The Spectator.co.uk Faith Based Blog

Romney's continuing religious troubles

Freddy Gray — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:50:29 +0000

Some well-informed people — Rupert Murdoch among them — have suggested that Mitt Romney could exploit Obama’s increasingly fractious relationship with America’s Catholics to win the presidential elections in November. The so-called 'Catholic vote' is often said to be the crucial swing factor in American democracy.

Romney, however, may be facing a bigger socio-religious stumbling block than Obama's: evangelicals. They don’t like him. Mainstream Protestant Republicans in the north have plumped for Mitt, generally speaking, but he has been far less successful in the evangelical south. ‘As a county’s evangelical population expands,' says Real Clear Politics analyst Sean Trende, 'Romney’s vote share declines.'

The obvious explanation is that southern Baptists and born-again Christians are hostile to Romney because he is a Mormon. But it is probably something broader: Romney is also a rich northerner who is notorious for contradicting himself on matters such as gay marriage — hardly a recipe for popularity within the Bible belt.

Some Republican strategists will look favourably on Romney’s lack of appeal for the religious right. It could mean that, assuming he gets the nomination (and the evangelicals

Abbott couldn't be grandstanding, could she?

Freddy Gray — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:25:47 +0000

For anyone who doesn’t think of abortion as an unqualified good for humankind, today’s Diane Abbott row is quite sad. Abbott has walked out of the cross-party talks on abortion counselling, calling them a ‘front for driving through the anti-choice lobbyists' preferred option.’

‘I entered into the meetings in good faith,’ she huffs. ‘I was genuinely interested in improving the quality of counselling available to women.’ As James reports, though, it doesn’t appear as if la Abbott had hitherto taken the talks all that seriously. Could she be grandstanding, by any chance?

The really depressing thing, though, is how wrong Abbott is about the parliamentary consultation. There is in fact no ‘anti-choice’ agenda. Nadine Dorries, who is leading the campaign to ensure that the groups who counsel women about abortions are different from the groups who actually provide them, is proud to call herself pro-choice. Yet even she is seen as a suspicious ideologue. It is as if the anti-choicers — that is, those of us who think that destroying 180,000 embryos and foetuses each year in the UK is a bit, well, wrong — are now

The truth about lying

Freddy Gray — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:04:05 +0000

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics about lying. The University of Essex has today published a study about dishonesty in Britain, and its conclusions are prompting some concern. The ‘ethics and integrity project’ found that our society is far more relaxed about the truth than it used to be — only one person in every three, apparently, is now willing to condemn lying in their own interest.

In 2000, 40 per cent of the study’s respondents said that picking up money on the street was ‘never justified’, whereas it’s just 20 per cent today. Ten years ago 70 per cent condemned adultery, compared to just over 50 per cent today. Young people, in particular, are significantly less bothered about the old-fashioned idea of personal probity.

What’s going wrong? Have we become a mendacious people? Can we blame New Labour? The Essex professors say it’s down to poor ‘role models’ in public life — cheating footballers, greedy bankers, corrupt politicians — and they may well have a point. Maybe it’s also to do with the decline of Christianity, which taught people the intrinsic value of truth and the sinfulness

Anti-Catholic Times?

Freddy Gray — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:26:16 +0000

Today’s Times has a sensational follow-up to the horrible story about a paedophile monk at Downside school. Sean O’Neill reports that – following the scandal of Fr Richard White, who last week was jailed for five years for gross indecency and indecent assault – the Department for Education has taken ‘an urgent interest’ in child-protection procedures at the Catholic boarding school. Apparently, an inspection report refers to ‘seven monks who have worked at the school at different times and whose behaviour has been a cause of concern’.

But does Mr O’Neill have his facts straight? The Telegraph’s Will Heaven says not. He points out that the Times story is out-of-date: Ofsted and ISI have already reported on their follow up inspection and found that Downside has ‘made good progress and now meets all the national minimum standards for boarding schools’.

Heaven adds that the figure of seven monks is unreliable too.

There’s a growing suspicion among Catholics that the Times has a bias against them. Lurid reporting about such a difficult subject doesn’t exactly prove that impression wrong. It’s probably not a deliberate or conscious hostility;

An ecclesiastical attack on the government?

Freddy Gray — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:14:28 +0000

Last week, Archbishop Nichols of Westminster, the spiritual leader of Catholics in England and Wales, said that the government’s cuts ‘are already being felt disproportionally by the most vulnerable.’ This, The Catholic Herald reported, is the closest any Catholic bishop has come to attacking the austerity agenda. The Archbishop’s statement could be seen as an attempt to put the Catholic Church to the left of the coalition.

But should it? Politically, the Archbishop’s speech was more neutral than anything else. Here’s a longer quote:

“None of us can be in any doubt about the severity of the challenges facing us in the coming months and years. The increase in youth unemployment, the pressure on housing provision and support, and the impact of personal debt are bringing hardship and distress to those least able to sustain them. At the same time some aspects of the distribution of wealth cause scandal and dismay.”

Hardly a swingeing critique of the Tories. Or perhaps the Archbishop was signalling his opposition to the government, while not seeming partisan. If that’s the case, it’s pretty wet. The churches have a

The Church of England's power struggle

Theo Hobson — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:24:18 +0000

Blimey, who’s going to resign next? Chartres? Williams? The Queen? God maybe? What’s going on here?

A high-profile branch of the C of E has been put in the media spotlight in a way that it cannot cope with. It is being cast as stooge of the System, bankers’ poodle. It wants desperately to communicate its sympathy with liberal opinion, with the concerns of the protesters. It feels that it is being cornered into looking like their antagonist, even like some sort of tyrannical regime, hiding in a big domed palace. No C of E cleric wants to be the focus of this. Giles Fraser sensed that the episode might result in violent scenes — such scenes must not be risked at any cost, he implied; it would be too disastrous for the Church. This increased the focus on the Dean. He realised that he might have to be the face of the powerful Church, in cahoots with police force. He very sensibly decided that this was not part of his career plan. Why should radical Giles be sainted by the media, and he demonised?

The Church

A tale of church and state

David Blackburn — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:25:49 +0100

Last Saturday, Phillip Pullman addressed library campaigners at a convention in London and declared war on the “stupidity” of nationwide library closures. Pullman’s presence brought the Church of England to mind, merely as a counter-point to his often very public atheism. How has the established church responded to the end of community libraries and the education services they provide?

As part of a wider national picture, Anglican priests have, at the suggestion of their parishioners, offered help to campaigners in Bolton, where 5 libraries are to close, and in Brent, where 6 libraries are to close. Letters have been written on the vicarage’s headed paper; petitions have been signed; and churches have hosted publicity events. Bygone village life seems momentarily to have been resurrected among the dark satanic mills.

This soft support of letters and gentle encouragement is the church’s work these days; vicars, rightly or wrongly, no longer lead their flocks in anything but prayer. Parish priests in Brent and Bolton have avoided direct involvement in the local campaigns, despite the fact that many share the concerns about the effects of closures on the educational opportunities of the poor, the wellbeing of the elderly

Why is Rome keeping schtum about Pastor Nadarkhani?

Freddy Gray — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:09:56 +0100

The blogger Archbishop Cranmer has done some excellent work drawing attention to the case of Pastor Nadarkhani, who is to be executed in Iran because he refuses to recant his Christian faith. One doesn’t have to be a martyrologist, or even a Christian, to recognise the Pastor’s courage. Three times he has been asked by the Iranian Supreme Court to renounce Christ, and three times, on pain of death, he has refused. Reports today suggest that the Iranian authorities are on the verge of acquitting Nardakhani, but Cranmer says that “the ‘people who know’ are treating these reports with great caution.”

Cranmer also says he has alerted the Foreign office, Lambeth Palace, and the Vatican about Nadarkhani’s situation. William Hague replied within an hour and the Archbishop of Canterbury expressed “deep concern”, but the Vatican has kept schtum. Cranmer is cross, “Iran views Evangelical Protestants as ‘corrupt and deviant’,” he writes. “Does His Holiness agree?”

Steady on. It’s possible, I suppose, that the Holy See is reluctant to intervene for fear of endangering Catholics in Iran. Or perhaps they are working behind the scenes. But I

A Catholic-Lutheran rapprochement?

Freddy Gray — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:18:53 +0100

Ecumenism doesn’t excite the media, as a rule. The quest for Christian unity usually involves beardy men drinking tea together, making safe and unfunny jokes about themselves, and agreeing to disagree. It doesn¹t make headlines.

Tomorrow, however, Pope Benedict XVI will mark an amazing shift in the relationship between Protestantism and Catholicism, as he visits Erfurt, the spiritual home of Martin Luther.

The Pope digs Luther, you see. He even digs Lutheranism. As John Allen Jr put it in his biography of Benedict, ‘The Lutherans are to Benedict what the Orthodox are to John Paul: the separated brethren he knows best, and for whom he has the greatest natural affinity.’

Benedict is German and his cultural sensibilities are therefore rather compatible with Germanic Lutheranism: he likes J S Bach and rigorous theology. In fact, as one of the world’s leading Augustinian scholars, Benedict has a natural rapport with Luther’s Augustinianism. In 1998, as Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he played a key role in formulating with the Lutheran World Federation the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification), arguably the most groundbreaking

Gripped by 'Dominion'

Freddy Gray — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:27:03 +0100

What on earth is ‘Dominionism’? Lots of Americans who first heard the word just a few weeks ago are suddenly feeling very angry about it. Liberals say that the US constitution is facing a ‘Dominionist threat’ in the form of Michele Bachman and Rick Perry, two Republicans running for president in 2012. Christian conservatives, meanwhile, cry prejudice: they accuse a secularist elite of conducting a witch-hunt against Christians in politics.

What's the fuss? Dominionism is, we are told, a school of evangelical thought that aims to impose Biblical law over secular government. It is to nutty Evangelicals what Shariah Law is to Islamists, a way of achieving theocracy on earth. Dominionism apparently takes Genesis 1:26 as its creed:‘have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’

Creepy, eh? Fear of Dominionism spread last month after Ryan Lizza (wrote a profile of Michele Bachman for the New Yorker. Lizza presented Bachman as an unhinged zealot (not hard) and tried to show that her worldview was informed by a