King Charles III — Defender of the Faith
It really ought to be a big story, because it is a big story. And yet, because it is prosaic continuity, nobody has really noticed. But at the Accession Council…
Anglicanism
King pledges to defend freedom of religion
The media headlines and chatter are wrong. Even the Church Times got it wrong. King Charles III has not pledged "to protect all faiths". He did not say "I will protect all faiths". He is not defending a "universal faith".…
Liz Truss: “I share the values of the Christian faith”
In a few weeks the United Kingdom will have a new Prime Minister. On current polling, it looks as though Liz Truss will be invited to kiss hands with the…
Welby: most Anglicans recognise the Pope as “the father of the Church in the West”
As the Lambeth Conference drew to a close, the Archbishop of Canterbury waded into ecumenism, declaring he believed that most Anglicans in England now recognise the Pope as "the father…
Sandi Toksvig and her caricature Church of England
Sandi Toksvig is a patron of Humanists UK. She is also openly gay, and married to a psychotherapist called Debbie. Her relationship with the Church is strained at the best…
Lambeth Conference 2022 looked outward, sideways and upward, but the world only saw inward
From the four corners of the world the came, to kiss the shrine of Canterbury. Some 660 bishops from 165 countries representing dioceses and Christian communities from the global Anglican…
Diversity: Conservative Party shows Church of England how to do it
The eight candidates in the Conservative leadership contest are the most diverse and inclusive group of contenders for Prime Minister in history. They have risen on merit, and won the…
BBC says it’s ‘unfortunate’ the Queen is Defender of the Faith
As the Platinum Jubilee celebrations of Her Majesty the Queen entered their final day, the BBC gave us a running commentary on the Platinum Pageant as it crawled along the…
Martyn Percy leaves the Church of England
In the glorious Chapel of Exeter College, Oxford, on the Feast Day of St. Matthias the Apostle on Saturday 14th May, the Very Rev'd Professor Martyn Percy preached his final…
Welby and Kirill demand peace in Ukraine (but woolliness won’t stop war)
The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Patriarch of Moscow have had a video conference in which they both agreed on the need for disciples of Jesus to be peacemakers, and…
Matthew Parris just wants to be loved, accepted, and buried in the CofE
Matthew Parris has written a strange a piece in the Times about the Church of England: 'Anglicanism was never really about God', he decrees, with a kind of semi-detached secular-papal…
Queen reminds General Synod of its essential mission
The 11th General Synod of the Church of England was opened yesterday, and the Supreme Governor was absent for the first time since Synod was created more than 50 years…
General Synod elections: the ‘liberal drift’ is not a foregone conclusion
The Rev'd Peter Ould has been psephological over at Psephizo, and his analysis of the recent Synod elections merits some consideration in respect of the 'liberal drift' of the Church…
Anglican Conclave to ‘sift’ all candidates for vacancies to see if they are ‘appropriate’
There is no doubt that the governance structure of the Church of England is labyrinthine, convoluted, inefficient and opaque. It's what comes of half a millennium of Catholic and Reformed…
Former archbishops split on assisted suicide, and there’s no Anglican via media
In the red corner is George, Lord Carey of Clifton, Archbishop of Canterbury 1991-2002. He favours the legalisation of assisted suicide (or assisted dying, if you prefer) because "there is…
Does it matter if Church of England parishes wither on the vine?
At the inaugural meeting of 'Save the Parish' this week at Great St Bartholomew's in Smithfield, London, the Rev'd Marcus Walker was animated and agitated. Time is short, he told…
‘Key limiting factors’: the end of stipendiary parish ministry
Priests are expensive. Church buildings are expensive. Theological formation is expensive. So the Church of England has set out its 'Vision and Strategy' for cost-cutting: 10,000 new lay-led churches over…
I do trust Tories, says Bishop of St Davids, lying through her smiles
The apology issued by the Bishop of St Davids (of the Church in Wales) in the wake of her 'Never never never trust a Tory' tweet is disingenuous. It is…
Bishop of St Davids says all Tories are duplicitous liars
The Bishop of St Davids, the Rt Rev'd Joanna Penberthy, was the first woman to be elected a bishop in the Church in Wales, and into an archbishopric which can…
By sacking its Chaplain, Trent College, Nottingham, rejects fundamental British values
Trent College in Long Eaton, between Nottingham and Derby, is an independent Anglican school, which used to have a chaplain. He was the Rev'd Dr Bernard Randall, a former chaplain…