Politics is too important to leave to politicians
"The Archbishop's platitudes do far more to divide the country than unite it" wrote the Telegraph's Charlotte Gill in a piece headed: 'Justin Welby has no business using his sacred…
Secularity
A Christian case for Brexit
If one anti-Brexit argument persists within the clergy hierarchy of the Church of England, it is that the UK's departure from the European Union is a fundamentally 'un-Christian' pursuit. The belief that we "pull up the drawbridge", "withdraw from the…
We need to make more space for silence
High School student Jack Higgins has a severe form of autism which makes him hypersensitive to noise. His graduation rite of passage was looking to be an impossible occasion, with…
Notre Dame de Paris – the soul of France consumed by unholy smoke
The air is full of mourning and crying. The hearts of Christians are bereft; another tribulation of Christendom defiles God's acre on the Seine. They sang ancient Elysian hymns as…
Government slaps secularists: “England has an established Church”
Amidst all the equality clamour and the siren voices of secularism, you can perhaps be forgiven for occasionally forgetting that England still has an Established Church, that its status is…
Church of England’s Brexit prayers – what exactly do they mean?
A few months ago the Archbishop of York issued a Brexit prayer, or, rather, 'A Prayer for Parliament in Time of Brexit Trouble'. It was a fairly benign effort which…
‘Light in the Darkness’ – Rev’d Jonathan Aitken preaches Christmas sermon to the Foreign Office
Here is the sermon preached by the Rev'd Jonathan Aitken at the Foreign Office Carol Service, Grand Locarno Room, King Charles St, Westminster, on Tuesday 18th December 2018: It is a…
National Secular Society equates Anglicans with Islamists baying for blood
While the Church of England was preparing to lead the nation in a corporate commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day 1918, the National Secular Society issued a tweet.…
Why, when church attendance is falling, is cathedral attendance soaring?
An email was delivered to Cranmer's Tower at 11.15am on Tuesday of this week. It was headed: 'Record numbers attend cathedrals at Christmas', followed by a very red, upper-case warning:…
Catholic Herald calls for disestablishment of the Church of England
The Catholic Herald has long held a certain antipathy toward the term 'Protestant', with occasional blurts of 'bigot' aimed at anyone so obtuse as to be duped by its theology…
British voters prefer EU to non-EU migrants – because they’re mostly white and Christian?
"This point almost never gets the attention it deserves", tweeted Red Tory guru Phillip Blond, when a 2017 LSE poll on preferential immigration was brought to his attention. "Absolutely right…
BBC Newsnight provides a pulpit for the myth of secular neutrality
"The best guarantee of religious tolerance is a well-organised secular state... there is a higher authority; it's called the law," proclaimed author Ian McEwan on the BBC's 'Newsnight', in a…
Ofsted chief says they have ‘no anti-faith bias’, but does she have anti-Protestant leanings?
Ofsted Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman gave a speech yesterday evening entitled 'The Ties that Bind', which concerned the need for a little more 'muscular liberalism' in education. She spoke at…
Do we need a new public theology?
"There's such a need for good public theology," tweeted Fr Gregory Platten, Vicar of All Saints Church, London, N20. "Increasingly struck by how much theology is written for theologians alone:…
How Bishop George Bell became a victim of Church of England ‘spin’ and a narrative of ‘decisive leadership’
This is a guest post by The Very Rev’d Professor Martyn Percy, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. _______ Some may begin to wonder how exactly the Church of England’s National…
Richard Dawkins: Oxford’s Christian Union is “predatory and nasty”
The 'Oxford University bans Christian Union' story has gone half way round the world, and it really shouldn't have. Oxford's Cherwell newspaper originally carried it: 'Christian Union banned from Balliol…
The Paris Statement: a true Europe (marked by Christianity) vs the false Europe (utopian and tyrannical)
In May 2017, a group of conservative scholars and intellectuals met in Paris... No, don't yawn. They say they were "brought together by their common concern about the current state…
Welby is right: the UK economy is “broken”, but England’s church is limping
It was an unfortunate coincidence that on the day the British Social Attitudes survey was released which announced that more than half (53%) of the British public now describe themselves…
Lidl UK compounds cross removal by treating its customers as idiots
Lidl have been selling their own brand (Eirdanous) Greek food (moussaka, halloumi, meatballs, yoghurt etc) with a doctored image. Perhaps it wouldn't matter if they'd made the Aegean a little…
Sorry, left-wing clergy, but God supports strong and stable government
A gaggle of left-wing clergy is a tad upset that the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have used their General Election 'Pastoral Letter' to exhort Christians to consider the need…