Ruth Gledhill - Times Online - WBLG

Persection Index 19: The Holy Land

'This could get worse before it gets better,' warned Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, in a conference call with journalists just now on what is happening in Gaza.

Times Online has comprehensive coverage and a video. The Washington Post reports that the death toll has now topped 300. My question to Regev was, given the large amount of support in the West for Israel, and the sympathy for the barrage it receives from Hamas, how much thought was given to how Israel's fightback would be perceived, particularly given the disproportionality of deaths on either side? It seemed important to know if they were concerned at alienating or embarrassing allies, in particular allies that might be wavering in their support. With a new president about to be installed in the US, it did not seem this Gaza campaign was something that should be done lightly, quite apart from the shocking toll of civilian deaths.

Women bishops: what's the answer?

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Father, son and Holy Church

In what is believed to be a first, a father and son, both former Anglican clergy, have been ordained as Catholic priests and are now working for the same archdiocese, Birmingham.

Recessional: A poem of the times

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Recessional by Alan Franks.

A poem written specially for this blog at Christmas, with apologies to John Betjeman and Rudyard Kipling.

Gracious Lord, it seems like ages
Since we had a little chat.
Heaven knows, we've all been anxious -
Not that we blame you for that.
Father, what a dreadful year,
Losing much we hold most dear.

Persecution Index 18: Christmas 'struck out' in Orissa

More sad news from Orissa in northern India, where the authorities have at the last minute resisted a total Christmas shutdown caused by a deliberately-timed strike by Hindu groups. Violence against Christians throughout the state has continued since false accusations made them the culprit for the murder of Hindu leader Laxmanananda Saraswati.  The Indian Catolic News Service has more details. It appears that even though the strike will not go ahead, police have warned that there could be violence against Christians if they attempt to celebrate the festival on 25 December. Celebrations will be low key, if they happen at all. We should remember them in our prayers as our children sit down with their piles of presents, and we sit down with our turkey.

President of Iran delivers Channel 4 Christmas Message

Should we all suddenly be rather afraid? Channel 4 has invited the President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deliver its alternative Christmas message. Our news story on this is now up. My first response was astonished incredulity that they could have done this. But on reading the message, it is clear there are even more serious concerns than the dangerous cupidity of Channel 4. The president's message could be read as nothing less than an invitation. Islam demands that an enemy be offered the chance to convert before being attacked. Am I reading too much into it? Please tell me that I am. Irene Lancaster has posted on this with some good links as to why we should be worried. The full message is below, after some of the reactions starting to come in.

Archbishop of York: a Christmas message that makes sense

In tomorrow's Times, The Archbishop of York calls for tighter regulation of the money markets if they are not to fall victim again to the 'corrupting influence' of human action. Dr Sentamu warns that the present economic crisis shows that western society has lost sight of the moral purpose of money. He says: 'We have all worshipped at the temple of money and we have all placed beams in our own eyes.' Read it all in our comment section tomorrow.

'Hug neither tree nor man,' Pope tells men.

All journalists around the world will today be joining me in sending heavenwards a Cohenic 'Hallelujah!' to the Pope for his wonderful Christmas gift of a great news story. My story in today's Times is also the splash in the San Francisco Sentinel.

But really it is quite sad, and as I say in a commentary for TimesOnline, Christmas was never meant to be about the churches' recurrent obsession with homosexuality. You can vote on this in our poll on Times Online. A full English translation is posted below.

In his annual Christmas message to the Holy See, Pope Benedict XVI has referred to the world's growing obsession with protecting the environment and demanded equal priority be given his own obsession with protecting the created, heterosexual order. He seems to have failed to mention the economic crisis at all. Read his remarks in Italian or the summary on Zenit, reproduced below. John Allen has produced a summary translation, the official one won't be on the Vatican website until the new year. Catholic News Service also has a story. In brief, Pope Benedict XVI warned against gender manipulation. "What is often expressed and understood by the term 'gender,' is definitively resolved in the self-emancipation of the human being from creation and the Creator," he said. "Man wants to create himself, and to decide always and exclusively on his own about what concerns him." The Pope said:  "The rain forests certainly deserve our protection, but man as creature indeed deserves no less."

Belief in Michael Nazir-Ali

Astonishing story around today about how a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury's staff referred to the Bishop of Rochester Dr Michael Nazir-Ali as an 'a***hole' in a private memo concerning appointments sent to all 43 diocesan bishops and to Downing Street. The perpetrator, who has not been named, has been sacked.  Anglican Mainstream has the details. Besides all the obvious things I could say about this crude, incredible and outrageous insult to one of the truest bishops on the bench, what really strikes me most is the depressingly low-grade nature of the abuse. It really is the kind of thing an illiterate oaf with an IQ of 60 might say in a Tesco queue. From someone employed at Lambeth Palace, a more sophisticated forms of bullying might have been expected. Coincidentally, Dr Nazir-Ali is showing the Christian stuff of which he is made in a broadcast tonight on BBC Radio 3's latest Belief series, presented by Joan Bakewell. I am honoured to be able to give you the transcript, below. I wonder if the person who wrote this has ever had to bury a baby in a fruit crate because the parents could not afford a coffin? Truly, the  Bishop of Rochester is a prophet for our times and a mark of this is that he is disdained.

NB One interesting footnote. Whatever Bishop Nazir-Ali said that was so upsetting to this particular aide was said before Lambeth 2008. Rumours were rife at Lambeth about the existence of a document with this very word in it being applied to this same bishop, but everyone we asked about it denied it adamantly.

Finding happiness

The modern obsession is not so much fame, money or war as how to be happy. I've just reviewed Abbot Christopher Jamison's new book, 'finding happiness'. There's much in it that makes sense. Like so many of the best self-help books, it draws on the 12-step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous. It combines this with Benedictine insights drawn on the original 'step programme', the ancient monastic one on which the Rule of St Benedict is based. In this, the awareness of how to combat the seven deadly sins which has to underpin a successful embrace of the AA recovery programme is broadened to include an eight, acedia, or spiritual carelessness.  This is in fact covered in the 11th step of AA but gets little attention as a defect in its own right. Dom Christopher has performed an invaluable service in not doing just this. By making this philosophy accessible to non-religious and non-recovering alcoholics he has arguably offered a programme to help the West embark on the 'soul recovery' as he styles it that it so desperately needs.

 

Hindu snowman at Westminster Abbey: Happy Christmas

I love the story of the Hindu snowman unveiled the other day at Westminster Abbey. The Hindu Council has more details. There is also a video of the event.

Archbishop of Canterbury: Not 'end of world' if Church disestablished

The Archbishop of Canterbury has given a series of interviews to James Macintyre of the New Statesman. It is in the Christmas edition, out today, Wednesday. His sympathies seem to lie with disestablishment although he pulls back from endorsing it wholly, he clearly feels vindicated over his controviersial Sharia comments by subsequent developments in the UK and by the way Islamic finance systems have an inbuilt resistance to the credit crunch, and he feels the Anglican Communion post-Lambeth has passed a 'watershed.'

A Star in the West

You know that goosebumpy feeling you get when you know you're witnessing something truly extraordinary? I had it last night at the new West End production of Oliver. I guess it was a tiny, tiny reflection of how the shepherds must have felt when they saw the angel, and the Magi the star in the East.

Good karma for Cohen

Hallelujah, written by Leonard Cohen, is heading to be the Christmas number one after Alexandra Burke won X-Factor with it. Times writer Alan Franks, who met the legendary Canadian songwriter soon after he ended his retreat as a Buddhist monk, analyses the song's spiritual significance in an exclusive article for this blog. Watch a video of the Alexandra's Hallelujah below. There is a good discussion going about Hallelujah and X-Factor on the forums at Leonard Cohen's own site.

Alan Franks writes:

Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah never set out to be a rock song, any more than its 74-year-old author set out to be a rock singer. But both have acquired that label by virtue of their sheer popularity and transcendence over the years.

Britain's 'massacre of the carols'.

After 20 years of witnessing the joyous Christmas spectacle of the annual 'winter lights', local authorities in Britain have finally got the message. This year, it seems civic dignitaires understand that not only do other faiths not want Christmas banned, they actually quite like it. And in any case, perhaps our town halls realise that they do not need to undermine the spirit of Christmas any more. They've got the good old churches of these isles to do it for them.

(Pic of carol singers from Cymru's impressive new St John's members' website, chosen to show carol singers who are emphatically not undermining the spirit of Christmas.)

'Ro' on why our society needs help.

Update: Jon Ungoed-Thomas has done a report in The Sunday Times on Rowan Williams' visit to the pub church Solace in Cardiff.

He writes: 'The Archbishop of Canterbury told shoppers yesterday that Britain was a country that was “unhappy” and “didn’t seem to like itself”.

'Speaking in a city centre pub in Cardiff, Dr Rowan Williams told his informal congregation after a presentation on social problems that the nation seemed ill at ease with itself and was in urgent need of some help.

“What we saw was a picture of a country and society that doesn’t seem to like itself very much,” he said. “We are not very happy, we look around for people to blame . . . When society is that unhappy then society has a problem.

“If you listen to any individual talking day after day, saying ‘I’m rubbish, I’m not worth it, there’s nothing really in the bank’, sooner or later you would say to them, ‘I think you need help.’ This is a society that needs help.”

Read it all here.

Barack Obama to address Islam

According to reports in the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, the US President-elect Barack Obama is to go on a mission to improve America's relations with the wider world after his inauguration on 20 January. Although this won't happen immediately, his plans include a visit to and speech in one of the most important Islamic capitals in the world. Which city he will choose is not yet known. Conforming with tradition among previous presidents, he will also be sworn in with his full name, Barack Hussein Obama. This pic shows the director of Rome's Museo delle Cere adjusting the head of the new wax model of Obama. Barack Obama's full interview with reporters from the Tribune is here.

Israeli Ambassador condemns carol service

Update: now a Vicar has banned O Little Town of Bethlehem because he believes it does not reflect the true state of what is happening there. See our news story today.

As we report a diplomatic row is hanging over Christian-Jewish relations in Britain. Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor has weighed into the row over the St James's carol service, condemning it as furthering the 'canard of anti-Semitism'. The service was organised by Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and their reaction to Ambassador Prosor's comments is below. The Ambassador said: 'For 2000 years, the Jewish people suffered persecution because of the accusation of responsibility for the death of Jesus Christ. The carol service deliberately attempted to make a linkage between this notion of deicide and Israel’s relations with the Palestinians. It thus perpetuated an anti-Semitic canard that has no place in modern Britain.'

The full text of his comments follows below.

Don't give up: Moses was a basket case

Don't Give Up
Moses was a Basket Case

This is the sign that appears outside a church in Denver, Colorado. Would it make you go to church? That's the question being asked by Asylum, which has a link to a church sign generator where you can make your own. Below are some of the others they have put up, including some fake ones, although I'm not sure I could tell the difference. Do feel free to contribute your own.

Lawyer's note for contributors to this blog

Lawyers at News International has asked me to post the following note about comments:

No comments will be posted on my blog until they have been personally reviewed by me.  Unfortunately, this does mean that sometimes there will be a gap in time before readers' posts can go on-line, but I regret this cannot be avoided.  I do hope that you will continue to post comments on my blog.  I value the exchange of views it provides.

Assisted dying: have we crossed a line?

The Bishop of Winchester says not, but I wonder. This picture is of Craig Ewart, 59, who a former university professor who suffered motor neurone disease and whose assisted suicide is to be broadcast on Sky. At the same time we learn today that the parents of paralysed rugby player Daniel James, who took him to Switzerland for an assisted suicide, will not be charged.

This year's Number One prezzie: GI Nick

This inflatable military santa is number one on the Ship of Fools annual 12 Days of Kitschmas wish-list.  The other gifts include a topless 'Mormon' calendar, a 'Jesus shaves' mug and a 'Jesus saves' piggy bank, and some John Calvin chocolates that even a chocaholic like me didn't fancy the look of much because they looked too straitlaced. There are some Archbishop baubles to hang on a Christmas tree, and rubber ducks for bathtime, including spotted duck, and Virgin mother duck with duckling.

How many Archbishops does it take to change an exploded lightbulb?

As we report, Dr Rowan Williams joined the Archbishop of the Church of Sweden and the Presiding Bishop of German's Evangelical Church in a letter to President of France Nicholas Sarkozy, current EU president, in which they urged him to stand firm on the environment. But as the credit crisis worsens, I can't help but wonder how many people will continue to buy organic food, long-life light bulbs and all the other environmentally-friendly paraphernalia that goes with middle-class eco-living. The problem that many people are struggling to come to terms with is, living the environmentally-correct lifestyle is just so expensive.

Canterbury summit: nothing happened

Well I suppose that headline is not quite accurate. The mother church of the Anglican Communion, Canterbury Cathedral, today welcomed into her stable the five Gafcon primates from the South and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who they had travelled from afar to see. They bore gifts of frank discussion, gold-standard Christianity and little in the way of mirth. They were there to mark a new birth in the North, a province. Question marks hang like shepherds' crooks over its legitimacy, and probably will continue to do so for another 2,000 years or so, if it is not forgotten by then. But stranger things have happened.

Death in the streets as Christians flee

Horrific stories of ruthless killings on the streets of Jos in northern Nigeria are emerging. At least one church pastor was shot dead, along with three members of his household and an Augustinian monastery attacked, the abbot narrowly escaping death after a molotov cocktail was thrown into his room. The Church Times and The Economist have reports, with the latter reporting that mosques were also burned down. On Thursday I spoke to the Bishop of Jos, Dr Benjamin Kwashi. According to his eyewitness report, the violence was directed solely against Christians, with some Muslims shot by armed forces only when they broke curfew. Estimates vary, but it seems about 400 people might have been killed. While not lessening the horror of that atrocity, this is about twice the number killed in Mumbai.

Lambeth Palace on new province as Gafcon primates fly in for summit

As we report, conservatives from The Episcopal Church 'have voted to form their own branch of Anglicanism in the United States. TitusOneNine has more details. Today Lambeth Palace, although not the Archbishop of Canterbury in person, has at last made a comment on this, and the comment at first glance seems to make it clear that this new province will not receive formal recognition any time soon. In fact it appears pretty brutal in its dismissal of the Common Cause initiative. Hong Kong, don't forget, was recognised extremely fast once its three dioceses decided to seek independence.

Lambeth Palace says: 'There are clear guidelines set out in the Anglican Consultative Council Reports, notably ACC 10 in 1996 (resolution 12), detailing the steps necessary for the amendments of existing provincial constitutions and the creation of new provinces.

'Once begun, any of these processes will take years to complete. In relation to the recent announcement from the meeting of the Common Cause Partnership in Chicago, no such process has begun.'

Nevertheless, it should be nopted that this resolution is just a guideline, and has never been formally incorporated into the Anglican Consultative Council constitution.

Chief Rabbi: 'A perversion of the Abrahamic faiths'

The Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks has warned that hate is contagious and called for the love of God to be invoked to defeat those behind the Mumbai attacks. Speaking to me shortly before a memorial service in north London hosted by the United Synagogue and Chabad-Lubavitch UK to honour those killed in Mumbai, he said that if there was any religious motive behind the attacks, it represented the 'ultimate perversion' of the Abrahamic roots of the three faiths of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

Church at the bus stop

This wonderful new work by Andrew Gadd, on which the paint only dried yesterday, is at the centre of the Churches' Advertising Network's latest Christmas campaign, being launched at St Martin's Trafalgar Square this morning. It will go on a thousand bus shelters and depicts the Holy Family waiting at a bus stop. It would be a mistake to dismiss these things as mere stunts or totems. The latest Alpha has a wonderful first-person account by a top TV psychotherapist of how he and his family began going to church and became Christians after seeing one of the Alpha ads from last year on the back of a bus.

Ad attacking gays an 'abomination'

Sandown Free Presbyterian Church in Belfast is upset with the Advertising Standards Authority for ruling against its recent advertisement condemning 'sodomy' as an 'abomination' on the grounds that it breached the section of the code that governs 'decency'.  The church claims that the ad should have been allowed because it merely quoted what is in the Bible, Leviticus 18:22 to be precise: 'Thou Shalt not lie down with mankind, as with womankind; it is an abomination.' Our news story is here. You can download the document here with the text of the original advertisement.

'Lightning rod for anti-Semites'

As we report, the row over the 'alternative lessons and carols' at St James' Picadilly last Wednesday is escalating as the implications begin to sink in of a part of the established Church of England allowing itself to be used for such abhorrent anti-Zionist propaganda. In one of the most important posts she has done for a while, Irene Lancaster draws together today some of the threads of why this was both significant and a shameful disgrace to Sir Christopher Wren's beautiful church and the wider Christian community, most of which must surely share her dismay. Jonathan Hoffman, vice-chairman of the Zionist Federation, and who demonstrated outside the event, told me: 'These things are a lightning rod for anti-Semites. This was an event which offended 99.9 per cent of Jews and about 95 per cent of Christians, an event which should never have taken place. To take carols and doctor them in order to vilify Israel is really unacceptable.' He claimed the event was being touted outside St James' as a normal carol service. 'We were able to disabuse people and dissuaded about 10 people from going in.'