Gavin Ashenden

BBC censors Sikh history in case it offends Muslims

October 6, 2019
Archbishop Cranmer
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Lord (Indarjit) Singh has been almost as permanent a fixture on BBC Radio 4's 'Thought for the Day' as the Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines. The BBC likes a certain sort of thought for the day, delivered by a certain…

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Church of England guidance used against Christian in court

July 22, 2019
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There's something ever so slightly disquieting about this, but not for the reasons permeating the websites and chat-threads of Evangelical Christendom. Dr David Mackereth, who said in a Department of…

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Rev’d Jonathan Fletcher: CofE and GAFCON co-operate to manage risk to the vulnerable

June 28, 2019
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The weeks leading up to General Synod were never going to be a happy time for the Church of England. Anyone in touch with the survivors of Anglican abuse across…

Bishop blocked by Twitter – for telling the truth about sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church

October 1, 2018
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That notorious purveyor of hate and guile, the Rt Rev'd Dr Gavin Ashenden, has been blocked by Twitter. Actually, the tense is wrong: he was blocked by Twitter, but recanted…

Gerald Coates says Justin Welby denied saying that the EU was “the greatest dream realised for human beings since the fall of the Western Roman Empire”

June 8, 2018
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Gerald Coates attended a Lambeth Palace garden party, and has published an account on his Facebook page: Now this is curious, not to say confusing. Gerald Coates is one of…

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When did Transgenderism supplant Anglican orthodoxy as a qualification for Holy Orders?

June 4, 2018
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If you believe that women may not be priests; that Holy Orders are a male preserve; that a woman may not represent Christ at the altar; that 'woman priest' is…

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Bishop Michael Curry brought with him the Spirit of Pentecost

May 23, 2018
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The reaction to the Royal Wedding address/sermon delivered by Bishop Michael Curry has resulted in post-match analysis akin to that of 'Match of the Day'. Dull it wasn’t – everyone…

Marx over Pareto: why do so many Anglican bishops adopt a socialist economic and political outlook?

January 29, 2018
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In the same spirit as Prof Nigel Biggar, the Oxford ethicist who has provoked hysterical opposition by claiming that the British Empire was a morally mixed phenomenon and was the…

Bishop Gavin Ashenden – if only the Church of England had so consecrated

September 28, 2017
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It sounds good, doesn't it? Bishop Gavin Ashenden. Say it slower. Bish-op Gav-in Ash-en-den. The Rev'd Dr Gavin Ashenden has been consecrated bishop – The Rt Rev'd Dr Gavin Ashenden.…

The problem with ‘The Muslim Problem’

August 15, 2017
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Trevor Kavanagh, political editor of The Sun, wrote an article yesterday gracefully entitled: 'Now Philip Hammond is finally Out he must shut the door behind him and take control over…

The two opposed expressions of Anglicanism

July 25, 2017
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There is a letter published in today's Telegraph signed by 23 conservative (/traditionalists/orthodox) Anglicans concerning the tensions in the Church over England (and wider Anglicanism) over same-sex marriage and other…

Redefining hate: from diabolical anti-love to any criticism of the fragile self

July 14, 2017
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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…

We need to talk more about Jesus and Mohammed and less about Christianity and Islam

June 5, 2017
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This is a guest post by the Rev’d Dr Gavin Ashenden. _____ The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham claimed in public that Salman Abedi, the man who slaughtered children…

Islam, Islamism and Islamophobia: our culture has lost its reason, or its capacity to reason

May 25, 2017
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This is a guest post by the Rev’d Dr Gavin Ashenden. ___________________________ The public square is a charged place. Three contenders are striving against each other. Emotion, reason and fundamentalism…

Michael Gove sugar-coats Jesus and preaches fake good news

April 18, 2017
249 Comments

This is a guest post by the Rev’d Dr Gavin Ashenden, former Chaplain to the Queen, who is presently in the (complicated) process of leaving the Church of England. ___________________________…

As Gavin Ashenden leaves the Church of England, the Ordinariate circles like a vulture

March 18, 2017
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"I thought you'd already gone through the exit door a long time ago. Unless you actually want to stay and fight?" tweeted the Rt Rev'd Pete Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden,…

Discrimination and discernment: an exercise in relativist supremacy

March 13, 2017
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This is a guest post by the Rev’d Dr Gavin Ashenden, former Chaplain to the Queen. ___________________________ In the great amphitheatre of Twitter a gladiatorial combat recently took place between…

Philip North crisis: ‘Good Disagreement’ has become ‘bad bullying’

March 11, 2017
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This is a guest post by the Rev’d Dr Gavin Ashenden, former Chaplain to the Queen. ___________________________ When the house that has been painstakingly constructed on the sand falls flat,…

Same-sex marriage: what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?

February 2, 2017
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This is a guest post by the Rev'd Dr Gavin Ashenden, sometime Chaplain to the Queen. ___________________________ ‘Archbishop Cranmer’ has written a balanced and generous analysis of the House of…

Rev’d Dr Gavin Ashenden resigns as Chaplain to the Queen

January 22, 2017
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After a conversation instigated by officials at Buckingham Palace, it is with regret that the Rev'd Dr Gavin Ashenden – theologian, academic, columnist and occasional contributor to this blog –…