Anglican Mainstream

by Charles Moore, Telegraph

This week before Easter, I chanced upon the following two quotations. The first says: “Not for 2,000 years has it been possible for society to exclude or eliminate Christ from its social or political life without a terrible social or political consequence.” The second says: “Religion taught by a prophet or by a preacher of the truth is the only foundation on which to build a great and powerful empire.”
 
The first is by Margaret Thatcher, opening her foreword to a book called Christianity and Conservatism, which appeared in 1990. The second appears in Tom Holland’s outstanding new book In the Shadow of the Sword (Little, Brown), which traces the rise of Islam from the ruins of the Roman and Persian empires. It comes from Ibn Khaldun, the great Muslim historian and political counsellor of the 14th century.
 
The grocer’s daughter from Grantham and the sage from Tunis seem, despite their differences of faith and time, to be saying something comparable. I found myself asking a simple question about both statements: are they, factually, right?

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By Bill Muehlenberg, Culture Watch

By George Weigel, First Things

[...]  With insight, verve and compassion, Adam and Eve after the Pill explores the results of what Mary Eberstadt bluntly describes as the “optional and intentional sterility in women” the Pill has made possible for three generations. A careful analysis of empirical studies, plus a close reading of literary sources, leads Eberstadt to conclude that the “human fallout of our post-Pill world” has been severe. How? “First, and contrary to conventional depiction, the sexual revolution [which the Pill made possible] has proved a disaster for many men and women; and second, its weight has fallen heaviest on the smallest and weakest shoulders in society—even as it has given extra strength to those already strongest and most predatory.”

Elite culture has been in comprehensive denial about this fallout, argues Eberstadt—a claim reinforced in February by the lynch mob that attacked the Susan G. Komen foundation for daring to hold Planned Parenthood to account for monies Komen had donated to PP (chief guardian of the flame of the sexual revolution) and which PP had misused. Such public quarrels, however, touch the surface of the cultural implosion that followed widespread use of the Pill. Weaving her way through the social sciences and literature with equal dexterity, Mary Eberstadt digs deeper and describes the human costs of the sexual revolution: the “pervasive themes of anger and loss that underlie much of today’s writing on romance;” the “new and problematic phase of prolonged adolescence through which many men now go”; the social and personal psychological harm caused by the availability of pornography on a historically unprecedented scale; the “assault unleashed from the 1960s onward on the taboo against sexual seduction or exploitation of the young”; and the “feral rates of date rapes, hookups and binge drinking now documented on many campuses” (the direct result of a sexual revolution that has “empowered and largely exonerated predatory men as never before”).

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By Albert Mohler

Like most of America’s historic private universities, Vanderbilt University was founded by Christian believers for the purpose of inculcating Christian beliefs in its students. Vanderbilt was founded in the 1870s by Methodists and later funded largely by New York’s Vanderbilt family. Within a remarkably short period of years, Vanderbilt had forfeited its conservative Methodist roots in order to identify with the emerging secular consensus in American higher education.

As Notre Dame’s James Tunstead Burtchaell explained, Vanderbilt serves as a case study in the secularization of American higher education — a process Burtchaell described as the “disengagement of colleges and universities from their Christian churches.” Just a few decades after its founding, Vanderbilt has transformed itself into a secular university, embarrassed by its Christian founding. As Burtchaell made clear, this was not due to demands for secularization from outside the university. It was accomplished under the direction of liberal Protestants who desperately wanted to identify with the secular elites.

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By Nina Lakhani, Independent

By Carolyn Moynihan, MercatorNet

The legacy of the sexual revolution is more subversive than its champions admit.

The death of the American feminist poet Adrienne Rich this week has brought many accolades on account of her literary gifts and contribution to the feminist movement over the past 50 years. In her transformation from conventionally married mother of three sons in the 1950s, to lesbian partner and apologist in the 1970s, she became not only the voice but a living example of the revolutionary character of second wave feminism.

From The Telegraph

Poor parenting was one of the factors behind last summer’s London and UK riots, an official report into the causes of the disorder has found.

The Riots, Communities and Victims Panel report is due to be published tomorrow.
 
Today Sky News reported they had a leaked copy of the report which concludes that factors including lack of confidence in the police and materialism were also causes of the riots.
 
It adds: "We heard from many communities who felt that rioter behaviour could ultimately be ascribed to poor parenting."
 
The report was announced by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg following the disorder in August last year.
 
Among its recommendations are that schools should be penalised if pupils leave without being able to read or write and that prison leavers should be given more support. It also says that 500,000 'forgotten families' should be helped to prevent youngsters becoming involved in further disorder.
 
It is also expected to recommend that action be taken against aggressive advertising aimed at young people, citing the materialism which led youngsters to loot from designer shops.

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By John Bingham, Telegraph

The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that an obsession with identity – ranging from feminism to gay rights – could lead to society “fragmenting”.

Dr Rowan Williams said it was time to see the “pendulum swinging back” after decades in which people have insisted on asserting their “right” to be recognised as different.
 
He also spoke of the possibility that Britain could break apart as Scottish and Welsh nationalism grows in importance.
 
And he spoke out against relying on the welfare handouts, warning that dependence on the state could be harmful to society
 
His comments came as he rounded off a three-day visit to Wales with a series of meeting at the Welsh Assembly where he addressed politicians as well as young people.
 
In a wide ranging speech to the Assembly he criticised both left and right wing thinking and said he believes it is the Church’s role to be a “nuisance” to politicians on both sides.

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By Jennifer Roback Morse, Ruth Institute

No, I’m not exaggerating. The American experiment in religious liberty is officially over. The First Amendment provided institutional structures that allow different religions to peacefully coexist. All groups agree to not try to capture governmental structures for the benefit of their own particular denomination.

But the Obama administration has ended that truce. The administration made a decision to require all employers to provide contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization. The administration offers no religious exemption for people who have the audacity to believe that pregnancy is not an illness that needs to be always and everywhere prevented.

In effect, we have a new state religion, a new Established Church of the United States of America, with Barack Obama as its head. It is the religion of Secular Hedonism, the worldview that sex is a sterile recreational activity, with babies thrown in as an afterthought, an optional extra, for people with quirky life-style preferences. The contraceptive mandate uses the full might of the US government to scrub the public square clean of any competing religious voices that dissent from the new orthodoxy.

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By Nadine Dorries MP, Conservative Home

During the budget speech, the Chancellor announced that “we will introduce legislation limited to relaxing the Sunday Trading laws for eight Sundays only, starting on 22nd July.” It appears, however, that the previous day his aides had got a little carried away during a media briefing and informed the press that this measure would, in effect, be a pre-cursor to relaxing Sunday trading permanently across the UK. This was quickly suppressed, and the wording of the subsequent statement was very clear indeed: for eight Sundays only.

However, there isn’t a single person in Westminster who believes that for one moment. If the eight Sundays show an increase in profit for the stores concerned (and why wouldn’t they with the number of visitors expected in London during the Olympics?), those figures will be used to support a simple extension of what will then be existing legislation, to roll out full trading hours across the UK for seven days per week.

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By Mary Eberstadt, Wall Street Journal

Spring came early to most of the 50 states this year—and with it, at least in the political fields, the usual crop of mixed truths, untruths, and wildly growing falsehoods. Let's yank up one of those weeds for a little inspection: the idea that a national "war on women" is afoot.
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It's an ideological whopper that demands more scrutiny than it has so far gotten, because underneath it are solid rocks of myth concerning what are called the "social issues." Let's turn over a few of these to see what facts they hide.

Myth No. 1: The "war on women" consists of tyrannical men arrayed against oppressed but pluckily united women.

In the first place, womankind, bless her fickle heart, is not exactly united on…anything.

Public opinion polls show women to be roughly evenly divided on the question of abortion. This same diversity of opinion was also manifest in the arguments over the proposed new federal mandate forcing employers to pay for birth control, including abortifacients.

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by Hannah Furness, Telegraph

Religious groups are being inhibited from doing vital work in the community because of outdated anti-Christian prejudice, academics have claimed.

Research into the involvement of faith groups in social and charity work has highlighted “inaccurate and out-of-date assumptions” still blighting their work.
 
It suggested government money was still difficult to access, with civil servants wrongly assuming a faith organisation will put pressure on people they help to convert.
 
Academics Dr Sarah Johnsen and Dr Adam Dinham have now claimed fears about religious groups are misplaced, with “no foundation” in modern-day community work.
 
Their findings are based on years of research in the charitable sectors, and will be presented at the Westminster Faith debates on March 21.
 
Dr Dinham, head of the Faiths and Civil Society unit at Goldsmiths, University of London, said he had identified a “subconscious secularism” running through modern society.
 
He said: “It’s not outright hostility, but a misconception that faith-based groups want to evangelise or will restrict their services to people of the same faith.

“People and authorities which commission services from faith-based providers are often concerned they will have strings attached. If they can find other services to use, they will do.

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By Peter Mullen, Telegraph

by Cristina Odone, Telegraph

By Martin Beckford, Telegraph

Ministers are to rush through a law allowing shops to open round the clock during the Games this summer, so that ticket-holders can visit stores after events and to maximise the economic potential of the world’s biggest sporting event.
 
But it is feared that the temporary lifting of the current restrictions, which mean large shops can only trade for six hours on Sundays, will become permanent.
 
Campaigners have raised questions about the speed at which the change is being introduced, as well as the impact on shop assistants and family life.
 
The Church of England will not oppose longer opening during the Olympics, and some clergy are even cancelling Sunday services so they do not clash with big sporting events.
 
But the Dean of Southwark, the Very Rev Andrew Nunn, said: “Whenever anything like this happens, there’s always a suspicion that this could be a way of getting a change in on a permanent basis.

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By John Bingham, Telegraph

The words "husband and wife" are to be removed from official forms under the government's plans to legalise same-sex marriage, a government paper reveals.

Immigration and benefits forms will replace some references with the "neutral term" "spouses and partners".

It follows consultation with gay rights groups, who have also drawn up draft bills for divorce laws to avoid "confusion".

Campaigners for same-sex marriage say that, while they wish the terms "husband and wife" to be retained in most cases, there will be examples in which it would be confusing to refer to husbands and wives.
 
It emerged this week that the terms "mother and father" may also have to be taken out of official paperwork to accommodate the new arrangements.

An official Home Office background paper says: "The UK Border Agency will require minor changes to application forms and staff guidance to highlight the changes to the law, and replacing references to 'husband and wife' with more neutral terms 'spouses and partners'."

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By Paul Bickley, Theos

I have recently had occasion to work through some of the research on Christianity’s recent decline in the UK. There is something of a consensus in the literature that at least part of the explanation for its deterioration is not, in fact, the rejection of the possibility of a spiritual dimension to reality – in fact, by some measures, people are becoming increasing credulous. Instead, at least part of the answer lies in what, in The Ethics of Authenticity (1991), philosopher Charles Taylor calls the ‘massive subjective turn of modern culture’.

By Ed West, Telegraph

By Fr Shenan Boquet, LifeSite News

As I gaze out into our world, I don’t see the culture I experienced as a child – one in which family life, morality, virtue, faith, service to neighbor and community, care for the poor and needy, respect for one’s elders and love of country were naturally part of life. Those who influenced my upbringing instilled in me values for centuries recognized as necessary and foundational for civilization. My family, teachers, pastors and neighbors took interest in me, as they did with each child, and taught me how to participate in what we now call a Culture of Life. Moreover, they helped me recognize that I share in God’s work and am accountable to Him for what I do with my life.

My childhood was filled with people who understood right from wrong. The God-centered values etched upon my soul have been etched upon the souls of millions before me, and remain constant even as society progresses. It is up to me – to us – to either plant or uproot, to tear down or to build. There is no middle ground between the choices, and no one is isolated from their consequences.

Our age is sadly choosing to scatter and throw away. We kill the most vulnerable in the womb, the aged and the sick and disabled for the sake of convenience. We discard the dignity and sacredness of marriage between one man and one woman to embrace cohabitation, promiscuity and homosexuality – all of which undermine our culture and society. We debunk religion and “free our conscience” in order to embrace unbridled passions. What will be our legacy?

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