Manners maketh Man/Woman/Other
At the State Opening of Parliament yesterday, television footage showed the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition leading a long line of their parliamentary colleagues into the Upper Chamber…
Discipline
CDM PTSD: the trauma, stress and disorder of the Clergy Discipline Measure
The Clergy Discipline Measure (2003, amended by the Safeguarding and Clergy Discipline Measure 2016) is a Measure passed by the General Synod of the Church of England for the maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline. It has the force and effect of…
Jumping, skipping, dabbing and bouncing clergy – are we ordaining Tigger?
'Likewise must the deacons be grave', writes St Paul in his first pastoral letter to Timothy (3:8), expounding the necessary character and qualifications for Church leadership. The adjective is associated…
Redefining hate: from diabolical anti-love to any criticism of the fragile self
This is a guest post by by the Rev'd Dr Gavin Ashenden. _____ During the General Synod debate on homosexuality I took to twitter. It’s like sitting up in the…
CofE General Sex Synod 2017: not one question about the Persecuted Church
Over the past few months Christians in the village of Jalalabad in Ghazipur District, India, where temperatures frequently soar to 40°C, have had their water supply cut to force them…
Sex and the Church: how does a “radical new Christian inclusion” differ from the world’s?
You know that church that's seemingly in crisis and turmoil? Well, today it'll carry on praying, worshipping, visiting the ill and bereaved, loving one another... (and re-stocking food-banks). And it'll…
Cartoons of Cantuar: how cartoonists have portrayed the Archbishop of Canterbury over the centuries
This is a guest post by Fergus Butler-Gallie, an Anglican ordinand at Westcott House, Cambridge. __________________________ It was noted in the 1930s that the only three people whose opinion actually…
The Bishop of Grantham is gay and celibate – so bloody what?
It will come as a surprise to many to hear that there is a Bishop of Grantham; moreso that he is no relation of the Dowager Countess. But to…
Anglican Primates pronounce, but the Holy Spirit prevails
The media bulletins are full of 'Episcopal Church suspended from the Anglican Communion', with a list of prohibitions and fulminations about 'second class Anglicans', with Giles Fraser reminding us…