Ruth Gledhill - Times Online - WBLG

The 'gnostic gospel' of Gafcon

Michael Poon's recent article on the Global South reveals a possible divergence between South East Asia and the African provinces. But it also contains this remarkable assertion: 'Gafcon holds before the Communion a new and unfamiliar utopia that is post-modern to its core. Webmasters and web bloggers render synodical processes irrelevant. They preside over web blogs in the virtual worlds of their own fabrication. Its power in shaping public opinion on ecclesiastical authorities simply cannot be ignored. A communion that is no longer dependent on patient face-to-face encounters and governed by geographical proximity: it is a Gnostic gospel that renders the Cross in vain.' 

Belief in the net

Julia Duin, religion editor at The Washington Times since 2003, has started a new blog, BeliefBlog. Her blog comes amid reports that my own boss, Rupert Murdoch, has bought the faith-based website Beliefnet, founded in 1999 by Steve Waldman. Tonight, Tuesday, the Bishop of London the Right Rev Richard Chartres will deliver an important speech at the journalists' church of St Bride titled Faith in the Media. Rarely has religion been more prominent in the media than today, and News Corp's interest in Beliefnet, thought to be a good advertising revenue generator, indicates how seriously this is all being taken. Bishop Chartres has set up a College of Communicators at St Stephen's Walbrook, also home to the Londoninternetchurch.com.Bishop Chartres is also, as far as I know, the first CofE bishop to have his own blog, lthough strangely, his new communicators' college doesn't seem to have a website. (I'll miss his speech because I'm going to watch Obe wan Kenobe play Iago in the Othello first night at the Donmar - now that is what I call heaven - but I've read it and recommend it to all communicators in religion.)

Feeling a bit seasick

The satirical website Ship of Fools has an entire thread devoted to a discussion on whether my reporting is objective or not. A certain 'Pete' has come to my defence. Thank you Pete! (Update: And so has Heather, which means something, as she not a natural supporter.) This 'bling the bishop' video, featuring the Bishop of Maidstone, Graham Cray, is a real-life version of another suggestion on Ship of Fools. Read on to discover its relevance.

Manchester Cathedral returns fire on Sony

(Update 15/6: Sony have responded by offering to demonstrate game to Manchester clergy. See end for details.) Since we broke this story in The Times on Friday night, never mind Manchester Cathedral, the world has become a battlefield for Sony. (Update: Tony Blair has now joined in the row.) I understand there have been hundreds of protests direct to Sony HQ in Japan, a place where temple desecration, and the implied insult to ancestors, is a calumny of the highest order. A source tells me that already, shareholders are planning to punish the company by dumping stock. There is no sign of this yet on the markets though, where the latest is the Sony share price is actually up. Sony chiefs in the UK have been discussing the affair all morning, and are to have a definitive meeting at 3pm today, Monday. Read on for the letter the Dean and Chapter have sent. See also our latest update compiled by Joanna Sugden. Also below I've done a round-up of what the blogs are saying. Two of the best are Bryan Appelyard and an interesting techie one on The Guardian for the comments in particular. Matt Wardman has the best analysis I've seen so far of the legal implications, and has excelled on the background and links with his second post. Meanwhile, Pigeon Campaigns UK have written in protest to all English cathedrals about the shooting with a real gun of a real live pigeon in full view of diners in the refectory of Norwich cathedral. Hilarious, except I guess for the pigeon. See end of this post for details.

Religion in the Blogger awards

The Blogger's Choice awards are up and running again, and while this is a contest I do not expect to win - so many bloggers out there dislike the msm and I've never even won a game of Monopoly - I have at least been nominated, as has Irene Lancaster, celebrating the first anniversary of her own blog. In fact, I might as well tell you, as you can find out for yourselves by looking, we nominated each other. But hey, what's wrong with that? I am languishing at the bottom of the religion section with one vote, a vote that I gave myself. I fully expect to stay there. But some of the blogs at the top are pretty good, and this is an opportunity to do a little round-up of some of the most interesting.

10001st poster

As regular readers know, the 10,000th poster, Tom Jackson, declined our champagne and also the opportunity to guest blog. So we are giving both these opportunities to the 10,001st poster. I realise this will be a cause of great celebration to some and - well - the opposite to others. But the 10,000st poster was Kate. I've reproduced her comment below:

Champagne for 10,000th poster

Now is the time for me to express some gratitude to all the regular posters here, along with the visitors. I would like to thank you all for engaging so fearlessly in debate, for coming back time and again into the fray, even when some of you are metaphorically battered and bruised.

(pic by Sylvan)

(Update Monday 30th: the 10,000th poster was Tom Jackson, with a comment on child abuse posted on Friday. See latest blog for details.)

Having trouble posting on this blog?

You are not alone. It is driving several of you mad, maybe dozens. We are stuck with Typepad, but here is what you can do, according to our technical staff, who write:

'There have been some reports in recent weeks that some of our users have not been able to post comments on the blogs.  This seems to affect users who comment regularly and have then been mis-identified as spam. If you have experienced this problem, there are a couple of solutions.  The easiest way at the moment is to get the users IP address added to the Typepad whitelist, after doing so they should have no problems commenting on our blogs. Users can either fill out the form available at Typepad, where they should explain that they are having problems with their comments being mis-identified as spam and that they would like their IP address added to the whitelist. Users will therefore need to give their IP address which can easily be found.'

Alternatively, if readers email me with the details then we can raise it with Typepad.

The 'me me me' challenge

An 8-yr-old speaks: religion causes genocide of millions

Watch this eight-year-old girl fulminate against religion. Has she been watching Richard Dawkins? He certainly rails against the religious indoctrination of children in his recent book, but doesn't mention the opposite. Thanks to Tom for this.

Five things you probably didn't know about me

One of my favourite bloggers, Maggi Dawn, sent me a 'meme' yesterday. This was a new one on me. It appears to be a blogging form of chain letter, in which we all tag each other with a request, in this case that we post five surprising facts about ourselves. I always used to throw chain letters in the bin. However, at The Times we've just had a blogging workshop led by new communities editor Tom Whitwell, in which Tom emphasised the success-factor of lists. So he'll be one of the people I tag with this meme, along with India Knight, David Keen, Peter Ould and my friend Sylvan Mason, who loves this kind of thing. It seems fun to me, so I hope they keep it going. See below for my own list.

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.

Small queries about this blog

Hello everyone. Having some spare time yesterday to explore Typepad tools a little, I've discovered an option to change the way comments are presented to go top down rather than bottom up. Does anyone here have any preferences? Please let me know. If a large majority, say more than two-thirds, advises change, I'll experiment with turning it around.

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.

Blogban Jimjam

I was unaware until reading this that India had imposed a ban on most blogs. I don't know the precise status of this ban at present, but it is interesting that, as far as I know, none of the regular contributors to this blog demanding the reinstatement of a single individual have joined the campaign to resist this far more serious threat to freedom of speech.  And it is surprising, given the outcry about Google censorship in China, that there has been so little said and read about the India blog ban. Can it be that the right of a single, white, self-righteously-thinking Christian American male to express himself freely and in his own imitable style, frequently attacking all things European (never mind gay) while he does so, is in some parts considered actually more important than the right of millions upon millions of Asian men and women on the other side of the world to access hundreds of blogs of many different hues and shades of opinion? Has the 'small earthquake in Delhi not many dead' mentality really taken over the blogosphere? (Older journalists among, other old hacks like me, will recognise that reference.)

'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 t