Anglican Mainstream

By John Smeaton, SPUC

Tony Blair's memoirs, entitled A Journey, have been published today and we have a copy at SPUC HQ. Here are some key points from it:

By Thaddeus M Baklinski, LifeSite News

Archbishop John Hepworth, Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) of the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia, celebrated the opening Mass of the Holy Spirit at the Synod of the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia at the end of July.

In his homily, the archbishop said that "Christianity is now the most persecuted of all the world’s religions. In almost one third of the world’s nations it is in some way illegal to be Christian."

Archbishop Hepworth noted that secular humanism has coalesced the enemies of the Christian morality on which Western nations were founded. These have come out in opposition to principles such as the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, and the value of the natural family as the fundamental unit of civilized society.

"The power of secular humanism, in denial that anything exists beyond this life, and in its thirst for material possessions, has made a strange alliance with the enemies of Christianity," the archbishop explained.

"The Islamic fundamentalist and the militant feminist share a conviction that the principled order that once ruled societies such as ours should be overthrown. One of the most plausible ways of understanding our world is to view it as a world of fading ideals ridiculed by all those who would see them gone, and a world in which allies against Jesus Christ have not yet seriously begun the battle between themselves for supremacy."

Pointing out that nations that have legalized abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality and same-sex "marriage" are now legislating that opposition to these practices is criminal, Archbishop Hepworth said, "The battle for ideas is seen most stridently in the battle for life itself. There are still struggles to be had over legislation on abortion, but already lawmakers have turned their attention to rendering illegal public opposition to abortion."

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By Albert Mohler

We are entering a new phase in the battle over the Bible’s truthfulness and authority. We should at least be thankful for undisguised arguments coming from the opponents of biblical inerrancy, even as we are ready, once again, to make clear where their arguments lead.

Back in 1990, theologian J. I. Packer recounted what he called a “Thirty Years’ War” over the inerrancy of the Bible. He traced his involvement in this war in its American context back to a conference held in Wenham, Massachusetts in 1966, when he confronted some professors from evangelical institutions who “now declined to affirm the full truth of Scripture.” That was more than fifty years ago, and the war over the truthfulness of the Bible is still not over — not by a long shot.

From time to time, the dust has settled in one arena, only for the battle to erupt in another. In the 1970s, the most visible battles were fought over Fuller Theological Seminary and within the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. By the 1980s, the most heated controversies centered in the Southern Baptist Convention and its seminaries. Throughout this period, the evangelical movement sought to regain its footing on the doctrine. In 1978, a large number of leading evangelicals met and adopted a definitive statement that became known as “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.”

Many thought the battles were over or at least subsiding. Sadly, the debate over the inerrancy of the Bible continues. As a matter of fact, there seems to be a renewed effort to forge an evangelical identity apart from the claim that the Bible is totally truthful and without error.

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From The Spectator

Right now Britain is engaged in the single most dramatic schooling reform for half a century, freeing up teachers and empowering Britain’s faith schools. Against this backdrop The Spectator dares to ask the obvious: should taxpayers really be funding faith schools? There is already evidence that ambitious parents are faking their own beliefs in order to place their children in these insitutions. Is that inappropriate, or simple testament to the fact that faith schools are also better schools? The Spectator debate panel will be armed with wit, insight and perhaps a little piety.

For the motion:

• Polly Toynbee, Columnist, The Guardian
• Minette Marrin, Journalist, Broadcaster and Fiction Writer
• Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, Minister, Maidenhead Synagogue

Against the motion:

• Cristina Odone, Research Fellow, Centre for Policy Studies
• Bishop Malcolm McMahon, of Nottingham
• Melanie McDonagh

Join The Spectator debate, chaired by Andrew Neil, on Tuesday 12 October 2010 at Church House, Westminster SW1 between 6.45pm and 8.30pm.

More details here

Faith Communities in the ‘Big Society’

Together with the Chief Rabbi and Archbishop of Westminster and leaders of other faiths, the Archbishop of Canterbury hosted a discussion with the Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, and the Minister for Decentralisation, Greg Clark. In the course of the very constructive and positive discussion which focussed on the government’s approach to the ‘Big Society’, participants shared their optimism about the sense of a ‘new moment’ arising from the government's willingness to see Church and faith communities as providing a model to be appreciated, rather than as a group to be shaped by government. The approach is one of co-operation rather than co-option.

More here

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From ccfon

There is widespread shock following the news that Duke Amachree has lost his case, having been sacked for mentioning God in the workplace. An employment tribunal has ruled that it was reasonable for Wandsworth Council to dismiss Duke, after he was sacked for gross misconduct for suggesting to a client with an incurable illness not to give up hope and to try putting her faith in God. The tribunal also found that the Council had not discriminated against Mr Amachree on the basis of his religion. In addition, the tribunal took the view that Duke had breached confidentiality by publicising his case. The decision has come as a huge surprise to Duke and to his legal team.

Duke, a father of two and committed Christian, had worked for Wandsworth Council for 18 years and had an unblemished record. Yet, as a result of the comments he made in one 45 minute housing interview, he was subject to 6 months of investigations and three interviews with the Council. His solicitor was even told by the Council that saying “God bless” to a client would require an investigation if the client complained.

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By John Richardson, Guardian

I can understand Rice's position. But her desire to set herself apart, I would argue, owes a lot to pride

In 1971 I had my own "Anne Rice moment".

Rice, readers may be aware, is the author of the "Vampire Chronicles" who, after turning back to the Catholic church a decade ago, announced on Facebook in July this year that she'd "quit being a Christian". Yet she added, "I remain committed to Christ as always". Her problem, she explained, was not Christ but Christianity. "It's simply impossible", her message concluded, "for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group."

Actually I had two such "moments" that year.

My first happened whilst I was sitting in the schoolkeeper's office of a school I was looking after during my summer holidays, reading through Norman Warren's classic evangelistic tract Journey Into Life.

I still remember the emotional "bump in the road" when I prayed the prayer that asked Jesus to "come into my life as Lord to control me". This was the thing I really didn't want to do, the risk I didn't want to take and yet which I knew I could not avoid. But the deed was done, and life would never be the same again. I was now a Christian.

The second such "moment" came shortly after.

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From ccfon

By Charles Lewis, National Post

[.....]  The suggestions I have read and heard range from the Church loosening up on such social issues as birth control, abortion and gay marriage, to allowing women to become priests, ending celibacy for priests and toppling the papacy because popes are monarchs and monarchs are so 17th century.

Taken together, these reforms would transform the Church into a much more relevant and happy institution that would be better liked by the non-Catholic world and would fill churches to the rafters every Sunday morning with lapsed Catholics.

Forget it.

It would soak the Church of its vitality. It would make it just another social agency. The Church is not a radio station that is required to play the latest music to keeps its fans happy.

Where orthodoxy has been firm, the Church has grown like wildfire. And not just the Catholic Church. The Anglican Church is also undergoing tremendous growth in Africa because it is not experimenting with novelties to make Christianity more modern, popular and relevant.

In the African churches, too, attendance is stupendous and incredibly joyful. They are building churches, not closing them.

What Catholic critics and critics of orthodoxy in general miss is that Christianity is not compulsory. Anyone is free to come and go. And the fact that orthodoxy is appealing should say something to those for whom suggesting liberal reforms has almost become an obsession and a hobby.

Many Catholic critics from outside the faith have no idea that Church time and civic time run on different clocks. They have no idea what has really gone on in the great councils of the Church and assume the lone purpose of dogma and doctrine is to squeeze the life out of its members and exercise control. They will never see that dogmas are the lights along the way; they are, to a Catholic way of thinking, expressions of timeless truths. To change them would be to change the basis for the faith in the first place. They are not extras.

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By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Telegraph

Archbishop Vincent Nichols talks to Jonathan Wynne-Jones about next month’s Papal visit and the Church’s rejuvenation amid testing times

Listening to David Cameron’s first speech on the steps of Downing Street, Archbishop Vincent Nichols says he nearly fell off his chair at the Prime Minister’s pledge to work for “the common good”.

His surprise was down to the fact that only a few weeks earlier, Catholic bishops had published a document offering election advice to churchgoers called “Choosing the Common Good”.

Sitting comfortably now in a shaded garden off the main road in Lourdes, the leader of the Church in England and Wales admits to being encouraged at the echoes of Catholic teaching emerging in the language of the new Coalition Government.

In particular, he is enthusiastic at the opportunities offered by Mr Cameron’s call for a Big Society. The concept may have been widely derided, described by David Davis, the Conservative backbencher, as “Blairite dressing”, but the Archbishop believes that it offers the chance to rebuild communities based on mutual support and genuine care.

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By Mark Oppenheimer, New York Times interview with Peter Hitchens

(Clip)  “I did not have a ‘religious experience,’ ” Mr. Hitchens writes. “Nothing mystical or inexplicable took place — no trance, no swoon, no vision, no voices, no blaze of light. But I had a sudden strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day, not imprisoned under thick layers of time.”

From there, his return to Christianity is gradual, beginning with a rediscovery of the joys of Christmas, followed soon, on the occasion of his wedding, by the urge to be married in the Church of England. Mr. Hitchens’s catalog of return sounds quite ordered, indeed rational. He reattaches to the rituals of his natal church; he realizes that Christendom helped shore up what was best in old England. Much of “The Rage Against God” is in fact a rage against the forgetfulness of Britons, who no longer know their hymns, their great literature or the heroism of their forefathers who died in two world wars. Having noticed that the secularization of England seems to have coincided with its decline, he becomes alive to serious flaws in the reasoning of atheists, like his brother.

He notices that post-Christian societies, like Russia, where he lived for two years as a correspondent, are coarse and brutal. Of Islam and Hinduism, he says over coffee: “I would certainly say, especially having visited countries where they are broadly practiced, that I think they are inferior to Christianity. They are certainly a heck of a lot better than nothing.”

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By John Smeaton, SPUC

When I was in Rome, earlier this month, I met Hilary White, the well-known writer for LifeSiteNews.com

[.....]  "There are things about being a Catholic that make it possible (though never easy) to stand against the whole tide of the world and refuse to sway. It is this absolutist stand that so infuriates the world. Why are the world’s media so doggedly pursuing the Catholic Church on the sex abuse scandals? Why only the Church when there are assuredly whole oceans of fish to fry in the Anglican, Lutheran and Baptist communities? Or for that matter, among teachers, scout leaders and librarians?

"It is because the Catholic religion proposes absolute and unchangeable teachings on life, the universe and everything, and claims for them the infallible authority of God. Catholics grasp the concept that truth is simply what it is, and no amount of 'consensus', 'social progress', or committee-think will change it. It is why Catholics laugh (though somewhat darkly) when media experts demand that the pope change the teachings on homosexuality or abortion or contraception to become accepted by the modern world. The World cannot grasp, no longer has the intellectual capability to grasp, that the Catholic Church presents the truths of religion in the same way as a mathematician presents a mathematical axiom.

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From The Spectator

Right now Britain is engaged in the single most dramatic schooling reform for half a century, freeing up teachers and empowering Britain’s faith schools. Against this backdrop The Spectator dares to ask the obvious: should taxpayers really be funding faith schools? There is already evidence that ambitious parents are faking their own beliefs in order to place their children in these insitutions. Is that inappropriate, or simple testament to the fact that faith schools are also better schools? The Spectator debate panel will be armed with wit, insight and perhaps a little piety.

For the motion:

• Polly Toynbee, Columnist, The Guardian
• Minette Marrin, Journalist, Broadcaster and Fiction Writer
• Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, Minister, Maidenhead Synagogue

Against the motion:

• Cristina Odone, Research Fellow, Centre for Policy Studies
• Bishop Malcolm McMahon, of Nottingham
• Speaker to be announced

Join The Spectator debate, chaired by Andrew Neil, on Tuesday 12 October 2010 at Church House, Westminster SW1 between 6.45pm and 8.30pm.

More details here

 

Barna Group

While many observers have suggested that the economy has caused people to become more focused on life’s essentials, the current study shows a drop in two life components that consistently top the list: family and faith. David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, commented on the relatively small proportion of Americans who place top emphasis on faith: “The gap is vast between self-described affiliation with Christianity and ascribing highest priority to that faith. When it comes to why so much of American religion seems merely skin-deep, this gap between what people call themselves and what they prioritize is perhaps most telling.”

Kinnaman indicated that even among some of the most actively involved faith groups, relatively small proportions of adults identify faith as their peak priority. Among Protestants (18%), churchgoers (18%), and non-evangelical born again Christians (16%) less than one-fifth identified faith as their top objective in life. The only exception seems to be evangelicals, among whom two out of every five mention that faith is their highest priority (39%). Among Catholics, just 4% mentioned faith, which is only slightly higher than the levels generated among unchurched adults (2%).

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By Jenna Lyle, Christian Today

Eric Pickles has spoken of the crucial role that faith communities have to play in the Government’s vision of a ‘Big Society’.

The Secretary of State made the comments at a meeting of faith leaders hosted yesterday by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, were also present.

Their discussions centred on the vision of a Big Society being promoted by Prime Minister David Cameron. The Big Society is premised on the idea that everyone can do a bit more to change society, instead of only looking to the Government to solve the problems.

Mr Pickles said the Big Society was a practical way “to put people in control of the decisions that affect them and to encourage everyone to take an active part in civic life”.

He admitted that the Government had not “sufficiently recognised” the difference faith communities were already making neighbourhoods the length and breadth of the country.

He said the Government was committed to building on the “huge” amount of experience faith groups have in “getting out into the community”.

By Marcia Segelstein, OneNewsNow

"The Rage against God is loose and is preparing to strip the remaining altars when it is strong enough." – from The Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens

Peter Hitchens is famously known as the brother of the infamously outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens. For a time, both brothers held a common disbelief in God. In his new book, Peter describes his falling away from faith that mirrored that of so many in his generation, including his brother. Now back in the fold of Christianity, he sees with frightening clarity the ills that have been loosed on society as a result of its ever-increasing secularization.

Some of what Hitchens describes is specifically about the England in which he grew up, and the diminished England in which he now lives. But much of it applies just as well to America and most of western civilization.

Of his turning away from the faith of his childhood Hitchens writes: "We were sure that we, and our civilization, had grown out of the nursery myths of God, angels, and heaven. We had modern medicine, jet engines, the welfare state, the United Nations, and 'science,' which explained everything that needed to be explained." Growing up for him, and for so many of his generation, meant no longer falling for those "myths."

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By Mark Vernon, Guardian

Governments are learning that religion is important, but they still don't understand it. Nor do faith groups understand government

By Riazat Butt, UTV

Richard Bacon and Susanna Reid are to present a new religion and ethics programme on BBC1 from next month.

Sunday Morning Live will feature short films and discussions between the hosts and their studio guests, opening out to an audience who will interact with them through phone calls, videos and emails. Bacon also has a daily afternoon show on Radio 5 Live, while Reid co-presents BBC Breakfast.

The new series, which is being made in Belfast, will have an initial run of 20 live episodes. The first programme airs on 11 July and its promise of topicality and accessibility is a throwback to The Heaven and Earth Show, a magazine show that had a cosier feel than the more adversarial format of its successor, The Big Questions, which one former panellist likened to a "lynch mob".

The new show's launch may appease those institutions that continue to despair at the perceived decline of the quality and quantity of religious programming.

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By Andrew Brown, Guardian

Richard Dawkins's belief that any properly brought up child will naturally be an atheist leads him into absurdity

Richard Dawkins on Mumsnet came up with a remark to silence all his critics: "What have you read of mine that makes you think I have a skewed agenda?" It certainly left me opening and shutting my mouth like a breathless goldfish. Actually the whole thread is worth reading: it is from here that the story has come forth that he wants to start an atheist school. Whether that will actually happen is another thing. But it is in any case revealing of his reasoning. (There doesn't seem to be a way to link to individual comments on Mumsnet, but all these quotes are cut and pasted from the thread.)

Introduction to letter

We need your help to stop the Afghan government from arresting Afghan Christians and condemning them to death by public execution!

The enclosed letter addresses recent events inside Afghanistan that have unfolded since May 27th, 2010 after an incendiary documentary showing photos and videos of secret "Afghan Christian Converts" aired on Noorin TV, an independent tv station based in Kabul. The documentary was the first of its kind to ever air publicly on national TV in Afghanistan, a country that considers itself to be 100% Muslim. The controversial content, revealing names and faces of supposed Afghan Christian converts, sparked riots and demonstrations throughout Afghanistan in the days that followed.

During the ensuing protests, demonstrators called on President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan government to take strong and decisive actions against these exposed Afghan Christian converts by enforcing the Afghan constitution, based on Islamic Sharia law, which clearly call for the arrest and public execution of anyone who leaves Islam for another religion.

According to an online report by the Associated Free Press dated June 1, 2010, Abdul Sattar Khawasi, deputy secretary of the Afghan lower house in parliament, called for the execution of Christian converts from Islam saying, "those Afghans that appeared in this video film should be executed in public, the house should order the Attorney General and the NDS (intelligence agency) to arrest these Afghans and execute them".

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