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 Martin Beckford,Telegraph

The Pope will meet Harriet Harman during his historic visit to Britain next month, having strongly criticised the equality laws passed by Labour earlier this year.

Benedict XVI will also have a short meeting with Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister who is an avowed atheist.

It has also emerged that Tony and Cherie Blair will be in the audience when the pontiff addresses the great and the good at Westminster Hall, although they will not meet him privately.

The full itinerary of the first ever state papal visit to Britain was published on Wednesday, with less than a month to go before the Pope’s arrival at Edinburgh Airport on September 16th.

Potentially the most tense encounter of the four-day visit will be the short meeting between the Holy Father, known for his traditional Roman Catholic views on sexuality and the family, and Miss Harman, the acting Labour leader who was a fierce defender of the rights of minority groups while Equality Minister.

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Read Damian Thompson's comments here

By Martin Parsons, ConservativeHome (Hat Tip: eChurch Websites)

This is the final part of a five-part series looking at the Conservative Party's relationship with churchgoers after thirteen years of Labour government. Dr Martin Parsons is a regular contributor to CentreRight.

By Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow

A homosexual activist group has side-stepped normal procedures to gain a non-government organization status at the United Nations.

By Colin Coward, Changing Attitude

Reports of the meeting held on Tuesday afternoon in a House of Commons Committee room with Lynne Featherstone MP, Equalities Minister, and five civil servants have been issued by Peter Tachell and Pink News. Also present were Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, the Rev Sharon Ferguson of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, Paul Martin of the Lesbian and Gay Foundation Manchester, and myself.

The meeting was the first of a series of private meetings being held this week by the government's equalities office with interested parties to to look at possible next steps for civil partnerships including the possibility of holding civil partnerships for gay couples in church and the option of extending civil marriage to same-sex couples. I don’t know whether the government’s consultation extends to meeting with Christian leaders opposed to marriage equality in church for LGBT people though Lynne Featherstone is reported as acknowledging that any consultation would take into account the views of those who are vehemently opposed to equal marriage.

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By James Grant, Mailonline

A revolution is under way in Britain. Power is shifting from elected politicians to unelected judges.

Britain is losing its parliamentary democracy and replacing it with a new form of aristocracy: let’s call it ‘juristocracy’.

This slow, but steady, transfer of power from Parliament to the courts was evident throughout New Labour’s 13 years in office. 

In the Nineties, having concluded it was unelectable, Labour subscribed to a liberal consensus, abandoned its distrust of judges and committed itself to what would become the Human Rights Act 1998.

The framers of that Act did their best to retain a British tradition in which Parliament is supreme.

But, almost a decade after the Act came into force in October 2000, Britain now seems to have moved firmly in the direction of the United States, where the Supreme Court decides almost every political issue.

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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”.

From The Christian Institute  See also Matt at StandFirm here

US taxpayers could be set to pay for abortions as part of a $160 million federally funded health care plan for Pennsylvania, pro-lifers claim.

The move would spark a fierce quarrel in America – where abortion is a hotly contested issue – and break a White House promise that no federal funds will be used to pay for abortions.

The US Department of Health and Human Services denies that the deal includes payment for abortions, but the wording of the health insurance agreement is unclear.

The agreement says the money does cover “abortions and contraceptives” that are legally allowed under various Pennsylvanian laws.

But then it goes on to say that “elective abortion” will not be covered.

The dispute centres on what is meant by “elective abortion”, and the document offers no definition for the term.

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Chad Groening OneNewsNow

A Christian law firm will assist Arizona in its defense against the Obama Justice Department's lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of The Grand Canyon State's immigration enforcement statute.

The lawsuit argues that Arizona's new measure, which requires state and local police to question and possibly arrest illegal aliens during the enforcement of other laws, like traffic stops, usurps federal authority.

President Barack Obama has called the state law "misguided," but Jordan Sekulow, director of international operations with the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), contends that Obama's grievance is what is misguided.

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By David Lindsay

[.....] We may fund forced abortion in China and elsewhere, but it is impossible to overstate the constitutional crisis that would follow from any legislative attempt formally to require anyone in this country to have an abortion.

We may have eroded the special character of Sunday to such an extent that many people are effectively compelled to work on it, but it is impossible to overstate the constitutional crisis that would follow from any direct attempt to write that compulsion into law, or formally to declare Sunday a normal shopping day.

We may have deregulated drinking and gambling to an alarming extent, but it is impossible to overstate the constitutional crisis that would follow from any legislative attempt to abolish all restrictions on them.

And we may long ago have come to the humane and necessary conclusion that homosexual acts between consenting adults in private were no business of the criminal law, but it is impossible to overstate the constitutional crisis that would follow from any legislative attempt to make the acquisition of certain civil privileges conditional upon engagement in such acts, or indeed in any form of sexual act other than that between husband and wife. As Leo Abse himself said on the fortieth anniversary of his Bill's becoming law, "merely because something ought not to be a criminal offence, that does not make it a public good".

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By John Smeaton, SPUC

The nomination of Elena Kagan by President Barack Obama to the Supreme Court is another example of the naked promotion of pro-abortion activists to influential positions. This nomination spells danger for the rule of law.

The radically pro-abortion credentials of Elena Kagan were exposed in reports last week, which revealed that she rewrote the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) position on partial birth abortion. She did so to the effect that the ACOG's language changed from saying that it could never foresee a circumstance when partial birth abortion would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of a mother, to language which says that in some circumstances partial birth abortion is the best option. As Yuval Levin reports:

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By Julian Mann

Chuck Colson is right: the politically-correct establishment in the once Christian West thinks the right to worship and serve the living God is conferred by them.

In an urgent alert to Christian journalists and bloggers, Mr Colson warns:

You need to know about what may be one of the gravest, most insidious threats to religious freedom I've seen in my lifetime: What may be an attempt, at the very highest levels of government, to RE-DEFINE the very meaning of religious freedom, from "free exercise" to merely private worship.

If what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a speech at Georgetown University reflects a new direction in government policy, then mark my words, our religious liberties are in peril.

That distinction between freedom of religion and freedom of worship, highlighted by Mr Colson, is a vitally important one. Mr Colson hits the nail bang on the head when he says that an Islamic dictatorship such as Saudi Arabia allows freedom of worship – Christians meeting in private – but it will not allow Bibles and church buildings. It will not allow the truth of God out in the public square.

The politically-correct activists running the US and increasingly the UK think government is god and that government action is free of the original sin that taints the actions of private individuals without state supervision. Graciously, the PC state may confer on believers the right of worship, provided we keep our counter-cultural opinions to ourselves.

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By Gerald Warner, Telegraph

By Andrew Porter, Telegraph

Members of the public will be given the right to nominate unpopular laws they want scrapped, Nick Clegg has announced the Your Freedom initiative intended to begin a shift of power away from the state to the people.

By Martin Beckford, Telegraph

The Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin denied that she was a “victim” or a “token”, and insisted she could perform well in the high-profile role.

She defended herself following claims that she had been chosen by the Speaker to avoid having “another predictable middle-aged white man” in the job.

Mrs Hudson-Wilkin was picked by John Bercow ahead of the candidate preferred by the Very Rev John Hall, Dean of Westminster Abbey.

But she said: “John Bercow hasn’t done me a favour. He thinks I’m the right person for the job.

“I would like to believe he looked at my application and was happy. There were about 100 people who applied for the post but I don’t see myself as an underdog. I’ve never been a victim or a token.

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by Shannen Coffin for National Review

hat-tip Jackie Bruchi for StandFirm

When President Obama promised in his inaugural address to “restore science to its rightful place,” he never explained what that rightful place would be. Documents recently released in connection with the Supreme Court nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan suggest an answer: wherever it can best be used to skew political debate and judicial outcomes.

The documents involved date from the Clinton White House. They show Miss Kagan’s willingness to manipulate medical science to fit the Democratic party’s political agenda on the hot-button issue of abortion. As such, they reflect poorly on both the author and the president who nominated her to the Supreme Court. 

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By Martin Beckford, Telegraph

Children would not be protected by Labour’s controversial anti-paedophile database, according to experts, because sexual predators are more likely to find victims online rather than in their workplaces.

A new report claims that the world’s biggest vetting scheme, which has now been put on hold, would not have prevented the crimes committed by Ian Huntley or Vanessa George.

It goes on to warn that the project – which is intended to check on the backgrounds of up to 9million adults who want to work with young or vulnerable people – will end up wrongly barring innocent adults because of its inexperienced staff and lack of an appeal process.

Campaigners say that the concerns raised by academics and crime experts show that the entire Vetting and Barring Scheme, and the quango that is implementing it, the Independent Safeguarding Authority, should be scrapped completely. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has suspended its introduction until it can be scaled back to “common sense” levels.

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By Simon Walters and Jonathan Petre, Mailonline

The Queen was last night dragged into a bitter row over the appointment of a black woman as ­Chaplain to the House of Commons.

Commons Speaker John Bercow has refused to give the job to the candidate picked by the Dean of Westminster Abbey, the Very Rev Dr John Hall, who answers to the Queen.

He has chosen instead the Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin, a Jamaican-born vicar in one of the ­poorest parts of East London. Sources say he objected to appointing ‘another predictable ­middle-aged white man’.

Mr Bercow was so determined to win the power struggle that he has cut the ties between Parliament and the Abbey, where state ­funerals, weddings and coronations take place – effectively splitting the Chaplain’s ­historic role in two.

The Abbey authorities have responded by refusing to give Mrs Hudson-Wilkin the palatial grace-and-favour apartment in the Abbey cloisters where the current Commons Chaplain lives.

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By Joanna Bogle, MercatorNet

How are Britain's voters going to weather the new government's tough budget if they can't darn socks or make a casserole?

Well, Britain’s Coalition Government has produced its first budget, and everyone has been talking about it. “Tough” is one of the words being used and “brutal” another. What does seem to be widely acknowledged is that the country has for a long time now been using public money it hasn’t actually got for various things it doesn’t really need.

I dare say we won’t get cuts in public expenditure that will affect the more ludicrous and unnecessary projects but, oh, how I wish we could. Do we need posters – as we have in my local area – urging more lesbians to become foster-parents? Did we need a scheme urging more children to obtain contraceptives for party nights? What about the grants of money to various dotty groups promoting various forms of sexual activity outside of male/female marriage? None of these things have been useful. The teenage pregnancy rate has soared as more and more youngsters have been given contraceptives – and sexually-transmitted diseases have doubled and trebled and quadrupled, especially among the younger teenagers, so that the most commonly used expression in the medical profession about the problem is “epidemic”.

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By Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, Christianity Today

"Freedom of worship" has recently replaced the phrase "freedom of religion" in public pronouncements from the Obama administration. Experts are concerned that the new rhetoric may signal a policy change.

"Freedom of worship" first appeared in President Obama's November remarks at the memorial service for the victims of the Fort Hood shooting. Days later, he referred to worship rather than religion in speeches in Japan and China.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed the shift in language. In a December speech at Georgetown University, she used "freedom of worship" three times but "freedom of religion" not at all. While addressing senators in January, she referred to "freedom of worship" four times and "freedom of religion" once when quoting an earlier Obama speech.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom noted the shift in its 2010 annual report. "This change in phraseology could well be viewed by human rights defenders and officials in other countries as having concrete policy implications," the report said.

Freedom of worship means the right to pray within the confines of a place of worship or to privately believe, said Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom and member of the commission. "It excludes the right to raise your children in your faith; the right to have religious literature; the right to meet with co-religionists; the right to raise funds; the right to appoint or elect your religious leaders, and to carry out charitable activities, to evangelize, [and] to have religious education or seminary training."

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