The choleric blogger who rather grandly calls himself Archbishop Cranmer is incandescent over an issue in Oxford - where the mosque lately decided not to try and broadcast a muezzin after all - because some Christians who called their church session a 'call to prayer' have apologized for offending Muslims. If you read the Oxford Mail report it is a bit more balanced and explains how the 'offence' occurred and how it related to Islam. But Cranmer is very, very, very angry indeed...
Hmmm. One could argue that sweet apology for offence taken (even if not intended) is well within the Christian remit. I always thought the two factions of Northern Ireland 'Christians" in the Garvachy road row were both behaving appallingly, since properly-Christian Protestants would have said "No, we won't march if it upsets you, brother" and properly-Christian Catholics would have replied "No, of course, do march, it's important to you". But hell, what do I know?
Continue reading "Oxford row over Call to Prayer: Christians apologize" »
Nice musings on this blog about 'cognitive surplus', which is a theory put out by Clay Shirky that we have all been stupefied for half a century by the telly and are now waking up and thinking for ourselves. Blog muses: "I wonder if there isn't something similar happening in the church. For
a good while now churches have been seen as religious vendors, giving
people what they need spiritually, offering a form of entertainment
that can be taken in passively, etc. But there are quite a few people
that are realising that this has led to a sort of collective spiritual
stupor. And when people come out of this stupor, what you find is
people not wanting a passive, received religion, but a spirituality
that they are a part of..."
Continue reading "Cognitive surplus and religion - a thinking blogonaut writes" »
 The BBC reports that in Kenya, in the largely Somali enclave pictured called "little Mogadishu", refugee Somali Christians are still forced to meet in secret for worship for fear of persecution by Muslim neighbours. They keep their Muslim names as camouflage, but meet in a secluded house just outside Nairobi. " of men and women meet at least once a week like early Christians, to worship in secret "Their prayer session is simple and conducted in Somali. Elders take turns to pray or read verses from the Somali bible before a sermon is delivered." There are stories of their being attacked, even killed, by Muslim compatriots. This is not new: the Chicago Christian Post reported it fully, with others, two years ago and there was criticism of UNHCR for not doing anything to support these refugees who have suffered once in Somalia, and now again live in fear.
 Bess writes: Here’s a new take on church branding: Birmingham Cathedral has, according to The Sunday Telegraph, approved a scheme to open wine bars named after the Cathedral around the city. Each bar will have stained-glass windows, religious pictures on the walls and be painted a shade of “Episcopal purple” Whose bright idea was this? Mark Hope-Urwin, formerly a chief executive with the John Lewis partnership department stores and now the cathedral's first “director of hospitality and welcome”. Which, in plain English, means that he has a remit to rebrand and remarket the church. Other Hope-Urwin brainwaves include “loyalty cards” for regular church-goers which will give them discounts at cathedral shops. He explains: “This isn’t about turning the cathedral into a big money-making machine, but we have to think of how we can change and spread the brand. We are in a competitive environment.” Clearly. God v Mammon perhaps?
 An interesting controversy over a new Bible which arranges Scripture chronologically: out next month, it is marketed as the "only study Bible that presents the text of the New King James Version in chronological order". Gospels, Psalms and the Epistles of Apostle Paul are chopped up and re-woven with other texts to fit the historical timeline.The accounts of Jesus' life as detailed in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are combined into one narrative based on the order of events found in Mark.Letters written by Apostle Paul to members of the Early Church are worked into the chronology of Acts. The Christian blogosphere is alight with argument...
 This is an ingenious knotboard. Every knot has a theological meaning. It is made by Bill King, a retired US coastguard officer. There you go.
Good to see religions fighting back against lookism. Hot on the news (see this blog) of the cancellation of the nuns' internet beauty contest we read that the calendar above - featuring hunky Mormon missionaries - has got its maker excommunicated by the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Still plenty of them online, though.. and an interesting interview with Chad Hardy, who dunnit. He has sold nearly 10,000 copies and told AP that he has "no ill feelings".. At $15 a pop, I bet he hasn't.
The Toledo Blade reports that Joe Eszterhas, who has written many screenplays including Basic Instinct, has now written about his spiritual conversion and his belief in God. In Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith, he tells of a dramatic conversion after an operation for throat cancer and orders to reform his lifestyle. ""I was going crazy. I was jittery. I twitched. I trembled. I had no patience for anything. … Every single nerve ending was demanding a drink and a cigarette..." He plopped down on a curb and sobbed "Please God, help me." Read on...
A group of Christian Bikers (here's their website) from Scotland are going to ride ("Run for the Son") to raise money for motorbikes - and pedal bikes - so that remote communities in the Congo, with its wrecked roads and tough tracks, can get Bibles. And other useful things, one hopes. They set off next Saturday, passing through 72 towns and villages across Scotland. Not, one hopes, meeting any Hell's Angels (though the ones I know are very mild these days).
Bess writes: Well, it's certainly one way of getting felons to find God. According to the Church of England newspaper, a chaplain in Yorkshire reports that young offenders can relate to a "stitched up" or "grassed on" Jesus Christ. The Rev Shelagh Jones explains: "The lads I work with have been there too. They understand what happened on Good Friday and identify with it. For many getting baptised is an opportunity to make a fresh start." As many a former prisoner can testify no doubt: remember Jonathan Aitken?
Bess writes: Is it a batty idea or original? Inspired or just plain desperate? The archbishop of York has asked teenagers to make one -minute long films on their mobile phones which answer the question: "What is the meaning of Christmas". They are asked to send the results into The True Meaning competition and a top prize of £3,000 will be awarded to the winning youth faith group or church. "It's your film. It's your story. Here's the chance to express your thoughts," says the archbishop, Dr John Sentamu. Entries are to be submitted to the website: www.truemeaning.co.uk, though it's no free-for-all: a church or 'youth' leader is asked to check over the film first. So, no binge-drinking then.
Bess writes: Women are abandoning the Church in droves – for Wicca, claims a new report. Religion and Women in the West, a study compiled by a sociologist based at the University of Derby, claims that as many as 50,000 young women a year are swapping Christ for Wicca, because it empowers females. And who is to blame for this growing trend? Apparently, that magically empowered televisual heroine, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (see picture of Sarah Michelle Gellar who plays the eponymous Buffy, above) is at least partially responsible. Or at least that is the belief of the author's report, Dr Kirstin Aune, who explains: “Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by Wicca, as popularised by the TV series”.
Dr Aune adds: “Young women tend to express egalitarian values and dislike the traditional hierarchies they imagine are integral to the Church. Women’s ordination, as priests and now bishops, has dominated debate and headlines – but while looking at women in the pulpit we have taken our eyes off the pews, where a shift with more consequences for the Church’s survival is underway.”
Bess writes: American teenagers who regularly attend Church are more likely to finish high school, a new study claims. Sociologists from the University of Iowa say non-Church going teenagers are 60 per cent more likely to drop out of high school. In fact, they even claim that church attendance has more impact on average marks in class than whether a pupil’s parents have obtained a university degree. But, as eni reports, religious faith itself does not seem to be the million-dollar recipe for success:
Jennifer Glanville, a sociologist at the university’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences notes:
"Surprisingly, the importance of religion to teens had very little impact on their educational outcomes," That suggests that the act of attending church - the structure and the social aspects associated with it - could be more important to educational outcomes than the actual religion."
Instead, the study suggests four potential reasons why church-going may impact on exam results. These include the fact that at Church teenagers will meet a range of older adults, some of whom will act as potential role models; that any friends made at church are likely to share similar values and that in church friendships, the parents of both sets of teenagers are likely to be in contact. A fourth factor is that church-going teenagers are more likely to take part in extra-curricular activities.
The BBC reports, straightfacedly, that Fr. Antonio Rungi of Mondragone, near Naples, has had to call off his idea of a beauty contest for nuns, after expressions of horror from the religious authorities. He says he was only trying to counteract the image of nuns as elderly and dour, and wouldn't have put them on the catwalk. What he WOULD have done is to put photos on the internet and let people vote. Doh! Catwalks are infinitely more dignified than chucking yourself to internet voters, as he will learn if he reads any of the malicious public quotes on sites reporting this (I'm not linking, google them yourself). Fr Rungi - supposedly a moral theologian - sounds a bit petulant - his bishop doesn't understand him and ""Nuns are - above all - women, and beauty is a gift from God,"
he told Corriere della Sera. Possibly he watched Audrey Hepburn one time too many...
 I see the old chestnut about church halls banning Yoga as a pagan exercise has cropped up again lately. When two churches banned yoga classes in the UK, there was outrage among the Hindu community and letters to the Archbishop. Meanwhile, a Catholic priest and teacher in india protested that British clergy who describe yoga as a “sham,” a “false philosophy” and “un-Christian” are uninformed about the practice - reports the 'Christian Today' evangelical webse .
“They know nothing about yoga,” commented Father John Ferreira, the principal of St Peter's College in Agra, one of India's oldest educational institutions.) during a recent interview ().
Those wishing to stretch, bend and explore the topic further can try the Christian pro-Yoga site here or an grumpily anti-Yoga (but informative) one on biblequery. This offers the analogy of a married woman who hangs out with a man friend who criticizes her husband. It places Yoga as definitely more un-Christian than - er - basketball - because it is concerned with spirtual energy. Which is Church business. It also cites a yoga site saying "those of you who may have suffered from Christianization in past centuries may prefer a more moderate approach to God outside a church or religion, which is certainly fine and perfect. God never has been attached to any church or religion…." and rather meanly adds "Some yoga gurus do quite well financially." Yep, well so do some US evangelists..
But if you want a really anti-Yoga stance try Jesusblogger, who reckons it opens the door to possession by demonic spirits. Which may come as a shock to those mild kind souls down on the mats on the Church hall floor...
Those who tend to think of their clergy role as a sort of souped-up social work have been given a quiet reproof by Pope Benedict. Talking on how to be a good priest he affirmed the value he sees in celibacy - "truly making oneself available to the Lord in the fullness of one's being " . But he also said "I know well how difficult it is today -- when a priest finds himself directing not only one easily managed parish but several parishes and pastoral units; when he must be available to give this or that counsel, and so forth -- how difficult it is to live such a life. I believe that in this situation it is important to have the courage to limit oneself and to be clear about deciding on priorities. A fundamental priority of priestly life is to be with the Lord and thus to have time for prayer" An hour a day is his prescription, to "continually enrich ourselves inwardly" as well as tending to parishioners and services (and jumble sales, obviously, though he didn't mention those specifically).
Continue reading "Pope Benedict: priests need time to pray" »
 When is a Buddha not a Buddha? Are church authorities being racist here? The Catholic News in Australia says that the Brisbane Archbishop John Bathersby is considering whether the controversial St Mary's parish at South Brisbane "is in communion with the Catholic Church" after a parishioner protested to the Vatican over a "Buddha-like statue" of a monk. "A very right wing parishioner came and was offended by some of the artwork in the church, including some indigenous art, and an image of a praying monk which they mistook as a Buddha,"
However, the statue - which was about 1 metre tall - had since been taken out of the church by a disgruntled person and smashed. But how can you know what is a Buddha and what is simply a praying figure with oriental features?
 There is a curious subtext to the story of a piece of extreme vandalism at Exeter Cathedral. A 100-yearold statue - see its empty niche in the picture - was broken off at the legs and its head removed. The website thisisexeter says "Initial reports suggest that it was not a random or drunken attack as a rope is thought to have been used to pull the statue down. No other statues were damaged."
The statue was of St Methodius, patron saint of Slavs. Why pick on him? He lived from 810-to 885 AD and his brother was St Cyril - inventor of cyrillic script - who preached Christianity to Moravia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia and other Slavic nations. A respondent blogs " The Exeter Cathedral desecration is just the smashing of an image; but the import of it is very much what "mother" Russia is doing this very day in Georgia. With Russia now threatening Poland, it's not surprising that Saint Methodius would be the symbolic "hit.""
For more on St Methodius, try here.
 This is an awful story. No, really awful. Stop reading now if you have nightmares, or indeed if you have sentimental feelings about the sacredness of animals. Australian press reports that in Bangladesh Rubel Sheikh, aged 25, and his devout Muslim mother travelled to the Khan Jahan Ali shrine where live five sacred crocodiles. The young man waded into the pond hoping to be ritually 'blessed' by a crocodile. But instead it ate him. Locals say this is unusual - "Normally, the crocodiles are very friendly and do not harm people.''
An extraordinary story in the Sunday Telegraph: it appears that bishops have had to warn clergy of a scam whereby 'bogus' weddings to bypass immigration controls are being celebrated in Anglican churches. "Foreign nationals have turned to the Church because it is exempt from rules that require all foreign nationals from outside the European Union to obtain a Home Office certificate of approval to marry in a register office."
In other words, there seems to be evidence that vicars are being duped to exploit a loophole which -in a secular state - seems anachronistic and rather shocking.
Libby Purves is a Times columnist, novelist and Radio 4 broadcaster. Her interest in the glories, inspirations and eccentricities of world religions and cultural traditions was fuelled by an upbringing in Bangkok, Israel, Africa, France and a series of convent schools. Bess Twiston Davies works for the Times Register section and is a regular contributor to the Faith page and Times Online. She studied Hispanic studies and English at Sheffield University and has a journalism diploma from The Robert Schuman Institute, Angers, France. Contact Libby or Bess at: faithcentral@timesonline.co.ukYou might also enjoy Articles of Faith, Ruth Gledhill's wonderful blog about religious affairs.
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The choleric blogger who rather grandly calls himself Archbishop Cranmer is incandescent over an issue in Oxford - where the mosque lately decided not to try and broadcast a muezzin after all - because some Christians who called their church session a 'call to prayer' have apologized for offending Muslims. If you read the Oxford Mail report it is a bit more balanced and explains how the 'offence' occurred and how it related to Islam. But Cranmer is very, very, very angry indeed...
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