Church of england

Thursday

Damian Thompson

Crisis of faith

It’s often said that Britain’s church congregations are shrinking, but that doesn’t come close to expressing the scale of the disaster now facing Christianity in this country. Every ten years the census spells out the situation in detail: between 2001 and 2011 the number of Christians born in Britain fell by 5.3 million — about 10,000 a week. If that rate of decline continues, the mission of St Augustine to the English, together with that of the Irish saints to the Scots, will come to an end in 2067. That is the year in which the Christians who have inherited the faith of their British ancestors will become statistically invisible.

Thursday

Peter Jones

Allah, Zeus and the Church of England

A ‘prominent liberal cleric’ in London has held an Islamic prayer service in his church, St John’s Waterloo. ‘We all share these traditions,’ he announced, ‘so let us celebrate our shared traditions, by giving thanks to the God that we love, Allah.’ How deliciously pagan of him. One way ancient Greeks tried to make sense of the bewildering array of gods they came across was to make links between them, both in name and function. For example, the ‘father of history’ Herodotus tells us that Scythians worshipped Zeus, Apollo and Aphrodite under the names Papaeus, Oetosyrus and Argimpasa. All very St John’s. But does this mean that ancient gods shared traditions?

Quentin Letts

I know just the vicar for my parish church. Pity he’s fictional

For cheap laughs you should look at the situations vacant column of the Church Times — pages of jobs for Anglican clergy. The language, with its dreary emphasis on compliance and its neglect of individualism, may help to explain why the Church of England has become the Labour party at prayer. Number one word in these adverts is ‘team’. Applicants need to be ‘team players’. Other hot words: ‘passionate’, ‘change’, ‘management’ and ‘skills’. A couple of weeks ago the Diocese of Lichfield needed a ‘team rector’ near Tamworth — ‘a visionary, imaginative and inspirational team leader, passionate for evangelism and discipleship, with experience of managing change and able to enjoy

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: How to save the Union; who cares for Paolozzi’s murals

A disaster for unionists Sir: I share Alex Massie’s view that ‘this election is going to be a disaster’ for us unionists (‘Divided we fall’, 28 February). It is almost too painful to recall that it will mark the 60th anniversary of a great victory in May 1955 when the Tories, standing as Scottish Unionists, won more seats north of the border than their opponents and helped give Anthony Eden a secure majority. Under the baleful influence of George Osborne, who could not care less about the constitution, there seems little chance that the Tories will redeem themselves by proposing the one remaining policy that could save the Union: a

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: Why rural churches are so important, and the best use for them

The presence of a church Sir: The challenge for the Church of England and the wider community is to ensure that our village churches are a blessing and not a burden (‘It takes a village’, 21 February). The Church of England has approximately 16,000 churches, three-quarters of which are listed by English Heritage. Most of these church buildings are in rural areas. There are around 2,000 rural churches with weekly attendance lower than ten. It can be a significant responsibility for those small congregations to look after that church, and one has to recognise that this is a burden that falls on thriving parishes. There is no ‘one size fits

Thursday

Ysenda Maxtone Graham

It takes a village (or six): the battle for rural churches

Some of the longest job descriptions belong to rural Church of England clergy. ‘So what do you do?’ ‘I’m the Rector of Aldwincle, Clopton, Pilton, Stoke Doyle, Thorpe Achurch, Titchmarsh and Wadenhoe.’ Every one of these place names evokes an ancient Pevsner-worthy church, smelling of candlewax, damp hymn books and brass polish. Though many villages no longer have a shop or a pub, most do still have a parish church used for regular services — even if only on the first and third Sunday of the month. You push open the creaky door, and last Sunday’s hymns are still up on the hymn board. Last week the brilliant blind member

Thursday

The Spectator

Female bishops are very, very old news

Female bishops The Reverend Libby Lane was ordained as Bishop of Stockport, the Church of England’s first female bishop. — By the time the first 32 female C of E vicars were ordained in 1994, the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts had had a female bishop, Barbara Harris, for five years. — Yet the first Anglican woman priest was ordained half a century earlier. Florence Li Tim-Oi had been deacon at Macao Protestant Chapel in the early 1940s. When the war prevented a priest travelling from Japanese-occupied territory to administer communion, Li Tim-Oi was ordained by the Bishop of Victoria on 25 January 1944. Cash or card? The managing director of Visa

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

How can the Church keep earning its right to intervene in politics?

Given the political parties are already well underway with their General Election campaigns, the Church of England couldn’t have waited much later to dispense its advice on how to campaign and what to campaign about. In this week’s Spectator, the Archbishop of York gets on with handing out some of that advice, telling me that politicians are behaving like men arguing at a urinal over who is ‘the biggest of the men’ and explaining why he’s edited what appears to be a pretty lefty collection of essays called On Rock or Sand? Firm Foundations for Britain’s Future. You can read the full interview here. That book includes a chapter from

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Archbishop John Sentamu on why politicians are like men arguing at a urinal

‘I shoot further than you, I am the biggest of the men!’ says John Sentamu, Archbishop of York. He is talking about the way politicians conduct themselves in the immigration debate. ‘We have got to be more grown up about it and not be like people who are screaming at each other across banks of a river,’ he says. ‘They mustn’t do what some people call male diplomacy which is always around the urinal… that kind of argument, it doesn’t work!’ Sentamu prefers a still small voice of calm from politicians, even if his own voice is booming and indomitable. His is never more than a few words away from a

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Meet Libby Lane – the first interview with the first woman bishop

Why is Libby Lane the first woman bishop appointed by the Church of England? She was one of the first to be ordained as a vicar 20 years ago when the Church approved women priests, and today she was unveiled as the Bishop of Stockport. But she was not one of the favourites, and so Bishop Libby was as much of a surprise as her appointment, which the Church kept under wraps until late last night. When we meet in the Crewe YMCA, she has just been touring the building surrounded by a small cloud of cameras and journalists and is preparing to say goodbye to her congregation at a

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: Why we should subsidise weddings

Let’s subsidise weddings Sir: Fraser Nelson (‘Marrying money’, 15 November) points out that marriages tend to last longer than cohabitations and that this is a good thing. But there is only one obvious difference between being married and merely cohabitating. If you are married you’ve been through a marriage ceremony and if you’re not you haven’t. The marriage ceremony brings the couple together to make vows to each other before God (optionally), the representatives of the state and their gathered families and friends. But crucially at these ceremonies the wedding guests also formally commit to supporting the couple in their marriage. This is a very beautiful thing in itself but its

Sunday

Melanie McDonagh

Remembrance Sunday is marvellous; for God-free war commemoration, go to France

The most remarkable thing about the ceremony at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday is that it just gets more popular. A ceremony that a generation ago might have been confidently predicted to appeal to a smaller and smaller bit of the population has somehow attracted the kind of benign publicity you get for the Children in Need awards. And the enormous crowds at the Tower to see the moatfull of ceramic poppies – one for each British life lost – has taken everyone by surprise. It’s got a good deal to do with the centenary of the First World War, of course, but that itself suggests that in a fractured

Tuesday

Theo Hobson

Muddled souls – Britain is a non-religious, Christian-ish country

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_30_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Ruby Wax and Andy Puddicombe join Mary Wakefield to discuss the quasi-religion of ‘mindfulness’.”] Listen [/audioplayer] A new survey of British religious attitudes is out. It reveals a surprising degree of hostility to religion, and an unsurprising degree of muddle. David Cameron’s claim that Britain is a Christian country looks refuted, for more than 60 per cent of respondents said they are ‘not religious at all’. Presumably this must mean that less than 40 per cent call themselves Christian? Er, no – 56 per cent say they are Christian. It seems that Britain has a strong contingent of nonreligious Christians, like secular Jews. The most striking finding is

Tuesday

Ed West

Border controls are a basic human right – is it un-Christian to oppose mass immigration?

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_21_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Damian Thompson joins Fraser Nelson to discuss the Pope v the Vatican.” startat=928] Listen [/audioplayer] Is it sinful to be not so keen on the whole immigration thing? I suppose Justin Welby thinks so, according to his recent comments. ‘We have to be careful and you can’t over-burden the community, you have to be realistic about that but also we must never – part of the Christian, at the heart of Christian teaching about the human being is all human beings are of absolutely equal and infinite value and the language we use must reflect the value of the human being, and not treat immigration as just a

Friday

Theo Hobson

Anglicanism keeps muddling on — thank God

A new survey of Anglican clergy has been published. Its findings are reassuringly unsurprising. For example, almost one-third of the clergy identify as evangelical; exactly one-third as Catholic; and just over one-third as something in the middle. In a different question, a quarter identify as conservative. Just over half want to keep the established Church in its current form; the rest want some sort of reform. Most call for the Anglican Communion to be more accepting of diversity, rather than seek stricter uniformity. Same in relation to the national Church. Sensible middle-way muddling-through remains the dominant approach: half the clergy think that Christians are discriminated against in some way by

Thursday

The Spectator

Podcast: Campaign errors, Scotland turns its back and Anglican wars over women bishops

Scotland goes to the polls today, but whichever way the vote goes, it’s clear who lost the campaign: ‘No’ was outsmarted at every stage of the referendum battle. But how was this allowed to happen? In this week’s podcast, James Forsyth discusses what went wrong with Hugo Rifkind and Alex Massie. If Scotland does become independent, does the rest of Britain owe them anything? And if they stay, should we be forever grateful? In his column this week, Matthew Parris suggests the Spectator’s cover story last week – in which we asked our readers to write to Scots to ask them to stay – was unnecessary. He hopes that there

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Conservative Anglicans’ emergency plan to escape women bishops

Anglicans aren’t the sort of church-goers who set much store by miracles, signs and wonders. Yet their own church is one of the greatest miracles of our society: it has managed to hang together, in spite of raging differences, for centuries. Since 14 July, that miracle has been under threat. For most, it was a great leap forward when the General Synod finally approved the ordination of women bishops. A delighted Archbishop of Canterbury was ‘grateful to God and to answered prayers’. David Cameron called it a ‘great day for the church and for equality’. But one section of the church didn’t feel it was a great day. Members of the

Sunday

Damian Thompson

Islamic extremism and the hypocrisy of the Church of England

The Church of England has written to David Cameron accusing him of lacking ‘a coherent or comprehensive approach to Islamic extremism as it is developing across the globe’. The letter, signed by the the Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines, and approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, also reportedly accuses the PM of turning his back on Christians slaughtered or made homeless in northern Iraq – and wonders why Cameron has chosen to concentrate on the plight of the Yazidis instead. These criticisms are spot on. But I’m surprised that the C of E has had the brass neck to make them. For decades, the Anglican and Catholic Churches

Wednesday

Tim Ecott

Never mind women bishops — why is the C of E now pretending the Devil doesn’t exist?

Once again, a feeble desire to be democratic and appeal to potential church-goers has led the C of E into muddy waters. No, I’m not talking about women bishops, but the Church of England’s much more significant — and damaging – decision, rubber stamped last Sunday, to remove the Devil from the liturgy of Baptism. Instead of being asked to reject ‘the devil and all rebellion against God’, parents at a Christening will now blandly be asked to ‘turn away from sin’. The change of language means the liturgy is now so removed from the original Book of Common Prayer as to be unrecognisable, but members of the Synod were

Monday

James Forsyth

Cameron will breathe a sigh of relief if the Church of England vote for women bishops

Number 10 has a lot on its mind with the looming Cabinet reshuffle, but I suspect that there’ll be a sigh of relief there if the General Synod of the Church of England votes in favour of allowing women bishops. For if proposals for women bishops are defeated again, the problem could well end up in parliament’s court. There are those in the Church of England who believe that if this measure fails again then parliament should simply legislate to allow them. Given the status of the Church of England, parliament has the power to do that and there are some influential MPs who privately favour this course. But the