Ruth Gledhill - Times Online - WBLG

Cardinal speaks out on abortion

As we report, the Government won the vote on abortion last night. Earlier yesterday, I went along to Archbishop's House in Westminster to interview him. Back in February, the Cardinal wrote personally to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown urging a free vote on the bill. His letter is understood to have been one of the key influences behind the Brown's change of mind on this. Yesterday, arguing that even "incremental change" would a step in the right direction, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor appealed to British society to "change its mind" on abortion. The emphasis should be on helping women with unwanted pregnancies to cope with the practical and emotional complications so they can carry their babies to term, he said. He also criticised the Government over the removal of a baby's right to a father,  warning that any legislation that eroded the place of the family in society should be opposed. (Updatee: see our news report on his response to the vote.)

Call for St Paul's boycott

Trouble brewing at St Paul's, where the founder of an organisation that lobbies for Anglican support of Israel is calling for a mass boycott of all future services. (Trouble also for poor Tom Ambrose at a tribunal just near St Paul's, as we report.) Simon McIlwaine is calling on worshippers to leave Wren's great cathedral and attend the Prayer Book church round the corner instead, St Michael's Cornhill, whose rector Peter Mullen is a patron of Anglican Friends of Israel. The new Dean of St Paul's is due to be installed on 1 October. I liked Graeme Knowles when I interviewed him a while back, and don't envy him this one. So what is it that has upset Simon so much that he's penned a formal letter of protest to the Dean and Chapter? (Update: Stephen Farrington has picked up on this post in an interesting way that links it to Andrew Norfolk's in-depth analyses in our paper this week of the abuse of Islam by extremists in Britain.)

Tony Blair's catholic tastes

Guest blog by Richard Owen, Rome

Goodness, what a media frenzy over Tony Blair's plans to convert to Roman Catholicism. It has been known for months, if not years, that he was as close to being a Catholic as an Anglican be: it was also known that he would meet the Pope last Saturday. Put the two together and - according to some of the more excitable headlines in the UK press at the end of last week - you have a "Pope to bless Blair's conversion" story. (Update: We ran this letter from the head of press at the Vatican this week. Richard Owen responds, at the end, below.)

Blair to focus on interfaith work

As Tom Baldwin and I report today, Tony Blair on leaving office is to get involved in interfaith work. The Prime Minister, a devout Anglo-Catholic whose pilgrimage to Rome has long been anticipated, has for years been fascinated by this area. He wants to set up a new foundation to foster greater understanding between the three great Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Just for a bit of fun, though...

Christians' throats slit in Turkey

Middle East Concern has sent me this report of an horrific story, also covered in today's Times. Three Christians have been killed by five young attackers on Wednesday early afternoon. The three victims, two Turks and a German, were discovered at the Zirve publishing house in the eastern city of Malatya. They were bound to a chair and their throats had been slit. This picture of police wrestling an unidentified man after the attacks comes from Christianity Today.

Proud not to be 'part of the union'.

  How many readers of this blog are old enough, like me, to remember the Strawbs song, 'You can't get me I'm part of the Union'? This was released in 1973, just as I was starting to gear up for 'O' levels. By the time I was sitting mocks and other exams, through a series of cold winters, there were periods when we went for months with no heating in our draughty Staffordshire vicarage because there was no coal. We had little hot food or drink because there was no coke for the Rayburn. Stinking rubbish piled up, uncollected.

Hindus unite to save 'Adam's Bridge'

   This is the NASA image of Adam's Bridge, the series of shoals in the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka that makes the stretch of water impassable to shipping. Hindus believe the bridge was built in the time of Lord Rama, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu, to enable him to cross over to Lanka to defeat the demonic tyrant Ravana and win back his captured wife Sita. It was called Ram's Bridge, or Ram Sethu, until the British arrived and renamed it after Adam. But at least that was all the damage we did to this structure that is as sacred to Hindus as the Western Wall to Jewish people and Mecca to Muslims. Depending on who is supplying the figures, the series of limestone shoals have been there for anything between 3,500 to 1,750,000 years. But, as we report Tuesday, Hindus around the world are fighting to save the bridge, which faces being destroyed completely by an Indian government bent on cutting 30 hours or so off the journeys of ships forced at present to travel round Sri Linka to get to and from India's southern coast.

Stir Up! Stir Up! It's the SORs!

With the introduction of yet more bureaucratic red tape, or should that be pink tape, under the heading of the Sexual Orientation Regulations, the Government is bending itself into yet more unorthodox contortions in its attempt to do right by this country's minorities. Inevitably, orthodox, Catholic, traditionalist and almost all other Christians save the liberal and most of the Anglican establishment are once more on a crusade against what is perceived as yet another demon of secularisation. Anthony Browne has written a story in the paper and I've done a commentary to which a friend has emailed a response: "I read your analysis today with interest. I hardly think that getting BA to hold a review ( far less apologise, compensate or reinstate Eweida) and the Government backtracking on quotas on faith schools on actions that were pressing against natural justice is letting power go to people's heads.  The SORs are a monstrous infringement of conscience and religious freedom. Ann Widdecombe is right. On this occasion I can't agree with you."

Archbishop meets Pope

Rowan Williams and the Pope met for lengthy private talks, prayers and lunch on the day when the British and Italian press were full of stories of the new document on condoms that has been presented to the Congregation of the Faith. Regular readers of this blog might recall that some of us predicted this back in April.

Anglicans martyred in Solomon Isles

This video shows the Archbishop of Canterbury preaching in Rome and clips from a prayer service at San Bartolomeo's Basilica to commemorate the seven Melanesian brothers, Anglican Christians martyred in the Solomon Islands in 2003.

ABC in Rome: Let's all live under Benedict's Rule

In advocating submission to the rule of Benedict to solve the problems of multi-cultural Europe, Rowan Williams was of course referring to the Holy Rule of the sixth century St Benedict, founder of the monastery of Monte Cassino, and not to the present Pope Benedict XVI. This is our story. There is also a debate running on Times Online. Dr Williams said he believed the Rule of St Benedict could be a “beacon” to the wider modern world. He said he believed the Rule could help better inform both the personal and the economic and political culture of European society. For example, it could help guard against “inhuman” and “obsessive” forms of work and leisure which did not allow time for the reflection and the “recovery of the self.” He told his audience in Rome: “In the half-secularised, morally confused and culturally diverse continent we now inhabit, does the Holy Rule still provide a beacon for common life? I want to argue that it does - the Rule, after all, is not an archaeological document but something that is continually being reinterpreted in the life of the communities that are based upon it - like the Scriptures themselves.” (Pic here and below showing Cardinal Walter Kaspar and Dr Williams after prayers at the Sistine Chapel. Photo by Jim Rosenthal for Anglican World.)

Jefferts Schori to Pope 'We're more intelligent than you!'

  Asked in a New York Times interview how many episcopalians there are, new TEC Primate Katharine Jefferts Schori responded: "About 2.2 million. It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children." I am indebted to StandFirm for this gem. As a former oceanographer, she'll know all about fishy reasons for reproduction. But is this really what Rowan Williams needs as he prepares to meet Benedect XVI in Rome on Thursday? Amy Welborn has picked this up in characteristically robust style, in a post titled 'an interview that will go down in infamy'. Peter Ould also highlights the questions that maybe one journalist might like to ask her one day. For more on the subject of religious reproduction, see the recent Breeding for God paper in Prospect magazine. I am indebted to Squaring the Boston Globe for this marvellous picture of the Anglican Communion's first woman Primate.

Students and Christians at war

A mole who was a student at Cambridge when Rowan Williams was a lecturer and tutor there tells me that, as someone with a reputation for kind and intelligent liberalism, he was given a difficult time by the evangelical Student Christian Union. If that is the case, how ironic that now that the Archbishop of Canterbury appears to have switched sides in the gay debate, it is the SCUs on the receiving end of a hard time from the gay and lesbian student lobby. Senior bishops have now intervened to call for an end to the "unlawful" discrimination against Student Christian Unions, writing in a letter to The Times. Update from 7 December: Rowan Williams intervenes in this debate for first time in article in THES.

Rowan Williams to Pope: You're not infallible you know!

The Archbishop of Canterbury has now said the only reason he has not become a Roman Catholic is because he doesn't believe in papal infallibility. He has visions of telling the Pope this next week. See more at the end of this post and also in Friday's Times article on celibacy and the ABC visit.. More links at Thinking Anglicans.

Meanwhile, Dr Rowan Williams has caused a stir with his interview in the Catholic Herald, appearing to cast doubt on the wisdom of ordaining women priests. Except according to Lambeth Palace, he cast no such doubt at all. And to pretend otherwise is "wilful misinterpetation" of his remarks.

Dr Williams flies to Rome next week for an audience with Pope Benedict XVI. This Pope in particular would no doubt look kindly on an Archbishop of Canterbury expressing some repententance for a move that, whatever its other benefits, has without question put paid to the ecumenical hopes of the last century. But we have to remember that Dr Williams was not actually expressing any such regret.  (Cartoon from Dave Walker, thank you Dave for making me laugh and helping to stop me crying.)

Pope to throw open the 'Flaminian Gate' to Anglicans

According to a comment on Titusonenine, the Pope will this shortly receive on his desk a document that proposes something akin to an Opus Dei-style personal prelature for disgruntled Anglicans of a Catholic bent. A separate source tells me: "There are secret conversations going on to enable a Uniat solution." This would allow disaffected to be received into the Catholic Church but retain their Anglican identity, with presumably their (or should I say our?) own priests going with them too. The one thing the Pope is understood to be insisting on, in the name of ecumenism, is that the Anglicans leave before negotiations for entry into the Catholic church can begin. But of course they won't leave with nowhere to go to. My own source says that discussions are well advanced at the highest levels, but nothing is likely to be formalised until after the women bishops debate is concluded.

A new "generous orthodoxy" for troubled times

There are some who are saying now that Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech seems more than a little prescient. With Nick Griffin's sensational acquittal on race hate charges after he called Islam a "wicked, vicious faith", to the cancellation of the Gay Pride march in Israel, we do indeed seem to be living in perilous times. Aegis Trust are among those rightly condeming the verdict as wrong. We in Europe do have remarkably short memories of where racism lands us. Just take the unbelievable events in Germany, where police arrested 16 neo-Nazis after they disrupted a commemoration ceremony of Kristellnacht, just 24 hours after the German President warned at the dedication of the new Munich synagogue that anti-Semitism was still alive in Germany. Even the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has been speaking openly of a "clash of civilisations", although he believes this is not between Islam and the West, or even between neo-Nazis and Judaism, but between the secular and the sacred. In his speech to the Newcastle Readers' Dinner, this former judge in Uganda seemed almost to advocate civil disobedience to churchgoers of Plymouth angered by the decision to scrap free parking on Sunday. He actually called for a corporate, robust but peaceful response, although sources indicated that this could include not paying parking fines.

Delusions of the deluded

God is back!" is the triumphalist cry from religionists everywhere today. Only this week, a new religious think tank, Theos, has claimed in a poll that most people think religion is a force for good and should lay an important part in national life. The truth is, as ever, more complicated. For a start, God is not back at all. If only He were, a Christian might understandably feel right now, the world might be put properly to rights. It is merely the subject of God that is back on the agenda, and arguably this is nothing to do with Christianity at all. God has been bombed back onto the agenda by the extremist actions of a particular set of fundamentalist terrorists who do not deserve to be known as adherents of the inherently good religion they have hijacked for their own ends.

As the British Humanist Association has noted this week, the Theos poll found the public split down the middle on whether faith was "one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eliminate." The poll gave 42 per cent agreeing and 44 per cent disagreeing. The two per cent difference is within the margin of error for a sample size of 1000. This seems to me a rather worrying amount of people who think that religion is evil, like a plague.

I began reporting religion for The Times towards the end of 1988. Previously on the paper, I had made brief forays into zoology, media, arts and general news. I was seen as very ambitious although secretly, in my heart, the reverse was true. "Why are you going into that backwater?" asked one baffled editor.

(Correggio's Renaissance pic of war god Zeus kissing river nymph, Io, comes from NASA website)

Islam under fire: not surprising given stance on HMD

Britain's 1.6 Muslims are feeling pretty beleagured at present, and it is not surprising. The latest heavyweight to enter the debate is Bishop of Rochester Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, as we report today, with interviews with Christopher Morgan in The Sunday Times and Dominic Lawson in the Mail on Sunday.

Haggard on the ropes: spiritual warfare beats a holy tattoo

In the latest story to come out of the US, covered originally by Times Online and many other since, the Rev Ted Haggard, head of the powerful National Association of Evangelicals in the US, has resigned after being accused of paying for sex with a man. The married father-of-five has denied the charges, but has said he cannot continue to minister under such a cloud of allegations. Not surprisingly, the video of Richard Dawkins being lambasted by Haggard on Channel 4's Root of All Evil is climbing fast to the top of the most watched charts on YouTube, as is another of a typical Haggard anti-gay rant. Haggard has now admitted to being a "deceiver and a liar".

Asbo on Lord Carey

We report in today's Times that Asbo's, or anti-social behaviour orders for our readers across the Atlantic, are a regarded as "badges of honour" for today's nice, civilised British youth. I expect former ABC George Carey, now Lord Carey of Clifton, might feel something of the same at being banned by Bangor Cathedral, the country's oldest cathedral at the north-western heart of the uber-liberal Province of Wales, birthplace of our present ABC. I must declare a slight interest here. My own family hails from North Wales, recent ancestors were MPs in the province and in nearby Liverpool. There is even said to be an ancient Welsh saint, King and Prince or two who appear in our family tree, which is in Bangor University although I've not seen it myself. And for many years, until recently, my Welsh-speaking father was a priest in Bangor. But to all those folk who have already concluded otherwise, I want to make it absolutely clear that no-one in or remotely connected with my family was the source of this Carey Asbo story, subject to hilarious comment by Dave Walker at Cartoon Church. Further comment abounds out there. According to Helmintholog, I missed the "real" story, which is that the Dean is allegedly selling the cathedral, but I can't find any trace of this on Google.

Loving religion, til China and Europe meet

   I don't think I need apologise to Auden for the above, because loving religion, or even God, in the way that so many of us do is not that far off loving a person. Although in another century, it was only a few years back that he wrote 'As I Walked Out One Evening.' And besides, the poet is dead, since 1973. Back then, it must have seemed impossible even that China and Africa should ever meet, never mind Europe. Yet now, almost religion-like, we have these new virtual realities of which this blog is one beneficiary transcending the physical and geographical boundaries of the past. So what happens in the Anglican Church in Africa is helping determine the future shape of the Church of England and the whole Anglican Communion. And it has taken our living, loving, religious poet of the present, the Archbishop of Canterbury, himself intellectually resplendent in the ancient ascetics of the Fathers, to point us to the paradox of a Western society driving itself towards mindless secularism while China herself turns back and contemplates capitalising on the social benefits of religion.

New Scientology church signals expansionist thrust

Actress Anne Archer is among the celebrities due to attend the opening of London's new Church of Scientology headquarters on Sunday. The Church of England has welcomed the new church, which is opening its doors to the public in a building that was once the headquarters of the Bible Society.

Brief history of my job

  Sitting at my desk trying to revive myself after reading today's soporofic Faith in Rural Communities report, a contact emailed me: "Thanks for lunch. Has someone told you that you are about to feature in a new film?" Actually no, they hadn't, but it appears to be true. Sort of. I guess there's no copyright in a job title, but not that I'm complaining anyway. Briefly, a new Imax film about mathematician Stephen Hawking will feature a female religious affairs correspondent of The Times, "Olivia". She is a science sceptic who is sent to interview him about the meaning of existence. She ends up going on a journey through time, right back to the big bang. Hmmm. Sounds nice. "Like Groundhog Day meets Star Trek," says scriptwriter Leonard Mlodinow, lately of Star Trek.

Faith in education

In the 'green room' at GMTV the other day, I had an interesting chat with Nadia Eweida over the controversy of religious dress for women. Nadia is the woman suing British Airways after she went on upaid leave when the company refused her permission to wear her white gold cross outside her uniform. I have heard it said, in the context of the debates over this and the Muslim veil, that this is a free country and we can all wear what we want. In fact, this is not true. This is not really a free country at all in respect of what we can and cannot wear. Virgin and BMI have similar rules about jewellery to BA. Even the BBC newsreader Fiona Bruce removed her cross after a debate at the top levels of the corporation over whether it would offend other religions. It can surely only be a matter of months before we see a newsreader in burqa and niqab. Meanwhile, a 14-yr-old schoolgirl in Manchester was arrested and carted off to police cells on suspicion of racism after she was put with a group of fellow pupils who didn't speak English for a "discussion" project. Her "crime" was to ask her teacher if she could be moved to another table where she could understand what was going on.

'Sockpuppet' caught in the Web

A priest in the Church of England has apologised to his parish and his bishop after he published a glowing but “fake” review of his “wonderful” singing voice when “officiating” at a service at Wesminster Abbey. The Reverend David Peters, Vicar of the Anglican Catholic parishes of Most Holy Trinity and St Mark’s in Reading, reproduced in his parish magazine the words of a female reviewer, “Freddie”, from the Christian online magazine Ship of Fools. In the Mystery Worshipper slot, where pseudonymous worshippers do write-ups of services around the country, “Freddie” wrote of a visiting priest officiating at Westminster Abbey: “His singing voice was so wonderful one wanted to turn round and peer down at him in the way that one always looks at singers doing a solo.”

A glimpse of the many veils

If this Muslim woman appeared in Jack Straw's surgery, I wonder whether he would ask her to take her veil off? I took this evocative picture from flickr. I  was just wondering whether I dared use put a headline on this blog, "Jack Straw asks Muslim women to remove their tops," when I received an email from GMTV's Sunday programme. According to the press release from GMTV, in an interview they have recorded with Dr Tom Wright to go out this Sunday he will liken asking a Muslim woman to remove her veil to saying:  "I want you to take your blouse off."

Limbo in limbo

Dore's masterpiece showing Dante chatting to Socrates, Plato and Virgil in limbo is one of the many evocative works of art and literature depicting this uncertain state of undeadness reserved for babies and for those born before the time of Christ. As we report today, the Pope is at last putting an end to a teaching that was never a formal part of Church doctrine in any case. We are of course long past the time in the Middle Ages where, in some parts of Europe if a woman died pregrant, before her Catholic burial the baby was extracted from her womb and buried in unconsecrated ground. It is perhaps out of a wish to win the souls of millions of babies in the developing world for Christ that the Pope has formally abolished limbo, because all the evidence suggests that Benedict XVI never believed in the concept anyway.
In the fertile evangelisation zone of Africa, Asia and the other nations of the South, the Pope, an acknowledged authority on all things Islamic, is only too aware that Muslims believe the souls of still-born babies go straight to heaven. Looking to spread the faith in countries with a high infant mortality rate, now is as good a time as any to make it utterly and absolutely clear that still-born babies of Christian mothers go direct to heaven also. (Update 10.10.06: Sources in Rome tell me that publication of this document has now been delayed by anything up to a year... rg)

Amish school shooting

Terrible news coming over from the US on Sky, of the Amish school shooting. Police have surrounded a one-room Amish schoolroom in Nickel Mines, Lancaster County, Pensylvannia after reports of many victims in a shooting. "There are a number of people dead. ... The exact number I do not know yet," according to state police Corporal Ralph Striebig. Reports suggest six dead and three in hospital with critical gunshot wounds. The classroom was one-to-eighth grade so I assume that means little infants. The gunman appears to be among the dead. Apparently, he told the boys to get out and shot all the girls...

Church of England expected to revise Civil Partnership Guidelines

It now looks almost certain that the Church of England's bishops will next year be forced to revise their pastoral guidelines on civil partnerships. The latest to enter the debate is the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, who in a private pastoral letter to a number of his concerned parishes has made some extremely frank statements about his views on the matter. In the letter he describes the 1991 Issues document as "incoherent" and "demeaning to the laity". He notes that the bishops' pastoral statement on civil partnerships was drafted at a time when the Government was officially giving assurances that they did not intend to introduce same sex marriage by another name. He says: "Subsequently the situation has changed and Government spokespersons have undermined the official line..." The full text of the letter can be seen on Anglican Mainstream. It is also on Titusonenine with some good comments. You can also read my own news story on this and also the suspension of a retired Canadadian Archbishop's licence to carry out marriages after he blessed a newly-married lesbian couple. (Slightly off topic, you might also for amusement like to read Saturday's piece on what young people think about Jesus, which has already prompted some comment below. Just two tasters. In response to the question, What does the Bible say about the birth of Jesus that makes Christians believe he is special?, one child responded: "Jesus is the prophet of Allah." And to the question: Why is the cross an important symbol for Christians? Another rpelied: "Because Jesus was crusified on one to replenish our sins." One, asked what Christians celebrate at Easter, replied "Christmas". To the same question, another said: "Chocolate." The research was done at Exeter University who sent me the report after I saw it reported in the Church Times.)

Jews arrested for 'anti-Semitism' - Happy New Year!

  I am indebted to my Times Online colleage Michael Herman for alerting me to this story about the Jewish people arrested by police a few days ago in the run-up to the Jewish New Year. What were they arrested for by those beloved guardians of our free society at the Met? Yes, you guessed it. They were handcuffed and led off to the cells at Charing Cross police station - under suspicion of inciting anti-Semitism. The story appeared first in the Jewish Chronicle but is also on the Jewdas website. The four arrested, a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish adults promoting a party in Hackney, were at the recent Simcha on the Square event, designed to promote Jewish culture and music. The Trafalgar Square event, where ther possible crime was to distribute a leaflet promoting a Protocols of the Elders of Hackney party, was itself subject to a boycott by some Jewish organisations because of the backing of Ken Livingstone. (Pic of Deborah Rosenberg dancing at Simcha in the Square with Rivers of Babylon.)

'Plastinated Christ'

This is one of the grosser stories I've been asked to write for the paper. I felt nauseous doing it and wasn't hugely surprised when it didn't get in. But it might make a good talking point for this blog, because it does raise an interesting point. And this is not to do with the evidently offensive nature of the stunt. It is just that I cannot imagine a scenario where any television programme maker would risk doing such a thing in relation to 'another' religion. Maybe Christians should take heart at the nod that programmes like this make to their well-known tolerance. Or maybe Christians are just starting to get fed up with the offence and the apologies being assumed to be all one way, and not in their direction either. But even if the latter, Christians should not become less tolerant, go on the warpath and fight to get productions like this stopped. The emphasis should be, in my opinion, on other religions becoming more tolerant and confident enough in their own message to be able to withstand insult and abuse without recourse to violence. 

Pope: Churches torched in Nigeria, Carey defends Benedict

In the latest anti-Christian Islamist violence, which gives further import to the Pope's recent Regensburg address, the Anglican cathedral of Dutse in northern Nigeria and all but two of the local churches have been torched. When I called Bishop Yusufu Luwu, whose seat St Peter's cathedral is, or was, he was grateful only that no lives had been lost. His bishop's cottage was partly burned, he said. "We have called the police but up to now they have not come out to protect the area," he said. "We do not know what will happen next." I asked him why he thought it happened. Even down the crackly line from Nigera, I heard him sigh. "The rumour is that someone insulted the Prophet." This is in fact what the BBC and ACNS are now reporting.

Pope: 'Mohammed evil and inhuman, says Byzantine emperor' (updated)

The Pope now appears to have conceded it was not a good idea to quote a Byzantine emperor in the middle of the siege of Constantinople saying that Mohammed brought nothing but evil to the world. His apology comes after protests from Muslims around the world, including a call by a Somali cleric for his death. His trip to Turkey in November could now be in jeopardy, not least because it could possibly place his own life at risk. He has in the past indicated that he does not in any event believe Turkey should be in the EU, and many have read his Regensberg speech in that light, as he intended. As his apology was merely for causing offence and not for the content of his speech itself, one can only conclude that has some sympathy with Manuel II Paleologus, as reported by the top Lebanon-born Munster university scholar Theodore Khoury. I've written a commentary for TimesOnline today. I also like the joke going round: 'Don't blame me, I'm not infallible you know!'

In the spirit of Christmas - not

This may be no more than a storm in a pint mug, but it looks as though the Churches' Advertising Network has excelled itself. The image an empty beer glass with the figure of Christ formed out of the left-over foam is part of an advertising campaign which sets out to demonstrate that there are alternatives to the excesses of Christmas. Surely they can't have had one too many themselves when they dreamt this up? This one is certainly a drink or two beyond Bad Hair Day, Che Guevara and all the rest of them. In the campaign entry on MySpace.com, with links to sites such as reJesus, Jesus has precisely zero friends at present, and is it any wonder? Anyone who knows my history well will understand why this campaign has a peculiarly odd resonance for me. My experience is that spiritual awakening comes, if it comes at all, by putting down the glass, not picking it up. Talk about "seeing through a glass darkly" to anyone who once looked through the bottom of a beer glass to find spiritual meaning in the world, and this is not the kind of thing they will come up with. But then, the idea of this campaign is not to appeal to oldies like me, but to youngsters. To get them into church.

Love in the Ruins (updated)

Oh dear. Things not looking good for the Anglicans. This just in from ACNS about the meeting in NYC: "We had honest and frank conversations that confronted the depth of the conflicts that we face. We recognized the need to provide sufficient space, but were unable to come to common agreement on the way forward. We could not come to consensus on a common plan to move forward to meet the needs of the dioceses that issued the appeal for Alternate Primatial Oversight. The level of openness and charity in this conference allow us to pledge to hold one another in prayer and to work together until we have reached the solution God holds out for us."

Should this Hindu convert remain a CofE priest?

You know when you've had a really great holiday and you're back at work and after a few days you think, my goodness, have I ever really been away? I had that feeling this week, when story after story was piling up to write, unopened letters were still taking up all the spare space on my desk and emails were blinking persistently at me, demanding to be read. And then the Church Times arrived in its usual brown envelope on my desk, a day before everyone else gets it. Sitting down with a cup of tea and unaccustomed pleasure to read it after a month of CT abstinence, imagine my joy to see the lead on page three. Beautifully written by Bill Bowder, this was the kind of story journalists love to write and diocesan communications officers hate us to write about. Which possibly explains why I couldn't get hold of the Ely DCO all day. This picture shows the Rev David Hart, who has just had his licence to officiate renewed by the Bishop of Ely, Dr Anthony Russell, in The Hindu this week.

Archbishop and Israeli Chief Rabbis do Lambeth talk

I hardly dared hope I would one day be writing this, but I find that the Archishop of Canterbury improves with scrutiny. Heaven knows it is easy enough