Church Commissioners, the Church of England Pensions Board and
the CBF Church of England Funds) and the
Central Finance Board of the Methodist
Church together with Hermes Investment Man-
[email protected]
agement, Sarasin & Partners, The Pensions
Trust and Rathbone Greenbank Investments.
New resolutions will direct the miners to
address five main areas. These include reducing operational carbon emissions, maintaining a
portfolio of assets resilient to future energy scenarios, and supporting low-carbon energy
research and development.
Founder of Aiming for A, Helen Wildsmith,
said she wanted major mining companies to
demonstrate awareness of the risks and opportunities that climate change pose to their businesses.
Edward Mason, the Head of Responsible
Investment at the Church Commissioners, who
are leading the engagement with Glencore,
said: “The BP and Shell resolutions have helped
change the way the European oil and gas companies integrate climate change into their business strategies. We are now keen to see the
same from the major mining companies.
“We would like other investors to join us in cofiling then supporting these resolutions, thereby encouraging the companies to advocate for
and adapt to a low carbon economy.”
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4
Minister gets
life sentence for
proselytising
A TORONTO Presbyterian minister has
been sentenced to life imprisonment for
proselytizing North Koreans.
On 16 December the Rev Hyeon Soo Lim
was sentenced following a 90-minute trial on
charges of having engaged in “political terrorism” and espionage.
Senior pastor of the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto, Mr Lim was
arrested in February and held in detention.
He has visited North Korea over 100 times
during the past 20 years to support a nursing
home, nursery and orphanage.
At his trial Mr Lim read a statement confessing to having committed “heinous
crimes”.
“It was clear he was made to read from a
prepared statement,” says Release International Chief Executive Paul Robinson.
“Who knows what he had been made to
endure beforehand? This was another show
trial, and Rev Lim should be released.”
Robinson stated Christians were being
used as a scapegoat by the government.
“In a country where a form of emperor
Church leaders
face extortion
attempt
By George Conger
worship is mandatory, the authorities regard
Christianity as a threat to the state, and are
accusing Christians of spying.”
According to the US State Department,
some 200,000 North Koreans are being held
in labour camps, many for offences related
to religion. Up to 30,000 Christians are currently in jail for their faith, Release International reported.
Sydney sells
Bishopscourt
THE DIOCESE of Sydney has
reached an agreement to sell its
neo-gothic episcopal residence,
‘Bishopscourt’ in the Darling Point
area of the city.
The building has been on the
market for more than two years
and negotiations concluded this
week for a sale price of $18 million
Australian dollars.
‘Bishopscourt’
(formerly
Greenoaks) was built in the mid1840s by prominent colonial businessman Thomas Sutcliffe Mort. It
was not the original Archiepiscopal
residence, but has housed Archbishops of Sydney since 1911.
A sale was first discussed as
early as 1982. In 2012 the Synod of
the Diocese voted to approve a
NEWS
sale, giving the Anglican Property
Trust authorisation for a five-year
‘sale window’.
“The building is a part of the
early history of Sydney and for the
last century has served the church
well,” the chairman of the Property Trust, Dr Robert Tong told
Anglican Media Sydney.
“However, several million dollars
would be required in the near
future for renovations and as the
agreed price is at the upper end of
valuations, the Trust acted prudently to conclude a sale.
“Part of the sale proceeds will be
used for the purchase of a new residence and the balance will be
placed into a capital preserved
fund,” Dr Tong said.
THE PRIME Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines and
members of the Church’s executive were targets of an extortion
attempt, when a security screener at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) planted a bullet in their luggage.
On 2 December the Most Rev Renato Abibico reported that when
he and fellow members of the Church’s top leadership team were
“travelling to Tacloban a bullet was placed inside our bag containing
materials for our meeting.”
He reported that “Tanim Bala at NAIA is not a myth … Fr Marrero
could have been apprehended at the security area had he decided to
hand carr y the bag. Luckily he decide to check in the bag. We found
the bullet when we opened the bag this morning.
“It is a 32 calibre bullet. [It] must have been placed by the personnel attending to the X-ray machine upon entering the airport.”
In the past two weeks the Manila International Airport Authority
has recorded five cases of “tanim bala” [planting of bullets in luggage], where airport screeners allegedly plant live ammunition in
order to extort a bribe from the unwar y traveller who wishes to avoid
arrest.
Presidential Communications Operations Of fice Secretar y Herminio Coloma Jr, last month said tanim bala was an isolated problem, but this week said the upsurge in complaints would prompt a
government investigation.
Archbishop warned that Primates’
dialogue will not be enough
THE LEADER of the Gafcon movement has
warned the Archbishop of Canterbury that
traditionalists will not be mollified by promises of dialogue at next month’s primates’ gathering.
Archbishop Eliud Wabukala of Kenya said
they expect Justin Welby to clearly state
where he stands on the issues dividing the
Anglican Communion, and what steps he will
take to resolve the dispute.
In a letter published on 17 December, Archbishop Wabukala said he and his fellow
“orthodox Primates” were “willing to attend”
the 11-16 January meeting in Canterbury.
However “their continued presence will
depend upon action by the Archbishop of
Canterbury and a majority of the Primates to
ensure that participation in the Anglican
Communion is governed by robust commitments to biblical teaching and morality.”
He disputed the notion that Anglicanism
was defined by its relation to the Archbishop
of Canterbury, but “depends upon the various
provinces being able to recognize each other,
with all their differences of culture, as truly
apostolic and committed to the faith as it has
been received.
“Tragically, that recognition has now broken down and affection for Canterbury is no
substitute.”
The Anglican Communion was “in danger
of losing the gospel of God’s costly grace to
us sinners for the poor substitute of cheap
grace which makes us comfortable but can
neither save nor transform.
“The choice before the Primates as they
gather in Canterbury is whether they will recognize this reality and take the difficult but
necessary action to restore the bible to its
central place in the life of the Communion, or
whether they will accept a merely cosmetic
solution which will see it increasingly taken
captive by the dominant secular culture of the
West,” the archbishop said.
Christians at risk in Middle East, warns Prince Charles
THE PRINCE of Wales has warned that unless urgent
steps are taken immediately, Christians will be driven
out of the Middle East by Daesh.
At an Advent reception for Christians from the Middle East hosted by Cardinal Vincent Nichols in London
on 17 December, Prince Charles met with representatives of the Chaldean Catholic, Syriac Catholic,
Maronite Catholic, Coptic Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic and Greek Catholic Melkite Churches as well as
charities serving Christians in the region.
In his address the Prince of Wales said with the
approach of Christmas: “it seems to me vital that we
pause for more than a moment to think about the plight
of Christians in the lands where the Word was actually
‘made flesh and dwelt among us’.”
The “plight of our fellow brothers and sisters in
Christ” who had been “subjected to indescribable levels
of barbaric horror” was “heart-breaking,” he said.
“Christian communities in various parts of the Middle
East are being deliberately targeted by fanatical
Islamist militants intent on dividing communities which
have lived alongside one another for centuries,” the
prince said, noting the “very existence of Christianity in
the land of its birth” was under threat.
“The greatest challenge we face is how to ensure that
the spiritual and cultural heritage of Christianity in the
Middle East is preserved for future generations - quite
apart from doing all we can to provide practical support
to those who are persecuted,” he said.
Online at www.churchnewspaper.com: Get all the breaking news stories as they happen
NEWS
5
2015: a year of strong engagement
by the Church with the Government
The Church was seen by some
as pedalling a left-wing agenda
in this year’s Pastoral Letter
and the book On Rock or Sand.
UK Prime Minister David
Cameron said the picture the
Bishops were
creating of
Britain’s
economic
inequality
was not
accurate
while
Conservative
Peer Lord
Heseltine called the Church
‘out of touch’.
Ed Miliband and Liberal
Democrat MP, Sir Andrew
Stunnell welcomed the book’s
‘timely’ views. Archbishop
Sentamu commented at the
time that the exclusion of the
poor is pervasive, organised
and imposed by powerful
institutions.
The book and the following
release of the Pastoral Letter by
the House of Bishops, sparked
a debate on the role of the
Church in politics, “The book
itself is not about the Church
engaging itself in party politics
but politics, as far as I
understand it, has to do with
public deliberations on how
society should be governed. It
is for the whole nation to
engage itself in deliberations on
how we should be governed,”
Archbishop Sentamu
responded.
In a response to a Times
letter commenting on the 52page Pastoral Letter, the
Bishops of Leicester and
Norwich said the letter
highlighted a concern about
the disengagement of the
public with party politics and its
tribalism.
The letter commented on
Britain’s relationship with
Europe, suggesting this was an
area of concern for the Bishops.
The engagement was
significant partly because of
the timing, coming as it did
shortly before the General
Election. But this was just
one of many examples of the
Church questioning
Government policy last year.
Later in the year, the Chair
of the Church of England’s
Mission and Public Affairs
Council, Philip Fletcher, told
the Synod in York that there
could be scope for MPAC to
take a position on what is ‘out
of court’ from a Christian
perspective when he
announced the launch of the
blog ‘Reimagining Europe’, a
joint venture between the
Church of England and the
Church of Scotland.
The Church welcomed the
Royal Assent for Lords
Spiritual (Women) Bill to
bring forward the introduction
of the first women diocesan
bishops into the House of
Lords. As a result, the first
female Diocesan bishop, the Rt
Rev Rachel Treweek, left,
joined the
Bishops Benches
in October.
Earlier in the
year, Archbishop
Sentamu
addressed the
theology of
‘taint’. Questions
were raised
because he declined to take
part in the laying-on of hands at
the consecration of the Rt Rev
Philip North following a service
for first woman Bishop, the Rt
Rev Libby Lane.
Canon Rosie Harper
commented at the time that the
decision of the Northern
Primate to delegate
responsibility for the laying-on
of hands to the Bishop of
Chichester had created a ‘de
facto third province’.
In June Sir Philip Mawer
outlined of the disputes
People we said goodbye
to in 2015:
The Very Rev John
Treadgold
The Rev Canon Michael
Saward
Eva Burrows
John Templeton
Monty Barker
The Rev Prof Owen
Chadwick
Crime writer PD James
The Rt Rev Ronald Gordon
The Rev Carol Stone
Martin Cavender
The Most Rev Samir Kafity
Myfanwy Giddings
The Rt Rev Neville
DeSouza, Bishop of Jamaica
I Howard Marshall
RELAX!
RELA
AXX! W
procedure over women
Bishops; a dispute over Chrism
Masses held by Anglo Catholic
opponents to women’s ministry
was the first issue tackled by
the Church’s Independent
Reviewer in August.
The second investigation was
over the appointment of a
woman priest where a parish in
the multi-parish benefice
restricted women’s ministry.
The former Labour Home
Secretary, Charles Clarke
called for a ban on religious
instruction in schools. Fair
schools admission policies and
using Church attendance as a
selection criterion were also in
the news this year. But the
Church of England’s Chief
Education Officer, the Rev
Nigel Genders, was one of
those who warned against
downgrading RE in schools.
A new training programme
for senior leaders in the Church
of England began. This
followed the Green Report,
which raised questions about
the ‘institutional management’
of the Church.
But ‘leadership language’ was
criticized by Dean of Christ
Church, Oxford, the Very Rev
Prof Martin Percy, who said the
Green Report was ‘steeped in
its own uncritical use of
executive management speak’.
In February’s Synod, elected
members questioned the
Business Committee about the
omission of the Green Report
from the Synod agenda.
The Shared Conversations
process started in 2015. In
February head of the gay rights
pressure group, Changing
Attitude commented on a
report by Canon Porter on the
Shared Conversations. The
writer on Changing Attitude
claimed Porter said the
Conversations had not worked
as hoped because ‘some of the
old-school Bishops refused to
play ball’.
,
C
YO
OU
U
P
Meanwhile the Church of
Scotland voted to allow
presbyteries to call ministers in
same-sex partnerships though
evangelical leaders in the
Scottish Episcopal Church
voiced dismay over their
General Synod’s decision to
begin the process for creating
same-sex marriage liturgies.
Ireland voted in a referendum
on a constitutional amendment
to mandate the legal
recognition of same-sex
marriage.
Speaking of the Jeremy
Pemberton tribunal, Ben
Bradshaw MP said in the
Commons that ‘it was a
ridiculous situation’ for the
Church of England to have a
‘discriminatory’ approach
towards the former hospital
chaplain, when the General
Synod celebrated the
democratic election of the first
openly, gay married priest this
year.
The Church revealed that it
achieved a record £1 billion in
church giving. Parish giving
rose by £24 million between
2012 and 2013, totaling £953
million, the highest recorded
figure.
Faith-based giving was
praised by the Archbishop of
Canterbury after research
coordinated by the charity, The
Cinnamon Network, found that
faith groups give over £3 billion
a year in time to social action
projects. Archbishop Welby
said that ‘Faith communities in
this country have risen to the
challenge.’
Speaking in the Lords, the
Archbishop addressed the
issue of the freedom of religion
and relief saying religious
freedom is a freedom that is
threatened on a global scale.
The General Synod voted
overwhelmingly on action to
tackle climate change and the
Church welcomes the Papal
Encyclical. Lead of the
LY
Environment, Bishop Holtam
said ‘ecumenical and interfaith
convergence’ is being met on
climate change as Catholics,
Ecumenical Patriarchs of the
Orthodox Churches, Swedish
Lutherans and Anglican
Bishops worldwide agree on
climate action. Muslims, Sikhs
and Hindu organizations all
declared their support for
action to control climate
change.
Faith leaders opposed the
Assisted Dying Bill and the
Archbishop of Canterbury
criticized David Cameron’s plan
to resettle 20,000 Syrian
refugees. Although he
welcomed this in principle,
many bishops expressed their
concern that the number was
too low in light of the terror
being imposed by Daesh.
And the Government faced
more opposition from the
Church as Bishops objected to
the deregulation of Sunday
trading hours.
2015: Th
T e advent of women
bishops
Finally, aft
f er years of debate,
the Church of England
welcomed its fi
f rst women
bishops last year, and the
House of Lords welcomed the
f rst woman bishop to its
fi
benches. In a remarkable
welcome, the Rt Rev Rachel
Treweek was greeted by a
round of applause when she
was welcomed the upper
House.
In total, eight women joined
the episcopate:
Libby Lane, Stockport
A ison W
Al
White, Hull
Sarah Mulalley, Crediton
Rachel Treweek, Gloucester
Ruth Worsley, Taunton
A ne Hollinghurst, Aston
An
Christine Hardman,
Newcastle
Karen Gorham, Sherborne
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LETTERSTO
THEEDITOR
Why Alan Storkey is being
unreasonable
Sir, I always enjoy the thoughts of Alan
Storkey. Last week on ‘the inadequacy of the
Church of England’s public voice’ was no
exception. But he is being totally
unreasonable in his hopes in present
circumstances.
Our Archbishop of Canterbury has the
unenviable task of seeking to speak for
Christian England. He seeks to represent
principles by which we can judge every
question we face, but to apply them one way
or another can be unwise in the light of
equally sincerely held convictions. Alan is
free to campaign any way he sees fit but he
must not expect us all to agree with him.
The old adage puts it: on essentials unity, on
non-essentials liberty, on all charity.
The age-old question is which are the
essentials of our faith?
Andrew Salmon,
Wareham
or you can send an E-mail to [email protected]. Tweet at @churchnewspaper
If you are sending letters by e-mail, please include a street address. NB: Letters may be edited
Write to The Church of England Newspaper, 14 Great College Street, Westminster, London, SW1P 3RX.
Advent hymns
Sir, I was somewhat surprised to see the letter
from Harry Hicks in which he expresses the
view that it is strange to sing about the Second
Coming during Advent. He does not seem to
have grasped the concept that Advent looks at
both the First and Second Comings of Jesus as
seen through the eyes of the Old Testament
prophets who saw the two events telescoped
together so as to appear as a single event.
Mr Hicks does not seem to have noticed that
this is reflected in so many of our Advent hymns
and not just the particular one he mentions.
I suspect that Mr Hicks has become confused
because so many of our Advent hymns are
seldom sung nowadays. There are two reasons
for this. One reason is that Advent, for some
years now, tends to be celebrated only on Advent
Sunday itself instead of throughout Advent as
used to be the case. The other reason is that
hymns in general (even recent ones) have been
almost completely replaced by a totally alien
tradition of worship songs that drive most of us to
distraction!
John Humphrey,
Sevenoaks
Gay
weddings
Surely this would have been a better model for
the Archbishop to suggest, particularly to
Christian ministers and lay-leaders.
AB MacFarlane,
Stoke-on-Trent
Climate change
Sir, Anglican
Mainstream has
highlighted that
Dr Albert
Mohler,
President of the
Southern Baptist
Seminary, in his
latest book: We
cannot be silent,
has argued that
contraception
was used to
spearhead a moral revolution in the early part of
the 20th century by allowing baby-making to be
separated from sex.
In “Understanding and Responding to the
Moral Revolution” (TheChristianWorldView.org),
programme host David Wheaton asked Dr
Mohler to comment on the question
hypothocated by Archbishop Justin Welby:
should a Christian attend the Gay Marriage of his
son? To which the Archbishop answered he
would, should the situation arise.
Dr Mohler was certain that attending such a
gathering would be to approve of it, especially as
most weddings involve the invitation to raise
objections, and a Christian could never imply
approval.
Surely we can add that the Archbishop is not
just another attendee of such an event. Like the
Queen, he is a role model for both Christian
leaders and laity. He is also a member of the
House of Lords, and a guardian of our Christian
constitutional heritage.
Of course we have been here before with the
remarriage of Prince Charles. Although the
Queen and Prince Philip were the groom’s
parents and were present later, they both chose
not to be present for the actual civil marriage.
[email protected]
Sir, correspondence on climate change is again
gracing these pages. Genesis tells us that Adam
was entrusted with stewarding the Earth. He was
put in charge of everything and being under
authority of God was therefore responsible for it.
The Earth’s resources have to be used wisely
and we have to be wary of using things like
emissions in such a way as to damage it.
It is well known that climate is constantly
changing. It has been ascertained that there have
been major and minor warming periods. Most
people accept that there have been four ice ages.
We have undergone vast changes down the
aeons.
Temperature rises and falls without any
intervention from mankind yet we are
bombarded with supposed facts that mankind is
causing massive rises in global temperature. I do
not want to suggest for one moment we should
not be concerned about carbon emissions and
suchlike but I think we should be wary of
supposing that these are principally responsible
for climate change and that it is destroying the
planet. Genesis tells us that God saw what he had
made and that it was good. I contend that this
implies that the Earth is robust and not readily
tampered with: it will readily adapt to change.
Whilst Christians should be concerned about
the effects of climate we should be aware of more
sinister implications. What we are being told that
man is in control – he is causing temperature to
rise and he has to lower it. This is telling us God
has lost control. Man has made a name for
himself and as in Genesis XI is wresting control
from him. Many believers are being urged to
fight a rear-guard action to protect the Earth. The
words ‘subdue the earth’ in Genesis I suggest a
far more proactive approach. There is the
distraction that if we do not save the planet there
will not be a world to preach salvation to.
In short we are being dragged into a man-made
agenda. Whatever happened to the God-given
agenda in Matthew 28?
Colin Bricher
Northampton
Moratorium
Sir, It grieved Our Lord when his followers
fixated on the beam in a neighbour’s eye and
ignored the plank in their own. Notwithstanding,
the Anglican Church of Sudan, following Kenya’s
lead, has severed ties with the Episcopal Church
LETTERS
of the USA, with the exception of the few
dioceses that reject gay marriage. There is no
moratorium in sight in this on-going, cultural war,
anymore than there is peace in Sudan itself, a
supposedly Christian country, where tribal
conflict continues to produce mass slaughter,
displacement and famine.
However grieved one may be by this appalling
state of affairs, it would be wrong to withdraw
support for the School for Girls at Ibba, in
Southern Sudan. In time, better education may
enable the Sudanese to live peacefully with their
differences. Its bishops may then be prepared to
consider, in greater depth, what God has,
meanwhile, been doing elsewhere in his world, in
order to bring his LBGT children in, out of the
cold.
Like other weird creatures in Peter’s Joppa
vision, Intersex people are also beginning to
present themselves for recognition and inclusion.
Our education continues.
Serena Lancaster,
Broadwell, Moreton-in-Marsh
Modern living
Sir, The year-end is a time of reflection on the
past and what the future may hold. For Christians
the ultimate future is bound up with the return of
Christ, the Judgement and banishment of sin and
those who provoke and practice it, leaving a
world wherein dwells righteousness (2 Peter
3:13). Yet what may the future hold in the
meantime? In Britain and the West, Christianity
is on the wane, and the forces of secularism
would help it on the way.
Differing eschatologies suggest either the
outward rule of the saints for one thousand years
(Rev. 20) or condemn such “Jewish dreams” and
see only the personal victorious Christian life,
where amid a rebellious unbelieving world,
Christ reigns in the life of his saints who make up
his Church, which is his Kingdom.
Whatever eschatology we may have, we live in
a world ordered by laws, and those laws are to
encourage virtuous behaviour, and discourage
what society sees as wrong behaviour. They
establish a civic morality, and so far as Christian
values reign in us, they must affect the values we
wish establishing in such a civic morality.
Scripture prophesies a time when “The
kingdoms of this world are become the
kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ” (Rev.
11:15). As Constantine and other rulers
embraced Christianity, it seemed as if this was
coming to pass. Today such rulers have been
toppled and the will of the people has triumphed.
But it is the will of people estranged from Christ
and his values. It is the will of a pagan people
who believe they may define justice according to
their whims, because, as in mob-rule, their might
is right.
Clearly any Church that seeks “to please
[such] men ... [is not] the servant of Christ” (Gal.
1:10), and becomes like the salt that has lost its
savour (Matt. 5:13), and will be lightly esteemed
and unblessed of God (I Sam. 2:30) and like the
unfruitful tree destined for oblivion (Matt. 7:19).
Isn’t might right? In spiritual things, one man
with God, that is with the Bible, is the majority.
But this being the 600th anniversary of
Agincourt, lets heed its lesson. The English were
hopelessly outnumbered, not surprising: Sir
Walter Hungerford expressed their need of more
archers, every able archer from England. To this
King Henry V, rebukingly answered: “I would not
have a single man more even if I could, for these
that I have here with me are God’s people whom
he has graciously allowed me. Do you think that
even with these few he cannot overcome the
pride of the French and all their strength of
numbers?”
The rest, the surprising English triumph, is
history, only to add that the French defeat was
ascribed to their sinful love of luxury, vice,
blasphemous language, their violence against
churchmen and women, etc. So “with God all
things are possible” (Mark 10:27).
Alan Bartley,
Greenford, Middlesex
@churchnewspaper
LEADER & COMMENT
Reviewing the managerial
year that was 2015
‘God is doing a
new thing’
The Conservative Party’s surprise winning of a working majority
in the May General Election has to feature large in any review of
the year: the SNP ironically propelled Mr Cameron to power as
the English voters took fright at a Miliband-Sturgeon coalition of
the left.
In Scotland however Nicola Sturgeon surged to more power and
also rejected any ‘English votes for English laws’ to mirror
Scottish devolved powers. More widely, nationalistic parties in
Europe improved their popularity, although Mme Le Pen’s Front
National did not gain the victories polling suggested. But the
rising popularity of her party is clear, now with left wing economic
policies allied to a visceral nationalism, curiously like the SNP
stance in effect. As a columnist in the Financial Times put it,
globalisation seems to beget nationalistic reaction.
This might be confirmed by the EU’s spat with Russia in
Ukraine, which has led to an embittering of relations akin to the
cold war. In the UK ‘Brexit’ seems a bit more likely at the end of
this year as Mr Cameron has been soundly rebuffed by his EU
partners in any deal on migration and benefits. But pundits think
there will be a narrow referendum win for the Europhiles next
year.
Speaking of migration, Syrian migration was perhaps the
phenomenon of the year, causing mass panic in Brussels. The
crisis was fuelled in part by Western help to Assad’s opponents as
well as the Isis war machine. The Charlie Hebdo murders and
Paris bombings bled from Isis and the visceral brand of Islam it
avows, and these atrocities prompted more anguish over freedom
of speech and the historic Western right to say what one wants
and be awkward. Here a surprising development has been in
universities where bullying student activists have been shutting
down debate by ‘no platforming’ speakers they deem politically
incorrect, and alas university managers have basically bowed to
the bullies – although Nottingham’s vice chancellor has recently
proved an honourable exception. In France the scholarly and
determined Catherine Fourest has written ‘In Praise of
Blasphemy’, available on Kindle but publishers are too scared to
print it.
The law over the past year has gained a reputation as more
social management of outcome than enforcing the law on right
against wrong. Failure to implement the FGM law shows this, as
did the failure of the CPS and police to prosecute the northern sex
gangs as politically incorrect, sacrificing the victims to cultural
fear and favour. Protesters on trial for criminal damage in riots
who refused to give their names had their cases dropped – no
doubt for outcome reasons?
A thread running through the above developments is that of
managerialism. We are more and more being managed by people
desiring us to fit in with a certain outcome: we are silenced when
we want to debate and dissent. Information is withheld from the
public. Laws are not enforced. We can only hope that the Church
of England’s programme of ‘facilitated conversations’ to change
attitude over homosexuality, is not another such managerial move
against proper theological ethical principle?
Angus RITCHIE
The Church of England Newspaper
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Is Britain still a “Christian country”? With the
publication of our report last week, the
Commission on Religion & Belief in British
Public Life has brought this question back into
focus. The answer depends, of course, on what it
means to be a Christian country. The prophets
who feature in our Advent lectionary might help
Christians to understand what that means. They
might also guide the Church in its response to
the rapid social change that the report
describes.
The words of Isaiah and John the Baptist
suggest some ways we might identify whether
we live in a “Christian country”. Are people
worshipping the living God? Do they individually and corporately - repent of their
sins? Is there Christ’s justice for the poor, and
hospitality for the refugee?
The prophets were unsentimental characters.
They had no time for false consolation. They
should give us the courage to face reality today.
The truth is our friend. We do no one a service
by pretending that more British people are
Christian in their practice
or outlook than they
actually are. Britain will
become a more Christian
country when more people
know and love Christ more
deeply, and when our
common life reflects the
values of his Kingdom, not
when we shout more loudly
that our country is
Christian already.
The evidence presented
in the report shows (if
anyone doubted it) that
Christianity is no longer the
default setting of the British
people. The figures are
sobering. Today,
significantly more people
identity as of “no religion”
than as “Christian”. Contrary to the rhetoric of
some sections of the press, immigration is not
making Britain less Christian. Rather, it is one of
the sources of renewal in the Church’s life. It is
among white Britons that the decline in
Christian identity is sharpest.
How should the Church respond to this new
landscape? There are at least three key areas
where the Commission’s findings have
significant implications for our practice:
evangelism, education and social action.
The report notes that the long-term trends of
decline include growth within Pentecostal and
evangelical churches. Immigration and church
planting are key drivers of such growth.
Research being conducted by the Centre for
Theology and Community, to be published early
next year, shows that, in many contexts and
church traditions, numerical growth is possible
where it is intentionally and sensitively pursued.
It complements, rather than competes with,
action with others for the common good.
In this new landscape of religion and belief, on
what basis can Britain’s diverse communities
live and work together? The Commission rejects
the false “neutrality” offered by a certain kind of
liberalism. The report recognises that everyone
necessarily stands somewhere, whether their
worldview is religious, agnostic or atheistic. It
warns that the language of “integration” can be
used to flatten out legitimate and important
disagreements.
Our report drew some controversial
implications for education policy. They are
controversial partly because they recognise the
reality that nearly 50 per cent of people say they
have no religion, and very many schools have
pupils from a number of different faiths, In other
contexts, the Church of England is rightly
careful not to allow its ministers to engage in
“inter-faith worship”. Different faiths can live
together, and can reflect together, but the
Church is careful to keep its worship from
lapsing into syncretism (that is, the kind of
“pick-and mix approach” which dilutes the
distinctiveness of Christianity).
The Commission argues it is inappropriate for
the law to demand collective worship partly
because it recognises the danger that if schools
are forced to hold collective worship, what will
emerge is something that is syncretistic - a sort
of inter-faith potage.
Instead, the report commends the provision of
corporate reflection in which all children can
engage, and recommends that all publicly
funded schools
provide facilities for
“religion- or beliefspecific teaching and
worship on the school
premises outside of
the timetable for those
who request it and
wish to participate”.
On social action, the
Commission offers a
warning to churches
and to government.
Here the concern is to
avoid a deceptive
“neutrality” of a
different kind. The
report warns that the
language of
“integration” needs to
be handled critically, if
it is not to stifle today’s prophetic voices. For
that reason, the report advises churches (and all
involved in faith-based social action), to
“consider the dynamics generated by funding
sources very carefully so that the prospect of
support from government or the private sector
does not diminish their ability to speak truth to
power”.
And it urges government to understand that
the huge amount of voluntary action done
through the Church cannot be prised apart from
its commitment to a more just social order.
At the heart of the Advent season is an
invitation to conversion, to hope and to
expectation. The prophets declare that the world
is not as God wishes, but that God is doing
something new; that our confidence should be
grounded in his continuing love and faithfulness.
That is a message the Church needs to hear and
to preach afresh today. Christendom is over, and
we need to discern the new things that God is
bringing to birth in our midst.
Christendom is over :
we need to discer n
th e ne w t hin gs tha t
Go d i s do i ng
with Celebrate magazine incorporating The Record and Christian Week
Published by Political and Religious Intelligence Ltd.
Company Number: 3176742
Publisher: Keith Young MBE
Publishing Director & Editor:
Canon Dr Angus Ritchie is the Director of the
Centre for Theology and Community, and Priestin-Charge of St George-in-the-East. He is a
member of the Commission on Religion and Belief
in Public Life
Website: www.churchnewspaper.com
[email protected]
7
@churchnewspaper
8
FEATURE
In the eye of a
storm – the Anglican
Chaplaincy, Athens
By Malcolm Bradshaw
Senior Anglican Chaplain,
Athens
In November 2014 it began. A
group of 200 Syrians were
encamped on the central
square opposite the
Parliament buildings. This
was the first sign of
something that could not have
been imagined – the greatest
humanitarian crisis to hit
Europe since the Second
World War.
By October of this year the
average rate of refugees
entering Greece was 6,600 per
day. Most travel from Turkey
to the Greek islands (the
shortest route being 7.5
miles) in overcrowded
dinghies holding 50 people
(40 per cent being women and
children). They pay
smugglers over £727 per
person.
The greater percentage are
middle class Syrians seeking
protection from violence in
Syria. They are not from the
two million Syrians in
refugees camps in Turkey.
Among them are Iraqis,
Afghans and others. It is not a
safe passage. Families witness
the drowning of loved ones.
None wish to stay in Greece.
They move on into central
and northern Europe. The
Anglican Chaplaincy in
Athens, finding itself in the
eye of the storm, gave a
priority to ‘getting the story
out’. As a result, it has hosted
four delegations from churchbased organisations in the
UK.
It’s Chaplain, the Rev Canon
Malcolm Bradshaw, spoke at
a fringe meeting during the
November General Synod.
Furthermore, a link has
been forged with Us
(formerly USPG) to help
administer donations received
by the Chaplaincy for the
needs of refugees. Us is
drawing from the Chaplaincy
for its own appeal focused on
the refugees. It has also
financed a ‘Facilitator’ to
assist the chaplaincy in its
response locally. As a result
the chaplaincy has already
checked out and directed
funding to ‘Lighthouse’ — an
NGO that awaits the arrivals
of the dinghies on Lesbos; to
MedIn — an NGO that
provides much-needed
medical care to refugees on
Samos; and to Apostoli (the
welfare organisation of the
Orthodox Archbishop of
Athens) that distributes
primary care (food, toiletries,
medicine, clothing) on three
of the islands and at a huge
refugee reception centre in
Athens.
Of late the chaplaincy has
been the catalyst for different
Churches and church
organizations coming
together to co-ordinate our
responses and provide mutual
support. This may be timely
because the focus of the crisis
is moving away from the
islands to Athens.
National borders are
closing, refugees are turned
back and sent to Athens,
while others continue to
arrive daily from the islands.
Many are now ‘stuck’. Athens
is fast becoming the refugee
hub of Europe. Yet, it is the
capital of a country that can’t
feed its own population
because of austerity.
Over 10,000 meals are given
out daily by the Orthodox
Church to the local population
– a programme that the
chaplaincy is also identified
with.
The sorrows, trials and complexities of a refugee family from Aleppo
By Olga Bradshaw
Earlier this year two brothers, one in his early 30s and
another in his late 30s, decided that there was no
future for their families in Aleppo, Syria, the focus of
much fierce fighting among warring factions.
The younger brother, with his 11-year-old nephew,
successfully travelled the Western Balkans route to
Germany. In July he and the nephew were warmly
received into a southern German town. He was given
asylum while a decision is awaited for his nephew.
On the basis of this the older brother with his wife,
aged 27 (pregnant) and their 10-year-old daughter and
the wife of the younger brother and their three
children (one of whom is autistic and another a baby)
and a grandmother (70 years old who had recently
undergone treatment for cancer) set off to travel the
same Western Balkans route.
The older brother’s passport had expired but he was
too afraid to seek a new one for fear of being recruited
[email protected]
into the Syrian army. With the help of traffickers they
travelled to the Turkish coastland and made the sea
crossing to the Greek island of Samos.
The sea journey proved treacherous. Close to arrival
at Samos the older brother’s 10-year-old daughter the
younger brother’s wife and their one-year-old baby and
the grandmother were drowned. All were laid to rest in
a cemetery on another island, Kos.
Panic drove the older brother to declare to the
registration authorities in Samos that he was the father
of his brother’s two sons. Eventually the older brother
with the remaining members of the two families
arrived in Athens and given temporary
accommodation by an NGO. The younger brother
travelled to Athens to join his two children.
Through the efforts of the offices of the Ecumenical
Representative for Migrants an approach was made to
the German Embassy in Athens to speed the
processing of the remaining members of these two
families to enter Germany. For the older brother and
his family success rests on his son (the nephew that
accompanied the young brother) gaining asylum. He
hopes to obtain a Refugee Passport from the German
State.
The younger brother is hoping that the German
authorities will accept his statement that the two boys
with his older brother are his sons and not those of the
older brother. The older brother has on his mobile a
picture of his 10-year-old daughter alongside the
grandmother taken during the journey.
An added turn to this difficult story is that a distant
cousin of this family was on the same boat and lost his
wife and two children. He is left with a third child.
Suicidal depression has overcome him. He seeks only
to fall in the arms of his brother in Germany and cry.
Olga Bradshaw is assisting this family in their
approaches to the German Embassy on behalf of the
Ecumenical Secretaryy for Refugees
@churchnewspaper
FEATURE
9
Christ and Creation
By Archbishop Maurice Sinclair
What is your score for Carol Services
attended this year? Mine is a modest
four. Through the traditional reading
from St John’s Gospel we have been
celebrating a great truth: Jesus is God’s
Word made flesh. Has it, though,
registered in our minds that John’s
prologue tells us that through Jesus, the
Word, the Universe was created? Christ
spoke it into being. “All things were
made through him, and without him was
not made any thing that was made.”
Paul in Colossians says the same
thing: “By Christ all things were created:
things in heaven and earth, visible and
invisible”. In the book of Proverbs we
can identify the figure of Wisdom, as
Jesus, and find him as a “Craftsman at
his (God’s) side… there when he set the
heavens in place… there when he
marked out the foundation of the earth.”
Should we then think more often of
Jesus not only as our Redeemer but also
as our Creator? I believe we should, and
not least in commending the gospel to
those around us.
There is today a
common but
unexamined assumption
that evolution makes
creation incredible.
Children being taught
science at school could
be excused for jumping
to this conclusion. If
creation is considered at
all, then it is confused
with creationism with its
excessively literalistic
interpretation of the
biblical text. Given this
situation, how can we
convince our not yet
believing friends that we
live in a created universe
and are indeed God’s creatures and
answerable to him?
My conviction is that we need to relate
the truth of creation to Jesus. In this way
we bring into focus the goodness and
sheer joy of creation. Jesus, who did all
things well in his earthly ministry is the
perfect image of the God who saw all
that he had made and behold it was very
good. Jesus, revealed as Wisdom in
Proverbs takes joy in his creation:
“I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
rejoicing in his whole world and
delighting in humankind.”
The joyful Creator evokes a joyful
response. In Job we read how when the
cornerstone of creation was laid “the
morning stars sang together and all the
angels shouted for joy.” Isn’t it this same
response that we find in the Psalms
where the whole earth is invited to burst
into jubilant song?
Now believers and non-believers alike
are touched by moments of such joy. We
all in some measure have eyes to see the
beauty and goodness, the music and the
poetry of the world we inhabit: the sight
of the Milky Way on a clear night, the
structure of a snowflake, or the “shrill
delight” of the soaring skylark.
Without knowledge though of the
Christ of creation these images seem
transitory and have no secure anchor for
the soul. It is through Christ the Creator
that we discover that creation reflects a
face we can recognise, is a reality that
will not deceive us, and
affords a family home
we can enjoy forever.
Might we not try to tell
our atheistic and
agnostic friends that
what they glimpse is a
gleam of this full
spectacle: heaven and
earth, made and then
made new?
We can discover
from what the Bible
tells us about creation
that it is a process as
well as a single act: a
constructive work as
well as a word of
command. Not only
does God in Christ say, “Let there
be light!” but the Creator through
his Spirit is already attending to a
dark, formless and empty creation.
He is first engaged in a process of
sorting and separation: light from
darkness, heaven from earth, dry
land from sea. Then there is the
burst of creative activity presented
to us as the six-day week of a
master craftsman. Notice that
Jesus, the Craftsman revealed in
Proverbs rejoices over the creation
“day after day”.
People may be inclined to dismiss
the biblical account of creation
because it does not match the
scientific time scale. Yet it is not a
modern discovery that the days of
creation are not meant to represent
24 hours. Augustine of Hippo
pointed out that in the Genesis
account the sun was not introduced
until the fourth day. The important
point is that patient long-term
craftsmanship is essential to
creation. It was no accident that
Jesus’ trade in his earthly lifetime
was carpentry. He dignifies and
validates our work, being the divine
workman from the beginning.
This said, there are still big
questions that demand an answer.
There is
mu ch mo re
to tell our
friends in
order to
h elp the m
believ e
[email protected]
Granted the goodness, beauty and joy of
our world, there is also cruelty and
corruption. True it is that work can be a
source of satisfaction and delight, but it
can also mean slavery, frustration and
exhaustion. The animal kingdom is
certainly amazing in its beauty and
diversity, but it is also “red in tooth and
claw”.
There is a mathematically sublime
order in the observable universe, but
this order also involves the disorder of
eruptions and earthquakes. Then for us
and for all living things there is the
seemingly ultimate disorder of death.
How does Christian faith affirm a wholly
good and lovingly purposed creation in
the face of all this?
It is clear from the creation story that
the serpent, the source of evil, was
around and active before he tempted
Adam and Eve. In the first letter of John
we are told that he sinned “from the
beginning”. We can conclude that this
fallen angel, this adversary, worked in
opposition to God’s work throughout the
aeons of time leading up to the
appearance of man, and not only in all
the deadly influence he has exerted
since.
The fact that the evolutionary process
demonstrates not only an awesome
beauty and complexity but also a
ruthless elimination of the weak, we can
understand in terms of the good work of
creation through Christ, hindered and
partly spoilt by Satan.
There is much more to tell our friends
in order to help them believe. But this at
least we can say: the beauty and
goodness they see in the world is not a
mirage, but a joyful reality from the
Creator, real God and real man; the
creation itself is the work of Jesus, the
Word, the source of reason and order
operating since time began; cruelty,
pain, disorder, and death, also evident in
the universe, are not reasons for
disbelief in the work of God but for
awareness of the work of the evil one.
Then at the end of God’s patient
creative and redemptive work through
Christ, disorder and death will be no
more, and all that we have anticipated in
our Carol Services will be an immediate
and glorious reality.
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@churchnewspaper
Y
10
Janey Lee Grace
Live Healthy! Live Happy!
The detox we all need…
Tis still the season to be jolly and yet I’ve seen so
many grumpy faces recently I’m wondering if
instead of a dry January reduced-calorie detox what
most of us need is a stress detox.
Surveys show that instead of the season of good
will, Christmas can sometimes be the season of ill
will, and divorce lawyers report their biggest surge
in business at this time of year. A recent statement
from the Family Mediation Helpline claims that
more than 1.8 million couples will have
contemplated divorcing their partner during the
Christmas
period.
We all know it
can be a
ridiculously
stressful time and
we make it worse
for ourselves by
the need to find
the perfect gift,
make the perfect
meal, be the
perfect host, fit
into the most
perfect party
clothes, and
everything that
comes with the
huge logistical
exercise that is the
modern Christmas!
But I’m guessing
that it’s mostly self-inflicted. My top tip - and ‘note to
self’ is chillax. (Best not let my kids hear I’ve
hijacked their words or there will be another stress
factor ... worrying about embarrassing your
children!)
Instead of aiming for perfection and then stressing
over new year resolutions, choose to be less
stressed, don’t convince yourself that you are going
to join a gym, give up chocolate or run every
morning - unless the idea of those things really lifts
your spirits. We can all so easily set ourselves up to
fail. Instead think about how you could detox from
the stress.
Another recent survey showed that most of us are
so preoccupied with getting the right gifts for others
that we don’t stop to ask ourselves what we might
want or need for ourselves. As we head into a new
year it’s a great time to reflect on what you really
need to make you feel good and give yourself a gift
— I don’t mean the quick fixes of chocolate or cake
but the experiences that energise you.
Get your
2016 diary
and
schedule
in a
regular
time slot
to have
time for
yourself that you
know will
lower
your
stress
levels. If
you can
plan a
batch of
time at
the start
of the
new year (we all know deep down what our own
favourite resources are) ask yourself: what
recharges my batteries? It might be a couple of
hours uninterrupted gardening - being in nature. For
me it’s being by the sea - not easy as I live in
Hertfordshire but I am planning my stress detox: a
few hours looking at the crashing waves.
You never know, if you keep the stress at bay, then
the diet may take care of itself. Remember ‘stressed’
spelt backwards is ‘desserts’ – I have no idea if that
means we will be more stressed if we eat them or if
we don’t. I guess it depends on the pudding!
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Tell Me a New, New Story
By Alan Edwards
A new year has dawned. Although many currently
unsuspected stories will doubtless emerge as 2016
progresses, of one thing there can be no doubt. The
Church of England will continue to ignore Paul’s
advice to the Romans and persist in conforming to
prevailing fashions.
2015 saw Gay-Lib’s rainbow flag adorning the steps
of York Minster. By the end of 2016 the Gay-Lib banner
will surely have become as compulsory an item of
Anglican church furnishing as wind turbines on the
roof and solar panels in the churchyard. 2016 will also
see belief in global warming joining eternal support for
the EU as Credal clauses in the revised liturgy, due to
be published on April 1st.
Some also predict that the Archbishop will be
changing his name from Welby to Warmly, to be
suggested, they think, by Prince Charles.
If global warming is seen as bad then spiritual
[email protected]
warming is thoroughly good. John Wesley felt his
‘heart strangely warmed.’ That warmth led not only to
his own commitment to the Gospel, but also to a
ministry that warmed hearts from labourers to lords.
Warming that enlivened other churchmen and
eventually produced revivals - Evangelical and Anglo
Catholic.
Sadly today’s warming in the Church of England is of
committee seats as ever more discussion forums are
created.
Another dominant attitude in today’s Anglicanism is
the pursuit of equality. If male priests then there must
also be female ones.
Certainly equality is a valuable concept and one that
underpins the teaching of Our Lord. However, 50 years
ago, Stanley Evans, Socialist Vicar of Holy Trinity,
Dalston, and subsequently Canon of Southwark,
argued in this newspaper that being equal didn’t mean
being the same. He was right. No difference between
believers, whatever their race or sex, but their ministry
can be shown in different ways. For some activity; for
others contemplation. For a fuller list of examples,
back to Romans - Chapter 12.
At a humbler level than Canon Evans, I’ve long
unsuccessfully argued that the office of prophetess
should have been revived rather than directing women
to the priesthood.
In jocular mood Fr Gresham Kirkby, Anglo-Catholic
anarchist and liturgical reformer, once argued that,
rather than creating more assistant bishops, many
ecclesiastical areas should be placed under the
jurisdiction of a local Abbess, as happened in the
Middle Ages. Many a true word.
Sadly the office of prophetess won’t be revived in
2016 - draftsmen too busy penning the order for
conducting same-sex marriage - but we can hope that
we might eventually see female seers more concerned
with the conversion of England rather than forecasting
the odds on who’ll be England’s first female
Archbishop.
@churchnewspaper
COMMENT Friday January 1, 2016
Andrew Carey
View from the Pew
Why I am an
optimist
I am incurably optimistic. At the beginning of
every new sporting season, for example, I am
hopeful that England will regain or retain the
Ashes or take the Grand Slam in Rugby, or that
Arsenal will win the Premiership.
I am, of course, frequently disappointed.
I am not a fool: I never allow myself to think
even for a moment that the English football team
could ever win anything of note. To hold the view
that the glass is half-full rather than half-empty is,
I think a Christian approach. Pessimism is the
very antithesis of what Christ is about. This is why
I’ve been writing unsympathetically about the
catastrophism of the green movement, which has
been uncritically adopted by some parts of the
Church. This catastrophism, based on the
ghoulish glee of taking the worst-case ‘predictions’
of computer models, is hope-sapping.
Happily, the Paris summit came up with
something rather more hopeful - plans to reduce
emissions that are set by nations and which are
revisited on a regular basis. This type of approach
is less likely to impoverish the developing world
and increase fuel poverty in the West, than
previous approaches that were to insist on targets
imposed on nations from above.
This, I believe, gives scientists, engineers and
entrepreneurs a chance to come up with solutions.
If we know anything, we know that human
ingenuity will often provide the answer.
We are, after all, created in the image of God
and it is in this area of creativity that we most
closely imitate our heavenly father. The human
capacity to be what Tolkien called sub-creators we
tend to think of in terms of the creativity
demonstrated by artists, writers, poets and
craftsmen.
We haven’t tended to think of creativity in terms
of science, technology and engineering, except
perhaps in our ability to erect astonishing
cathedrals, tower blocks and many other beautiful
buildings. Science and industrial development
have, after all, created many of the problems we
are now facing with developments such as the
combustion engine by which we have poisoned
the planet.
And artists and writers such as Blake and
Tolkien have written about industrial development
as ‘ugly’ and almost satanic. Whereas
development poses creative answers at every turn
to those who predict catastrophe and apocalypse.
Most notably, science has answered fears about
over-population that have been posed by so many
pessimists following Malthus. Long-predicted
problems of famine and disaster due to overpopulation have been avoided as we get better at
accommodating people safely in cities and
efficiently growing enough food.
We found alternatives to the aerosol emissions
that were damaging the Ozone layer and now the
hole that caused us such angst in the 80s and 90s
has been replenished. We once imagined that Aids
11
and other pandemics would be much greater events than they
eventually were. Now people live healthily with HIV for their full
life spans and we have largely avoided large-scale pandemics
due to vaccinations and hygiene improvement.
We are now worrying about bugs that are resistant to
antibiotics and we must hope that scientists can come up with
solutions.
There is every reason to be hopeful about the future, not least
when we can send people outside our own atmosphere in lowgravity environments to conduct scientific experiments in labs
built in orbit around the earth. So let’s banish pessimism in 2016
and embrace Christian hope.
Two things I hope
for in 2016
There are two things I’m hopeful about this year. I’m hopeful
that the vast majority of peace-loving and moderate Muslims will
reject political Islam with its medieval concepts such as Sharia
law, blasphemy and apostasy. There are reform movements and
these need to be given the chance to thoroughly contradict and
challenge Islamist, Salafist and Wahabbist versions of Islam.
There should be no refuge for violent jihadism in any mosque,
madrassa or any corner of the Muslim community.
Finally, perhaps less realistically, I am hopeful this year that
the church will finally wake up to the sheer scale of persecution
that our brothers and sisters are facing in many parts of the
world. The depravity and brutality of some of the groups and
regimes persecuting Christians should have us marching on the
streets demanding that our politicians act now. Do we care
enough?
thespiritualdirector
LIZ HOARE
By the Rev Dr Liz Hoare
There will be many people this
Christmas who are longing for good
news from home. The residents of
Cumbria whose homes have been
flooded, the people who have no homes
to flood who live on our streets,
forgotten or shut out by family and
friends and perhaps most vivid of all
when set against the background of the
Christmas story, the hundreds of
thousands of refugees who have left
everything behind and fled their homes
to seek new ones in a strange land.
Home seems to take on a greater
significance at Christmas. While some
folk take off for exotic climates, others
travel far to stay with family. Still others
stay in their own homes and open them
up to welcome relatives
and friends and put on a feast to
celebrate.
Mary first of all made her own womb a
home for the Incarnation to take place.
Nine months later, the infant Jesus
entered the world but not into a
comfortable home with welcoming
friends and relatives standing by. There
was no room even in the public hostel of
the day, the inn, so he was born in the
‘home’ of the animals. Soon he would be
fleeing home such as it was to escape
the wrath of King Herod and forced to
make his home in Egypt as a refugee.
In the light of the relentless stream of
men, women and children making their
way out of war and turmoil, across the
treacherous oceans hoping to find
sanctuary, this is
[email protected]
perhaps the most compelling aspect of
the Christmas story for us this year.
We cannot claim that God has no idea
what it’s like to suffer, to live as a
displaced person with nowhere to call
home. The Incarnation, ‘God with us’
did not begin in the corridors of power,
in mansions or royal courts but in
among the dirt and obscurity of a
manger. It’s a very unpromising
beginning, but it urges us to look in the
right places for Jesus this Christmas.
The right places are probably going to
be unexpected and unlikely ones, places
where people have been shut out and
told they are not wanted, places where
love has been squeezed out for profit or
gain. And then there are the places in
our personal lives,
much closer to home now, where we
have left no room for Jesus in our
activities, our relationships and our
concerns.
The Christmas story, ever old, yet
ever new, will not allow us to see it
merely as a sweet tale to be retold in
Nativity plays and carol concerts. It
speaks across the centuries to say that
God desires still to make his home
among us and be ‘Immanuel’, God with
us. It is knowing that God is with us that
enables us to come close and know his
strength for whatever life brings. It also
makes the demand that we put on the
character of God by his Spirit and make
room for others, welcoming them in the
name of Christ.
@churchnewspaper
12
CLASSIFIEDS & REGISTER
A time to mourn?
By Gerald Bray
Latimer Trust
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Cockerton, John. Sometime
Principal of St John's
College, Durham, Rector at
Wheldrake and
Canon Emeritus at York, on
9th December in York. A
private funeral service
will be held at All Saints
Church, Upper Poppleton,
York, followed by
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A Thanksgiving Service will
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date, details to be
announced. Enquiries to J G
Fielder & Son Funeral
Directors, York, Tel: 01904
654460.
The New Year is always a time for reflection, and
2016 is no exception. After 24 months of major
anniversaries in 2014 and 2015, it seems that we are
in for a relatively quiet year on that front, but there is
at least one major event that will be widely
commemorated – the Irish rebellion at Easter 1916.
While largely forgotten elsewhere, the Rising (as it
is commonly known) remains foundational for the
mythology and morale of the Republic of Ireland. It is
also highly controversial. Those who believe in
constitutional politics say that it was an unnecessary
tragedy, since everything that Irish nationalists could
reasonably expect to achieve had already been
offered to them and would have been implemented at
the end of the European war.
However, the dominant influence in Ireland has
been the competing revolutionary interpretation,
which claims that only the gun could persuade the
British government to make any serious
concessions.
As we know, the forces unleashed at Easter 1916
eventually led to an independent Irish Free State, a
compromise that satisfied nobody. Supporters of
Britain kept their heads down or left the country,
while those who had fought for ‘freedom’ were angry
that their vision had been only half-achieved. The
long-term result has been a century of violence that
has still not fully ended, though modern Ireland is a
very different place from what it was 100 years ago.
Perhaps the most noticeable change has been the
relative collapse of the Roman Catholic Church. The
rebels of 1916 deliberately portrayed themselves as
Catholic martyrs, and in the decades that followed,
that interpretation became the semi-official view of
the Irish state. Serious Irish historians and
commentators have long since abandoned that idea,
and nationalist Ireland has rejected Catholicism to
the extent that in May 2015 it overwhelmingly
approved same-sex marriage in a referendum,
something that would have been unimaginable a
generation ago.
The Protestant Churches have not suffered the
same steep decline, but they started from a much
lower population base. Long before 1916, being
Protestant in Ireland required a degree of personal
conviction, and the legacy of that can still be seen.
Irish evangelicals are the real thing, and they have
made a remarkable contribution to Protestant
Christianity, not only in Ireland, but in Britain and
around the world.
For example, Moore College in Sydney, and its
diocese, are strongly evangelical today because of
the efforts of the late TC Hammond, an Irishman
who in 1916 was the rector of St Kevin’s church in
Dublin, where he was waging his own crusade
against popular and superstitious Catholicism.
How should we as Protestants approach the Rising
today? We can hardly approve of it, given the legacy
of terrorism that it has engendered, but in the new
climate of friendship between Ireland and Britain
(and to some extent between the different Churches
in Ireland itself), ignoring it does not seem to be
right either, even if it is what most British people are
likely to do.
Perhaps the most constructive approach would be
to declare a day of mourning for the dead and of
repentance for all the evil that the Rising has
engendered. In the battles of Irish history no side is
entirely innocent, and scoring points off one another
is hardly a Christian thing to do. But in a world
where violence cloaked in religion is experiencing an
unwelcome revival, a day of mourning and
repentance might put the current crisis in
perspective and allow us to consider what the price of
such folly is.
We cannot change the past, and the scars that so
many people bear, both in their memories and on
their bodies, will not be wished away. The Christian
message is that all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. Victory over sin does not come
from bashing one other, but from the sacrifice and
death of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
The first Easter saw the triumph of new life when
Jesus rose from the dead. Can we make Easter 2016
resonate with the promise of that same new life that
Christ offers to all who believe in him as their Lord
and Saviour? If we can, then perhaps the legacy of
1916 can finally be overcome and the blood shed at
Calvary can heal the wounds that our sins and
failures have produced.
Gerald Bray is Director of Research at
the Latimer Trust
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THE REGISTER Friday January 1, 2016
BIBLE CHALLENGE
Day 1 – Genesis 1-3; Psalm 1; Matthew 1
Day 3 – Enjoy hearing the Scriptures read aloud in
church
APPOINTMENTS
New Bishop of Leicester
The Rt Rev Martyn James Snow,
Suffragan Bishop of Tewkesbury (Gloucester), to be
Bishop of Leicester.
New Dean of Durham
The Venerable Andrew Tremlett,
Canon Residentiary and Rector of St Margaret’s
Church at Westminster Abbey, appointed the Deanery
of the Cathedral Church of Durham
The Rev Jessie Anand,
holder of the Bishop of Southwark’s Permission to
Officiate is to be licensed as part-time Assistant Priest
of Angell Town, St John the Evangelist (Southwark).
The Rev Colette Annesley-Gamester,
Curate, Spire Hill, to be Team Vicar of Three Valleys,
(Salisbury).
The Rev Dr Christine Sabina Arnold,
Assistant Curate of St Peter-in-Thanet, to be Assistant
Chaplain to The Living Well (Canterbury).
The Rev Philip Barnes,
Vicar, Northwood Hills (St Edmund the King) and
Area Dean, Harrow (London), to be Interim Priest
Administrator, The Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of
Walsingham (Norwich).
The Rev Geoffrey Bayliss,
Rector of the North Blackwater Parishes
(Chelmsford), to be Team Rector of Cowley (Oxford).
The Rev Susan Bloomfield,
Church Outreach Worker in the Deaf Community,
(Southwell and Nottingham), has been appointed
Mission Chaplain amongst Deaf People in the Diocese
of Derby and in the Diocese of Southwell and
Nottingham.
The Rev Timothy Boyns,
Has been reappointed as Rural Dean of Hull (West
Yorkshire and the Dales) for a further period of five
years with effect from 1 January 2016. This is in
addition to his existing responsibilities as Vicar of
Hessle and Area Dean of Hull West.
The Rev Alan Bradford,
Associate Minister, Bracknell Team Ministry, to be
Vicar, St John the Baptist, Hillingdon (Oxford).
The Rev Paul Bradish,
Rector, Shiplake with Dunsden and Harpsden, to be
Priest in Charge, Headbourne Worthy and Kings
Worthy (Oxford).
The Rev Roger Butcher,
Curate, to be Vicar of Piddle Valley, Hilton,
Cheselbourne and Melcombe Horsey, (Salisbury).
The Rev Mark Capron,
Assistant Curate, in the benefices of Carlton Colville
(Carlton Colville and Mutford) and Pakefield, to be
Rector, Dersingham Benefice (Anmer, Dersingham,
Ingoldisthorpe, Shernborne) (Norwich).
The Rt Rev Jonathan Clark,
Bishop of Croydon is to be commissioned as also
Acting Archdeacon of Reigate (Southwark).
The Rev Simon Cronk,
Area Dean, Wycombe Deanery and Vicar, Hughenden
Benefice, to be Vicar, Great Milton with Little Milton
and Great Haseley (Oxford).
The Rev Peter D Dobson,
Team Curate of Christ the King (Newcastle) to be
Vicar of Monkseaton St Peter (Newcastle).
The Rev Janet Donaldson,
Priest in Charge of Welford w Sibbertoft & Marston
Trussell (Peterborough), has been appointed Vicar of
the same benefice.
The Rev Charles Draper,
Vicar, Great Faringdon with Little Coxwell; Area Dean,
Vale of White Horse, to be Vicar of Wolvercote and
Wytham (Oxford).
ANGLICAN CYCLE OF PRAYER
Friday 01 Januar y. Psalm 96: 1,11 end, Phil. 4: 10
23. Aba - (Niger Delta, Nigeria): The Most Rev
Ugochukwu Ezuoke
Saturday 02 Januar y. Psalm 97: 1,8-end, Isa. 42:
10-25. Aba Ngwa North - (Niger Delta, Nigeria): The
Rt Rev Nathan Kanu
Sunday 03 Januar y. Psalm 100, Isa. 43: 1-7. PRAY
for The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand
& Polynesia. The Most Rev William Brown Turei:
Pihopa o Aotearora and Primate and Archbishop of
the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand &
Polynesia
Monday 04 Januar y. Psalm 149: 1-5, Titus 2: 11-14,
3: 3-7. Abakaliki - (Enugu, Nigeria): The Rt Rev
Monday Nkwoagu
Tuesday 05 Januar y. Psalm 9:1-11, Isa 62:6-12.
Aberdeen & Orkney - (Scotland): The Rt Rev Robert
Gillies
Wednesday 06 Januar y. Epiphany. Psalm 72: 1-8, I
Tim 1:1-11. O God, who revealed your only Son to
the Gentiles by the leading of a star, mercifully grant
that we, who know you now by faith, may after this
life enjoy the splendour of your gracious Godhead,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Thursday 07 Januar y. Psalm 72: 1,10-14, I Tim 1:
12-20. The Most Rev Nicholas Okoh: Metropolitan &
Primate of all Nigeria & Bishop of Abuja
The Rev Alan Elkins,
Member of clergy with permission to officiate, to be
Rural Dean, Burnham and Walsingham (Norwich).
The Rev Stephen Gamble,
Vicar of Kirby Misperton with Normanby and Salton,
held in plurality with Middleton, Newton and
Sinnington, to be Vicar of the United Benefice of
Kirklington, Burneston, Wath and Pickhill (West
Yorkshire and the Dales).
The Rev Yvonne Greener,
Curate of North Shields Team Ministry (Newcastle) to
be Priest in charge at St Helen Low Fell and Associate
Minister at St Chad Bensham (Durham).
The Rev Brian Hall,
Rector, Carlton-In-The-Willows (St Paul) (Southwell
and Nottingham), to be Vicar, Gorleston St Andrew
(Norwich).
The Rev Fiona Jane Harrison-Smith,
Team Vicar, Seacroft parish, (West Yorkshire and the
Dales), to be Vicar, Weoley Castle, St Gabriel,
(Birmingham).
The Rev Norman Ivison,
formerly Director of Communication and Resources,
Fresh Expressions, to be Director of BowlandMedia,
and to continue as Associate Minister, St James’
Church, Clitheroe, with permission to officiate
(Blackburn).
The Rev Chris Johnson,
Assistant Curate of the Benefice of Weobley and
Sarnesfield and Norton Canon (Hereford), to be
Associate Vicar of the Benefice of Wigston in the
Gartree Second (Wigston) Deanery (Leicester).
The Rev Stephen Nshimye Kamigere,
presently Assistant Priest of Greenwich, St Alfege was
licensed as Leader of the BMO in the benefice
(Southwark).
The Rev Keith Magee,
Vicar of the Benefice of Knighton, has been appointed
as Vicar for the Parish of St Peter Braunstone Park,
(Leicester).
The Rev Canon Peter Masheder,
Rector of the Ray Valley Benefice (Oxford), to be
Associate Minister, Bere Regis (Salisbury).
The Rev Julie Oddy-Bates,
Priest-in-Charge, Waveney (Geldeston) Benefice
(Ellingham, Geldeston, Gillingham, Kirby Cane,
Stockton); Assistant Priest, Chet Valley Benefice
(Chedgrave, Hardley, Langley, Loddon with Hales,
Sisland) is to resign as Assistant Priest, Chet Valley
Benefice, remaining Priest-in-Charge (Half Time),
Waveney (Geldeston) Benefice, effective from 1
January 2016 (Norwich).
The Rev Mark Pullinger,
Priest-in-Charge of Merstham and Gatton Team
Ministry is to be Team Rector (Southwark).
The Rev Sian Reading,
Priest in Charge of Gretton w Rockingham &
Cottingham w East Carlton (Peterborough) has been
appointed Rector of the same benefice.
The Rev James Rosenthal,
House for Duty Priest-in-Charge of St Nicholas at
13
Wade (Canterbury) to be House for Duty Priest-inCharge of Merton, St James (Southwark).
The Rev Diane Whittaker,
Priest in Charge of Potterspury w Furtho & Yardley
Gobion w Cosgrove & Wicken (Peterborough), has
been appointed Rector of the same benefice.
The Rev Sue Willetts,
Team Vicar in the Uttoxeter Area of Parishes
(Lichfield), has been appointed as Vicar for the Parish
of the Good Shepherd Loughborough (Leicester).
The Rev Chloe Willson-Thomas,
Priest in Charge of Brixworth w Holcot
(Peterborough), has been appointed Rector of the
same benefice.
The Rev Catherine Vaughan,
Assistant Curate, St Michael and All Angels, Twerton,
to be Vicar of Owlsmoor (Oxford).
The Rev Luke Wickings,
Assistant Priest in the Tolworth Team Ministry is to be
licensed as Team Vicar in the Tolworth Team Ministry
(Southwark).
OXFORD DIOCESE
The following have been appointed Honorary Canons:
Joanna Collicutt, Rod Cosh, Peter Groves, Alan
Hodgetts, Julie Ramsbottom, Vaughan Roberts,
Margaret Whipp, Richard Zair.
RETIREMENTS AND RESIGNATIONS
The Rev David Boddy,
Priest in Charge, Somerleyton (Benefice) to resign
from 30 April (Norwich).
The Rev Canon Graham Foulis Brown,
Rector, Rotherfield Peppard, Kidmore End and
Sonning Common (Oxford), retired on 31 October.
The Rev Canon Linda Green,
Vicar, St Mary’s, Banbury (Oxford), retired on 31
October.
The Rev Malcolm Hunter,
Co-ordinating Chaplain, Aylesbury HM Young
Offender Institution (Oxford), resigned on 14
November.
The Rev Anne Ilsley,
Associate Minister in the Dorchester Team Ministry
(Oxford), retired on 20 November.
The Rev Kevin Charles Northover,
retires as Rector of Guernsey, St Michel du Valle with
effect from 31 January 2016.
LAY AND OTHER APPOINTMENTS
The Rev Kristina Andréasson,
Chaplain to The Swedish Church in London, will be
licensed under Public Preacher Licence (Southwark).
The Rev Jens Gronvold,
priest in The Norwegian Church in London will be
The Ver y Rev Michael Persson,
Rector of The Swedish Church in London, will be
Mrs Victoria Jane Perkins Simpson,
To be Deputy Registrar, Diocese of Birmingham.
DEATHS
The Rev Alan Cochrane,
Permission to Officiate, Diocese of Norwich (19992015), died on 27 November.
The Rev David Hemsley,
Permission to Officiate (Oxford), died on 13
November.
The Rev Charles Norman Hillyer,
who held Permission to Officiate (Leicester) from
January 2003 to December 2009, died on 10 November
2015.
The Rev Peter Knight,
Permission to Officiate in the Oxford Diocese, died on
4 October.
14
The power of the artist comes to the fore
The Star Wars franchise features the battle
between independent human spirit and the faceless
forces of empire power, and similar conflicts
showed up in the world of music this year.
After Warner/Chappell had collected some £1.3
million per year in royalty fees for use of the song
“Happy Birthday to You” (even when just a few
seconds are used) a federal judge ruled in
September that the song should now belong in the
public domain.
Without the ruling, it would not have been free to
use until the end of 2016 in the UK and 2030 in the
USA.
In a case of an artist – albeit one of the world’s
most popular singers – making a stand against
corporate clout, Taylor Swift withheld her latest
album 1989 from use by Apple in June, so
persuading the organisation to reverse its policy of
not remunerating artists during the three-month
trial of its streaming service AppleMusic.
In an open letter, Swift wrote: “We don’t ask you
for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you
with our music for no compensation.”
Artists themselves (or their lawyers) can be keen
to exert control, such as when the Foo Fighters
insist that photographers must hand over
ownership of their concert images to the band
following their initial publication.
In protest in July, the Quebec newspaper Le
Soleil sent a cartoonist in lieu of a photographer to
cover their local gig.
Using a heart-warming, must-see YouTube video,
1000 Foo Fighters fans performed “Learn to Fly” in
a successful attempt to lure the band to play for
them in Cesena, Italy.
A more accurate cover came from a band called
Mostly Other People Do The Killing. They did not
re-interpret the iconic Miles Davis album Kind of
Blue, but rather reconstructed it note for note, even
going as far as trying to replicate the tape hiss.
Defending the apparently pointless exercise, the
band’s bassist told the Wall Street Journal that “the
art is getting people to think about the original by
listening harder to the differences.”
Another unexpected release in 2015 came from
Pope Francis. On Wake Up! clips of his sermons
and prayers are set amongst prog rock, Gregorian
chant and a Chinese choir.
And if there is a collection more certain to send
the listener to sleep than a sermon CD, it could be
the Grateful Dead’s 80-disc set that came out in the
summer. It includes a complete, previously
unissued show from each of their 30 touring years.
Being dead for 38 years did not prevent Elvis
Presley releasing a new album with The Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra. His original vocals are set
among new orchestral backings, recorded to
today’s standards.
More contemporary stars broke records with
this year’s releases. Sam Smith’s “Writing on the
Wall” was the first Bond theme to make the UK
singles Number One spot; the 2.03 million plays of
One Direction’s “Drag Me Down” caused the
highest first-week streams for a UK single; while
Adele’s 25 became the fastest 2 million-selling
album in UK music history.
One genre from the margins had a chart started
this year by the Official Charts Company, but their
Progressive Rock chart came “45 years too late”
according to keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman.
Something more tangible arrived too late for
Roman Totenberg, a violinist and music professor.
A 1734 Stradivarius violin, which was stolen from
him in 1980, was discovered when the musical thief
died and his widow took his violins for valuation in
New York.
Mr Totenberg lived to be 101, but that was not
long enough to see the return of his violin, which
had been a present from his wife and was valued at
$250,000 in 1980.
Several notable musicians died in 2015, including
Jackie Trent, Hot Chocolate’s Errol Brown and
New Romantic pioneer Steve Strange, but two pairs
of artists will be particularly missed by their fans.
Cilla Black and Val Doonican were both 1960s
chart singers with a string of hits, and mainstays of
[email protected]
Saturday night television. Both came from humble
beginnings, with Cilla Black’s rise to fame
particularly memorable, as she was a cloakroom
attendant in Liverpool’s Cavern Club and – as news
reports clearly showed after her death – the
ordinary people of the city still felt a deep
connection with her.
Two prominent rock bassists died this year:
Free’s Andy Fraser, a prodigy who co-wrote much
of the band’s material, and Yes’s Chris Squire. The
only ever-constant member of a band with more
member entrances and exits than a Las Vegas
casino, the seminal Squire was particularly
influential, using his Rickenbacker bass as if it
were a lead guitar.
Looking forward, 2015 offered hints of musical
developments in the future. Music of the Spheres,
an arts-science project, which met its Kickstarter
target in the spring, aims to record music and store
it digitally in DNA molecules. The DNA will be
suspended in soap solution and blown into bubbles,
so that the music will, according to visual artist
Charlotte Jarvis, “fill the air and pop on visitors’
skin, so that audiences will be bathed in music.”
2015 Album recommendations
Two releases made a five-star impact on me this
year. The Neal Morse Band’s The Grand
Experiment saw Morse break out from his prog
background and appeal to lovers of classic rock
and AOR, with a punchy, hook-laden album that is
arguably the best Christian release of the last few
years (and which, alongside Dave Bainbridge’s
Celestial Fire, offers a musical style well suited to
the majesty of our creator God).
At the other end of the intensity scale, Anouar
Brahem’s Souvenance is a fragile, tentative release
that captures the mood of his native Tunisia in the
wake of the Arab Spring. Featuring oud, bass
clarinet, piano and bass, with gentle additional
textures from a string orchestra, this work –
apparently inconsequential at first – worked its way
into my heart and became an addiction.
Although a compilation of existing recordings,
special mention should go to Arvo Pärt’s Musica
Selecta, a 2-CD sequence selected by Manfred
Eicher, to celebrate Pärt’s 80th birthday. Eicher
was the producer who launched the ECM New
Series label in 1984 as a platform for Pärt’s music.
(A full review will appear shortly).
An honourable mention goes to PFM’s In Classic,
which both expands the rock band’s material with
orchestral backing and imagines how popular
classical works may have sounded if rock was
available to their composers. It is an old idea, but
they pull it off with aplomb.
The second-best Christian release of the year for
me is The Brilliance’s Brother, a thoughtful,
stripped back album with more strong tunes than
they have a right to own. Think David Crowder
doing Taizé and you will be on the right path.
Best late-issues of the year include two
Renaissance live sets De Lane Lea Studios 1973 and
Academy of Music 1974). Despite a couple of small
sound glitches, these are recordings that feature
wonderful songs and arrangements, and lead
toward their crowning glory, Live at Carnegie Hall.
A CD/DVD release of Soft Machine’s
adventurous 1974 Montreux performance,
showcasing their new
direction, is also
worthy of a
note.
Derek
Walker
REVIEWS / SUNDAY
SUNDAY SERVICE
1st Sunday of Epiphany
Sunday 10 Januar y 2016
Isaiah 43:1-7
Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
In our readings this week we celebrate the baptism of Christ.
Thomas Aquinas devotes six articles in his Summa
Theologiae to the subject of John’s baptism, and eight more to
a discussion of the two verses where Christ himself was
baptised (III.38.1-6 and 39:1-8). So this brief episode throws up
a multitude of theological puzzles that might easily fascinate or
sidetrack us. It is a spectacular picture of the divine Trinity in
action. All three persons appear before us at once, which
rather scotches the modalist fantasy that Father becomes Son
becomes Spirit, as three evolving, sequential manifestations of
the one God. Rather, their outward operations being
indivisible, the three are united together publicly in beginning
the work of cosmic redemption which they had plotted from
eternity.
Christ was baptised by John not because he needed to
repent as others did, but in order (as Luke puts it) to fulfil all
righteousness. He was born under the Law to redeem those
under the Law, and so did what all pious Jews were
commanded to do that he might ultimately be their perfect
representative and substitute.
Augustine says in a sermon on the Epiphany that Christ was
baptised “because he wished to do what he had commanded
all to do.” And Ambrose agrees when he says, “this is
righteousness, to do first yourself that which you wish another
to do, and so encourage others by your example.” A good
leader won’t ask others to do what he himself is not willing to.
The descending dove has occasioned much wrangling and
speculation. But, in the context, the Spirit is of course a visible
symbol of the Father’s pleasure in his Son, and of the
empowering grace bestowed upon him for his ministry “to
proclaim good news” (Luke 4:18).
Likewise, in Acts 8, when the Samaritans accepted that
gospel about Jesus the Messiah, they received the Holy Spirit
as a clear sign that they have been included in God’s plan.
Again, there has been some debate about why the reception of
the Spirit here had to await the arrival of the apostles who laid
hands on the Samaritan believers. But the answer is the same
as in Luke 3 — to fulfil all righteousness.
Jesus declared that the apostles would be his witnesses in
Judea and Samaria. So sending them out as his official
ambassadors at this key moment in salvation history was
fitting and appropriate — not because an apostolic laying on of
hands is essential to our reception of the Spirit, or because
there is a second blessing available to some after belief and
baptism (it being tricky to derive a generally-applicable
doctrine from such unique, one-off events). The apostle John
had once asked if he could call down the fire of judgment on
these people; his presence at this moment is a crucial signpost
that salvation has come equally to all.
That too is the message of our reading from Isaiah, who
prophesied this unfolding of God’s global purpose. The creator
of Israel, who formed a nation out of such unprepossessing
material over the course of the centuries, assures them of his
ongoing care. The gates of death shall not prevail over them;
neither flame nor flood can harm them if he is with them (as
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego discovered in the fiery
furnace).
Isaiah 43:4 is the only place in the Bible where God says the
words, “I love you.” Yet that message is writ large upon each
and every page of Scripture. And according to Isaiah, that love
extends to the North and to the South, and he gathers his
children (“created for my glory”) from East and from West.
There is nothing he would not give to ransom his precious
people wherever they may be (as the BCP puts it) “in the
midst of this naughty world.”
Dr Lee Gatiss is editor of The Effective Anglican: Seizing the
Opportunities of Ministry in the Church of England, and
Director of Church Society
(www.churchsociety.org).
HYMN SELECTION
Christ, when for us you were baptised
Come people of the risen king
Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us
O love, how deep, how broad, how high
When Jesus came to Jordan
Cilla
Black
@churchnewspaper
REVIEWS
15
The Inside Out story of 2015’s movies
FILM OF THE WEEK
2015 was not exactly a great year for cinema.
Originality has given way to the familiar, with the
UK’s highest grossing films (till the latest Star
Wars) the Bond retread Spectre, Jurassic World,
and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Minions also did well, and (Fast and) Furious 7
also extended the franchise theme. The highestranked film not to be a follow-up was Inside Out,
the surprise animation hit of the year, adding a
bit of imagination to the concept of competing
emotions being personalised. The second
original film to feature high in the box office
charts was handcuffs-lite Fifty Shades of Grey
(which the Welsh tourist office rejected as a
slogan for visitors to Blaenau Ffestiniog).
Animation Home and the space drama The
Martian (curiously nominated for a Golden
Globe in the musical or comedy category) also
made the top 10. True story stuff varied from the
Stephen Hawking story The Theory of Everything
to the account of the Kray twins in Legend, which
proved of more interest to British audiences than
Black Mass, which detailed the corruption and
violence behind the career of Boston mobster
Whitey Bulger.
Kingsman: The Secret Service at least gave a
new twist to the spy thriller and even allowed
Colin Firth an action role. Perhaps the best true
drama, and visually spectacular, was Everest, the
story of an ill-fated expedition on the
overcrowded mountain.
Historical/political stuff worked well in Selma,
The Martian
Inside Out
and in stories mixing fictional characters with
real events, as in Suite Française, A Little Chaos,
and perhaps to best effect in Suffragette.
The grey cinema pound is now wellestablished, with The Second Best Exotic Marigold
Hotel and The Lady in the Van obviously targeting
those of a certain age. Straight Outta Compton,
telling the story of 1980s hip hop group NWA, did
well with the more typical audience profile, with a
handsome box office return on its $28m budget
(though Whiplash, about the trials of a would-be
jazz drummer, fared less well).
The usual raft of Marvel style comic capers
came and went but only Avengers and Ant-Man
did well. Romcoms were nowhere – indeed,
romance was hard to find; other than Fifty Shades
and, if you allow fairy tales, Cinderella, only the
remake of Far from the Madding Crowd and IrishAmerican love triangle Brooklyn got near the top
50.
1950s lesbian love story Carol, based on a semiautobiographical Patricia Highsmith novel, has
scooped several award nominations, but seemed
rather dull compared to director Todd Haynes’
2002 piece from the same era Far From Heaven.
The Lobster was hardly a love story, but a curious
and challenging view of society’s expectations of
finding a partner, or not.
There were other intriguing movies, with
computers taking over the world an ongoing
threat in the creepy Ex Machina, while the real
technology story of Steve Jobs made rather
uneasy viewing.
The Hunger Games – Mockingjay Part 2 was
another futuristic fable, and a primer in
revolutionary war and
Carol
tyrannicide, American
Sniper told a real story
of war and its stresses,
but of course the year
ended with the battle
for galactic supremacy
in Star Wars – The
Force Awakens.
Hans Solo, Luke
Skywalker, and
Princess Leia (now a
Resistance general),
join new faces Rey
(Daisy Ridley) and Finn
(John Boyega) in more
of the same, but with
enough plot twists and
techno gimmicks (not
least the new robot BB-8) to satisfy most fans. It should top the
box office for 2015.
With regional press previews now a rarity, I’ve enjoyed the
hospitality offered by the Reel cinema in Widnes and by Home,
the confusingly-named new cinema and theatre complex in
Manchester. “I’m at Home” in a text doesn’t always give the full
picture.
I enjoyed two films particularly in the year. Clouds of Sils Maria
put together Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart for a
fascinating story within a story wrapped round a meteorological
phenomenon worth getting up early to see, but my favourite of
the year, dealing with illness, kindness, and simple friendship
was the charming Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.
Steve Parish
Me and
the
Dying
Girl
Jurassic World
WINE OF THE WEEK
Paul Mas
Grenache Noir/Syrah 2014
Waitrose £8.99 (offer £6.74 until 26
January)
Known in Spain as Garnacha, Grenache
Noir is a red grape which blends well with
others, as it does here with that great red of
southern France, Syrah. Paul Mas is a
respected, innovative big producer with
an eye on world markets—one of its
brands is the “Arrogant Frog!” Situated
in far south Languedoc, the grapes
here are harvested from the hillsides
of the Hérault wine region. Deep
red in the glass, on the nose there
were mixed scents of spring flowers
and richer, and a touch of spice. The
palate then encountered the richness
of ripe wild blackberries —
brambles — mellow ripe red fruits
and a hint of liquorice, all in a
smooth balance, which continued on
to a satisfying finish. Alcohol by Vol.
13.5%. An ideal red for welcoming
January buffet get-togethers, going
well with starters with a touch of
garlic, then making an entente
cordiale with beef sausages and
stew.
Graham Gendall Norton
[email protected]
@churchnewspaper
Churches’ New Year call to prayer
At Watchnight services and on Sunday 3 January,
churches will gather together to pray for our nation in
villages, towns and cities throughout the UK.
The call to prayer has been prompted by the Talking
Jesus research into people’s perceptions of Jesus,
Christians and evangelism.
A special Talking Jesus prayer has been written for
churches to use at Watchnight services and on
Sunday, together with a guide to praying through the
research results. These resources can be found on the
Talking Jesus website ww.talkingjesus.org.
The survey, conducted by ComRes and Barna
Group, on behalf of HOPE, the Church of England and
the Evangelical Alliance, found that two out of every
five people in England (39 per cent) do not know Jesus
was a real person who actually lived. And under 35s
are more likely (25 per cent) than older people to
think Jesus was a fictional character. In total, 22 per
cent of people think Jesus was a mythical figure, while
17 per cent are unsure whether he was real or not.
Of those who consider Jesus to have been a real
person who walked the earth, three out of five believe
in his resurrection from the dead, as documented in
the New Testament. Overall, some 43 per cent of
English adults believe in the resurrection, the survey
found.
Also, although 57 per cent of people in England call
themselves Christians, just nine per cent would be
described as ‘practising’ – reporting that they pray and
read the Bible regularly and attend church at least
monthly.
The survey found that one in five of non-Christians
is open to finding out more about Jesus after hearing
Christians talk to them about their faith.
HOPE’s executive director Roy Crowne says:
“Now we have the results of this survey, the real
work begins, and it begins with prayer. We need
the Holy Spirit to be at work in our country, to
use our words and actions to show people what
Jesus is like. And we need the Holy Spirit to give
PRIZE CROSSWORD No. 982 by Axe
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17
20
22
23
24
their
life...'
[Eccles/NIV] (7)
Sacred song used to
praise God (5)
'...and ----- my anger
against them in the
wilderness' [Ezek/NIV]
(5)
'...came...to save ------- – of
whom I am the worst' [1
Tim/NIV] (7)
Israelite prophet who is
remembered for his
angry lamentations (8)
'...cross south of Scorpion ----...and go south of
Kadesh
Barnea'
[Num/NIV](4)
NT book concerning the
exploits of the apostles
(4)
Runaway slave owned
by Philemon (8)
Down
1
'There is neither Jew or
2
3
4
5
6
13
14
Christians the right words
to say in every situation,
working with the Spirit to
draw people to Jesus.”
The initial findings of
the Talking Jesus survey
were first shown to more
than 40 key leaders of
denominations and
networks from across the
spectrum of the English
Church, gathered in the
Lake District in March.
The results of the first
piece of research were
described as ‘shocking’
and prompted more indepth research, which led
to the Talking Jesus report
presented to General
Synod last month. The
results have been published in Talking Jesus available
to download at www.talkingjesus.org.
Steve Clifford, general director of the Evangelical
Alliance, said: “This piece of research should provoke
us to prayer as our hearts are heavy with the reality of
how little our friends and neighbours understand
about who Jesus is. But there are glimmers of hope;
we are excited about this unique opportunity to
understand the landscape we are in.
“This is not a quick-fix strategy, but a long-term
commitment to changing the story in our nation, so
that people might meet Jesus, love him and follow
him.”
Gentile...for you are --- --in
Christ
Jesus'
[Gal/NIV] (3,3)
One of the five Philistine
cities [Judg; 1 Sam; Jer]
(8)
'Teach slaves to be ------to
their
masters...'
[Tit/NIV] (7)
'...Jeduthun, who prophesied, ----- the harp in
thanking and praising
the Lord' [1 Chr/NIV]
(5)
Fast in the Western
Church which ends on
Holy Saturday (4)
Iconic name God gave to
Jacob and his descendants [Gen] (6)
Because of their common viewpoint, the
adjective ascribed to the
first three Gospels (8)
Agent of God: 'The
guardian of the Jewish
The fi r st cor r ect ent r y d r aw n wi l l w i n a book of th e
Edit or’s choice. Send your en try t o Crossword
Number 9 8 2, The Chu rch of Engl an d Newspaper,
14 G r ea t C oll ege St r eet, W estm ins ter , Lon don ,
SW1 P 3RX by ne xt W ed nesd a y
16
18
19
21
people' [Dan; Jude; Rev]
(7)
Publicly proclaim or
teach (a religious message) (6)
'------ me from the mouth
of lions...' [Ps/NIV] (6)
Brother or half-brother
of Jesus [Matt] (5)
'...give shade to his head
to ---- his discomfort'
[Jonah/NIV] (4)
Solutions to Crossword Number
Across: 1 Pigeons, 5 Jacob, 8
Blossom, 9 Synod, 10 Inner, 11
Ninian, 13 Lambeth Palace, 16 Israel,
18 Arles, 21 Smith, 22 Planned, 23
Abner, 24 Rectory.
Down: 1 Publicly, 2 Grown, 3
Observe, 4 Simon the Leper, 5 Jason,
6 Cantata, 7 Body, 12 Feast day, 14
Mission, 15 Aramaic, 17 Asher, 19
Lando, 20 Asia.
PRICE £1.50 / €2.00 / $2.50
Name
Across
8
7
Oxford college
founded in 1438,
intended as a
chantry dedicated to, among others, Henry V
(3,5)
'So
Moses
stretched out his
staff over Egypt,
and the Lord
made an ---- wind
blow...'
[Exod/NIV] (4)
[email protected]
9
10
11
Archbishopric
which Pope Innocent II entitled
the Primate of
England (4)
Son of Saul (8)
'They seldom ------on the days of
01
Address
9 770964 816108
Post Code
@churchnewspaper
© Copyright 2016, The Church of England Newspaper. Registered as a newspaper by Royal Mail. Published by Political and Religious Intelligence Ltd, 14 Great College Street, Westminster,
London, SW1P 3RX, Telephone: 020 7222 8700. Imagesetting by Classified Central Media Limited, 4th Floor, Central House, 142 Central Street, London, EC1V 8AR, 020 7216 6400. Printed by Mortons Media Group Ltd, Newspaper House, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs, LN9 6JR. Tel: 01507 523456. Newstrade distribution: Comag Specialist Division, Tel: 01895 433800.

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