John Smyth and Justin Welby raise issues that go far beyond an abuser and an
ex-Church leader, requiring, I argue, a recognition of the comprehensive failings
of Jesus, 'St'
Paul, many others
A note: I wanted to find out if John Smyth had any connections with the
theological college Ridley Hall. I put the search term "John Smyth" "Ridley
Hall' into Google and found that there were many pages of results - and
found this page on the first Google page of results, in 5th place, with a
reference to the heading above, 'John Smyth and Justin Welby raise issues
... ' The section was added to the page only a few days ago. This has become
a more and more frequent result - the finding that sections added very
recently appear in prominent positions in Google searches.
John Smyth carried out savage beatings in a garden shed, out of sight.
Gradually, his activities became known, not to many people, but to people
with influence - who did nothing, of course. Hideous acts which are rare in
a liberal democracy were commonplace and public knowledge in the vastly
different circumstances of the Roman empire in the 1st Century AD.
Jesus will have witnessed scenes involving the flogging of slaves in public,
probably the torture of slaves, certainly the public execution of slaves -
and the flogging of slave children in public, perhaps the torture of slave
children, the public execution of child slaves. If a child slave ran away
from the 'owner,' the child slave could be executed. This was a society with
no law forbidding the flogging or execution of slaves under the age of 18.
Jesus had nothing to say in opposition to slavery, of course. He had nothing
to say in opposition to the barbaric treatment of slaves, including slave
children. He must have known that ten year old slave children, five year old
slave children, slave babies were bought and sold in the public slave
markets, he must have known that they were often treated barbarically, but
he had nothing to say against any of this.
'St' Paul travelled widely in the Roman Empire. His experiences must have
included far more buping and selling of slave children and slave babies and
barbaric treatment. He too had nothing to say in opposition to slavery.
Christian beaters of children and abusers of children, Christian rapists of
children can obviously be found now but there must surely have been many
more in the times of the early Christian Church - and the Church in
successive centuries.
Justin Welby has resigned, as he had to, but to absolve Jesus from blame, 'St' Paul
from blame, other New Testament writers from blame would be completely
wrong. We can be sure that none of the Bishops will be able to rescue the
Church of England. The dogmatic foundations of the Church of England, the
inability of its staff to make the Church a viable institution, given the
many, many obstacles, make a reversal of its fortunes impossible.
John Smyth is, of course, a major abuser, but the list of other abusers in
the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church is long too and it
would be difficult if not impossible to get very far in listing them.
In the column to the right:
From the report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, 2022:
'Throughout this investigation, we heard appalling accounts of child
sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy and those associated with the Roman
Catholic Church. The abuse covers a spectrum of sexual offending including
acts of masturbation, oral sex, vaginal rape and anal rape, accompanied on
occasions by beatings and other acts of violence. There have been many
hundreds of victims and complainants over many decades.'
And this:
'
A primary school deputy head teacher and her partner
have been jailed for dozens of child sexual abuse offences,
including nine counts of rape.
Julie Morris, 44, the safeguarding lead [!]
at a school in Wigan, and David Morris filmed
themselves abusing and raping a girl under the age
of 13.
The teacher was jailed for 13 years and four
months.
Her 52-year-old partner, of St Helens,
admitted 34 offences at a previous hearing and was
jailed for 16 years.
Julie Morris, of Hindley, worked at St
George's Central C of E Primary School in Wigan but
the charges are not related to her employment.
Liverpool Crown Court heard the videos showed
Julie Morris giggling as the abuse took place.
Honorary Recorder of Liverpool, Judge Andrew
Menary, said: "Every now and again you see cases,
the circumstances of which are almost beyond belief.
This is one of those cases.
"It demonstrates that human depravity really
knows no depths."
The Crown Prosecution Service said it was one
of the most horrific cases they have had to deal
with.
"It truly appears like both of them were
equally involved," district crown prosecutor Damion
Lloyd said ...
Julie Morris admitted two counts of rape,
nine of inciting a child under the age of 13 to
engage in sexual activity and two of engaging in
sexual activity in the presence of a child.
She also admitted three counts of taking
indecent images of a child, one of engaging in
sexual communication with a child and one of
possessing indecent images of a child.
It's generally realized that Christianity has 'teaching'
to do with 'eternal destiny,' going beyond present life. But
very, very often, the mistake is made of supposing that
according to Christianity, good people are rewarded and bad
people are punished, for a time or for ever.
There are Christians, many Christians who believe in
something similar, in 'justification by works.' But
far more common and far more influential is 'justification
by faith,' the faith of conservative evangelicals but not
just conservative evangelicals. John Smyth was a
conservative evangelical. Justin Welby is a conservative, or
semi-conservative evangelical.
In this view, only the people who have accepted Jesus as
Saviour are saved. The others are damned, or in some way
separated from God for eternity. Roman Catholics have the
doctrine of purgatory, a temporary state.
Justin Welby and countless other Christians will believe
- or are likely to believe - that because John Smyth seems
to have accepted Jesus as Saviour, he will be saved. Any of
his victims who never accept Jesus as Saviour will not be
saved. Anybody who can show that the orthodox Christian
Conservative or semi-conservative view is a different view
or very different view is welcome to contact me and I'll
publish a clarification or a retraction or a note to the
effect that they're spouting garbage - with, of course, my
reasons in full for supposing that to be so.
At many points, on this page and the other pages on
Christianity, I give further examples of the horrific
consequences of this view. In the column to the right, I
point out the worst of the worst, the most horrific of
consequences, or amongst the most horrific - the view that
there's no age restriction in the Christian doctrine of
redemption. That ten year olds or five year olds or one year
old or babies even younger can fail to meet the requirements
for redemption. Jesus never mentions the issue, 'St' Paul
never mentions the issue, the issue isn't raised by any
Biblical author and seems not to have been discussed by any
Christian writer, or none that I know of. This is an
admixture of the plainly ridiculous, the deranged and the
horrific.
What Christians know or imagine that they know about
Christianity, its demands and its alleged rewards, is
'revelation.' To Conservative evangelicals, the Bible is the
place to find out about revelation. Catholics, not just
Roman Catholics but Anglo-Catholics, also depend upon the
'teaching' of the Church. The 'teaching' of the Church or
individuals in the Church has included the doctrine that if
babies die without being baptized, they spend eternity in
hell, the doctrine that making use of artificial methods of
birth control is sinful but that slavery is not sinful.
Jesus never opposed slavery and 'St' Paul never opposed
slavery. I provide evidence on this page amongst others.
On this page, I also provide material on some difference
of opinion between myself and Alan Billings, who was the
Police and Crime Commissioner for Sheffield for many years -
a really poor, a disastrously poor appointment. The section
is
Dr Billings tried it on, but got nowhere. His theological 'arguments'
were ridiculous. He tried to claim that in the Christian
scheme of things - in the New, Miraculous Life of the
Believer Redeemed
by Christ Jesus - slave and non-slave Were As One, that the
differences between slave and slave owner were as Nothing.
That is to say, the slave owner whose powers over the slave
were almost total, including the power to sell the
slave or children of the slave at any time and the power to
punish the slave in almost any way, including execution was
at one with the slave he owned, a piece of property rather
than a person.
Alan Billings should reflect that if John Smyth was able to
inflict savage beatings on boys in a democracy under the
rule of law, a Christian slave owner in the Roman Empire at
the time of the New Testament writers with similar urges would have been able to
get away with similar treatment inflicted on a slave,
whether Christian or non-Christian. According to the faith
of the Conservative Evangelical John Smyth, only the
Christian slave would go to Heaven. The non-Christian slave
would go to Hell.
If Julie Morris was able to carry out rape, a Christian
slave owner in Roman times would have been able to rape far
more freely, in a virtually uncontrolled way, if the slave
owner had urges similar to those of Julie Morris.
Any idea that Christians are incapable of such behaviour is
obviously false. The views of Dr Billings on the subject
amount to naive, wishful thinking, thinking - if it can be
called that - based upon illusion.
A significant number of Church of England bishops and Roman
Catholic bishops have known about abuse and done nothing
about it or have suspected abuse and done nothing to find
out more or to act on any knowledge. To confine attention to
Justin Welby is to vastly over simplify.
Many, many bishops, many, many members of the clergy, many,
many members of congregations have heard something about the
problem of abuse in the church but have been incurious. So
called 'liberal congregations' have shown little sign of
caring much about the problem, or at least there's been
insufficient care for them to take effective action.
One
reason why church functionaries and others have done so little should
be obvious. Giving to the church will be greater if the
church is viewed as near perfect or a model of harmony or as
supported and sustained by God. Abuse is bad for business,
on the other hand.
Abuse is a horrific aspect of church life, not permeating
all the church, but something which should never be
neglected, which should never have been neglected. There are other horrific acts of the churches,
not all the churches, but some of them. I think that all the
churches have shown far too much passivity and
indifference.The history of the church, the history of the
churches, is so often deceitful and ignorant, a travesty.
The many centuries of Christianity in this country have so
often idealized out of all recognition.
I mention on this page the activities of King James, of the
King James Bible, and his acts of torture, his persecution
of alleged 'witches,' his culpability in the execution of
Edward Wightman for heresy, burned alive in Lichfield. There
have been many other Church of England persecutors of
'heretics.' The Church of England is unfit to act as the
'conscience' of this country, unfit to act as a moral guide.
On this page there's information about the persecutions
carried out by Roman Catholics. These have been on a much bigger scale, for
example, the tortures and burnings carried out against the Cathars. The Roman Catholic Church is unfit to act as a
moral guide.
In this section, I include very little adverse comment on Jesus himself and
'St' Paul but I make up for it in the rest of the page and on other pages.
In this column, I give information - well-known information - about the
attempt to cure a homosexual / gay person by allegedly 'driving out demons.'
Jesus refers to demons and is described as driving out demons in many places
in the New Testament. Jesus supposedly commanded his disciples to go out and
cure leprosy. This was well before scientific medicine provided reliable
methods. The demonstrably false beliefs of Jesus and 'St' Paul are explored
on this site but it would be impossible to do that adequately, the scale of
the task would be too great.
In this section, in this page, in all the pages of the site where I discuss
Christianity, I put the case against. I'm happy to receive criticisms of my
views, I'm happy to publish on the site criticisms of my views and to
publish defences of Christianity. So far, I've received no criticisms of my
views and no defences of Christianity. It's very, very common for critics of
Christianity to receive no counter-arguments and no evidence in support of
Christianity. It's common for Christianity to be promoted by alleged
evidence, evidence which takes it for granted that Christianity must be
'true,' for example this 'Jesus must have been God because he performed many
miracles,' or 'Jesus must have been God because the tomb was empty and he
rose again' or 'God answers prayer so prayer must be a real way of talking
to God.'
On this page, I include some lists which show that the number of church
functionaries, bishops and the rest, and the number of available theologians
at just a very few places amount to large numbers. Even though they have so many
resources, financial resources and 'human resources, ' the churches seem
completely unable to answer reasoned objections, or to arrest their obvious
decline in numbers. The exceptions are few and have crude simplicities for
doctrine, of the kind 'Hellfire for all but the small number of believers in
Christ as Saviour' - but my view is that the apparently sophisticated
versions of Christianity are nothing like what they appear, are based on
defective recognition of realities. This obviously needs further explanation
- and I do give much more by way of explanation in other parts of the page and
other parts of the site.
This is a short section, but the information in other sections gives all the necessary background information. The background
information was published well before the recent rise to prominence of
misgivings about Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the calls
for his resignation. The defects of the Church of England won't be
solved if Justin Welby resigns or is forced to resign. That would simply be
a start. More, much more, will needed - a transformation in attitudes
towards the Church of England. There will never be a transformation in
attitudes within the Church of England sufficient to guarantee its survival.
On this page of the site as well as some other pages, I provide the
arguments and the evidence for my view that it would be impossible to
reform the Church of England and to solve the problems of the Church of
England - or to reform and solve the problems of the other churches - and
that the principal blame lies with the founder of Christianity, Jesus. The
blame is shared with someone who was almost the co-founder of the cult, 'St'
Paul. 'St' Paul has been referred to - by the philosopher Bertrand Russell, for example -
as the 'inventor' of Christianity. But the list of other blameworthy people
is very long, immensely long, so long that it would be impossible to get
very far in listing them.
Bronze-Silver-Gold: A Rocha UK, St Mark's
Eco-Church and the Parable of the Garden
St Mark's Church is an Eco-Church, with a
gold award from A Rocha UK. Not far away is the STC Network
Eco-Church, with a silver award. It's also a church with an unenviable
reputation for some issues to do with abuses of various kinds. For
information about the abuses, in the first part of the section on
STC, please click here. To go to my discussion of Greenwashing
in the section on STC Network Eco-Church,
click here.
St Mark's and the Parable of the Garden
A 'Forest Church' was announced by St Mark's Church. It was soon
renamed and became the Garden Church. This church in the open air
would show the wonders of creation. (Perhaps the worshippers tending
the garden would show how wonderful the worshippers were.) But the
site was gloomy, the hedges were very tall - massive - and the
surrounding trees blocked the light. The small (non-Christian) group
which had managed the site seemed not to realize that plants
need sufficient light. A group based at a different church tended
the Garden Church later on. None of the Church groups did anything
to give the plants enough light. The site also had difficult
security issues. The site also had the massive problem of a long
pile of fly-tipped garden, about 10 metres long.
The white plastic containers above, some with the name 'Maxicrop'
visible, contained organic seaweed fertilizer. Obviously, these
containers, like all the rubbish in this long pile (which extended
about 10 metres) weren't dumped by ordinary fly-tippers. They
weren't dumped by anyone in the garden church. I was given the name
of an individual in the Community Group who allegedly dumped the
detritus.
The
The (very modest) rise of the garden church and its downfall -
or abandonment - took place before the era of the celebrated A Rocha
Eco-awards but there seems to be nothing in
the judging procedure for these awards which would prevent St
Mark's from receiving a gold award if the garden church had
continued to exist and the long pile of garbage had continued to
exist at the garden church site. I made determined attempts to have something done
about the pile - the garden church was near to my two allotments
- but nothing was done. The pile of garbage stayed
there for years, and didn't seem to bother the worshippers.
What
kind of evidence is used by the people at 'A Rocha UK
before deciding whether or not to give their awards?' Do
people from A Rocha actually visit the sites? I think it's
unlikely.
'Concern for God's Creation' sounds impressive - to people who are
easily impressed by such sentiments, but an honest attempt to answer
objections is a necessity - but a necessity which is far too often
and far too easily evaded.
There are many realities which Christian environmentalists prefer to
evade or fail to recognize and take into account in their
over-the-top celebrations.
To concentrate upon one issue isn't necessarily to evade other
issues which are very important and shouldn't be neglected - but
often, enthusiasts do ignore them or are in danger of ignoring them.
These are some issues which shouldn't be neglected by the churches
but which are neglected by the churches.
The low-level achievements of the kind promoted by A Rocha UK give a
misleading impression. They are intended to show that the churches
are becoming more and more enlightened, more and more progressive,
more and more forces for good - but, as I point out, the projects
have a negligible effect on mitigating the effects of climate
change, in fact it's likely that far more often than not, the
benefits are virtually non-existent.
The image of the Church of England and other churches is promoted
but the failings of the churches are neglected. Nobody would
realize, from looking at the promotion materials, that the Church of
England is a church with continuing problems, very serious problems,
to do with sexual abuse and other forms of abuse.
There is no necessary incompatibility between working for a bronze,
or silver or gold award from A Rocha UK and attempting to cure
homosexuality by driving out demons. The Christian environmentalists
are likely to be orthodox Christians, or sufficiently orthodox to
believe that Jesus did claim to have driven out demons, or that the
claim was made for him.
Margaret Ainger and Cathy Rhodes are both medically qualified. Do
they really believe the claim that Jesus sent out disciples 'to
cleanse [cure] lepers' and to 'drive out demons?' Or haven't they
given much thought to the matter?
A massive, massive difficulty - fixing problems to do with
environmental problems. But even if the problems could be solved, a
further massive, massive difficulty would remain, or a whole set of
problems. These are problems to do with security and defence against
aggression.
If, hypothetically, all the countries of Europe spent all the money
they could afford on solving environmental problems, if,
hypothetically, the peoples of Europe showed immense determination,
if they became as enlightened as A Rocha UK could possibly wish for,
all these countries would still be very vulnerable. They would be at
risk of invasion. Again and again, free countries have lost their
freedom. An invading and occupying army can easily remove all
freedom of action, including the freedom of action to implement
environmental programmes.
If the prospect seems unthinkable, it's only unthinkage to naive and
clueless people (not naive and clueless in every respect or most
respects, but without the sense and the understanding of harsh
realities which are needed to appreciate this acute dilemma.) Given
the chance, Putin's Russia, or another potential agrressor emerging
at a future date, would seize the chance to deprive these people of
their liberty. The environmental agenda, or lack of an environmental
agenda, would then be for Putin's Russia or some other aggressor to
decide.
There are Christian environmentalists who recognize that there's a
housing crisis, which could even become a housing catastrophe, if
nothing is done about it. These people often oppose new housing
developments. I take the view that the population density of this
country is excessive. There are Christian environmentalists who
refuse to accept that if migration is uncontrolled or not controlled
effectively, then then housing shortages will become progressively
worse. Comments I've read from people at St Mark's Church, Sheffield
on migration leave me with the impression that these people have far
too much concern for their own self-image, their image as
progressive people, and not nearly enough recognition of realties,
the willingness to examine solutions which have a prospect of
reducing the problems. I regard St Mark's Church as a backward
church, with tendencies which are very harmful - but not, of course,
in every respect.
The Church Times article in the section on Dr Cathy Rhodes includes
this advice from the doctor: 'Find some practical action to unite
around, to avoid degenerating into a talking shop.'
She forgets that practical action can be anything but clear cut,
that there can be many different ways of achieving practical
objectives, some of them wildly unrealistic, far exceeding the
knowledge and skills of the people who hope to achieve something,
people who have vague, well meaning hopes, absolute incompetents.
The hope to do something for 'God's creation' may co-exist with
ignorance of safety regulations and lack of common sense. The people
may lack the stamina needed to see a project through to completion,
or the ability to abandon a project if it becomes obvious that
there's absolutely no prospect of it succeeding. There are so many
other possible complications besides these particular complications.
The Garden Church which was publicized by St Mark's Church and
promoted - for a time - by Lu Skerratt-Love, a Trustee of St Mark's
Church, is a sobering reminder that there are many possible ways to
fail in seeing 'some practical action' through to a successful
conclusion. The Garden Church is a sobering reminder that Dr Rhodes
has failed to see some possible problems in her recommendation.
This is the content of an email I sent to Lu Skerratt-Love but never
received. It gives some basic information about the garden church
being promoted by Lu Skerratt-Love, at that stage referred to as a
'Forest Church.' I found that a garden church, or forest church, was
being planned from the post quoted here which appeared on the St
Mark's Website.
Dear Lu Skerratt-Love,
'I write in connection with this post on the St Marks Website:
'SHEFFIELD FOREST CHURCH – SATURDAY 11 SEPTEMBER AT 2.30PM
'After a summer break, we’re back! Join us for Forest Church on the
theme of Creation at the Garden Church in Walkley(Walkley
Community Garden, Morley Street S6 2PL) for
time to be and worship in God’s creation. Bring a drink and a snack
for after the service! Our services are intentionally all age and
LGBTQ+ affirming, so whatever stage of life or journey you’re on –
you’re so very welcome! For more information, you can find us on
facebook or email
'I have two allotments on the Morley Street site in Sheffield. I was
dismayed to find that the Forest Church is planning to hold this
event at Morley Street this Saturday.
The plan is disastrously misguided, surely. These are some
objections:
'The place where it is planned to hold the event is rented land.
These are Sheffield Council allotments and as such, are subject to
allotment law. The allotments are rented by Lower Walkley
Community Group (LWCG). The group's decision to give permission for
the Forest Church to hold the event was very misguided but I have
evidence to show that throughout, the use of the land by LWCG has
been incompetent.
'[You are] seemingly unaware of the legislation applicable to
allotments which is intended to protect the safety of the public and
the issue of legal liability. Allotments do have hazards, and in the
event of injury to a member of the public attending the event at the
'Forest Garden,' there could easily be severe legal consequences.
'According to information I've received, a fundamental
disagreement concerning access to the Community Garden
precipitated dissension within the group, leading to members
going their separate ways and the neglect of the garden, which
lasted for many years until this year, when some work has been
done, although hardly any of it to do with the growing of food
plants. There was a short period when access to the garden was
restricted, by a locked gate, but for most of the time, anyone
who wanted to enter the garden was able to.
A very striking , and very off-putting feature of the garden is
the very large heap of rubbish, very long as well as high -
discarded plastic, rubbish of many, many kinds, with further
rubbish in some Council Wheelie bins. If it's assumed that this
was all left by fly tippers, it can't be the only explanation. I
think these must have been left by the Group itself. [I've since
received information from a reliable source, a person who has an
allotment near to my own allotments, that the fly-tipping was
the action of a member of the Community Garden Group. Amongst
the discarded plastic containers are ones which once held
organic seaweed fertilizer.
'I've been informed that youths have sometimes gathered in the
LWCG garden and been involved in solvent abuse. I can't verify
this but an open garden obviously carries security risks. The
LWCG garden is some distance from the road, down the long and
gloomy heavily path by the side of the Walkley Bank Allotment
Association hut. The garden itself is shielded from view. It may
not be likely that the church members would meet trouble but if
they ever did, this isn't the kind of place where it would be
easy to get help quickly. I don't think this is being too
alarmist. About thirty years ago, there was a murder on an
allotment site in the Rivelin Valley. Three youths were sniffing
glue in the allotment. Two of them turned on the third and
stabbed him with a garden tool. In the time I've had my
allotments, there have been some troubling incidents affecting
allotment holders, including threatening behaviour directed at
them. The Forest Church has ignored the serious problems to do
with security.
'A Christian event at an allotment site would set a very
troublesome precedent. Allotments are primarily places for
growing food but they have other uses. From the introduction to
'Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book:'
'In my most optimistic moments, I see every town ringed again
with small gardens, nurseries, allotments, greenhouses,
orchards, as it was in the past, an assertion of delight and
human scale.'
'Allotments should not be places for Christian evangelism or
Christian worship. Christians have many other venues available
for that. There is no need to use allotments at all. Allotments
are not the place for the singing of hymns for preaching or for
public prayer.
I hope that this conveys some of my reasons for disagreement'.
Best Wishes,
Paul Hurt.
The sending of this email had unexpected consequences. The email
was sent to Lu Skerratt-Love but not received by Lu Skerratt-Love,
who complained to South Yorkshire Police about me and who made
claims that I can readily show were false. The decision was
taken to issue me with a Community Protection Notice: Written
Warning, without any attempt to obtain my testimony. Two police
officers spent an hour at my house. The decision to issue the
Written Warning was taken by someone who was a member of the
Christian Police Association. I can easily show that the
allegations made against me were based on falsification. There's
much more about all this on another page, in the first two
columns of the page:
Some supplementary information, with images. I think that this
'community garden,' or 'garden church' has some claim to be the
most incompetent, most mismanaged environmental project in the
past decade. I doubt if any other environmental project could
possibly combine an attempt to cultivate the soil (an attempt
which made hardly any impact) with active fly-tipping. The
people associated with the garden church can't be blamed
for the fly-tipping (I'm informed that someone associated with
the community garden, which allowed the garden church to take on
the site, was responsible for the fly tipping. The garden church
did ignore the fly-tipping, though, did nothing about it. I
contacted the allotment officer about the problem but it took
years before the problem was resolved.
The garden church organizer made it clear that children were
welcome at their services. It was clear to me that the proximity
of the massive heap of fly-tipped rubbish posed possible dangers
to children, and adults too, for that matter - and, more likely,
hazards for wildlife. The heap contained sharp pieces of
metal and metal fragments. I also pointed out to the organizer
that the organizer expected events to go on for as long as two
hours and to go ahead whatever the weather. I pointed out that
this was completely unreasonable to expect children to put up
with these conditions, for this length of time, and possibly
hazardous.
Rock Christian Centre, Sheffield:
the 'Rocky Horror Show'
Rock Christian Centre is a member of the group of churches
called 'Arise.' Other members of 'Arise' include Sheffield
Cathedral, the deluded 'sophisticates' at St Mark's Church,
Christ Church Fulwood, Eyam Parish Church, St Matthews
(Anglo-Catholic) Church, St Marie's (Roman Catholic) Cathedral,
St Thomas Crookes (STC), St Thomas Philadelphia, St Timothy's.
The full list is at
The fury of Almighty God against evil is evidence of His
goodness. If He wasn’t angered, He wouldn’t be good. We cannot
separate God’s goodness from His anger. Again, if God is good by
nature, He must be unspeakably angry at wickedness.
But His goodness is so great that His anger isn’t confined
to the evils of rape and murder. Nothing is hidden from His pure
and holy eyes. He is outraged by torture, terrorism, abortion,
theft, lying, adultery, fornication, pedophilia, homosexuality,
and blasphemy. He also sees our thought-life, and He will judge
us for the hidden sins of the heart: for lust, hatred,
rebellion, greed, unclean imaginations, ingratitude,
selfishness, jealousy, pride, envy, deceit, etc. Jesus warned,
“But I say to you, that every idle word that men shall speak,
they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment”6
(emphasis added).
The Bible says that God’s wrath “abides” on each of us, and
that every time we sin, we’re “storing up wrath” that will be
revealed on Judgment Day. We are even told that we are “by
nature the children of wrath” (emphasis added). Sinning against
God comes naturally to us—and we naturally earn His anger by our
sins.
Instant Death
Many people believe that because God is good, He will
forgive everyone, and let all sinners into Heaven. But they
misunderstand His goodness. When Moses once asked to see God’s
glory, God told him that he couldn’t see Him and live. Moses
would instantly die if he looked upon God. Consider this:
[God] said, I will make all my goodness pass before you… And it
shall come to pass, while my glory passes by, that I will put
you in a cleft of the rock, and will cover you with my hand
while I pass by.
Notice that all of God’s glory was displayed in His
“goodness.” The goodness of God would have killed Moses
instantly because of his personal sinfulness. The fire of God’s
goodness would have consumed him, like a cup of water dropped
onto the surface of the sun. The only way any of us can stand in
the presence of God is to be pure in heart. Jesus said, “Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” But as we’ve
seen by looking at the Law, not a single one of us is “pure in
heart.”
“The fear of God is the healthiest fear you can have. The
Bible calls it ‘the beginning of wisdom.’”
These are extremely fearful thoughts, because the God we are
speaking about is nothing like the commonly accepted image. He
is not a benevolent Father figure, who is happily smiling upon
sinful humanity.
In the midst of these frightening thoughts, remember to let
fear work for you. The fear of God is the healthiest fear you
can have. The Bible calls it “the beginning of wisdom.”
Again, your knowledge of God’s Law should help you to see
that you have a life-threatening dilemma: a huge problem of
God’s wrath (His justifiable anger) against your personal sins.
The just penalty for sin—breaking even one Law—is death, and
eternity in Hell. But you haven’t broken just one Law. Like the
rest of us, you’ve no doubt broken all these laws, countless
times each. What kind of anger do you think a judge is justified
in having toward a criminal guilty of breaking the law thousands
of times?
St John's Eco-Church, Ranmoor, Sheffield
Above, the spire of St John's Church, evidence of repair work and
my van, on a visit to the church (but not to the interior. I stayed
outside.)
The spire of St John the Evangelist in the 'leafy' suburb of
Ranmoor, Sheffield ('leafy' has become quite a common recommendation
in the recruitment material published by the Church of England, to
attract the right sort of staff for a plush parish of this kind, but
Sheffield is famed for its trees, its tree trunks and its leaves -
according to one estimate, the city has about 4.5 million trees -
and many rough areas of Sheffield are very leafy or quite leafy -
but they have the wrong sort of leaves.
The spire is massive, and can be seen from many, many viewpoints,
but I think the best view is from very near. The steeple was
obviously intended to impress, but any impression the steeple makes
is to do with physical size and the massing of masonry, the tapering
of the octagonal spire.
If the spire is interpreted as reaching towards heaven, then this
is straightforwardly mistaken. At the time it was built, heaven as a
physical place should have appealed only to ignoramuses, but there
were many, many ignoramuses in the Church of England and still are.
A basic, more general point - architecture proves no Christian
doctrines, whether the work is at a high aesthetic level or the
derivative, heavy, very ordinary level of this building, art -
painting, sculpture, metalwork, woodworking prove no Christian
doctrines, whether the work is superb or crude.
The tangled (semi-coherent or semi-incoherent) wording of this, from the
installation by the main entrance of St John's Church, has no more
claim to convey truth than words hastily scribbled on a scrap of
paper - any importance as a work of decorative metalwork is at a
humble, not at all massive, level of achievement.
Music proves no
Christian doctrines, whether the composer is J S Bach, Palestrina,
Purcell or some churner-out of tuneless rubbish, whether the choir
is King's College Choir, Cambridge or the choir of St John's College
Cambridge or the choir of St John's, Ranmoor.
John Ruskin, the art and architecture critic, and critic of many
other things, had an association with Sheffield. He makes this
claim for 'Mere Size,' a completely erroneous claim:
'Mere size has, indeed, under all disadvantage, some definite
value; and so has mere splendour. Disappointed as you may be, or at
least ought to be, at first, by St Peter's, in the end you will feel
its size ... the bigness tells at last; and Corinthian pillars whose
capitals alone are ten feet high, and their acanthus leaves three
feet six long, give you a serious conviction of the infallibility of
the Pope ... '
The architecture of any Roman Catholic church can't give anyone a
conviction of any Roman Catholic beliefs. The architecture of the
Medieval English cathedrals gives no support to any Church of
England beliefs, in any of their clashing, contradictory forms,
Conservative Evangelical, Anglo-Catholic, so-called 'Liberal.' It
offered no support to the Roman Catholic beliefs of the builders and
their successors, until very different beliefs were adopted as part
of the 'English Reformation.'
Recommended, as an introduction to the 'thought' of Matthew
Rhodes, the Vicar of St John's, more exactly, which conveys the
unappetising flavour of his theological musings - in part,
much worse than that - is a sermon he delivered to the congregation
of St Mark's Church, which has comment and criticism not just in
this column but in other places on the site.
Sunday 23 July 2023 (16th Sunday after Easter) Today we
welcome to our pulpit Matthew Rhodes from St John’s Ranmoor, a
sister church in our mission partnership. He reflects on the parable
of the wheat and tares. Readings: Romans 8.12-25 Matthew
13.24-30,36-43 Sermon: ‘Plants and Weeds’- Matthew Rhodes
Whatever form the pulpit at St Mark's may take, or the pulpit
at St John the Evangelist, its design and execution don't guarantee
that what's spoken from there has a modicum of good sense, that it
avoids all those faults that afflict the genre.
Before I quote and comment on this sermon of Matthew Rhodes,
here are two ornate pulpits, in my view
no-expense-spared-no-excess-spared-over-the-top examples, like so
many other pulpits.
Above, a nineteenth century pulpit in Canterbury Cathedral.
Above, a pulpit which takes the form of a ship's prow, Irsee
Abbey, Bavaria. The record of the German churches, Catholic and
Protestant, during the Nazi era was bad, with few exceptions.
Obviously, the goodness or badness of this design doesn't influence
the goodness or badness of the sermons preached there. Have there
ever been what could be described as 'good' sermons?
But by this time, Irsee Abbey was no longer used for sermons,
for church services. It had been given a secular use, as a
psychiatric hospital. All the patients, adults and children, were
transported to death camps, except for those given lethal injections
or starved to death.
In its long history, the centuries which brought the
blessings of Christianity, the Abbey experienced the usual or the
common things - poor harvests, famines, war and over the top
expenses by power-loving abbots. The pulpit shown above wasn't the
cheapest model available on the market. The abbey was almost
completely destroyed during the German Peasants' War and yet again
during the Thirty Years War.
The German Peasants' War was the biggest popular uprising
before the French Revolution. The peasants were heavily taxed and by
this time, the lord could use their land as he wanted to. There was
nothing to stop the aristocracy from damaging crops by their use of
the land for hunting. The justice system, operated in part by the
clergy, failed to correct abuses.
Of the 300,000 peasants and farmers, perhaps 100,000 were
slaughtered by the aristocratic opposition. Many of the Protestant
Reformers took the side of the aristocrats. They included Martin
Luther, who called on the aristocrats to kill the rebels. Luther
stated that the peasants 'must be sliced, chocked, stabbed, secretly
and publicly, by those who can, as one must kill a rabid dog.'
TheThirty Years' War, lasted a very long time, from
1618 to 1648. It was one of the most devastating conflicts in the
history of Europe. It was fought mainly in Central Europe. Between
4.5 and 8 million soldiers and civilians died from the effects of
battle, famine, or disease. Bubonic plague, which ravaged Christian
(and, of course, other societies), not cured by the prayers in the
churches, accounted for about 64% of the civilian deaths. Areas of
Germany experienced population declines of over 50% The war can be
viewed as a continuation of the conflict between Catholic and
Protestant within the Holy Roman Empire. This began with the
Reformation of the 16th century.
From the Wikipedia entry for the Thirty Years War, one of many
texts which could be required reading in theological colleges, to
give the students (and the staff) a more balanced view of the
blessings of Christianity:
Contemporaries spoke of a 'frenzy of despair' as people sought to
make sense of the relentless and often random bloodshed unleashed by
the war. Attributed by religious authorities to divine retribution
for sin, attempts to identify a supernatural cause led to a series
of witch-hunts, beginning in Franconia in 1626 and
quickly spreading to other parts of Germany.They began
in the Bishopric of Wurzburg, an area with a history of
such events going back to 1616 and now re-ignited by Bishop
von Ehrenberg, a devout Catholic eager to assert the
church's authority in his territories. By the time he died in 1631, over
900 people from all levels of society had been executed.
The Bamberg witch trials, held in the nearby Bishopric
of Bamberg from 1626 to 1631, claimed over one thousand lives
...'
As I point out in various places, in various pages, King James,
who played such a prominent part in the translation of the Bible
name after him, was also a prominent persecutor (torturer and
executioner) of witches, although he arranged for other people to
carry out the tortures and the executions.
The translation of Exodus 22:18 in the 'Good News (!) Bible gives
this so-called command of God: 'Put to death any woman who practices
magic.' In the King James Bible and many other translations, 'witch'
replaces 'any woman who practices magic.'
All this has very severe consequences for the Christian views of
redemption. A challenge to theologians and other Christian
believers: the killers of the peasantry during the Peasants' Revolt
would all have been Christian believers, with very few exceptions.
Did their Christian belief give them entry to heaven, with its
traditional rewards? The people who tortured and executed alleged
witches and the people who ordered them to torture and to execute
were all Christian believers. Did they end up with the sheep, not
with the goats? The Protestants who slaughtered Catholics during the
Thirty Years War and the Catholics who slaughtered Protestants were
Christian believers. Did they enjoy those blessings you talk about
and so often preach about?
Specifically, what are the views of Beth Keith of St Mark's
Church on doctrines of redemption? What are the views of Matthew
Rhodes? What are the views of Tim Ling of the Church Army. The views
of
Jonny Dyer of Christ Church, Fulwood and the views of
the staff of STC will be those associated with the
Conservative Evangelical views promoted by these
churches - Hellfire for all, except for the minority of
people who have accepted Christ as Saviour. Luther and
the King James of the King James Bible certainly
believed to their own satisfaction that they were
redeemed by the blood of the Son. They would have been
very disappointed indeed to find that their destiny
wasn't assured.
In fact, very large numbers of Christian believers do
believe in orthodox doctrines of redemption but would be
afraid to acknowledge it. The time has come to ask some
probing questions, to press for answers. You claim to be
a Christian, with a new life, someone with a very
different status from that of the unredeemed - yet you
refuse to answer questions about the matter? How can
this be?
The question to Tim Ling and other staff of the
Church Army: Do you believe that the clients of the
Church Army who never accept Jesus as Lord are excluded
from the rewards given to yourselves? Beth Keith, what
do you, as a 'Liberal Theologian,' make of redemption?
Do you believe that everyone gets to heaven, eventually?
That would have counted as heresy, in the past, and
perhaps earned the person a death sentence, perhaps by
burning alive. The revelation which Jesus allegedly
brought about, the doctrines which have a basis in what
Jesus taught, in the disorganized documents available,
left so much out and emphasized matters which are far
less important. Secular society hasn't any use for
doctrines of redemption. Doctrines of redemption are in
conflict with modern society. It may be important to a
Christian whether or not doctors, nurses, engineers,
labourers, office workers, journalists, mothers, fathers
and others have earned the right to enter heaven. In
secular society, it matters if a person is a good
doctor, nurse, engineer, labourer ... and the rest. To
Christian believers in orthodox doctrines of redemption,
such issues are irrelevant for the purposes of Selection
for Heaven. I state what will be obvious: that I
consider this Christian view deranged, that nobody with
any sense would want to give money to organizations
which preach such harmful doctrines.
I think Matthew Rhodes would acknowledge that his literary skills
don't rival the skills of, let's say, John Donne - but literary
skills don't prove the validity of the theological views of the
author. The literary values of the Authorized Version of the Bible
don't prove or improve the barbaric views of those associated with
the translation. The Authorized Version is also called the 'King
James Bible,' after the King who supervised the torture and
execution of women alleged to be witches, who had a leading part in
the burning alive of Edward Wightman in Lichfield in 1611. His
offences were to do with blasphemy.
Two brief quotations from this tract, which
were very likely received by the liberal (or pseudo-liberal)
congregation of St Mark's without any bother:
'When weeds appeared in a field of wheat, the slaves of the
householder come to him and suggest that they pull them up.'
'The son of man is the sower. The good seed are the children
of the kingdom. And the weeds are the children of the evil one. And
the harvest will be at the end of the age. At the final judgement.'
Here, there are apocalyptic, eschatological references, part of a
world view which can only be accepted by cranks, references to the
Devil ('the evil one') and the Last Judgement, the separation into
two groups with very different fates, the believers in Christ as
Lord and Saviour, and the doomed non-believers.
Has Matthew Rhodes given any thought to the fate of slaves in the
Roman Empire? They were bought and sold in degrading slave markets,
including slave children. Slave families were routinely split up and
sold to different masters (and mistresses). They could be tortured
at the whim of the owner, punished ferociously if the owner so
wished. As if this life of acute deprivation and brutal treatment
were not enough, Matthew Rhodes is seemingly indifferent to the fate
of slaves in his orthodox Christian scheme. A slave who never comes
to Christian faith is doomed but the slave owner who buys and sells
slaves, including slave children, is counted with the blessed, if
the slave owner has become a Christian believer (perhaps because of
the mere accident of meeting a Christian and being converted there
and then - if the slave owner's day hadn't involved this meeting,
the slave owner too might well share the fate of the slaves.)
The translation 'servants' found in many translations of Matthew
13:27 (and similar passages) is incorrect. The New Testament Greek
has
δοῦλοι,
slaves. The slave owner is described here asοἰκοδεσπότου
(in the Genitive case.) The word incorporates 'despotes' (in the
Nominative case), from which the English word 'despot' is derived.
The word emphasizes the power of the slave owner.
This sermon includes this
claim. The reference is to his time in Egypt:
'... most of the people in my congregation were Americans.
Some of them like to send me things on social media, including the
wonderful words you get on roadside pulpits in the United States.'
An alternative view would be that these simplistic dogmatic
messages are no more to be relied on than simplistic advertizing
claims. In both cases, people are expected to simply accept the
claims. There can never be any accompanying evidence - except
so-called Biblical evidence. These roadside pulpits are generally
put there by fundamentalists, who believe that the world was created
by God in six days and who believe that fossils were put in the
rocks by God to lead unbelievers astray, who also believe that 'sin'
came into the world in the way described in the Old Testament - Adam
and Eve, the apple and the rest.
Do the folk at this Ranmoor Church not find evidence that their
Vicar is lacking something, that he can speak and
write without bothering to think very much, that he's quite capable
of ignoring clear-cut ethical issues when he's in full flow, in the
grip of orthodox dogma?
Standards are no higher at St Mark's, the 'progressive' church -
which not only labours under the weight of a surprising amount of
old-fashioned orthodox dross but voluntarily takes on so much
orthodox 'progressive' dross.
I provide detailed evidence, on wide-ranging pages of the site to
support my view of orthodox Christian dogma, orthodox 'Woke' dogma
and the 'Progressive' fusion of orthodox Christian dogma and
orthodox 'Woke' dogma.
I take issue with this for different reasons, to do with the
realities of farming, good and bad practice in farming. Matthew
Rhodes says,
' ... the problem is not the quality of the ground that the
seed falls on but the question of what to do with the weeds that
grow up with the wheat. Obviously, this was before the invention of
pesticides. When weeds appeared in a field of wheat, the slaves of
the householder come to him and suggest that they pull them up. The
weeds are taking up space, water and nutrients at the expense of the
crop. But the householder tells them not to do this. If they pull up
the weeds, he says, they risk pulling up the wheat as well. The time
to separate them will be after the harvest.'
In fact, the time to separate them is when the weeds can be
identified but are still at an early stage in their growth. If weeds
are allowed to co-exist with the crop, then the yield is
overwhelmingly likely to be very low, perhaps almost non-existent.
A matter of interest to me. In the sermon, Matthew Rhodes gives
the information that he's a vegetarian. I've been a vegetarian since
my mid-twenties, many decades ago. I don't view vegetarians as
automatically worthy of respect or of being taken seriously. I've no
page on vegetarianism but I do have an
anti-vegan page.
The modest tone of this piece of his is appealing, in its way.
This is someone I've talked to, and he comes across as one of the
better clerics. Like the clerics who are markedly more impressive
than the specimens on offer, he can offer hostages to fortune,
plentiful supplies of incoherence, misconceptions, grotesque
reasoning. But he, and clerics like him, are on a different level
from Christian believers like this one. The extracts are from
' ...
the woman who served our table was a committed Christian. Since it was a
slow day at the restaurant, we took a few minutes to talk to her ... “As a
Christian, I am embarrassed to say it, but the most demanding customers —
those who are the hardest to please and leave the smallest tips — are
usually Christians. In fact, when people come into the restaurant carrying
their Bibles, the waiters and waitresses immediately start fighting about
who has to
serve that table because we know it’s going to take a lot of work and they
won’t leave much of a tip.”
She continued, “Isn’t it sad that a Bible in a person’s hands is the warning
sign that trouble lies ahead?”
Hearing about this negative influence that Christians had exerted on the
employees in that place of business, I decided to delve deeper and ask how
this had affected those who worked with her. She categorically told me, “The
people who work in this restaurant just can’t understand how Christians can
go to church on Sunday and then come into this restaurant and treat the
servers so badly. Most of the servers here would rather serve unbelievers
because they treat them nicer and leave bigger tips.”
MY CONFESSION FOR
TODAY [Written by someone not sanctified but sanctimonious] I confess that I am a good witness for
Jesus Christ! When people see me — how I live, how I talk, how I
act, and how I treat others — they are left with a good impression
of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is teaching me how to shine like a
light in darkness to those without Christ who are around me. Because
of my Christ-like example, many people without Jesus will come into
the Kingdom of God. Since my life is the only sermon some people
will ever hear, I will live my life each day in a way that
accurately reflects the Person of Jesus Christ.
I declare this by faith in Jesus' name!
Dr Cathy Rhodes, St John's Eco-Church,
Sheffield, Diocesan Environment Officer
gives the information that the Bishop of Sheffield, 'Pete' Wilson
has been appointed as a Church Commissioner. So too has Dr Cathy
Rhodes, a member of the congregation at St John's Church, Ranmoor,
Sheffield - and wife of the Vicar, Matthew Rhodes. He mentions the
fact in his sermon on the wheat and the weeds, examined in my
section on the church. The address where the sermon can be found is
The sermon was delivered at St Mark's Church, Sheffield. This, the
opening part of the sermon, isn't quoted in the critique and I don't
discuss this part of the sermon, except for comments on encouraging
the growth of wild flowers:
It is good to be with you this morning. I bring greetings from
everyone at St John’s Ranmoor and many congratulations on your Gold
Eco Church Award. My wife, Cathy Rhodes, the Diocesan Environment
Officer, is particularly delighted to have a gold award in the
Diocese. There are now 59 churches in the Diocese registered with
Eco Church and we have 22 bronze and silver awards. A lot of that is
down to your longstanding commitment to this vital area of mission.
The hot weather that we have seen recently in southern Europe has
reminded us again of the need for urgent action to combat climate
change. As St Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans, the whole
creation is groaning in labour pains. We hope and pray for the day
when it will be set free from its bondage to decay and find
resurrection and new life. And of course we all have a part to play
in this as individuals, churches and nations. St John’s has got its
silver award and as part of that we’ve been leaving areas of the
grounds unmown. We have been really pleased with the diversity of
plants that have appeared, including some bee orchids. Vicarages are
included in the Eco Church scheme so I’ve been trying to create
space for more wild plants.
What I do discuss, in various places in this section, is this
comment of Dr Rhodes, quoted in the Diocese of Sheffield page:
“I’m thankful for the privilege and opportunity to serve as a Church
Commissioner. Please keep me in your prayers as I start the role. I hope
some of the role will include building on my work as DEO [Diocesan
Environment Officer] in our mission to
care for God’s Creation and work towards climate justice for all God’s
people.”
As well as this, an extract from the
'Church Times' which quotes Dr Rhodes,
For those inspired by Sheffield’s example,
her advice is simple: connect with existing local campaigners; “use
every medium you’ve got to spread the word”; and find some practical
action to unite around, to avoid degenerating into a talking shop.
“And, finally, mention God and faith
naturally as part of interviews and presentations, showing how our
faith upholds and inspires this work.”
To anyone inspired by the words of Dr
Rhodes, I think I can easily show that she's misguided - in
some ways, disastrously misguided - but in ways which may not be
immediately obvious. Before I put the case against Dr Rhodes - as
Christian environmentalist - followed by the case against Dr
Margaret Ainger, another Christian environmentalist, a few words to
explain 'Church Commissioners.' The Church of England has 33
of them, including four lay people from the House of Laity of the
General Synod. (I don't explain what the General Synod Is. I'd like
to spare myself some tedium.) Cathy Rhodes isn't a clerical
functionary of the Church of England but a lay person. The
Archbishop of Canterbury is the Chairman of the Church Commissioners
ex officio. There's more about the Church Commissioners below.
From another Wikipedia page, 'Properties and
finance of the Church of England
The Church of England has a large endowment of £8.7 billion
which generates approximately £1 billion a year in income (2019),[1] this
is their largest source of revenue. The 2019 Financial report showed
that the size of the endowment has been steady or growing slightly
in recent years, delivering a return of 10% (2019) ...
The Church's Endowment fund is invested in a diversified
portfolio across a broad range of asset classes. This includes a
variety of equity investments in publicly listed and private
companies as well as commercial/residential property and land.
Donations
The Church of England generates approximately £329 million
from churchgoers' donations; this corresponds to approximately £15
per week per donor.
...
Donations comprise its primary source of income, though it
also relies heavily on the income from its various endowments.
The article gives more information about the Church
Commissioners:
... the church moved the majority of its income-generating assets
(which in the past included a great deal of land, but today mostly
take the form of financial stocks and bonds) out of the hands of
individual clergy and bishops to the care of a body called
the Church Commissioners, ish expenses, including clergy pensions
and the expenses of cathedrals and bishops' houses. These funds
amount to around £8 billion and generate income of around £260
million each year (as of 2003), around a fifth of the church's
overall income.
I don't have any more recent information
than the information quoted from 2003.
I move abruptly from this word of High Finance to some
disillusioning non-financial information, which I refer to later in
this section.
The Church of England is in crisis but it can be predicted that
the present crisis will be followed by others, shattering in their
effects.
Only 1% of 18 to 24 year-olds regard themselves as belonging to the
C of E, and only a small proportion of them actually attend [C of E
Church services.]
From a very different source, the Website of a Church of England
vicar
Sunday attendance has nearly halved since the millennium.
You can see the deep fall in Sunday attendance over recent
decades and how this sped up since COVID. All dioceses have lost
between a fifth and a quarter of their Sunday worshipers, between
2019 and 2022. And
this accelerated deep pre-existing decline. Some dioceses, like Bath
& Wells and Manchester, have lost 60 percent of their Sunday
congregations since 1990. Some, like London and Ely, have done less
poorly, but all have seen a sharp drop since 2022.
There are other metrics for measuring attendance. They have
their virtues, but also their vices. The great virtue of “usual
Sunday attendance” is that it offers a long run of years of data.
And it is easy to collect. There are other measures, but they
generally offer shorter runs of data and, in some cases, are highly
complex to calculate, raising concerns about the reliability of
data. And the other metrics support the attendance trends given
above.
Here is “leveling down” in action. For several decades, the
Diocese of London held out against the rest of the church and
actually grew (modestly). At last, it has come back into line.
London is now declining as fast as everywhere else. London used to
be an embarrassment for many C of E bishops. Why did it keep
growing, when every other diocese was shrinking? This is an issue no
longer. Every single C of E diocese is shrinking.
Where the C of E goes next can be seen by looking at other
denominations in England.
The United Reformed Church was the main home for
Presbyterians and Congregationalists in England. It is leading the
trend of mainline decline. In 1972 it had 192,000 members. By 2022
it had 37,000 members. In 50 years, it has shrunk by over 80
percent.
puts the case against green campaigners (some of them, at least),
green believers and green ideologists, but the page is far
from comprehensive. The list of profiles is very small.
I find linkages between environmentalists - many but not all -
and the Church of England. Both include orthodox believers and
ultra-orthodox believers. I've no way of knowing how rampant is
hypocrisy in the worls of environmentalism and the Church of
England.
My view is that more should be done to challenge
environmentalists, above all the orthodox and ultra-orthodox and
Church of England clerical and lay members. Here, the challenge is
to people who combine both roles - some of the believing Church of
England environmentalists.
In the case of these people, I'd want to issue a challenge on two
fronts. There wouldn't be much point in giving anything but the
briefest of outlines of what I have in mind, of a declaration by
these people, because it's not in the least likely that any of them
will be wiling to give an answer, in the form of a declaration or in
any other way.
A 'declaration' here is something resembling a 'Declaration of
Interest,'
'The purpose of declarations of interests is to provide
information to the public about the interests of key decision makers
which might influence their judgement, decision-making and actions,
or which might be perceived by a reasonable member of the public as
doing so.'
'A declaration of interest is a statement that outlines a
person's potential conflicts of interest, which could impact their
objectivity or ability to perform a task. Declarations of interest
are required in a number of contexts ... '
The Declarations I'm thinking of would give information about (1)
the Christian environmentalist's record in one particular aspect of
environmentalism (2) the Christian environmentalist's beliefs
concerning one central aspect of Christian belief. I defer
discussion of (2) but give some information about (1) very soon.
My page on 'Green Orthodoxy, Green Objections' begins with a
section
Introduction: green purism
My practice is much closer to green purism - which I criticize
on this page - than its opposite, whatever name it's given. I follow
green practices but point out the problems and difficulties of green
practice.
I take the view that the conquest of
the air, the invention and development of aircraft, including
aircraft for the transportation of people, is a massive,
extraordinary technological achievement, requiring massive,
extraordinary feats of organization, logistics, use of people,
including people with extraordinary skills.
I also take the view that the contribution of exhaust gas
pollution from planes is a very significant contributor to climate
change and that people should reduce the number of flights they
take, or take none at all, if possible. I take a view which is
frankly and unashamedly censorious. There are very large numbers of
people who misuse their opportunities. There are people who fly to
holiday destinations four times a year, five times a year, or even
more times a year. There are people who fly from this country to
visit Santa's Winter Wonderland somewhere in or near the Arctic
Circle, spend a few hours there and fly back the same day.
Back to the section on 'Green Purism:
'I'm
in the older age group. Over the decades, the many decades, I've
travelled by plane only a few times - once to Northern Ireland, once
to Italy, twice to Germany (to visit my brother, who was seriously
ill) and twice to North America (I travelled long distances inside
Canada and the United States but it was by train or bus. When I
travelled to Chamonix for cross country skiing, I travelled by train
- and found a campsite to pitch my tent when I got there. For a very
long time, I've hardly travelled outside Sheffield, except for brief
visits over the county border into the North Derbyshire Peak
District. My work here occupies so much of my time. I'm content to
stay in this area.'
I'm motivated to an extent by simple
curiosity to an extent in making this suggestion - I see no point in
asking for a Declaration of Practice, because if a response to an
invitation to supply information is likely to be disregarded, a
Declaration of Practice is even less likely.
As Dr Cathy Rhodes and Dr Margaret Ainger
are or will be discussed in this section, and Dr 'Pete' Wilcox, the
Bishop of Sheffield, is mentioned (his degree of conviction for the
principles of environmentalism seems from his writing not very
convincing to me), then it would satisfy my curiosity of the three
of them could give a record of their own flights over the years,
only a brief record but not omitting any of the flights taken.
In the Church of England's naive and
irresponsible pseudo-visionaly versions of events, conflating the
minor and the major or very significant plays a large part - as it
does in so much secular environmental compaigning. Secular sermons
on environmentalism can have faults similar to the ones in the
eccelasiastical versions, preaching to the converted and those
outside the blessed circle of belief, secular or Christian, can
convey similar illusions and delusions, secular and sacred
environmentalists may have similar faults, may be, in the words of a
dictionary definition of the word 'green:' 'Immature,
unsophisticated, or gullible.'
These are harsh criticisms, but I make the
attempt to supply all the evidence needed.
The Church Times article referred to above
includes this advice from Dr Rhodes, '... find some practical
action to unite around, to avoid degenerating into a talking shop.'
All the forms of practical action available
to the Church of England will have an effect on the 'Climate Crisis'
which is negligible or non-existent. Token Gestures are a Church of
England specialism. The main result is often the benefit to the
self-esteem of those taking part - in some cases, feeding the
aggrandizing and empire-building vanity of those in a position of
leadership. Again and again, these schemes vanish with no
discernible benefits, no achievements to record (despite the claims
of official records), leaving hardly a trace.
Some projects are worthy and even worthwhile
but fall well short of what's required to make a significant
contribution. Sowing of wild flower seeds, encouragement of wild
flowers falls within the category of worthy or worthwhile. The Home
Page of the site includes three rows of images of wild flower
species I've encouraged to grow at my allotments. (One of the images
shows Solanum crispum, a bush and not a British native.) Growing
wild flowers can easily lead to conflicts of interest, real
dilemmas, at the small scale level and at the level of national use
of farmland.
St Mark's Church is a member of the group of churches in South
Yorkshire and Derbyshire called 'Arise.' Rock Christian Centre is
another member of 'Arise.' This is from the Website of Rock
Christian Centre:'
'The fury of Almighty God against evil is evidence of His goodness.
If He wasn’t angered, He wouldn’t be good. We cannot separate God’s
goodness from His anger. Again, if God is good by nature, He must be
unspeakably angry at wickedness.
'But His goodness is so great that His anger isn’t confined to the
evils of rape and murder. Nothing is hidden from His pure and holy
eyes. He is outraged by torture, terrorism, abortion, theft, lying,
adultery, fornication, pedophilia, homosexuality, and blasphemy.'
' ...
your knowledge of God’s Law should help you to see that you have a
life-threatening dilemma: a huge problem of God’s wrath (His
justifiable anger) against your personal sins. The just penalty for
sin—breaking even one Law—is death, and eternity in Hell.'
Jesus never condemned torture, just as he never condemned slavery.
There's condemnation of homosexuality to be found in 'St' Paul, but
Jesus never mentions the subject. The claims made by Rock Christian
Centre amount to a confused mess, as also claims made by St Mark's.
St Mark's Church has some explaining to do.
Sue Hammersley is vicar of St Mark's no longer. Sheffield
Diocese has been
looking for a new vicar, someone who will also be the 'Priest in Charge' at St
Mary's, Walkley. Candidates were
invited to contact Archdeacon Malcolm Chamberlain of the Sheffield Diocese with informal enquiries.
The new vicar has now been appointed: Dr Beth Keith. After
the licensing service has taken place, then I intend to begin activism.
Given all the other demands on my time, it's likely that this activism won't
be as intense as I would like. In the meantime, I intend to add new material
to this page and to revise existing material.
St Mark's may be a far more 'progressive''
church than many or most churches but I regard St Mark's as regressive as well as
'progressive.' I have serious criticisms to make of the church in its
progressive (including 'woke') aspects as well as its regressive aspects.
In fact, St Mark's and St Mary's endorse large expanses of traditional
Christian dogma, on all the evidence available to me.
The publicity material stresses the advantages - mention of 'leafy suburbs
... easy access to the Peak District ... short walk to green spaces and the
city centre, with theatres, museums and music venues' but I think that the
successful candidate should be aware that she may well face very challenging circumstances -
challenges to Christian belief and practice, that is. A post in a rough inner-city neighbourhood could well be far easier.
I've sent emails to Malcolm Chamberlain at various times. The
emails were about a review conducted by Barnardo's into alleged exorcism at
a Sheffield church, Philadelphia Network Church, part of the 'STC family.' I
was perturbed by the fact that long after the review was commissioned by
Sheffield Diocese, no review had appeared. There's information about
the case and the result of the Barnardo's Inquiry, which has now been
published, in the section below on STC (formerly St
Thomas Church).
Fastidious churches belonging to the Diocese and
also belonging to 'Arise!' and no longer be grouped with rock-bottom
churches such as Rock Christian Centre but they could hardly the Diocese.
The financial inducements to stay are overwhelming. Clergy who would like to
be paid regularly wouldn't be tempted. They are stuck there. There are no
signs of a mass revolt. Sheffield Diocese is made up of churches with
gender-neutral toilets, with a fluid notion of gender, and churches which
teach (or believe, without daring to attract negative publicity) that
homosexuality is a sin. There are churches which ignore texts such as 1
Corinthians 6:9, 'Or
do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do
not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor men who practise homosexuality,' whilst making frequent
use of texts from St Paul, which would seem to be the policy of St Mark's.
But can St Mark's state the criteria they use, other than simple
convenience? There are churches which accept the complete package, without
exceptions. But can they overcome the obstacles to complete acceptance,
which force them to accept ludicrous, cruel, grotesque texts which can't
possibly be guides to action?
Whereas churches such as the Rock Christian Centre
are very clear about their terrifyingly ignorant doctrine of redemption and
churches such as Christ Church Fulwood, St Thomas Crookes and St Thomas
Philadelphia have orthodox views of redemption, the situation at St Mark's
is far from clear. I intend to request clarification from the new Vicar and
to publish, to publicize the new vicar's views on this and other theological
issues.
The doctrine of redemption is a central doctrine of
Christian belief. It entails the view that not all are redeemed.
Universalists, who believe that nobody is excluded, are in the minority. To
focus attention on one particular statement of doctrine, this is a record of
a sermon preached at St Mary's Church Walkley on Remembrance Sunday.
Whoever is appointed to the post at St Mark's will
be responsible for St Mary's as well. It's absolutely clear that the
preacher believes that redemption is confined to believers in Jesus as Saviour.
The publicity material for the recruitment
includes this:
We seek someone who:
has a strong eucharistic and sacramental focus
affirms inclusivity, appreciates diversity and sees God in
everyone
will encourage participation and nurture new lay involvement,
respecting the existing culture and theology while supporting and
challenging us to be the best disciples we can be.
Beth Keith, appointed Vicar of St Mark's may be someone who 'sees God in everyone'
(allegedly). Is she prepared to
face the harsh realities which make this ability difficult or impossible -
should be able to defends his or her view of things. The evidence against is
massive and overwhelming. This is simply a selection. The World History
channel publishes videos which give horrific information on the cruelties
carried out by Nazis. These are some of them, the name of the Nazi, some of
their acts, and the address of the video.
Karl Gebhardt
Execution of Nazi doctor who
broke women’s legs with a hammer & amputated limbs without anesthesia https://www.yout
ube.com/watch?v=739DyQuwdpU
Anton Thumann
Psychopathic Nazi officer who
unleashed his dog on women & burned them alive
Dorothea Binz Ravensbrück survivor
recalled how had personally whipped her in this bunker and made her
eat mud-soaked bread like a dog. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FnI9fiUN5Y
Less recent - but relevant -
material on St Mark's
The church was built 1868-1871 but the building was almost
completely destroyed by a Nazi incendiary bomb during the 'Sheffield
Blitz' of 12 December, 1940. Only the spire and a porch survived. These
remnants were the basis of a new church, constructed 1958-1963.
Sue Hammersley is [now: was] vicar at St Mark's Church. From the Youtube video
'Via Dolorosa.' Her facile and superficial address/sermon on suffering
turns out to put the emphasis on something very different. She says,'
This service is a reminder that God's love permeates every part of our
life ... even our own sense of being crucified.' This is playing with
words, words she finds impressive but with no relation to realities.
From my comments below, quoting from the book by Peter Kolchin,
'American slavery:'
'Slaves who transgressed could look forward to a wide range of
punishments - most imposed informally by owners and overseers but some
officially meted out upon sentence by special slave courts that existed
in all the Southern colonies - including branding, nose slitting;
amputation of ears, toes, and fingers (and less often of hands and
feet): castration; and burning at the stake.'
Sue Hammenlsey, and the people who patiently listened to her address
at St Marks, may feel 'We share your pain! We share your experience of
being burned alive! They may feel that the victim has the assurance of
God's love, which permeates every part of his or her life, until the
flames do their work. What of what comes after? Does God's love suddenly
end? Does it go beyond that? According to orthodox Christian belief,
held by so many millions over the millennia, God then judges the slave
burned alive, and if the slave hasn't accepted Christ as personal Lord
and Saviour, then the slave spends an eternity of separation from God.
It may well be that the slave was treated so atrociously (perhaps by a
slave-owner who had this all-important faith in Christ) that he or she
couldn't give thought to the destiny of the soul. The slave was
preoccupied with punishments, such as branding and amputation, and
back-breaking work.
If all this doesn't disturb Sue Hammersley's calm assurance that
God's love permeates every part of a slave's life, then she could read
the Wikipedia page on Thomas Thistlewood, an 18th century planter and
slave-owner who emigrated to Jamaica.
I take the view that Sue Hammersley - and Beth Keith - find the 'word sphere' very
congenial, certain realities much less congenial. There are vast numbers
of Chistians who feel the same. The 'word sphere' in
this sense allows the believer to indulge in complacency by spinning a
web of words. Inside this cocoon of words for nice feelings, the glow of calm
assurance can be enjoyed and indulged. Facts and harsh realities
could disturb this spurious state, so facts and harsh realities of this
kind aren't allow to intrude.
A pro-Palestinian event is due to take place at St Mark's. I
won't be attending, of course, but may be able to make a
contribution, even so. I think we can be sure that there will be no
comment on the Palestinian treatment of homosexual people (I'll use
the old-fashioned word for once, not the collection of letters.)
Those attending may or may not be aware that when Hamas was running
the territory (and ruining the territory) homosexuality was
punishable with imprisonment for up to ten years. Gay people in
Israel face no such restrictions. This is a country where massive
gay pride events take place.
My page on Israel gives a great deal of material arguing the case
for Israel. I point out that over the years, Palestinian casualties
would have been very light if only the Palestinians had
followed this course of action: stop breaking ceasefires, stop
firing rockets into Israel.
No responsible political party, no political party which wants to
win a national election, no political party determined to
avoid lost deposits in elections, wherever possible, could follew
the infantile and naive policies which seem to have such appeal to
closed minds at St Mark's. I'm thinking of infantile and naive views
on a variety of subjects, including unchecked migration to this
country.
If there are people at St Mark's who disagree with any of this,
or, more likely, all of this, then they can argue the contrary case
- some evidence would be nice to have - but I don't think that's in
the least likely.
The use of 'progressive' to describe the Christian views commonly
held by St Mark ideologists is ridiculous. The people who use the
word seem not to know that this is a word so often misused as to be
barely usable now. It was used by communists in East Germany and
other countries to describe their tyrannical system of government.
Above, part of a wreath supplied by the pacifist 'Peace Pledge
Union.' An image of the wreath appears on the St Marks Facebook page.
Below, material on the Peace Pledge Union and its mixed but
overwhelmingly poor record in relation to Nazi German. The wreath is 'for
all those who have died or are dying in wars ... ' The
Peace Pledge Union obviously thinks that the fallen are equally
deserving - the Nazi soldiers who had previously carried out executions
of civilians and massacres of civilians, the Nazi soldiers who promoted
and fended the Nazi's demented and barbaric policies - and the soldiers
of the allied forces who liberated the extermination and concentration
camps and freed the world of the nightmare of Nazism. Some of the people
at St Mark's Church seem not to have noticed this.
There's a great deal of material on St Mark's Church on my page on
Christian Religion as well as other material relevant here, such as my
comments on Christian belief and slavery, under the graphic image of a
slave who has been flogged.
The Nazi Holocaust and all the other Nazi
barbarities were eventually brought to an end not by prayer, not by the
Churches, not by earnest but naive people - I've reason to think that St
Mark's Church contains some instructive examples - but by military
action, costly in lives, necessarily involving massive financial
resources and resources of other kinds, and in so many other ways.I include more material on the Second World War
here but begin with material on the American Civil War. This war brought
an end to slavery in the United States, something which no amount of
wishful thinking, praying or any other method had achieved. Ineffectual
church goers of the St Mark's kind or any other kind had failed to end
this nightmare.
From the Wikipedia entry on the Peace Pledge Union:
Like many in the 1930s, the PPU supported aspects
of appeasement
... It backed Neville Chamberlain's policy at
Munich in
1938, regarding Hitler's claims on the Sudetenland as
legitimate. At the time of the Munich crisis, several PPU sponsors tried
to send "five thousand pacifists to the Sudetenland as a non-violent
presence", however this attempt came to nothing.
Peace Newseditor
and PPU sponsor Jahn Middleton Murry and his
supporters in the group caused considerable controversy by arguing
Germany should be given control of parts of mainland Europe. In a PPU
publication, Warmongers, Clive Bell said that Germany should be
permitted to "absorb" France, Poland, the Low Countries and the Balkans.
However, this was never the official policy of the PPU and the position
quickly drew criticism from other PPU activists such asVera Brittain and Andrew
Stewart. Clive
Bell left the PPU shortly afterwards and by 1940 he was supporting the
war.
Some PPU supporters were so sympathetic to German
grievances that PPU supporter Rose Macaulay claimed she found it
difficult to distinguish between the PPU newspaper Peace Newsand
that of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), saying,
"occasionally when reading Peace News, I (and others) half think we have
got hold of the Blackshirt [BUF
journal] by mistake". There was Fascist infiltration of the PPU and
M15 kept
an eye on the PPU's "small Fascist connections".After
Dick Sheppard's death in October 1937, George Orwell , always hostile to pacifism,
accused the PPU of "moral collapse" on the grounds that some members
even joined the BUF.However, several historians note that the situation
may have been the other way around; that is, BUF members attempted to
infiltrate the PPU.
Historians have differed in their interpretation of
the PPU's attitude to Nazi Germany. The historian Martin Gilbert said, "it is hard to
think of a British newspaper that was so consistent an apologist for
Nazi Germany as Peace News," which "assiduously echoed the Nazi press's
claims that far worse offences than the Kristallnacht events
were a regular feature of British colonial rule". But David C. Lukowitz
argues that, "it is nonsense to charge the PPU with pro-Nazi sentiments.
From the outset it emphasised that its primary dedication was to world
peace, to economic justice and racial equality," but it had "too much
sympathy for the German position, often the product of ignorance and
superficial thinking". Research by the historian
Richard Griffiths, , published in 2017, suggests
considerable division and controversy at the top of the PPU, with the
editors of Peace Newsbeing
generally more willing to play down the dangers of Nazi Germany than
were many members of the PPU Executive.
Controversy over the PPU's attitude towards Nazi
Germany has continued ever since the war. In 1950, Rebecca West, in her book The Meaning of Treason,
described the PPU as "that ambiguous organisation which in the name of
peace was performing many actions certain to benefit Hitler". The
publishers removed the phrase from subsequent editions of the book
following representations by the PPU, but West refused to apologise ...
Initially, the Peace Pledge Union opposed the Second
World War and continued to argue for a
negotiated peace with Germany. On 9 March 1940, 2,000 people attended a
PPU public meeting calling for a negotiated peace. PPU membership
reached a peak of 140,000 in 1940.
The critical attitude towards the PPU in this period was
summarised by George Orwell, writing in the October 1941 issue of
Adelphi magazine:
"Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces
of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against
democracy than for it. Objectively, the pacifist is pro-Nazi".
I wouldn't endorse his comment that 'objectively, the pacifist is
pro-Nazi.' I do maintain that pacifists harmed the allied struggle
to overcome Nazism. The harm was comparatively slight only because
the pacifists were comparatively powerless, with very little
influence over events.
Dr Margaret Ainger, St Mark's Eco
Church, Sheffield
The naive group, Extinction Rebellion has been promoted on
the St Mark's Website:
‘On 7 October, XR launched its largest worldwide action. In
London thousands of rebels joined the rebellion for up to two weeks,
spurred on by the need to act now for our climate before it is too late.
Myself, and other members of St Mark's, are just some of those rebels.
For us, XR speaks truth to power, where a strategy of non-violent
disruptive civil disobedience is a way to make effective positive change
in order to save this planet from human destruction. ‘My Christian faith
felt central to the call from XR to ‘Act Now’, and I spent much of my
time in London with Christian Climate Action (the Christian 'wing'),
praying, taking part in actions, and doing the daily offices, including
Eucharist in front of the police line. Despite the noise, the clamour,
the thousands of arrests, the tears, the rain, the fear and the
apprehension, it felt like a profoundly holy place. I was shoved, spat
at by passers-by, threatened with a night in the cells but kept on, like
so many others, joined in union and in partnership that though peaceful
action profound change could be made. Christ was present in the mess of
it all and with a collective hope (like fresh water) that we were once
again renewed in God's call to us, to be stewards of God's creation...
And it was good…’ Margaret Ainger.
I'm not sure if this was written by Margaret Ainger or by Lu
Skerratt-Love, mentioned in various places on this site, including
the section on this page on the Church Army,
which gives infomation about some disastrously misguided actions of
Tim Ling, of the same department. Lu Skerratt-Love was
employed by the Church Army, in the research department, and was a
Trustee of St Mark's Church. But the most detailed account of
Lu Skerratt-Love and Tim Ling by far can be found in column 1 and
column 2 of the page South Yorkshire Police: a knock at the door.
South Yorkshire Police: a knock at the door
In the orbit of St Mark's: St Mary's Church.
Includes Dr Alan Billings (ex South Yorkshire Police and Crime
Commissioner) on theology and slavery
Above, 'St' Mark's Church, Walkley, Sheffield
There's more material on slaves in the column to the right -
clicking here takes you to the place.
The Last Sunday after Trinity - Eucharist - 10.30am 27th October
2024 - St Mary's Walkley
6:23 minutes into the video, Dr Billings addresses the
congregation (not shown at any point in the video but without any
doubt at all, a very small congregation.)
'You'll have noticed on the way in that there is a protest
happening opposite our church. [I describe the event as a 'display'
or a 'presentation,' not a protest.] Someone [that is, me] has some
signs up saying neither Jesus nor Paul opposed slavery. I don't know
what it's all about. He is there. Theologically, of course, he's
wrong. [Theologically, of course, Dr Billings is wrong, as I show.]
Remember St Paul's great saying that in Christ there is neither male
nor female, neither slave nor free, but all are one in Christ Jesus.
['St' Paul was referring to the equality of slave and free as
Christian believers. Slave and free could all enter the 'Kingdom of
Heaven.' St Paul believed that slaves who never accepted Christ as
Saviour were destined to be eternally separated from God. He
believed that Christian slave owners were redeemed, that
non-Christian slaves were unredeemed. The difference in the rights
of slaves and free throughout the Roman Empire was extreme. The
testimony of a slave was only allowed in Roman courts if the slave
was first tortured. If the master of a slave had been killed by a
slave, all the slaves in the household could be executed.
Slaves could be and very often were maltreated, by flogging and many
other means. Slaves were vulnerable to sexual and other forms of
abuse. The children of slaves were regularly separated from their
parents and sold at a slave market. I
maintain that Dr
Billings has flagrantly distorted the facts. In fact, I view his comments as
amounting to prima facie falsification.] So I think theologically he's
[referring to me] on the wrong track. But he's out there and we're
in here and we can't put him right so I hope he doesn't disturb you.
[My presentation, my display, what he refers to as my 'protest' was
completely silent, so there was absolutely no chance of the least
disturbance.]
Dr Billlings may not be very familiar with critical works on
slavery, including works with critical material on slavery in New
Testament times. The literature is, of course, vast. One of the
works on by bookshelves is the very large and very well regarded
book, 'The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440
- 1870,' by Hugh Thomas. The Atlantic Slave Trade was carried out by
Christians, Roman Catholics such as the Spanish and Portuguese slave
traders, and Protestants, such as the British and the Dutch.
The author sets out reasons for the failure to criticize slave
trade widely, the failure to abolish the slave trade until so late.
He refers to the Stoic philosophy which was influential in the Roman
Empire, and the influence of Christianity. He writes, ' ... neither
Stoic nor Christian questioned the institution of slavery ... in the
early days of Christianity, Christ's failure to talk specially of
slaves was taken to imply that they were excluded from divine
generosity.'
In fact, slaves
were not excluded
from divine
generosity. Slaves,
like free people,
could gain 'eternal
life,' provided that
they accepted Christ
as Saviour. What
Christianity never
did was to bring
hope to slaves that
they could be freed
from slavery, freed
from the intolerable
sufferings which
dominated the lives
of vast numbers of
slaves.
Peter Kolchin writes, in 'American slavery,' 'Slaves who
transgressed could look forward to a wide range of gruesome
punishments ... including branding, nose slitting, amputation of
ears, toes, and fingers (and less often of hands and feet);
castration, and burning at the stake.'
In the chapter 'The White South: Society, Economy, Ideology,'
Peter Kolchin writes, 'Beginning in the 1830's, Southern spokesmen
elaborated with increasing volume, detail, and sophistication a
series of arguments in defense of the peculiar institution [the
institution of slavery.]'
And this:
'Religious idioms pervaded the pro-slavery literature, in part
because Protestant ministers played a leading role in the defense of
slavery and in part because such language was well calculated to
appeal to antebellum Southerners. Indeed, historian Drew Gilpin
Faust suggested that "the Bible served as the core" of the
"proslavery mainstream."
' ... To Southerners steeped in the Bible and predisposed to look
to it for guidance, the facts that the ancient Hebrews (God's chosen
people) owned slaves and that Jesus, who was not hesitant to condemn
behaviour that he considered immoral, never criticized slavery or
reproached anyone for owning slaves seemed to provide clear divine
sanction for the peculiar institution ... But probably the most
widespread and effective religious argument was the simple
suggestion that slavery was part of God's plan to expose a hitherto
heathen people to the blessings of Christianity.
When Dr Billings made his astonishing - and ignorant - claim in
connection with Paul's attitude to slavery, the claim, not in
the least an original one, that slaves and free were all one in
Christ and enjoyed the supposed blessings of that status, then he should have realized that slaves had the same
'advantage' (provided that they had converted to Christianity and
had accepted Jesus) in the American Confederate states, before the
abolition of slavery, in the mid nineteenth century. He ignores the
fact that the everyday living conditions of slaves were horrific far
more often than not, that their legal status as the property of free
men and women was intolerable, that this was an institution which
should have been abolished long ago.
According to the deeply misguided - the hideous - view of
Dr Billings, if slavery still existed in the United States of
America, the slaves would enjoy the status of being 'all one' with
free people in Christ. If this view were taken seriously, the
abolition of slavery would seem not to be a matter of any great
urgency. But the abolition of slavery was a matter of extreme
importance. Christians may have overlooked its cruelties - did
overlook its cruelties, in vast numbers, but emancipation had become
far too important a matter to be ignored.
Jesus and St Paul and the Christians living in the Roman Empire,
and the Christians of later centuries, failed and failed
comprehensively, to see the reality of slavery. As it was, when
Jesus and 'St' Paul gave their teaching on sin and redemption of
sin, owning slaves, buying and selling slaves, did not count as a
sin. Adultery did count as a sin.
In the letter 'Philemon,' Paul gives his opinion on the runaway
slave. Paul was complacent and ignorant. He must have known that the
owner of a runaway slave could mistreat the slave if the slave were
to be returned. He must have known that the owner could execute the
slave. Paul never even suggested that Philemon should free the
slave. If he had suggested that, it would not have been enough. It
would not have helped the slaves who lived in intolerable conditions
and ran away because they felt they had no realistic alternative. St
Paul had no contructive - humane - suggestions to make concerning
this aspect of the society he lived in - or many other aspects of
the society.
Jesus failed comprehensively, 'St' Paul failed comprehensively,
and so did the members of the early church and the vast majority of
Christians over the centuries of 'Christian belief.'
His very brief dismissal of my views on these matters, as
'theologically wrong' was very mistaken and very misguided. I intend
to do much more than simply record my own view on this page. I think
a public exchange of views - Dr Billings versus myself - would
clarify matters. If a suitable venue could be found, then a kind of
debate would be very, very useful - but I don't expect Dr Billings,
or St Mary's Church or St Mark's Church or the Sheffield Diocese to
be very eager to take part in a debate.
I have a range of campaigning techniques which I'm able to use
and intend to use, if necessary. I don't intend to give Dr Billings
the satisfaction of feeling that he's won some kind of victory, that
he's emerged from this with any credit, with an enhanced reputation
as a theologian.
This is the man who misused his position as South Yorkshire
Police and Crime Commissioner, in my view, by interpolating his
Christian views. He did this from an early stage in his tenancy of
the office.
In the publication 'Keeping Safe,' 'The Police and Crime Plan for
South Yorkshire 2017 - 2021,' he saw foot to include, in a very
prominent position, inside the cover of the publication, in a
massive text size, this quotation from Jeremiah, 29:7, "Seek the
well-being of this place ... for in its well-being you will find
your own.' This extract was taken out of context. He was, and still
is, a Christian vicar and it was a bad mistake to promote Christian
views in this way.
Above, Bishop Stephen Elliott, a Bishop of the Episcopal
Church in mid 19th century Virginia, USA - and a slave owner. Like
countless slave owners in the pre-bellum Southern States, be
believed that slavery was legitimate because it was nowhere
forbidden in the Bible. In fact, it was clear to him that neither
Jesus nor St Paul opposed the institution of slavery. Bishop Elliott
even took the view that slavery had increased the number of
Christian converts. He wrote of
' ...
the thousands, nay, I may say millions, who have learned the way to
Heaven and who have been made to know their Savior through the means
of African slavery! At this very moment there are from three to four
millions of Africans, educating for earth and for Heaven in the so
vilified Southern States—learning the very best lessons for a
semi-barbarous people—lessons of self-control, of obedience, of
perseverance, of adaptation of means to ends; learning, above all,
where their weakness lies ... '
Bishop
Elliott certainly believed that the many millions of slaves who were
never converted were consigned to hell.
Which brings me to a challenge to Dr Billings. What are your
views on the doctrine of redemption. Do you believe - or think it
likely - that slaves who never accepted Jesus as Saviour are
eternally separated from God? What of the people of South Yorkshire?
You were the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner for South
Yorkshire. Do you believe - or think it likely - that all the people
of South Yorkshire who never accept Jesus as Saviour are eternally
separated from God?
Is it too much to expect a degree of clarity on this point?
Members of the public joined South Yorkshire Police and Crime
Commissioner Dr Alan Billings, Chief Constable Stephen Watson,
officers and police support staff at the Rock Christian Centre in
Carlisle Street.
Dr Billings and the chief were presented with specially
commissioned South Yorkshire Police crested bibles by Thomas of
Gideons International. Sergeant Simon Kirkham, a Rotherham police
officer, delivered the reading to around 150 colleagues, support
staff and members of the public who enjoyed music from the worship
band.
Sergeant Kirkham has Conservative Evangelical beliefs. The
beliefs endorsed by the Christian Police Association, the Rock
Christian Centre and the Gideons are Conservative Evangelical
beliefs, which include the belief that all people - including the
people of South Yorkshire and colleagues of Simon Kirkham (and of
Alan Billings) are destined to hell if they do not accept Jesus as
their personal lord and saviour.
Does Alan Billings suppose that the belief of the Rock Christian
Centre, and the beliefs of those others, are irrelevant? Would he
have attended an event at a place which promotes hideous beliefs of
a non-Christian kind?
Was Dr Billings aware that at the time he attended this event at
the Rock Christian Centre, the Centre had no person responsible for
safeguarding? It does have one now. I very much hope that enquiries
will be made, by the Police and Crime Panel, the Independent Ethics
Panel, or Dr Billings himself. It isn't likely that Rock Christian
Centre would respond to a query made by me. I strongly believe in
the importance of documentation which is as thorough as possible,
taking into account such constraints as the time available. I think
it would be important to find out when the decision was made by Rock
Christian Centre to appoint a Safeguarding Officer, an appointment
which should have been made long before. Of course, making an
appointment does not guarantee that the person appointed has the
skills and qualities necessary for such a post.
Churches, including Churches in South Yorkshire, began
appointing Safeguarding Officers not solely as a response to
well-publicized and very disturbing cases of abuse and abuse which
went on for very long periods of time perpetrated by non-Christians.
There have been very serious cases of abuse - and abuse which went
on for long periods of time - perpetrated by Christians. The
evidence is substantial - massive. In many cases, the evidence that
emerged at the time was ignored by Church authorities and others,
including, too often, police forces. Any supposition that Christians
cannot possibly be responsible for abuse or only very rarely is
contradicted by the facts.
This is yet another reason for giving no preferential treatment
to Christian faith and to Christians, a reason for maintaining
strict impartiality. And similarly for issues which have nothing to
do with abuse. If a Christian makes a complaint against a
non-Christian, then the police should observe the principle of
equality before the law, better expressed in this instance as
equality of treatment.
I provide next a long section, an extract from my page onChurch
Abuse, a page which is very much in need of revision
and extension, as well as deletion of material which since
publication has now been published on other pages. When time
permits, I will carry out the necessary revision, extension and
deletion. The extract conveys yet more reasons for my view that Alan
Billings, whilst giving the appearance of openness, has failed to
take into account large areas of Christian practice, or has been
very selective in the material he has chosen to publicize, omitting
material which is relevant but which would not fit his narrative.
which includes statements on the beliefs of the Christian Police
Association. Which of these beliefs does Alan Billings share? Which
of them, if any, does he reject?
We Believe
That the Bible, as originally given, is the inspired
Word of God without error and is the only complete authority
in all matters of faith and doctrine. That sin entered the world when man chose to disobey God
and please himself. Since then sin has affected the core of
humanity, touching every part of our nature and being. That it is only by God’s grace and mercy that the sinful
person is made right with Him through faith in Jesus Christ
alone.
We Believe
That the soul of a person is eternal and that there will
be a physical resurrection of the body for everyone who will
then be judged by the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who have died
having believed and received forgiveness will be raised, and
together with those believers who are still alive, will be
taken to live with Christ forever. Those who have refused to
believe will be condemned from God’s presence forever.
It's clear that according to this statement
of belief, Roman slave owners who had sold slave children in
the slave market and who had had slaves tortured before they
gave testimony in court received forgiveness if they died as
Christian believers. Slave children and adult slaves who
failed to accept Jesus as Saviour would be 'condemned from
God's presence forever.'
This would have been the fate of the Roman
slaves who
were exposed to ferocious Roman discipline. From the
Wikipedia page
'As the Romans increased the numbers of slaves they held,
their fear of them grew, as did the severity of discipline.]Cato
the Elder whipped the household slaves for even small
mistakes and kept his enslaved agricultural workers in
chains during the winter ... The physicianGalenobserved
slaves being kicked, beaten with fists, and having their
teeth knocked out or their eyes gouged out, witnessing the
impromptu blinding of one slave by means of a reed pen.'
Any
supposition that no Christians would mistreat people in
extreme ways is wide of the mark. From my page
After five years of
sadistic beatings in a garden shed by one of the
UK’s most prominent barristers, and with a “special
beating” to mark his 21st birthday imminent, Andy
Morse tried to take his own life.
The student
had endured thousands of lashes on his naked
buttocks administered in the name of Jesus by John
Smyth QC. He could no longer endure the pain, terror
and humiliation.
Fortunately,
his housemates broke down the bathroom door and
called an ambulance. But Morse was not Smyth’s only
victim. There are more than 100 known survivors, and
perhaps many others: public schoolboys who took part
in a network of military-style Christian holiday
camps in the 1970s and 80s.
A new book, Bleeding for Jesus, tells the story of
Smyth, the moral crusader who fought legal battles
for “Christian values” in Britain’s courts while
allegedly mercilessly abusing young men at his
Hampshire home, and the Iwerne Trust, which
organised the “Bash camps” that were his hunting
ground and which turned a blind eye to his
activities.
...
The Iwerne project, which Graystone describes as a
cult, recruited “young men who were the brightest
and best from the most elite schools in the country
to win them for the Christian faith, to create a
church of purity within the wider Church of
England”, he said.
It produced
many of the most prominent conservative evangelical
leaders within the C of E over the past 40 years.
Many see themselves as “the guardians of the true
gospel against the forces of liberalism”.
According to the book, their number include Nicky
Gumbel, the driving force behind the highly
influential Alpha course run by churches all over
the country; David Sheppard, who played cricket for
England before becoming bishop of Liverpool, and
several others who became bishops. Justin Welby, the
archbishop of Canterbury, was briefly embroiled in
Iwerne’s holiday camps in the late 1970s.
...
Graystone said the Iwerne project, in line with most
cults, relied on three pillars: conversion,
conditioning and coercion. Recruits had to “declare
total allegiance to Jesus”, follow certain codes and
practices, and observe “sexual purity”. He said it
was “highly exclusive – this was not a movement for
the poor. It accrued huge amounts of power,
influence and wealth.”
Jonny Dyer, Vicar
Pete Scamman, Associate Vicar
Rob Mullock, Minister for Training
Tom Brewster, Minister for Music
Justin Roberts, Minister for Students
Steph Johnson, Student Worker
Julia Butler, 'Biblical Counselling'
2021 ELECTION FOR 4 LAY PEOPLE TO REPRESENT THE DIOCESE IN
THE GENERAL SYNOD HOUSE OF LAITY
the section
'What do I believe?'
Jane Patterson writes,
'I believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired and
written Word of God, that its pages tell us about who God is, His
perfect plan for the world He created, His offer of forgiveness and
a restored eternal relationship for everyone who believes in the
death and resurrection of His only Son, Jesus and who confesses Him
as Saviour and Lord. I believe that the Bible shows us how we should
live and that ‘the great commission’, at the end of Matthew’s
Gospel, remains the church’s mission statement 2000 years later.'
Not many human lives, not a vast number of human lives but all
human activities are reduced in this ultra-systematic system of
belief to a simple division.
Does Jane Patterson believe that everyone who worships at
Christ Church, Fulwood, Sheffield is 'saved,' provided they have
passed the test and that everyone else, including the
poor, the destitute, the victims of war, the carers, the scientists
and engineers, climbers and mountaineers, miners, builders,
plumbers, accountants, farmers, factory workers and philanthropists
- people in every single human activity - are destined to spend
eternity in hell or whatever polite term is the current synonym for
hell? She does believe this, and so do street pastors - who
believe that the people they rescue from dehydration after heavy
drinking need rescuing from a far worse fate, hell. (Street pastors
who claim that this is a complete misinterpretation of their own
beliefs are welcome to contact me.)
An extract from the Christ Church Staff List - wondrous to
behold, or perhaps not. Be that as it may, I'm confident that
despite the large number of staff and whatever theological knowledge
they have, the Church won't be willing to defend itself and its
Christian 'values.'
Jonny Dyer, Vicar (replacing the vicar who left under mysterious
circumstances - more information below.)
Pete Scamman, Associate Vicar.
A curate who according to the information supplied 'enjoys chatting
with young people about Jesus.')
A Minister for Training
A Minister for Students
A Students Worker
A Youth and Families Worker (who 'enjoys chatting with young
people about Jesus' and 'painting toy soldiers'
A Children and Families Worker
A Junior Children, Youth and Families Worker
A Director of Operations
A Premises Manager
Ministry Support Assistants X 3 (3 of them)
Ministry Support Manager
Lead Recruiter
Ministry Trainees X 5
Christ Church Fulwood in south-west Sheffield is one of the
largest churches in the Church of England, so the resignation of its
vicar on September 30th after a Bishops’ Visitation into his
leadership is a major story.
The church gets over a 1000 people through its doors on a usual
Sunday, compared to the around 50 that the average CofE church gets.
Since Canon Paul Williams became vicar of Fulwood in 2006 after
serving as curate at another CofE conservative evangelical flagship
church, All Souls Langham Place in central London, Christ Church has
been responsible for four church plants or grafts within Sheffield
Diocese.
...
After a claim on Twitter in August that ‘the head of Christ
Church Fulwood’ (the tweet did not directly name Williams) had been
‘forced’ to resign, the Bishop of Sheffield, Pete Wilcox and the
suffragan Bishop of Maidstone, Rod Thomas, who has
delegated oversight of the church due to its opposition to women
bishops, issued a joint statement.
Williams’s resignation, they insisted, was ‘made freely’ and had
their ‘full support’.
But what does that mean?
Did they want him to resign after the report resulting from their
Visitation?
This, according to Fulwood’s senior curate Rev Pete Scamman when
he announced his chief’s resignation to the church on June 27th,
reported that ‘some within the church family’ had been ‘left feeling
hurt by their experience of his (Williams’s) leadership’. The report
also included Williams’s own account of his experience at the church
over the previous year, Scamman said.
...
Fulwood is part of the Sheffield Hallam constituency once
represented in the UK Parliament by former Deputy Prime Minister,
Nick Clegg. People living in Hallamshire have amongst the highest
per capita wealth in the country.
Will Fulwood revert to a vicar who plays well socially with the
expensively-educated, well-paid professionals that make up a large
part of the Christ Church congregation or will the church get a
pastor from a different social and educational background?
Now, material on people 'from a different social and educational
background,' with an incomparably lower 'per capita wealth,' the
children who died in the Huskar Mine Disaster. Jane Patterson may
believe - does believe - that the affluent go to heaven (if they
make the right decision in matters of faith) and those in desperate
poverty aren't eligible for heaven (if they don't make the right
decision) but my view is obviously different.
My view is that it would be completely reasonable to regard
a belief in 'hell for everybody except for those saved by faith in
JC as saviour,' to put it concisely, as a twisted, lunatic,
harmful belief, terrifying in its estrangement from reality and in
its disregard for human and humane values. I think that Jane
Patterson probably regard 'human values' as irrelevant here,
since these beliefs are supposedly based on higher values, on 'God's
Word,' not on sinful human values. Jane Patterson is badly mistaken.
To go to my discussion of Greenwashing and its
significance in this section, please
click here.
STC used to be known as St Thomas Church. Under both names, the church
has shown poor judgment, or some of the people at the church or invited to
the church have shown poor judgment - a very charitable way of putting it.
Below, more on Chris Brain and the notorious 'Nine o' Clock Service' and a
much more restricted error of judgment, the invitation to Mike Pilavachi. I
explain why it was an error below. I also give information about a serious
set of mistakes not at STC itself but at one of the churches associated with
STC. Do staff at STC have a belief in demonic possession as a cause of
homosexuality? Are they willing to state their beliefs and to explain them?
Above, depiction of a demon. See below, demonic possession and an
attempted exorcism. The exorcism took place not at STC itself but at a
Network member church, Philadelphia
Above, Mike Pilavachi.
St Thomas Church endorsed his work. From the Facebook
page, 16 April 2020:
BOOK N’ CAKE starts tonight!!!The
book is ‘Wasteland? Encountering God in the desert’ by Mike Pilavachi.
For this week you will need to have read chapter 1.
Concerns substantiated in Mike Pilavachi investigation
06/09/2023
The internal Church investigation into Mike
Pilavachi, being conducted by the National
Safeguarding Team, NST, and the diocese of St
Albans, has now concluded. Having explored the
safeguarding concerns fully, according to House of
Bishops guidance, the investigation team has
concluded that they are substantiated ...
The overall substantiated concerns are described
as an abuse of power relating to his ministry, and
spiritual abuse; described in guidance as ‘a form of
emotional and psychological abuse characterised by a
systematic pattern of coercive and controlling
behaviour in a religious context’. It was concluded
that he used his spiritual authority to control
people and that his coercive and controlling
behaviour led to inappropriate relationships, the
physical wrestling of youths and massaging of young
male interns.
Chris Brain and the 'Nine o' Clock Service
at St Thomas Church (now STC).
Chris Brain is due to face trial this year
for events which took place at St Thomas Church.
TheNine O'Clock Service("NOS") was a
youth-orientated alternativeChristianworship
service started in 1986 atSt
Thomas' ChurchinCrookes,Sheffield,
England, by a group of musicians and artists ... the service was stopped in
1995 following allegations of sexual and emotional abuse.
Beginning as a simple alternative format service under the leadership of
Chris Brain, the group responsible for it developed a leadership structure
that was endorsed by the leadership of St Thomas' Church. The average age of
the members was 24 for much of NOS's life. The membership was significantly
from non-church backgrounds.
Starting with about 10 people who worked on designing and creating the
services, the congregation grew to almost 600 members while resident at St
Thomas' Church ...
The number of community members stopped growing and service attendance
plateaued at about 300. A significant practical weakness in terms of duty of
care was the lack of accountability for NOS and its absence from diocesan
accountability. This was allowed because of its perceived international
significance, which in the end came to nothing. Plans for communities
elsewhere were in talks.
In 1995, a number of complaints began to surface of the sexual abuse of
women in the group by Chris Brain. After an investigation by theDiocese
of Sheffield, the group was shut down in August 1995. The Bishop of
Sheffield demanded Brain's resignation after he confessed to having sexual
relationships with young women in the congregation.
Prosecution of Chris Brain for multiple sexual offences
On 1 February 2024South
Yorkshire Policeannounced that Christopher Brain had been
summonsed to appear at Sheffield Magistrates' Court on 18 March 2024 to face
a total of 34 charges of sexual offences (one of rape, 33 of indecent
assault) against 11 members of the Nine O'Clock Service congregation. The
police appealed for any further potential victims or witnesses to come
forward ... On 30 April
2024 Christopher Brain appeared atInner
London Crown Courtand pleaded not guilty to one charge of
rape and 33 charges of indecent assault regarding 11 women, all members of
NOS. The offences are alleged to have taken place between 1981 and 1995. He
was released on unconditional bail and was next due to appear for a case
management hearing on 10 June 2024 at the same court (Inner London Crown
Court). His trial was set for 30 June 2025 and is expected to last eight to
ten weeks.
STC is part of the church network which also includes St Thomas Network
Philadelphia. There's material on the alleged attempt to drive out
demons supposedly causing the homosexuality of Matthew Drapper in the next
section.
Greenwashing
More and more churches are publicizing their role as 'environmental saviours.'
More and more churches are basking in the sunshine of environmentalism and
claiming in their publicity material, in effect, 'Aren't we wonderful!' My
environmental projects are one interest among many, but my environmental
interests are very strong. Many environmental initiatives may well enhance
the appearance of a neighbourhood and may even have other benefits, but the
benefits for that much, much bigger task, addressing climate change and its
massive impact, attempting to reduce climate temperatures, and the rest are
overwhelmingly likely to be not even negligible.
Even if every church in the country with land available planted
wildflower seeds (getting the wild flowers to appear year after year can be
a challenging task, and some technical knowledge is necessary or desirable)
then the impact upon climate change would be effectively nothing at all.
There are practical steps which can be taken which would be useful, to an
extent and the churches can certainly do what they can to encourage them,
but these acts too can be not much more than token gestures - or may not
even amount to token gestures.
Thanks to A Rocha UK, that giant amongst Christian environmental
organizations (but an environmental organization whose impact is very, very
limited) churches are discovering a very convenient way to boost their image
and deflect attention from their faults - applying for Bronze, Silver and
Gold A Rocha UK awards.
STC is one of the greenwashed multitude. Who would think that the history of
STC is, let's say, very mixed, in need of this newer form of whitewashing?
To judge by the STC Website, the church is amazing, and the environmental
mentions do nothing to detract from that.
As Christians, we want to do God’s will and see the Kingdom come.
Caring for creation is part of our mission, to glorify our Creator and
Redeemer.
This is a 'Hellfire for all' (except the minority who have received Jesus as
Redeemer) Church. All the people working for the company or companies who
supplied the Yellow Rattle seeds mentioned in the 'Stories' section, all the
people working in any capacity anywhere to mitigate the effects of climate
change, and, of course, all the ordinary-extraordinary people who live in
the parish, the whole of Sheffield, in fact, everyone, anywhere are living
under this shadow - if they fail to accept Jesus as redeemer for any reason,
whatever their age (see my material on redemption and age in the section to
the left) then they are doomed, they will spend eternity in separation from
God.
This catastrophic crisis of environmental degradation and climate change
affects the future of human civilisation - and the main cause of the crisis
is human activity: we’ve failed to follow God’s direction.
If God was the supposed creator of this world - God is supposedly all-good
and all-powerful - why did this being create a world with so many defects,
many of them catastrophic defects. Earthquakes have killed massive numbers
of people over the centuries. By no stretch of the imagination can
human activity be blamed for this killing. The toll from just a few
earthquakes:
It wasn't
human activity which created the pathogenic organisms, including bacteria
and viruses.
The deaths from plague in the Derbyshire village of Eyam in the seventeenth
century are a reminder that in the pre-industrial age, when nature was
subject to so much less human activity, there were deadly diseases.
The Black Death - bubonic plague - killed 25 - 30 million people, between
30% and 60% of the European population in the years 1346 - 1353.
Estimates for the death toll caused by the Plague of Justinian - again,
bubonic plague - are very variable. The lowest estimate is about 15 million,
killing 25% of the European population in the years 541 - 549.
Smallpox or measles killed 5 - 15 million, 25 - 33% of the Roman population
between the years 165 and 180.
The list of infectious diseases is long. A few examples, with the CFR (case
fatality rate, the percentage of people diagnosed with the disease who die
from it):
Jesus supposedly cured a few people but these supposed miracles were token
gestures, leaving the massive problem of disease completely unaffected. He
gave no hints as to the best way of taking action against these diseases.
Effective action came only with the patient discoveries of scientific
medicine and the extraordinary achievements of people in setting up the
systems needed to bring their benefits to massive numbers of people.
The supposed creator left this country with very few edible plants and even
fewer worth eating. Staples such as potatoes were brought to this country
from far away countries, by dangerous voyages, again, by human achievement,
not divine achievement.
The supposed creator left the supply of drinking water in a precarious state
- drinking from muddy ditches or rivers with no drinking water fit to drink
- no water safe to drink in pre-industrial times. The massive works of civil
engineering, supported by other branches of engineering, which brought safe
water from reservoirs and other sources are again human benefits, not divine
benefits in the least.
The life of humanity in a state of nature was described by Hobbes as 'nasty,
brutish and short.'
Stories
February
2024 – New article published on
plastics.
October
2023 – The grass in the churchyard has been cut and
Yellow
Rattle seeds planted for next season.
August 2023
– We received our
Silver Eco
Church Award from
A Rocha.
May 2023
–
Churchyard ‘re-wilding’: we have been leaving the grass in the
churchyard to grow long in the hope of encouraging insects and
wildflowers to flourish in this space.
February
2023 –
Caring for
Creation in Lent – we included some tips in our weekly church
emails throughout Lent encouraging our church family to ‘give up’ or
‘take up’ various things throughout the season of Lent.
October
2022 – We held an
‘Eco Church
Sunday’ with encouraging messages shared at all three church
gatherings on our responsibility to care for the world and the people in
it!
July 2022
– We received our
Bronze Eco
Church Award from
A Rocha.
May 2022
– We installed
two bird
boxes for swifts on the church building. They are located
under the roofline on the north side of the main church opposite the
Prayer Shed.
These aren't very significant changes, surely? To suppose that these
very low-level changes will help to 'care for the world and the people
in it' amounts to wild exaggeration, a complete failure to take into
account proportion and real achievement.
How much did the Church spend on these eco-efforts? It can't have been
much - an insignificant amount compared with the large sums they spent
on trying to convert the people of the suburb, the people of the city
and people further away. It isn't necessary to consult the financial
records of the Church to be certain that this is so. If the emphasis is
placed on the church's supposed achievement in improving the
environment, then potential donors to the church should surely realize
that this is an exorbitantly costly way of achieving these very limited
objectives.
A Silver Eco Church Award doesn't seem to require too much strenuous
work, no great commitment. I'm sure that the church views preaching to
the unconverted as much more important, including all the unconverted
people and organizations who work for the environment. I don't expect
that this church - or perhaps any other church with similar views on
redemption - publishes figures for the people they've saved from
Hellfire by converting them. What's stopping them? How many people did
you convert last year? In the past five years?
Network Church, Sheffield, member,
Evangelical Alliance. Jesus driving out demons. The case of Matthew Drapper
Members of a Sheffield church allegedly attempted to drive
out the demons believed to have brought about the
homosexuality of Matthw Drapper. More on the case later.
The churches which make up the Sheffield Diocese are very, very
varied. Some of these churches pride themselves upon their sophistication.
St Mark's is one of them. They have freed themselves from some of the
harsh dogmas which were commonplace - universal - in the many centuries of
Christian dominance. But they still have massive doctrinal baggage. They
have many questions to answer. In fact, driving out demons is a Bible-based
activity.
In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and John), Jesus is recorded
as performing many alleged miracles involving exorcisms of people supposedly
possessed by demons. In the 'Miracle of the Gadarene Swine,' the expelling
of demons by Jesus is achieved by sending the 'demons' into pigs, who rush
down a hill into the sea and are drowned. (A long line of theological
commentators, including 'Saint' Augustine of Hippo and 'Saint' Thomas
Aquinas, argued that the fate of the pigs showed that Christians have no
duties to animals. Throughout most of the history of Christianity,
indifference to cruelty to animals has been a constant.)
In Matthew 10:7, 8 Jesus is recorded as sending out
twelve apostles, with these instructions:
'As you go, announce that the Kingdom of Heaven will soon be here. Heal
the sick, raise the dead, heal people who have leprosy and force out demons
... '
(The New Testament Greek for the last clause, 'force
out demons,' is
The translation of the King James Bible is 'cast out
devils.' It consistently uses 'devils' instead of 'demons.')
Later Christians have taken texts like this as encouragement to drive out
demons too, to think of psychiatric conditions and many illnesses as caused
by demonic possession, curable by casting out demons. The published report
upholds all the complaints of Matthew Drapper. Attempts made by the Sheffield Diocese to disassociate
itself from exorcisms of demons have the difficulty that Jesus himself
resorted to exorcism of 'demons' repeatedly. St Mark's Church obviously
endorses a great deal of Biblical teaching, rejects some parts and downplays
others. But so far as I've been able to discover, the Church is silent about
the parts which are approved, the parts which it rejects and the parts which
it downplays. It's less than honest, in fact. I realize that there may be
significant differences of opinion (or 'faith') amongst staff members and
members of the congregation (some members of the congregation may well be,
to all intents and purposes, agnostics rather than Christian believers.)
Do staff members and members of the congregation
accept that according to the New Testament accounts, Jesus drove out demons?
They have to accept that, surely. Do they believe that Jesus actually drove
out demons from people? Perhaps they believe that this actually happened,
but that conditions have changed since then. Now, there are no longer
demons, certainly not in the New Testament sense.
From what I have read, St Mark's response to the
findings of the Barnardo's report has been muted, but I would put it more
strongly. I find it completely inadequate.
The fact is that St Mark's is a constituent church
of the Church of England, the Sheffield Diocese. So too is Christ Church and
so too is STC (St Thomas church) and the Philadelphia Network Church (St
Thomas Philadelphia) where Matthew Drapper was treated to a procedure
resembling something from Medieval times - or something from New Testament
times.
I take the view that the Sheffield Diocese and all
the churches that make up the diocese are beyond redemption (used, of
course, in the everyday sense, not the specific Christian sense), that all
the dioceses are beyond redemption, and so too churches not part of the
Anglican Communion.
Children's charity Barnado's is to conduct a review into claims
conversion therapy was performed at a church.
Matthew Drapper said he suffered long-term trauma after
undergoing a form of "exorcism" at Sheffield's St Thomas
Philadelphia church [part of the Sheffield Diocese] eight years ago.
Barnado's said the Diocese of Sheffield had asked it to carry
out a "comprehensive and independent investigation" into Mr
Drapper's claim.
St Thomas church has denied it engaged in any conversion
therapy.
A Barnardo's spokesperson said its review would look into
allegations that an individual was "discriminated against at St
Thomas' Philadelphia Church due to their sexuality".
Mr Drapper, 33,previously
told the BBChe was made to
repeatedly shout a prayer during a 20-minute session, which left him
"cramping up and struggling to breathe".
More on Matthew Draper's experiences and the outcome after this
material on Jesus and demons.
"They told me to speak to the gay part of myself as if speaking
to a wild dog coming up to me - and for me to say to 'leave my
body'," he said.
"The people I was with told me they could see demons leave me
and go out of the window."
Mr Drapper said he came from a strict Christian background and
joined the church in his mid-20s, roughly a decade after he realised
he was gay.
Image caption,
The Sheffield church has previously said it would
participate with any investigation.
The Venerable Malcolm Chamberlain, for the Diocese of Sheffield,
said in February it was responding to Mr Drapper's complaint and had
commissioned a review with his agreement ...
The report has now been published and is, in my view, exemplary:
The report is thorough and includes specific information about
beliefs held by many conservative evangelicals and other orthodox
Christians, even including 'List of possible demonic entry points.'
Some brief extracts. 'MD' is the complainant, Matthew Drapper.
[77]In our conversations and from records made
available to us, it is clear that MD had struggled for a number of
years to understand his sexual attraction towards men and was
equally challenged by his faith in God amid the Church’s traditional
scriptural teachings that homosexual activity was a sin.
[78] ' ... there were sessions delivered by church leaders in
which interns were ‘taught’ about how demons entered the bodies of
Christians, influencing thoughts, behaviours and decisions in
ways that were not easily recognised; lists were circulated and have
been seen by us about categories of demons and what activities
provoked their appearance. These experiences shared with us by MD
were corroborated in other conversations held with some of the
individuals who came forward to speak with us … ‘we would have
people coming in to tell us how to get rid of demons ... ’
[79] We were contacted by an individual who had some involvement
with the Church and who a]ended a course there, in
17 on Inner
Healing and Deliverance. A book 37 handed out to participants
described the link between spirit possession and homosexuality and
the ways in which these spirits should and could be expelled and
how, as a consequence, homosexuals would be ‘healed’.
[80] It is clear from information provided to us that
deliverance ministries in relaFon to homosexuality was endorsed and
supported by the Church. Contained within the previously mentioned
book are statements which state that there are ‘many different ways
in which people can become infested with evil spirits [and] Satan
will gain entry wherever there is a place of vulnerably [and] ‘a
homosexual spirit will call to another’. We heard from other
contributors of times when they were present and heard about or
observed ministries which sought to ‘heal’ homosexuals. recalled
that some years previously they had a]ended a session in which a
homosexual had his demons cast from him and he was no longer gay;
told us of a work colleague who was gay and had been told by a
Church leader that he needed to be ‘cured’. It is our view that the
theological doctrine which teaches that homosexuals need to be
healed and can be cured through prayer and the banishing of evil
spirits supports MD’s description of the prayer session he
experienced in February 2014.
[89] MD recalls in his notebook that during his prayer session
he was told he was not taking responsibility for his own choices,
and this was due to the fact that he had inherited from his family a
‘Hereditary Demon.
[90] From the descriptions provided by MD and other contributors
these prayer sessions were highly charged and emotionally
intense and we were told, when asked, there was an assumption
that support would be offered in their ‘huddles’, described as sort
of brief daily get-together to share thoughts and experiences. We
found no evidence that any other support systems were in place or
any requirement for assessments to be undertaken for anyone subject
to prayer sessions who may have referred to abuse or trauma on the
form submi]ed to the prayer weekend. With the exception of the
individuals from the Church, no other contributors with whom we
spoke could recall whether the Church had a safeguarding officer in
place at the time.
[91] Some contributors with whom we had contact, referred to
their own experiences and recalled that their [prayer] experiences
seemed to be designed to increase their emotional vulnerabilities.
Some described having a visceral/physical reaction to the
experience, which was then regarded by the prayer team as proof of
spirit possession.’
[118] ... our findings lead us to conclude that on the
balance of probabilities the events referred to by MD in his
complaint happened in the way he described and are therefore all
substantiated.
[119] This complaint was first brought to the attention of the
Church and the Diocese in November 2019 and related to events which
took place almost a decade ago. Sadly, the complaint has taken 4
years to conclude, and this has not been in the interests of MD or
any other parties or individuals who have expressed an
interest in the outcome of the investigation or who were asked
to contribute to it. The investigation offers a stark reminder
of the importance of safeguarding the welfare and well-being of all
of the charity’s beneficiaries, including LGBTQ+ individuals.
[120] The conclusion of Part 1 of this iinvestigation now
invites the Church to consider its response to the findings and
decide how it will respond to MD as the complainant, given all four
aspects of his complaint have now been substantiated through
an independent process.
There is a theme that binds together two recent stories
that have been drawn to my attention about safeguarding. Both
illustrate the way that important safeguarding stories often get
overlooked. One suspects that those involved want them buried in a
sea of information. There is the hope that they will achieve
minimal publicity in spite of their importance for the maintenance
of high standards right across the Church. The first story concerns
the Diocese of Sheffield and some ‘final recommendations’ from the
Bishop of the Diocese following an ‘independent Review of
Safeguarding Arrangements in St Thomas’ Philadelphia Church’. St
Thomas’ is an ecumenical parish in Sheffield known as the Network
Church. It is jointly run and overseen by Baptist, Independent and
Anglican trustees. The Review was in connection with a complaint
about abusive pastoral practice towards a gay man, Matt Drapper.
The details of this episode, involving an attempted exorcism and its
outcome, are vividly described in his book Bringing
Me back to Me. The authorities of the Church of
England, and the other Trustees, commissioned Barnardo’s to carry
out an independent Review. One of the outcomes was a formal apology
by the Trustees to Matt for the episode which took place in 2014.
This apparent triumph of safeguarding protocol is marred by the fact
that the Barnardo’s Review is being placed under an embargo so that
no one, not even Matt, can read it or have access to it in the
future. It is not surprising that the complainant feels aggrieved
when, although he has received an apology, he is shut out from
knowing anything that was recommended in the report. Matt makes
the valid point that any discussion about healing prayer, exorcism
and conversion therapy has implications for the wider church. An
apology with no attempt to attribute responsibility or explain how
things went wrong is a poor thing. Theological differences about
the nature of prayer, healing and deliverance are maybe just too
difficult to find agreement on. In this way the church finds it
easier to close down the details of any discussion on the topic.
Thus no one has to face the issue of how some Christian beliefs
raise profoundly important pastoral issues. Should Church leaders
ever tolerate ‘biblical ministry’ harming and abusing vulnerable
individuals in the name of following biblical values? Readers of
this blog will be familiar with the way that the criminality of John
Smyth was backed up by some deft quotes from Scripture which
suggested that the suffering of Christ was a path to be followed by
his followers. The Sheffield episode leaves us with an admittance
that abusive practices took place, and which needed to be apologised
for, but currently, no one wants to discuss the implications of what
happened. It is also scarcely credible that such practices were
only a one-off event. It would be very interesting to know what the
Barnado’s reviewers had to say about this question. What is
described in Matt’s published account described practices which go
way beyond the authorised guidelines published for the Church of
England’s deliverance advisers.
But things aren't all they seem. The pages aren't deep and profound but
superficial. They are evasive. They ignore everything which would challenge
their view of the world.
The people at Whirlow Spirituality Centre would do well to scrutinize
more, much more. Are they aware that 'Arise' includes amongst its many
members Rock Christian Centre, Sheffield. An extract from the Rock Christian
Centre Website:
The fury of Almighty God against evil is evidence of His goodness. If He
wasn’t angered, He wouldn’t be good. We cannot separate God’s goodness from
His anger. Again, if God is good by nature, He must be unspeakably angry at
wickedness.
'But His goodness is so great that His anger isn’t confined to the evils
of rape and murder. Nothing is hidden from His pure and holy eyes. He is
outraged by torture, terrorism, abortion, theft, lying, adultery,
fornication, pedophilia, homosexuality, and blasphemy.'
' ...your knowledge of God’s Law should help you to
see that you have a life-threatening dilemma: a huge problem of God’s wrath
(His justifiable anger) against your personal sins. The just penalty for
sin—breaking even one Law—is death, and eternity in Hell.'
My comment:
Jesus never condemned torture, just as he never condemned slavery.
There's condemnation of homosexuality to be found in 'St' Paul, but Jesus
never mentions the subject. The claims made by Rock Christian Centre amount
to a confused mess, as also claims made by Whirlow Spirituality
Centre. Whirlow Spirituality Centre has some explaining to do.
These are people leading, in effect, a privileged - and parasitic - life.
They depend upon people doing the everyday work of the world, the committed,
intensely demanding, highly skilled work of the world, with activities as
varied as the supply of clean drinking water, the taking away of sewage, the
protection of communities against threats posed by violent crime and
possible invasion, none of them achievable by people who take part at all
frequently in extended periods of silent reflection, people who ignore
pressing demandss, people who ignore inconvenient realities. The people
involved in the Whirlow Spirituality Centre may well have had to face
realities, such as the realities of child care, including the realities
posed by care of a disabled child, but 'progress yesterday is not
necessarily progress today.'
The observations to be found on war and peace hardly reach the level of
superficiality. As a matter of strict fact, religious people who hoped to
enjoy the experience of communing with God, the universe, their own inner
selves (which may have been far less interesting and important than they
supposed) have been deported, obliterated by artillery fire, executed when
the countries they were living in were invaded. None of the fatuous, futile
recommendations on the Whirlow Spirituality Centre Website would have helped
to avoid invasion in these cases. Deterring aggression - effective
deterrence - requires a massive expenditure of effort and resources which
obviously are well outside the capacity of the people at the Center. All
they can do is to arrange words on the page or thoughts in their
consciousness to give the illusion of effectiveness.
Their infantile reliance upon prayer has never been shown to be
effective. The occupation of so much of Europe during the Second World War
wasn't ended by prayer. Ukraine won't be defended by prayer, Israel won't be
defended against Hamas and the Iranian regime by prayer. The discussion of
warfare in the Middle East on the Whirlow site is a disgrace. These people
evidently can't be bothered to address the issues scrupulously, at length.
They mention 'learning' on their Website but there's a complete absence of
satisfying detail, essential detail. It seems that hard work would take them
too far away from their congenial pursuits, such as silent reflection.
They make so much of their inter-denominational stance. They can only
make their spurious claims because they ignore the detailed historical
record, such as the dark and depraved history of Protestant and Catholic
differences, the wars of religion. Again, adequate study would be
inconvenient. These are people unwilling to make an effort, or nearly enough
effort. Ceaseless activity, activism which takes no account of the need for
reflection, is bad - but the perspective of Whirlow Spirituality Centre is
completely unbalanced.
The people at the Centre will, of course, be completely unable to answer
these objections, unless I'm mistaken. If I'm mistaken, go ahead - give me
your objections to what I've written.
All Saints Church, Ecclesall, Sheffield
Above, All Saints Church, seen from a distance in its urban setting
All Saints Church is a member of the group of churches in South
Yorkshire and Derbyshire called 'Arise.' Rock Christian Centre is
another member of 'Arise.' This is from the Website of Rock Christian
Centre:'
'The fury of Almighty God against evil is evidence of His goodness. If He
wasn’t angered, He wouldn’t be good. We cannot separate God’s goodness from
His anger. Again, if God is good by nature, He must be unspeakably angry at
wickedness.
'But His goodness is so great that His anger isn’t confined to the evils of
rape and murder. Nothing is hidden from His pure and holy eyes. He is
outraged by torture, terrorism, abortion, theft, lying, adultery,
fornication, pedophilia, homosexuality, and blasphemy.'
' ...
your knowledge of God’s Law should help you to see that you have a
life-threatening dilemma: a huge problem of God’s wrath (His justifiable
anger) against your personal sins. The just penalty for sin—breaking even
one Law—is death, and eternity in Hell.'
Jesus never condemned torture, just as he never condemned slavery. There's
condemnation of homosexuality to be found in 'St' Paul, but Jesus never
mentions the subject. The claims made by Rock Christian Centre amount to a
confused mess. All Saints
Church has some explaining to do.
The Revd Canon Mark Brown is Vicar of All Saints Ecclesall and Area Dean
of Ecclesall, Sheffield.
gives the information (very clumsily expressed) that
'He seeks to support the wider Diocesan family with its broader
direction of travel and transition in keeping with its own vision as Area
Dean of Ecclesall.'
gives the information that he's due
to give a talk at All Saints Church, with the title 'Good Lord deliver us.'
He explains,
'This is the title of an evening
held at [rather, 'due to be held at] All Saints on Wednesday 6th of November
at 7:30pm. I am delighted to share in this time with St Gabriel’s leading
worship and sharing in ministry time. This event is primarily for our Parish
family but we will also be resourcing other churches and Church leaders. I
will be giving a talk of about 40 minutes on living a victorious life in
Christ with reference to issues of mental health in caring for others and
seeking the Lord’s protection in keeping with the prayer all disciples make
in the Lord’s prayer, namely “deliver us from evil”.
This is a talk which I think it would be important to attend, but not for
the reason that this is likely to be an important talk. From the little
information given, this seems an ignorant and very disturbing view of
mental health. Resolving mental health issues isn't in the least to be
'delivered from evil.'
Sheffield Diocese: Assorted Functionaries
The Sheffield Dioces is a member of the group of churches in South
Yorkshire and Derbyshire called 'Arise.' Rock Christian Centre is
another member of 'Arise.' This is from the Website of Rock Christian
Centre:'
'The fury of Almighty God against evil is evidence of His goodness. If He
wasn’t angered, He wouldn’t be good. We cannot separate God’s goodness from
His anger. Again, if God is good by nature, He must be unspeakably angry at
wickedness.
'But His goodness is so great that His anger isn’t confined to the evils of
rape and murder. Nothing is hidden from His pure and holy eyes. He is
outraged by torture, terrorism, abortion, theft, lying, adultery,
fornication, pedophilia, homosexuality, and blasphemy.'
' ...
your knowledge of God’s Law should help you to see that you
have a life-threatening dilemma: a huge problem of God’s wrath (His
justifiable anger) against your personal sins. The just penalty for
sin—breaking even one Law—is death, and eternity in Hell.'
Jesus never condemned torture, just as he never condemned slavery. There's
condemnation of homosexuality to be found in 'St' Paul, but Jesus never
mentions the subject. The claims made by Rock Christian Centre amount to a
confused mess. The Sheffield Diocese
has some explaining to do.
This section mainly takes
the form of a list, a long list, a very long
list, a tediously long list, but an incomplete list. It doesn't give
all the names of the people who make up the Central Team of
The Diocese of Sheffield. The complete
list is on the page
On the Diocesan Website, the list begins with the Archdeacons' Office
- the Venerable Malcolm Champerlain (Sheffield and Rotherham), the
Venerable Javaid Iqbal (Doncaster) and, of course, their Personal
Assistants.
Followed by the AATE, the Associate Archdeacon Transition Enablers:
no less than six of them, including Mike Gilbert, the
Associate Archdeacon for Hallam and Ecclesfield. The others are Chris
Stebbing, Julie Bacon, Julie Upton and Hannah Hupfield.
What sort of person is Mike Gilbert, Associate Archdeacon Transition
Enabler? There was a brief profile of him on the site
'I have been the Rector of Baslow and Eyam since 2012 having
previously been a vicar in Sheffield ... I feel very blessed to live in such a beautiful place where I
can sneak off at every opportunity to indulge my passions of running,
walking, climbing and biking.' This was before he took up the Sheffield
job.
It wasn't a good idea to publicize his advantages, when many,
many people live such harsh lives.
Thirteen Bishop's Advisers are listed, including Julian Raffay, the
Bishop's Adviser on Spirituality, Angie Lauener, the Assistant Bishop's
Adviser in Sprituality and Louise Castle, the Bishop's Adviser for
Healing and Wholeness. Cathy Rhodes is listed in this section, as the
Diocesan Environmental Officer.
Any impression that the Sheffield
Diocese has as a supremely important objective the Environment, any
impression that Cathy Rhodes is the most important of all the Bishop's
Advisers, would be mistaken. Cathy Rhodes appears to be simply one of
many.There's
a Diocesan Environmental Officer, part time and unpaid, but no Associate
Environmental Officer, no Adviser to the Diocesan Environmental Officer,
no Assistant Adviser, no Environmental Transition Enablers, no PA to the
Diocesan Environmental Officer.
Anyone naive enough to
take the Eco Church publicity material at face value, anyone naive
enough to believe that the Church of England can be taken seriously as a
very significant force for environmental improvement. anyone naive
enough to consider giving money to the Church of England for
environmental benefits, should reflect that this is an organisation
which has massive financial reserves - but, in my view, insignificant
strengths, very significant weaknesses in so many areas. In the Church
of England scheme of things, in the expenditure of the Church of
England, spending on environmental matters isn't in the least
significant. The impression created - deliberately - by A Rocha UK and
the Eco-church movement is a false one.
The section 'Bishop's Offices' gives us the information that the
Right Revd Dr Pete Wilcox is the Bishop of Sheffield and that Harry
Steele is the Chaplain to the Bishop of Sheffield.
Harry Steele is a truly remarkable individual, if we are to
believe the testimony to be found on the page
'In the past three years, Harry has been Chaplain to the Bishop of
Sheffield and a member of the Senior Staff Team involved in strategic
leadership that seeks to bring about the transformation of a diocese.
'Prior to that, in his role as Associate Director of Leading your
Church into Growth, he worked in a team of exceptional individuals
involved in church leadership across the Church of England.'
Transformation of the diocese? Will evidence be supplied as
transformation of the diocese proceeds, or would that be too much
trouble?
We're informed that Wendy
Whitfield is the PA to the Bishop of Sheffield. We're also informed that
The Rt Revd Sophie Jelley is the Bishop of Doncaster and that she has a
PA. She hasn't been provided with a spiritual adviser, though. No
chaplain to the Bishop of Doncaster is listed. Joy Bishop is apparently
'Partners Together Secretary.'
Next comes the mighty 'Centenary Project Central Team,' whose
benefits to the wider community are completely unknown to me, for the
time being. They consist of Sarah Beardsmore, Centenary Project Manager,
Dan Fall, Area Coordinator, Dave Ludbrook, Centenary Project Pastoral
Manager, Nicola Adams, Centenary Project Administrator, Hannah Robinson,
Hubs Oversight and Steph Darbyshire, Centenary Project Pastoral Worker.
But this isn't all - far from it! There's more, much more - there are
also the 'Centenary Project Workers.' Presumably, the people already
mentioned, the members of the Centenary Project Central Team, also do
some work.
All these people are listed as Centenary Workers: Adam Woodhouse,
Emma Johnson, Josey Bryant, Lucy Luckock, Minerva Faddoul, Sarah
Clayton, Steph Peake, Bec Ackroyd, Esther Gratze, Kirsty Dronfield,
Lynne Noble, Rachel Parker, Sian Brews, Claire Eaton, Jade Tyrer, Laura
Asso, Melanie Pay, Rachel Ridler and Sian John.
These people are supported, or presumably supported, by Hannah
Robinson, Hubs Oversight, Dave Ludbrook, Centenary Project Pastoral
Manager,Steph Derbyshire, Centenary Project Pastoral Worker and Elise
Deput, Church in Schools Learning Hub Leader.
We have a minor multitude of people in 'Church Buildings,' Church
House Reception, Clergy Housing, Communications and Learning, DAC [?]
and the ['Diocesan Secretary and Chief Executive Office,' which can call
upon the services of the Diocesan Secretary,Katie Bell,the Deputy
Diocesan Secretary, LJ Buxton and the Executive Assistant,
Elizabeth Lunt.
Four people are listed for 'Education' (this seems rather a few) and
only two for Finance, Mark Wigglesworth, the Inerim Finance Director and
Asha Christia, the Finance Assistant.
Focal Ministry has only one person. This is Rachael Williams, the
Programmes and Pathways Assistant.
Now to one of the most important of all specialities, perhaps the
most important of all: Generosity and Giving. This does
seem to be adequately staffed. We have Libby Culmer, Mission Area
Support Team Lead, Luke Bunting, Generosity and Giving Officer, Paul
Sheridan, a second Generosity and Giving Officer (one Generosity and
Giving Officer would certainly have been insufficient), Claire Stinson,
Treasurer Support Officer, Janet Daye, Treasurer Support Officer,
Caroline Langston, Project Support Officer.
Human Resources has two people, to supplement the Divine Resources
obviously available to the Diocese: Ben Mays, HR Manager and Gemma
Armstrong, HR Adviser.
Lay Leadership has available the services of Toby Hole, Director of
Mission and Ministry, and these Assistant Wardens of Readers: Peter
Rainford, Beryl Adamson and Giles Morrison.
The group with the not in the least modest, not in the least
unassuming name Lights for Christ gives the names of
three luminaries: Mark Wigglesworth, the Interim Finance Director, an
Interim Lights for Christ Enabler, Christine Moorey and a Lights for
Christ Enabler. Hannah Sandoval. No doubt the choice of job title,
'Lights for Christ Enabler' will have been the subject of deep and
prayerful consideration but the potential for riducule seems not to have
influenced the deep and prayerful decision.
New Congregations has only one person listed: John Marsh, Mission
Developmont Adviser. At a time when existing congregations are shrinking,
this seems an optimistic job title.
Prayer and Worship has the services of just one person, John
Hibberd, Mission Development Adviser?
'Resourcing Mission and Ministry' shows that the Church of England
does, after all, retain its faith in expansion, despite all the evidence
of a church in crisis. There seems to be no shortage of optimists: Toby
Hole, Director of Mission and Ministry, Fr Grant Naylor, Mission
Development Advisor [spelling as in original] (Part-time), John Marsh,
Mission Development Adviser, Mike North (Children and Young People's
Adviser - who may be able to suggest ways of bringing back young people
to the church, at a time when they have been deserting the church in
ever increasing numbers. There are also names who have appeared in other
parts of the long list.
Safeguarding is an area where the Church of England has failed
comprehensively - one of many areas where the Church has failed
comprehensively. One of the people listed, the
Venerable Malcolm Chamberlain, Archdeacon for Sheffield and Rotherham,
has recently had to comment on a very, very critical report compiled by
Barnardo's on the notorious case at Nework Church Philadelphia,
involving attempts to drive out demons to 'cure' a young man's
homosexuality.
Also listed are Sian Checkley, Safeguarding Adviser,
Elina Penttila and Rachel Tankard, Assistant Safeguarding Adviser,
Claire Sayce, Safeguarding Training Officer and Deborah Corker-Vaughan,
Safeguarding Administrative Officer.
We're informed that Abi Thompson is the Dean of Sheffield Cathedral.
Social Transformation employs the talents of various people,
including Cathy Rhodes, Diocesan Environmental Officer.
'Strategy' has Alex Shilkoff, Strategic Programme Director, Graham
Handley, Information Analyst and Stephanie Mason, Programme Management
Officer.
'Vocations and Calling' assumes that there will still be
congregations in the future which need a steady supply of new clergy.
Dramatic falls in the future would upset these calculations. For the
time being, the Sheffield Diocese sees the need to employ these people:
Dan Christian, Diocesan Director of Ordinands, Sally Hunter, Environment
and Vocations Support, Hannah Grist, Ministry Experience Scheme
Coordinator, Jane Truman, Assistan Diocesan Director of Vocations, Sarah
Burbridge, Ministry Experience Scheme Warden, Richard Walton, Assistant
DDO [which reminds me of the extinct animal the DODO] and Tim Fletcher,
Director of IME.
The List concludes with 'Wardens:' Mark Wigglesworth, Interim Finance
Director, Karen Skidmore, Warden to Pastoral Workers, Chris Fone, Warden
to Worship Leaders and John Hibberd, Mission Development Adviser.
People on the list: selected comments
Mike Gilbert
used to be the Rector of Eyam Parish Church. He's now moved on and, I have
to say, occupies a position which gives ample opportunities for ridicule -
deservedly. He's now an AATE. This stands for - wait for it
- 'Associate Archdeacon Transition Enabler.' It's likely that this
initiative, like all the other naive nonsensical initiatives of the Church
of England was preceded by prayer and has been accompanied by prayer, lots
of prayer, all of it superfluous - since, presumably, the presumably
omnipotent God already has full knowledge of the issues, which may well be
very problematic and demanding, the demands contradictory, impossible
to satisfy. This particular issue is much simpler. People with an
ordinary sense of the ridiculous would have have quickly - instantaneously -
decided that calling people 'Associate Archdeacon Transition Enablers'
was asking for trouble, or asking for embarrassment.
Pete Wilcox, Bishop of
Sheffield
I'm very critical of Pete Wilcox but this is also someone I respect
and admire, for reasons to do with the health condition mentioned in his
Wikipedia entry.
Here, I simply give some background information about him, amounting
to very little, and some comment, amounting to even less. From the
same Wikipedia entry:
and I loathe the part he played in the execution of the 'heretic'
Michael Servetus. The so-called 'Dark Ages' lasted from about 500 - 1000
AD. To me, the preceding Christian centuries and the succeeding
Christian centuries are part of a very long Dark Age.
From theWikipedia page on Michael Servetus, who made genuine advances
in medical knowledge,
'Michael Servetus was a Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer
and Renaissance humanist. He was the first European to correctly
describe the function of pulmonary circulation ... He participated in
the Protestant Reformation, and later rejected the Trinity doctrine ...
After being condemned by Catholic authorities in France, he fled to
Calvinist Geneva where he was denounced by John Calvin himself and
burned at the stake for heresy by order of the city's governing
council.'
The Wikipedia entry for Calvin adds this comment:
'After the death of Servetus, Calvin was acclaimed
defender of Christianity.'
I think that the particular scholarly interests of Pete Wilcox are of
no help in understanding the issues and the problems affecting the
people of Sheffield. There are countless issues and countless problems,
of course. I mention just one, in which the Church of England can't
possibly be of any use. One of its standard responses, prayer, will have
no effect whatsoever. The Church has been making token gestures to solve
'the climate crisis,' but hasn't the least chance of making a
significant difference. The Church's appreciation of the difficulties of
the steel industry is at an altogether lower level. The fact that the
Bishop of Sheffield is the Bishop of what's called 'The Steel City'
makes no impact on Church of England Thinking. The C of E is largely
indifferent to this issue and, of course, a very wide range of other
issues. A comment along the lines of 'Not Interested' would be an honest
response, but the Church of England isn't famed for its honest
responses.
The local newspaper 'The Star' makes every effort to comment on these
important issues, though, and this is from its report on the
difficulties facing Liberty Steel.
Cash-strapped Liberty Steel has announced a restructure at
steelworks employing hundreds in Rotherham and Sheffield.
The firm wants to ‘significantly reduce’ debt at its
Speciality Steel UK business using a
process for companies in financial difficulty.
f agreed by creditors, it is the best way to recover
the business and avoid insolvency, it says.
It comes after hundreds of steelworkers at plants in
Aldwarke, Rotherham, and Stocksbridge,
were left fearing for their jobs after not being paid on time last
month.
LIBERTY Steel UK is the third largest steel manufacturer in the
country, with a footprint that covers nine sites across England,
Scotland and Wales. It employs over 2,000 people and has an annual
steel rolling capacity approaching three million tonnes.
With steelmaking heritage dating back to 1842, LIBERTY Steel’s
sites in the UK have a wealth of expertise thanks to our team of
metallurgists, steelmakers, engineers and technicians.
Our capabilities range from electric arc, vacuum induction
melting, mill processing and value added services. The business
manufactures and distributes products supplied mainly into the
aerospace, construction, automotive, oil and gas and energy
industries domestically and overseas to over 60 countries.
The UK business sits within
LIBERTY
Steel Group,
which is theGFG
Alliance’s
global steel manufacturing arm. With a total rolling capacity
exceeding 18 million tonnes it is one of the top 10 producers
globally, excluding China.
Liberty Steel UK is playing an active role in meeting the group’s
global ambition to be carbon neutral by 2030. Its Speciality Steels
business in Rotherham uses an electric arc furnace – a less
carbon-intensive form of producing steel than blast furnace
production – to melt scrap steel for rolling into downstream
products for a range of high-specification industries including oil
& gas and aerospace. The UK business also has plans to create a
GREENSTEEL hub at its Newport site using renewable energy from
sister company SIMEC Atlantis’ Uskmouth biomass plant to power a new
electric arc furnace.
This is an organization which, unlike the feeble Church of
England, deserves to succeed. The financial reserves of the Church
of England are undeserved. There's absolutely no justice in the
disparity in financial success between Liberty Steel and the Church
of England.
The Church of England has nothing to offer people facing intense
difficulties in their lives and their livelihoods in countless other
cases. To imagine that Paul's Epistle to the Romans or any other
Biblical text offers real help is a complete illusion.
The contemptuous, contemptible attitude of so many people in the
Church of England to the ordinary-extraordinary lives of working
people is intolerable, their disregard for the achievements of
working people, their view of working people as mainly conversion
fodder.
The resources of the Sheffield Diocese and
the other dioceses
The Church of England has vastly greater resources
than the ones I possess -
financial resources and other resources, such as very large numbers of
people, clergy and lay. The opposition the church faces in this instance is from a
single person with next to no financial resources and many other demands on
his time. If the Diocese of Sheffield and the wider Church of England can't
make any headway,
then something is badly wrong. I claim that something is badly wrong
with the Church of England. My view is that the Church is undeserving of
respect and undeserving of financial support, that the Church is very weak -
impotent.
The Church of England is overstaffed to a grotesque degree: with
Archbishops, Bishops - Diocesan, Suffragan and Coadjutor Bihops -
Priests, Archdeacons, Deans, Provosts, Canons, Prebendaries,
Assistant Clergy, Deacons - even at this lowly level there's likely to be
dressing up,
deacons vested, perhaps, in an alb with a stole over the left shoulder,
although nothing like the over-the-top attire of the higher orders -
licensed layministers - the licence not guaranteeing in the least
that the teaching will take any account of common sense or important
realities - readers, lay administrators, catechists, to say nothing of
the very large number of theologians, ordained and lay - ecclesiologists,
hamartiologists, eschatologists, Christologists, patrologists,
soteriologists, pneumatologists and more - all of them unable, it seems, to
make a serious contribution to a central challenge, defending
Christian beliefs against informed opposition. If the very act of listing
seems ridiculous, this is nothing compared with the ridiculousness of
actual Church of England practice.
Eyam Parish Church, Derbyshire:
Eyam Parish Church has been awarded a Bronze Eco-Award by A Rocha UK.
The Rector at the time most of this section was written was Mike
Gilbert. It was originally published in my page on Derbyshire and was the
only material which wasn't appreciative. My page on Derbyshire has been
enhanced by transfer of the content. I included this in the original version: ' ... according to
the record of his theological beliefs which is available to me, he [Mike
Gilbert] believes
that all the people who live in Eyam and all the people who visit Eyam are
doomed to eternal separation from the vengeful God he believes in (apart
from people who, like him, claim to have received Christ as Saviour.) He can
correct me if I'm mistaken about his beliefs.
Mike Gilbert has now moved to Sheffield. He now has one of the posts
newly created and ludicrously named. Mike Gilbert is now an Associate
Archdeacon Transition Enabler in the Diocese of Sheffield. The Archdeacon is
Malcolm Chamberlain. Mike Gilbert, the other Associate Archdeacon Transition
Enablers and a veritable multitude of other Diocesan Functionaries appear in
the section on this page on the Sheffield Diocese.
We believe there is a God who is a good Father to us, who
made the whole of the universe and ourselves in his image.
This planet is a place of wonder and beauty, though marred
by human evil and greed that goodness shines through. We believe this is
because the creator of this world and all other worlds is God who is
limitless in his power, creativity, love and goodness. The scriptures
also teach us that we are made in his image and that he is like a father
to us.
Christians believe that this death was no accident but that
Jesus willingly allowed this to happen so that he could take all of
humanity’s sin, hate and failure on to himself so that we would not have
to suffer the consequences of our sin. He died so that we might be free
from our wrong and forgiven by God.
Again and again, during plagues and other natural disasters,
Christians have placed the responsibility on humans. It was the sins of
humans, supposedly, which had caused the plague and prayers were offered
to God to forgive the sins and end the plague. It was the patient,
exacting work of humans which eventually uncovered the real reasons for
plague, the causative organisms responsible and which eventually led to
effective means of preventing plagues.
The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic, the most deadly
pandemic recorded in human history. It caused the deaths of 75 - 200
million people. It reached its peak in the years 1347 - 1353. Bubonic
plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, not, as vast numbers
of Christians believed, human sin. The bacterium is spread by fleas.
According to the version of events on the Website of Eyam Parish Church,
God created all things, which include not just pretty flowers and cute
baby animals but the bacterium Yersinia pestis and the fleas - and,
also, the causative organisms in the case of all other infectious
diseases.
Below, Yersinia pestis and the Oriental rat flea
(Xenopsylla cheopis) engorged with blood. This species of flea is
the primary vector for the transmission of the bacterium. When the flea
feeds on an uninfectedhost Y. pestis is regurgitated into the wound, causing
infection. This is a very long way from the very selective view of 'God's
creation' favoured by Christians, such as the Christian who wrote the lyrics
of the hymn 'All things bright and beautiful:"
All things bright and beautiful All creatures great and small All things wise and wonderful 'Twas God that made them all
Each little flower that opens Each little bird that sings He made their glowing colors And made their tiny wings.
Microphotograph above not taken by me.
The persecution of Jews during the Black Death consisted of
a series of violent mass attacks and massacres. Jewish communities were
falsely blamed for outbreaks of the Black Death in Europe. . From 1348 to
1351, acts of violence were committed ... Jews were frequently used
as scapegoats and false accusations which stated that they had caused the
disease by deliberately poisoning wells were circulated ... Around 2,000
Jews were burnt alive on 14 February 1349 in the "Valentine's Day"
Strasbourg massacre ... In the spring of 1349, the Jewish
community in Frankfurt am Main was annihilated. That was followed by the
destruction of Jewish communities in Mainz and Cologne. The 3,000-strong
Jewish population of Mainz initially defended themselves and managed to hold
off the Christian attackers. However, the Christians managed to overwhelm
the Jewish ghetto in the end and killed all of its Jews ... One of the most
significant long-term consequences of the Black Death in Europe was the
migration of the Jews to Poland. The Jews migrated to Poland in an attempt
to escape from the persecution which they were being subjected to in Western
Europe. This event is one of the major factors that contributed to the
existence of a large population of Jews in Poland during the early 20th
century. Approximately 3.5 million Jews lived in Poland at the time of Adolf
Hitler's rise to power.
Above, the plaque in Eyam
village which gives the information that here, animals were baited. And the
iron ring to which the chain was attached, fastened to the animal being
baited.
Bull and
bear baiting were popular events for many centuries in this and other
countries. The baiting was grotesquely cruel. Chained animals were savaged
by a pack of dogs, causing horrible injuries - loss of eyes, flesh ripped
away. The Church did nothing to stop the abuse. Christianity has condoned,
done nothing to oppose cruelty to animals. There are individual Christians
who have opposed cruelty to animals but they were rare exceptions before the
modern era. Baiting only became illegal when Parliament passed the Cruelty
to Animals Act of 1835.
Church of England Schools
The tone of this section may seem conciliatory in many places. I see the
need for range and variety - including a wide range of campaigning
techniques, approaches which vary in tone. But above all, I'm an implacable
opponent of Christianity. Church schools are one target among many and I
don't have the time or the resources to devote to intensive campaigning in
this area. It will have to remain peripheral, and not just for the time
being. I'm far more concerned with churches, church organizations and
Christians in other spheres of the Christian world. This page identifies
some of them.
So, some comment on church schools, those agents of indoctrination,
blighted, like other Christian institutions, by such catastrophic errors as
the ones identified in the column to the right, the failure to consider the
consequences of damnation for the many, redemption for the few,' and the
inclusion of young, very young children - babies too, it would seem - in the
list of the lost. The inclusion of obscure specialists in theological
oddities and hosts of diocesan functionaries in the list of the saved. Of
course, any diocesan functionaries, whatever their skills - financial,
computing, administrative or whatever - who are employed by a diocese but
who haven't made the crucial decision to accept the 'saving grace' of Jesus
are included in the list of the lost.
So, some comments on Church of England schools:
I recognize, of course, that education at Church of England schools is about
much more than indoctrination, that many aspects of education at these
schools aren't distorted by indoctrination, that these schools can be good,
very good - exemplary. Even so, these schools make use of privileges which
are undeserved.
Can the staff at these schools give an assurance that the children who haven't
accepted Jesus as Saviour are at no risk of sharing the fate of their
parents, if they haven't accepted Jesus as Saviour - eternal separation from
God?
This is a matter to be addressed by theologians, orthodox and liberal - such as the
'liberal'
theologian Dr Beth Keith of St Mark's Church, Sheffield - a matter to be addressed at Church of England
and Roman Catholic schools throughout
the country - schools which promote Church of England or Roman Catholic Christianity in
lessons, at assemblies, by means of posters, by every means practicable.
These are schools which are educating - at the same time, attempting to
influence unduly - children from non-believing families as well as
believing families, which amount to a small proportion of the whole.
I fully recognize that a secular school can attempt to impose a grotesquely
biased viewpoint. From the Home Page of this site:
[There's] extensive criticism of Christian beliefs without
assuming that non-Christians and anti-Christians have a monopoly of good
sense, without assuming that they are incapable of stupidity (and worse,
much worse)
There are parishes where the Church of England parish church holds one
service a week, attended by a small handful of people but the Church of
England primary or secondary school attracts far more pupils than the school
can take - but their parents would never dream of attending a Church of
England service. They appreciate the fact that the school is in a desirable
area or the fact that the school is so convenient, perhaps just round the
corner. To enjoy these advantages, many of them or most of them are
willing to have the school promote a faith which is of no
interest to them at all. To continue to enjoy these advantages, many of them
are happy to give money to the Church now and again. I think that their
instincts are sound, their willingness to make some token contribution to
the Church understandable, even if I take a much more severe view. I think
it would be a big mistake to give generously to the Church. A very small sum
donated every so often won't be too harmful, though. Parents of children at
Church Schools are likely to have a point of view which is very different
from mine.
The Church has such faith in the power of prayer. These people do believe
that praying for peace in Ukraine or the Middle East can have some effect,
or, more ambitiously, that praying for the peace of the whole world can
actually have an impact on the peace of the whole world. I think they will
take the view that where their own finances are threatened, there will be
less reliance upon prayer, less belief that prayer will actually make a
difference. I take the view that if a church is in danger of severe
financial embarrassment, then the Church can carry on praying and shouldn't
expect to be supported. To give money to the Church of England is to divert
money from far more deserving causes.
The Church of England is eager to find any opportunity to confirm its distorted view that it's still a very important part of the fabric
of English life. Remembrance Sunday gives further opportunities for
fostering this illusion. Christmas, far less so - the vast majority of
people have absolutely no interest in Jesus the supposed Saviour who
supposedly saves people - a small minority of people - from the supposed
penalty for their sins. The vast majority of people have absolutely no
interest in dry as dust theologians, no interest in bishops, vicars, curates
and the rest who are carefully cultivating their spheres of interest.
I think it would be mistaken to view beliefs in Hell (or eternal
separation from God) as confined to a small minority
of Church of England believers. A belief in some form of separation from God
- and probably eternal separation - can be found often, I think, in
'progressive,' 'liberal' Church circles. In their confusions,
contradictions, illusions, evasions, distortions they have a great deal in
common with Believers in Hellfire for Almost Everyone.
I don't state that these people are always or necessarily hideous, far
from it. In the past six weeks, I've had 'displays' or 'presentations'
outside Churches in the Sheffield Diocese and had the chance to talk with
people associated with these churches, vicars and others. Every single one
of these people has been very courteous, very easy to like. They seemed
affable, genuinely affable.
People like these are not monsters, but I think they are often far too easily
fooled, that they may lack the ability to look beyond appearances. The
Church of England is a broad church, and does include monsters. Its history
is much, much darker than commonly recognized. There have been many, many
monsters in the Church of England, as well as people not to be described as
monsters but still very harmful. The many, many mild-mannered people in the
Church of England are often associated with barbaric beliefs, such as the
damnation of children and even babies: the ability to look beyond
appearances, the need to look beyond appearances.
Membership of the Evangelical Alliance
in Sheffield and Dronfield, with profile
Emmanuel Church
City Life International Church
Antioch Community Church
Rock Christian Centre
Senior Pastor: Jon Watts
Assistant Pastor: Paul Hunt
Associate Pastor: Peter Morris
The Website of the Rock Christian Centre used to contain these claims:
God hates homosexuality
God hates blasphemy
The Rock Christian Centre was the place chosen to relaunch the Christian
Police Association in Sheffield, as reported in the Sheffield newspaper, The
Star, 'Members of the public joined South Yorkshire Police and Crime
Commissioner Dr Alan Billings, Chief Constable Stephen Watson, officers and
police support staff at the Rock Christian Centre in Carlisle Street.'
Like the Christian Police Association, the Rock Christian Centre believes
in hell for unbelievers.
From the Rock document, Belief No. 11, 'The
personal and visible return of Jesus Christ to fulfil the purposes of God,
who will raise all people to judgement, bring eternal life to the redeemed
and eternal condemnation to the lost, and establish a new heaven and new
earth.' According to this theory, no amount of good work will bring the
reward of 'eternal life.' Belief No. 11: 'The justification of sinners
solely by the grace of God through faith in Christ.'
The hideous statements on this hideous page of the 'Rock Christian
Centre' are amplified on another hideous page,
which includes this - but before I give extracts, I'll point out that The
Senior Pastor at Rock Christian Centre didn't write it, nobody at Rock
Christian Centre wrote it. This monstrous rubbish was copied from a
publication, 'The Evidence Study Bible: NKJV: All You Need to Understand and
Defend Your Faith' by Ray Comfort, born in New Zealand, now living in the
United States. In various publications, Ray Comfort claims that the
reader will have broken one or more of the Ten Commandments and so will go
to Hell - but if the reader has acknowledged Jesus as Lord and Saviour, by
means of a quick prayer, perhaps - then in that case, the reader will go to
heaven. This is Ray Comfort. If the image inspires confidence, think again,
read the extract here, read the fuller extract on the Rock Christian Centre
Website, and, if you think you can justify the time, read 'The Evidence
Study Bible from cover to cover.'
... the God we are speaking about is nothing like the commonly
accepted image. He is not a benevolent Father figure, who is happily smiling
upon sinful humanity.
In the midst of these frightening thoughts, remember to let fear work
for you. The fear of God is the healthiest fear you can have. The Bible
calls it “the beginning of wisdom.”
Again, your knowledge of God’s Law should help you to see that you
have a life-threatening dilemma: a huge problem of God’s wrath (His
justifiable anger) against your personal sins. The just penalty for
sin—breaking even one Law—is death, and eternity in Hell. But you haven’t
broken just one Law. Like the rest of us, you’ve no doubt broken all these
laws, countless times each. What kind of anger do you think a judge is
justified in having toward a criminal guilty of breaking the law thousands
of times?'
And more:
So let’s look at that Law and see how you will do when you face it on
Judgment Day. Have you loved God above all else? Is He first in your life?
He should be. He’s given you your life and everything that is dear to you.
Do you love Him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength? That’s the
requirement of the First Commandment. Or have you broken the Second
Commandment by making a god in your mind that you’re comfortable with—where
you say, “My god is a loving and merciful god who would never send anyone to
Hell”? That god does not exist; he’s a figment of the imagination. To create
a god in your mind (your own image of God) is something the Bible calls
“idolatry.” Idolaters will not enter Heaven.
Have you ever used God’s name in vain, as a cuss word to express
disgust? That’s called “blasphemy,” and it’s very serious in God’s sight.
This is breaking the Third Commandment, and the Bible says God will not hold
him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
Have you always honored your parents implicitly, and kept the Sabbath
holy? If not, you have broken the Fourth and Fifth Commandments. Have you
ever hated someone? The Bible says, “Whosoever hates his brother is a
murderer.”
The Seventh is “You shall not commit adultery,” but Jesus said,
“Whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with
her already in his heart” (the Seventh Commandment includes sex before
marriage). Have you ever looked with lust or had sex outside of marriage? If
you have, you’ve violated that Commandment.
Have you ever lied? Ever stolen anything, regardless of value? If you
have, then you’re a lying thief. The Bible tells us, “Lying lips are
abomination to the Lord,” because He is a God of truth and holiness. Have
you coveted (jealously desired) other people’s things? This is a violation
of the Tenth Commandment.
...
Perhaps the thought of going to Hell doesn’t scare you, because you
don’t believe in it. That’s like standing in the open door of a plane 10,000
feet off the ground and saying, “I don’t believe there will be any
consequences if I jump without a parachute.”
To say that there will be no consequences for breaking God’s Law is
to say that God is unjust, that He is evil. This is why.
On February 24, 2005, a nine-year-old girl was reported missing from
her home in Homosassa, Florida. Three weeks later, police discovered that
she had been kidnapped, brutally raped, and then buried alive. Little
Jessica Lunsford was found tied up, in a kneeling position, clutching a
stuffed toy.
How Do You React?
How do you feel toward the man who murdered that helpless little girl
in such an unspeakably cruel way? Are you angered? I hope so. I hope you are
outraged. If you were completely indifferent to her fate, it would reveal
something horrible about your character.
“The fury of Almighty God against evil is evidence of His goodness.
If He wasn’t angered, He wouldn’t be good. We cannot separate God’s goodness
from His anger. Again, if God is good by nature, He must be unspeakably
angry at wickedness.”
Do you think that God is indifferent to such acts of evil? You can
bet your precious soul He is not. He is outraged by them.
The fury of Almighty God against evil is evidence of His goodness. If
He wasn’t angered, He wouldn’t be good. We cannot separate God’s goodness
from His anger. Again, if God is good by nature, He must be unspeakably
angry at wickedness.
But His goodness is so great that His anger isn’t confined to the
evils of rape and murder. Nothing is hidden from His pure and holy eyes. He
is outraged by torture, terrorism, abortion, theft, lying, adultery,
fornication, pedophilia, homosexuality, and blasphemy. He also sees our
thought-life, and He will judge us for the hidden sins of the heart: for
lust, hatred, rebellion, greed, unclean imaginations, ingratitude,
selfishness, jealousy, pride, envy, deceit, etc. Jesus warned, “But I say to
you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account
thereof in the day of judgment”6 (emphasis added).
The Bible says that God’s wrath “abides” on each of us, and that
every time we sin, we’re “storing up wrath” that will be revealed on
Judgment Day. We are even told that we are “by nature the children of wrath”
(emphasis added). Sinning against God comes naturally to us—and we naturally
earn His anger by our sins.
...
To receive the gift of eternal life, you must repent of your sins
(turn from them), and put on the Lord Jesus Christ as you would put on a
parachute—trusting in Him alone for your salvation. That means you forsake
your own good works as a means of trying to please God (trying to bribe
Him), and trust only in what Jesus has done for you. Simply throw yourself
on the mercy of the Judge.
Lansdowne Chapel Evangelical Fellowship
C3 Hope
Network Church, Sheffield
Sheffield Community Church
City Church, Sheffield
Sheffield Vineyard
St Thomas Church, Crookes
Hillsborough Baptist Church
Living Waters Christian Fellowship
Christ Church, Fulwood
City of Refuge
Meadowhead Christian Fellowship
Dronfield Baptist Church
Oaks Community Church, Dronfield
Cowley Mission and the Vine Fellowship, Dronfield
Almighty and eternal God, you have kindled the flame of love in the hearts of the saints: grant to us the same faith and power of love, that, as we rejoice in their triumphs, we may be sustained by their example and fellowship ...
Included or excluded from this commendation:
St Augustine of Hippo's doctrinal stand, his support for the theory that
deceased unbaptized babies go to Hell?
St Augustine of Hippo
From the page 'Records from a backward, credulous and superstitious
pre-scientific age.' My title, not the title which appears on the
page.
'Augustine believed in miracles. His writings clearly indicate that he
believed that God miraculously healed people of illness in order to support
the authority of those who ministered in the name of Christ. The most
detailed examples of this are written in the last book of his huge work,City
of God.
'Material that Augustine collected appears there in Book 22 of
City
of God,
the eighth chapter of which is entitled,Of Miracles Which Were
Wrought that the World Might Believe in Christ,and Which Have
Not Ceased Since the World Believed.
In Chapter 8 of Book 22, Augustine gives a very lengthy description of
miracles. These were physical cures which he had either witnessed himself,
or about which he had heard from those whom he considered to be reliable
witnesses. There the reader learns about a blind man cured in Milan while
Augustine and Alypius were there as laymen. Augustine devotes many lines to
another man named Innocentius, whom he knew a little later in Carthage, when
Augustine as a layman was a guest in the house of Innocentius. The
miraculous cure of this man, who had been an advocate of the deputy
prefecture, happened under the eyes of Augustine. Innocentius was being
treated by medical men for fistulae, of which he had a large number
intricately seated in the rectum.'
'
'The description by Augustine is quite dramatic writing. The cure of this
man, who had been an advocate of the deputy prefecture, happened under
Augustine's very own eyes: "... tried aid him good. Still they persisted in
promising that they would cure that fistula by drugs, without the knife.
They called in doctors...."
'Augustine changed his attitude about miracles from that of a suspicious
teacher to that of an eyewitness. Augustine wrote that the bones of Saint
Stephen the martyr were taken on a tour to Africa, where Augustine lived at
that time. A large number of people met the ship with the bones aboard.
Augustine writes that a blind woman begged to be taken immediately to the
bones, and she was conveyed there. But the man in charge gave her only the
flowers that were on the bones. She put the flowers on her eyes and her
blindness was instantly healed. These flowers were then placed under the
pillow of a man who was known to have no religious belief at all. The next
day, he discovered that he had been converted in his sleep, and awoke full
of love, speaking the words, "Christ, receive my spirit." Those were the
last words of Stephen, too.
'Another man was instantly healed of a cancer when he carried a bone of
Stephen. A priest, dead and being bound up for burial, was brought back to
life when his friend applied a bone of Stephen. Augustine wrote that he
personally witnessed other cures and conversions that took place through
these bones. He reported healings from gout and pain, several persons
returning from death and many other miracles. In fact Augustine went so far
as to state, "Were I ... to record the miracles of healing which were
wrought in the district by means of Stephen, they would fill many volumes."
(City of God, 22:8)'
The writings of Saint Augustine indicate that he clearly believed that
God by miracles healed people of illness in order to support the authority
of those who ministered in the name of Christ. The most detailed examples of
this are written in the last book of his huge work,City of
God. It contains a very lengthy description of miracles which he had either
witnessed himself, or about which he had heard from those whom he considered
to be reliable witnesses.
In Book 22, Chapter 8 ofCity of God, the reader learns
about a blind man cured in Milan while Augustine and Alypius were there as
laymen.
'The miracle of Innocentia
The story of Innocentia, reported by Augustine in hisCity
of God, shows how dramatically he had changed his mind on the subject of
miracles. Innocentia was a respected and holy woman who discovered that she
had cancer of the breast. She was a citizen of Carthage whom Augustine
himself had met.
'Doctors gave her no hope, and Augustine reports, "She turned for help to
God alone, in prayer." In a dream, Innocentia was told to wait in the church
for the first woman who came out after receiving baptism, and to ask this
woman to make the sign of Christ over her breast. Innocentia did so, and was
completely cured.
...
The hope of Augustine was that, as the miracles of the disciples of Jesus
had aided the growth of the early church, miracles in his own day would draw
people to the Christian Faith.'
The accounts of miracles in the Old and New
Testament are fictitious. The miracles recounted in the New Testament were
manufactured to aid the growth of the early church.
'St Augustine of Canterbury arrived in
England in 597 along with some 40 monks who had set out from Rome to
evangelise the Anglo-Saxons in England. He became the first Archbishop of
Canterbury and constructed a church and monastery near where the present
cathedral stands ... his efforts were to bear fruit eventually in the
conversion of England.'
Around the year 595, Pope Saint Gregory the Great was said to have been
walking through a Roman market when he came upon some young boys being sold
as slaves. Out of concern for them, he inquired where the boys were from.
“Angles from the isle of England” he was told. “Ah, they are angels!” he
exclaimed. Seeing these pagan boys being sold as slaves moved the pope to
take action.
[What action? Action to end the degrading and barbaric institution of
slavery, to ensure that children would never be bought and sold in the
degrading slave markets of Rome if he could do anything to prevent it? No, a
very different form of action.]
He wanted them Christian, and he wanted all of Anglo-Saxon England to be
Christian. But how?
The pope’s first plan was to buy as many of the boys as possible, send
them to monasteries where they could learn the Catholic faith, and if some
were found worthy, ordain them as priests and send them back to their
homeland to share the faith. However, this was a long-term plan, and the
pope began to receive reports that the English were ready to convert if they
only had missionaries to teach them the faith.'
And so, he formed the plan of Christianizing England. Instead of being a
pagan slave-selling, slave-buying, slave-owning society, England was to
become a Christian slave-selling, slave-buying, slave-owning society.
Augustine supposedly performed many miracles during his travels to convert
England. An account on this page
The idea was that miracles are necessary at the beginning of the history
of the church in order to foster belief. Faith without miracles was
difficult to accept for ordinary men, and though Bede and Gregory both
understood that true faith and faith in the miraculous were not the same
thing, they hoped that “the latter might be a stepping-stone to the former”
(xxxv). This attitude explains the heavy presence of the supernatural—and
perhaps nonsensical—in our histories of Tuttle 8 the various Saints,
Augustine included. Second, and in a similar vein, these stories are there
because the people of the age expected them to be there. Bright summarizes
it thusly: “[O]f the mediæval stories of miracles the great bulk may be
summarily dismissed, … but because the interval between the alleged
occurrence and the account of it is usually long enough to allow of a rank
upgrowth of legend, encouraged by the fixed preconception of the age, that
miracles must always attend upon, and attest, high sanctity.' Essentially,
in an age when everyone believed in the supernatural, these stories sprang
up naturally, and formed up the common tradition. Anything less would be
rejected as too mundane, so historians and theologians such as Gregory and
Bede include them in their chronicles (remember— stepping stones),–but make
no mistake, Bede and Gregory absolutely believed in miracles. Gregory in
fact wrote a letter to Augustine about miracles he had heard he had
performed, encouraging him to exalt in the glory of God at their performance
and in the mysteriousness of God, but not to take pride in himself for
performing them.'
One of the alleged miracles of 'St' Augustine. From the page
When the British bishops he found already ministering to the
Celtic Christians of the island refused to assist him in his mission to the
English or to adopt with him the universal customs of the Church, St
Augustine responded:
Let us pray God who makes men to be of one mind in his Father’s
house to vouchsafe to show us by heavenly signs which tradition is to be
followed and by what paths we must hasten to enter his kingdom. Let some
sick man be brought, and let the faith and practice of him by whose
prayers he is healed be considered as in accordance with God’s will and
proper for us all to follow. (EH II.2; Colgrave. p. 72)
A blind Englishman was brought, and the British bishops found
themselves unable to heal him. St Augustine then, ‘compelled by genuine
necessity’, prayed that the Lord would heal him, ‘and, through the bodily
enlightenment of one man, would bring the grace of spiritual light to the
hearts of many believers’ (EH II.2;
Colgrave. p. 72). Unfortunately, even such a demonstration of God’s favour
upon St Augustine was not enough to move them, and the holy man prophesied
that if they would not bring the Gospel to the English, the latter would
destroy them. Indeed this happened, when 10 years later the heathen king
Æthelfrith attacked the British, routting them at the Battle of Chester and
massacring 1200 monks of Bangor who were praying for a British victory (EH II.2;
Colgrave, p. 73-4).
For further 'proofs' of the power of God and his saints, I would heartily
recommend the page
[There were very large numbers of people in Jesus' time who were just as
credulous and easily fooled, as there have been in all the Christian
centuries. There are very large numbers of people who are credulous and
easily fooled in the Churches today, of course.]
Miracles, in miraculous detail, from the page:
Levitation and Ecstatic Flights
St Gerard Majella was often enraptured into remarkable levitations, often
being drawn away by God for some distances. It was sufficient for St Gerard
Majella to think of the love of God, or to contemplate the mystery of
Incarnation, to cast his eyes upon a crucifix or a picture of the Blessed
Virgin, or to be in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.
One of the many examples would be when St Gerard, intending to spend some
days at Oliveto, received hospitality at the house of an archpriest named
Don Salvadore. The miracle took place on the very morning of his arrival at
Oliveto. Gerard had withdrawn to his room to pray. At the dinner hour, the
archpriest went himself to invite him to dinner. But to his astonishment he
found the brother ravished in ecstasy and raised about three feet from the
ground. Filled with amazement, he withdrew, but returning shortly after, he
found him in the same state. The whole household, all witnesses to the
extraordinary event, unable to sit down to dinner, awaited the guest with
tears of emotion. At last he appeared, his face all inflamed. "Please
do not wait for me," he
said to the archpriest."I
do not wish to inconvenience you." To
preserve the memory of this rapture, the archpriest marked on the wall of
the room the height to which he had seen the Saint elevated.
Angelic Letter Deliveries
In the "Life
of St Gemma Galgani" written by her spiritual director, Venerable
Father Germanus Ruoppolo, a few years after her death we read how the
extraordinary mystic was on such familiar terms with her Guardian Angel that
she sometimes entrusted her letters to him for safe delivery:
"One day, with the most charming simplicity, she prayed to her spiritual
director's angel to take the letter she had written to him. Being familiar
with the angel, she had no doubt as to the result. Already living dependent
on the charity of the Giannini family [whom she was living with], she did
not like to make additional requests in asking for stamps. She did not
always proceed in this extraordinary manner, thus her recourse to the angel
was not continual, yet not a single one of all the letters that she thus
committed to him was lost."
In light of these extraordinary Angelic deliveries, her director, Ven
Father Germanus C.P., wanted to conduct a "test" and so he instructed Gemma
to give the letters she wanted to send him by the Angel to Cecilia Giannini,
who was told to lock them in a place unknown to Gemma. Gemma lived in Lucca,
Italy while her spiritual director lived several hundred miles away in Rome.
And so on June 11, 1901 Gemma wrote a letter to her spiritual director
seeking guidance on some spiritual matters, as she often did. She then gave
a letter to Cecilia, (as previously requested by her spiritual director),
who in turn gave it to Father Lorenzo Agrimonti, who was a priest living at
that time with the Giannini family. Father Lorenzo immediately locked it in
a chest in his own room and put the key in his pocket.
During the afternoon of the next day, Gemma saw in a vision the Angel
passing by with her letter on his way to Rome to deliver it to Ven. Father
Germanus, and so Cecilia immediately notified Father Lorenzo. They found
that the letter had, in fact, disappeared from its secret location, and to
their greater amazement they later discovered that the letter was received,
as usual, by her spiritual director, unstamped of course.
To prove the matter yet another time, the same experiment was
undertaken--a letter of Gemma's to her director was once again handed over
to Father Lorenzo. He secretly hid the envelope between two pictures, one of
St. Gabriel Possenti and the other of St. Paul of the Cross. This took place
on May 22, 1901. The next day Gemma announced that her Angel had taken away
the letter and the delivery of which was once again confirmed by her
spiritual director, to the utter amazement of everyone involved. It is no
wonder then that Ven. Father Germanus in his book on the life of St Gemma
calls them "angelic letters".
And about Gemma and her guardian Angel, her spiritual director Ven.
Father Gemanus writes- "Gemma, seeing the great charity her angel lavished
upon her, loved her angel immensely, and his name was always on her tongue
as well as in her heart.
‘Dear Angel’ she would say ‘I love you so!’ ‘And why’ the Angel asked.
‘Because you teach me how to be good, and to keep humble, and to please
Jesus'."
The Gift of Tongues
"St Anthony of Padua, one of the chosen disciples and companions of St
Francis, whom the latter called his Vicar, was preaching one day before the
Pope and the Cardinals in Consistory, there were therefore present at that
moment men of different countries- Greeks and Latins, French and Germans,
Slavs and English and men of many other different languages and dialects.
"And being inflamed by the Holy Spirit and inspired with apostolic
eloquence, he preached and explained the word of God so effectively,
devoutly, subtly, clearly and understandably that all who were assembled at
that Consistory, although they spoke different languages, clearly and
distinctly heard and understood everyone of his words as if he had spoken in
each of their languages. Therefore they were all astounded and filled with
devotion, for it seemed to them that the former miracle of the Apostles at
the time of Pentecost had been renewed, when by the power of the Holy Spirit
they spoke in different languages.
"And in amazement, just like in the Acts of the Apostles they said to one
another:"Is
he not a Spaniard?' How then are we all hearing him in the language of the
country where we were born -we Greeks and Latins, French and Germans, Slavs
and English, Lombards and other foreigners?"
The Eucharist alone -A
complete abstinence from food for 13 years
"On March 27, 1942 in a blaze of agony and adoring love, Alexandrina cried
out to Jesus in the tabernacle of the nearby church,"Oh
my Eucharistic Love, I cannot live without you! Oh Jesus, transform me into
your Eucharist! Mother, my dearest Mother, I wish to be of Jesus, I wish to
be entirely yours!"
And deep within her soul she heard Jesus’ profound reply: "You will not take food again on earth. Your food will be my Flesh;
your blood will be my Divine Blood, your life will be my Life. You receive
it from me when I unite my Heart to your heart. Do not fear, my daughter.
You will not be crucified any more as in the past .... And now a new trial
awaits you, which will be the most painful of all. But in the end I will
carry you to Heaven and the Holy Mother will accompany you."
Thus on March 27, 1942 Blessed Alexandrina da Costa began an absolute fast
which was to last more than thirteen years until her death, her sole
nourishment being Holy Communion which she received with deep devotion every
morning.
"For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh
and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him."(John
6:55-56)
A Saint of a different kind
The veneration of St Guinefort began in the 13th century. He was killed by
mistake but, learning about his martyrdom, the locals began to venerate him
and to visit his shrine when they were in need, particularly mothers with
sick children. Veneration of this saint lasted for centuries. The last known
visit to his shrine was to request help for a sick child and took place in
the 1970's.
St Guinefort was a dog, a greyhound, killed by his owner, who believed that
his son had been killed by the dog. In fact, the child was still alive. The dog had supposedly killed a
poisonous snake and saved the life of the child. This is a modern
depiction of St Guinefort:
Wide-ranging comment, including comment on the
redemption (or 'damnation') of young and very young children
The belief that non-believers go to Hell (or are separated from God for
eternity) is common knowledge. Vast numbers of Christians, at vast numbers of
churches, have this belief, and not just Conservative Evangelicals. Not nearly so common now: the belief, held by 'St' Augustine
(of Hippo) that deceased babies who never receive baptism go to hell, that
baptism is essential for salvation.
Not discussed anywhere in the Bible, the fate of non-believing
children - and babies. No age limit for redemption is mentioned in the Bible. Can very
young children and even babies share the fate of adult non-believers?
So far as I know, I'm the first person to draw attention to this
massive, shocking problem for orthodox believers. This is a problem
for 'liberal' Christians and 'progressive' Christians as well. They have
some explaining to do. Further information and discussion below, in this
column. Click here to go there.
Ego: 'an inflated sense of
pride based on a false sense of superiority' - as in the common Christian
misconception that Christians are superior to non-Christians
2 Corinthians 5:17
'Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a
NEW CREATION
old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.'
This is very well known, quoted very often. The New Testament has so
much 'love' and 'loving' in it. There's reference to a particular kind of
love,ἀγάπη, supposedly the highest kind, the love God
showed for humanity in sending his son Jesus. But why did he send his son,
why did he show this love? To redeem humanity, allegedly. Those taking up
the offer are redeemed and enjoy eternal life, supposedly. Those not taking
up the offer are the unredeemed, and deprived of eternal life, it's claimed.
This seems a disturbing form of love, in fact not love at all.
After John 3:16, in John 3:19, there's this warning:
John 3:19
And this is
the
condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and
men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Beth Keith is the newly appointed vicar to St Mark's Church,
Sheffield. St Mark's is a member of the group of churches in South
Yorkshire and Derbyshire called 'Arise.' The Diocese of Sheffield is
a member of 'Arise,' and other churches in the list of churches in
the column to the left. Rock Christian Centre is
another member of 'Arise.' The full list of participating churches
is given on the page
This vicious rubbish is from the Website of Rock Christian Centre:
'The fury of Almighty God against evil is evidence of His
goodness. If He wasn’t angered, He wouldn’t be good. We cannot
separate God’s goodness from His anger. Again, if God is good by
nature, He must be unspeakably angry at wickedness.
'But His goodness is so great that His anger isn’t confined to the
evils of rape and murder. Nothing is hidden from His pure and holy
eyes. He is outraged by torture, terrorism, abortion, theft, lying,
adultery, fornication, pedophilia, homosexuality, and blasphemy.'
' ...
your
knowledge of God’s Law should help you to see that you have a
life-threatening dilemma: a huge problem of God’s wrath (His
justifiable anger) against your personal sins. The just penalty for
sin—breaking even one Law—is death, and eternity in Hell.
St Mark's - and the other churches - have some explaining to do.
People who give money to these churches (or other churches)
could try to justify this use of their money, if they can.
In the madhouse of Christian faith, in very widespread and influential
forms of Christian faith, people aren't damned or doomed because 'their deeds
are evil' but because they haven't accepted Jesus as Saviour and there can
be many, many reasons why they haven't.
They live in one of the many
countries where Christian evangelism is very rare or non-existent and they
never hear about Christianity. They live in a Christian country, or a
country where Christianity is the main religion, but their lives have been
hard, unrelentingly hard, perhaps. They've been miners, working in dangerous
conditions underground. They were children working in the darkness
underground, or working in factories for most of their waking hours. They were
Jews, persecuted by Christians or massacred by Christians. They were slaves,
owned, perhaps, by Christian slave owners. They associated Christianity with
flogging, torture and the possibility of execution. They were native peoples
living in the Amazon when travel was very difficult and they lived in a
place which missionaries didn't manage to reach. They were young
children, far too young to understand any arguments in favour of
Christianity, arguments as to why they should accept the 'redeemer,' or
arguments as to why they should not accept him. They were scientists,
engineers, manual workers, people carrying out the essential work of the world, mothers and
fathers with families to care for, perhaps disabled children to care for,
far too busy to spend any time dwelling upon their eternal destiny. They
simply lacked the naive attitudes, the credulity, the necessary narrowness to accept
Christian faith. There have been very many gifted Christians, of course,
Christians who can be respected and admired, but not, I think, for their
Christian belief but for other qualities. There have been many not very
striking Christians, tedious and tendentious people, with a whole range of
not very pleasant characteristics, who were simply conventional people
accepting the conventions of the 'Christian' societies they grew up in and
lived in.
St Mary's Church is a church in the suburb of Walkley, Sheffield. New
Creation Reverend Canon Alan Billings, who used to be the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner,
and a really poor one - I give the evidence in detail on other pages of the
site - has often been a
Preacher and Communion Celebrant at the church. Another preacher at the Church
is Joe Pritchard. The
sermon he preached on a Remembrance Sunday can be found:
' ... in the end of days, at the final coming of the Kingdom of
God, those who have died as faithful Christians - will also be resurrected.'
This extract from his sermon is straight out of Medieval Christianity, or orthodox pre-Medieval
and orthodox post-Medieval Christianity: The Last Judgment. St Mary's is part of the
St Mark's little family of Churches - a dysfunctional family - supposedly liberal and enlightened, demonstrably
not liberal and enlightened, yet another Ego-Church, if a generalization can
be risked.
Joe Pritchard also claims this:
'Paul is NOT telling us not to mourn. He is
telling us that we shouldn’t be like non-Christians in our grief; for us, we
have that hope that death for faithful Christians is but a sleep until the
return of Christ, at which point they will awake and be re-united with all
those who they have loved. Yes – we will grieve, we will be sad, we will
miss those who’re gone ahead of us – but we have that hope.'
It's clear that to him, the non-believers, the unredeemed, have no hope.
The unredeemed include all those who lived through or died in the Sheffield
Blitz who never, for one reason or another, accepted Jesus as Saviour, the
sailors of the Merchant Navy who crossed the Atlantic to deliver the goods,
including the armaments, needed to defend this country against Nazi
aggression, whose ships were sunk by U-boats (at which point their pay
ended) and were either rescued or died in the Atlantic Ocean - except for
the small minority of sailors who had accepted Jesus as Saviour and who did
'have that hope.' For this preacher, for mainstream Christianity, all the
people who took part in that operation of vast complexity and enormous
courage, D-Day, which eventually led, with other operations of massive
complexity, to the liberation of Europe, the
titanic struggle is reduced to a pitiful remnant: the grotesque issue of
whether those who fought and died had accepted the 'hope' offered by Jesus.
This is a photograph showing the execution of a
mother and her child in Ivanhorod, Ukraine, during a mass execution of Jews
in 1942. The mother is trying to shield her child with her own body.
Now, you Christians - the mother here is Jewish
and, unless she happened to be a Christian convert - very, very unlikely -
died unredeemed. Do you believe that the child too died unredeemed? Did
mother and child have exactly the same eternal destiny as the member of the
Einsatzgruppe who shot them? Is this what your religion teaches? Is this
what you believe? Givers of money - do you want your money to go to this
cause? Can't you think of a much better one?
All the people who fought on the Nazi side who had accepted Jesus as
Saviour, were, according to this view, saved: they had 'that hope.'
Including this one?
Ernst Biberstein, who studied
theology from 1919 to 1921.
He became a Protestant
pastor in 1924. During the
war, he was the commanding
officer of Einsatzkommando
6, which executed between
2000 and 3000 people. This
Einsatzkommando was part of the Einsatzgruppen, mobile death squads,
which killed about 1.3 million Jews.
After
the war, he was tried and
sentenced to death but the
sentence was commuted. He
was released in 1958 and
returned to the clergy. He
resumed the preaching of the 'Gospel of Salvation,' an abbreviated name
for the 'Gospel of Salvation and Damnation.'
There seems every reason to believe that he was a committed Christian
and qualified for salvation according to the orthodox Christian view. There's every reason to believe that virtually all the people massacred
by his execution squads and the other Einsatzgruppen were not qualified
for salvation according to the orthodox Christian view, every reason to
believe that virtually all the people killed in the Nazi gas chambers
were unqualified for salvation - unqualified, that is, only in the
deranged Christian doctrines of redemption.
There's every reason to believe that John Smyth was a committed
Christian who 'knew' that Jesus was his saviour, who felt certain that
Jesus was his saviour - or was under the illusion that Jesus was his
saviour or had a belief in a person who wasn't the saviour of the world
after all.
The launch of the first NEW CREATIONS Photographic Gallery.
This has photographs not taken by me, together with other images, eg
drawings, not created by me.
Introduction to the Gallery
It will show Christian
believers, the 'New Creations,' the 'redeemed,' as well as people unqualified
for salvation, the 'unredeemed. In some cases, it would be impossible to know
if the people in the photograph are 'redeemed' or 'unredeemed.' The point is
that any attempt to classify them in this way is hideously cruel.
'NEW CREATIONS' GALLERY
'Ecclesiasticality' and those outside
The 'New Creations' are the Church leaders and members of congregations who
seem sure that they have been redeemed. If anyone appears in a
photograph here who isn't in this category, then the photograph will be
removed, if I'm informed.
Above. New Creation Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of
York. He is holding a crozier.
The crozier takes the form of a shepherd's crook, used to keep
flocks of sheep or herds of goats in order. In the churches, the
congregations are the flocks of sheep.
Above. New Creation Sarah Mullally,
Bishop of London
Above. Official Portrait of the Lord Bishop of
Oxford, New Creation Steven Croft
Above, the Logo of the Alpha Course, not a good name, I think. The Alpha
Course omits, of course, so many aspects of Christian belief, so many
aspects completely missing from Christian belief. It's a completely
inadequate, farcically inadequate Indoctrination Course. I've never been
enrolled in the course, but I've studied it - the subjects included - in
more than enough detail to be sure of this. Amongst the topics missing are
all the difficulties to do with the dotrine of redemption, covered in detail
on this page and other pages of the site. One of the people who wastes his
own time and the time of other people - although perhaps not many people -
is Canon Dr Neal Barnes of Liverpool Cathedral. A more detailed account of
this Cathedral Functionary will be needed.
The Alpha Course claims to help people to discover 'The Meaning of Life.'
By which they mean, as a central teaching, the doctrine that all people are
subject to God's righteous anger on account of their sins (not including the
owning, the buying and the selling of slaves in the many centuries when
Christians did just that) but that in his goodness, God had sent his son to
save a proportion of sinful humanity - a very small proportion, as it
happens.
Instead of giving up their time to attend an Alpha Course, people would
have a far more constructive time watching 'The Meaning of Life,' one of the
Monty Python films, mentioned in this publicity material. It would make more
sense than the Christian Grand Scheme.
Better by far to watch another of the films mentioned here, 'The Life of
Brian,' which many Christians considered blasphemous. The film isn't harmful
at all. It's the Christian religion which is harmful. Again, the evidence is
presented on this and other pages.
Above. 'Breaker boys,' child labourers in a Pennsylvania mine,
who carried out backbreaking word underground, at risk of crushing
from rock falls, drowning in the underground waters, being burned
alive in underground fires, to supply people with some of the
necessities and comforts of life.
I doubt if many - or perhaps any of them - had the
necessary belief ' for salvation. For most of them, or all of
them, it would be a case of backbreaking work underground
followed by damnation, according to the hideous Christian theology
of redemption.
Above, monument in Lichfield, Staffordshire. The
caption: 'Edward Wightman of Burton-on-Trent was
burnt at the stake in this market place for Heresy 11th
April 1612 being the last person in England so to die.'
The Church of England has been a torturer and burner of
heretics, but not as prolific a torturer and burner as the
Roman Catholic church.
Above, Edward Wightman being burned alive. He was an
Anabaptist and had denied the doctrine of the Trinity, so he
could not qualify for redemption. It's likely that most of
the people carrying out the burning and watching the burning
did qualify for redemption. On the other hand, King James I, King of England
and Ireland after reigning as King James VI of Scotland - he played a leading part in ensuring that Edward Wightman was
burned - would have qualified for redemption.
Above, someone else who did qualify for salvation, by all
accounts: George Abbot, the barbarian who was Archbishop of Canterbury at the
time of Edward Wightman's execution for heresy. The
Archbishop was one of the translators of the 'King James
Bible.'
Above, King James, in the setting of the Banqueting
Hall, Whitehall.
Above, adulatory painting by Rubens of King James being carried to
heaven by angels.
Above, title page of King James's book 'Daemonologie,' edition of
1603, which included discussion of the methods allegedly use by demons
against men and women. The book endorsed the practice of witch hunting.
The King practised what he preached. He was a very vigorous persecutor of
alleged witches.
'In 1597, King James VI of Scotland published a compendium on witchcraft
lore called Daemonologie. It was also published in England in 1603 when
James acceded to the English throne.
'The book asserts James’s full belief in magic and witchcraft, and aims to
both prove the existence of such forces and to lay down what sort of trial
and punishment these practices merit – in James’s view, death.'
'James personally oversaw the trials by torture for around seventy
individuals implicated in the North Berwick Witch Trials, the biggest
Scotland had known ... The trial resulted in possibly dozens of people
burned at the stake, although the precise number is unknown.
'In 1597, James published Daemonologie, his rebuttal of Reginald Scot’s
skeptical work, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, which questioned the very
existence of witches. Daemonologie was an alarmist book, presenting the idea
of a vast conspiracy of satanic witches threatening to undermine the nation.
'In 1604, only one year after James ascended to the English throne, he
passed his new Witchcraft Act, which made raising spirits a crime punishable
by execution.
...
'In 1612, the King’s paranoid fantasy of satanic conspiracy, planted in
the minds of local magistrates eager to win his favor, culminated in one of
the key manifestations of the Jacobean witch-craze—the trials of the
Lancashire Witches, accused of plotting to blow up Lancaster Castle with
gunpowder. Eight women and two men were executed.
Above, King James, seated, supervising women accused of
witchcraft.
Above. The title page of the King James Bible,edition of
1611. The English translations on this page come from the 'New King James
Bible.'
'TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCE JAMES, [BY THE GRACE OF GOD,] KING
OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND IRELAND, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, &c.
'The Translators of the Bible wish Grace, Mercy, and Peace, through
JESUS CHRIST our Lord.
'GREAT and manifold were the blessings, most dread Sovereign, which
Almighty God, the Father of all mercies, bestowed upon us the people of
[England], when first he sent Your Majesty's Royal Person to rule and reign
over us.'
The King James Bible saw the scriptures rewritten to
further the King’s agenda. Exodus 22:18, originally
translated as, “Thou must not suffer a poisoner to live,”
became “Thou must not suffer a witch to live.” '
The reference to 'poisoner' here is mistaken. The Hebrew word does not
mean 'poisoner.' The translation is subject to some dispute but all the translations give an instruction which will be condemned, rightly
so, by people whose faculties are intact. The Good News Translation is
'Put to death any woman who practices magic.
'
In his epistle to the Galations (5:19-21) St Paul condemns various sins,
'works of the flesh' in the King James translation, including, in this
translation, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, drunkenness, revellings -
and, also, witchcraft and heresies.
Above, Nuremberg, 1493, from the 'Nuremberg Chronicle.' Christians are
very likely to insist that it's better to live in a Christian society than
in a non-Christian one. Eco-Christians will insist it's also better to live
in a society without contemporary levels of pollution and other
environmental problems than in a society which has those problems.
Nuremberg was just such a society.
Nuremberg was ravaged by plague in 1405, 1435, 1437, 1482, 1494, 1520, and
1534.
Jesus is often supposed to have healed a few
people but wasn't at all helpful in giving advice as to how to avoid
infectious disease. The people of Christian Europe tried prayer, with no
success.
There was an increase in religious passion. Various groups were blamed and
were targeted, including Jews, beggars and lepers. Lepers and people
with skin diseases were killed in many parts of Europe. The plague was also
said to be due to earthquakes, astrological influences, or God's punishment
for sin.
Above, Calvin Robinson, ex-GBNews Opinionator. The material here can do only
partial justice to this figure. To do justice to his wide-ranging mistakes
and misconceptions would need a much longer commentary.
Calvin Robinson ran a 'Common Sense Crusade.' In a religious context,
'crusade' could be considered a tainted word. It seems that Calvin Robinson
- and GB News - are ignorant of the horrific persecutions associated with
the word.
I
know that Calvin Robinson has an Anglo-Catholic view of the sacraments,
including baptism. He believes that baptism is a very important step in the
life of a Christian. It turns out that doctrines of baptism have unexpected
difficulties, to do with validity. Theologians have got to work to address
the difficulties and have come up with contradictory, mutually exclusive
solutions, as so often in theology. I wonder if Calvin Robinson, as a person
with common sense - to his own satisfaction, at least - has a view on one
aspect of baptism, to do with valid and invalid liquids. This is an extract
from the site http://www.archbishoplefebvre.com/ which, according to the
site, 'is devoted to the Truth which is the Catholic Faith ... '
'The code of canon law explains that "true, clean, and natural water" is
necessary for baptism (canon 849). Liquids can be assessed in three
categories: Those that are certainly valid, those that are doubtfully
valid, and those that are certainly invalid. Certainly valid liquids
include water as found in rivers, oceans, lakes, hot springs, melted ice
or snow, mineral water, dew, slightly muddy water (as long as the water
predominates), and slightly brackish water. 'Doubtfully valid liquids
are those that are a mixture of water and some other substance, such as
beer, soda, light tea, thin soup or broth, and artificially scented
water such as rose water.The last category is of liquids which are
certainly invalid. It includes oil, urine, grease, phlegm, shoe polish,
and milk. 'The rule of thumb is that, in emergency situations, you
should always try to baptize with certainly valid liquids, beginning
with plain, clean water. If plain water isn't available, baptize with a
doubtfully valid liquid using the formula, "If this water is valid, I
baptize you in the name of the Father . . ." ... Never attempt to
baptize anyone with a certainly invalid liquid.' So, in an
emergency, baptizing a baby with beer or thin soup (but not thick soup)
will be adequate or more than adequate, providing the priest says 'I
baptize you in the name of the Father ... ' But attempts to baptize a
baby with shoe polish won't work, even if the priest says 'I baptize you
in the name of the Father ... ' Canon law makes this absolutely clear.
I wonder if Calvin Robinson, using his common sense perspective, would
agree with this statement of doctrine or not. Perhaps the Free Church of
England, the branch of the Church he belongs to, would take a different
view: that baptizing a baby with shoe polish would be effectual after
all, even if the Church would prefer to use other liquids, such as
slightly muddy water (provided that it contains not very much mud.)
The sword here is obviously not a sword made of metal, or wood or plastic
but a purely imaginary sword, and the man here is obviously in the grip of
an illusion-delusion, that he's a warrior - a crusader, perhaps - for
Christ. What exactly does he imagine himself doing with that imaginary sword
- not killing imaginary enemies, surely, let alone imitating the atrocious
example of the bloodthirsty brute Godfrey of Bouillon or someone similar.
There were many, many people who were 'someone similar' to Godfrey of
Bouillon in the Christian centuries. This could be called a laughable
picture but it's not one to be laughed at. Laugh at jokes, good ones,
comedians, comedy films, comedy shows, comedy programmes, good ones, but
there's no flair or inventiveness in this picture and nothing that's
actually funny.
The man is praying, of course. The idea that earnest prayer is a brave
activity is ridiculous, not funny.
The massive gulf between enlightened systems of justice and the
beliefs of many or most churches
Enlightened systems:
Children in general lack experience of life, lack the intellectual
and other capacities to be found in adults (but not always found in adults.)
It would be grossly unfair to treat young children as adults, to expose them
to criminal punishment. Below the age of criminal responsibility, children
can't be arrested or charged with a crime.
The churches (many churches):
Children who fail to accept Jesus as Saviour spend eternity in
separation from God. The 'teaching' of Jesus and 'St' Paul never mentions an
age of 'redemption responsibility.' Ten year olds or five year olds or even one
year olds can presumably be 'judged' as adults.
'Environmentally conscious' Christians, Christians with an interest in
'LGBQT issues,' Christians with strong political views, also have Christian
beliefs on a range of other issues, such as ones to do with redemption and
'sin.' If they don't, can they call themselves Christians at all?
As I see it, Christian doctrine is in a confused, contradictory - hideous -
state and always has been. I provide the evidence for my view. Christians
tend to have a fondness for fine phrases (or inflated claims) whilst
neglecting specifics.
I was speaking to a Christian at a South Yorkshire Evangelical Church, one
which teaches the doctrine of 'Hellfire for All' (except for the small
minority of believing Christians) and I asked him some questions, but not
using these exact words: Is there an age limit which applies to redemption?
An age below which a person can't be sent to Hell - for eternity? I can't
find any mention of an age limit in the Bible. The Bible doesn't state that
a ten year old can never be sent to Hell, or a five year old. Is it
possible, in your view, for children to be sent to Hell - or a baby to be
sent to Hell? He said, quietly, that he knew of no such restriction. I was
stunned by his answer, but knew that this hideous admission represented
orthodox Christian doctrines, or a massive gap in
orthodox Christian doctrines.
Again and again, I find evidence that the 'teaching' of Jesus was defective
in its 'guidance,' leaving so much scope for later Christian
'teachers' to do their worst. 'St' Augustine (the so-called 'Augustine of
Hippo,' not the 'Augustine of Canterbury') taught that deceased unbaptized babies go to Hell 'where God subjects them
to eternal fire.'
Of course, expecting a fifteen year old to realize that acts which are
serious crimes shouldn't be committed is one thing. Expecting a fifteen year
old to have examined the evidence and to have come to the conclusion that
Christ is 'the answer' is very different. A fifteen year old can't possibly
be expected to have come to that conclusion. There are many, many things
that could deter a possible convert - that should deter a possible convert.
Is the record of the churches a record to inspire automatic respect?
The record of abuse within the churches alone will be enough to deter people
from putting their trust in the churches. My view of the world is a secular
one: these issues belong to the hideous world of Christian theology.
Miscellaneous Materiality
The material above is very varied. The material which follows continues the
pattern - very varied, miscellaneous but not haphazard, all of it intended
to guide the orthodox reader, and the unorthodox reader, if they allow it,
towards the conclusion that Christianity is false and can't be defended
Any readers who think they can defend Christianity are welcome to contact
me. Any readers who think they can successfully demolish the arguments and
evidence I give on this and other pages are welcome to contact me.
Perhaps I could arrange space on this page or another page to publish these
defences, but obviously there are plenty of publishing outlets
available to Christians who want to show just how mistaken
counter-evangelists are, or so they think.
A primary school deputy head teacher and her partner
have been jailed for dozens of child sexual abuse offences,
including nine counts of rape.
Julie Morris, 44, the safeguarding lead at a school in
Wigan, and David Morris filmed themselves abusing and raping
a girl under the age of 13.
The teacher was jailed for 13 years and four months.
Her 52-year-old partner, of St Helens, admitted 34
offences at a previous hearing and was jailed for 16 years.
Julie Morris, of Hindley, worked at St George's Central
C of E Primary School in Wigan but the charges are not
related to her employment.
Liverpool Crown Court heard the videos showed Julie
Morris giggling as the abuse took place.
Honorary Recorder of Liverpool, Judge Andrew Menary,
said: "Every now and again you see cases, the circumstances
of which are almost beyond belief. This is one of those
cases.
"It demonstrates that human depravity really knows no
depths."
The Crown Prosecution Service said it was one of the
most horrific cases they have had to deal with.
"It truly appears like both of them were equally
involved," district crown prosecutor Damion Lloyd said.
"They've formed this horrendous sexual interest in
children and they've acted out their most unpleasant
fantasies on the victim.
"It feels like the relationship between them is just a
self-feeding cycle where they have effectively driven each
other on to worse and worse acts."
In his 20 years of prosecuting, he said it was the
"pinnacle" of the most "disgusting and depraved types of
acts that people can discuss and do".
...
Julie Morris admitted two counts of rape, nine of
inciting a child under the age of 13 to engage in sexual
activity and two of engaging in sexual activity in the
presence of a child.
She also admitted three counts of taking indecent images
of a child, one of engaging in sexual communication with a
child and one of possessing indecent images of a child.
It shouldn't be assumed that the worst wrong-doers
receive the harshest punishment from the divine Supreme
Court. In the ridiculous, shocking, contemptible
Christian scheme of things, different rules apply.
Supposedly, the power of God is displayed by God's ability
to forgive massive 'sinfulness.' If offenders like Julie
Morris confess their sin, they are spared the extreme
penalties enforced against loving mothers and fathers,
people who have laid down their lives in defence of freedom
who never 'invited the Lord Jesus into their lives' ... It's
a matter of some doubt if the extreme offenders even have to
confess their sin. This is the theology of a madhouse.
is part of the Website of Network Church, Philadelphia,
famous, or infamous, as the Church where, allegedly,
attempts were made to 'cure' Matthew Drapper of his
homosexuality by driving out the demons allegedly causing
his homosexuality. The allegations of Matthew Drapper have
all been found to be credible in the Barnardo's report.
Demonic possession as a cause of homosexuality is credible
to many, many credulous Christians but not generally
credible in the least.
The Network Church page is about the visit of two people.
One is 'Sarah' who is 'from Adventures with Jesus.'
'Sarah from Adventures with Jesus
Her heart is for children to encounter Jesus for themselves:
to recognise Hs voice, grow confident in hearing, seeing and
sensing Him and to live from a place of being His best
friend, knowing they are powerful and significant in God's
family. Her aim is for children's faith to be activated
through a wide range of experiences so that they are set up
for a lifetime of adventures with Jesus!'
The other is Bishop Ellie Sanderson, shown here
'Ellie currently serves as the Bishop of Hull in the
Diocese of York and is their lead bishop for Missionary
Discipleship and Evangelism ... Ellie is going to talk about
her desire to see God's church go deeper in our friendship
with God.'
Perhaps the two of them would like to comment on these
Bible texts:
Psalm 137:9
'Babylon, you will be destroyed.
Happy are those who pay you back
for what you have done to us- who take your babies
and smash them against a rock.'
The Christian God and mass killing:
Exodus 11 [4] So Moses said, "This is what the
Lord says: 'About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. [5]
Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn
son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son
of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the
firstborn of the cattle as well.'
Exodus 12:29 records that 'the Lord' did exactly
what he had promised - committed mass murder, including the
killing of male babies and male children, the killing of
babies and children who were the sons of women slaves, the
killing of husbands. They could already face separation from
husband or children if the 'owner' decided to sell family
members to different owners - these killings were a new
horror in the horrific lives of these women.
Or perhaps they wouldn't like to comment, or
couldn't possibly comment. Ideally, it would be good if they
could comment too on my earlier claim that there's no 'age
of redemption' mentioned in the Bible, an age below which
God in his infinite wisdom would refuse to condemn the soul
to damnation, or everlasting separation from his presence.
The differences of opinion called 'heresies' have led to
conflicts which were far more than tedious and tiresome. In
the past, these conflicts have sometimes lasted for a very
long time, for centuries even, and have led to massive loss
of life and hideous abuses such as torture.
Bishop Cottrell is an Anglo-Catholic. He favours the
Catholic view of things. As a matter of interest, I wonder
how he interprets the hideous persecutions of heretics
carried out by Roman Catholics. Roman Catholics have
regarded Protestants as heretics and Protestants have
regarded Catholics as heretics. Roman Catholics and
Protestants have viewed non-orthodox believers as heretics,
to be wiped out.
The persecution of the Cathars by the Roman Catholic
Church was one persecution out of many, of course. From the
Wikipedia entry on the Albigensian Crusade.
The Cathars originated from an anti-materialist reform
movement within theBogomilchurches
of theBalkanscalling
for what they saw as a return to the Christian message of
perfection, poverty and preaching, combined with a rejection
of the physical. The reforms were a reaction against the
often perceived scandalous and dissolute lifestyles of the
Catholic clergy.
Their theology,Gnosticin
many ways, was basicallydualist.
Several of their practices, especially their belief in the
inherent evil of the physical world, conflicted with the
doctrines of theIncarnation
of ChristandCatholic
sacraments.
This led to accusations of Gnosticism and attracted the ire
of the Catholic establishment. They became known as the
Albigensians because many adherents were from the city ofAlbiand
the surrounding area in the 12th and 13th centuries.
The Crusaders captured the small village of Servian
and then headed for Béziers, arriving on 21 July 1209. Under
the command of Amalric,they started to besiege the
city, calling on the Catholics within to come out, and
demanding that the Cathars surrender.Neither
group did as commanded. The city fell the following day when
an abortive sortie was pursued back through the open gates.The
entire population was slaughtered and
the city burned to the ground. It was reported that Amalric,
when asked how to distinguish Cathars from Catholics,
responded,"Kill them all! God will know
his own." Strayer doubts that Amalric actually said this,
but maintains that the statement captures the "spirit" of
the Crusaders, who killed nearly every man, woman, and child
in the town.
Amalric and Milo wrote in a letter to the Pope,
claimed that the Crusaders "put to the sword almost 20,000
people".Strayer says that this estimate is too high,
but noted that in his letter "the legate expressed no regret
about the massacre ... "
'In
May the castle of Aimery de Montréal was retaken; he and his
senior knights were hanged, and several hundred Cathars were
burned.'
' In June, an army under Amaury de Montfort, son
of the late Simon,joined by Louis, besieged Marmande. The
town fell in June 1219. Its occupants, excluding only the
commander and his knights, were massacred.'
'On 16 March 1244, in retaliation for the killing of the
inquisitors nearly two years earlier, a large massacre took
place, in which over 200 Cathar perfects were burnt in an
enormous pyre at theprat dels cremats("field
of the burned") near the foot of the castle.Included
in the massacre was Bertrand Marty, the Cathar bishop of
Toulouse from 1225.
After this, Catharism did not completely vanish, but was
practiced by its remaining adherents in secret.The
Inquisition continued to search for and attempt to prosecute
Cathars. While few prominent men joined the Cathars, a small
group of ordinary followers remained and were generally
successful at concealing themselves. The Inquisitors
sometimes used torture as a method to find Cathars,but
still were able to catch only a relatively small number.
[The issue of genocide]
Raphael Lemkin,
who coined the word who coined the word
"genocide" in the 20th century,referred to the
Albigensian Crusade as "one of the most conclusive cases
of genocide in religious history." Mark Gregory Pegg .wrote, "The Albigensian Crusade ushered genocide
into the West by linking divine salvation to mass
murder sacrifice on the cross."
Robert E. Lerner argued that
Pegg's classification of the Albigensian Crusade as a
genocide was inappropriate on the grounds that it "was
proclaimed against unbelievers ... not against a 'genus' or
people; those who joined the crusade had no intention of
annihilating the population of southern France ... If Pegg
wishes to connect the Albigensian Crusade to modern ethnic
slaughter, well—words fail me (as they do him)."
Laurence Marvinis not
as dismissive as Lerner regarding Pegg's contention that the
Albigensian Crusade was a genocide, but he takes issue with
Pegg's argument that the Albigensian Crusade formed an
important historical precedent for later genocides,
including the Holocaust.
Starting in the 1990s and continuing to the present day,
historians like R. I. Moore have challenged the
extent to which Catharism, as an institutionalised religion,
actually existed. Building on the work of French historians
such as Monique Zerner and Uwe Brunn, Moore's The War on
Heresy argues that Catharism was "contrived from the
resources of [the] well-stocked imaginations" of churchmen,
"with occasional reinforcement from miscellaneous and
independent manifestations of local anticlericalism or
apostolic enthusiasm." In short, Moore claims that
the men and women persecuted as Cathars were not the
followers of a secret religion imported from the East.
Instead, they were part of a broader spiritual revival
taking place in the later twelfth and early thirteenth
centuries. Moore's work is indicative of a larger
historiographical trend towards examining how heresy was
constructed by the church.
Scholars since the 1990s have referred to the fearful
rumours of Cathars as a moral panic. The crusade against
Cathars as a possibly-imaginary enemy has been compared to
European witch-hunts, anti-Semitic persecution, and the
Satanic Panic.
In 2016, Cathars in Question, edited by Antonio Sennis,
presented a range of conflicting views by academics of
medieval heresy ...Sennis describes the debate as
about "an issue which is highly controversial and hotly
debated among scholars: the existence of a medieval
phenomenon which we can legitimately call 'Catharism.'"
Dr. Andrew Roach in The English Historical Review
commented that "Reconciliation still seems some distance
away [among the] distinguished, if sometimes cantankerous,
scholars" who contributed to the volume. He said:
The debate is a now
familiar one which has been rehearsed for a number of
periods and contexts, namely, given that the
overwhelming majority of sources about medieval heresy
come not from "heretics" themselves but from their
persecutors, is there any way historians can be sure
that this classification is not just a result of
mindsets driven by pre-conceptions of what is correct
or the conscious "fitting up" of opponents?
— Roach 2018, pp. 396–398
Professor Rebecca Rist describes the academic controversy
as the "heresy debate" – "some of it very heated" – about
whether Catharism was a "real heresy with Balkans origins,
or rather a construct of western medieval culture, whose
authorities wanted to persecute religious dissidents." Rist
adds that some historians say the group was an invention of
the medieval Church, so there never was a Cathar heresy;
while she agrees that the medieval Church exaggerated its
threat, she says there is evidence of the heresy's
existence.
My view is that there's plentiful evidence of the
heresy's existence, that there's plentiful evidence that
Catharism was grotesquely mistaken and based on illusory
foundations, that there's plentiful evidence that Roman
Catholicism, past and present, is grotesquely mistaken and
based on illusory foundations - and so are Protestant forms
of Christianity, past and present. I take the view that all
forms of Christianity are harmful, but with vast differences
in their degree of harm.
Some forms of Christianity waste large amounts of time
and money, time and money which could be devoted to much
more constructive ends. Other forms of Christianity have
wasted and still waste vast amounts of money and time and
have been actively responsible for torture, persecution and
killing on a large or very large scale.
Article One Believers
'Jesus saves' is a common claim made by Conservative Evangelicals. In
general, Conservative Evangelicals are ready to state their belief in
salvation for believers in Jesus as Saviour and damnation for the rest. I
call Christians who believe this 'Article One Believers.' This
is from the Website of the Christian Police Association:
We Believe
That the soul of a person is eternal and that there will be a physical
resurrection of the body for everyone who will then be judged by the Lord
Jesus Christ. Those who have died having believed and received forgiveness
will be raised, and together with those believers who are still alive, will
be taken to live with Christ forever. Those who have refused to believe will
be condemned from God’s presence forever.
On this page, I point out a difficulty - far from being the only
difficulty - one left unresolved in the Bible and not addressed by any
theologians, so far as I'm aware. No age limit is mentioned. Do those
who have these beliefs - the 'Article One Believers' -
believe that ten year old children 'who have refused to believe' will be
condemned from God's presence forever? What about 5 year old children? What
about 1 year old babies?).
Many, many Christians who aren't Conservative Evangelicals do take the view that they will live with Christ forever but that
non-believers will have a very different destiny. These people are Article
One believers too. They are often very reluctant to declare their belief.
Of the people mentioned on this page, it can safely be assumed that Jonny
Dyer of Christ Church, Fulwood is an Article One believer and all those at
STC Sheffield. I assume that Matthew Rhodes, the Vicar of St John's, Ranmoor,
is an Article One believer. I assume that the Bishop of Sheffield is an
Article One believer too, since he seems to have Calvinist inclinations. The
Staff of the Church Army are likely to be Article One believers. How do
Church Army believers cope with the belief that so many of the people
they come into contact with in the course of their work are people condemned by the Article One
beliefs concerning redemption? But that would be bad for business.
They want the flow of money to continue. The people giving the money to the Church Army should scrutinize the Church
Army very carefully before deciding whether to give or not. Is Malcolm
Chamberlain (or, 'The Venerable Malcolm Chamberlain'), the Archdeacon for
Sheffield and Rotherham, an Article One believer? Would he be willing to
clarify his position? Perhaps not. Is the 'liberal theologian' Beth Keith,
the newly appointed Vicar of St Mark's Church an Article One believer? She's
a self-proclaimed liberal theologian, progressive theologian. Perhaps her
views aren't all they seem. If she doesn't believe in damnation (or
separation from God) as a possibility for non-believers, how can she justify
her church's close association with so many churches that definitely do -
other members of the large group of South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire
churches 'Arise,' and the Sheffield Diocese. On the Website of the Rock
Evangelical Church there is, or used to be, the statement God hates
homosexuality and God hates blasphemy. The Church of England used to support
the execution of homosexuals and the execution of blasphemers. Biblical
'evidence' was supplied.
What of the Christians listed in the column to the right, such as the
Chaplains at Oxford University? There are many people who would be
embarrassed to give an answer. Why is this? These people are Christians,
supposedly people unlike non-Christians, with a new life in Jesus and
presumably a new destiny, a very different destiny from that of
non-Christians, according to the Article One criterion.
The Article One criterion is a simple way of conveying important
information, with many uses, for example in deciding whether to donate to a
Church or Church organization. Don't donate if you don't want money to go to
people with these views. Some of the chaplains in the list to the
right have safeguarding duties and are involved in pastoral care at an
institution. Surely it makes a difference, a very big difference, if the
chaplain involved in pastoral care of a person views the person as eternally
doomed.
The Article One distinctions are relevant to the wider life of an Oxford
College, or a Cambridge College, or any other academic institution -
relevant to all institutions where Christians have a part to play. An
Article One Believer will believe that the mathematicians, scientists,
engineers, all the academic staff, in fact, all the members of staff- and
obviously all the undergraduate and postgraduate students and people who
apply to join the academic community have a very different destiny from the
destiny of the believer, unless they acquire the necessary set of beliefs.
Members of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, aren't required to
be Christian believers. Are we to suppose that if the non-believing members
of the choir persist in their non-belief, that their destiny will be a very
different one from the destiny of the believing singers?
It would be wrong to describe many Christians or most Christians as
deranged, but I'd unhesitatingly describe the Article One Beliefs - and not
just these beliefs - as deranged.
At Remembrance Day services conducted by Church of England clerics for the
general public, in public spaces, the problem arises in an acute form.
Article One believers take the view that those who died - their names may be
on memorials or they may be people whose names are unrecorded there - have
been strictly separated into the two groups, those with communion with the
god they believe in, and the rest. I view Article One Beliefs, to use the
term I've introduced, with complete loathing. I comment on these beliefs
quite often in the pages on Christianity, in different contexts and
different illustrative examples.
Why anyone would want to give money to institutions which foster these
loathsome doctrines I've no idea. To anyone tempted to give money, I'd say
this: are you sure, absolutely sure that you can't find a better use for
your money?
This page is the Hub of South Yorkshire Counter-Evangelism (SYCE). See also
These are miscellaneous
objections, covered in greater detail and more
systematically on other pages of the site.
'Bible Truth?'
'God's Word?'
Peter Hitchens: 'I believe in the absolute goodness of God.'
(Interview with 'Risen Magazine.')
Christian believers ... do you believe that God carried out the mass
killing of babies, children and men, the first born of Egypt? Do you believe
that God advocated the violent killing of babies, as recorded in Psalm 137?
Do you believe that God ordered or carried out the mass killing of men,
women and children, as recorded in other passages of the Bible?
Do you
believe that only people who accept Christ as personal redeemer can expect
an eternity in union with God. Do you believe in the eternal damnation of everyone who fails to accept Jesus as
risen redeemer?
Cathedrals, churches, chapels appeal for donations
repeatedly, on their Websites and inside their buildings. What of visitors
to these places, for example, people visiting Lincoln Cathedral, or York or
Winchester - do you believe that all these visitors spend eternity in
separation from God, apart from the minority who accept Christ as redeemer.
What of the people who built the place or keep it in good repair now? What
of the people who respond to your appeal for money by donating money? It
isn't part of orthodox Christianity - or unorthodox Christianity - to
suppose that the big givers go to heaven or that all the donors go to
heaven. Do you believe in what seems to be required by Christian doctrine,
that all the donors are condemned to eternal separation from God - except
for the
donors who accept Jesus as redeemer spend eternity in union with God?
Shouldn't potential donors consider very carefully
the issues before they decide to donate?
There are many, many other causes they can give to
which aren't tainted by the hideous cruelties perpetrated by christians over
the centuries. Again and again, cathedrals and churches stress the history
of the church, the glorious history of the church, in ways which amount to
active distortion. For example, many many readers would never realize that
Church of England cathedrals and churches in the older age bracket were once
Roman Catholic, vastly different in doctrine and practice.
On this page and other pages, I stress current
mistakes, the deeply disturbing ones and the lesser ones which are still
harmful, but I also draw attention to the continuity of past and present.
When Christians choose to ignore the atrocities which litter the history of
the Christian churches or are very selective in the examples they are ready
to take into account, then reminders of the grim facts are essential.
Christians, can you excuse the cruelties carried out in so many
of the centuries when the churches were dominant - the many, many executions
for heresy, blasphemy and witchcraft, burning alive - and boiling alive, a
punishment sometimes used in Christian England - the use of torture, the
massacres of Jews, Protestant-Catholic wars and atrocities?
From the Website of Lichfield Cathedral: 'Christian
giving is ... a duty laid on us by God, and to give cheerfully and liberally
is to put scriptural principles into practice.'
Richard Neile, the Bishop of Lichfield at the time,
played a major part in the execution in 1612 of Edward Wightman, burned
alive for heresy. The Bishop would have believed that he was putting
scriptural principles into practice.
Boiling alive was a punishment ordered in some cases
by King Henry VIII. Supplementary information about him:
Henry VIII was responsible for as many as 57,000 executions during
his reign. 'Defender of the faith' (Fidei Defensor) is a
title of English and later British monarchs since 1521, when it was
bestowed on Henry VIII. It was revoked when Henry VIII decided to
break with Rome and to make himself head of the Church of
England.The King was excommunicated by Pope Paul III. But the
Parliament of England conferred on the sadist King as well as his
successors (which include King Charles III) the title 'Defender of
the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland in Earth
the Supreme Head.'
Sheffield Diocese is a member of 'Arise!' a large group of Churches in
Sheffield and North Derbyshire. Another member of 'Arise' is the Rock
Christian Centre. The people there really do believe in demons, like the
people at countless churches.
'The divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Old and New Testament
Scriptures, which are the written Word of God - fully trustworthy for faith
and conduct.
The personal and visible return of Jesus Christ to fulfil the purposes of
God, who will raise all people to judgement, bring eternal life to the
redeemed and eternal condemnation to the lost, and establish a new heaven
and new earth.' 'The lost,' who are eternally condemned, include children
and their parents if they have never accepted Christ as their 'personal Lord
and Saviour,' and, of course, all people who have failed to commit
themselves to Christ. They include all the allied soldiers, sailors and
airmen who fought to defeat the Nazis, including those who liberated the
concentration camps and the Jews who died in the concentration and
extermination camps - except for the small minority of believers in the
Risen Redeemer.
Very large numbers of children have been abused by Roman Catholic
priests and others in the Church, in many, many countries -
allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, admissions of guilt,
apologies by the Church, attempts by Church authorities to do nothing and to
cover up the cases of abuse. The abused include mostly boys but also girls,
some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11
and 14.
From the report of the Independent Inquiry into
Child Sexual Abuse, 2022:
'Throughout this investigation, we heard appalling accounts of child sexual
abuse perpetrated by clergy and those associated with the Roman Catholic
Church. The abuse covers a spectrum of sexual offending including acts of
masturbation, oral sex, vaginal rape and anal rape, accompanied on occasions
by beatings and other acts of violence. There have been many hundreds of
victims and complainants over many decades.'
Clergy and others in the Church of England have been responsible for
horrific abuse too and all too often, the abuse has been ignored by senior
clergy. Despite changes in the church's approach, new cases emerge.
From the report of the Independent Inquiry into
Child Sexual Abuse, 2022:
'Between 2003 and 2018, the main insurer of the Church of England (the
Ecclesiastical Insurance Office) managed 217 claims relating to child sexual
abuse in the Church. v The Anglican Church: Investigation Report The culture
of the Church of England facilitated it becoming a place where abusers could
hide. Deference to the authority of the Church and to individual priests,
taboos surrounding discussion of sexuality and an environment where alleged
perpetrators were treated more supportively than victims presented barriers
to disclosure that many victims could not overcome. Another aspect of the
Church’s culture was clericalism, which meant that the moral authority of
clergy was widely perceived as beyond reproach.'
The churches believed their own
'teaching,' that the Christian believer was a new person, transformed, now
guided by the Holy Spirit, now with all the benefits of God's Word, the
Bible, now part of the historic Church, a community of believers, extending
deep into the past. The massive, ever increasing evidence to the contrary
could not be ignored. Orthodox Christians were committing vile acts and the
historic teaching of the Church had failed to control these abuses.
What the
Church was compelled to do was this: to turn to secular methods instead of relying upon
distinctively Christian methods. It has appointed 'safeguarding officers' in
the dioceses and parishes. Cathedral and church and church school websites
now give prominence to safeguarding policies which include safeguarding
information. A significant number of these safeguarding officers will have
what amounts to 'modified' Christian belief, Christian belief which takes
into account modern and enlightened views of the issues, and Christian
belief accompanied by some common sense. A significant number of these
safeguarding officers will be completely unsuitable for their roles.
The responses of Churches to the findings of the Independent Inquiry into
Child Sexual Abuse are astonishing - and very, very revealing.
This is an extract from the response of the
Methodist Church (1 March 2022) changes and additions to its policy after a
policy review:
1. The policy statement now includes a definition of “safeguarding” and why
it is integral to the mission of the Methodist Church. It includes a
definition of the term “abuse”, information about contextual safeguarding
and examples of the various forms which abuse can take, including
peer-on-peer abuse;
2. The policy includes a "Code of safer working practice with children and
young people”, which sets standards for appropriate conduct and provides a
template for local churches to produce their own version of the document;
3. It includes a section entitled “Procedures for responding well to
safeguarding incidents” which gives guidance on how to respond to
allegations and when to make referrals to statutory agencies;
4. Safer recruitment procedures have been reviewed and amended;
5. The role and purpose of District Safeguarding Groups have been made
clearer and core standards and criteria have been introduced;
6. A new comprehensive training programme for all those involved in
monitoring and supporting those subject to safeguarding contracts is being
piloted.
This is a secular way of attempting to make improvements. This is a long,
long way from 'The Way, the Truth and the Life,' the Bible-centred way promoted by those
Christian Websites, the way which attracts funds and which sometimes
attracts converts, with its staggeringly naive claims - that followers of
Jesus become more like Jesus, guided by the Holy Spirit, and the
staggeringly naive claim that prayer works.
The Christian way failed, and failed abysmally, to protect the vulnerable from harm.
The 'imitation of Christ,' 'sanctification,' becoming more and more like
Christ as the believer matures in faith - all these have failed. The
churches encourage Christians to pray about the most diverse topics, big and
small, not noticing the lack of evidence that prayer works.
Faced with the cumulative evidence of deeply disturbing abuse in the
Churches, the Churches didn't set out to solve the problem by organized
prayer. In the case of this issue, they were not allowed to get away with
it. Attempts to 'solve' the problem by means of prayer would not have been
accepted. They have had to use other methods, including 'referrals to
statutory agencies.
A contemporary version of the Book of Common Prayer includes these futile
requests (V, spoken by the celebrant at the service) and responses (R, from
the congregation)
V. Endue thy ministers with righteousness; R. And make thy chosen people joyful. V. Give peace, O Lord, in all the world; R. For only in thee can we live in safety.
The expectation that God will hear the prayer and make a minister
who happens to be a child abuser or someone who does nothing about
cases of child abuse brought to the minister's attention is a pious,
futile wish asking for wish fulfilment.
The expectation that God will hear the prayer and actually grant
peace in any area ravaged by war, let alone grant peace 'in all the
world' is grossly deluded.
Wars of any size are won only by the massive expenditure of time and
effort, attention to detail, the proper exercise of economic power -
and often by a measure of good fortune, never by lazy-minded prayer.
The scale of the Allied War effort needed to defeat Nazi Germany and
the other axis powers is staggering. I'd recommend a long,
remedial course in military history to theologians who have spent
most of their study time on other theologians and the source
materials, the Old Testament in Biblical Hebrew and the New
Testament in New Testament Greek, with the realization that this is
impractical.
I wouldn't, though, regard all these people as beyond redemption - using the phrase in a strictly
secular sense, of course. It may well be perfectly possible to show
some of them, and, I'd hope, in ever increasing numbers, to shake
their faith, to deprive them of the certainty or near certainty that
the Christian world is a world of illusion.
Even those people whose experience of Christianity owes so much to
the soothing language of the Book of Common Prayer and hymns sing in
English country Churches, I'd claim, are sometimes able to think new
thoughts, to have new emotdes-, to contemplate the possibility that
their beliefs are based upon laziness, a refusal to think, and
feel in ways which aren't predetermined by Christian dogmas.
One experience of the horrific imperfections of the world - a very
different matter from the claimed 'sins' of the world - may well be
decisive, an event which can't easily, if at all, be reconciled with
the Christian view of things - or a longer process, a transition
which leads the believer to become more and more aware of the
smugness of the Christian community, the far greater variety and
interest of the non-Christian world, an increasing reluctance to
take seriously the Christian claims.
What evidence would count as evidence that prayer is effective? Coincidences
or fortunate outcomes are not acceptable as evidence. A Christian who prays
for success in getting a job in the church and who does get the job isn't in
the least entitled to believe that the prayer was answered and that God
ensured success in the job application.
The entry on Network Church, Sheffield in the
column to the left includes material on the alleged driving out of demons to
'cure' homosexuality. Also included, material on
Forge Youth, part of Network Church, with extracts from the Website of
Forge Youth, on some uses of prayer at Forge Youth. I include this comment:
The practices described are
harmful, very harmful, surely. Young people should never be
encouraged to rely upon prayer as the answer to physical (or
psychological) problems. Young people should never be
encouraged to believe uncritically that if people recover
from an illness or an injury that this must be evidence of
'God's work.' Obviously, the consequences of neglecting
proper medical treatment and relying on prayer can be dire.
Prayer is used for the same purposes at countless churches, of course.
Christians have not been able to use Bible texts to guide them in their
attempts to escape from the legacy of gross abuse. St Paul and the other New
Testament writers are silent about abuse. They have no reported 'teaching'
of Jesus to guide them. Yet abuse at the time of the early Church and for so
many centuries afterwards must have been on a massive scale, often taking
exceptionally barbaric forms. that were very often exceptionally barbaric.
Even so, contemporary abuse can take extreme forms.
A case discussed in the column to the left,
The case of Julie Morris.
Julie Morris was a primary school deputy head teacher and
the safeguarding lead at a school in Wigan.
Julie Morris and her partner were imprisoned for dozens of child sexual abuse offences,
including nine counts of rape. They had filmed themselves abusing and raping
a girl under the age of 13.
One example of a safeguarding document, the information
concerning safeguarding on the Website of the Oxford Diocese
An example of failures of safeguarding, multiple failures
rather than a single failure, also from the Oxford Diocese,
the information I provide in the second column of this page,
Action and inaction in the Diocese of
Oxford.
This claim appears on every page of the Oxford Diocese
Website:
The practice of the Oxford Diocese has been very
different in many different ways. To confine attention to the claim that the
Diocese is 'courageous' and one important aspect of courage, moral courage,
it isn't self evident that the practice has been inspiring or just about
adequate on many, many occasions. The Diocese engages in mission, like all
other dioceses, like all parishes. But in my experience, none of them make
an effort in one aspect of mission which should be vital: apologetics, that
is, defending Christian belief against objections. The non-Christians, the
lost, the 'unsaved,' are taken to be a homogeneous mass of people, in
effect, wandering in darkness, desperately in need of Christian belief, the
belief in the 'Risen Redeemer.' Next to no attempt has been made to address
the very substantial objections to Christian belief.
In many, many of the 'Christian centuries,' it was
easy - unbelievers could be tortured to convince them of 'the error of their
ways' and executed. When countries began to secularize, when these
expedients became unavailable, there was no significant increase in attempts
to defend Christianity against objections by means of the spoken or written
word, in print and later by means of the internet.
No doubt, in private prayer, Christians have
continued to send prayers thick and fast to God for the conversion of X, Y
or Z or the conversion of a whole country, including communities in distant
countries - prayers from England for the success of missionary work in a
country in Sub-Saharan Africa, perhaps. And, also prayers for the ending of
conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa and terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa.
Rational, empirical attempts to confirm the effects
of prayer have been lacking. The claim that prayer is beneficial, that
prayers are often answered, has never been subjected to honest, extensive
appraisal by believers. So believers go on praying and praying - after all,
it costs them nothing but the time taken and it enhances the believer's
self-esteem. Concrete measures to address suffering, to address wrongs in
the real world are very different - generally arduous, requiring enormous
effort and in many or most cases twith no guarantee of success - but the
successes can be overwhelmingly important and can genuinely transform lives,
or aspects of lives.
Prayer is facile, like the claim on the Oxford
Diocese Website that the diocese is 'contemplative, compassionate,
courageous.'
Do the Christian Churches deserve to be supported?
Should money be given to them?
No, for many different reasons.
Give money to good causes,
not to the Churches.
Jesus' teaching according to
Matthew 5:17 in the New Living Translation:
'Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law
of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their
purpose.'
The translation of the King James Bible
'Think not that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets ...'
Advice on parenting from 'God's Word,'
Deuteronomy, 21: 18-21,
in the English Standard Version. It too forms part of 'The Law,' and Jesus
saw no objection to it.
A Rebellious Son
18 “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the
voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline
him, will not listen to them, 19 then his father and
his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his
city at the gate of the place where he lives,20 and
they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and
rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’21 Then
all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall
purge the evil from your midst ... '
More from Jesus on God's Law:
'I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the
smallest detail of God's law will disappear until its purpose is achieved.'
(Matthew 5:18, New Living Translation.)
Material on this site tends to be highly dispersed - a comment I make in
various pages of the site. Some of the material below is extracted from the
very varied page
Home Page Images. It illustrates one aspect of the callousness and
heartlessness of orthodox Christianity.
There are many, many Christians who may differ in
their dogmatic beliefs, with beliefs which contradict the beliefs of other
Christians - they can't possibly all be true - but in agreement about this:
orthodoxy is the way forward, conservative evangelical and Anglo-Catholic
faith. This faith is based upon a literal interpretation of the Bible, a
belief that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. Don't they see the
difficulties here? it seems that they don't. The way forward they endorse
seems to be based on complacency and worse, far worse.
Christians, not all, obviously, but a significant proportion, have
believed in every century of Christian belief that God has killed people in
natural disasters, such as earthquakes, storms at sea and on land, sending
plagues and other diseases as a punishment for 'sin' or as a warning to
'sinners.' There are still many, many Christians who prefer to believe in
God as mass killer rather than accept scientific explanations.
Jesus ('God the Son') did nothing to discourage warped views on killing.
He warned of the destruction of towns, the punishment of towns with the
punishment inflicted on Sodom and Gomorrah - more mass killing, more killing
of innocent men, women, children and babies. More on this in the Gospel
according to Matthew 10. In this Trinitarian religion the blame is equal and
shared. There's no possibility of 'God the Father' being guilty of mass
killing but the other two members of the Trinity completely innocent.
But these considerations only arise in a religion which involves
the willingness to ignore realities. Elaborate theoretical and theological
explanations intended to excuse God, to absolve him from all blame, to
put the entire blame on human agency, have failed to find excuses for the
Christian God, although the excuses generally convince the simple-minded
faithful.
2. Slaves
The poster relates to slaves on the island of St Helena, colonized in 1659.
Extract from the St Helena 'Laws and Orders, constituted for the Negro
Slaves, by the inhabitants of the island, with the approbation of the
Governor and Council,' 1670:
That no Black or Blacks, upon any pretence whatsoever, shall wander
from his master’s plantation upon Sundays, without a lawful occasion granted
by their said masters or mistresses, either by writing, or some other token
that shall be known by the neighbourhood, upon the penalty of ten lashes on
his naked body for the first offence, fifteen for the second, twenty for the
third, and so for every offence thereafter committed ...
Those that shall absent their masters’ service three days, and
three nights, shall be punished according to the last foregoing article, and
the master make satisfaction for what they have stolen as aforesaid. For the
first offence of this kind, the master or masters shall make satisfaction
for what is stolen, and repair all damages done by the slave or slaves ; so
soon as taken, shall be brought to the fort, and immediately receive, on his
naked body, one hundred lashes, then secured ; four days after that, thirty;
six days after that, twenty more, and branded in the forehead with the
letter R : for the second offence in this kind, he shall be punished as
above said, and wear, for one year, a chain and clogs of thirty pounds
weight ; and for the third offence, satisfaction shall be made as above said
to the loser or losers, and the slave or slaves shall suffer death, at the
discretion of the Governor and Council.
In case any, slave, from the age of sixteen
years and upwards, shall presume and attempt to strike or assault any white
person whatsoever, correcting him or otherwise, for any cause whatsoever,
shall, for the said offence or offences (though without weapon or dangerous
instrument) undergo and suffer the punishment of castration, that is to say,
shall have his, testicles cut out ..
In 1693, a slave called Jamy was sentenced to be burned alive for
'sorcery' in St Helena.
The Apostle Paul includes sorcery in the list of 'works of the
flesh:' “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality,
impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife . . . and things
like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such
things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians
5:19-21).
St Helena takes its name from Saint Helena, born about 250 and the mother
of the emperor Constantine. It is claimed that on a pilgrimage, she
discovered the actual cross on which Jesus was crucified. As a result of
this discovery, she is revered as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, the
Anglican Church, the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Church and the Lutheran
Church.
According to the grim theology of another Saint, 'St' Paul, the pious St
Helena has inherited the kingdom of God but the slave Jamie has not.
'St' Helena actually found three crosses, according to legend. A woman
who was very ill touched all three crosses. After touching the first and
second, nothing happened but when she touched the third cross, she suddenly
recovered, so Helena declared that this MUST be the True Cross of Jesus.
It was also claimed that Helena found the nails used in the crucifixion
of Jesus.
From the Wikipedia entry on 'Relics associated with Jesus,'
At various points in history, a number of churches in Europe have
claimed to possess the Holy Prepuce, Jesus' foreskin from his
Circumcision; tears shed by Christ when mourning Lazarus; the blood of
Christ shed during the crucifixion; a milk tooth that fell out of the mouth
of Jesus at the age of 9; beard hair, head hair, Christ's nails.
[Presumably, finger nails and toe nails.] A section of the Holy Umbilical
Cord believed to remain from the birth of Christ is currently in the
Archbasilica of St John Lateran.
Throughout its history as a slave-owning, slave flogging, slave
castrating and slave executing jurisdiction - and afterwards - St Helena was
Christian, with active churches, where the gospel was preached, prayers
offered and Holy Communion was taken. Abuses which took place in the Roman
empire were ignored by Jesus, St Paul and others in the Christian Churches -
just about all of them, not just some of them. These abuses were ignored in St Helena and carried out in St Helena, although it's likely
that the abuses in the Roman empire were worse.
The Roman doctor and writer on medicine
Galen observed slaves being kicked, beaten with fists, and having their
teeth knocked out or their eyes gouged out, witnessing the i blinding of one
slave by means of a pen.
In 56 AD, the Roman senator Lucius Pedanius Secundus
was murdered by one of his slaves. The senate approved the execution of all
of his slaves, about 400 in number - men, women, children and, it may be,
babies - in accordance with Roman law. Christians, following the example of
the founder of the religion, would not have been outraged. Their minds were
on other things, such as converting 'heathens' to belief in Jesus as Lord
and Saviour. It' likely that there will have been very few Christian
converts amongst the executed slaves, probably none, and so the destiny of
all of them, with perhaps a few exceptions, will have been eternal
separation from God, according to this deranged theology.
The institution of slavery freely permitted the
separation of baby from mother and the selling of baby and mother to
different 'owners.' For most of its recorded history, Christianity has
opposed heresy, blasphemy, 'witchcraft,' drunkenness, but not the slave
market or harsh treatment of slaves, such as flogging.
The Church of England has apologised for its
historical links to the slave trade.
Commissioners of the church, including the
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, looked into their history and
involvement in the slave trade and said its connection to it caused 'great
dismay' and was a 'shameful and horrific sin.'
Slavery was never regarded by Jesus and St Paul as a
'shameful and horrific sin.' For most of the recorded history of the
Christian churches, slavery has never been regarded as a sin at all.
St Paul's Letter, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10.
'Do you not know that the wicked will not
inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral
nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual
offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor
swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.'
So, homoesxuals won't inherit the kingdom of God,
according to 'St' Paul, but he has no objection in the case of slave owners.Matthew
24:45, quoting Jesus himself:
'Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom
his master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves
their allowance of food at the proper time?' (New Revised Standard Version.)
Jesus takes for granted the view that slavery is a
natural institution of society, not open to objection.
The Archbishop of Canterbury will never issue an
apology along these lines: 'Our founder, Jesus Christ, God the Son never
regarded slavery as a sin. He allowed slavery to go unopposed. We apologize
unreservedly for his failure to condemn she shameful and horrific evil of
slavery.
Above, after a flogging: a slave in Louisiana in
the mid nineteenth century.
Slavery was ended in the United States not by
Christianity and not by convincing slave owners that slavery was wrong by by
persuading slave owners to free their slaves. It was ended, of course, by
military action. Above, General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union armies.
War: The Second World War
The
killing of babies, children and young people at Auschwitz and other
extermination / concentration camps and the killings of the Einsatzgruppen,
mobile death squads
Above, Jewish women and children from Hungary walking toward the
gas chamber, Auschwitz II, May/June 1944. None of these people would have
been Christians, although it's possible that a few were Christian converts.
Were all the non-Christians destined for eternal separation from God?
(the view of orthodox Christian doctrine, the state called 'hell)
On the
back cover of Peter Mathias's 'The First Industrial Nation:' 'The fate of
the overwhelming mass of the population in any pre-industrial society is to
pass their lives on the margins of subsistence. It was only in the eighteenth
century that society in north-west Europe, particularly in England, began
the break with all former traditions of economic life.'
'In the
'Prologue,' this is elaborated: 'The elemental truth must be stressed that
the characteristic of any country before its industrial revolution and modernization
is poverty. Life on the margin of subsistence is an inevitable condition for
the masses of any nation. Doubtless there will be a ruling class, based on
the economic surplus produced from the land or trade and office, often living
in extreme luxury. There may well be magnificent cultural monuments and very
wealthy religious institutions. But with low productivity, low output per
head, in traditional agriculture, any economy which has agriculture as the
main constituent of its national income and its working force does not produce
much of a surplus above the immediate requirements of consumption from its
economic system as a whole ... The population as a whole, whether of medieval
or seventeenth-century England, or nineteenth-century India, lives close to
the tyranny of nature under the threat of harvest failure or disease ... The
graphs which show high real wages and good purchasing power of wages in some
periods tend to reflect conditions in the aftermath of plague and endemic
disease.'
'Larry
Zuckerman, 'The Potato:' 'Famine struck France thirteen times in the sixteenth
century, eleven in the seventeenth, and sixteen in the eighteenth. And this
tally is an estimate, perhaps incomplete, and includes general outbreaks only.
It doesn't count local famines that ravaged one area or another almost yearly.'
Christian
Wolmar's 'Blood, Iron and Gold: how the railways transformed the world' includes
this, after pointing out one way in which diet was improved by the coming
of the railways: 'There were countless other examples of the railways improving
not only people's diets but their very ability to obtain food. France, for
example, had periodically suffered famines as a result of adverse weather
conditions right up to the 1840s, but once the railways began reaching the
most rural parts of the country food could easily be sent to districts suffering
shortages. Moreover, it would be at a price people could afford ... The consumption
of fruit and vegetables by the French urban masses doubled in the second half
of the nineteenth century almost solely as a result of the railways.'
No transformation in history is as important as the British industrial
revolution, which quickly transformed more receptive nations, such as
Belgium, but not others, such as Ireland. Why do far fewer women die in childbirth, why do few
people in industrialised nations live amidst vermin, unable to feed
themselves adequately or to keep warm, why do people in industrialised
nations not live in insanitary
cabins?
Britain's response to
The Great Famine in the mid-nineteenth century was worse than inadequate,
but Britain had this to its credit. It was the place where The Industrial
Revolution began, where so many of the inventions and innovations which
transformed life were devised, the place where for a long period of time The
Industrial Revolution was most vigorous by far. There wasn't one famine in
history, of course, which dwarfed all other famines, this period of famine
in Ireland. By then, there had been famines in every country in the world,
very often less severe, sometimes more severe. It was The Industrial
Revolution which ended the threat of famine in industrialised countries. When
Ireland eventually became an industrialised country itself, it was with British
help.
E A Wrigley gives this useful summary of the impact and benefits of the
Industrial Revolution in 'Energy and the English Industrial Revolution:'
'One of the best ways of defining the essence of the industrial revolution is
to describe it as the escape from the constraints of an organic economy.
Civilisations of high sophistication developed at times in many places in
the wake of the neolithic food revolution: in China, India, Egypt, the
valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, Greece, and Rome, among others. Their
achievements in many spheres of human endeavour match or surpass those of
modern societies: in literature, painting, sculpture, and philosophy, for
example, their best work will always command attention. Some built vast
empires and maintained them for centuries, even millennia. They traded over
great distances and had access to a very wide range of products. Their
elites commanded notable wealth and could live in luxury. Yet invariably the
bulk of the population was poor once the land was fully settled; and it
seemed beyond human endeavour to alter this state of affairs.
'The 'laborious poverty', in the words of Jevons, to which most men and
women were condemned did not arise from lack of personal freedom, from
discrimination, or from the nature of the political or legal system,
although it might be aggravated by such factors. It sprang from the nature
of all organic economies. [In organic economies] .. plant growth ...
represented the bulk of the sum total of energy which could be made available
for any human purpose. The other energy sources which were accessible,
chiefly wind and water, were, comparatively speaking, of minor importance.
The ceiling set in this fashion to the quantity of energy which could be
secured for human use was a relatively low limit because only a tiny
fraction of the energy reaching the surface of the earth from the sun was
captured by plant photosynthesis. Since all productive processes involved
the consumption of energy, and plant growth was the dominant energy source,
the productivity of the land conditioned everything else.
...
'The process of escape was slow but progressive ... from being a minor
contributor to energy supply in Tudor times, coal increased steadily in
importance, reaching a position of almost total dominance by the
mid-nineteenth century.'
The Gospel of Jesus and Public Health
Prominent in the Gospel of Jesus and the teaching and practice of Jesus'
followers: reliance upon miracles (such as the miracle of the feeding of the
5,000) and prayer (such as praying for an end to the plague). Christians
have sometimes used other measures, such as killing Jews. During the period
of the Black Death, false accusations were often made against Jews - that
they had poisoned wells. Jews were sometimes tortured to make them confess
to poisoning the sources of drinking water. As I point out in various places
on the site, there's no record of Jesus, or St Paul, or other Christians in
the early Church- or most Christians in the centuries when
Christianity was dominant - opposing the use of torture.
The Black Death was the deadly plague pandemic, at its peak between 1347
and 1351. Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the plague vary - from
around 75 million to around 200 million.
The scientific perspective: Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium
Yersinia pestis, spread
by fleas, but during the Black Death it probably also took a secondary form,
pneumonic plague, spread by person-to-person contact.
Of all the causes of disease, diseases caused by lack of safe drinking
water are the most prominent. Cholera is one example, but there are so many
others. Again, the measures which have been effective are very different
from the Christian 'solutions,' which are no solutions at all.
Provision of safe drinking water and treatment of sewage have been
achieved by vastly different means, scientific advances, such as
chlorination of drinking water, and vast construction projects, the building
of reservoirs, water treatment plants, sewage plants, the construction of
massive pipelines to convey drinking water (and the water needed for
industry, again, on a vast scale) and separate pipelines to take away
sewage.
A little information about the construction of just one civil engineering
project, the construction of Derwent Dam in Derbyshire. The dam is important
for many reasons, among them this: it was used for practice by the Dam
Busters during the Second World War.
From the Severn Trent water publication, 'Dam builders to Dambusters:'
'Derwent Dam took over ten years to build and six months to fill!
'Imagine over a million tonnes of stone blasted out of the earth at
Grindleford's Bole Hill quarry, travelling to Bamford by rail, then on to
the valley over 7 miles of specially built railway ...
'Different trades worked on the dams. Skilled masons from as far away
as Cornwall dressed the stone to the precisely proportioned blocks you see.
Strong navvy labourers, many from Wales, worked in teams digging out
foundations, shifting earth and stone.'
The industrial revolution was harsh, as harsh as the pre-industrial age, but
a necessary prelude to this age of comfort and comfortable assumptions and
illusions.
The harshness of the industrial age, like the comfort of this age, wasn't,
of course, shared by everyone. The harshness was experienced by people who
really are all but invisible today, all but forgotten, such as the navvies.
'Men of Iron,' the superb book by Sally Dugan, is mainly concerned with the
audacious work of the engineers Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Robert
Stephenson (she also does justice to the genius of their fathers, Marc
Brunel and George Stephenson).
She writes of the navvies' work, 'Maiming or mutilation came with the job,
and navvies were lucky if they escaped with nothing more than the loss of a
limb. They worked using picks and shovels, crowbars and wheelbarrows, and
their bare hands; the only other aid they had was the occasional blast of
gunpowder. Some were blinded by explosions; others were buried in rock
falls. All led a life of hard, grinding physical toil, tramping from one
construction site to another in search of work.'
'Men
of Iron' includes this quotation, from Elizabeth Garnett: 'Certainly no men
in all the world so improve their country as Navvies do England. Their work
will last for ages, and if the world remains so long, people will come
hundreds of years hence to look at it and wonder at what they have done.'
The view that all navvies were sentenced to eternity in hell, except for the
tiny minority who had accepted Jesus as 'personal Lord and Saviour' is
contemptible.
Remembrance Sunday and the
Church of England
Visiting the National Arboretum, which is part of the Royal British Legion, has left a powerful impression, a very favourable impression. I don't criticize the National Arboretum but I do
criticize the Church of England and I do make a plea, with argument and
evidence, for no longer holding Church of England Remembrance services
there.
In the extensive landscape of the National Arboretum
are many, many memorials: the presentation is very impressive, dignified and
moving. The presentation is not so much secular as universal. There are no
signs or displays which admonish the visitor or instruct the visitor to
think in a certain way, such as the Christian way. There are no signs or
displays alleging that humanity is tainted by sin and claiming that Jesus is
the answer, that Jesus is the Saviour of the World. If there were, they
would strike a discordant note, except for visitors who happen to be
Christian believers. They would interfere with the quiet reflection
which the place does encourage, rightly so.
The Church of England service which is held on
Remembrance Sunday is very different, in contradiction, surely, with the
ethos of the place. In the service, the people present are expected to think
- and speak - in specifically Christian ways, to surrender their own view of
things, which will often be very, very different. This is surely badly
mistaken. This is not Church of England consecrated ground but a place for
everyone.
At a time when support for the Church of England has
become very diminished, the Church seems to grasp any opportunity to retain
and regain some of the 'prestige' it once had. The Church of England should
realize that the continuance of Church of England services at public events
which are open to a wide range of people - to everyone - is deeply unfair.
It's not likely that the Church will come to this realization but the
National Arboretum needs to take action, surely. Or is the Church of England
to play this role indefinitely, to hold remembrance services based on Church
of England doctrine for decades to come, even if its support declines
progressively?
I think that the National Arboretum is in a
difficult position, but it is only difficult because the Church of England
makes it difficult. Voluntary withdrawal from its role as provider of
services to Remembrance Sunday would remove the difficulties. But it's not
likely that the Church will come to this decision.
The National Arboretum
describes itself as 'a place for everyone to remember.' It should not be
holding Church of England services in which everyone attending is expected
to join in prayers. It should not be holding Church of England services
based on doctrines which will not be accepted by everyone but only by a
small minority, such as the doctrine that those who fell in the First World
War and the Second World War and other conflicts are condemned to eternal
punishment - everyone, that is, who has not accepted Jesus as personal Lord
and Saviour. The National Arboretum should not be promoting a Church which
regards those who played such a magnificent part in defending our freedoms
as essentially abject sinners, in need of God's redemption. What they
deserve is our thanks and our gratitude for their achievements.
It was conducted by The Venerable Dr Susan Weller, Archdeacon of Lichfield.
An extract from the section 'Confession and Absolution:'
'Let us confess to God the sins and shortcomings of the world ... Let us
confess our share in what is wrong, and our failure to seek and establish
that peace which God wills for his children.'
At this point, I'll quote some words from the part of the Bible called 'The Law,'
Numbers 31. Moses takes
a very different view of what God expects. He regards himself as acting in
accordance with God's will.
14. Moses
was angry with the officers, the commanders of battalions and companies, who
had returned from the war.
15. He
asked them, “Why have you kept all the women alive?
16. Remember
that it was the women who followed Balaam's instructions and at Peor led the
people to be unfaithful to the Lord. That was what brought the epidemic on
the Lord's people.
17. So
now kill every boy and kill every woman who has had sexual intercourse,
18. but
keep alive for yourselves all the girls and all the women who are virgins.'
The translation here is the Good News (!) translation.'
According to Deuteronomy 20, God gives
commands concerning the treatment of people in captured cities. From the
translation of the 'Good News Bible:"
20:13 Then, when the LORD your God lets you capture the city, kill every
man in it.
Even harsher treatment is ordered for cities intended for settlement:
20:16 But when you capture cities in the land that the LORD your God is
giving you, kill everyone.
In the words of the remembrance service, ' ... that peace which God wills
for his children.' Is this an example of 'that peace?'
In the third column of this page, there's material from Exodus 11 in
which it's claimed that God killed the first born sons of the Egyptians -
adults, children and babies - committed, in other words, mass murder.
To resume comments on the service. There then follows a prayer, to be said
by (All).
Father, we have sinned against heaven and against you, and are not
worthy to be called your children.'
This is the view that everybody, including devoted parents, army, navy and
airface veterans, are hopeless sinners who have to be redeemed by the blood
of Jesus before they are acceptable to God.
Susan Weller will then have spoken these words,
Almighty God have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your
sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and keep you in life
eternal, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
And those who were present, members of the Church of England, members of
other churches, Jews, Moslems, Hindus and members of other religions,
atheists and agnostics will have been expected to say 'Amen.' In the Order
of Service at this point in the service, there's this:
(All) Amen
If Dr Weller were to be contacted for clarification, I think it's very
likely or overwhelmingly likely that she would confirm that according to Church of England doctrine, not all
the men and women who died and are commemorated at the Arboretum, far from
it: most are not saved from their 'sins.' Of the people attending to
service, God will damn all those who fail to accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour.
The Arboretum should not be organizing these services, then. There should be full
opportunity for
debate, with the Church of England given every opportunity to explain its
views, its policies - its beliefs. Events to commemorate remembrance at the
Arboretum - and in public places throughout the country - should no longer
be promotions of one religion and one denomination of one religion.
Church
of England members and members of other churches can go to churches for
specifically Christian commemorations. This is elementary fairness. The
National Arboretum has no business to encourage in future the insincere
mumbling of a response in prayer when the speaker has no belief in the
Christian God.
In the column to the right, in the section on the
Prayer Book Society, there's comment on
the burning alive of Edward Wightman for heresy in Lichield, in 1612.
Richard Neile, the Bishop of Lichfield at the time, played a decisive part
in ensuring that the barbaric execution went ahead.
The work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is beyond
praise. The contribution of Fabian Ware, who founded the Commission in 1917,
is beyond praise. At the cemeteries of the Commission I've visited in
Belgium and France, I've experienced the immense dignity and calm of these
places, the sobering and harrowing impact of these places. Each marked grave
has a headstone, which has a national emblem or regimental badge, and the
rank, name, unit, date of death and age of each casualty, with a personal
dedication chosen by relatives. The headstone includes a religious symbol,
but not in the case of known atheists. In the vast majority of cases the
symbol is the Christian cross, but not for followers of other
religions, such as the Jewish man whose headstone is shown above, Of
course, the fact that a headstone has the Christian cross is no evidence
that the man who gave his life was a believing Christian. When asked 'What
religion are you?' it was very, very common to answer 'C of E,' Church of
England.
The Commonwealth War Graves
Commission didn't assume, then, that everyone who made this sacrifice was a
Christian and has made an attempt to distinguish between Christian - at
least nominal Christians - and believers in other religions, or nominal
believers in other religions, as well as people who clearly had no religious
beliefs.
The Lions of the Great War statue in Smethwick,
Birmingham (which was vandalised just days after it was unveiled) is one of
a number of similar monuments. The statue shows a Sikh soldier. Birmingham
City Council: the statue 'honours the sacrifices made by South Asian service
personnel of all faiths from the Indian subcontinent who fought for Britain
in the First World War and subsequent conflicts.'
But in services
throughout the country, on remembrance Sunday, not the least attempt is made
to distinguish between Christians and non-Christians. When those present are
expected to give the responses, what are people who disagree with Christian
theology or who have no interest in it to do? What are followers of other
religions to do? Stay silent? Mumble
insincerely? Asking people or expecting people to show belief when they have
no belief shouldn't possibly be expected. The Church of England may have its
reasons for expecting people to take part in a Christian service even when
they have no belief in Christianity, or to become silent witnesses in these
parts of the commemorations, by far the larger part of the commemorations,
in general. This is a marginal institution now, and so it may well try to
maintain any influence it has, such as this influence over the people
gathered to remember the fallen.
This is an Order of Service for Remembrance Sunday:
What are the Unitarians, the Jews,
the Moslems, the agnostics and the atheists who are present to make of
this? Is this an event they can witness and take part in wholeheartedly?
Any Anglicans present who are Conservative Evangelicals will have a
their own interpretation of the words, 'through Jesus Christ our risen
Redeemer.' For them, anyone who rejects the risen Redeemer has no hope
of salvation. In the past, Christianity was a hellfire religion, almost
completely so. That influence has waned, but not so amongst
Conservative Evangelicals, as well as some other sections of the Church. The Jews and the atheists who are buried in
the graves of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission are excluded from
salvation. They didn't accept 'Jesus Christ our risen Redeemer.' The
status of the nominal Church of England members
is presumably the same.
If, as I argue, Services of Remembrance on Remembrance Sunday - the ones
held in the open air, attended by members of the public with widely
varying views on religion, not, of course, the services held in Churches
- are indefensible in their present form, what can replace them? This
involves difficulties, but they can be addressed. There can be
continuity with the past. Very often, a band takes part in the event and
I see no objection to the continuing playing of such resonant pieces as
'O God our help in ages past' and 'Abide with me,' but without the
words. 'Nimrod,' from Elgar's Enigma Variations, is often played at
Remembrance Sunday events and, of course, has no words, only its intense
beauty.
Perhaps a choir could be present to sing the words of a hymn-
just so long as the public isn't expected to sing the words as well. The
music is far more important than the words to all but committed
Christians, and often, far more important to committed Christians as
well.
In the Christmas season, I've listened to carols very, very often -
the very popular carols and such carols as 'In dulci jubilo,' 'Es ist
ein Ros ensprungen' and 'Adam lay y-bounden.' And, of course, Bach's
Christmas Oratorio. Again, the music is far more important than the
words to most people.
Remembrance Day commemorations without the involvement of the
Church of England would be shorter than before, but the commemorations
could be extended. Consideration could be given to commemorating the
service of men and women in the British Armed Forces directly after the
commemoration of those who fell in previous conflicts. At present, Armed
Forces Day is held in late June. Moving these event from June to
Remembrance Sunday would make sense. Very often, members of the armed
forces attend Remembrance Sunday events and they would obviously take
part in the events to commemorate the service of present day members.
The general public would be free to attend the earlier part, the
commemoration of the fallen or the later part, the commemoration of the
present day Armed Forces, or both parts.
Christian believers would, of course, be free to attend a religious
service later in the day. Every year, at Endcliffe Park in Sheffield, a
wreath laying ceremony is held to commemorate the crew of the American
bomber Mi Amigo which crashed in the park on February 22, 1944. The
ceremony is held on the Sunday nearest to February 22. A little later, a
service takes place at St Augustine's Church, which is not far from the
crash site. I attend the ceremony, but not the Church service, as I'm
not a Christian believer. This is the pattern which should be followed.
A replacement for the present Remembrance Sunday services (again, the
ones attended by the general public, not the ones in Churches) is
essential, overdue. On November 11, 2018, I attended a
Remembrance Sunday service in a nearby park, a smaller event than the
one I usually attend, in Sheffield city centre. As always, I found the
religiosity dispiriting, but this year more than ever. In this year
which marked the centenary of the ending of the First World War, there
had been the chance to find out so much more about the soldiers, sailors
and airmen who took part in this war, but for most of the time, the
stress was not upon human life but upon theology and ecclesiastical
generalities. Not in evidence at all was any recognition of
complexities, of harshness, the realities which historians have probed.
The achievement of historians who have written about the First World War
deserves to be much more widely recognized. Their achievement is on a
very high level, so often - magnificent. A Remembrance Day event isn't a
suitable venue for exploring these complexities, but a Remembrance Day
event isn't the place for clergy to give their own
interpretation of historical events, presenting it as obvious or
indisputable fact.
This is what the clergyman did at the event I attended. In his address, he claimed that when the guns fell
silent, peace had replaced war. This is perfectly true. Peace did
replace war, for the time being. But he also claimed that hope had
replaced 'futility.' This is surely the claim that the First World War
had been a futile war. Many historians have contested this claim and
have given arguments and evidence that the claim is mistaken.
In the booklet which gives the format of the service and the text which
forms the main component of the service, the words of the Reverend Canon
are often followed by the response expected of the public: in bold
print.
Examples from the booklet:
After each prayer the following being [sic - insufficient care was given
to proof-reading] will be used.
Officiant Lord, in your mercy. All
hear our prayer
So, people at the commemoration who never pray are expected to make an
exception now and to offer a prayer, with the expectation that God will
hear the prayer?
Later:
Officiant Will you seek to heal the wounds of war? All
We will
The officiant, like most of those attending, or perhaps all of them, has
no way of healing the wounds of war.
Officiant Will you work for a just future for all humanity? All
We will.
Any idea that injustices in vile, corrupt states - or injustices in
liberal, enlightened states can be ended, so that all humanity has a
just future, is utopian, impossible, deluded. Any idea that people
attending the service should be expected to give assent to the notion is
ridiculous.
The service included five 'Regimental Collects,' not delivered by the
officiant. This is the first of them, the prayer for the York and
Lancaster Regiment (the mangled opening is another instance of poor
proof-reading:
'Almighty God who cans't save by many or by few and dost bid us to
endure to the end that we might be saved, strengthen we pray thee, The
York and Lancaster Regiment, that, as our perseverance has not been
found wanting in battle, so we may be blessed in enduring all
temptations, and at length, receive the crown of life, through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
All Amen.
This is a prayer which amongst other things asks God to strengthen The
York and Lancaster Regiment. Our national defences are badly in need of
strengthening. There are insufficient recruits, there's insufficient
funding, the armed forces aren't given the resources to meet the very
serious challenges they face. National defences are strengthened by
well-known means, finding more recruits (recently, the decision has been
taken to find recruits from other countries) by changes to the national
finances, and the rest. Is it worth asking God to strengthen the
national defences? Surely not, and it's no more worthwhile to ask God to
strengthen the York and Lancaster Regiment.
The Collect makes clear reference to the Christian doctrine of
salvation: ' ... that we might be saved.' This is an aspect of Christian
doctrine which I've discussed in many other places. Which people, according
to the officiant, according to Justin Welby, to name just two people,
are saved? What are the criteria? The evangelical answer, shared by very
large numbers of other orthodox Christians, is very
restrictive. The saved are far fewer in number than the damned.
I do, though, commend the last paragraph of the text in the booklet and
specifically the last sentence:
'Lest we forget. The First World War came to an end at 11 am on 11th
November 1918. The Second World War ended on 8th May (Europe) and 15th
August 1945 (Far East.) Let us also remember all the members of the
British Forces who are currently deployed in operations, world-wide.'
A dual commemoration, of the present-day service of
the British armed forces after a commemoration of those who have fallen
in war, seems to me to be a very promising development. Present day
members of the armed forces do extraordinary work. They too deserve our
gratitude and practical work. The 'good causes' which I have in mind as
far more deserving recipients of donated money than the churches are
very wide ranging but include many, many forces charities and other
organizations.
Not all the prayers used in the service are given in the booklet. There
was, for example, a prayer for our political leaders, asking God to
grant them 'wisdom.' Will our political system be strengthened in the
least by asking God to grant wisdom to our political leaders? The complexities and realities of politics are
far removed from this mechanical, routine exercise of prayer and response. To expect
the wider public to take part in the charade is nonsensical.
The Church of England may well expect, or hope, that some of the people
who attend a Remembrance Day service and who aren't church goers will go
on to become church goers. It would be unfair to claim that this would
be the primary motivation of the Church. In individual cases, this may
happen, but far more likely is this outcome: people who attend who have
lost a relative in a war, people who have a more general interest in the
enormity of the major conflicts, the enormity of the losses, the
devastating effects of much smaller conflicts, will be dismayed and
deterred by the nature of the service, led by the clergy, with public
activity confined to the responses to the prayers of the clergy, the
saying of the Lord's Prayer, and the singing of hymns.
Below, the Menin Gate Memorial at Ieper / Ypres recording the names of 54
389 officers and men from United Kingdom and Commonwealth Forces who died in
the Ypres salient before 16 August 1917 and who have no known grave.
The orthodox Christian attitude to most of the names here is
utterly repulsive. These people believe
that there's a penalty attached to disbelief in Jesus Christ as Redeemer or
lack of interest in Jesus Christ as Redeemer.
In all this, I must stress, I feel I've far more in common with
Christians who share my view of the importance of remembrance than
with those non-Christians who claim that wearing a poppy is 'glorifying
war.' Christians and non-Christians can share a common understanding. There
are large numbers of Christians whose war service has been
outstanding. One of them is a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert
Runcie, who won the Military Cross for his acts of courage. He was
amongst the first British soldiers to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration
camp when it was liberated by the British army.
Dan Snow, 'Remembrance Sunday should not be
dominated by religion.'
'After the first world war the Cenotaph was designed by Edwin Lutyens
as a secular memorial because the war dead were from a dizzying array of
peoples, nations and creeds. The prime minister, David Lloyd George, backed
him up. He insisted on a secular monument and he rejected an alternative
proposal for a huge cross at Admiralty Arch. The government also rejected
Church of England proposals that it should have Christian inscriptions on it
or a cross on top of it. At its dedication on 11 November 1919, the King
simply unveiled it, after which were two minutes silence. Many in the church
were appalled by the lack of ritual.
'The Cenotaph is a state monument. It is not a religious one. About
26,000 serving members of the armed forces today describe themselves as
having no religion, which makes the non-religious the second-largest belief
group (after Christianity). We cannot continue to exclude a representative
of these serving men and women, not to mention the tens of thousands of
people of no religion who served in the world wars – men such as my grandpa,
and many of his comrades.
'Remembrance is one of our most important duties as citizens. The act
itself must reflect changing times. The event at the Cenotaph every November
must feel as relevant and profound today as it was when it was first
conceived. It must reflect the society it serves.'
Above. part of Tyne Cot cemetery, between Ypres and Paschendaele
(now 'Passendale'), with
the graves of 11 954 soldiers, on land assigned in perpetuity by King Albert
I of Belgium in recognition of the sacrifices made by British and
Commonwealth forces in the defence and
liberation of Belgium during the First
World War.
Below, allied tanker Dixie Arrow torpedoed by U-71 in
1942.
Below, dust and smoke rising from Amiens prison during the audacious
Operation Jericho, which succeeded in releasing some of the members of the
French Resistance imprisoned there and facing imminent execution. Mosquito
fighter-bombers were used to mount a precise attack, with an escort of
Typhoon fighters. Of the 832 prisoners, 258 escaped and although many were
recaptured, the raid can be counted a success. Two mosquitose were shot
down, with a Typhoon fighter and another Typhoon was lost at sea.
Below, a
De Havilland Dh 98 Mosquito. The Mosquito fighter-bomber was an
astonishing and astonishingly successful aircraft, constructed to a large
extent from wood.
Below, Bergen-Belsen camp soon after liberation, in April 1945.
When British and Canadian troops entered the camp, they found over
13,000 unburied bodies and (including the satellite camps) and about 60,000
inmates, most acutely sick and starving ... prisoners were dying at
around 500 per day, mostly from typhus. The BBC correspondent Richard
Dimbleby accompanied the troops that liberated the camp. This was his
description of the camp:
'...Here over an acre of ground lay dead and dying people. You
could not see which was which... The living lay with their heads against the
corpses and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated,
aimless people, with nothing to do and with no hope of life, unable to move
out of your way, unable to look at the terrible sights around them ... This
day at Belsen was the most horrible of my life.'
Below, clearing some of the dead bodies
Father, we have sinned against heaven and against you, and are not
worthy to be called your children.'
To return to the Church of England service at the National Arboretum,
these words of one of the prayers are surely shockingly bad:
Father, we have sinned against heaven and against you, and are not
worthy to be called your children.'
This is to treat the Nazis, such as the Nazi Fritz Klein and the British
and Canadia troops as similar, all sinners. This is a view of heroic
people as miserable sinners - the members of the army who risked death
and injury, the members of the Royal Navy and the merchant service who
risked death and injury on the dangerous Atlantic convoys and other
naval operations of the war, the airmen who took part in the dangerous
Operation to free the members of the French resistance and who took part in
other air operations. The members of the French Resistance too are viewed in
this despicable way.
There is absolutely no reason why the Church of England should continue
to play this prominent role in Remembrance Sunday commemorations. If the
theologians, Archbishops, Bishops and other assorted clergy can come up with
reasons why the Church should continue to officiate, then let them make
their reasons freely available.
I regard the Church of England as a discredited institution. Again,
apologists for the Church of England are welcome to give a contrary view,
but I think - I'm sure - that it will be difficult - impossible - to
transform the many, many horrific acts which litter its history into
creditable acts. The burning to death in the Diocese of Edward Wightman for
heresy is just one instance.
Will the Church of England continue to supply preachers and prayers to
the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas, Staffordshire and to the many,
many events throughout the country which commemorate the sacrifices made by
the nation's armed forces? The Church of England should step down, abandon
any attempt to cling on to its residual power by these means, but is very
unlikely to do that.
At public performances, from comedy shows to operas and classical music
performances, acts, comedians, string quartets, orchestras, choirs, aren't
invited back year after year, irrespective of changed conditions. When
performers lose their touch, become faded or worse, when they become a
source of acute embarrassment, then they are not invited back.
The Church of England is surely a source of acute embarrassment. This
wealthy organization with so many staff is completely unable to stand up for
itself because it's devoid of critical intelligence - to mention just one
deficiency.
The Church of England's defence of its long-standing privileges,
including the 'right' to officiate at Remembrance Sunday services, can't
possibly be based mainly on the fact that the privileges are long-standing,
hallowed by tradition, too embedded in the life of the nation, supposedly,
to be questioned.
Another image from the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. April 19, 1945. The
Nazi doctor Fritz Klein forced to do work to bury
bodies. Here, he is standing, to the left, in Mass Grave 3. The bodies,
predominantly of Jews. Allied members of the armed forces on guard on the
sides of the grave.
According to the despicable doctrine of orthodox Christianity, all are
equally subject to eternal separation from God, the allied soldiers who
liberated the camp, the Jews and others who died there in horrific
circumstances - and the Nazi Fritz Klein. Any believing Christians -
not nominal Christians but believers in JC as personal Saviour - have a very
different eternal destiny, the one enjoyed by Ernst Biberstein, the
commanding officer of Einsatzkommando 6, which executed between 2000 and
3000 people. He had a background in Biblical studies.
Church buildings:
aesthetics and ethics. Visiting cathedrals
and churches. Supporting them financially by paying an
admission charge or donating
I've a strong interest in architecture
and the built environment. In one extended
period, a long time ago, I went on study
visits to cathedrals and , churches.
Some of the books on architecture on my
bookshelves are books on Christian
buildings, for example two of the many books
I have in the Thames and Hudson 'World of
Art' series, 'The Cathedrals of England' by
Alec Clifton-Taylor and 'English Parish
Churches' by Graham Hutton and Olive Cook.
Amongst the Church buildings I travelled
to see and to study specifically, rather
than the many I've visited as
part of a visit for wider purposes, were Ely Cathedral and
Lincoln Cathedral, Beverley Minster and St Botolph's, Boston. This year, I've visited a
large number of parish churches in North
Derbyshire and beyond - the border with
Derbyshire is near this part of South
Yorkshire - including Eyam, Tideswell,
Ashbourne, Hathersage, Baslow, Youlgreave,
Ashton-in-the-Water.
I don't regard any of the cathedrals,
churches and chapels I've visited with
affection. The case is very different with
the vernacular architecture of South
Yorkshire, Derbyshire and other parts of the
country. The vernacular architecture of the
South Pennines is a particular interest, a
passion - buildings of stone, with stone
tiles, in a setting which always has a
strong interest and is often enthralling,
sometimes wild , sometimes pastoral,
sometimes made up of other buildings with
great visual impact. Sometimes, the
vernacular buildings were built for
industrial use. I'm a member of South
Yorkshire Industrial History Society and the
society owns buildings which are of very
great interest.
I donate to the Society but it's
inconceivable that I would donate to a
cathedral, church or chapel. I never put any
money in a collection box. My visits to
cathedrals were made at a time when there
were no admission charges to cathedrals.
It's inconceivable that I would pay an
admission charge to visit a cathedral. I
provide argument and evidence in quantity on
this page and other pages of the site which
explain my reasons for refusing to give any
money for the upkeep of church buildings. Of
course, I wrote the pages with a much wider
aim in view. Here, I give my own view and my
own practice. I recognize that people who
share my interest in architecture or who
have other reasons for seeing the interior
of a church bulding will often want to pay
to go inside. There's no ethical dilemma
involved in this case.
Christian believers will continue to give
money for the upkeep of church buildings -
or some of them will - but my hope is that
they will do that in diminishing numbers and
my view is that it would be a mistake for non-believers to
give money for this purpose.
I take this view for many reasons. One of
the most important has to do with Christian
views of salvation, a set of arguments I
mention often in my writing on Christian
belief.
Aesthetic considerations are completely
unimportant in the Christian view of
salvation. The Christian view of salvation
is terrifyingly restrictive.
Non-Christians who visit a cathedral
or church or chapel obviously gain
absolutely no benefit in the Christian
scheme of salvation. According to this
scheme, the many, many people who pay to
visit a Cathedral which charges for
admission are destined to be eternally
separated from God - the condition referred
to as 'hell,' of course - except for the
small minority who accept Christ as Saviour.
Similarly for visits to cathedrals and
churches which have no admission charges.
I see no reason
whatsoever to give money to places which
have these doctrines. Visitors who put money
in collecting boxes during their visits,
visitors who arrange standing orders to pay
money to these institutions, would be well
advised to give money to other causes - to
deserving causes, not to undeserving church money- collectors.
There are many, many charities working in
the field of the built environment, many,
many buildings which would benefit so much
from the money - and which don't have the
burden of obnoxious doctrine.
The Websites of cathedrals and churches
which attract many visitors are generally
slick, calculated to encourage the giving
instinct. My view is that visitors, and the
armchair visitors who look at the Websites
without visiting the cathedral or church,
should resist the pleas for money. Church
buildings with a very long history tend to
emphasize the history, and the history they
present is usually grossly distorted,
omitting all mention of the shameful,
dreadful episodes which form part of the
history of Christianity. Claims made in the pages of Church
and Cathedral and Christian organization
Websites are so often hollow and far
more often completely false.
If giving to the churches declines, as is
likely, given the declining fortunes of the
churches, the generally declining
congregations - and I hope the decline in
all aspects of Church life will be very
marked, again, for the reasons I give on
this page and other pages, then the churches
have available the so-called 'power of prayer.' t
Let Christian believers pray for God's help
in these stressful times, as the problem of
shortage of money increases. But prayer
isn't the method of choice for Christians.
It plays what is in effect a minor role in
so many situations faced by the churches. My
own view is that prayer is useless -
for halting the spread of infectious
disease, for bringing wars to an end, for
all purposes except giving the believer a
false sense of well-being. Prayer is useless
for saving churches from becoming redundant,
for halting the long term, thoroughly
deserved decline of Christianity. Visitors
who give money to churches could reflect on
the disadvantages, which include depriving
good causes of money given to the churches.
Burns and burning alive
Extracts from a shocking report in 'The
Independent,' 30 June, 2023. A corrective to a shockingly ignorant
article in defence of Christian orthodoxy which was published in 'The Daily
Telegraph' 22 December 2024, 'An atheist country gets the church it
deserves.' The author isTim Stanley, an alumnus of Trinity College,
Cambridge, an Anglican turned Roman Catholic.
A primary school in Croydonhas
been fined £35,000 after a young boy was left with critical burns when his
nativity costume caught fire during the school’s annual carol concert.
St Thomas Becket Catholic Primary School was found guilty of health
and safety failings by a jury at Southwark Crown Court earlier in June.
In December 2019 the boy, then aged seven, had been in a line of
pupils each holding a lit candle in Our Lady of the Annunciation Church in
Bingham Road, Croydon, when his homemade sheep costume caught fire, the
court heard.
The fire was extinguished “with some difficulty” and the child
received first aid at the scene before he was taken by air ambulance to
hospital.
At hospital it was estimated that he sustained burns on 45% of his
body, resulting in “life-changing injuries” that will leave him dependent on
third party care for basic needs.
... the child’s parents described the “excruciating” pain that their
son, who no longer attends the school, has been through and is still going
through.
They both commented on the life-threatening nature of their son’s
injuries, with the mother saying she “thought the worst” when the boy was in
hospital and his father saying he is “lucky to be alive”.
The court heard they were waiting for their son to emerge in the
church when people started running outside and screaming, which the father
described as feeling like “a bomb had gone off”.
The mother said her son’s best friend said he was on fire, prompting
her to “force” her way back into the church.
Both parents found their son standing “screaming” in
a bucket of water in the church, the court heard.
...
The court heard how the young boy underwent “countless” surgeries and
hospital appointments, which are continuing three years later.
“I protect my son from every look from a stranger when we are out
together,” the father said. “I walk in front of him to protect him from the
glares of others. I think of him growing older in such a cruel world.
“It overwhelms me to think that my son will never know what a normal
life is.”
"I haven't stepped in a church since and I don't
think I ever will," his mother said.
...
Judge Bartle said of the boy’s parents: “Their love for (their son)
and their dedication to his welfare shine out from all they say.
“I acknowledge the selfless devoted care that they have given to him.”
In defence of the school, the court heard that the board of governors
apologises to the family, that the school has a good health and safety
record and that it has banned the use of candles. [An apology, a lame excuse
and an assurance that candles are no longer used - an adequate or a grossly
inadequate response?]
Does Tim Stanley have any comment to make on the the deliberate actions
of the Church he used to support and the Church he supports now: the
non-accidental burning alive of people who rejected orthodoxy? One example
from many, Edward Wightman, executed at Lichfield on 11 April, 1612. In
first place in the Summary of Charges against him was this: 1. That there is
no Trinity.
Fast Section 1.' The
Church of England at Oxford University
The material below
amounts mainly to a
statement of intent, a basic structure to which further material can be
added. It will include material on Oxford College Church of England
chaplains and other Anglicans associated with colleges.
List of
Oxford colleges with chaplains, names of current chaplains
[The comments on chaplains will follow this list]
Christ Church
Chaplain: Revd Dr Kirsty Borthwick
All Souls College Chaplain: Revd Canon Rachel Carnegie
Balliol College Chaplain: Revd Dr Melanie Marshall
Brasenose College Chaplain: Revd David Sheen
Corpus Christi College Chaplain: Revd Dr
Stephanie Burette
Exeter College Chaplain: Revd Andrew Allen
Harris Manchester College Chaplain: Revd Dr Claire Macdonald
Hertford College Chaplain: Revd Mia Smi
Jesus College Chaplain: Philip Harbridge
Keble College Chaplain: Fr Max Kramer
Lady Margaret Hall Chaplain:
Revd
Andrew Forshew-Cain
Lincoln College Chaplain: Revd Andy Shamel
Magdalen College Chaplain: Revd Dr Andrew Bowyer
Mansfield College Chaplain: Revd Nathan Mulcock
Merton College Chaplain: Revd Canon Dr Simon Jones
Associate Chaplain: Revd Lyndon Webb
New College Revd Dr Erica Longfellow
Oriel College Revd Dr Robert Wainwright
Pembroke College Chaplain: Revd Andrew Teal
The Queen's College Chaplain: Alice Watson
Regent's Park College Revd Beth Allison-Glenny
St Edmund Hall Chaplain: Revd Dr Zachary Guiliano
St Hilda's College Chaplain: Suzan Meryem Rosita
Kalayci
St Hugh's College Chaplain: Revd Katie Tupling
St John's College Chaplain: Revd Dr Elizabeth Macfarlane
St Peter's College Revd Matthew Routledge
Somerville College Chapel Director: Arzhia Habibi
Trinity College Chaplain: Revd Joshua Brocklesby
University College Revd Dr Andrew Gregory
Wadham College Chaplain: Revd Dr Jane Baun
Worcester College Chaplain: Revd Marcus Green
Wycliffe Hall Chaplain: Revd Jane Chaffey
Others
Other Oxford Anglicans
Other Oxford Anglican churches
Comments / Profiles of chaplains and
others listed above
All Souls College
Chaplain: Revd Canon Rachel Carnegie
Balliol College
Chaplain: Revd Dr Melanie Marshall
Brasenose College
Chaplain: Revd David Sheen
Corpus Christi College
Chaplain: Revd Dr
Stephanie Burette
Exeter College
Chaplain: Revd Andrew Allen
Harris Manchester College
Chaplain: Revd Dr Claire Macdonald
Hertford College
Chaplain: Revd Mia Smith
Jesus College
Philip Harbridge
Keble College
Chaplain: Fr Max Kramer
Lady Margaret Hall
Chaplain:
Revd
Andrew Forshew-Cain
Lincoln College
Chaplain: Revd Andy Shamel
Magdalen College
Chaplain: Revd Dr Andrew Bowyer
Mansfield College
Chaplain: Revd Nathan Mulcock
Merton College
Chaplain: Revd Canon Dr Simon Jones
Associate Chaplain: Revd Lyndon Webb
New College
Revd Dr Erica Longfellow
Oriel College
Revd Dr Robert Wainwright
Pembroke College
Chaplain: Revd Andrew Teal
The Queen's College
Chaplain: Alice Watson
Regent's Park College
Revd Beth Allison-Glenny
St Edmund Hall
Chaplain: Revd Dr Zachary Guiliano
St Hilda's College
Chaplain: Suzan Meryem Rosita
Kalayci
St Hugh's College
Chaplain: Revd Katie Tupling
St John's College
Chaplain: Revd Dr Elizabeth Macfarlane
St Peter's College
Revd Dr Elizabeth Pitkethly
Somerville College
Chapel Director: Arzhia Habibi
Trinity College
Chaplain: Revd Joshua Brocklesby
University College
Revd Dr Andrew Gregory
Wadham College
Chaplain: Revd Dr Jane Baun
Worcester College
Chaplain: Revd Marcus Green
Wycliffe Hall
Chaplain: Revd Jane Chaffey
Others
Other Oxford Anglicans
Other Oxford Anglican churches
The continued
prominence of the Church of England at Oxford University and the
continued employment of C of E chaplains at most of the colleges.
Only a small percentage of staff and students
at most Oxford Colleges will belong to the Church of England. There is no
generic Church of England chaplain, someone equally sympathetic to the
evangelical or high church or liberal view. The likelihood is that a high
church chaplain will be less well received by an evangelical student or
staff member and that the evangelical would vastly prefer the services of an
evangelical chaplain. Similarly for the other possibilities, such as a
liberal who would prefer a liberal chaplain, a high church student or staff
member who would prefer a high church chaplain.
A single C of E chaplain, then, is likely to be of most use not to
the class of C of E sympathizers or active believers at a college but to a
sub-class, a small percentage of a small percentage.
Those flexible people who claim to be able to accept many different
varieties of Christian faith, without endorsing any in particular, fall prey
to the pitfalls of relativism. As a matter of fact, Jesus gave very specific
teaching about many issues (if the historical record can be trusted, in
particular, the synoptic gospels. He gave no teaching whatsoever about a
very large number of other issues, leaving the later church to flounder,
make things up, engage in many destructive courses of action.
Vicars / priests in almost all other settings have, of course, vastly
more people who can be regarded as possible members of a congregation. The
Oxford college chaplain (and the Cambridge college chaplain) have duties
which are much less onerous. In the profiles, I'll address the various ways
in which chaplains can use their time, or pretend to use their time, in a
way which they would regard as constructive. They include counseling,
matters to do with student welfare and advice on matters to do with ethics.
I'll point out some massive difficulties in this connection.
Many chaplains will have something approaching an orthodox view of
salvation / redemption by faith: salvation available not to all but only to
those who have a faith in Jesus as Saviour. It can easily be shown that this
belief has horrific consequences. I give many illustrative examples in my
page on Church Donations and other pages
on Christian religion.
Does the chaplain who believes in these doctrines of redemption believe
that of the students at the college, only those who have faith in Jesus will
be saved? Does this chaplain believe that all academics - and other staff -
in a department will be consigned to separation from God, except for those
who have made the essential decision to choose Jesus? Here, I obviously use
the language of the believer without any belief of my own in the doctrines.
To give a further example from a very different sphere, does this chaplain
believe that those members of the allied forces who helped to defeat Nazism
share the same fate as members of the SS, that those who helped to save
Jews, and the Jews who were murdered in the death camps, share the same fate
as the staff of the death camps? Does this chaplain believe that those who
executed Jews who had a belief in Jesus, at the time or later (there are
such people) are saved?
As part of a preliminary classification, the Church of England
chaplains at the colleges could be considered as belonging to one of three
broad groups, evangelical Anglicans, high church Anglicans (or
Anglo-Catholics) and liberal Anglicans. The most diverse group would be the
'liberal Anglicans' - the word 'diverse' isn't used here as a term of
praise. 'Liberal' Anglicans' may be people with a consuming interest
in trans issues and other issues to do with sexuality and gender, or people
with different priorities.
It can safely be assumed that all the evangelicals, certainly all the
conservative evangelicals, will have a view of salvation which amounts to
'justification by faith.' The Anglo-Catholics are far more likely to
consider the claims of justification by works, the 'liberals' also - but
liberals can easily be found whose view of salvation is close to the
conservative evangelical view.
Chaplains may differ in their attitude to Christians who have beliefs
which very different from their own, but in many cases, their own view will
amount to a conviction. My view is that convictions can be spurious, false,
or worthy of respect - argument and evidence are needed to make the
important distinctions.
Supplementary: Faculty of Theology and Religion,
Oxford University, list of members with Christian connections
Dr A K M Adam, Tutor in New Testament and Greek, Oriel College
Dr Sophie Aldred, Departmental Lecturer in Early Modern Christianities
Dr Sarah Apetrei, Senior Tutor and Fellow in Early Modern Christian
Thought and Spirituality, Campion Hall
Professor Andrew Atherstone, Professor of Modern Anglicanism, Tutor in
History and Docttrine, Latimer Research Fellow
Dr Nicholas Austin SJ, Master, Campion Hall
Dr Jane Baun, Lecturer in Ethics and Church History, Chaplain, Wadham
College
Dr David Bennett, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Tutor / Associate
Research Fellow, Wycliffe Hall
Dr Myra Blyth, Fellow and Chaplain and Tutor in Liturgy and Pastoral
Theology
Professor Markus Bockmuehl, Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of
Holy Scripture, Keble College
Professor Phil Booth, A G Leventis Associate in Eastern Christianity, St
Peter's College
Reverend Canon Dr Michaes Brierley, Director of Formation, Ripon College,
Cuddesdon
Rev Jennifer Brown, Associate Faculty Member
Dr Sarah Brush, Tutor in Pastoral Theology and Director of the Context
Based Pathway at Ripon College, Cuddesdon
Canon Professor Mark D Chapman, Professor of the History of Modern
Theology
Dr John Chesworth, Honorary Research Fellow, st Stephen's House
Dr Hywel Clifford, Tutor in Old Testament, Ripon College Cuddesdon,
Oxford
Dr Bruno John Clifton, Vice Regent, Blackfriars
Dr Richard Conrad, Fellow, Blackfriars Hall, Blackfriars
Dr Rachel Cresswell, Departmental Lecturer in Ecclesiastical History
Dr Edward A David, McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow in Christian Ethics and
Public Life
The Revd Professor Andrew Davison, Regius Professor of Divinity
Dr Daniel D De Haan, The Frederick Copleston Senior Research Fellow and
Lecturer in Philosophy and Theology in the Catholic Tradition, Blackfriars
and Campion Hall
Dr Rebecca Dean, Lecturer in New Testament and Tutor for Admissions,
Ripon College, Cuddesdon
Dr Celia Deane-Drummond, Senior Research Fellow in Theology, Campion Hall
Dr Michael Dormandy, Lecturer in New Testament, Ripon College, Cuddesdon
Professor David Downs, Clarendon-Laing Professor in New Testament Studies
and the Laing Fellow in Theology and Religion, Keble College
The Revd Dr Lyndon Drake, Research Fellow in Theological Ethics and
Artificial Intelligence
Rachel Claire Dryden, Postdoctoral Research Assistant: Changing Christian
Attitudes to Sex, Gender and Marriage
Professor Mark Edwards, Professor of Early Christian Studies
Dr Eric Eve, Fellow and Tutor in Theology, Harris Manchester College
Dr Buki Fatona, Tutor in Christian Ethics and Postgraduate Programme
Director
Revd Professor Paul Fiddes, Professor of Systematic Theology
Dr Richard Finn, Director of the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice,
Blackfriars
Professor Sarah Foot, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History
Mrs Lucy Gardner, Tutor in Christian Doctrine, St Stephen's House
Dr Benedikt Paul Goecke, Research Fellow, Ian Ramsey Centre for Science
and Religion
Revd Dr David Goodill, Lector, Blackfriars Hall
Dr Andrew Gregory, Chaplain and Fellow, University College
Dr Susan B Griffith, Course Coorditator for the MTh/PGDip in Applied
Theology, Wycliffe Hall
Dr Brendan Harris, Departmental Lecturer in Philosophical Theology
Professor Mark Harris, Andreos Idreos Chair in Science and Religion,
Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre in Science and Religion, Harris Manchester
College
Professor Carol Harrison, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Director
of Graduate Studies
Dr Erin Him, Tutor in Biblical Studies
Professor Joshua Hordern, Professor of Christian Ethics
Dr Edward Howells, Associate Tutor in Christian Spirituality, Ripon
College Cuddesdon
Revd Dr Timothy Howles, Associate Director, Laudato Si' Research
Institute and Junior Research Fellow in Political Theology, Campion Hall
Dr John Jarick, Lecturer in Old Testament, Regent's Park and Mansfield
Colleges
Revd Canon Dr Simon Jones, Chaplain and Fellow, Merton College
Dr Christine Joynes, Regent's Park College Tutorial Fellow in Theology
and Director of the Centre for Baptist Studies
Dr Oliver Keenan, Academic Dean / Lecturer in Christian Doctrine, Ripon
College Cuddesdon
Revd Canon Bruce Kinsey, Associate Faculty Member
Dr Matthew D Kirkpatrick, Lecturer in Ethics and Doctrine, Wycliffe Hall
Fr Max Kramer, Official Fellow and Chaplain, Keble College
Dr William Lamb, Vicar, University Church of St Mary the Virgin
Revd Dr Michael Lloyd, Principal, Wycliffe Hall
Revd Canon Dr Judith Maltby, Reader in Church History
Dr Eleanor McLaughlin, Lecture in Theology, Ripon College Cuddesdon
Tim Middleton, Tutorial Fellow in Theology and Director of the Centre for
Baptist Studies, Regent's Park College
Dr Alex Muir, Departmental Lecturer in New Testament, Mansfield
Professor Hindy Najman, Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation
of Holy Scripture
Dr Nils Ole Oermann, Associate Faculty Member of the Faculty of Theology
and Religion, Oxford University, University Professor of Ethics at Luneburg
University, Germany
Revd Dr Kenneth O Ofula, Tutorial Fellow in World Christianity
Dr John D O' Connor, Regent, Blackfriars
Dr Emma Percy, Chaplain and Welfare Dean, Trinity College
Dr Andrew Pinsent, Research Director, Ian Ramsey Centre for Scienc and
Religion, Harris Manchester College
Professor Laura Quick, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible / Old
Testament
Professor Anthony G Reddie, Professor of Black Theology, Director of the
Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture, Regent's Park College
Dr Patrick Riordan, Tutor and Fellow for Political Philosophy and
Catholic Social Thought
Dr Deborah Rooke, Lecturer in Old Testament Hermeneutics, Regent's Park
College, Visiting Lecturer in Old Testament, St Stephen's House
Dr Catherine Ross, Contextual Theology Lecturer, Ripon College Cuddesdon
Professor Alison Salvesen, Professor of Early Judaism and Christianity,
Mansfield College
Dr Susanna Snyder, Lecturer in Ethics and Theology
Humphrey Southern, Principal, Ripon College Cuddesdon
Revd Peter Southwell, Former Chaplain and Lecturer in Theology
Professor Katherine E Southwood, Professor of Hebrew Bible / Old
Testament
Professor Jennifer Strawbridge, Associate Professor in New Testament
Studies, Director of Graduate Studies
Dr Edward Sutcliffe, Subject Lead for Theology and Religion, Astrophoria
Foundation Year, Lady Margaret Hall
Dr Tobias Tanton, Early Career Fellow and Tutor in Theology, Harris
Manchester College
Revd Dr Andrew Teal, Chaplain, Fellow and Lecturer in Theology, Pembroke
College
Dr Victoria Turner, Lecturer in Theology and Mission
Revd Dr Robert Wainwright, Fellow and Chaplain, Oriel College
Dr Robin Ward, Principal, St Stephen's House
Dr George Westhaver, Principal, Pusey House
Professor William Wood, Professor of Philosphical Theology
Professor N T Wright, Senior Research Fellow, Wycliffe Hall
Professor Mark Wynn, Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian
Religion
Professor Johannes Zachhuber, Professor of Historical and Systematic
Theology
Diocese of Oxford: Select
functionaries
The Right Revd Dr Steven Croft, Bishop of Oxford
The Venerable Jonathan Chaffey, Archdeacon of Oxford
The Revd Canon Professor Sarah Foot, Dean, Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
Andrew Anderson-Gear, Director of Mission and Ministry
Sophie Orme, Director of Property
Andrew Green, Director of Finance
Jane Appleton, Director of Communications
Charnelle Stylianides, Director of People and Safeguarding
The Revd Canon Dr Peter Groves, Associate Archdeacon
Claire Barratt, Personal Assistant to the Archdeacon of Oxford
Rhodri Bowen, Parish Development Adviser (Berkshire and Oxford)
The Revd Dr Quentin Chandler, Diocesan Director of Ordinands
The Revd Paul Cowan, Chaplain to the Bishop of Oxford
Dr Simon Cross, Research, Engagement and Parliamentary Liaison for the
Bishop of Oxford
Marian Green, Bishop of Oxford's Executive Assistant
Yvonne Morris, Discipleship Enabler (Oxfordshire) and Diocesan Children's
and Family Ministry Adviser
[Vacancy] Bishop of Buckingham
The Venerable Guy Elsmore, Archdeacon of Buckingham
The Revd Canon Chris Bull, Associate Archdeacon - Buckinghamshire
[Vacancy], Secretary and Administrator to the Bishop of Buckingham
Catherine Green, Personal Assistant to the Bishop of Buckingham
Margaret Curle, Administrator for the Bishop of Buckingham's Office
The Revd Canon Rosie Harper, Chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham
Heather Harris, Personal Assistant to the Archdeacon of Buckingham
The Revd Canon Val Plumb, Area Dean for Rural Mission and Development
James Wood, Discipleship Enabler (Buckingham) and Diocesan Schools
Specialist
The Reverend Asa Humphreys' Parish Development Adviser (Buckingham)
The Rt Revd Gavin Collins, Bishop of Dorchester
THe Venerable David Tyler, Archeacon of Dorchester
The Revd Preb Jane Haslam
Associate Archdeacon of Dorchester
Paula Bennett,, Personal Assistant to the Archdeacon of Dorchester
Sarah Brennan, Events and Services Administrator for Dorchester
[Vacant], Parish Development Adviser
Jane Hemmings, Area Director of Ordinands (Dorchester and Oxford)
Yvonne Morris, Discipleship Enabler (Oxfordshire) and Diocesan Children's
and Family Ministry Adviser
Carol-Anne Swinney, Personal Assistant to the Bishop of Dorchester
[Vacancy], Bishop of Reading
The Venerable Stephen Pullin, Archdeacon of Berkshire
The Revd Liz Jackson, Associate Archdeacon - Berkshire
Rhodri Bowen, Parish Development Adviser (Berkshire and Oxford)
The Revd Nicholas Cheeseman, Area Director of Ordinands (Oxford and
Berkshire)
Isobel Hansford, Personal Assistant to the Bishop of Reading
The Revd Mark Laynesmith, Anglican Chaplain to the University of Reading
Kathryn Aboud, Discipleship Enabler (Berkshire) and Youth Ministry
Specialist
Jane Sampson, Personal Secretary to the Archdeacon of Berkshire
Alison Taylor, Personal Assistant to the Archdeacon of Berkshire
Lesley Young, Personal Secretary to the Bishop of Reading
Maranda ST John Nicolle, World Development Adviser
Liza Thompson, Project Support Assistant (New Congregations)
Joshua Townson, Generous Giving Adviser
[Vacant], Administrator (Generous Giving, Environment and Social Justice
The Revd Canon Janet Binns,Dean of the UKME Chapter
Below, County of Oxfordshire. The Diocese includes the county as well
as some other areas.
The Diocese
of Oxford includes
in all the pages of
their site which
I've consulted the
same empty claim.
It's a claim that
probably every
church in every
diocese would be
ready to claim.
Here, I've altered
the image, in fact
produced another
image which includes
the same empty
claim, just in case
the Diocese would
insist that their
slogan is a
registered design.
I've given greater
emphasis to the
claim to be
'compassionate' by
using upper case
letters.
In my personal
experience, and the
experienceof so many
other people, the
Church of England is
anything but
compassionate. It's
far easier, of
course, to arrange
words to make a
claim than to make a
claim a convincing
reality. There are
far worse examples
than the miserable
behaviour of Lu
Skerratt-Love,
documented on this
page, such as the
torture and
execution of
heretics, Jews and
others.
The Oxford Slogan
should be followed
by an 'Oxford
Confession,' of
failure and
inadequacy.
The Oxford Diocese has 'more parishes and churches than any other diocese in the
Church of England ... 808 churches ... 29 deaneries ... 284 Church of
England schools.'
And also: 'serving a population of 2.4 million people.' Which isn't to
suggest that all or most or a large proportion of these people have any
interest in the Church of England.
The number of children attending C of E churches on an average Sunday has
halved since 2003. There were 154,000 children under the age of 16 in C of E
churches on an average Sunday. By 2022 it had declined to 70,000.
In 2003 the average adult Sunday attendance was 802,000. It was 447,000
in 2021.
The author of the page is a Conservative Evangelical, Julian Mann. His
views on some possible causes of this decline aren't to be taken seriously.
He quotes Bishop Steven Croft, now Bishop of Oxford but the Bishop of
Sheffield when Julian Mann was there, who refers to one example of an
injustice and then makes this assertion:
“If the Church believes this clear injustice, the argument goes, then
what does this say about the rest of the beliefs of the Church? Is this an
organisation that is to be taken seriously at all as a moral and ethical
force in the 21st Century?”
This is amazing. There are so many other instances of Church of
England beliefs which are manifestly instances of 'clear injustice,' above
all, the hideous injustice of believing in the damnation, or eternal
separation, of people who never accept Jesus as Saviour. This is an
organisation which can't be taken seriously at all as a moral and ethical
force in the 21st Century - one which should never have been taken seriously
at all in any previous century.
More evidence of the Church of England blundering, more evidence that the
Church of England can't be taken seriously, is a piece from the same
Website, on the page
The history of the plantations illustrates the 18th centuryChurch
of England's dependence on the financial support of local
landowners for its Christian missionary work in theWest
Indies, and, until the growth ofAbolitionism,
its institutional unwillingness to address issues relating to slavery.
The plantations were run by managers on behalf of the SPG, and their
operational oversight was nominally supervised by a board of trustees of the
society headed by theArchbishop
of Canterburyand a committee ofChurch
of Englandbishops.
The plantations were reliant on regular supply of new slaves fromWest
Africa; due to ill-health, smallpox, dysenteryand
mistreatment, four out of every 10 slaves bought by the plantation in 1740
were reported to have died within three years.
Initially slaveswere
brandedwith the word "Society" on
their chests with a hot iron.
Milton Meltzerexplains that the
branding practice throughout the sugar plantations was that "Already branded
once by the trader, the slaves were branded a second time with their new
owner's initials." On branding at Codrington, Hochschild says"For
nearly a decade, Codrington officials tried to reduce escapes by branding
all slaves on their chests. In the end, though, the chief deterrent wasthe
lash, plus, at times, an iron collar and astraitjacket."
The Church of England relinquished its slaveholdings only after theSlavery
Abolition Act
of 1833. When the emancipation of slaves eventually took place, the
government paid compensation under theSlave
Compensation Act 1837to
their owners.'
The slave owners - many of them gave Biblical justifications for slavery -
received compensation. The slaves themselves received no compensation.
All Souls College Library, Oxford, was known as the 'Codrington Library'
until 2020. The college renamed the library as one of the actions taken 'to
address the problematic nature of the Codrington Library,' a very restrained
way of putting it. There's still a statue of Christopher Codrington, slave
trader, in the centre of the reading room.
Membership of the Evangelical
Alliance in Oxfordshire
St Ebbe's Church, Oxford
Oxford Community Church
St Andrew's Church, Oxford
Magdalen Road Church, Oxford
Emmanuel Church, Oxford
Headington Baptist Church, Oxford
Hope Vineyard, Oxford
Oxford Vineyard Church
Peachcroft Christian Centre
Wheatley Community Church
Christ Church, Abingdon
Kidlington Baptist Church
Abingdon Community Church
St Mary's Church, Cogges
The King's Church, Didcot
The Welcome Church, Witney
Didcot Baptist Church
The Provinces of York and Canterbury
Dioceses belong to either the Province of York or
the Province of Canterbury. As a Northern Diocese,
Durham belongs to the Province of York.
Reasons not to give
to churches / church organizations
_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1604891.jpg)
