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SUNDAY, JULY 28, 2013 No: 6187
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CHURCH OF ENGLAND
THE ORIGINAL CHURCH NEWSPAPER ESTABLISHED IN 1828
NEWSPAPER
CHURCH ATTENDANCE in London grew by 16 per cent between
2005 and 2012 with numbers rising from 620,000 to 720,000. No
other part of the UK has seen
such dramatic church growth.
The rise in churchgoing is
revealed in the London Church
Census report undertaken by
Brierley Consultancy and based
on a survey undertaken on Census Sunday on 14 October 2012
when 4,800 churches in Greater
London were asked to fill in
details of their church attendance.
Church growth is largely driven
by London’s ethnic diversity and
the report warns that the increase
may not continue. At present
almost 10 per cent of people in
inner London go to church each
week with the figure falling to 8.8
per cent for London as a whole.
This is well ahead of the figure for
the rest of England of 5.6 per cent
and means that a quarter of all
English churchgoers now live in
the capital.
Most of the growth is accounted for by women, with five new
women coming to church for
every new man. Almost half of
inner London churchgoers are
black.
The survey found that there are
now 140 churches with more than
800 people attending each Sun-
Catholics have seen only very
small growth. Figures produced
by the Church of England show
significant growth in the Diocese
of London but a less rosy picture
for the Dioceses of Southwark
and Chelmsford.
The latest figures are likely to
fuel debate among Anglicans
about how the Church of England
can do more to attract a wider ethnic range of worshippers.
The London Census report
shows that smaller congregations
tend to have older, mainly white
congregations and to be declining. Larger churches are more
likely to cater for non-English
speakers (14 per cent of London
churches use a language other
than English) and to have started
church plants.
Over
three-fifths
London
churches hold midweek services
and almost half have some midweek youth activity.
When community activities
(drop-in centres, lunch clubs, etc)
are taken into account an extra
310,000 people interact with
churches of whom 120,000 only
attend on weekdays.
This brings the total of those living or working in London who
have contact with the church up
to 840,000, over half the total population.
Londoners ‘love church’
day. Whereas in 1989 many of
these large churches were Roman
Catholic in 2012 only two-thirds of
them were. They now include a
number of black majority churches and several Anglican churches
such as Holy Trinity, Brompton
(4,000), St Helen’s, Bishopsgate,
and All Souls, Langham Place.
Young people are attracted to
large churches and six per cent of
men and women in their 20s in
London go to church, twice the
proportion for the rest of England.
The latest London Church Census confirms the picture present-
ed by other surveys. A recent
report by the University of Roehampton, ‘Being Built Together’,
found 20,000 members of black
majority churches in the Borough
of Southwark, just over half of the
total of Southwark churchgoers.
According to the Church Census the majority of London
churchgoers (52 per cent) are
evangelical and the number of
Pentecostal churchgoers (32 per
cent) has overtaken Roman
Catholics (27 per cent) for the
first time in history.
There are now four broadly
equal-sized groups of churches in
London defined by churchmanship: Catholics, Mainstream
Evangelicals, Charismatic Evangelicals and the rest.
A count of average age of worshippers by denomination shows
that the average age of
Methodists and members of URC
Churches is over 56; Anglicans
and RCs average 45; Baptists and
Independent denominations average 42; and those in Pentecostal
and new churches average 33.
Although the London Census
does not give figures for denominations it says that overall Anglicans are declining and Roman
Women bishops: new panel named
By Amaris Cole
THE APPOINTMENTS Committee of General Synod has announced
the membership of the Steering Committee for the preparation of the
draft legislation for women bishops, compiled of a broad coalition of
views.
Tasked with continuing the ‘facilitated discussions’, as urged by the
Rt Rev Pete Broadbent at the York sessions, the Committee will meet
a number of times in September and October to prepare the draft legislation.
During the November Synod session in London later this year, the
results of these facilitated discussions will be considered.
The size and membership of the Committee will be reviewed by the
Appointments Committee after this initial phase of work.
The members of the initial Steering Committee are: the Rev Paul
Benfield, the Rev Canon Jane Charman, the Rev Canon Robert Cotton, Dr Philip Giddings, Dr Paula Gooder, The Ven Christine Hardman, Dr Jamie Harrison, the Rt Rev James Langstaff (Chair), Mrs
Susannah Leafe, the Rev Dr Rosemarie Mallett, Canon Margaret
Swinson, the Rev Preb Roderick Thomas, the Rt Rev Dr Martin
Warner, the Rt Rev Trevor Willmott and the Rev Canon Dr Dagmar
Winter.
The Very Rev Vivienne Faull (pictured) will be Consultant to the
group.
PETER MULLEN 7 • COMMENT 7 • LETTERS 8 • ANDREW CAREY 9 • ANGLICAN LIFE 13 • CLERGY MOVES 14 •
PAULRICHARDSON 16
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Next week’s news . . . . . . . . . . .16
Sunday July 28, 2013
News
Winchester calls for evidence
By Amaris Cole
THE INDEPENDENT investigation into
the handling of a church safeguarding complaint in Jersey is asking the public for evidence in the next stage of the process.
The Diocese of Winchester has
announced that following the announcement of the investigation in May, Dame
Heather Steel, lead investigator, has so far
been dealing with the considerable amount
of existing evidence regarding the complaint and how it was handled.
Now, inquiries are moving forward into
the public phase, with a call for anyone with
information that could be important to
come forward.
This next step also includes the Terms of
Reference being published on the Diocese’s
website and in the local media.
Dame Heather hopes to visit the island
too, to undertake further interviews with
the concerned parties.
Dame
Heather
Steel
An overarching Visitation will feed on the
results of the current investigation, led by
Bishop John Gladwin, which aims to consider the implementation of safeguarding policies in the Diocese.
The Visitation has also made ‘significant
progress’, a statement from the Diocese
claims, with results expected to be released
later this year.
The Rt Rev Tim Dakin, Bishop of Winchester, said: “Dame Heather’s Investigation has been progressing well and we have
agreed that it is imperative that any and all
information of relevance is brought to light.
As such, the Investigation is moving into
this public phase. I hope that anyone who
feels they can contribute will come forward.
“As I have said before, we cannot stress
enough the importance of safeguarding and
the original complaint that sparked these
inquiries. I therefore want to reiterate that
we are committed to understanding fully
the circumstances around this complaint
and how it was handled.
“Ultimately, this is about ensuring that we
take whatever action is required to maintain
and enhance our Church as a safe haven for
the vulnerable. Given the debate on safeguarding at the recent General Synod meeting in York, it is clear this is as much a
priority for the whole of the Church of England as it is for this Diocese.”
Judge to investigate Waddington case
By Amaris Cole
THE ARCHBISHOP of York has announced that an independent
inquiry into the Church’s handling of alleged sexual abuse by the
late Dean of Manchester will be chaired by Her Honour Judge Sally
Cahill QC.
In May this year, Dr John Sentamu announced that an independent review of the response of the Diocese and then Archbishop over
allegations against Robert Waddington would take place.
Her Honour Judge Cahill QC will be assisted in the Inquiry by Joe
Cocker, an Independent Social Work Consultant.
The Inquiry is set to focus on an examination of the way in which
the relevant Child Protection Policies were or were not adhered to
between the years 1999 and 2005.
The Diocese of Manchester and the then Archbishop of York,
Lord Hope, will all be under scrutiny, for the way they handled
information provided that suggested sexual abuse had been committed by the late Robert Waddington.
The Inquiry will look at how the situation could have been tackled
differently if the current safeguarding policies of the Church of
England, as set out in ‘Protecting all God’s Children’ and in
‘Responding Well’, had been in place.
The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu said: “I am very thankful to the Lord Chief Justice for commending Her Honour Judge
Sally Cahill to serve as Chair of the Inquiry. Anyone who may have
information relevant to the Inquiry should contact the Secretary,
Mrs Nicola Harding.
“In setting up this Inquiry I want to make it crystal clear that the
Church is ready to hear what really happened, face the facts, and
acknowledge any failure of its systems to protect children from sexual abuse. The Church’s policies have been much improved since
these things took place – but there is no room for complacency.
“Whilst this Inquiry is necessarily limited in its scope, focusing on
the reports of alleged crimes committed by the late Robert
Waddington, when the Inquiry reports by the end of October the
Church must hear its recommendations and assess what further
measures need be taken nationally to address survivors concerns
and to ensure today’s child protection policies are robust and effective.”
The Inquiry will report to the Archbishop of York with recommendations by the end of October 2013 and these findings will be
made public.
News from
your diocese
Your Church
Ely: The Bishop of Ely, the Rt Rev Stephen Conway, has
made the first cut in the ground where a new church will
be built at Hampton. Bishop Stephen was joined by the
Bishop of Peterborough, the Rt Rev Donald Allister, and
members of the church congregation who bought their
spades, trowels and forks and dug with him. Bishop
Stephen said: “The rapid development of Hampton with its
surge in population means there is a direct need for not
only a place of worship but for a building that serves the
entire community. I am delighted to be here today to cut
the ground with congregation members who are so passionate about meeting their wider community’s needs and
wanting to see a church building that will serve as a focal
point for all.” The purpose-built church will also provide a
community café, one of the distribution centres for Peterborough food bank, and offer a range of courses and services to meet the needs of Hampton population.
Liverpool: A new high street worship and community
space is set to make its mark on Kirkby Town centre this
summer. The Church in the Centre, a joint venture
between 10 local churches of different denominations,
have been provided with 1,500 square feet of retail space
by Kirkby In-Shops, which will host a full programme of
[email protected]
weekly events throughout the summer that not only seek
to engage with the current issues facing the people of
Kirkby, but will also enable people of different ages and
backgrounds to experience God’s love in both practical
and spiritual ways. Alongside the weekly programme of
activities there will also be a quiet ‘Sacred Space’ in which
people can come and spend some quiet time in the presence of God and also serve as a collection point for
Knowsley Foodbank. Saturdays will offer time for worship.
In the mornings a music workshop open to any budding
musicians and working with the ‘Community Choir’ will
practice the songs to be used for the worship. The Church
in the Centre was launched on Saturday 20 July. The Rev
Jayne VanDenBerg-Owens said: “Over the last two years
we have had a fantastic response to our presence in the InShops for our family fun days at Christmas and Easter.
Being able to offer a quiet space and prayer for people during their busy everyday lives seemed to be really valued.
Kirkby In-Shops have really recognised the importance of
what we can offer and we thank them for giving us the
space free of charge over the summer.” Visit their Facebook
page
for
more
details:
www.facebook.com/TheChurchInTheCentre.
Sheffield: Canon Simon Bessant,
Vicar of St Saviour’s Church, High
Green, said that his church welcomed the manslaughter verdict
at Sheffield Crown Court in
regard to the killing of Alan
Greaves. “We condemn absolutely
the evil attack upon Alan as he
walked to church to play the
organ on Christmas Eve night.
Alan was intending to celebrate the coming of light at
Christmas, yet he himself was the victim of darkness just a
few minutes away from doors of the church. Alan lived his
life as he lived his faith – with honesty and integrity. He
invested most of his life in the service of the people of
Sheffield, having helped open a foodbank just weeks
before his murder. We continue to grieve for Alan, whilst
also honouring and valuing his memory. Justice for Alan,
not retribution, was what we have hoped and prayed for
and today we believe that we have seen this granted.”
Canon Bessant concluded: “Alan’s life and faith remains
an inspiration for us. Therefore we remain committed to
the service of the people of High Green, continuing the
work that Alan gave his life to.”
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News Sunday July 28, 2013
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NEWS IN BRIEF
Archbishop backs bees charity
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby,
is to become a patron of Bees Abroad, the
charity seeking to reduce poverty in developing countries worldwide through beekeeping,
a particularly appropriate move as Lambeth
Palace has its own bee colony producing
honey and also wax for scented candles — and
Justin Welby has a long association with helping to relieve poverty in developing countries.
“I am delighted to lend my support to Bees
Abroad by becoming a patron,” said the Archbishop. “Through its imaginative and wholly
practical work, the charity promotes the skills
The Southern Theological
❏Education
and Training
Scheme (STETS) has received
warm praise for the high quality of
its teaching.
The just-published Inspectors’
report affirms STETS’ respect for
Christian diversity and praises the
course as a leader in the use of
digital technology for theological
education.
The Chair of the Trustees, the Rt
Rev Edward Condry, Bishop of
Ramsbury, said: “We welcome the
Inspectors’ report as an affirmation
of our high academic and teaching
standards. It gives us sound
direction for the years to come.”
STETS, based in Salisbury,
celebrates its 40th anniversary in
2014. All theological colleges
receive a statutory inspection every
six years in which a number of
criteria are used to assess the work
being done. The STETS inspection
report awards the highest grade in
10 criteria out of 16, particularly
praising the STETS’ e-learning.
The report says: “The Inspectors
were impressed by the quality of
the Virtual Learning Environment
(VLE) developed by STETS both in
its quality of content and material
and the way it supports distance
learning.”
of beekeeping in a way that empowers and
educates the communities in which it operates.
“In investing in people in some of the poorest and under-developed areas, Bees Abroad
creates opportunities for this local enterprise
to flourish at a sustainable and manageable
level.
Bees Abroad offers training and support in
beekeeping including making hives and protective clothing from local materials, managing
honeybees, collecting honey safely, and handling and storing it hygienically.
Histor y Channel’s hit miniseries The Bible has
been nominated for an impressive three Emmy
Awards, after pulling in a massive 13 million US
viewers for its first episode, and is now contending for an “Outstanding Miniseries or Movie”
award.
❏
Following comments this week by
the Chair of the
Church of England’s Board
of Education, the Rt Rev
John Pritchard, that a
national curriculum for the
teaching of Religious Education in schools should be
created, the Accord Coalition has urged faith schools to be required to follow the
same guidelines for the teaching of RE as non-faith
schools.
“Accord welcomes John Pritchard’s call to boost RE by
drawing up a national curriculum that seeks to ensure a
wide range of beliefs are covered, including non-religious
ones. However, it is not clear whether his aspiration
relates only to non-faith schools,” a statement said.
“In principle we support the call for a national RE
curriculum, thereby helping ensure pupils in all state
funded schools have a guarantee of receiving a core
entitlement to a broad and balanced RE. We see no good
reason why pupils at faith and non-faith state funded
schools should be treated differently in this regard. RE is
not just an academic subject, but part of knowing one’s
neighbour and building up good citizenship.”
New Worship resource published by Church
Worship4Today, a course for worship leaders
and musicians, successfully tried and tested in
the Diocese of Sheffield over several years, is
being rolled out nationally from this week.
Compiled by Helen Bent and Liz Tipple,
Worship4Today: Part 1: Laying a Firm Foundation tackles the priorities identified
in
the
Liturgical
Commission’s Consultation of
Evangelical Anglicans: a need
for theological training for
songwriters and worship leaders in local churches, and for
musical training and effective
formation in worship leading
for ordinands.
The Bishop of Sheffield, the
Rt Rev Steven Croft, said: “The
ordering and leading of worship
when the church is gathered is
absolutely vital for the health
and vitality of the church when
we are dispersed throughout
the week. The Worship4Today
course is a vital resource to
train and equip leaders of worship in a missionshaped church. I have been particularly
encouraged by the way in which the course
encourages people to use their different gifts
and builds up the confidence of those who are
initially very hesitant in this ministry.”
[email protected]
3
Retired clergy
housing reviewed
A CONSULTATION ON housing for
retired clergy has been launched by
the Church of England Pensions
Board. Announced at General Synod
in York the consultation runs until 31
October. All interested parties are
asked to make their opinions known
and details of the consultation can be
found at a special website: charmconsultation.org
About a third of retired clergy live
in housing owned or partly owned by
the Pensions Board but this consultation applies only to those properties
fully owned by the Board.
Major changes are proposed in the
way rents are set. The consultation
document describes the present system as ‘opaque and inconsistent as
between different customers’ but it
also frank about the cost to the
Church.
At present rents are set at 30 per
cent of the joint gross income of the
tenant and spouse (or civil partner).
This was introduced as a way of
ensuring that tenants could afford the
payment but many clergy feel that the
questions asked about their income
are intrusive and unfair. Some residents are paying above the market
rate and tenants can find themselves
paying different rates for similar properties.
Residents who manage to increase
their income and are compelled to pay
more in rent feel they have been
penalised for trying to supplement
their earnings and residents who try
to claim housing benefit find they are
challenged under current rules.
At present the Pensions Board
receives £5.9 million in income from
rents. This does not cover costs. A
further £3.9m is granted by General
Synod and £2 million comes from
charitable funds. New properties are
bought with commercial loans.
The Pensions Board is proposing to
move to the Target Rents system currently in use for local authority properties and social housing. This
involves a complicated calculation
based on formula which reflects 30
per cent of the rent being based on
relative property values 70 per cent
based on local earnings; and a bedroom factor so that smaller properties
usually have lower rents.
Target rents usually come to about
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60 per cent of market rents. They are
transparent and enable people looking at properties to know exactly how
much rent they will be charged.
At present the Pensions Board calculates that 40 per cent of its tenants
pay more in rent than they would
under the Target system. This makes
the Board reluctant to introduce the
system only for new tenants as this
would leave a sizeable proportion of
existing tenants feeling dissatisfied.
At the same time it acknowledges
the need for a period of convergence
and proposes that where existing
rents are below the Target rate they
will increase by RPI plus £60 a year.
Those paying more than Target rents
would see their rents reduced by £60
a year.
The Board estimates it will take 30
years to achieve target rents for
everyone.
No changes in eligibility are proposed, but the Board would like to
move away from the present system
where potential tenants have to find
suitable property on the open market
to one where they will be offered
houses from a portfolio owned and
managed by the Board.
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4
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Make businesses pay
‘for cancer threat’
INSURERS SHOULD pay a levy to help
fund research into cancer caused by
asbestos, the Bishop of Norwich has
said.
In the House of Lords peers called on
the Government to support the idea as
part of the Mesothelioma Bill.
The legislation imposes a levy on
existing workplace insurers to pay
compensation to people dying from
mesothelioma who cannot trace the
insurer who covered them when they
came into contact with asbestos.
Peers proposed the levy should be
increased by up to one per cent to pay
for research, but the amendment was
defeated by 199 votes to 192.
Bishop Graham James said in the
House of Lords that he had seen the
effects of the disease on the former
Bishop of Peterborough, Ian Cundy,
who died in 2009.
“The knowledge that the cause of
this cancer has been lurking in one’s
body for 20 years or more of active life
may suggest in itself that more
research into detection and treatment
may prove valuable.
“There is nothing that can be done to
rewrite someone’s life history, which
may include often unwitting exposure
to asbestos while young, but much can
be done to promote research into a disease that will kill 2,400 people in the
UK this year—the equivalent of wiping
out one of Norfolk’s smaller market
towns within 12 months. If that sort of
tragedy happened it would be front
page news but this passes us by too
easily.
“I am not sure that even now I fully
understand why mesothelioma is such
a Cinderella of cancer research but this
amendment provides a practical way of
providing a corrective.
“The levy proposed is practical and
proportionate and it might even stimulate more high-quality researchers to
think that this is a worthwhile and reliable area in which to have a sustained
work programme over many years.
“I recognise too that it may even
stimulate more voluntary contributions
to such research, quite apart from what
the Government may give. I also understand that it has some support within
the insurance industry.”
The Government argued that the
issue was best tackled without legislation.
Bishop backs equal gay pension rights
THE BISHOP of Norwich backed a move to
review the pension rights
of married gay couples as
legislation to implement
same-sex
marriage
became law.
As the Marriage (Same
Sex Couples) Bill cleared
the House of Lords, Bishop Graham James spoke
in favour of a Government amendment to look
into the current situation.
Under the legislation
only occupational pension savings built up
since the introduction of
civil partnerships will
count towards a survivor’s pension if a member of a married gay
couple dies.
But some campaigners
have called for the position to be equalised with
that for straight married
couples.
Bishop James said: “A
review of the benefits
accruing to all survivors
under occupational pension schemes is both
desirable and necessary.
“The principle of equity under the law for those
whom the law holds to
have the same status in
relation to the deceased
is a sound one.
“Hard-pressed pension
schemes must be tempted to limit benefits, and
the complexity of some
schemes
may
hide
inequity, so this principle
is clear and just and I
support it. Indeed, the
Church of England pension scheme already
treats surviving civil partners in precisely the
same way as widows and
widowers.
“There is a wider reason for supporting these
amendments. It is no
secret that the majority
of Christian churches
and other world faiths do
not believe that same-sex
marriage accords with
their understanding of
marriage itself.
“However, many of us,
including
on
these
Benches, welcome the
social and legal recognition of same-sex partnerships and believe that our
society is a better and
healthier one for such
recognition. That is why I
support this group of
amendments.
“This point has sometimes been obscured in
public commentary on
what has been taking
place here.”
Threat to society from the big charities
THE GOVERNMENT is in danger of
replacing the big state with a civil society dominated by large, rather than
local, charities, the Bishop of Derby
has warned.
Bishop Alastair Redfern raised his
concerns as the House of Lords debated civil society.
“In my own experience in Derby and
Derbyshire, the Government are inviting elective groups in civil society to cooperate with the provision of services
and well-being in the community,” he
said.
“National charities are coming into
our local area to bid for contracts and
do the dealing—because they are
organised, like the private sector, in a
large way—and local charities are suffering, withdrawing and retracting, and
the energy is dissipating.
“On the private model you need bigscale operations and the large charities
are coming in to take the ground. That
is very dangerous.
“The local is where you are in touch
with people enough to understand
what is going on in their lives, to listen
to the stories of the homeless or whoever, and to focus the accumulation of
energy appropriately to help people
flourish and have the care and support
[email protected]
they need.
“There is a real danger that in trying
to reduce big government we may be
setting up big civil society. Civil society
needs to be quite local and small-scale
in many ways.
“If we set up a big civil society of big
successful groups which can bid and
deliver contracts all the local voluntary
energy and connection is going to be
marginalised and disappear. That
would be catastrophic in many local
communities.”
He said small-scale civil society consisting of local groups people could join
needed to be encouraged.
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Sunday July 28, 2013
News
Legal aid
changes anger
Bishop
THE BISHOP of Norwich has hit out at Government cuts in legal aid funding.
In a House of Lords debate he criticised plans to
restrict the amount people could have in capital
before they were entitled to legal aid funding.
He said: “A civilised country is one where we are
all free under the law and where vulnerable people
are not left defenceless against unjust treatment by
another person, organisation or even an agent of
government.
“The level at which permitted disposable capital is
set is likely to render some older people in particular less capable of securing legal aid when faced by
serious problems requiring legal redress. The levels
seem to be set deliberately low.
“An older person with a capital value in their
house of, let us say, £150,000 and an income that is
modest yet sufficient to take them over the limits
here might have to sell up to pay for legal services in
a case, for example, involving mental capacity or
criminal negligence.
“Do we think that such a person should move
away from the support structure of family and
friends just when they might need them most, when
suffering from an injustice, if they are to realise any
capital?
“Perhaps I am painting too gloomy a picture, but
these seem to me to be the likely consequence of
the regulations.”
Churches oppose
Trident review
‘AN
OPPORTUNITY
MISSED’ is how the
United
Reformed
Church, the Methodists
and
the
Baptists
described the failure of
the Trident Alternatives
Review to examine the
case for a WMD-free
Britain.
“Trident is a hangover
from the Cold War era,”
said Roberta Rominger,
General Secretary of the
United
Reformed
Church.
“Priorities
today have changed.
Spending such vast
sums of money on a
weapons system that
could never be used
takes money away from
more productive areas.”
She added: “We are
encouraged by a growing global acceptance
that the threat of the use
of weapons of mass
destruction is unacceptable in any circumstance. People of all
faiths deplore the notion
that our security must
be built of the threat of
widespread destruction
of human life.”
A
more
cautious
response to the Trident
Alternatives
review
came from the Rt Rev
Stephen Platten, the
Church of England lead
bishop on defence matters.
“The Church has consistently held that since
nuclear weapons belong
by virtue of their terrifying power in a different
category to any other
weapons’ system it is
important to ask what
security they offer us
and in what circumstances, if any, their use
or threat of use can be
ethically justified. Sadly,
the Government review
does not address these a
priori questions,” he
said in a statement.
“In the debate that follows this review, the
Government needs to
demonstrate, more convincingly that it has to
date, how even a minimum nuclear deterrence, however that is
defined, would add to
the security of the UK
and the UK’s ability to
act effectively in the
service of peace, justice
and the prosperity of the
wider world.”
Last Friday peace pilgrims on a two-month
trek from Iona delivered
an anti-Trident petition
at 10 Downing Street.
The petition was supported by the Church of
Scotland.
@churchnewspaper
News Sunday July 28, 2013
www.churchnewspaper.com
5
Living Wage commission set up
ARCHBISHOP JOHN SENTAMU is to chair a new independent
commission on the future of the
living wage. Made up of people
from business, trade unions and
civil society, the commission will
look at the prospect of extending
the living wage to Britain’s five
million lower paid workers.
At present the living wage is set
at £8.55 an hour in London and
£7.45 an hour outside London. It
is meant to be a rate that enables
people who receive it to enjoy a
basic but acceptable standard of
living. Supporters claim that if
workers received the living wage
it would save taxpayers £4bn a
year spent by the Government to
support low-earners.
So far few companies have
adopted the living wage and only
45,000 workers have seen its benefits. The Commission chaired by
Archbishop Sentamu will look at
barriers to implementing the living wage and how they can be
overcome. It will report in 12
months time, before the next
General Election.
Writing in The Observer Dr
Sentamu described low-pay in
Britain as a ‘scandal’. He argued
that women are hit particularly
hard and that low pay threatens
their economic independence.
“The cost of living is rising but
wages are not,” the Archbishop
wrote. “In the rush for profit, and
high pay at the top, too many
companies have forgotten the
moral imperative that employees
by paid enough to live on.”
He quoted Ed Miliband, Boris
Johnson and David Cameron as
all supporting the living wage but
warned that for ‘the vast majority
of low-paid people in the UK, the living wage remains an abstract concept, not a description of their pay
rate’. He pledged that the Commis-
sion he will chair will examine the
potential of the living wage and
‘face the challenging questions
about implementation head-on’.
John Cridland, Director General of the CBI and a founding member of the Low Pay Commission,
criticised those pushing to make
the living wage compulsory. He
was reacting to Ed Miliband’s
statement that a future Labour
Government would force all companies that win Whitehall contracts to pay the living wage.
Mr Cridland told The Times
that many Government contracts
went to small businesses that
would not be able to afford the living wage. “Wages should reflect
local labour conditions,” he said.
“The minimum wage is to stop
exploitation. It is not meant to be
an escalator.”
According to Dr Sentamu so far
governments have merely been
applying a ‘sticking plaster’ to the
question of low pay. In his opposition to President Mugabe and on
other issues the Archbishop
showed himself to be a formidable campaigner. He is now bringing his energies and campaigning
skills to bear on the issue of low
pay.
Bishop calls for Alcohol U-turn attacked by churches
funding for RE
THE POLITICAL row over the Government’s decision
to abandon a minimum price for alcohol has been condemned by the Churches.
A joint statement from the Church of England,
Methodist Church, the URC, the Salvation Army and
the Quakers said the Government had broken its
pledge.
The decision, together with a similar one on cigarette
packaging, was the focus of angry exchanges during
Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday when
Labour leader David Miliband questioned David
Cameron over the role of Lynton Crosby.
Crosby had been brought in by the Conservatives to
help them plan their General Election campaign but his
lobbying company also represents tobacco companies.
Labour has now written to Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood calling for an inquiry, claiming Crosby’s
role represents a conflict of interest.
The U-turn on plain packaging for cigarettes and the
alcohol pricing decisions were attacked on both sides
of the House.
Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston, a GP, called on Mr
Cameron to reverse his decision on pricing.
Mr Cameron retorted by saying that it will be made
OUTSPOKEN COMMENTS by the Bishop of Oxford, the Rt
Rev John Pritchard, who is Chairman of the National Society,
have raised the temperature in the debate over Religious Education.
Bishop Pritchard told The Times that RE was being damaged
by its exclusion from the national curriculum and by a shortage of teachers. His comments come after education secretary,
Michael Gove, admitted at a seminar held in Lambeth Palace
that he needed to do more to improve RE in schools.
According to the Bishop the present system by which RE is
designed by local authority committees, on which the Church
of England is represented, is losing its influence because of a
shortage of funds.
The Church of England has produced new RE material for its
voluntary aided schools in collaboration with Cambridge University and it is prepared to share this with other schools. Bishop Pritchard told The Times that Christianity should be the
main focus of RE and he urged Mr Gove to use the new subject
content being drafted by the RE Council of England as the
basis of a new curriculum.
“You can’t really do comparative religion without a faith you
know in depth,” he said. “We
WHEN ONLY THE BEST WILL DO
don’t teach children five languages at once. You usually major
Buying a used car can be a minefield, so why take any chance
in one and maybe they will have
when parting with your money? Beware not all used cars are
another one that they do alongthe same! Can you tell if one has been in an accident, or if it
side it. We need to study one substill has finance owing on it, or even if it has just had some
ject in depth. In this country it
fresh paintwork to cover the rust?
makes sense in most places to
have Christianity as the main subPriory Automotive can and they also do much more too, as
suppliers only to Church members and Clergy you can be
ject.”
assured of getting the very best car for your money.
The Bishop added that the new
curriculum being drafted by the
Priory fully history check every car they supply, each one is
RE Council should reflect a full
independently serviced in an RAC approved garage, a full MOT
range of beliefs, including humanis put on those needing one, and they then undergo a full day’s
ism.
interior and exterior valet, even the engine bay is cleaned.
Quality is paramount (just view their customer testimonials on
The Accord Coalition, which
the Priory website), only the very best will do for them, so you
campaigns to end religious disthe customer benefit. An underwritten 12 month warranty is
crimination in schools, supported
included, your car is taxed and then delivered to your door, no
the Bishop’s call for the adoption
hidden costs at all.
of a national curriculum that
includes study of a range of
Part exchange of your old car is welcome and they can also
handle the Church Commissioners Clergy loan for you too.
beliefs, including non-religious
With their team having over 30 years experience, you will be in
beliefs, but called for faith schools
safe hands.
to follow the same guidelines in
the teaching of RE as non-faith
For any further information, please
schools.
The National Secular Society
call 0114 2559696 or visit
said that churches and other faith
organisations should not deterwww.prioryautomotive.com
mine what was taught in RE.
[email protected]
illegal to sell alcohol for less than the cost of duty and
VAT.
Ms Wollaston said that would have “absolutely meaningless impact.”
Today the Churches said that claims made by Jeremy
Browne, Minister for Crime Prevention, that there is
not enough ‘concrete evidence’ on alcohol pricing “flies
in the face of five years of medical research.”
The Churches cite research that claims the main
driver of problem drinking in the UK is the increased
availability of cheap, strong alcohol. “A minimum unit
price of 50p could save around 3,000 lives a year. Critics
have expressed concerns that a minimum price would
penalise ordinary drinkers, but on current prices it
would cost moderate drinkers 28p a week, with substantial benefits to public health and reduced burdens
on frontline services.”
James North, Policy Adviser for the Methodist
Church, said: “The Government’s failure to introduce
minimum unit pricing for alcohol will cost lives. As
Churches we are deeply concerned at the effect of alcohol misuse on problem drinkers, families and communities. With nearly 9,000 deaths directly related to
alcohol in 2011, this is no time for inaction.”
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Sunday July 28, 2013
News
ACC Chairman’s U-turn on
gays fails to convince college
THE CHAIRMAN of the Anglican
Consultative Council, the Rt Rev
James Tengatenga, has repudiated his opposition to same-sex
marriage, telling an American college newspaper the Bible’s call to
treat all people with respect outweighed its condemnation of
homosexual acts as sin.
On 19 July 2013 The Dartmouth
quoted Dr Tengatenga as saying
his views on homosexuality had
evolved in recent years. “The
interpretation of the Bible is not
based on one person or one
denomination,” the Dartmouth
quoted him as saying.
“What is important is what the
scriptures say about the value of a
human being. It says they are all
equal. One must place more value
on this than on the few negative
scriptures that are in the Bible,”
the bishop said.
Last week The Church of England Newspaper reported Dr Tengatenga had stood down as
Bishop of Southern Malawi to
take up the post of Dean of the
William Jewett Tucker Foundation at Dartmouth College on 1
January 2014. As dean, Dr Tengatenga will oversee the college’s
chaplaincy programs.
Legal ruling is
blow for Recife
THE ANGLICAN Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB) reports
that a Pernambuco judge has handed down a ruling in the property dispute in the Diocese of Recife, awarding ownership of the
diocese’s assets to the faction aligned to the national church.
On 18 July 2013 the Rt Rev Sebastião Armando, the caretaker
bishop of the IEAB diocese, released a statement announcing
the secession of the diocese and over 90 per cent of its clergy and
lay members in 2005 “flagrantly violated Brazilian law as well as
Canon law” and the “Doctrine and Discipline” of the IEAB.
In 2005 the then Bishop of Recife, the late Rt Rev Robinson
Cavalcanti was deposed for incivility by his fellow bishops following several years of doctrinal disputes between the evangelical
bishop and the liberal majority in the House of Bishops. After he
was removed from office, the province then defrocked 32 Recife
clergy without trial for backing their bishop.
Bishop Armando, who retired in May but has acted as caretaker of the minority faction until a new bishop is elected in August,
argued “that with the decision, the Judiciary as enforcing justice
and law, has put an end to this situation which generated
unprecedented legal instability in the Anglican Diocese of Recife,
resulting in a deleterious effect on the entire Brazilian Anglican
province, reflecting poorly on the credibility of the (church)
institution and leadership in Brazil and abroad. Fortunately the
law does not applaud these sorts of mistakes.”
He went on to say the ruling would not halt the IEAB’s decline,
however. “Unfortunately, even with this new step, the unity of the
church, so carefully cherished and painstakingly built over these
100+ years during the existence of the Episcopal Anglican
Church in Brazil, once again remains shaken, leaving its faithful
troubled and confused, certainly causing in many people of faith
a cooling of charity, which is our biggest concern right now.”
The bishop of the majority faction now aligned with the Anglican Church in North America and the Church of the Province of
the Southern Cone, the Rt Rev Miguel Uchôa, last week told The
Church of England Newspaper he had “called an extraordinary
synod for this Saturday to have a united voice from the Diocese
with the presence of our lawyers.”
While Bishop Armando has pushed for a civil legal settlement
of the dispute closed-door meetings have been held between the
Recife leadership and national and local leaders of the IEAB to
seek an amicable resolution to the conflict.
Bishop Uchôa told CEN there had been a number of closeddoor meetings between the breakaway diocese and the national
leadership of the IEAB in recent months seeking an amicable
resolution to the dispute. But added he would withhold comment
on the court ruling for the present. “At the moment we will let
them speak. We come later.”
However he noted the diocese would appeal the ruling.
[email protected]
However gay activists at Dartmouth, joined by the college
chapter of the NAACP (National
Association for the Advancement
of Colored People) denounced
the bishop’s appointment. They
cited statements made by Dr Tengatenga in support of the
Church’s traditional teaching on
sexuality published in The Church
of England Newspaper, in objecting to his appointment.
Members of the Dartmouth
search committee told the college
newspaper Dr Tengatenga did not
believe the things that he said but
was merely mouthing the senti-
ments of the Church of the
Province of Central Africa. Search
Committee chairman Professor
Irene Kacandes said the bishop’s
statements had been taken out of
context and expressed his
Church’s views, not his personal
beliefs.
However, the bishop’s climbdown may have come too late for
some members of Dartmouth’s
faculty. Adrienne Clay, African
and African-American studies
department program coordinator
told The Dartmouth: “Although
Tengatenga’s new statement
strikes some encouraging notes,
it seems very polished and a little
too ambiguous for my taste.
“How do we measure Tengatenga? By a statement directed to a
college audience in the US or by
his words and actions, as well as
inaction, over the past decade?”,
she said.
Dr Tengatenga did not respond
to a request for clarification of his
views. However the Anglican
Consultative Council’s press
office last week said the bishop
was under no obligation to step
down as ACC chairman following
his resignation as Bishop of
Southern Malawi.
Parliament hears of threat of bats in churches
BATS ARE destroying British churches, the Second
Church Estates Commissioner Sir Tony Baldry told
Parliament. Speaking in response to a question from
the member for Bury North, Mr David Nuttall (Cons.)
on the “ effects of bats in churches”, on 4 July 2013 Sir
Tony said the “present situation” of 6,400 churches
infested with bats was “simply unsustainable.”
“A small number of bats living in a church can be
manageable, but parish churches are finding an
increasing number of bats taking up residence in large
roosts. There are significant costs in financial and
human terms to those who worship in these churches,
and to the wider community,” he said.
Sir Tony noted “Parish churches have to raise the
money for bat litigation at considerable cost to their
community, and that can prevent their own mission
and ministry,” citing the case of St Hilda’s Ellerburn
which had spent “a total of £29,000 so far, which is a
significant sum for a small congregation to finance.”
“As yet, there is no resolution in sight,” to the bat
problem, he said. However the member for Bristol
East, Ms Kerry McCarthy (Lab.) rose to speak on
behalf of bats, asking if the Church Commissioners
would foster dialogue between the Bat Conservation
Trust and the Church Buildings Council?
Sir Tony responded this was not “an issue that can
be managed. Large numbers of churches are being
made unusable by large numbers of bats roosting in
them. Churches are not field barns; they are places of
worship.”
He added that he had “a number of letters from clergy up and down the country saying how distressing it
was for them, before they could celebrate communion
on Sunday, to have to clear bat faeces and bat urine off
the altar and the communion table. That is not acceptable.”
He told the House bat infestation was “not a joking
matter. This is serious and people have to understand
that. I am grateful for the attention paid to this issue by
the Under-Secretary. We are making real progress, but
we need to ensure that [churches] can continue to be
places of worship and are not closed as a consequence
of bat faeces and bat urine.”
Anger over asylum policy
Richard III tomb unveiled
ANGLICAN leaders have
denounced as “inhumane” Australian Prime
Minister Kevin Rudd’s
new asylum policy. The
Bishop of Tasmania, the
Rt Rev John Harrower
denounced the new policy as un-Christian.
The Prime Minister’s
plans to settle asylumseekers arriving by boat
in Australia in Papua New
Guinea was “politically
driven, based on popular
myth, and inhumane” the
Archbishop of Adelaide,
the Most Rev Jeffrey
Driver said.
Under an agreement
with the Papua New
Guinea government, asylum-seekers arriving by
boat will be sent to PNG
for processing and those
judged to be refugees will
be settled in PNG.
Mr Rudd said his gov-
ernment would “make no
apology for the decision
we’ve taken”.
The Australian government sought to end the
trade in immigrant trafficking he said, which
saw smugglers load
unsafe boats with desperate immigrants. “These
folk are merchants in
death and their business
model needs to be dismantled, part of this policy response is to do just
that,” he said.
However Dr Driver, the
chairman of the Anglican
Church’s Refugee Network, said the new “policy comes into play only
after people have made
the dangerous journey to
Australia by boat.
“This policy plays to
the myth that somehow
boat
arrivals
have
‘jumped the queue’.”
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LEICESTER
CATHEDRAL will spend
£1 million on the
construction of the tomb
of the last Plantagenet
king, Richard III. On 21
July the diocese
announced the cathedral
will modify its interior,
installing a raised tomb, a
new floor, lighting and
new stained glass
windows.
Last week the firm van
Heyningen and Haward,
architects on behalf of
the cathedral, shared
copies of the proposed
plans with
representatives from the
Richard III Society, the
University of Leicester
and the City Council.
The proposal will next
be submitted to the
Cathedrals Fabric
Commission for England,
and if approved, work
could commence as early
as November.
The remains of the
king, who died in the
Battle of Bosworth Field
in 1485, were discovered
by archaeologists under
a city car park last year.
The decision to intern
Richard in Leicester
Cathedral has been
challenged by the group
called The Plantagenet
Alliance, which in March
petitioned the
government to move the
burial to York.
They claimed that 15
members of the Alliance
were descendants of
Richard’s sister and,
therefore, under the
European Convention
on Human Rights,
should have a say in the
burial.
@churchnewspaper
Leader & Comment Sunday July 28, 2013
Comment
Dangers of rushed new legislation
Sudden policy initiatives by those in power, with no mandate from the
electorate, can not only be called undemocratic but can also fall into
inconsistency and have unintended consequences. Mr Cameron’s sudden radical conversion to gay marriage has very quickly been imposed
on the population, and the PM hopes that it will burnish his liberal credentials for the next election. But he has unleashed a persecution onto
Christians in public sector jobs that may turn very nasty indeed – did
he really intend that, or is he turning a blind eye and hoping for the
best? He has also made his Oxford speech about the value of the
Church in society look disingenuous and has probably made Anglican
disestablishment much more likely – again probably not what he
intended, but the result of impetuous and ill thought-out use of legislation. He has taken Christianity further out of the public forum as a
voice to be listened to. No one voted for this.
Voters may well wonder if the arrival of the conservative lobbyist
Lynton Crosby has caused Mr Cameron to pull his rudder sharp right
in a desperate effort to bring back disillusioned cultural conservatives,
betrayed by Mr Cameron’s ‘banging on’ about gay marriage. Proposed
legislation to ensure cigarette packaging to be in plain wrapping has
been pulled, despite the health lobby arguing that the measure might
save thousands of lives. Was this a gesture to the ‘right’ that Cameron
is not a ‘nanny state’ leader? And again proposals to stop alcoholic
drinks being priced very low have suddenly been dropped – is this a
‘dog whistle’ call to those who like a bottle of red from the supermarket, the non-wealthy Mondeo Man voter who liked Mrs Thatcher?
Again, that measure was very much wanted by the medical profession
on health grounds. So, suddenly we have two legislative U-turns, both
illiberal on health grounds, but favouring the ‘libertarian right’.
Now we hear he is cracking down on pornography on the internet:
but on what basis is he denying secular voters freedom to pore over
pornography if they like to? The case for stopping child exploitation
here is clear to all, but otherwise what is his case for curtailing secular
freedom? Surely not Christianity! Does he think this would play well
with cultural conservatives? His ethical assumptions seem to be driven
by opinion pollsters rather than any principle.
With the new royal baby arriving, we can also see that his legislation
concerning the royal succession is half-baked, and again lacking in
democratic mandate, a bright idea with a liberal feel to it, ill thoughtout. If the new royal baby proved to a girl, she would become queen
when her turn came, but other Commonwealth nations have not
agreed to the change in primogeniture and so might not accept the
new monarch – surely another sign of rushed legislation, ill thoughtout, rushed through, and all in the interests of a PM from a very posh
background trying hard to be trendy.
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7
Science Needs
Metaphysics
Peter Mullen
The engaging Rev Dr David Wilkinson spoke this
week on The Sunday Programme about the relationship between physics and theology.
As a theologian and a theoretical astrophysicist,
he is well qualified to do so and he admitted there
are no easy answers. Nor would you expect there to
be. For theoretical physics and the study of God
necessarily involve concepts which are at the very
borders of our understanding – and often beyond
the borders – where our use of words frequently
seems to be paradoxical and even absurd: language
at the end of its tether.
This is bound to be so in questions about God
who is transcendent beyond human categories.
God is our creator and the creature cannot explain
his creator any more than a cod can explain the
chemistry of the water in the Atlantic Ocean. It is
also the case in modern physics, because this
physics lacks a metaphysical context.
We need to go back a bit in order to get a grip on
the problem. The metaphysical background to
Newtonian physics declared that some events have
causes. Kant provided the
metaphysical background
to
post-Newtonian
physics when he said that
all events have causes.
But the crucial thing to
understand here is that
Kant did not say that all
events
have
causes
because we have thoroughly investigated the
world and discovered this
to be true.
Kant said that causation
is an a priori concept and
necessary to the way we
all think. In fact Kant
insisted that we cannot
think about the physical
world at all without thinking in terms of space, time
and causality. Causality is not based on our experience of the world: it is a necessary precondition for
our understanding of that experience. In old-fashioned language, causality is a metaphysical idea, an
absolute presupposition.
So far so good. But in the early part of the 20th
century a new physics was conjectured by Max
Plank and later developed by Heisenberg, Pauli,
Dirac and other luminaries. This was quantum
mechanics and it proved to be not only of theoretical interest but of enormous practical usefulness.
Much of our contemporary communications technology is based on quantum mechanics. But it created problems that our Kantian metaphysics could
not deal with.
For example, Schrodinger produced an explanatory example of quantum mechanics in action: his
famous cat analogy in which the cat was able to be
dead and alive at the same time.
Subatomic physics revealed the strange fact that
if you observe an electron you change its position.
Clearly, the conventional understanding of space,
time and causality as metaphysical constants could
no longer hold.
The confusion was further confounded by Einstein’s special theory of relativity which threw up
other counterintuitive strangenesses such as that if
you stand on the earth and wait for a beam of light
to reach you from the sun it will take about nine
minutes; but if you were somehow able to travel on
that beam it would take no time at all.
Paradoxes such as these were therefore entirely
in line with the mathematical concepts behind the
new physics but repugnant to common sense. And
they have led to physicists taking refuge in weirdnesses beyond belief: such as that the universe
might be not three or four dimensional but of 11
dimensions – or 23 or however many you fancy.
The 20th century’s so called standard model for
explaining the physical universe repeatedly and
infuriatingly broke down, so that the great physicist
Wolfgang Pauli described it as so bad that it was not
even wrong! It is as if a youngster should go to her
arithmetic teacher and complain that there was
something wrong with arithmetic - because every
time she tried to add 30 to 110 she got 145. With
great kindliness, the teacher would no doubt point
out that arithmetic is OK, only there was something
wrong with the pupil’s understanding of it. The
fault is not in our stars but in ourselves. And this
fault is a metaphysical fault. This diagnosis is
always rejected because the climate of opinion, the
modern Zeitgeist, is materialistic, scientistic and therefore anti-metaphysical. This
prejudice led AJ Ayer in Language, Truth and Logic
(1936) to assert that all
forms of metaphysics are
meaningless and that consequently questions as to the
existence of God, the
absoluteness of morality and
the objectivity of aesthetics
must be meaningless too.
What Ayer, and the whole
tradition of philosophy
which derived from him, did
not understand is that the
statement “Metaphysics is
meaningless” is itself a metaphysical statement – that is
one not verifiable by scientific observation.
This prejudice against metaphysics, this pseudoscientific hatred of God and the modern contempt
for traditional morality and standards of judgement
in art undermines not only what we used to call the
humanities: It undermines science too. Nobody has
described this better than RG Collingwood:
I do not know why the logical positivists have not
similarly pilloried as nonsensical the principle that
mathematics is applicable to everything in nature;
unless it is that they know this principle to be one
upon which natural science ever since Galileo has
depended and still depends for its very possibility.
Being the declared friends of natural science, the positivists would never dream of making a fuss about
anything which natural scientists find it necessary to
take for granted. So they let it pass and to ease their
consciences drop heavily on the proposition, “God
exists”, because they think nobody believes in God
except poor miserable parsons. But if they knew a little more about the history of science, those who are so
prejudiced against metaphysics would know that the
belief in an applied mathematics is itself a metaphysical belief and as such only one part of the belief in
God.
Science needs metaphysics.
Much of our contemporary
communications technology
is based on quantum
mechanics. But it created
problems that our Kantian
metaphysics could not deal
with
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Sunday July 28, 2013
CHURCH OF ENGLAND
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Context needed
Sir, Jeremy Moodey’s article (Standing up
for Palestinian Christians) contains so
many criticisms of Israel with so little context that it’s hard to know where to start to
respond to it.
Firstly, Israel’s security fence was built
only after a three-year spike following
decades of Palestinian terrorism in which
hundreds of Israelis (and Palestinians)
died. To read Moodey, one might think that
it exists principally to ‘humiliate’ Palestinians. Actually the fence has all but stopped
Palestinian suicide bombing, which
reached epidemic proportions by 2003. It is
hard to understand why so many critics of
Israel’s defensive measures are silent on
this crucial fact.
Second, Israel is far from alone in having
restrictions on foreign spouses. For example, the UK requires some foreign spouses
of British citizens to undergo registration
processes that can be lengthy and intrusive.
Much more interesting is why a Palestinian
might prefer to live in reviled Israel rather
than within the Palestinian territories? Perhaps Jeremy Moodey could explain this to
us?
Standing up for Palestinian Christians
means listening to those courageous Palestinian voices exposing the injustice that
Christians suffer at the hands of Islamists
and Palestinian Mafioso-style gangs in protection money and expropriation of land.
Not to mention successive corrupt Palestinian governments who have squandered billions of aid dollars in bribes and personal
expenditure, rather than spending it on the
infrastructure, schools, hospitals and jobs
for which it was intended.
The causes of Palestinian suffering are
far more complex than many critics of
Israel are prepared to admit. Failure to
acknowledge that complexity though, contributes to the problem, not the solution.
Name and address supplied
Changing times
Sir, ‘Love and marriage, love and marriage,
go together like a horse and carriage’ –
This was once taken for granted, whereas
today, a great many couples put the cart
before the horse, if they marry at all, consummating their union ahead of the wedding. Is wedlock becoming more like taking
final vows after a novitiate, with physical
consummation less of the Rubicon that Alan
Minchin and the present Law considers it to
be?
Continuing Indaba is not about endless
discussion, leading to the equivalent of
‘compassion fatigue’ but, indeed, ‘about
coming to a decisive conclusion’. John Allen
(‘The Telegraph Letters’, 14 July) rightly
cautions that ‘the latest word is not the last
word. Things will continue to change’ and
that ‘the Church must follow the everlasting
Gospel’, not the surrounding culture.
When it came to the Abolition of Slavery,
Universal Suffrage and Civil Rights, it eventually did so, on biblical grounds and it
would require a ‘Talibanization’ to reverse
that history. Do we want to put our gay
brothers and sisters back in the closet?
Palestinian questions
Sir, In response to Jeremy Moodey’s article about Palestinian Christians, your readers
should be aware that Christian Arab citizens of Israel are forming a new political party
that calls for Christian Arab enlistment into the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).
Bishara Shilyan, from the city of Nazareth, is the leader of the new party. A leading
supporter of Israeli Christian Arab enlistment into the IDF is Father Gabriel Naddaf, a
Greek Orthodox priest from Yafia.
Unfortunately, due to his support of Israeli Christian Arab enlistment in the IDF,
Father Naddaf was banned by Muslim leaders from entering Nazareth’s Church of the
Annunciation, and was threatened with being fired from his position in Yafia. His car
was also vandalised. Given the fact that Palestinian Authority and its Police force have
the legal authority over 97 per cent of West Bank Palestinians, I am surprised that Jeremy Moodey did not question what the Palestinian Authority are doing to protect Christians.
In contrast in Egypt, Muslim extremists are murdering priests and lay Christians.
Over 200,000 Christians have left Egypt in the past year. In Saudi Arabia, its Grand
Mufti recently said it is “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region”. In Syria,
Christians have been kidnapped, and Islamist rebels declare Sharia law on Christian
villages that fall under their control.
Perhaps this explains why Israel is the only Middle-East Country with a growth in its
Christian population.
Name and address supplied
Living through a paradigm shift in understanding is never easy and it is painful for
those good people, who hold to what has
been the Church’s teaching on human sexuality for thousands of years, to be branded
as ‘Homophobes’ by revisionists, however
enlightened they may think they are.
Gamaliel would be more charitable
towards both sides, since a major change in
attitude takes time and, finally, ‘the proof of
the pudding is in the eating.’ We can rest
assured that an erroneous reading of ‘the
signs of the times’ by false prophets will not
prevail.
Serena Lancaster,
Broadwell, Moreton-in-Marsh
Freedom issues
Sir, Equalities minister Maria Miller
has said people should have “freedom to
believe marriage should be of one man with
one woman and not be marginalised”. However, the reality is that she and her colleagues have caused aggression, hate,
abuse and wrongful arrest in the street
against people who have tried to proclaim
biblical views on behaviour in public.
How, in the absence of adequate safeguards in the legislation, will the government protect individuals and ensure the
freedom of speech in our society?
J Longstaff,
Woodford Green, Essex
Authentic marriage
Sir, Though your correspondent Marcus
Ramshaw (21 July) may wish otherwise,
authentic marriage is both “love” and “biology”.
The sexual act evolved primarily for procreation and whatever Mr Ramshaw may
state, the human body was not designed for
the various activities that lay behind the
term “homosexual”, and thus the sexual act
can only be naturally undertaken by a man
with a woman.
Marcus Ramshaw’s seeming naivety concerning the requirement of physical con-
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summation for legitimate marriage is a sign
of his desperation to defend the indefensible. He must be aware, for example, that
non-consummation of a marriage in the
Roman Catholic tradition allows for that
marriage to be annulled by the Church and,
I understand, is also a ground for divorce in
our general legal system.
The Holy Bible (in both Old and New
Testaments) is unambiguous in its proscription of homosexual activity. In the Gospel
records Our Lord Jesus Christ said nothing
to abolish Leviticus 18:22/20:13, regarded
sexual sin as part of our “uncleanness”
(Mark 7:21-23) and did not condone sexual
sin (John 8:11).
Mr Ramshaw obviously has the
clear choice of abiding by Scripture’s teaching or be in disobedience to it.
Those of our fellow Christians who have
same-sex attraction need love, welcome and
support in order to live lives that are not
damaging to bodily and spiritual health.
Clergy who fail in this by openly encouraging behaviour and attitudes contrary to
what God has revealed are failing both their
flock, themselves and Almighty God.
Alan Minchin,
Stratford upon Avon
Precedence
Sir, Fascinating that in her letter of last
week (21 July) Mary Roe should cite correctly the mechanism of procreation as
commonly understood at the time of Christ.
How the coming of Jesus into this world
seems to turn everything ‘upside-down’.
Thus Eve ‘came out’ of Adam (Gen. 2:22),
whilst Jesus (the ‘second Adam’) came out
of Mary (the ‘second Eve’). Does this inversion apply also to the preceding words in
Genesis 2, in which Adam names the animals and finally names Eve, thus establishing a (permanent?) spiritual precedence
and authority of man over woman, which is
now the other way round?
John M Hughes,
Heaton Mersey, Stockport
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‘I’m a struggling-to-believe Christian.’
@theJeremyVine in frank &
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Prayers for the Duke & Duchess of
Cambridge as they await the birth of
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I believe that by paying workers the
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Shocking article in Observer on child
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News Sunday July 28, 2013
www.churchnewspaper.com
AndrewCarey:
View from the Pew
Tackling low pay today
The Archbishop of York is indeed right that
there is a scandal of low pay in Britain today
(‘John Sentamu: the scandal of the millions
not paid enough to live on, The Observer,
21 July 2013).
He writes: “Come pay day, nearly five million people in this country won’t have been
paid at a rate high enough to live on... Nearly five million people give their time, their
skills and their energy to perform jobs –
many of which we all depend on – but don’t
get paid enough by their employers to even
get by.”
He advocates the ‘living wage’, which a
number of companies and corporations
have embraced voluntarily. Archbishop
Sentamu is putting his time into this campaign by chairing the ‘Living Wage Commission’,
advocating
a
“national
conversation about low pay in Britain.”
The situation is, of course, complicated.
Archbishop Sentamu himself notes that the
cost of low pay is felt by all taxpayers as the
state has to fill the gap. There’s a sense,
however, in which the state can be seen as
perversely
rewarding
irresponsible
employers by these kinds of top-ups.
Many Church of England clergy rely on
working tax credits to supplement less than
healthy stipends – especially curates with
children. In fact, government assistance in
the form of child benefit and tax credits
seems to be regarded as part of a clergyman’s stipend in some parts of the Church
of England. I hope therefore, that the Archbishop of York will have some recommendations for the Church of England during
his chairing of the Living Wage Commission. The churches must lead by example
in ensuring that clergy have no need to rely
University changes
As long ago as January it was announced that George Pattison was leaving his post as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford to take up a
new post as Professor of Divinity at Glasgow. Pattison follows two other
Oxford theology professors, Oliver O’Donovan and John Webster, who
have left the Cathedral close at Christ Church to take up professorships
in Scotland. Pattison’s predecessor at Glasgow, Werner Jeanrond, has
already moved to Oxford, where he is the first non-Benedictine Master of
St Benet’s Hall. An interesting question is who will succeed Pattison? At
the moment the Lady Margaret Professor must be in Anglican orders and
serve as a canon of Christ Church. Past occupants have included Rowan
Williams, John Macquarrie and NP Williams, father of Justin Welby’s
stepfather, Lord Williams. There is speculation that the requirement that
the holder of the Lady Margaret chair must be in Anglican orders will be
relaxed. Will the next Lady Margaret Professor still have to be a Christian who can also serve as a lay canon?
Foote’s predecessor was a Roman Catholic but there are rumours Diarmaid McCulloch was thought unsuitable for the post because in one book
he declared he was no longer a believer. He now seems to have pulled
back from that position.
on state subsidy.
One of the great challenges for the
future is the rising cost of energy, water
and food, to say nothing of housing. It is
difficult to see how even the ‘living
wage’ is going to cope with these rapidly escalating costs on families. The Living Wage Commission needs to keep an
eye on these trends as it pursues its
admirable goal of fair pay for all.
Fighting online porn
The arguments against regulating internet pornography are based on two mistaken premises. The first is that
attempts to filter out pornography constitute an attack on freedom. The second is that the technical difficulties and
inevitable loopholes make this too difficult to even attempt.
The first argument is nonsense. The
need to protect children leads to regulation in all sorts of areas including film
and television, and sales of alcohol and
tobacco. Regulation of Internet Service
Providers is no different from any of
these. Society accepts that when the priority is the protection of children, we all
surrender a little bit of freedom.
The second argument is based on the
misleading presumption that, because
attempts to regulate will sometimes fail,
they should not be attempted. Of
9
course, there are young people who are
so savvy that they will run rings around
any filtering software, but the vast
majority of children will be protected. In
any case it is not beyond the talent of
experts to keep improving software.
The same argument could be advanced
for legalising performance-enhancing
drugs in sport – that because some athletes somehow manage to cheat in spite
of testing the rule book should be
ripped up.
Too good to last?
I keep having to pinch myself. The England cricket team have won two test
matches in a row against the Australians. What is more, we’re experiencing a heat wave after three or four
rain-soaked years.
Then the pessimism borne of years of
experience comes to the fore. England’s run-of-form surely can’t continue? After decades of being thrashed by
the Australians, England are bound to
start collapsing and bowling rubbish
again.
And my second thought is that as the
summer holidays begin this week the
rain will return. Sure enough, I look at
the forecast on my computer and
there’s a few telltale depressing blue
drops on the screen.
All change at Lambeth Palace
Londoner’s Diary in the Evening Standard was quick to pick up on the fact that the
new Communications Director at Lambeth Palace does not need to be an Anglican.
The requirement is for a Christian in sympathy with the aims of the Archbishop.
With the appointment of Nigel Stock as Bishop at Lambeth, a position that lapsed
under Rowan Williams, major changes are underway at Lambeth. In this area at
least, Justin Welby is ahead of Pope Francis with whom he is increasingly compared. The Pope is still to bring new blood into the Curia where the present Secretary of State, Tarcisio Berton, who has attracted much criticism, is 78. Revelations
that the priest he appointed to represent him at the Vatican Bank had been involved
in sexual scandals have probably made Francis cautious. Comparisons between the
Pope and the Archbishop usually concentrate on their closeness in spirituality and
concern for the poor but there are also suggestions they share a common management style. It is said about Francis that although he jokes and charms people he
also likes to get his way and knows how to use power. ‘Watch if he gets angry
because he can be very tough’ according to a source quoted in last week’s Time.
Similar comments are being made about Welby. He shows a similar combination of
charm and determination and there are journalists who know what it is like to be on
the receiving end of his anger. Francis is said to be ‘no papal lassie’. There is no
episcopal lassie at Lambeth.
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The
Favourite churches
Congratulations to the National Churches Trust for hitting on an excellent
way to get some free publicity for their 60th anniversary celebrations.
They got wide coverage when they asked 60 prominent people to identify
their favourite church. The media was very happy to report the choices of
the likes of David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Boris Johnson.
Most politicians plumped very firmly for a church in their constituency
although Boris cannot be faulted for choosing Wren’s masterpiece, St
Magnus the Martyr, praised by TS Eliot for its ‘inexplicable splendour of
Ionian white and gold’. This particular church is as high as they come so
the Evening Standard was not wide off the mark in asking whether this
was a place the Mayor could confess his sins. Rowan Williams didn’t opt
for a church in his former diocese or in Wales but for St Endellion, in Port
Isaac, Cornwall. Surprisingly no one went for the amazing church at
Wreay in Cumbria. A biography of its creator, Sarah Losh, was recently
praised in the American magazine Books and Culture as well as in the New
York Review of Books. Brigflatts Meeting House was the only Cumbrian
house of worship to make the list. London did well with nine churches.
Andrew Lloyd Webber went for All Saints, Margaret Street, and Bear
Grylls went for HTB.
Church in the News
Last Sunday two papers had two major spreads on the church. The Sunday Times
printed a long extract from Paul Vallely’s new biography of Pope Francis. Other
biographies have been scissors-and-paste jobs that relied heavily on press cuttings
but this one breaks new ground by giving the fullest account of Francis’ activities
under the junta. The future Pope was still only 39 when the generals seized power
and he made mistakes. Angry with two Jesuits when they did not do as he told them,
he expelled them from the order, which meant they lost their licences. This put the
two men in great danger in prison but Bergoglio then worked overtime to secure
their release. He went on to help others in trouble with the junta and to adopt many
of the attitudes to the poor displayed by the two Jesuits he had placed under discipline. Francis admitted: “I had to learn from my errors along the way”. Over at The
Observer, literary editor, Robert McCrum, son of Michael McCrum, who was headmaster of Eton and an active Anglican who chaired the Cathedral Fabrics Commission and acted as a religious adviser to the BBC, had a long piece in which he
pronounced the C of E ‘in crisis’. Heavily critical of General Synod, McCrum argued
that the ‘irony of the present crisis is that the two groups – gays and women – that
seem particularly alert to the needs of the church and extremely well suited to promote such a mission are currently excluded from the hierarchy’.
10
www.churchnewspaper.com
Sunday July 28, 2013
Feature
Be dazzled and discover some new
history – all in one famous location!
If you live in London or are planning a visit
there why not include looking around
Kensington Palace in your schedule?
Very centrally located within easy reach
by bus or tube, recently, time and money
has been spent making visitors’
experiences extra special, and the location
is fully prepared for wheelchair users. You
will discover a wealth of history and a
variety of visually stunning things to see,
including the very latest attraction –
“Fashion Rules: dresses from the
collections of HM The Queen, Princess
Margaret and Diana, Princess of Wales” –
a five-room exhibition of gowns and
outfits.
Names such as Norman Hartnell, Hardy
Amies, Bruce Oldfield and Dior feature
amongst the designers of the series of
beautifully displayed items, which include
a silk dress and coat with fur trim (1972)
in an alluring soft turquoise worn by the
Queen for her Silver Wedding
Anniversary.
There is also a Zandra Rhodes evening
dress (1986) worn by Princess Diana
during a tour of Japan, the peach colour
reflecting the cherry blossom in flower at
the time of the royal visit, and a glamorous
party frock with plunging neckline, worn
by Princess Margaret for a film premiere
in London and also at a dinner in Paris as a
guest of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (both
1951). Prepared to be totally dazzled!
Other sections of your itinerary will
encompass three interior parts of
Kensington Palace, which you can
which raise a smile or two.
There you may also find some
entertainers dressed in costumes of the
period, and eager to jolly you along on
your stroll through the rooms, and willing
to both tease a bit of history out of you and
offer some in return whilst you pass some
time with them.
In “Victoria Revealed”, the tour covers
Queen Victoria’s childhood – it is said she
was born in Kensington Palace and
actually slept in her mother’s room
together with her pet dog Dash, until she
became Queen.
The exhibition progresses to her
discover in any order. The Queen’s
State Apartments focus on Prince
William Henry and the decline of
the Stuart line of kings and queens
plus part of the palace created for
Mary II, with an intriguing display
of paper ships in bottles included.
The King’s State Apartments
covers the court of King George I
and King George II, showing breathtaking
outfits worn at court and many traditional
paintings, which on closer inspection
contain particular idiosyncrasies, some of
Council. Queen Victoria’s calmness and
composure impressed them all. The
objects of interest in this charming area of
Kensington Palace include a golden cradle
with rockers, and her wedding dress,
together with a piece of mourning
jewellery which was traditional in events
of bereavement – her husband Prince
Albert died long before she did – they had
nine children together.
The newly landscaped gardens will
beckon to you, including a wiggly walk
and a sunken area displaying a range of
mesmerising colours. There is also a place
to take tea adjacent to Kensington Palace
and within a short walk past the
gardens, is The Orangery where
Artifacts include the peach
you can enjoy a three course meal
dress worn by Diana,
or high tea.
Princess of Wales and below
The Orangery is also steeped in
reporter Penny
history, being the location where
Great Britain was officially
“designated” on the map during
Queen Victoria’s reign.
For further info call 0844 482 7777.
maturity when she came to the throne on
the death of her father. In the Red Saloon,
Victoria held a meeting hours after
officially becoming Queen, with The Privy
Open daily 10am – 6pm until 31 Oct.
Open 10am – 5pm 1 November - 28
February. Closed 24, 25 and 26
December. Children up to 15 go
free. Entry for adults £15.00.
Reduced prices for concessions and
groups of 15 +. “Fashion Rules” is
scheduled to run for the next two years.
Penny Nair Price
Christianity on the agenda in Edinburgh
By Brian Cooper
Despite competition from Avignon, Dubrovnik and Asian
showcases, Edinburgh in August holds its reputation as
globally supreme arts festival venue: 2013 is no exception.
Drawing to Scotland’s capital some half a million visitors,
UK holidaymakers and tourists from continental Europe
and beyond, two programmes especially appeal: ‘high culture’ International Festival (9 August - 1 September) and
free-wheeling arts marketplace Fringe (2 - 26 August),
with the Book Festival (10-26 August) their literary complement.
This year’s Christian interest highlights include a drama
marking the 50th anniversary of the death of CS Lewis,
three versions of Godspell, the Brecht-Weill Thirties morality opera Seven Deadly Sins, a light-hearted Adam and Eve
musical, a Word Alive interactive Bible exhibition, sacred
music concerts in historic churches — and Tony Benn in
dialogue with controversial former Episcopal Primus,
Richard Holloway.
International Festival 2013 celebrates the ‘alternative
vision’ of the artist, across opera, dance and theatre, complemented by a 40-event music programme from
Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky to Philip Glass’ Beauty and
the Beast. Memorable opera is promised: Gary Hill daringly deploys video and effects for a space-age Beethoven
Fidelio, Barrie Kosky blends poetry and grandeur in
Frankfurt Opera double-bill of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas
and Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, while Olga Neuwirth radically re-sets Alban Berg’s unfinished 1934 American Lulu
in the US Civil Rights struggle.
LA Dance Project celebrates the choreography of Benjamin Millepied, William Forsythe and Merce Cunningham, while Jose Montalvo’s Don Quixote of the Trocadero
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fuses dance and film to locate Cervantes’ odyssey in
Europe’s dance halls. Oriental companies feature strongly.
Korean Hyo Jin Kim inter-weaves movement, film and digital imagery to explore identity and myth in Madame Freedom, Taiwan’s Wu Hsing-kuo’s Peking Opera styles locates
Kafka’s Metamorphosis in ancient Orient, while Beijing
People’s Art Theatre’s Coriolanus sets Shakespeare’s epic
to heavy metal.
Gate Theatre Dublin and Pan Pan Theatre stage five
Samuel Beckett plays in a retrospective complemented by
films including Waiting for Godot. Among 10 Interfaces on
art, internet technology and behaviour, psychiatrist
Andrew Powell and the Rev Richard Coles, writer of TV
comedy Rev, probe Technology and the Soul.
In the 400-page Fringe programme, Cabaret and Comedy, Music and Dance, Spoken Word and Theatre, Children’s Shows, and Events and Exhibitions, clamour for
attention. Some 800-plus drama productions include a
number of special Christian interest. F Mary Callan stages
Bible reports in Blazing Grannies at St Cuthbert’s Church
of Scotland, Municipal Theatre re-visits Genesis in Cain,
The Cardinals at Greyfriars Kirk offers a puppet ‘biblical
history of the world’, Creepie Stool revisits Jenny Geddes’
1637 defiance of imposed Anglicanism, Genesis/Golgotha
promises an Eve and Jesus dialogue, and Toto Tales gives
African angles on the life of David Livingstone.
Avowedly Christian (but never preachy) Saltmine and
Searchlight both return to Fringe with two shows, respectively A Long Road Home, a modern Prodigal Son, and
Love Struck probing youth problems (Central Hall and
Palmerston Place Church), and CS Lewis-inspired Questioning Aslan and return of the Eric Liddle story Chariot
(Edinburgh Elim).
City centre churches are top venues among the 400-
event Fringe music programme, from Baroque to Jerome
Kern at St Andrew’s and St George’s, Bach Cantatas to
Scottish fiddle at Canongate Kirk, Handel’s organ concertos at St Cuthbert’s, choral concerts and Festival
Eucharists at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, free
lunchtime concerts at St Giles’ Cathedral and Latin Vespers at St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral. ‘Sacred space’ for
personal reflection amid hectic Festival-going is offered at
Greyfriars Kirk Nitekirk and St Cuthbert’s Soulspace.
National Galleries of Scotland Festival artshows include
Landscape Oil Sketches by 19th-century American artist
Frederic Church (to 8 September); Witches, exploring
artists’ depiction of witchcraft from Durer to Paula Rego
(to 3 November), and Man Ray Portraits, a major retrospective of the influential photographer spanning 19161968 (to 22 September). Peter Doig: No Foreign Lands
surveys this renowned contemporary painter’s richly
colourful work over the past decade (to 3 November).
From Death to Death and Other Small Tales, featuring
works by Balthus, Beuys, Dali, Duchamp, Magritte and
current artists, fascinatingly reveals their depiction of the
human body over the past century, often controversially
probing issues of existence and identity (to 8 September).
At the Queen’s Gallery, Holyrood Palace, Leonardo da
Vinci: The Mechanics of Man juxtaposes his amazingly
accurate anatomical studies with current medical imagery,
revealing the Renaissance man prophetic of modern
knowledge (to 10 November).
INFORMATION:
International Festival: www.eif.co.uk
Fringe: www.edfringe.com
Book Festival: www.edbookfest.co.uk
Art: www.edinburghartfestival.com
facebook.com/churchnewspaper
@churchnewspaper
Arts & Media Sunday July 28, 2013
www.churchnewspaper.com
11
Aliens at the World’s End
T
he World’s End (cert. 15)
completes the so-called
“Cornetto trilogy” of Edgar
Wright’s
comedies
starring
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot
Fuzz (2007) both imagined normal British life where something
sinister was under the surface
(and the opening sounds feature
clips from ITMA and music from
the Magic Roundabout).
The Cornetto theme is down to
symbolic use of colours – strawberry for the gore in the zombie
gorefest in Shaun, and blue for
the police story in Hot Fuzz. This
time it’s green mint choc chip for
the alien invasion as five school
friends try to recreate their epic
12-pub crawl through their home
town of Newton Haven, a barelydisguised amalgam of the garden
cities of Letchworth and Welwyn.
The “golden mile” booze-up visits each of 12 hostelries in turn,
drinking a pint in each, and the
last pub is The World’s End. Last
time, over 20 years ago, they
never completed it, and now Gary
(Simon Pegg) wants to get his
friends together to finish it. We
don’t quite know what they were
all like at the age of 18, but Gary
is the only one who doesn’t seem
to have matured – he still wears
the same coat, and even drives
the same car.
Peter (Eddie Marsan) is now a
partner in the family car dealership (he sold him the car), Oliver
(Martin Freeman) is an estate
agent, and I can’t recall what
Steven (Paddy Considine) does,
but they are all sceptical that Gary
can persuade solicitor Andy (Nick
Frost) to join this madcap
escapade. He does – Gary has a
talent for finding people’s vulnerability.
Gary’s own vulnerability is
clear. The opening scene might
encourage bad behaviour, but it
cuts to Gary in a group therapy
session – it might be AA but it’s
not explicit - where he’s recounting the teenage experience and
realises that it was the best night
of his life.
There might be two responses
to that realisation – find a better
life, or do it again. One of the features of the film is that it teases
with exploring the characters’
lives then dumps the exploration
in favour of another laugh.
All this is in the midst of discovering that their home town has
changed – or are they just alienated from it? No, it’s been infiltrat-
ed, if not entirely overrun, by
aliens (and the bodily fluid is not
green but bright blue) and there’s
an extended joke about whether
they are robots, the etymology of
robot (slave in Slavic languages)
and what to call them if they
aren’t robots.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
Stepford Wives, and umpteen
other filmic influences, if not out-
right references, litter the script
(by Wright and Pegg) though
there are rather too many fight
scenes sourced from martial arts
movies. Rosamund Pike provides
a bit of romantic interest, Pierce
Brosnan and Bill Nighy get
cameos, and the Cornetto reference comes late and subtly.
Steve Parish
Life as a Protestant during the Reformation
Being Protestant in Reformation
Britain
Alec Ryrie
OUP, hb, £45.00
For many of his readers Alec Ryrie’s
account of what it meant to live as a
Protestant in England and Scotland
between 1530 and 1640 will offer
insights into a culture that seems
very foreign. Even readers who are
Protestants will find some of the
customs of their ancestors in the
faith a little strange. The people Ryrie describes, for example, usually prayed out loud on their knees with their eyes
open and looking up to heaven, a very different posture
from that commonly adopted for private prayer today.
But read this book carefully and it helps to explain subsequent developments not only in religious history but in
political history as well. Linda Colley has made the claim
that it was a shared Protestantism that gave Britain a sense
of identity but Ryrie strengthens the argument by making
clear just how closely related was the Protestantism of the
two countries. Scottish and English Reformations were
interwoven from the beginning and it was “the vision of a
shared Reformation which turned ‘Britain’ from a humanist pipedream into a serious political and cultural and political project”.
Some sociologists have advanced the theory that by
stressing private judgement Protestantism represented a
step on the road to secularisation but Ryrie suggests
another reason why the Reformation may have divided
ordinary men and women in England from the church. He
does not make the connection himself but it is hard to
resist the conclusion that the stress Protestantism placed
on literacy must have left many ordinary people feeling
alienated. Everyone could pray and go to mass but only
those who could read and write were able to study the
word of God. An emphasis on reading the scriptures
encouraged the spread of literacy but there must have
been many who felt excluded from the church.
This conclusion is strengthened by Ryrie’s claim that
there is ‘meagre evidence’ that people learned from worship or the Bible readings it contained. In the absence of
belief in the sacrifice of the mass, stress was laid on the
importance of collective prayer in encouraging people to
go to church. The Government did its best to make sure
that people attended but Ryrie tells us services were often
tedious and generated little enthusiasm.
For some it will be a surprise to learn that ‘receptive ecumenism’ was practised as early as the 16th Century
although Ryrie makes it clear this was a one-way street.
Protestants were ready to learn from Catholics so that not
only can we detect the continuing influence of medieval
ideas and practices but we can also see some use being
made of Counter-Reformation books and ideas.
Joseph Hall, who was influential in teaching Protestants
about meditation, drew on Catholic sources with a significant debt to the Brethren of the Common Life. Robert Parsons was edited for Protestant readers but there was no
comparable readiness among Catholics to learn from
Protestantism.
Ryrie’s book represents a monumental achievement. He
has read widely in sermons, diaries, devotional works,
biographies and autobiographies to discover not only what
Protestants did in prayer and worship but how they understood what they were doing and what they felt about their
faith. He opens by stressing the attention the Protestants
paid to their emotions and he points to the continuity here
with the medieval past and with the later ‘religion of the
heart’, often seen as a 17th and 18th Century development.
There are two omissions in this book and they may be
related. Ryrie tells us that although he is concerned to
cover Protestant piety and practice he has excluded the
Laudians of the 17th Century and even kept Richard Hooker at arm’s length. He gives the rather strange excuse for
not covering Hooker the argument that scholars have fallen ‘too easily for the quiet reasonableness with which he
cloaked his authoritarianism.’ Lancelot Andrewes is also
neglected.
The second omission concerns ‘secular writers’ and
what they have to tell us about religious practice. Shakespeare, for example, is mentioned only once. Together
these omissions raise the question of just how widespread
was the Protestantism Ryrie describes. Laudianism did not
spring from nowhere. Were the people Ryrie terms ‘conformists’ largely of the way of thinking he describes or was
the pattern really more diverse?
Paul Richardson
12
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Janey Lee Grace
Live Healthy! Live Happy!
Natural Summer Buys - Hot
weather clothing survival tips
What to wear in the hot weather? It’s
especially tricky for anyone with skin
condition such as eczema.
I don’t wish to be churlish but I am
exhausted by the heat, finding cool
comfortable clothes to wear is fine if
you’re at the beach but for general wear,
it has to be natural fabrics and even then
I can only seem to cope with white cotton. I hate anything that feels restrictive
and tight.
The problem is, once educated, there
is no going back and I have been learning about the problems of chemicals in
clothing – even seemingly 100 per cent
cotton – sprayed with pesticides and
herbicides. Unfortunately it seems
there is little or no regulation around
chemical finishes on imported goods.
Of course I’m just feeling hot and bothered but how much worse for anyone
suffering from a skin condition such as
eczema.
A few survival tips especially for those
with eczema include Keep nightwear and a spare cotton
pillowcase in a bag in the fridge so it will
be cool and soothing when you put it on
before bed
Place soft bedtime toys in the freezer
for a couple of hours (in a waterproof
bag) – this will destroy any house dust
mite allergen and be soothing and cooling to take to bed
Don’t hang washing outside to dry as
any pollen will be blown on to it and
accumulate on damp fabric
Soak a bath towel in cold water, wring
it out and hang in front of an open window in the bedroom so that any air coming in will be cooled, it will also prevent
pollen/allergens being blown into the
room.
Try The cotton Comfort range of
Sunday July 28, 2013
Comment
clothing, its 100 per cent pure organic cotton, with no pesticide
residues, chemical finishes or bleached white fabric They have just
launched the new Inca Colour Grown 100 per cent organic cotton
eczema nightwear. The attention to details is high on all their clothing with flat seams inside and out for extra comfort and so they cannot be used to scratch against. They have tear off labels and no zips
or Velcro.
Approved by the National Eczema Society this is a fantastic range
of clothing for babies and children and for the adults if you suffer
from skin problems, forget the passé Onesie – opt for the all in one
pyjamas!
www.eczemaclothing.com
Wine of the Week
Viñedos Barrihuelo
Rioja Crianza 2007
Sainsbur y’s £8.99
(www.sainsbur ys.co.uk/groceries)
Rioja is in northern Spain, some miles inland from the Bay of Biscay, in the Basque country, and is renowned for producing that
country’s best-known quality wine world-wide. This red is exclusive
to Sainsbury’s in its “Taste the Difference” premium range of groceries, which are increasingly bought by customers. Bottled in
Spain it is dressed in the traditional Rioja style of a swathe of thin
shiny brass wire. It was made in consultation with the supermarket’s wine team by Bodegas Muriel, one of the largest family producers in the region, located in the south of Rioja, very much to
British tastes — particularly to accompany traditional roasts. In
that, I judge, they have succeeded.
“Crianza” signifies the degree of oak aging: with one year in cask,
the wine is released three years after its vintage date. Tempranillo is
the main grape in a Rioja, though there is blending in some: not
here, I’d think. In the glass, deepest red: on the nose, subtle smokiness and a whiff of black fruit. Full and complex on the palate, enjoy
its ripe bramble and damson flavours, which join up with toasty
vanilla from controlled oak tannins which balance the fruitiness.
There’s a fine savoury finish. Alcohol by Vol. 13.5%.
Graham Gendall Norton
PRIZE CROSSWORD No. 858 by Axe
Across
Down
6
1
8
9
10
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
24
One of the seven churches of Asia
to receive a letter from John [Revelation] (6)
'After we had been there a number
of days a prophet called ------ came
down from Judaea' [Acts/NIV] (6)
Saint, mother of Mary, named only
in NT apocryphal texts (4)
'For the Lord has redeemed Jacob,
and -------- him from the hand of him
that was stronger than he'
[Jer/KJV] (8)
Bishop of Winchester who died in
682; unwittingly a meteorologist
(either spelling) (7)
'He must also have a good reputation...so that he will not fall into...the
-----'s trap' [1 Tim/NIV] (5)
Most potent symbol of the Christian
religion (5)
'Out of the temple came the seven
angels with the seven -------'
[Rev/NIV] (7)
'The rich and the poor meet together: the Lord is --- ----- of them all'
[Prov/ KJV] (3,5)
Head of a chapter of canons in the
Anglican Church (4)
Hittite who sold Abraham his cave
for Sarah's burial [Gen] (6)
Simon of ------, inadvertent carrier of
Christ's cross [Matt; Mark; Luke]
(6)
2
3
4
5
7
12
14
16
18
20
22
Not really the word to start this set
of clues! (4)
Christian religious teacher (6)
Galilean town where Jesus brought
a widow's son back to life [Luke] (4)
Daughter of Herodias not named in
the NT [Matt; Mark] (6)
Pagan feast days around the Winter
Solstice (8)
'So I was ------, and hid your gold in
the ground' [Matt/NIV] (6)
Attends religious services (8)
Name broadly used to cover every
churchman (6)
'The Gospel According to -- ----'
[KJV] (2,4)
Decapolis city where Jesus was
approached by two demon-possessed men [Matt] (6)
Ruler and subject is as one in two
OT books! (4)
Prophetess at the Temple who told
about Jesus being the Messiah
[Luke] (4)
Solutions to last week’s crossword
Across: 5 Monasteries, 7 Buddha, 8 Evenly, 9
Steeple, 10 Manna, 11 Tempt, 13 Fasting, 17 Impose, 18 Clergy, 19 Negev
Desert.
Down: 1 On edge, 2 Israel, 3 Heber, 4 Sisera, 5
Mount Hermon, 6 Silent Night, 12
Plough, 14 Arches, 15 Thebes, 16
Serve.
[email protected]
The first correct entry drawn will win a book of the Editor’s choice. Send your entry
to Crossword Number 858, The Church of England Newspaper,
14 Great College Street, Westminster, London, SW1P 3RX by next Friday
Name
Address
facebook.com/churchnewspaper
@churchnewspaper
Classifieds & Anglican Life Sunday July 28, 2013
www.churchnewspaper.com
13
Discipleship with Diversity, disappointment
without despair: Urban ministry today
The parish of Aston and
Nechells, just north of Birmingham city centre, is home to some
22,000 people. Like many inner
city parishes, it has a higher proportion of people ‘of faith’ than
the national average. The census
tells us that, in our case, people
of Christian and Muslim faith are
fairly evenly represented. The
Muslims are largely of Somali
and South Asian background,
while the Christians are likely to
have roots in the Caribbean,
Africa, Eastern Europe or locally. The census doesn’t
mention the third faith which features strongly in the
parish – the congregation of up to 40,000 people who
gather about 20 times a year to publicly declare their following of Aston Villa Football Club.
Our congregations reflect something of this rich diversity, but really don’t help the stereotypes. Some people
are confused at our Punjabi-speaking Asian Fellowship.
As these people are Asian, surely they can’t be Christians? And the Ethiopian and Eritrean congregations
who meet in our buildings on Sunday afternoons look
quite similar to the Somalis – so what are they doing
going into a church? And when Aston Villa played on
Easter Sunday lunchtime earlier this year, surely no one
minded? Such confusion is not limited to those outside
the Church. We have numerous opportunities for crosscultural misunderstandings within the Church. Some are
funny, but others aren’t and require careful pastoral
work to bring resolution and forgiveness.
The three faith communities in my parish require different approaches in terms of mission and ministry.
Careful, steady relationship building with Muslims
yields many opportunities to pray for them and their concerns – especially for healing – but often requires navigation across differences of ethnicity, gender and age as
well as faith. This is long-term work. Those who are cultural Christians are invited to the adventure of a deeper
life of faith with Jesus, trusting his teaching enough to
put it into practice. This often involves challenging inherited patterns of believing and behaviour which seem to
have little to do with the kingdom of God.
We enjoy a great relationship with football supporters,
and make ourselves available to pray for them on match
days as they head to Villa Park. We’ve prayed for many,
and had great conversations with lots more. Kev (pictured) was one. He came for a chat just before kick-off
one day, having enjoyed several drinks before the match.
It was quite a long chat, and one which led to him and his
girlfriend coming to church. Fast-forward two years.
Both of them have now done an Alpha course, been con-
Cook this!
Bang Bang Chicken
Ingredients
4cm
(1½in) piece fresh
ginger, roughly
chopped
2 shallots, peeled and
quartered
2tbsp dry sherry
1 lime, halved
7 skinless chicken
breasts
400g (13oz)
cellophane rice
noodles, cut with
scissors into 10cm(4in)
lengths
1 cucumber, skin
removed and diced
Spring onions, sliced,
to garnish
Toasted sesame seeds,
to garnish
1 long red chilli, finely
sliced,to garnish
FOR THE SAUCE:
3 spring onions, sliced
1tbsp grated fresh
ginger
1 long red chilli, sliced
1 clove garlic
120g (4oz) smooth
peanut butter
1tbsp caster sugar
2tbsp dry sherry
1tsp soy sauce
Juice 1 lime
firmed and are an important
part of our church family. And
who was speaking up for
Jesus to the television cameras on Easter Sunday? Kev,
in his Aston Villa top!
We’ve seen many people
like Kev come to faith in Jesus
and seen God do some amazing things for them, in them
and through them. As a
result, our numbers keep
growing steadily. The growth
could have been much
greater though – since not all of these people are still
with us. Some have moved on to ‘nicer’ areas, so we can
rejoice that others are reaping where we have sown. Others, as Jesus teaches us to expect in the parable of the
soils, started well but then managed to find the selfdestruct button. The key government statistics for our
kind of parish are Indices of Multiple Deprivation, and it
seems that many of our parishioners have experienced
‘Multiple Damage’. This damage comes through a
whole range of difficult circumstances – broken relationships, trauma and more. It is marvellous to see the
power of the gospel bring healing and transformation to
people, especially through forgiveness and renunciation
of unhelpful patterns of thought.
However, overcoming damage, often over generations,
can take many years and involve multiple relapses.
Patience and stamina for the long haul are essential to
walk alongside new disciples until their lives reach some
stability.
So how can an urban church leader keep going and not
despair? One vital resource offered by New Wine to
urban church leaders is an annual two-day forum, a
chance to come together to be encouraged and
refreshed alongside others who understand the challenges, joys and struggles of ministry in inner cities and
estates. For me, it’s been a place where I can meet others
who really understand my context and experiences, and
where we can share great lessons we’ve learnt. Even
more importantly, it’s been somewhere where I can
reconnect with God’s life-giving love for myself and for
my community, and be re-envisioned to push on still further with God in urban mission.
Andy Jolley is the Vicar of Aston Parish Church in the
parish of Aston and Nechells, which is in the top 1% of
deprived parishes in the country. He also coordinates
New Wine’s Urban Network. This year there are two
Urban Forums – a South forum from 8-9 October and a
North forum from 10-11 October. For more information
and to book, visit www.new-wine.org
A healthy, delicious dish with the comfort factor of a takeaway.
Whip up this chicken and noodle combination in just 35 minutes.
Ser ves 8-10 Preparation 15 mins Cooking 20 mins
Method
Place the ginger,
shallots, 2tbsp sherry and half a lime in
a large saucepan.
Add the chicken
and cover with
water. Bring to the
boil, then reduce
the heat, cover and
simmer gently for
10 minutes. Remove
from the heat, keep
covered and set
aside until cool.
Remove the chicken from the broth
and set aside. Strain
and keep the broth.
Make the sauce by
placing the spring
ginger,
onions,
chilli, garlic, peanut
butter, sugar, sherry, soy sauce and
lime juice into a
food
processor.
Process, pouring in
some of the poaching liquid, until it
forms a smooth,
thinnish paste, the
consistency of double cream.
To serve, soak the
noodles in a large
bowl of boiling
water for about 10
minutes.
Meanwhile, using your
fingers, shred the
chicken,
stir
through the diced
cucumber and season with a little salt
and pepper.
Drain the noodles,
then dress them
with some of the
sauce, tossing well
until lightly covered.
Place the noodles in
a serving bowl and
top with the chicken. Drizzle with the
remaining
sauce
and garnish with
the spring onions,
sesame seeds and
chilli.
14
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APPOINTMENTS
New Dean of Guildford
The Rev Canon Dianna Gwilliams,
Vicar, Dulwich St Barnabas; and Chaplain, Alleyn’s Foundation Dulwich (Southwark): to be Dean, Guildford Cathedral (Guildford).
The Rev Nicholas Adams,
Assistant Curate, Soundwell (Bristol): is now NSM Associate Minister).
The Rev Geoffrey Angell,
Priest-in-Charge, Barrowden and Wakerley with South
Luffenham and Morcott with Duddington and Tixover
(Peterborough): to be Chaplain, University Hospitals of
Leicester NHS Trust (Leicester).
The Rev Preb Nicholas Armstrong,
Rector, Alveley and Quatt (Hereford): is now also Rural
Dean, Bridgnorth Deanery (same diocese).
The Rev Paul Atkinson,
Assistant Curate, Castleford (Wakefield): to be Priest-inCharge, Ravensthorpe and Thornhill Lees with Savile
Town (same diocese).
The Rev Peter Baldwin,
NSM (Lecturer), Halifax Minster (Wakefield): to be NSM
(House for Duty Priest), Todmorden with Cornholme and
Walsden (same diocese).
The Rev Kevin Barnard,
Vicar, Bolsterstone St Mary; and Bishop’s Advisor on
Issues Relating to Ageing (Sheffield): to be Vicar, King
Cross; and Deanery Interfaith Officer (Wakefield).
The Rev Jonathan Barrett,
Vicar, Thurnby with Stoughton; and Priest-in-Charge,
Houghton-on-the-Hill, Keyham and Hungarton (Leicester): to be also Assistant Area Dean, Gartree I Deanery;
and Assistant Area Dean, Gartree II Deanery (same diocese).
The Rev Erica Bebb,
NSM (Assistant Curate), Sea Mills (Bristol): to be NSM
(Associate Minister), Clifton Christ Church with
Emmanuel; and Pastor to the Arts (same diocese).
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ANGLICAN CYCLE
OF PRAYER
Sunday 28 July. Pentecost 10. Psalm 54, Mt 26:35-46.
Phulbani - (North India): The Rt Rev Bijay Nayak
Monday 29 July. Psalm 55:1-8,16-22, Mt 26:47-56.
Pittsburgh - (III, The Episcopal Church): The Rt Rev
Dorsey WM McConnell
Tuesday 30 July. Psalm 56, Mt 26:57-68. The Most
Rev Dr Winston Halapua, Bishop of Polynesia and Primate and Archbishop of the Anglican Church in
Aotearoa, New Zealand & Polynesia; Polynesia, Vanua
Levu and Taveuni: The Rt Rev Apimeleki Nadoki Qiliho; Polynesia - Viti Levu West: The Rt Rev Gabriel
Mahesh Sharma
Wednesday 31 July. Psalm 57, Mt 26:69-75. Port Elizabeth - (Southern Africa): The Rt Rev Nceba Nopece
Thursday 01 August. Psalm 61, Jer 19:1-13. Port
Moresby - (Papua New Guinea): The Rt Rev Peter
Ramsden
Friday 02 August. Psalm 62, Jer 19:14-20:6. Port
Sudan - (Sudan): The Rt Rev Yusif Abdalla Kuku
Saturday 03 August. Psalm 63, Jer 20:7-18.
Portsmouth - (Canterbury, England): The Rt Rev
Christopher Foster
The Rev Marian Bennett,
(Leicester): to be NSM (Associate Priest), Castle Donington, and Lockington cum Hemington (same diocese).
The Rev Richard Brand,
Rector, Market Harborough and the Transfiguration- Little
Bowden with Lubenham and Great Bowden (Leicester): is
now also Area Dean, Gartree I Deanery; and Area Dean,
Gartree II Deanery (same diocese).
The Rev Leighton Carr,
NSM (Assistant Curate), Kingswood (Bristol): is now
NSM (Associate Minister),Kingswood; and NSM (Associate Minister), Hanham (same diocese).
The Rev William Challis,
Director of Ordinands (Guildford): to be also Hon Canon,
Guildford Cathdral (same diocese).
The Rev Keith Cocking,
Assistant Curate, Newbold with Dunston (Derby): to be
Team Vicar, Buxton with Burbage and King Sterndale
(same diocese).
The Rev Evan Cockshaw,
Assistant Curate (Resident Minister), Aldridge (Lichfield): to be Vicar, Hurdsfield (Chester).
The Rev Nichola Eastwood,
Assistant Curate, Upton St Mary (Chester): to be Assistant Curate (Associate Vicar).
The Rev Marie Edwards,
NSM (Assistant Curate), Middlesbrough St Agnes (York):
to be Chaplain, South Tees Hospital NHS Trust (same diocese).
The Rev Geoffrey Garrett,
Vicar, Watton; and Assistant Curate, Cockley Cley with
Godderstone (Norwich): is now Rector, Condover with
Frodesley, Acton Burnell and Pitchford (Hereford).
The Rev James Harding,
Chaplain, Liverpool University; and Chaplain, Liverpool
John Moores University (Liverpool): to be Tutor, St Mellitus College (London); and Assistant Curate, Springfield
Holy Trinity (Chelmsford).
The Rev Rachel Harrison,
Vicar, Redcar; and Industrial Chaplain (York): to be also
Rural Dean, Guisborough Deanery (same diocese).
The Rev Sarah Hayward,
Assistant Curate, Dibden (Winchester): to be Priest-inCharge, Braintree St Paul (Chelmsford).
The Rev Jennifer Hill,
Team Vicar, Hemel Hempstead; and Diocesan Adviser for
Women’s Ministry (St Albans): to be Rector. Remaining
Adviser.
The Rev Prof Peter Houghton,
(Southwark): is now NSM (House for Duty Priest), Hereford South Wye (Hereford).
The Rev Alan Humphrey,
NSM (Assistant Curate), Kirby Muxloe (Leicester): to be
NSM (Priest-in-Charge).
The Rev Karen Hutchinson,
Vicar, The Bourne and Tiford (Guildford): to be also Hon
Canon, Guildford Cathedral (same diocese).
Sunday July 28, 2013
Register
The Rev Mark Johnson,
Rector, Wormelow Hundred (Hereford): is now also Rural
Dean, Ross and Archenfield Deaner (same diocese).
The Rev Peter Kane,
Assistant Curate, Chichester St Paul and Westhampnett
(Chichester): to be Vicar, Clacton St James (Chelmsford).
The Rev Margaret King,
Team Vicar, North Hinckford (Chelmsford): to be Rector.
The Rev David Adrian Leahy,
Vicar, Four Oaks (Birmingham): is now also Area Dean,
Sutton Coldfield Deanery (same diocese).
The Rev Jane Legh,
NSM (Assistant Curate), South Dales; and NSM (Assistant
Curate), Boylestone, Church Broughton, Dalbury, Longford, Long Lane, Radbourne, Sutton on the Hill and
Trusley (Derby): to be NSM (Associate Priest) to both
Benefices.
The Rev Francis Mason,
Rector, Tendring and Little Bentley with Beaumont-cumMoze (Chelmsford): to be also Assistant Curate, Great
Oakley with Wix and Wrabness (same diocese).
The Rev Jonathan MacGillivray,
Vicar, Carrington; and Area Dean, Nottingham South
Deanery (Southwell and Nottingham): to be Priest-inCharge, Darton; and Priest-in-Charge, Cawthorne (Wakefield)
RETIREMENTS &
RESIGNATIONS
The Rev Richard Abbott,
NSM, Bisley and West End (Guildford): has resigned with
effect from 1 June 2013.
The Rev Gail Dalley,
Vicar, Barmby Moor Group (York): to retire with effect
from 31 October 2013.
The Rev Ola Franklin,
Assistant Curate, Harlow St Mary and St Hugh with St
John the Baptist (Chelmsford): has resigned with effect
from 4 July 2013.
The Rev Trudy Gray,
NSM (House for Duty Priest), Upper Coquetdale (Newcastle): to retire with effect from 31 October 2013.
The Rev Jonathan Michael Bellamy Honnor,
Priest-in-Charge, Aylesham with Adisham and Nonington
(Canterbury): to resign with effect from 30 September
2013.
The Rev Bridget Elisheva Mechanic,
Assistant Curate, Ipswich St John (St Edmundsbury and
Ipswich): to retire with effect from 15 August 2013. Upon
retirement, she is moving to South Africa.
The Rev Rodney Ian (Roni) Mechanic,
Team Vicar, Maidenhall St Mary (St Edmundsbury and
Ipswich): to retire with effect from 23 September 2013.
Upon retirement he is moving to South Africa.
The Rev Christine Pattinson,
NSM, Chertsey, Lyne and Longcross (Guildford): to
resign with effect from 28 August 2013.
The Rev Ian Rodley,
Rector, Bramley (Ripon and Leeds): to retire with effect
from 31 August 2013.
The Rev John Ross,
Priest-in-Charge, Combs and Little Finborough (St
Edmundsbury and Ipswich): to retire with effect from 31
July 2013.
The Rev Philip Williams,
Vicar, Holmer with Huntington (Hereford): to retire with
effect from 31 July 2013.
LAY & OTHER
APPOINTMENTS
Mr Nicholas Edgell,
Diocesan Secretary; and Chief Executive Officer (St
Edmudsbury and Ipswich): to be also Hon Lay Canon, St
Edmundsbury Cathedral (same diocese).
THE 2013
BIBLE CHALLENGE
Day 209 Enjoy hearing the Scriptures read aloud in church
Day 210 Proverbs 20-22, Psalm 16, Ephesians 6
Day 211 Proverbs 23-25, Psalm 17, Philippians 1
Day 212 Proverbs 26-28, Psalm 18: 1-20, Philippians 2
Day 213 Proverbs 29-31, Psalm 18: 21-50, Philippians 3
Day 214 Ecclesiastes 1-3, Psalm 19, Philippians 4
Day 215 Ecclesiastes 4-6, Psalm 20, Colossians 1
Sunday Sunday July 28, 2013
www.churchnewspaper.com
Churches preparing
for HOPE 2104 and a
year of mission
The Bishop of Wakefield is giving every church in his diocese £100 to help kick-start a community initiative to mark
his tenth anniversary as diocesan bishop and to celebrate
the HOPE 2014 year of mission.
Inspired by the parable of the talents, the Bishop, the Rt
Rev Stephen Platten, will hand out the money at a special
10th anniversary service in Wakefield Cathedral on 22 September 2013. It will be up to each church how they use the
money – but it is has to be used for a community project
that will touch as many people – young and old – as possible.
Each church will be asked to submit their idea for their
community project before Christmas and the event or project must be recorded in pictures for everyone to share during 2014 to tie in with HOPE 2014.
Bishop Stephen said he had been inspired by what had
been achieved with the Parable of the Talents initiative in
Kirkheaton Parish when the rector there, the Rev Richard
Steel, gave his parishioners £10 as seed capital to help
boost the church’s fundraising project. He hoped some
parishes might take their £100 and “grow it in their own
way”.
“I want to encourage each church to look outward into
their communities and use this money to provide something that will touch and connect with those around them
for some time to come,” he said.
Mission Academy in Cornwall
Wakefield is not the only diocese where mission plans are
being made.
The Diocese of Chelmsford is also gearing up for mission in 2014 as part of a year of celebration to mark the
diocesan centenary. Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Rev
Stephen Cottrell says: “I am encouraging all our churches
to engage in new, locally relevant outreach initiatives. For
many, these might be in the shape of a Mission Weekend
and I will be offering preparation evenings this autumn to
share the vision and offer ideas and training”
Hope Cornwall has brought together youth groups for a
HOPE Mission Academy and is holding a prayer gathering
at the Royal Cornwall Showground as part of their preparation for mission in 2014.
The Rt Rev Tim Thornton, Bishop of Truro, hosted a
lunch for members of the Church of England Synod when
it met in York at the start of July. Roy Crowne, Director of
HOPE, and Dr Rachel Jordan, National Mission and Evangelism Adviser for the Church of England, were at the
event to share the HOPE vision with bishops and other
members of Synod.
Roy and Rachel also spoke at the annual Diocesan Missioners conference in Blackpool where Roy said it was
hugely encouraging as Missioners from across the country shared the plans they are making for mission together
in 2014.
Mission in words and action
HOPE is working with churches across the spectrum of
denominations towards a year of mission together in 2014
– the emphasis is on doing more together in word and
action.
Roy Crowne says: “Churches are very much part of community life, serving people in practical ways and making a
significant difference. But if we want people to know about
God, at some point we need to communicate what we
believe, telling them about Jesus and what he has done. It
often seems that this is the place where we have the most
difficulty.”
Roy points to Jesus as an effective communicator: “First,
know your audience. This was something that Jesus was
brilliant at doing. Whether it was talking about the leaven
in the bread, farming or money, his stories and parables
were about things that people knew and understood. He
then moved from there to the truths that he wanted to
present.
“Also, Jesus didn’t seem to feel that he had to tell the
whole gospel, but could leave one seed that the Holy Spirit
could use to bring people along on their journey of faith.
“We don’t have to cram everything in to each event or
conversation, but we can reflect on one aspect of the
gospel that seems to fit the context, then pray that Jesus
would be seen through our words and actions and that he
would draw people to himself.”
Find out more about HOPE at www.hopetogether.org.uk
15
SUNDAY SERVICE
10th Sunday after Trinity
(Sunday 4 August)
Hosea 11:1-11
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21
Life beyond death connects the three readings for this
week.
In Hosea 11, we get a glimpse into the heart of God.
In a poem full of pathos and emotion, we hear of his
intense love for his children, though they are wayward
and ungrateful. We must recall, of course, that God is
(as the Thirty-nine Articles put it) “without body, parts,
or passions” — not meaning that he is an insensitive
tyrant, but that he is invulnerable to manipulation and is
never entirely overwhelmed and “emotional” as we are.
So his actions are the result of a settled, divine determination; yet so that we better understand both his kindness and his justice he accommodates himself to our
understanding by speaking in this way.
His parental love is tough love, and he has resolved
that since they have rejected his kindness, he will exile
his people. The sword will execute his decree “because
they refused to return to me.” Yet he cannot abandon
his people forever, as he abandoned Admah and Zeboiim (verse 8), the cities that were destroyed along with
Sodom and Gomorrah. This does not mean God is soft
and judgment is cancelled, but that beyond this death
and judgment there will be restoration and life. Not
because they deserve it more than those wicked cities,
but because “I am God and no mortal.” Hope lies in an
unchangeable God who (unlike us) does not renege on
his covenant promises, rather than in our relative goodness or supposed ability to change.
In Luke 12, Jesus warns the crowd against greed and
resting their hopes and dreams on “the abundance of
possessions.” Good stewardship requires hard work,
but we must not think that our security for the future is
in building a good pension plan. Two brothers argue
over their inheritance — this should have warned them
that life is more than possessions, for their father certainly hadn’t been able to take his with him!
But the Lord has to remind them how foolish it is to
live life for the now, without taking into account the
great day of judgment we all face on the other side of
death. Being “rich towards God” and not for ourselves
is what will make a difference then, when we stand
before the judgment seat of Christ.
Paul has his eye on Christ at the right hand of God
too. Believers have died with Christ, and been raised
with him. Our hope is that when he “is revealed”, we
too will be revealed in glory. So our lives in the here
and now are lives of mortification, putting to death the
things within us which will not survive the purging of
that day, including fornication (that is, biblically-speaking, any sexual activity outside heterosexual marriage),
evil desires, and greed (which itself is idolatry, as Jesus
himself just taught us in the parable).
We may have lived that way once, but should do so no
longer; not because our church subculture or tradition
is against it, or for any other human reason, but
because of God’s intense, settled, determined, implacable opposition to such lifestyles. His wrath is coming on
those who are disobedient. Malice, slander, lies, and
racial or religious one-upmanship are all ruled out now
because there’ll be none of that then, when Christ
returns and our renewal will be complete in the twinkling of an eye.
Lee Gatiss is Director of Church Society, and Editor of
the NIV Proclamation Bible.
HYMN
SUGGESTIONS
Come people of the risen king
Before the throne of God above
God of grace and God of glory
Purify my heart
When all thy mercies, O my God
Milestones
The Same Sex Marriage Bill has been given
Royal Assent by Her Majesty the Queen, and is
now law after the bill completed its passage
through Parliament... A new report from the
Pew Research Center has revealed Brazil’s
absolute number of Catholics and the percentage of Catholics in Brazil declined, from 74
per cent of the country’s total population to 65
per cent of the population, while in the same
decade, the number of Brazilians identifying as
Protestant grew from 15 per cent in 2000, to 22
per cent in 2010... 800 young British Catholics
arrived in Rio last week to await the arrival of
Pope Francis for the World Youth Day festival... This week saw the national launch for pioneering Worship4Today course, available from
Church House Publishing...
Church and World
The aspirations of
today’s youth
At the time the August 2011 riots in
Britain caused a good deal of shock
and heart-searching. Today there is
a danger that we have forgotten
about them before we have really
learned the lessons they have to
teach us.
Various explanations were offered
in the wake of the riots. Columnists
on the right focussed on a number of
middle class rioters and blamed
opportunism for the looting of popu-
lar shops. On the left government
austerity measures were blamed for
the trouble. The police were said
either to have allowed the situation
to get out of hand or to have been too
aggressive in dealing with young
people on the street.
Social media, especially Blackberry and Twitter, were blamed for the
rapid spread of the riots. Moral
decline, family breakdown and selfish consumerism were seen as a factor
behind
the
troubles.
Unemployment was widely judged to
be a cause.
But there were certain features of
the riots that were puzzling. They
occurred in areas of high immigration but race did not appear to be a
factor. Newcastle, a city with high
unemployment but low immigration,
was quiet and so were Scottish cities.
David Starkey caused outrage when
he suggested on Newsnight that
black gangsta culture had now
spread to white youths and few people accepted this explanation.
A glance at the statistics showing
just who the rioters were helps to
point to an explanation. According to
an analysis by The Guardian of 1,000
cases brought before the magistrates only 8.6 per cent were either
students or employed. Over 90 per
cent of the rioters were unemployed
and the same proportion was male.
Most were aged between 17 and 25.
After the riots were over, Justice
Secretary Ken Clarke revealed that
75 per cent of those arrested had
previous convictions. In other
words, they belonged to an alienated
class of young people who felt the
present system offered them very
little and who were prepared to
break the law with little regard for
consequences.
As Ferdinand Mount has pointed
out, it is not insignificant that the
riots occurred in areas of high immigration even though they were not
race riots. Young unemployed people in such areas are all likely to feel
the dice loaded against them. Immigrants are convinced they are last in
the queue while the whites fear they
are suffering from competition from
people newly arrived in the country.
‘
PAU L
RICHARDSON
Second- and third- generation black and
Asian youths can feel both kinds of resentment.
At the time of the riots much blame was
attached to gang culture. In the end, this
did not seem to be a major factor but Mount
points out that it is very easy for youths
with no strong family ties and no links to
sports clubs or churches to drift into gangs.
Many young people, brought up in one-parent families, lack the social attachments
that help to support them and bind them to
the wider society. Even if the gangs were
not important, the social isolation that lies
behind the growth of gangs could have
influenced the rioters. The riots provided
comradeship in hitting back at a society that
offered the rioters very little.
Angela Merkel has described youth
unemployment as the biggest crisis facing
Europe and has urged other countries to
follow the German system of apprenticeships rather than expand university academic courses. Almost 6 million people in
Europe aged under 25 are out of work. “We
should not just try to make young people
more academic,” she told The Guardian.
“Germany is seeing in the positive effects
of skilled workers and master craftsmen
having an excellent reputation too.”
Quite rightly, she said more money will
not solve the problem, only intelligent
reform. Facing competition from such
countries as China and Brazil, Europe will
only be able to compete if it offers quality
products.
A survey of teenagers’ aspirations published recently in The Obser ver showed
that most of them want a job. Gaining qualifications and owning their own home came
second and third on their list. Only six per
cent want to be famous or appear on television. But a quarter of them are gloomy
about the future and two-thirds worry about
mental health problems. Only 55 per cent
think it is worth voting and half think they
may have to move abroad to achieve their
aims.
In Britain and in the rest of Europe we are
failing a whole generation of young people.
The riots were a wake-up call we failed
largely to hear. The present government
has moved to increase the number of
apprenticeships but more needs to be done.
There is still a snobbish attitude in this
country that prizes degrees in history or
classics over practical qualifications. That
may be changing.
The survey of teenagers showed many of
them turning away from universities as
unaffordable and wanting more vocational
training. The danger is that choice of education is coming to depend less on aptitude
and skills and more on family resources
with only young people from wealthy families able to afford university.
Churches are failing young people just as
much as everyone else. Many feel unsupported at home and have nowhere else to
turn. Standing by a generation in crisis
should be a priority for all the churches.
‘
Come pay day,
nearly five million
people in this
country won’t have
been paid at a rate
high enough to live
on...
The Rt Rev John Sentamu
Archbishop of York
People
Her Honour Judge Sally Cahill QC will chair
an independent Inquiry into the Church’s handling of reports of alleged sexual abuse by the late
Robert Waddington, formerly Dean of Manchester, assisted by Joe Cocker, an Independent Social
Work Consultant... The Bishop of Dudley, the Rt
Rev David Walker, will be one of 13 people leaving Worcester on 20 August to climb Kilimanjaro
in aid of the maternity unit of a hospital in Morogoro, Tanzania... The Rev Doug Chaplin has
been appointed as a Mission Development Officer
for the Diocese of Worcester, and will leave his
current role as Rector in the Droitwich Spa Team
Ministry in the autumn to take up the post, which
will involve working with parishes across Worcestershire and Dudley to help them to engage with
their local communities and make best use of the
resources they have available…
Next Week’s News
World Breastfeeding Week begins Thursday 1
August to highlight the benefits of peer counselling, encouraging mothers unable to attend
health clinics to continue with breastfeeding in
the weeks and months that follow the birth, even
when problems arise... Tuesday 6 August will see
Hiroshima Commemorations, marking the
68th Anniversary of the 1945 nuclear attacks...
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