People from over 140 different
churches across Sheffield are participating in Arise 2021:
All Saints Church, Totley
All Saints, Aston
All Saints, Ecclesall
Antioch Community Church
Attercliffe & Darnall Centre of Mission
Bamford Methodist
Bents Green Church
Bents Green Methodist
Bethel Sheffield
Bride of Christ
Bushfire Ministries
Calvary Deliverance Ministries
Cemetery Road Baptist Church
Central United Reformed Church
Christ Abiding Ministries
Christ Church Central
Christ Church Darnall
Christ Church Dore
Christ Church Endcliffe
Christ Church Fulwood
Christ Church Gleadless
Christ church Heeley
Christ Church Hillsborough & Wadsley Bridge
Christ Church Pitsmoor
Church of Christ Darnall
Church on the Corner (Elim Pentecostal Church)
City Church Sheffield
City of Refuge Foursquare Church
Cornerstone Benefice (Stocksbridge, Deepcar & Bolsterstone)
Crown of Life Community Church
Diocese of Sheffield
Dore
Dore & Totley Christian Fellowship
Dore & Totley URC
Dore and Totley IRC
Dore and Totley United Reformed Church
Ecclesall All Saints
Ecclesall Church of England
Elim Central Church
Emmanuel Church Sheffield
Emmanuel Waterthorpe
Galeed House Darnall
Gatehouse
Gleadless Valley Methodist Church
God’s Righteousness Bible Church
Grace Church, Handsworth
Greenhill Methodist Church
Hampden View Wesleyan Reform
Harvest Field International
Hatfield House Lane Methodist Church
Hathersage Parish Church
Heeley Parish Church
Hillsborough Baptist Church
Holy Cross Gleadless Valley
Hope Centre
Hope City Church
Hope Family Arbourthorne
International Christian Worship Centre
Jubilee Centre
Kings Centre, Nether Edge
Lansdowne Chapel
Liberty Church
Living Waters Christian Fellowship Darnall
Meadowhead Christian Fellowship
Meersbrook Park United Reformed Church
Millhouses Methodist
Mosborough Elim Church
Mount Tabor Methodist Church
NCS Sheffield – St Thomas Philadelphia
Nether Green Methodist
New Christian Covenant
New Hope Community Church
Oughtibridge Parish Church
Our Lady of Beauchief & St. Thomas of Canterbury
Our Lady of Lourdes
Pitsmoor Methodist Church
RCCG (Amazing Grace Tab) Hillsborough
Richmond Church
Rock Christian Centre, Burngreave
Sacred Heart Catholic Church Hillsborough
Salvation Army Sheffield Citadel
Share Pioneer Ministry (Parson Cross)
Sheffield Central Elim Pentecostal Church
Sheffield Christian Life Centre
Sheffield Nazarene
Sheffield Vineyard
Shiloh United Church
Shiregreen IRC
South Anston Methodist
South Sheffield Evangelical Church
Southern Light Community Church
Spa View Community Church
St Alban’s House Community
St Andrew’s URC
St Catherine of Siena
St Chad’s Woodseats
St Francis Bramley
St Francis of Assisi Catholic Church
St Gabriel’s, Greystones
St James Anston
St James Woodhouse / Central Mission Partnership / St John’s Park
St John’s Chapeltown
St John’s Owlerton
St John’s Park
St Leonard & St Mary’s Armthorpe
St Luke’s Lodge Moor Sheffield
St Margaret’s and St Thomas
St Mark Mosborough
St Mark’s, Grenoside
St Mary Magdalene Whiston
St Mary the Virgin, Beighton
St Marys Handsworth
St Matthew Carver Street
St Patrick’s, Sheffield Lane Top
St Paul’s Norton Lees
St Paul’s Parson Cross
St Paul’s, Wordsworth Avenue
St Peter’s Church Ellesmere
St Peter’s Greenhill
St Philip’s
St Polycarp’s
St Timothy’s Church, Crookes
St Vincent’s Catholic Church
St William of York Sheffield
STC Sheffield
Tapton Hill Congregational Church
The Crowded House
The Michael Church Lowedges United Reformed Church
The New Hope Community Church
The Rock Christian Centre
The Salvation Army
The Vine
The Well Sheffield
Totley Rise Methodist
Trinity URC Hunters Bar
Upperthorpe christian community
Victory Assembly
Wadsley Parish Church
Welcome Baptist Church
Wesley Hall Methodist Church
Whirlow Spirituality Centre
Wisewood Methodist Church
Yorkshire Baptist Association
Zion United Rerformed Church Oughtibridge
Arise Sheffield arranged for Royal
Mail to send an Easter card to every home in Sheffield.
Over 240,000 Sheffield-themed Easter cards were printed so that Royal Mail
could deliver one to every home in Sheffield, offering prayers, practical
support, and the opportunity to connect with someone from a church near
them.
The Dean is responsible for the services in the
Chapel. She is also willing to give help and advice to all members of the
College, whatever their religious beliefs.
The residual religiosity of the place, the hospitality of Cambridge
University to such people, the indifference to the inhuman doctrines of some
of these people, is
very striking.
It's time for Cambridge colleges, and Oxford colleges, to begin a retreat
from Christianity. The fact that so many of them have Christian foundations
shouldn't deter them.
John
Connelly writes that 'German universities embraced National Socialism more
warmly than any other segment of society ... Within the theological
faculties, the percentage of the professoriate who became party members ha
nto been determined on a national level. At the University of Berlin,
however, 71.4% of the tenured theological professoriate became party members,
compared with 28% of those in medicine and 60% of those in law. It seems, at
the very least, that Eike Wolgast is correct in asserting that party
membership among theologians was not distinctly lower than in other
faculties.
Nazi Germany and the Humanities: how German Academics embraced Nazism
The Bible authors neglected almost entirely the issue of cruelty to animals.
Soon after the slaves in the British empire were freed, bull-baiting and
bear-baiting were made illegal. The frenzied attacks of the dogs on tethered
bulls and bears in cities, towns and villages which had never bothered the
vast majority of the population, including the vast majority of Church of
England clergy, was at an end.
A Professor of Evangelical Theology and
New Testament at the
University of Tübingen, he published studies depicting the Jewish people
as the historical enemy of Germany,
Christianity, and
European culture in general. In a lecture of June 1933
Die Judenfrage (The Jewish
Question), that soon appeared in print, he spoke for the stripping of
citizenship from German Jews, their removal from medicine, law, teaching,
and journalism, and to forbid marriage or sexual relations with
non-Jews—thus anticipating by two years the Nazi government, which
introduced its
Nuremberg Racial Laws and took away Jewish rights of German citizenship
in 1935.[1]
A close friend of
Walter Frank, Kittel joined Frank's
Reichsinstitut für Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands, a highly
politicised organisation that claimed to be involved in scholarship, upon
its foundation in 1935. Within this institute he was attached to the highly
antisemitic Forschungsabteilung
judenfrage.[4]
William F. Albright wrote that, "In view of the terrible viciousness of
his attacks on Judaism and the Jews, which continues at least until 1943,
Gerhard Kittel must bear the guilt of having contributed more, perhaps, than
any other Christian theologian to the mass murder of Jews by Nazis."[6]
A statement from the Rt Revd Mike Hill, Bishop of Bristol, and
the Very Revd David Hoyle, Dean of Bristol, in response to the debate at
General Synod on the Bishops' report following the shared conversations:
The outcome of the recent debate on the Bishops' report following the
shared conversations has potentially serious consequences for the Church of
England, not least the unity of the Church. Our archbishops have already
noted that we face a real challenge in ‘how we deal with the real and
profound disagreement’.
We felt that it was important to seek to make a statement, together, from
our different perspectives, following this vote.
We are both reassured to know that there are already processes in place
to continue a necessary conversation and pursue a deeper theological
reflection on what it is to be fully human. The archbishops have spoken of
the need to fashion a new, properly informed, and radical ‘Christian
inclusion’ in the Church. We look forward to sharing in that debate.
We recognise that there is hurt and distress surrounding the
disagreements we have had, and that the hurt and the distress is being felt
most deeply by some who engaged in the shared conversations. We share that
distress. We reaffirm our recognition that the gospel calls us to a common
humanity in Christ and to the joyful celebration of good and flourishing
relationships.
We are committed to truth, and to living in hope and love where there is
disagreement. With our archbishops we commend to your prayers our common
concern for every member of this church, of all views, and most especially
our concern for the mission of God to which we are called by the Father, for
which we are made ready by the Son, and in which we are equipped by the Holy
Spirit.
Augustine of Hippo popularized in the
West and developed into a notion of "hereditary sin". The North African
bishop taught that God holds all the descendants of
Adam and Eve accountable for Adam's sin of rebellion, and as such all
people deserve
God's wrath and condemnation – apart from any actual sins they
personally commit.[8]
The page on Cambridge includes favourable comment, for example, comment
on the vast superiority of the flexible course structure at Cambridge and
the rigidity of the one at Oxford - unless an applicant has a good reason
for choosing Oxford rather than Cambridge, Cambridge is likely to be a far
better choice of university, for that reason alone, I argue.
The section 'Cambridge protest' is almost completely critical. An extract
(unrepresentative of the whole, admittedly). Dr Gopal is the high-profile
Cambridge academic.
Dr
Priyamvada Gopal's Rules of Etiquette
Dr Gopal, commenting on me in an email I received from her:
'What a sad sack you are ! Get a life, kid.'
My site does have very high Google rankings for a wide range
of search terms. Some recent examples:
will be ‘gladly’ ordaining women, but promises to support
traditionalists too. So would he describe himself as liberal? “A lot of
my instincts are. But actually I’m an evangelical, and quite a
conservative person. The bible matters to me a great deal.” Read more
at: https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/star-interview-the-new-bishop-of-sheffield-on-women-priests-the-church-s-big-challenges-and-why-his-wife-s-books-aren-t-raunchy-1-8714378
Read more at: https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/star-interview-the-new-bishop-of-sheffield-on-women-priests-the-church-s-big-challenges-and-why-his-wife-s-books-aren-t-raunchy-1-8714378
will be ‘gladly’ ordaining women, but promises to support
traditionalists too. So would he describe himself as liberal? “A lot of
my instincts are. But actually I’m an evangelical, and quite a
conservative person. The bible matters to me a great deal.” Read more
at: https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/star-interview-the-new-bishop-of-sheffield-on-women-priests-the-church-s-big-challenges-and-why-his-wife-s-books-aren-t-raunchy-1-8714378
Read more at: https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/star-interview-the-new-bishop-of-sheffield-on-women-priests-the-church-s-big-challenges-and-why-his-wife-s-books-aren-t-raunchy-1-8714378
Richard North
"Restoration, Reformation and the progress of the kingdom of Christ :
evangelisation in the thought and practice of John Calvin, 1555–1564".[3]
The Church of England A Christian presence in every community
¶
Morning Prayer on Saturday
Saturday, 26 May 2018
Augustine, first Archbishop of
Canterbury, 605 [Lesser Festival] John Calvin, Reformer, 1564
[Commemoration] Philip Neri, Founder of the
Oratorians, Spiritual Guide, 1595 [Commemoration]
The service begins with this:
O Lord, open our lips All and our mouth
shall proclaim your praise.
Leftist MP Claudia Webbe
was let off with a
suspended sentence by
what she had condemned
as a “white court” after
being convicted of
harassment, including
making an acid threat.
Webbe, who replaced the
similarly scandal-riddenKeith
Vazas
Labour MP for Leicester
East in 2019, was
sentenced to just 10
weeks in prison,suspended
for two years—
meaning her sentence
will not actually be
activated unless she
commits further offences
within than time;
possibly not even then,
as suspended sentences
are not
always activated even
after further
convictions.
She was given this light
punishment, in addition
to a requirement to
perform some unpaid
work, despite havingrailedthat
she was “a black woman
in a white court, facing
a white system and white
prosecutors” following
her conviction, smearing
the integrity of the
justice system.
“I have been
deliberately targeted
because I am
vulnerable,” she had
claimed.
“I know first-hand the
sexism and racism
institutions and media
use to vilify black
women.”
Arise Sheffield Team
Member, Beth Craggs
shares this inspiring
story...
Across Sheffield this
March, over 1,000
Christians have been
stepping out on their
daily walks with renewed
vigour, as part of a new
city-wide initiative
calledArise
Sheffield.
Arise invited followers
of Jesus from across the
city to prayer-walk
their local area in
preparation for a season
of sharing faith, which
included sending an
Easter card to over
240,000 homes in the
city, and the
distribution of over
5,000 Real Easter Eggs.
With people from nearly
150 churches taking
part, Arise coordinated
the city-wide
prayer-walking througha
dedicated prayer-walking
app,
which allows users to
create routes in their
local area to pray for
on their daily walks.
Completed routes turn
golden, lighting up the
city step by step. In
total, over 2000km of
Sheffield’s streets were
prayer-walked before the
end of March - the
equivalent of walking
the length of the UK
twice.
Growing from a
collaboration between
the Christian charity Together
for Sheffield and
local church leaders,
Sheffield Christians of
many denominations
embraced the Arise
vision. The Anglican and
Catholic Bishops, as
well as Baptist,
Methodist, Church Army,
and non-denominational
church leaders have been
instrumental in
supporting Arise and
many of them have
commented about how
Arise has been
reinvigorating their
congregations during a
time when people have
been feeling helpless
and isolated.
Any electrical device or
appliance can start a
fire if it is damaged or
used in poor operating
conditions.That
being said, LED
Christmas lights do not
heat up under operation
so they are less likely
to start a fire than
lights that get hot when
plugged in.
Safety things to
remember when installing
Christmas lights:
Make sure the wiring
of all the lights is
in great condition.
Use a timer or turn
off the lights when
you aren’t in the
same room or home
with them.
Don’t stretch lights
across metal edges
or put stress or
tension on the
wiring.
Don’t decorate a
Christmas tree with
flammable decor
Be sure to choose a
fresh tree if you go
the natural,
real-tree, route,
cut off the end of
the trunk, and make
sure it stays
watered. See this
artcle about
Christmas tree
safety for more
information.
Don’t use staples
when installing
lights since they
could be
accidentally
pierced.
Don’t install too
many light strings
in a project and
exceed the
manufacturer’s
specification for
maximum number of
light strings to be
run in series.
Don’t exceed more
than 85% of your
household breaker’s
maximum capability
(ask an electrician
to help calculate
this figure for your
breakers)
Never daisy chain
extension cords or
exceed a cord’s
maximum current
rating
Have a Master
Electrican examine
your Christmas light
display to make sure
you are staying
inside the lines of
common sense
electrical
practices.
if a
person has been injured
because of another
person's negligence, and
that negligence can be
proved, he or she may
seek financial
compensation under civil
law. To establish that
there has been
negligence three factors
must exist : (i) a duty
of care must be owed,
(ii) there must be a
breach of that duty of
care,and (iii) actual
damage must have
resulted from that
breach of duty of care.
In law, under the "neighbour
test", a duty of care is
owed to persons who are
so closely and directly
affected by an
individual's acts that
they ought reasonably to
have had them in
contemplation as being
affected when directing
their mind to the acts
or omissions that are
called into question.
Same-sex relationships
and marriage. Drawing
especially on the
biblical creation
narrative (Gen. 2:23-4)
and on the teaching of
Jesus and Paul (Matt.
19:1-12; Eph. 5:22-3),
evangelicals and
Catholics have widely
co-operated in recent
times in the promotion,
support and defence of
marriage as a one-flesh
union of one man and one
woman for life. Marriage
in this sense has been
presented by both as the
foundational institution
of human society – a
corollary to the common
good which delivers
better outcomes overall
for spouses, children
and communities than
other forms of
co-habitation. Alongside
this conviction about
monogamous, heterosexual
marriage, evangelicals
and Catholics have also
agreed in highlighting
biblical representations
of sexually active
same-sex unions as
falling outside God’s
purposes for human
relationships and human
society. In more recent
times, this has meant
widespread joint action
to oppose legislation
approving same-sex 8
marriage.
here are hundreds of
fires each year caused
by candles and around
40% end with someone
killed or injured.
And fire safety
experts fear that
with more people at
home because of the
pandemic there could
be more than normal
this year.
Winter celebrations
like Halloween and
Guy Fawkes are times
of high risk of
tragedies can
because people want
to give them that
traditional feel
with a set of
candles.
This week is Candle
Fire Safety Week and
local fire chiefs
are asking people to
make sure they
‘snuff out’ any
risks.
Around a third of
the fires caused by
candles are in homes
with children or
dependants.
Most candle fires
happen at night and
in the living room
or bedroom. Many are
because people fall
asleep or become
distracted.
Sometimes people are
using candles to add
cheer to a
celebration, other
times people are
using scented
candles or they just
want to brighten up
the dark nights.
But for whatever
reason fire experts
say a smoke alarm,
and precautions are
essential.
Top Tips:
• never leave lit
candles unattended.
Always put them out
when you leave the
room, even for a
moment
This Sheffield event
came about from one
woman, Helen Ward, some
graphic Halloween images
in her local area, and a
gentle nudge from God.
“One October afternoon
in 2016, I was driving
to STC Sheffield from
the city centre. This
route meant that I
passed a prominent pub
that is situated right
on the corner of the
road as you enter
Crookes, and I was
shocked to see
full-sized gallows on
the roof, with skeletons
hanging from them; blood
was dripping from the
door and the windows
were boarded up – the
pub had spared no
expense in going all out
for Halloween.”
“This gruesome scene was
the first thing that
people were seeing when
they drove into Crookes.
Straight away, I felt
God stir my heart and
ask, ‘Is this really the
first thing you want
people to see as they
come here? Is this the
image that you want for
this neighbourhood?’,
and my simple answer was
‘No.’”
What would it look like
for every child in
Sheffield to have a
connection with STC and
to encounter the love of
God?
Come and join something
new that is happening in
the kids team this year!
The pandemic has
completely changed and
transformed the way we
do kids work and it's an
exciting new season we
are entering into.
Working with kids is
fun, creative and
exciting. But most of
all it's a privilege to
see God at work by his
Spirit in the children's
lives.
The team is looking for
people who are
passionate about seeing
children come and know
Jesus and heartfelt in
setting foundations that
will steer the course of
our young people's
futures.
The Streets of Light
initiative first ran in
Sheffield in 2017, and
is held every year over
the October half term
holiday that coincides
with Halloween.
Last year over 140
houses, shops and
businesses took part –
and we would love to see
this grow. This year the
light has spread even
further, with churches
from Harrogate and Leeds
down to Loughborough and
taking part.
We’ll be encouraging
people to sign up over
the next couple of weeks
– it’s a simple yet
effective way of
reflecting Christ’s
light to those around
us, as well as being
something we can all do
as a church family from
the comfort of our own
homes.
Streets of Light has
been coordinated by St
Thomas’ church in
Crookes but organisers
say they have been
working with people of
all faiths and none in
seeking to bless the
city of Sheffield.
You can download the
video from DropBox by
clicking the button
below. This video is
royalty free so you can
share it on any social
network or public
gathering.
We seek to bring change
& transformation to
neighbourhoods &
communities by creating
window displays that
convey a message of
Light, Love & Hope as an
alternative to
Halloween.
For 1 week, at the end
of October, we ask
people to create a
window display in their
home, their place of
work, in a school, a
church, a shop – in fact
anywhere where there is
a window! It’s that
simple!
The only rule is that it
must contain the words
Light, Love or Hope
somewhere within it.
Jesus came to change and
transform society and
culture and declared,
‘I am the Light of the
World. Whoever follows
me will never walk in
darkness but have the
light of life.’
As Christians we are
called to be part of
Jesus' great
transformation plan, to
share his light, and to
join him in doing
good.
This is why we started
the Streets of Light
initiative – a simple
idea to bless our
cities, towns and
villages as a whole; and
also as a way for
individuals to do
something positive and
good on their street and
with their neighbours.
The key things to
remember are:
Every window needs
to include the words
‘Light’ or
‘Love’ or ‘Hope’
somewhere in the
design.
Please don’t have
anything
scary/frightening or
linked to Halloween
in your display. If
you want to use
pumpkins; then
perhaps carve them
with hearts, or the
words light, love,
or hope - instead of
faces.
Your window needs to
be lit from
approximately
4:30-9:30pm each
night.
If you don’t want
people to see into
your house, then you
can use greaseproof
paper or tissue
paper to cover your
windows or as a
backing for your
design. You can also
use an upstairs
window - if you
don’t want to have a
downstairs room lit.
Experience tells us
that using sellotape
to stick lots of
different bits to
your window might
work well for the
actual display, but
when you take it
down you will be
left with lots of
glue that needs to
be scrubbed off!
Most people
therefore make their
displays on one
large sheet and then
stick it up.
Once the displays are
ready, the windows are
lit up each evening, and
those in the local
community can walk round
and spot them all.
We would love people to get involved with the Streets of Light Trail in order to be part of making that change and transformation in our communities - turning streets of darkness and fear into streets of light, love and hope.
The second aspect to the vision is for Streets of Light to become a national event or initiative with streets, roads, towns and cities across the UK being lit up over the week of Halloween.
As this happens, rather than individual homes being a tiny, isolated pinprick of light on a map; we would instead begin to see hundreds of these houses of light connected to each other, forming links and chains across neighbourhoods, cities and the country.
In 2020, we saw this beginning to happen – not only across Sheffield, but in Wolverhampton and Tunbridge Wells, and other areas of the country too.
In 2021 our prayer is to see even more people taking part! We would love to have an interactive map dotted with locations across the country where the message of Light, Love and Hope is being shone into the streets and communities in that area.
How can we get involved as a church?
It is so easy to get your church involved!
Simply share the vision behind Streets of Light, use the video and resources on this website to help get others excited and inspired, and then ask people to sign up using the links provided. The deadline for signing up has been extended to midday on Thursday 21st October.
The sign-up form is totally GDPR compliant, and the programme that we use for plotting the trails and maps does not make anyone’s address public.
Anyone who signs up, from anywhere in the whole country, is automatically added to the interactive map on the website.
If lots of people sign up in your particular area, we will make a PDF version of a local area map for you, and also host this on the website.
Wherever you live in the UK, or even further afield, you will be able to direct people to the website or the Facebook event to access the interactive map or the map of their local area.
My apologies. The
address of my page on
FEFE (Free expression,
fresh expressions) ishttps://www.linkagenet.com/themes/fefe.htm
In my earlier message, I
referred to FEFE as
'FIFE' and the address
of the page reflected
that error.
Comments on aspects of
your Radio Sheffield
broadcast interviews
will be added to my page
FEFE soon. I make every
effort to make my
comments fair-minded but
you'll realize that my
view of Christian belief
is very different from
yours. If you regard the
material as unfair, by
all means contact me -
my policy, made clear on
the Home Page of my
Website, is that I never
quote emails in whole or
in part unless with the
permission of the
sender.
I don't regard Radio
Sheffield's coverage of
matters to do with
Christianity as unbiased
or fair-minded and I
intend to do what I can
to persuade Radio
Sheffield to correct the
bias - or, if that
fails, to call upon the
BBC at the national
level to advise Radio
Sheffield to correct the
bias in favour of
Christian churches in
Radio Sheffield's
broadcasting. The bias
takes various forms -
the broadcasting time
given to Christian
Churches, the lack of
probing questions, the
general avoidance of
controversy in matters
to do with Christianity,
and others. My intention
is that eventually, the
page will give a
comprehensive discussion
of the issues. It
already includes issues
which I regard as
significant ones.
However, my primary page
for matters to do with
Christian belief is the
pagehttp://www.linkagenet.com/themes/christian-religion.htm
“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.”
“In the context of child
sexual abuse, the
Church’s neglect of the
physical, emotional and
spiritual well-being of
children and young
people in favour of
protecting its
reputation was in
conflict with its
mission of love and care
for the innocent and the
vulnerable.”
“The Church has failed
to respond consistently
to victims and survivors
of child sexual abuse
with sympathy and
compassion, accompanied
by practical and
appropriate support.
This has often added to
the trauma already
suffered by those who
were abused by
individuals associated
with the Church.”
IICSA ANGLICAN CHURCH
INVESTIGATION REPORT,
OCTOBER 2020
My Websitehttp://www.linkagenet.comis
a large and wide-ranging
one. Amongst other
topics, I write about
Christian religion and
ethics. My page on
Christian religion is athttp://www.linkagenet.com/themes/christian-religion.htmThe
site does have very high
Google rankings for a
wide range of search
terms, including these
very recent examples:
For the search term
Christian religion
remembrance redemption
the ranking is 1 /
8,910,000
For the search term
ethical depth the
ranking is 3 /
197,000,000
I've recently added a
new page to the site,
FIFE (Free expression,
fresh expressions)http://www.linkagenet.com/themes/fife.htmwith
new material on
Christian religion,
including BBC Radio
Sheffield's coverage of
Christian issues. The
page will be revised and
extended. I intend to
add soon a section on
some of your interviews
which have been
broadcast by Radio
Sheffield, the one on
Coronavirus and the one
on the 'TV-themed Flower
Festival.'
I phoned your number
earlier and my main
reason for phoning was
to find out more about
your faith, and in
particular, your views
on redemption. In my
page on Christian
religion, I discuss many
difficulties with
orthodox Christian views
on redemption - and the
difficulties with
unorthodox Christian
views on redemption,
since they seem to be in
conflict with various
Biblical texts. (The
fact that a view is in
harmony with a Biblical
text or in conflict with
a Biblical text isn't my
criterion for deciding
the desirability of a
doctrine or an action -
I think of those verses
where Paul 'teaches'
that slaves should obey
their masters and where
God allegedly commands
that women who practise
witchcraft should be put
to death. Detailed
discussion provided on
the site.)
In my experience, the
confidence of Christians
is nowhere to be found,
the evasiveness of
Christians is clear,
when they are challenged
on some specific points
of doctrine. I'd be
grateful if you could
give an answer to these
questions, similar in
kind to the questions in
a much fuller list in my
page 'FIFE:'
You studied at Cranmer
Hall, Durham, an
evangelical centre. I'm
not sure if your
doctrinal views are much
the same or similar to
the views of Church
Society, the
conservative evangelical
group. Perhaps you could
make this clear, but if
not, a simple answer to
these simple questions
would be very much
appreciated, for
inclusion in my page
FIFE:
Do you believe that, of
the staff at Radio
Sheffield, only the ones
who accept Christ as
their Lord and Saviour
will go on to have
eternal life? (John
3:16, in the original
Greek, ζωὴν αἰώνιον)? Do
you believe that all the
others will be eternally
separated from God?
Do you believe that, of
all the NHS staff who
have worked to combat
coronavirus during the
pandemic, only the ones
who accept Christ as
their Lord and Saviour
will go on to have
eternal life? Do you
believe that all the
others will be eternally
separated from God?
If you're not willing or
able to answer these
questions, then I don't
suppose I'll be hearing
from you.
My Website
www.linkagenet.com is a
large and wide-ranging.
Amongst other topics, I
write about Christian
religion and ethics. My
page on Christian
religion is at
www.linkagenet.com/themes/christian-religion.htm
The site does have very
high Google rankings for
a wide range of search
terms, including these
very recent examples:
For the search term
Christian religion
remembrance redemption
the ranking is 1 /
8,910,000
For the search term
ethical depth the
ranking is 3 /
197,000,000
I've recently added a
new page to the site,
FIFE (Free expression,
fresh expressions)
www.linkagenet.com/themes/fife.htm
with new material on
Christian religion,
including BBC Radio
Sheffield's coverage of
Christian religion. The
page will be revised and
extended. I intend to
add soon a section on
some of your interviews
which have been
broadcast by Radio
Sheffield, the one on
Coronavirus and the one
on the 'TV-themed Flower
Festival.'
I phoned your number
earlier and my main
reason for phoning was
to find out more about
your faith, and in
particular, your views
on redemption. On my
page on Christian
religion, I discuss many
difficulties with
orthodox Christian views
on redemption - and the
difficulties with
unorthodox Christian
views on redemption,
since they seem to be in
conflict with various
Biblical texts. (The
fact that a view is in
harmony with a Biblical
text or in conflict with
a Biblical text isn't my
criterion for deciding
the desirability of a
doctrine or an action -
I think of those verses
where Paul 'teaches'
that slaves should obey
their masters and where
God allegedly commands
that women who practise
witchcraft should be put
to death.' Detailed
discussion provided on
the site.)
In my experience, the
confidence of Christians
is nowhere to be found,
the evasiveness of
Christians is clear,
when they are challenged
on some specific points
of doctrine. I'd be
grateful if you could
give an answer to these
questions, similar in
kind to the questions in
a much fuller list in my
page on FIFE:
You studied at Cranmer
Hall, Durham, an
evangelical centre. I'm
not sure if your
doctrinal views are the
same or similar to the
views of Church Society,
the conservative
evangelical group.
Perhaps you could make
this clear, but if not,
a simple answer to these
simple questions would
be very much
appreciated, for
inclusion in my page
FIFE:
Do you believe that, of
the staff at Radio
Sheffield, only the ones
who accept Christ as
their Lord and Saviour
will go on to have
eternal life? (John
3:16.)
Victoria Friedman
22 Sep 2021
Church of England’s
£248m ‘Reform’ Programme
Failed to Stop Decline
in Worshippers
The Archbishop of
Canterbury has admitted
that spending hundreds
of millions of pounds on
attempts to bring new
members to the Church of
England has so far
failed.
Speaking to theChurch
Timeslate
last week, Archbishop
Welbysaidthat
turning around declining
numbers “has not so far
happened”.
Asked whether he thought
England’s national
church could become a
smaller, “faithful
remnant”, he said: “If
that happens, it
happens… But it’s not us
who grow the Church.
It’s God who grows the
Church.”
The Timesof
London reportedon
Monday figures from the
last General Synod
revealed £248 million
was spent on the
church’s “renewal and
reform” programme
between 2017 and 2020.
The initiative sought to
“reverse the decline of
the Church of England”
through attracting new
worshippers, building
new congregations, and
maintaining impoverished
parishes. One project
spent £4.9 million on
converting a nightclub
in multicultural
Bradford into a church,
including a cafe and
gym.
Despite the efforts,
typical Sunday church
attendance fell to
690,000 in 2019 from
740,000 in 2016.
The Church has seenmassive
declineswith
younger generations,
with just two per cent
of Britons aged 18 to 23
saying they identified
as Church of England
members in 2018,downfrom
nine per cent in 2002.
Kat Cowan
Dora Hirsh
Sheffield Jewish Society
Katrina Bunker
Executive producer
radio.sheffield@bbc.co.uk
Radio Presenter
-
Present4
years
Sheffield, United
Kingdom
As well as
Saturday
breakfast, I
now host BBC
Radio
Sheffield's
Sunday
breakfast
show:
topical
discussion
with a faith
& ethics
slant plus
the
legendary
Gardening
phone-in
An observation echoed by
Kat Cowan on BBC Radio
Sheffield when
interviewing Andy Wier,
our lead researcher on
the project, when she
reflected: “It also
seems, I don’t want to
be rude, but quite
obvious, Andy, that
actually sort of being
welcoming and saying,
‘Here we are. Here’s a
safe space for you to
come and we’re going to
look after you’ seems to
me something that the
church should be doing
automatically.”
If you need to change a
light bulb or get
something down from a
high shelf, you might be
tempted to just grab the
nearest chair and stand
on top of it in order to
reach the required
height.
But chairs and stools
are designed to be sat
on, not stood on. Even a
sturdy-looking chair may
not be stable enough to
serve as a safe height
access solution.
In the workplace
Employers are legally
required to provide a
safe working environment
for all employees. If
your job involves
working at height, your
employer must give you a
safe way to do so.
(And remember, 'working
at height' doesn't mean
you have to be twenty
feet off the ground! If
you're working in a
situation in which a
harmful fall is a
possibility, you are
working at height and
precautions should be
taken.)
Standing on a chair in
order to work at height
is not safe, and you
should not be asked to
do so. It is your
employer's
responsibility to carry
out a thorough risk
assessment and provide
the equipment you need
to do your job safely. A
professional-grade step
ladder will allow you to
access hard-to-reach
areas while keeping your
risk of injury low.
My Website
www.linkagenet.com has
an extensive page on
Christian religion
www.linkagenet.com/themes/christian-religion.htm
which contains a great
deal of challenging
material on Christian
faith. The page, like
many others on the site,
makes use of Large Page
Design - it's wide as
well as long. It can't
be viewed adequately on
the small screen of a
mobile device
My site does have very
high Google rankings for
a wide range of search
terms. A few recent
examples:
For the search term
ethical depth the
current Google ranking
is 3 / 197,000,000
For the search term
Christian religion
remembrance redemption
the current Google
ranking is 1 / 8,910,000
Some questions for your
people - these aren't
'FAQ,' they're the kind
of question Christians
should be asked
regularly, but aren't.
I'd be able to pose
many, many other
challenging questions.
Q1. Do you believe that
ordinary people, loving
mothers and fathers,
hard working labourers,
craftsmen, scientists,
engineers, members of
the emergency services,
hard working NHS staff
who have worked to
contain the coronavirus
epidemic and care for
coronavirus patients,
and the Jews who were
killed in the Nazi
extermination camps -
these and people from
many, many other sectors
of society, are destined
to be eternally
separated from God if
they never accept Jesus
as their Lord and
Saviour? That only
people such as
yourselves qualify for
eternal life? (ζωὴν
αἰώνιον in the original
New Testament Greek.)
This comes from John
3:16, of course. Do you
really believe that
people executed for
saving Jews and members
of the allied forces who
fought to defeat the
Nazi nightmare share
exactly the same fate as
Nazi torturers and
executioners?
Q2. Do you believe that
the Bible is the word of
God? If so, what do you
make of this, Exodus
22:18, 'Put to death any
woman who practises
witchcraft, in the Good
News (!) translation. In
the King James Bible
(Authorized Version) the
translation is 'Thou
shalt not suffer a witch
to live.' King James was
a relentless persecutor
of women he regarded as
witches. Many women were
tortured or executed or
executed after torture
during his reign. He
certainly regarded his
persecution as having
divine sanction.
Q3. What do you make of
this, from Psalm 137,
again in the 'Good News'
Translation?
By the rivers of Babylon
we sat down;
there we wept when we
remembered Zion ...
which ends with this
inhumanity (verses 8 and
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.'
Q4. Do you believe that
unbelievers walk in
darkness whilst you
people walk in light, do
you believe that the
Holy Spirit can come to
your aid when you're
confronted with
non-believers, do you
believe in the power of
prayer? If so, why is it
that when Christians are
asked difficult
questions - questions
that are only difficult
if you have a faith
which includes so many
contradictions, so many
'leaps of faith - that
Christians suddenly
become evasive, and
prefer not to answer? Of
course, you won't be
giving an honest answer
to these questions. You
won't be giving any sort
of answer to these
questions.
black british members of
parliament in the house
of commons
There is something about being beside a quietly
bubbling stream. It's lovely to have space to
pause and rest and all this so close to our
Garden Church site.
Just to prove that we are not entirely mad! Here
is an existing allotment church. God is
definitely calling the church to find renewed
deeper connection to creation and this style of
outdoor worship is just one way in which this is
being put into action.
Karen AllisonI
was previously involved in helping at this site
when it was the Lower Walkley Community Garden,
and am very pleased that your group has now got
involved. I am usually at my own Unitarian
church on a Sunday morning but would like to
come to events held at other times
Local authorities or allotment
associations managing sites could
grant temporary use of allotment
land to a community group. This
is more likely where plots cannot
easily be let as allotments, for
example due to their derelict
nature or where there is no
allotments waiting list.
However, the granting of an
allotment plot on a statutory
site on anything other than an
allotments tenancy agreement,
or for an agreement lasting for
a period of more than 7 years,
could be viewed as a disposal
(23) which, with some exceptions
(24), would require the prior
approval of the Secretary of
State for Communities & Local
Government.
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 emailsheffield.forest.church@gmail.com.Lu Skerritt
This text accompanies a photograph of
a woman sitting on a bench:
'We look forward to welcoming you on the 17th
October where you can find out more about our
community garden and how to get involved.'
Is the land no longer rented from Sheffield City
Council by Lower Walkley Community Group? Is this
land newly acquired by the Garden Church?
Earlier this year, land at Crookes was cultivated by
a group which had decided to establish 'Cobden View
Community Garden.' The group showed seemingly no
concern for legal issues, legal realities. Sheffield
City Council had a very different view: the land was
not a public open space or right of way and the
Cobden View Community Group wasn't entitled to
assume that the land was theirs to use.
The Garden Church group seems to assume that the
land at Morley Street is theirs to use. Legal
ownership is obviously a matter of crucial
importance. If land is occupied by a group without
legal entitlement, what is to stop another group
from ejecting the original group? It's very
important to know if the land at Morley Street has
been transferred from Lower Walkley Community Group
to the Garden Church?
Whether the Garden Church is legally renting the
land or not, there are further issues which I've
already made clear but which need to be reinforced.
The Garden Church Facebook page mentions the use of the land to promote what is
referred to as 'mission.' The word has a special
meaning for Christians. This is a commonly cited
definition:
'A Christian mission is
an organized effort to spread Christianity to new
converts.'
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.
We look forward to welcoming you on the 17th October
where you can find out more about our community garden
and how to get involved.
an evangelical rejection of
same-sex relationships.[11]
She holds an "orthodox position" on sex and marriage,
which means that she is against same-sex marriage
Sharon Collins is the urban evangelist
who set up the church. Speaking to Premier about how
this new style of worship came about, she said: "I'm an
urban evangelist, which means I've come to live on an
estate and with a specific aim to reach out to making
Jesus known to people with no church connection or no
interest in having a church connection. And to draw them
closer to God. He loves them and wants them back.
"I've planted a church that originally
worked out of the community library, but during lockdown
we lost our building and we actually became a homeless
church. But that was one of the best things that ever
happened to us. We began prayer walking in earnest
around the estate, laying hands on and claiming places
for Jesus and just crying out, when we got given the use
of a disused allotment in the community, which means we
could once again meet to worship and we became a very
public and visible church.
"It's a very strategic position that God
has thrown the doors out for us. So it is wonderful to
be there. There's some fencing that surrounds the
allotment and we use that as well for mission. So we
often put posters up with Bible verses on them or with
words of encouragement on them. And these are causing
great interest for the community - we get lots of people
wandering in and asking us who we are and what we're
doing. So it's a massive community reach out, it's
brilliant. It's like being a church without walls."
an evangelical rejection of
same-sex relationships.[11]
She holds an "orthodox position" on sex and marriage,
which means that she is against same-sex marriage
Sharon Collins is the urban evangelist who set up the
church. Speaking to Premier about how this new style of
worship came about, she said: "I'm an urban evangelist,
which means I've come to live on an estate and with a
specific aim to reach out to making Jesus known to
people with no church connection or no interest in
having a church connection. And to draw them closer to
God. He loves them and wants them back.
"I've planted a church that originally worked out of
the community library, but during lockdown we lost our
building and we actually became a homeless church. But
that was one of the best things that ever happened to
us. We began prayer walking in earnest around the
estate, laying hands on and claiming places for Jesus
and just crying out, when we got given the use of a
disused allotment in the community, which means we could
once again meet to worship and we became a very public
and visible church.
"It's a very strategic position that God has thrown
the doors out for us. So it is wonderful to be there.
There's some fencing that surrounds the allotment and we
use that as well for mission. So we often put posters up
with Bible verses on them or with words of encouragement
on them. And these are causing great interest for the
community - we get lots of people wandering in and
asking us who we are and what we're doing. So it's a
massive community reach out, it's brilliant. It's like
being a church without walls."
am a former officer in the U.S. Air Force
and a veteran of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan
and a graduate of Emory University’s Graduate Division
of Religion. As such, I am interested in the ways that
Christian theology shapes and also fails to shape our
thinking about contemporary moral, ecclesial and
political issues – most notably, those involving the
experience of violence and moral injury, identity and
justice. My recent monograph from William B. Eerdmans
press is a constructive work entitled Full
Darkness: A Original Sin, Moral Injury and Wartime
Violence. The book contends that a modified
Augustinian conception of original sin holds deep
explanatory power to illuminate the nature of wartime
violence, particularly through the lens of veteran
trauma. I have presented papers on the resonances
between Augustinian doctrines of sin and moral injury at
the national gatherings of religious and anthropological
scholars and have published an article in Theology
Today arguing for the applicability of Augustine’s
moral psychology in situations of moral trauma brought
on by wartime violence. I am particularly interested in
the contributions that Christian theology can offer to
situations of moral ambiguity. In addition to leading
modules in Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics, I
have taught broader courses in comparative World
Religions. I am also an ordained Minister of Word and
Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Dear Dr Clemson,
I'll be publishing soon a profile of
yourself and one of your doctoral stundents, Lu Skerratt-Love.
It will appear on a page of my Website
www.linkagenet.com
the page concerned with Christian religion and the
Church of England
www.linkagenet.com/themes/christian-religion.htm
Before I give further information, some
information about my Website. As I mention on the Home
Page of the site, it does have very high Google rankings
for a wide range of search terms. At the end of this
email are some recent examples - you'll notice that
these include rankings for search terms to do with
Cambridge University - my page
www.linkagenet.com/themes/cambridge-university.htm
has many profiles of theologians and other Christian
believers with a Cambridge connection - with literary
theory, literary criticsm and poetic practice, and with
translation, including Greek. The site includes my
translations from Classical Greek and modern Greek but I
also read New Testament Greek, of course. I'm not
dependent upon translations of the New Testament.
My page on Christian religion and the
Church of England already includes material on Lu
Skerratt-Love, on the specific issue of a garden church
which is planned for allotments near the two allotments
which I cultivate. If you look at the Home Page of my
site, you'll notice that gardening is a very prominent
aspect of the site. There are many gardening pages. I've
actively opposed the plan to hold garden church
services. Lu Skerratt-Love is a prominent advocate for
forest churches and has publicized the proposed garden
church in notices at various Sheffield churches,
including St Marks Church, the church she attends
regularly. I intend to revise and extend the existing
material on this issue. I intend to add far more
material on Lu Skerrat-Love and Extinction Rebellion. I
took a copy of one of her twitter comments which make it
clear that she is either a supporter of Extinction
Rebellion or a sympathizer. The tactics, the naive and
unreal 'thinking' of Extinction Rebellion are obnoxious
and harmful - I'll be giving arguments and evidence.
My page on Christian religion also gives
information about a matter which concerns me and which
should concern you, surely: an issue to do with the free
flow of comment and other information, the necessity of
not restricting the free flow of comment and information
except when the comment and information are incompatible
with the values of a liberal democracy, as with comment
and information supporting terrorism.
Lu Skerratt-Love is employed by the
Church Army. She should make available an email address
which allows communication in matters not directly
related to her work with the Church Army. I searched,
but couldn't find any other email address, so I used her
(or 'their') Church Army address. The emails I've sent
on the issue of the garden church have simply pointed
out some problems and difficulties which the organizers
have ignored or failed to recognize, such as issues to
do with security and safety on the site - and the
staggering fact that the site contains a massive pile of
assorted rubbish, a hazard to wildlife and a potential
hazard for anyone entering the site. I provide
photographs in evidence, or as part of the evidence.
After I'd sent a few emails, Dr Ling of
the Church Army promptly informed me that he was
blocking emails from me not just to Lu Skerratt-Love but
to all members of the Church Army research department. I
also received a call from Sheffield police to inform me
that Lu Skerratt-Love didn't find acceptable material
relating to her (or 'them') as well as material relating
to the garden church, perhaps. It was clear that she
wanted the material removed - a blatant attempt at
censorship.
All this has wider implications, very
important implications. Academics - academic staff and
doctoral students - should have a concern, and not just
a slight concern, for the conditions which allow free
debate and comment to flourish and the conditions which
stifle or make impossible free debate and comment. For
this reason, I'll be bringing the matters I mention in
this email to the attention of other academic staff in
the department of theology and religion at Durham
University, and the wider academic community, including
other departments at Durham.
I have self-imposed restrictions on the
comments I make and the material I publish. For
example, as I make clear in various places on the site,
all emails sent to me are regarded as private. I won't
publish them in whole or in part without the permission
of the sender. Another is the fact that I don't
criticize or comment on the arguments and evidence used
by undergraduates. Undergraduates are finding their way,
they should be allowed to make all kinds of mistakes
without repercussions - it's perfectly possible, of
course, for undergraduates to show qualities which
doctoral students and academic staff don't possess in
the least. I can't make the same alowances for
postgrauduate students. If Lu Skerratt-Love had been an
undergraduate at the time of her completely unwarranted
approach to the police, nothing would have appeared on
my Website. As it is, she has failed to appreciate the
huge demands on the police. This is an important issue
in itself, and I intend to add material to the site,
with mention of Lu Skerratt-Love's blunder - and it was
a blunder, of that I'm sure (yet again, argument and
evidence will be needed to corroborate the claim, of
course.) 'Wasting police time' amounts to an offence in
law, but I don't claim, of course, that she committed an
offence in law.
In all my communications with Christians,
I've stressed argument and evidence. My own practice is
to be as thorough as possible in providing argument and
evidence. The constraints of time don't allow me always
to be as thorough as I would like, of course. Not once
has any Christian attempted to offer a defence, to offer
even the least argument and evidence. I draw my own
conclusions from that.
Many of the pages of my site make use of
Large Page Design - they're wide as well as long. For
this reason, they can't be viewed adequately on the
small screen of a portable device.
This month’s theme for Interfaith Voices is ‘the
presence of faith’. Here, Lu writes about the complexity of
identity, focusing on how their Christian faith and
non-binary identity intersect. Lu considers the presence of
faith throughout their life, reflecting on how they came to
where they are now.
Last year, I went back to church. I walked through the
door, sat quietly near the back, had a blessing and cried my
eyes out afterwards. For the first time, I didn’t feel
unsafe or in danger. God was present, and so was I. I
introduced myself as Lu, my new name (a shortened version of
its original, but nonetheless, a step) and when asked, said
my pronouns were ‘they’, and ‘them’.
Simply
put, I came out. Another coming out, a coming out before
God, a coming out as non- binary.
Being non-binary means that I don’t identify as a man, or
necessarily a woman. I exist outside of the ‘binary’ of
gender. My gender presentation is androgynous and the
pronouns I use give no explicit indication of my gender
identity. Simply put, I transcend, transgress and am
transgender. This often feels like a strange and lonely
place to be. Day to day, people don’t always understand.
They make assumptions, misgender me and pass judgement on
pronouns (l didn’t create English grammar, I’m sorry the
singular ‘they’ is hard for you, but it makes me feel
real!). At its worst, I’ve been kicked out of toilets, spat
at, followed home, been refused service and assaulted.
People are scared of what they don’t know, especially when
bodies are concerned.
Considering I’m rebelling against established boundaries
and cultural codifiers of what it means to be a gendered
human being, it may seem like a bit of an oxymoron that my
Christian identity is within the Church of England; an
organisation that I think famously relishes order and
control, especially when human sexuality and gender identity
is concerned. Add this to the fact that I did a BA in
Theology, an MA in Biblical Studies, and one year of a
Biblical Studies PhD and there is a whole conundrum of
academic education, queer identity, biblical understanding
and personal faith in the mix. I resisted the presence of
faith when I was studying; God for me was a character in a
novel, a male chauvinist who barred me from access. Although
I resonated with characters like Jacob who I read as a trans
person, and the Daughter Zion in Ezekiel and Lamentations;
they still felt distant, academic texts to be dissected in
Hebrew and put into essays filled with objective points of
how YHWH was wrong, and I was right. However, with time and
with healing, along with lots of anger, my faith and my
identity as a Christian has become far more than that. Since
coming out as my authentic self, I feel as if I can be more
authentic with God.
I’m reclaiming my body, my name, my pronouns and my
voice, if that isn’t a spiritual act, I don’t know what is.
I was asked recently how I could justify being a
non-binary person and still go to a Church of England
church. ‘With difficulty’, I answered, before trying to
explain what the church I go to does for the local
community, how it invited me in with open arms, tells me I’m
wanted, loved and valued, just for being who I am. I don’t
feel so isolated in my faith anymore, it’s with me wherever
I go, present at every turn, at work and at home. I’m part
of a community that isn’t LGBTQ+ inclusive in name alone, I
am included in its theology, its worship and in the
Eucharist. The discrimination, pain, and hate is not brushed
off with a ‘God is love’, but with a real affirmation that I
am more than my physical self, and that message is one that
Jesus, for me, came to deliver.
As this path continues, I don’t know where I’ll be, but,
I know that God knows and loves me intimately. I don’t think
the Church does, but I’m not scared of that fight. All I ask
is for inclusion, not to be tolerated, but to be affirmed.
Lu Skerratt is a non-binary Anglican living in Sheffield.
They grew up in North Essex where their introduction to
Christianity was varied but allowed them to explore and
encounter all sorts of worship styles! They grew up in a
charismatic-evangelical home whilst being a chorister, and
deeply valuing the choral tradition. As a teenager they
decided that there was no God, but often returned to church
and traditional Anglican worship as a means of solace and
routine, fascinated by the mystery, The Eucharist, and the
cultural and social influence of the biblical texts. Lu
first read Theology at the University of Leeds before doing
a MA in Biblical Studies at Kings College London. They then
moved to Sheffield where they co-founded Lesbian Asylum
Support Sheffield (LASS), worked for the Refugee Council,
and now for a local mental health charity. It was in
Sheffield where they re-encountered their faith.
They are currently a student at the University of Durham
(Cranmer Hall/St John's College) undertaking a doctorate in
Theology and Ministry where they are researching queer
bodies and boundaries at the Eucharist. Lu worships at St
Mark's Broomhill in Sheffield and is actively involved in
lay ministry, Open Sheffield and CCA (Christian Climate
Action - the Christian branch of XR). Lu also writes poetry
and liturgy, as well as continuing to explore what it means
to navigate (and embody) the betwixt and between spaces of
gender and queerness whilst having a Christian faith and
belonging in the Church of England.
This is a long email - a very long email. Even
so, I've had to leave out a great deal of relevant material.
I'll begin with a different matter, my opposition to the Church
of England's prominent role at Remembrance Day events. This is
an extract from a letter I wrote which was published in the
print and online version of the Sheffield local newspaper, 'The
Star.' I'm continuing to oppose this role at Remembrance Day
events. This is followed by material on the proposed garden
church in Sheffield. I've used arguments and evidence to do with
safety and security as well as with arguments and evidence to do
with Christian doctrine and practice. I've contacted the
Sheffield allotment office as well as individual Christian
believers and Churches and this wide-ranging approach seems to
me to offer by far the best chance of success in this case.
An extract from the letter published in 'The
Star,'
'According to the British Social Attitudes
Survey, affiliation with the Church of England (C of E) has
never been lower in all age groups: it amounts to only 2 per
cent of young adults.
What can justify the C of E’s dominant
role in Remembrance Sunday commemorations, then? I attend
the event in the city centre or at Weston Park. Like ones
throughout the country, it takes the form of a C of E
service.
There are many, many prayers and after
each one, this is the expected response (as given in the
Order of Service booklet):
All Hear our prayer
What is a non-believer or a believer in
another religion to do? Mumble insincerely? Stay silent?
Should non-believers pretend to believe in the power of
prayer, or in the Trinity – the doctrine that there’s God
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (also in the
booklet)? We attend to remember the fallen, to show
gratitude for their sacrifice, to show gratitude and
appreciation for present members of the armed forces, not to
witness a C of E service.
Sometimes, a decline in support for an
organisation is unfair, but not in this case. There are and
have been many, many exceptional C of E members but the
catalogue of C of E failings is long.
Edward Wightman was the last person in
this country to be burned alive for heresy. He had denied
the Trinity and questioned the status of the Church of
England. The C of E still remembers and celebrates John
Calvin, who denounced Michael Servetus (also burned alive
after denying the Trinity). The Bishop of Sheffield’s
doctoral thesis was on the subject of John Calvin! The C of
E remembers and celebrates to this day St Augustine, who
actually taught that unbaptised babies are in hell.
...
Perhaps [the Bishop of Sheffield] may be
able to comment on this doctrine, perhaps on John Calvin as
well.
And does he believe that C of E
Remembrance services for the general public can be
defended?'
I drew the issue to his attention but the
Bishop chose not to reply.
Now for the issue of the garden church. This
proposed garden church is the most recent project of the 'forest
church' group in Sheffield. The most prominent advocate is Lu
Skerratt-Love, a researcher with the Church Army in Sheffield. I
sent an email to Lu Skerratt-Love, two other members of the
Research Department at the Church Army, to various churches
which publicized the proposed garden church, including St Marks
Church, to the Bishop of Sheffield (taking the view that he
should know about this project in his diocese) and to the
Sheffield Allotments Office.
This is an extract from the email. The versions
sent to other recipients were the same, except for the opening
comment.
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
emailsheffield.forest.church@gmail.com
...
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.
Lu Skerrat-Love is 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. Amongst the discarded
plastic containers are ones which once held
organic seaweed fertilizer. I think these
must have been left by the Group itself.
Amongst the obvious objections to the pile
is the threat to wildlife: small creatures
may well find their way into something in
the pile and not find a way out, or perhaps
injured by sharp objects in the pile. Lu
Skerrit-Love describes herself as an
'ecofeminist.' She should not be giving
implicit support to an organization which
seems to show such a casual disregard for
plastic waste and the welfare of wildlife.
LWCG should have done something about the
problem a long time ago. I'd say that
leaving the plot open was asking for
trouble. It's an obvious disadvantage if a
'community garden' is locked for most of the
time but leaving this particular garden open
has had severe disadvantages.
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 shaded 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. Public
prayer is a more likely activity than
singing or preaching, I would think. If
this event were to go ahead, what is to stop
other religions from using allotments as
open air Mosques, synagogues and temples?
I hope that this conveys
some of my reasons for disagreement. I'll
be sending a copy of this email to various
Churches, Christian individuals and
Christian organizations in Sheffield.
In my experience,
Christians aren't in the least willing to
enter into discussion and debate with people
who hold opposing views. I doubt very much
if many - or perhaps any - Christians in
Sheffield will dare to address
anti-Christian arguments and evidence. Any
Christian who cares to email me can be
assured that I have a strict policy on
emails sent to me. They are treated as
private and won't be released into the
public domain without the permission of the
sender. I'm completely willing to have my
views challenged in the private or the
public domain, with, of course, the right to
respond.
...
Best Wishes,
Paul Hurt
I had a reply from the allotment office and one
other person, Tim Ling of the Church Army Research Department.
He didn't attempt to answer any of the arguments or evidence.
What he did do was to inform me that he'd barred emails from me
to Lu Skerratt-Love. According to him, for 'technical' reasons,
he was barring emails from me to himself and all the other
members of the Research Department! This is still the case: I'm
banned, barred, prevented from communicating with any of these
people by email. The address of this department:
The videos on the page are telling, I think -
naive but not in the least touching displays of naive faith in
the complete rightness of their cause, with absolutely no
concern for practicalities such as issues to do with security
and safety (one of the photos shows a garden fork lying on the
ground with the points pointing in an upwards direction - a
clear-cut safety hazard. Enlarging the photo makes this clear.
There's an endorsement from a unitarian.
Unitarians are an improvement on the believers in hellfire for
all but the small minority of people who believe in 'Jesus
Christ as personal Lord and Saviour,' but their position is
evasive in so many ways - I don't include my reasons here.
Amongst other things, the garden church intends
to celebrate 'God's creation.' A surprising, ridiculous -
grotesque - place to hold such an event. These are photos i took
of the massive heap of discarded rubbish on the site of the
garden church.
The garden church Facebook page mentions an event
in Lancashire. The Bishop of Lancaster, Jill Duff, was in
attendance and confirmed and baptized various people. (Jill Duff
is an unreconstructed ultra-orthodox evangelical. In one article
on her views, she mentions 'heresies.'
From the article
'Faith flowers at church based on an allotment'
Sharon Collins is the urban
evangelist who set up the church. Speaking to
Premier about how this new style of worship came
about, she said: "I'm an urban evangelist, which
means I've come to live on an estate and with a
specific aim to reach out to making Jesus known
to people with no church connection or no
interest in having a church connection.
during lockdown we lost our
building and we actually became a homeless
church. But that was one of the best things that
ever happened to us. We began prayer walking in
earnest around the estate, laying hands on and
claiming places for Jesus and just crying out,
when we got given the use of a disused allotment
in the community, which means we could once
again meet to worship and we became a very
public and visible church.
"It's a very strategic
position that God has thrown the doors out for
us. So it is wonderful to be there. There's some
fencing that surrounds the allotment and we use
that as well for mission. So we often put
posters up with Bible verses on them or with
words of encouragement on them. And these are
causing great interest for the community - we
get lots of people wandering in and asking us
who we are and what we're doing. So it's a
massive community reach out, it's brilliant.
It's like being a church without walls."
Sharon says that on the
weekend of the confirmations and baptisms,
people brought their families and friends who
would not normally have come to church.
The garden church event didn't
take place at the allotments on 11 September.
I found out later that it was held instead
on a field belonging to a local church. I
assumed that my actions had been successful but
I now find that the garden church has every
intention of proceeding with the scheme and the
event is now scheduled for 17 October 2021. I've
been informed that my contact person at the
allotment office, who has the power to prevent
this event from taking place, didn't contact the
garden church to inform them of her decision. In
fact, she hasn't made a decision, or hadn't at
the time of our recent exchange of emails. I
emailed her more than once to give additional
arguments and evidence. She's on leave until 4
October and I very much hope she'll be
announcing a decision soon after that, and one
which takes note of the many, many objections to
this use of land owned by the Council. I've put
it to her that Sheffield Council is responsible
for parks and many other open spaces in the city
but provision of a meeting place for Christians
isn't a duty of the Council. The Council is
under no obligation at all to foster their
scheme of converting unbelievers and bringing
them to a faith in Jesus Christ.
I've also informed her that if
the decision is taken to allow the church
service to go ahead on the allotment site, I'll
do everything I can to publicize the matter, to
provide arguments and evidence which make clear
the reasons for my opposition. Of course, not a
single Christian, not a single Church has given
any counter-arguments and evidence. There has
been complete silence, but that is what I
expected.
In all this, it's a huge
encouragement to know that the National Secular
Society is campaigning on such issues as these,
and many more. I can only do so much, as a
single individual. The work of the NSS is very,
very significant.
Best Wishes,
Paul Hurt
This is a long email - a very long email. Even so,
I've had to leave out a great deal of relevant material. I'll begin
with a different matter, my opposition to the Church of England's
prominent role at Remembrance Day events. This is an extract from a
letter I wrote which was published in the print and online version
of the Sheffield local newspaper, 'The Star.' I'm continuing to
oppose this role at Remembrance Day events. This is followed by
material on the proposed garden church in Sheffield. I've used
arguments and evidence to do with safety and security as well as
with arguments and evidence to do with Christian doctrine and
practice. I've contacted the Sheffield allotment office as well as
individual Christian believers and Churches and this wide-ranging
approach seems to me to offer by far the best chance of success in
this case.
An extract from the letter published in 'The Star,'
'According to the British Social Attitudes
Survey, affiliation with the Church of England (C of E) has
never been lower in all age groups: it amounts to only 2 per
cent of young adults.
What can justify the C of E’s dominant role in
Remembrance Sunday commemorations, then? I attend the event in
the city centre or at Weston Park. Like ones throughout the
country, it takes the form of a C of E service.
There are many, many prayers and after each
one, this is the expected response (as given in the Order of
Service booklet):
All Hear our prayer
What is a non-believer or a believer in
another religion to do? Mumble insincerely? Stay silent? Should
non-believers pretend to believe in the power of prayer, or in
the Trinity – the doctrine that there’s God the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit (also in the booklet)? We attend to remember
the fallen, to show gratitude for their sacrifice, to show
gratitude and appreciation for present members of the armed
forces, not to witness a C of E service.
Sometimes, a decline in support for an
organisation is unfair, but not in this case. There are and have
been many, many exceptional C of E members but the catalogue of
C of E failings is long.
Edward Wightman was the last person in this
country to be burned alive for heresy. He had denied the Trinity
and questioned the status of the Church of England. The C of E
still remembers and celebrates John Calvin, who denounced
Michael Servetus (also burned alive after denying the Trinity).
The Bishop of Sheffield’s doctoral thesis was on the subject of
John Calvin! The C of E remembers and celebrates to this day St
Augustine, who actually taught that unbaptised babies are in
hell.
...
Perhaps [the Bishop of Sheffield] may be able
to comment on this doctrine, perhaps on John Calvin as well.
And does he believe that C of E Remembrance
services for the general public can be defended?'
I drew the issue to his attention but the Bishop
chose not to reply.
Now for the issue of the garden church. This proposed
garden church is the most recent project of the 'forest church'
group in Sheffield. The most prominent advocate is Lu Skerratt-Love,
a researcher with the Church Army in Sheffield. I sent an email to
Lu Skerratt-Love, two other members of the Research Department at
the Church Army, to various churches which publicized the proposed
garden church, including St Marks Church, to the Bishop of Sheffield
(taking the view that he should know about this project in his
diocese) and to the Sheffield Allotments Office.
This is an extract from the email. The versions sent
to other recipients were the same, except for the opening comment.
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 emailsheffield.forest.church@gmail.com
...
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.
Lu Skerrat-Love is 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. Amongst the discarded plastic
containers are ones which once held organic
seaweed fertilizer. I think these must have
been left by the Group itself. Amongst the
obvious objections to the pile is the threat to
wildlife: small creatures may well find their
way into something in the pile and not find a
way out, or perhaps injured by sharp objects in
the pile. Lu Skerrit-Love describes herself as
an 'ecofeminist.' She should not be giving
implicit support to an organization which seems
to show such a casual disregard for plastic
waste and the welfare of wildlife. LWCG should
have done something about the problem a long
time ago. I'd say that leaving the plot open was
asking for trouble. It's an obvious disadvantage
if a 'community garden' is locked for most of
the time but leaving this particular garden open
has had severe disadvantages.
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 shaded 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. Public prayer is a more likely
activity than singing or preaching, I would
think. If this event were to go ahead, what is
to stop other religions from using allotments as
open air Mosques, synagogues and temples?
I hope that this conveys some
of my reasons for disagreement. I'll be sending
a copy of this email to various Churches,
Christian individuals and Christian
organizations in Sheffield.
In my experience, Christians
aren't in the least willing to enter into
discussion and debate with people who hold
opposing views. I doubt very much if many - or
perhaps any - Christians in Sheffield will dare
to address anti-Christian arguments and
evidence. Any Christian who cares to email me
can be assured that I have a strict policy on
emails sent to me. They are treated as private
and won't be released into the public domain
without the permission of the sender. I'm
completely willing to have my views challenged
in the private or the public domain, with, of
course, the right to respond.
Sharon Collins is the urban
evangelist who set up the church. Speaking to
Premier about how this new style of worship came
about, she said: "I'm an urban evangelist, which
means I've come to live on an estate and with a
specific aim to reach out to making Jesus known to
people with no church connection or no interest in
having a church connection.
during lockdown we lost our building
and we actually became a homeless church. But that
was one of the best things that ever happened to us.
We began prayer walking in earnest around the
estate, laying hands on and claiming places for
Jesus and just crying out, when we got given the use
of a disused allotment in the community, which means
we could once again meet to worship and we became a
very public and visible church.
"It's a very strategic position that
God has thrown the doors out for us. So it is
wonderful to be there. There's some
fencing that surrounds the allotment and we use that
as well for mission. So we often put posters up with
Bible verses on them or with words of encouragement
on them. And these are causing great interest for
the community - we get lots of people wandering in
and asking us who we are and what we're doing. So
it's a massive community reach out, it's brilliant.
It's like being a church without walls."
Sharon says that on the weekend of
the confirmations and baptisms, people brought their
families and friends who would not normally have
come to church.
According to the British Social Attitudes Survey, affiliation
with the Church of England (C of E) has never been lower in all age
groups: it amounts to only 2 per cent of young adults.
What can justify the C of E’s dominant role in
Remembrance Sunday commemorations, then? I attend the event in the
city centre or at Weston Park. Like ones throughout the country, it
takes the form of a C of E service.
There are many, many prayers and after each one, this is the
expected response (as given in the Order of Service booklet):
All Hear our prayer
What is a non-believer or a believer in another religion to do?
Mumble insincerely? Stay silent? Should non-believers pretend to
believe in the power of prayer, or in the Trinity – the doctrine
that there’s God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (also in
the booklet)? We attend to remember the fallen, to show gratitude
for their sacrifice, to show gratitude and appreciation for present
members of the armed forces, not to witness a C of E service.
Sometimes, a decline in support for an organisation is unfair,
but not in this case. There are and have been many, many exceptional
C of E members but the catalogue of C of E failings is long.
Edward Wightman was the last person in this country to be burned
alive for heresy. He had denied the Trinity and questioned the
status of the Church of England. The C of E still remembers and
celebrates John Calvin, who denounced Michael Servetus (also burned
alive after denying the Trinity). The Bishop of Sheffield’s doctoral
thesis was on the subject of John Calvin! The C of E remembers and
celebrates to this day St Augustine, who actually taught that
unbaptised babies are in hell.
...
Perhaps he may be able to comment on this doctrine, perhaps on
John Calvin as well.
And does he believe that C of E Remembrance services for the
general public can be defended?
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 emailsheffield.forest.church@gmail.com
...
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.
Lu Skerrat-Love is
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. Amongst the
discarded plastic containers are ones which once
held organic seaweed fertilizer. I think these must
have been left by the Group itself. Amongst the
obvious objections to the pile is the threat to
wildlife: small creatures may well find their way
into something in the pile and not find a way out,
or perhaps injured by sharp objects in the pile. Lu
Skerrit-Love describes herself as an 'ecofeminist.'
She should not be giving implicit support to an
organization which seems to show such a casual
disregard for plastic waste and the welfare of
wildlife. LWCG should have done something about the
problem a long time ago. I'd say that leaving the
plot open was asking for trouble. It's an obvious
disadvantage if a 'community garden' is locked for
most of the time but leaving this particular garden
open has had severe disadvantages.
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 shaded 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. Public prayer is a more likely
activity than singing or preaching, I would think.
If this event were to go ahead, what is to stop
other religions from using allotments as open air
Mosques, synagogues and temples?
I hope that this conveys some of my reasons for
disagreement. I'll be sending a copy of this email
to various Churches, Christian individuals and
Christian organizations in Sheffield.
In my experience, Christians aren't in the least
willing to enter into discussion and debate with
people who hold opposing views. I doubt very much if
many - or perhaps any - Christians in Sheffield will
dare to address anti-Christian arguments and
evidence. Any Christian who cares to email me can be
assured that I have a strict policy on emails sent
to me. They are treated as private and won't be
released into the public domain without the
permission of the sender. I'm completely willing to
have my views challenged in the private or the
public domain, with, of course, the right to
respond.
Sharon Collins is the urban evangelist who set up the
church. Speaking to Premier about how this new style of
worship came about, she said: "I'm an urban evangelist,
which means I've come to live on an estate and with a
specific aim to reach out to making Jesus known to
people with no church connection or no interest in
having a church connection.
during lockdown we lost our building and we actually
became a homeless church. But that was one of the best
things that ever happened to us. We began prayer walking
in earnest around the estate, laying hands on and
claiming places for Jesus and just crying out, when we
got given the use of a disused allotment in the
community, which means we could once again meet to
worship and we became a very public and visible church.
"It's a very strategic position that God has thrown
the doors out for us. So it is wonderful to be there.
There's some fencing that surrounds the allotment and we
use that as well for mission. So we often put posters up
with Bible verses on them or with words of encouragement
on them. And these are causing great interest for the
community - we get lots of people wandering in and
asking us who we are and what we're doing. So it's a
massive community reach out, it's brilliant. It's like
being a church without walls."
Sharon says that on the weekend of the confirmations
and baptisms, people brought their families and friends
who would not normally have come to church.
Stephen Cottrell has been on the board since September 2011. He has been
Bishop of Chelmsford since 2010 ... The General Synod of the Church of
England nominated Bishop Stephen to be a Board member and both the
Archbishops of Canterbury and York have encouraged him to be the Chair
of Church Army.
I’m a member of Walkley Bank Allotment Society. Today, I
contacted the Secretary of the Society to express some
concerns of mine about LWCG, with arguments and evidence. I
also conveyed these concerns to another committee member of
the Society. Amongst the issues I raised – according to a
member of the ‘Garden Church,’ LWCG – one or more members of
LWCG – gave permission to the Garden Church to hold services
on Sundays in the LWCG plot. Allotments are, of course,
places to grow food plants and other plants, not at all
places for Christian evangelism. I made my position clear –
I think that for a variety of reasons, WBAS should no longer
support or be associated with LWCG.
A: The Archbishop is supported by a dedicated team of advisers,
administrators and clerical, technical and maintenance staff at
Bishopthorpe Palace. A list of the senior members of staff and their job
descriptions can be
viewed on our website.
Dare to be a Daniel Dare to stand alone Dare to have a purpose firm Dare to make it known
I can only find one email address on the St Marks
Website. It would be better if the material here could be addressed to
individual members of the clergy at St Marks, but I would be grateful if
they could be informed about this material.
I provide here the whole of the section. It will be
revised and extended. I've made every attempt to ensure that the section
is fair-minded but if this is disputed, I hope that I will be informed
and if I consider that the objections are cogennt, I'll make all
necessary changes to the text. This is the section.
Comments on a very contentious sermon preached at St Marks
The section on Adrian Dorber of Lichfield Cathedral has
been part of this page for a long time. It includes this material, on
Stephen Sizer, which has also been part of this page for a long time.
The time has come to give it greater prominence and to extend it. The
original material:
'A sermon preached at St Marks Church, Sheffield in 2014
included this:
‘ 'The Revd Dr Stephen Sizer, who has researched and
published broadly in this area, concludes ‘that Christian Zionism is the
largest, most controversial and most destructive lobby within
Christianity. It bears primary responsibility for perpetuating tensions
in the Middle East, justifying Israel’s apartheid colonialist agenda and
for undermining the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.’
‘
'What? The intractable problems of the Middle East, the
atrocities in the Middle East, largely caused by Christian Zionists? The
Revd Stephen Sizer is yet another naive and blundering Anglican, but a
particularly dangerous one. He gave a link to an article which claimed
that Israel was responsible for the 9 / 11 attack on the World Trade
Center!
'The Bishop of Guildford acted decisively: he made it
clear that Stephen Sizer was in danger of losing his job, as reported in
'The Church Times' and other places.'
The sermon was preached many years ago but I'd stress the
fact that sermons, like other communications, aren't exempt from
informed criticism. I haven't been able to find a copy of the whole
sermon on the St Marks Website. Recent sermons are included, and I've
found the experience of reading some of them very instructive. I intend
to comment on more of them on this page
The extract from the sermon quoted here is terrifyingly
ignorant, I'd claim, for reasons I set out in detail in my page on
Israel.
I'd be grateful if St Marks could supply me with a copy
of the complete sermon which includes this extract, but that would
probably entail inconvenience for the Church, if the sermon is only to
be found in print form. I'd be very willing to call at St Marks to
consult their records and make a written copy. If that isn't possible,
I'd like to be informed at least of the name of the preacher. This is a
reasonable request, I think.
includes material which makes the case against Stephen
Sizer. I share the views of the writer of the article but not the claim
that Stephen Sizer is 'just stupid.' He's more than simply stupid,
according to the evidence available to me. Extracts from the 'Church
Times' article:
A VICAR in Surrey, the Revd Dr Stephen Sizer, who linked to an online
article suggesting that Israel was responsible for the 9/11 terrorist
attacks in 2001, has been forbidden from speaking or writing about the
Middle East again, or risk losing his job.
Dr Sizer, Vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water, in Surrey, last month
posted a link on his Facebook page to an article entitled "9/11: Israel
did it" (News,
6 February),
thus breaking an undertaking he had made last year to have his online
activism moderated. On Monday, the Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Revd
Andrew Watson, announced that he had given Dr Sizer an ultimatum: stop
your activism over the Israel-Palestine conflict or lose your parish.
In a statement, he said: "I do not believe that [Dr Sizer's] motives are
anti-Semitic; but I have concluded that, at the very least, he has
demonstrated appallingly poor judgement. By associating with, or
promoting, subject matter which is either ambiguous in its motivation,
or (worse still) openly racist, he has crossed a serious line. I regard
these actions as indefensible."
Bishop Watson said that Dr Sizer had now retracted the suggestion that
Israel was involved in 9/11. "It is my view that Stephen's strong but
increasingly undisciplined commitment to an anti-Zionist agenda has
become a liability to his own ministry and that of the wider Church," he
said.
Dr Sizer has promised Bishop Watson in writing that he would not speak
or write about anything connected to the conflict in the Middle East,
nor would he attend or promote conferences about the issue. If he
breaches this agreement, he has agreed to tender his resignation to
Bishop Watson. He has also agreed to stop using all social media for the
next six months.
In a letter to Bishop Watson, Dr Sizer apologised for the "distress" he
had caused to the Jewish community and the Church. "As a minister of the
gospel it is not my role to create controversy but to seek to maintain
unity between the faith communities," he wrote. He declined to comment
further when contacted on Monday.
Interviewed on Monday, Bishop Watson said the diocese had considered
proceeding against Dr Sizer under the Clergy Discipline Measure. They
chose an informal agreement because of the need for a quick solution.
Bishop Watson said it was preferable, "particularly with anti-Semitic
attacks on the rise in the UK", to find a resolution which would satisfy
the "natural outcry from the Jewish community" without having to begin
legal proceedings, which would have been long, given that Dr Sizer has
the freehold of his benefice.
The agreement has real "teeth" in it, Bishop Watson said, and the
publicity surrounding it would ensure that Dr Sizer kept his word.
...
Dr Sizer has been in trouble in the past. In 2013, the Board of Deputies
of British Jews made a formal complaint against him, accusing him of
linking to anti-Semitic websites (News,
25 October 2013).
The complaint was resolved through conciliation, part of which involved
Dr Sizer committing to having three people monitor his online activity
and any websites he links to.
The previous year he was investigated by Surrey Police after posting
allegedly anti-Semitic content online. However, the Crown
Prosecution Service decided he had not committed any criminal
offence (News,
4 May 2012).
Bishop Watson also said in his statement that he was "hugely sorry"
for the hurt caused to the Jewish community by Dr Sizer's actions.
'This is a time when I would urge all Christian people to stand
shoulder to shoulder with our Jewish brothers and sisters in
countering the alarming rise of anti-Semitic incidents being
reported,' he said.
The Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) said in a statement that it
welcomed Bishop Watson's decision as Dr Sizer's activities had been
a "source of grave concern.
It would be very helpful if I could consult the
sermon which contained grossly misleading and incomplete material on
Stephen Sizer (as I see it), so that I can have a better
appreciation of the context. It wouldn't be too late for St Marks
Church to make amends and to set the record straight. In fact, I
would say that this would be an honest form of action. Grossly
mistaken views of Israel are still published. The situation is no
better now than it was at the time the sermon was delivered at St
Marks. My page on Israel gives a much fuller account.
A VICAR in Surrey, the Revd Dr Stephen Sizer, who linked to an online
article suggesting that Israel was responsible for the 9/11 terrorist
attacks in 2001, has been forbidden from speaking or writing about the
Middle East again, or risk losing his job.
Dr Sizer, Vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water, in Surrey, last month
posted a link on his Facebook page to an article entitled "9/11: Israel did
it" (News,
6 February), thus breaking an undertaking he had made last year to have
his online activism moderated. On Monday, the Bishop of Guildford, the Rt
Revd Andrew Watson, announced that he had given Dr Sizer an ultimatum: stop
your activism over the Israel-Palestine conflict or lose your parish.
In a statement, he said: "I do not believe that [Dr Sizer's] motives are
anti-Semitic; but I have concluded that, at the very least, he has
demonstrated appallingly poor judgement. By associating with, or promoting,
subject matter which is either ambiguous in its motivation, or (worse still)
openly racist, he has crossed a serious line. I regard these actions as
indefensible."
Bishop Watson said that Dr Sizer had now retracted the suggestion that
Israel was involved in 9/11. "It is my view that Stephen's strong but
increasingly undisciplined commitment to an anti-Zionist agenda has become a
liability to his own ministry and that of the wider Church," he said.
Dr Sizer has promised Bishop Watson in writing that he would not speak or
write about anything connected to the conflict in the Middle East, nor would
he attend or promote conferences about the issue. If he breaches this
agreement, he has agreed to tender his resignation to Bishop Watson. He has
also agreed to stop using all social media for the next six months.
In a letter to Bishop Watson, Dr Sizer apologised for the "distress" he
had caused to the Jewish community and the Church. "As a minister of the
gospel it is not my role to create controversy but to seek to maintain unity
between the faith communities," he wrote. He declined to comment further
when contacted on Monday.
Advertisement
Interviewed on Monday, Bishop Watson said the diocese had considered
proceeding against Dr Sizer under the Clergy Discipline Measure. They chose
an informal agreement because of the need for a quick solution.
Bishop Watson said it was preferable, "particularly with anti-Semitic
attacks on the rise in the UK", to find a resolution which would satisfy the
"natural outcry from the Jewish community" without having to begin legal
proceedings, which would have been long, given that Dr Sizer has the
freehold of his benefice.
The agreement has real "teeth" in it, Bishop Watson said, and the
publicity surrounding it would ensure that Dr Sizer kept his word.
"I think he was very pleased with the suggestion it was either his parish
ministry or his pro-Palestine [activism]," Bishop Watson said. "He could
have stepped down from being a parish priest, but he was very clear he
wanted to continue his ministry.
"He is certainly hugely remorseful, and embarrassed and ashamed by it. He
has been shocked by his own stupidity."
Dr Sizer has been in trouble in the past. In 2013, the Board of Deputies
of British Jews made a formal complaint against him, accusing him of linking
to anti-Semitic websites (News,
25 October 2013). The complaint was resolved through conciliation, part
of which involved Dr Sizer committing to having three people monitor his
online activity and any websites he links to.
The previous year he was investigated by Surrey Police after posting
allegedly anti-Semitic content online. However, the Crown Prosecution
Service decided he had not committed any criminal offence (News,
4 May 2012).
Bishop Watson also said in his statement that he was "hugely sorry"
for the hurt caused to the Jewish community by Dr Sizer's actions. "This
is a time when I would urge all Christian people to stand shoulder to
shoulder with our Jewish brothers and sisters in countering the alarming
rise of anti-Semitic incidents being reported," he said.
The Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) said in a statement that it
welcomed Bishop Watson's decision as Dr Sizer's activities had been a
"source of grave concern".
"We are grateful for the seriousness and clarity with which the
diocese of Guildford has addressed this case, since this sends a clear
message that Christians have a duty to identify and challenge
anti-Semitism in all its forms," said the CCJ's director, Jane Clements.
ee people monitor his online activity and any websites he links to.
The previous year he was investigated by Surrey Police after posting
allegedly anti-Semitic content online. However, the Crown Prosecution
Service decided he had not committed any criminal offence (News,
4 May 2012).
Bishop Watson also said in his statement that he was "hugely sorry"
for the hurt caused to the Jewish community by Dr Sizer's actions. "This
is a time when I would urge all Christian people to stand shoulder to
shoulder with our Jewish brothers and sisters in countering the alarming
rise of anti-Semitic incidents being reported," he said.
The Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) said in a statement that it
welcomed Bishop Watson's decision as Dr Sizer's activities had been a
"source of grave concern".
"We are grateful for the seriousness and clarity with which the
diocese of Guildford has addressed this case, since this sends a clear
message that Christians have a duty to identify and challenge
anti-Semitism in all its forms," said the CCJ's director, Jane Clements.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be
acceptable in
your sight, O God our Father.
‘I still have many things to say to you, but you
cannot bear them now. When the
Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not
speak on his
own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things
that are
to come...’ (John 16:12-13)
The passages of scripture
that we have heard today,
I believe, are
texts for this
moment. They are not resigned to the dusty scrolls of the early church
or read
out
on
a Sunday morning simply to
be
forgotten until next year,
but living and
breathing, calling us to attempt to understand
our time, this time...inside
of
God’s time. They
are calling us to life together into what
Willie Jennings calls, a
‘revolutionary
intimacy.’
The possibilities of life together,
of a revolutionary intimacy,
feel almost
ridiculous
to even attempt to conceive
right now.
The
simple
idea of having a
life together
that is strong enough
to reorder our common humanity
against the
strong winds of the pandemic, the dangers of nationalism, the horror of
racial
segregation,
the
sin
of
sexism,
and
the
pain
of
class
and
immigration
discrimination
feels so out of reach
it doesn’t
even
feel
worth considering.
However,
I’m
talking about
a
revolutionary intimacy today
because
what
we
see
in
the truth of the Gospel reading, echoed in
Acts
chapter 2,
at Pentecost,
is
worth
considering. For, despite our despair,
God is strong enough to bring
us
into common life, into a
common humanity...and that
is
the dilemma we face
as
churches and as individuals;
coming to grips with the situation of what we
believe
God is constantly unveiling and
bringing
about in the world.
Something that is
worth considering.
A
vision
of love and life together.
I’m talking about the kind of love and life that hasn’t fully taken hold yet
in the
world, the love that asks us
to take risks, the love
that came in flesh and blood,
the love that releases the prisoners and lets the oppressed go free.
The love
that often we cannot see.
The love that is here for eternity.
The thing about this love,
is that it is so revolutionary,
so world altering that we
have struggled to grasp this kind of intimacy
in the past, and we struggle
as
churches and communities
now.
The action of God at Pentecost
reveals this
world altering
love
in a new situation, a situation that probably scares us a
bit,
that some of us, myself included,
often
find it hard to visualise or believe.
It’s a
kind of love that is not a triumphal event but is no less unnerving, because
it is
the
assertive action of
the Holy Spirit
coming down,
creating a new reality
of the
church, designed
for the Kingdom to come.
This struggle is
first
created by the life of God in human flesh, and it is the
struggle that we take on from Ascension Day
and
continue to try to
establish as
a church today
and everyday.
After the resurrection
and ascension,
at Pentecost
we are
called upon to enter Jesus’ life as our life, to receive our existence
though
him, with him, in him.
This is the
work of the
Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit
is uncontrollable
and we can see that in the words of the
Responsory that we said earlier.
It prods us, pokes us and
moves us to this new
order that Jesus began, not as individuals but
as
closer to one another, drawing
us sometimes to others that we don’t want to or are afraid
of drawing close to.
The Spirit calls us to enter into the struggle of life and love through
God’s life
and love and we are challenged, and like the disciples at Pentecost
often
we are
unnerved and afraid.
So, what is this challenge then?
I believe,
that the
Holy Spirit in Acts 2 challenges our fantasies of power,
replacing it with God’s fantasy of desire, of love and life together. And it
is the
Holy Spirit that creates something startling where the followers of Jesus
are
being connected in a way
that they were often so wary of in Jesus’ ministry
on
earth,
through
intimacy,
through crowds and
through
others joining in. The
disciples were the chosen but they weren’t part of a special club and they
didn’t
receive special privileges...yes, they were physically close to Jesus,
but what we
see after the Ascension and the work of the Spirit at Pentecost, is that
we are
all intimate with God, we
are all equal in Christ.
What we witness
in Acts 2 is God giving wisdom to people
that the disciples
couldn’t control or plan for, it was given in the most intimate of spaces.
Of
voice,
memory, sound, body, land, place,
home
–
my people, my existence,
my mother
tongue,
my life.
This movement of the Holy Spirit into many voices and bodies
is the unfolding of God’s divine fantasy where no matter you come from, what
you look like, the spaces you occupy, the body that you
live
within,
or
the love
you feel,
you are part of the revolutionary intimacy. This is the challenge of
love
and life together, this is the Gospel.
And the miracle of Pentecost calls us to not just take this in but to
declare this
revolutionary intimacy by
going out,
establishing a church, an ecclesia.
As I said,
these texts are for this moment and here is my challenge to you, to us
–
how
do we imagine the mission of the church when we return and listen again to
the
tongues and voices proclaiming God, proclaiming
love and life together?
Acts 2, verses 4-8,
is the epicentre of this revolution and I think it is worth
starting to reacquaint ourselves with this passage.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other
languages, as
the
Spirit gave them ability. Now, there were devout Jews from every nation
under
heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was
bewildered,
because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed
and
astonished,
they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it
that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
These verses are understood in many commentaries to be the defining moment
of the early church. The beginning of a community without
Jesus as flesh but
Jesus as Christ, as
The Triune God.
This a community just like us sitting here
today, but broken open by the sheer act of God
–
and it is in the breaking open,
in the risk and the fear and language that the community is created.
It
is this
risk,
and its corresponding
responsibility
and accountability
where we are called as a
church to tell, to proclaim, to evangelise that another way of loving and
living in
community is possible.
If we are to do mission as a Mission Area, if we are to offer another option
of
what the love of God looks like and feels
like then maybe we need to be less
afraid of our own voices, less tentative of our faith and see how the Holy
Spirit
can work through our own tongues and mouths and words and actions. Maybe
we need to say the Apostles Creed,
listening for those words and
being proud
that it’s what we wrestle with and believe,
maybe we need to pray more
together in meetings, maybe we need to be more intentional when we drop
items off at the food bank,
maybe we need to relearn how to take risks
and talk
about our faith so that
renews and empowers the communities around
us...because
the Holy Spirit can change things but we need to have the courage
to
allow this to happen
–
we need to learn
and relearn
our own language of
evangelism, of the kind of love that is not embarrassing or
you feel you need to
apologise for,
so we can say yes, God is here and we do
not and should not and
cannot,
control that.
The Spirit defies order and control and physics and power. No structure is
safe
from the wind and the fire and nothing is beyond
its touch. And this display of
divine power signals the coming of the Spirit in the reality of human life.
This is
not what the disciples wanted or were praying to God for,
we see that in their
bewilderment
and questioning...and
yet it came and they were faced
with it
and
it was hard.
This is the Holy Spirit on God’s terms,
not confined by human power
of who we like,
or church buildings or
episcopal oversight but by God, waiting
in silence and then
touching and taking hold of tongue, mouth, breath, mind,
heart
and body. This
is
the Holy Spirit that draws people closer to who they
really are, the language of their mothers and of their insides. It is the
language of
love and life together, the language of revolutionary intimacy that as a
church
we are called to
be.
Just imagine what our churches
and our Mission Area
could look like if we were
prepared to
go out...renewed,
refreshed and equipped,
and
let the fire of the
Spirit in...
churches and communities
now.
The action of God at Pentecost
reveals this
world altering
love
in a new situation, a situation that probably scares us a
bit,
that some of us, myself included,
often
find it hard to visualise or believe.
It’s a
kind of love that is not a triumphal event but is no less unnerving, because
it is
the
assertive action of
the Holy Spirit
coming down,
creating a new reality
of the
church, designed
for the Kingdom to come.
This struggle is
first
created by the life of God in human flesh, and it is the
struggle that we take on from Ascension Day
and
continue to try to
establish as
a church today
and everyday.
After the resurrection
and ascension,
at Pentecost
we are
called upon to enter Jesus’ life as our life, to receive our existence
though
him, with him, in him.
This is the
work of the
Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit
is uncontrollable
and we can see that in the words of the
Responsory that we said earlier.
It prods us, pokes us and
moves us to this new
order that Jesus began, not as individuals but
as
closer to one another, drawing
us sometimes to others that we don’t want to or are afraid
of drawing close to.
The Spirit calls us to enter into the struggle of life and love through
God’s life
and love and we are challenged, and like the disciples at Pentecost
often
we are
unnerved and afraid.
So, what is this challenge then?
I believe,
that the
Holy Spirit in Acts 2 challenges our fantasies of power,
replacing it with God’s fantasy of desire, of love and life together. And it
is the
Holy Spirit that creates something startling where the followers of Jesus
are
being connected in a way
that they were often so wary of in Jesus’ ministry
on
earth,
through
intimacy,
through crowds and
through
others joining in. The
disciples were the chosen but they weren’t part of a special club and they
didn’t
receive special privileges...yes, they were physically close to Jesus,
but what we
see after the Ascension and the work of the Spirit at Pentecost, is that
we are
all intimate with God, we
are all equal in Christ.
What we witness
in Acts 2 is God giving wisdom to people
that the disciples
couldn’t control or plan for, it was given in the most intimate of spaces.
Of
voice,
memory, sound, body, land, place,
home
–
my people, my existence,
my mother
tongue,
my life.
This movement of the Holy Spirit into many voices and bodies
is the unfolding of God’s divine fantasy where no matter you come from, what
you look like, the spaces you occupy, the body that you
live
within,
or
the love
you feel,
you are part of the revolutionary intimacy. This is the challenge of
love
and life together, this is the Gospel.
And the miracle of Pentecost calls us to not just take this in but to
declare this
revolutionary intimacy by
going out,
establishing a church, an ecclesia. As I said,
these texts are for this moment and here is my challenge to you, to us
–
how
do we imagine the mission of the church when we return and listen again to
the
tongues and voices proclaiming God, proclaiming
love and life together?
Acts 2, verses 4-8,
is the epicentre of this revolution and I think it is worth
starting to reacquaint ourselves with this passage.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other
languages, as
the
Spirit gave them ability. Now, there were devout Jews from every nation
under
heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was
bewildered,
because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed
and
astonished,
they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it
that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
These verses are understood in many commentaries to be the defining moment
of the early church. The beginning of a community without
Jesus as flesh but
Jesus as Christ, as
The Triune God.
This a community just like us sitting here
today, but broken open by the sheer act of God
–
and it is in the breaking open,
in the risk and the fear and language that the community is created.
It
is this
risk,
and its corresponding
responsibility
and accountability
where we are called as a
church to tell, to proclaim, to evangelise that another way of loving and
living in
community is possible.
If we are to do mission as a Mission Area, if we are to offer another option
of
what the love of God looks like and feels
like then maybe we need to be less
afraid of our own voices, less tentative of our faith and see how the Holy
Spirit
can work through our own tongues and mouths and words and actions. Maybe
we need to say the Apostles Creed,
listening for those words and
being proud
that it’s what we wrestle with and believe,
maybe we need to pray more
together in meetings, maybe we need to be more intentional when we drop
items off at the food bank,
maybe we need to relearn how to take risks
and talk
about our faith so that
renews and empowers the communities around
us...because
the Holy Spirit can change things but we need to have the courage
to
allow this to happen
–
we need to learn
and relearn
our own language of
evangelism, of the kind of love that is not embarrassing or
you feel you need to
apologise for,
so we can say yes, God is here and we do
not and should not and
cannot,
control that.
The Spirit defies order and control and physics and power. No structure is
safe
from the wind and the fire and nothing is beyond
its touch. And this display of
divine power signals the coming of the Spirit in the reality of human life.
This is
not what the disciples wanted or were praying to God for,
we see that in their
bewilderment
and questioning...and
yet it came and they were faced
with it
and
it was hard.
This is the Holy Spirit on God’s terms,
not confined by human power
of who we like,
or church buildings or
episcopal oversight but by God, waiting
in silence and then
touching and taking hold of tongue, mouth, breath, mind,
heart
and body. This
is
the Holy Spirit that draws people closer to who they
really are, the language of their mothers and of their insides. It is the
language of
love and life together, the language of revolutionary intimacy that as a
church
we are called to
be.
Just imagine what our churches
and our Mission Area
could look like if we were
prepared to
go out...renewed,
refreshed and equipped,
and
let the fire of the
Spirit in...
Amen.
More than
£240 million invested by the Church of England to arrest the
decline in worshippers has “not so far” succeeded in turning the
situation around, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.
Figures
presented to General Synod this year show that £248 million was
given out between 2017 and 2020 as part of the church’s “renewal
and reform” programme to attract
new worshippers, support churches in deprived areas and
found new congregations.
My Website www.linkagenet.com
has a large, detailed, very comprehensive page on Christian
religion, with the emphasis upon the Church of England:
www.linkagenet.com/themes/christian-religion.htm It contains
material on the Church Army and specifically Tim Love and Lu
Skerratt-Love, both members of the Church Army Research Unit
https://churcharmy.org.uk/Articles/516246/What_we
_do/Research_Unit/Who_we_are.aspx
In this email, I mention actions of Tim Love and Lu Skerratt-Love
which are cause for concern and which have the potential to give
rise to unfavourable publicity for the Church of England but in the
discussion on the Website page, I stress the wider context.
My Website has very high rankings in Google for a wide range of
search terms. A few very recent results:
Christian religion remembrance redemption 2 / 60,000,000
ethical depth 4 / 137,000,000
The issue which led to the involvement of Tim Love and Lu Skerratt-Love
was the plan to start a forest church on allotments in Sheffield. I
gave reasons for opposing the plan. I included arguments and
evidence to do with safety on the site. My page on Christian
religion gives full details. Tim Love took the decision to block all
emails from me to Lu Skerratt-Love, to himself and to all members of
the Church Army Research Unit. Lu Skerratt-Love contacted the police
and it seems clear that she was demanding that I should remove from
my site material concerning her. My arguments and evidence must have
had some force. The plan to start a forest church on the allotments
was abandoned. The inaugural event planned took place on the scout
field of a nearby Sheffield.
This is far from being the only issue which concerns me. My page
gives many more, including one which is particularly important to
me, the Church of England's involvement in Remembrance Day events,
more exactly, its central role or dominant role in events.
I intend now to extend the page by including new material on the
role of the Archbishop of York. The material will mention you, but
throughout, the tone will be courteous. I see the need to bring a
range of issues which concern the Church of England, which concern
me, into the public domain. For this reason, I've already used the
contact form which is available on your site as a preliminary
action. Although it's made clear that the contact form should not be
used for sensitive matters - and the matters here are certainly
'sensitive,' I see absolutely no need to confine discussion to more
hidden forms of communication. For many years, I was a very active
member of Sheffield Amnesty International. I persuaded the local
group to take a motion to an Annual General Meeting. The case I made
was that many of the practical campaigning techniques of Amnesty
International were demonstrably ineffective. Amongst other things, I
pointed out that so many of the communications allowed the recipient
to receive information about an Amnesty International concern - at
that time, this was mainly by letter. Now, of course, emails are the
method of choice - and to ignore the concern. Every effort should be
made to put matters of concern into the public domain. The proposal
was carried overwhelmingly by vote, as were other motions I asked
the Sheffield group to put forward to the national AGM, on
anti-personnel mines (Amnesty International had no official policy
on these before the motion was carried to oppose their use) and a
motion on human rights abuses in China. I argued that Amnesty
International should give much greater prominence to these in its
campaigning.
This is simply a suggestion, of course, but I think that it would be
useful if you countacted Tim Ling
My Website www.linkagenet.com
has a large, detailed, very comprehensive page on Christian religion,
with the emphasis upon the Church of England:
www.linkagenet.com/themes/christian-religion.htm It contains
material on the Church Army and specifically Tim Love and Lu Skerratt-Love,
both members of the Church Army Research Unit
https://churcharmy.org.uk/Articles/516246/What_we_do/Research_Unit/Who_we_are.aspx
In this email, I mention actions of Tim Love and Lu Skerratt-Love which
are cause for concern and which have the potential to give rise to
unfavourable publicity for the Church of England but in the discussion
on the Website page, I stress the wider context.
My Website has very high rankings in Google for a wide range of search
terms. A few very recent results:
Christian religion remembrance redemption 2 / 60,000,000
ethical depth 4 / 137,000,000
The issue which led to the involvement of Tim Love and Lu Skerratt-Love
was the plan to start a forest church on allotments in Sheffield. I gave
reasons for opposing the plan. I included arguments and evidence to do
with safety on the site. My page on Christian religion gives full
This is far from being the only issue which concerns me. My page
gives many more, including one which is particularly important to
me, the Church of England's involvement in
details. Tim Love took the decision to block all emails from me to Lu
Skerratt-Love, to himself and to all members of the Church Army Research
Unit. Lu Skerratt-Love contacted the police and it seems clear that she
was demanding that I should remove from my site material concerning her.
My arguments and evidence must have had some force. The plan to start a
forest church on the allotments was abandoned. The inaugural event
planned took place on the scout field of a nearby Sheffield church.
Please keep praying for your brothers and sisters in Afghanistan. Your
prayers make an enormous difference to those following Jesus no matter the
cost.
Open Doors raises prayer support for persecuted believers in
Afghanistan.
please pray
Dear Lord, please protect the small number of Christians among the
millions of people who live in Afghanistan, paticularly as they face even
more extreme persecution under the Taliban takeover.
It is impossible to live openly as a Christian in Afghanistan. Leaving
Islam is considered shameful, and Christian converts face dire consequences
if their new faith is discovered. Either they have to flee the country or
they will be killed.
If a Christian’s family discovers they have converted, their family, clan
or tribe has to save its ‘honour’ by disowning the believer, or even killing
them. Christians from a Muslim background can also be sectioned in a
psychiatric hospital, because leaving Islam is considered a sign of
insanity.
Dear Lord, please protect the small number of Christians among the millions
of people who live in Afghanistan, paticularly as they face even more
extreme persecution under the Taliban takeover. Thank You that, despite
their small number, they have discovered the greatest love in the world.
Please keep showing them Your wisdom, mercy and comfort, and give
opportunities for believers to meet together, despite the opposition.
Provide for all citizens under the extremist Taliban regime. Amen.
Sermon: ‘Revolutionary Intimacy’- Lu Skerratt-Love
‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them
now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will
not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare
to you the things that are to come…’ (John 16:12-13)
The passages of scripture that we have heard today, I believe, are texts
for this moment. They are not resigned to the dusty scrolls of the early
church or read out on a Sunday morning simply to be forgotten until next
year, but living and breathing, calling us to attempt to understand our
time, this time…inside of God’s time. They are calling us to life together
into what Willie James Jennings calls, a
‘revolutionary intimacy.’
The possibilities of life together, of a revolutionary intimacy, feel
almost ridiculous to even attempt to conceive right now. The simple idea of
having a life together that is strong enough to reorder our common humanity
against the strong winds of the pandemic, the dangers of nationalism, the
horror of social segregation, the sin of sexism, and the pain of class and
immigration discrimination feels so out of reach it doesn’t even feel worth
considering.
However, I’m talking about a revolutionary intimacy today because what we
see in the truth of the Gospel reading, echoed in Acts ch. 2, at Pentecost,
is worth considering. For, despite our despair, God is strong
enough to bring us into common life, into a common humanity…and that is the
dilemma we face as churches and as individuals; coming to grips with the
situation of what we believe God is constantly unveiling and bringing about
in the world. Something that is worth considering. A vision of love and life
together.
I’m talking about the kind of love and life that hasn’t fully taken hold
yet in the world, the love that asks us to take risks, the love that came in
flesh and blood, the love that releases the prisoners and lets the oppressed
go free. The love that often we cannot see. The love that is here for
eternity. The thing about this love, is that it is so revolutionary, so
world altering that we have struggled to grasp this kind of intimacy in the
past, and we struggle as churches and communities now. The action of God at
Pentecost reveals this world altering love in a new situation, a situation
that probably scares us a bit, that some of us, myself included, often find
it hard to visualise or believe. It’s a kind of love that is not a triumphal
event but is no less unnerving, because it is the assertive action of the
Holy Spirit coming down, creating a new reality of the church, designed for
the Kingdom to come.
This struggle is first created by the life of God in human flesh, and it
is the struggle that we take on from Ascension Day and continue to try to
establish as a church today and everyday. After the resurrection and
ascension, at Pentecost we are called upon to enter Jesus’ life as our life,
to receive our existence though him, with him, in him. This is the work of
the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is uncontrollable and we can see that in the words of the
Responsory that we said earlier. It prods us, pokes us and moves us to this
new order that Jesus began, not as individuals but as closer to one another,
drawing us sometimes to others that we don’t want to or are afraid of
drawing close to. The Spirit calls us to enter into the struggle of life and
love through God’s life and love and we are challenged, and like the
disciples at Pentecost often we are unnerved and afraid.
So, what is this challenge then?
I believe, that the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 challenges our fantasies of
power, replacing it with God’s fantasy of desire, of love and life together.
And it is the Holy Spirit that creates something startling where the
followers of Jesus are being connected in a way that they were often so wary
of in Jesus’ ministry on earth, through intimacy, through crowds and through
others joining in. The disciples were the chosen but they weren’t part of a
special club and they didn’t receive special privileges…yes, they were
physically close to Jesus, but what we see after the Ascension and the work
of the Spirit at Pentecost, is that we are all intimate with God, we are all
equal in Christ.
What we witness in Acts 2 is God giving wisdom to people that the
disciples couldn’t control or plan for, it was given in the most intimate of
spaces. Of voice, memory, sound, body, land, place, home – my people, my
existence, my mother tongue, my life. This movement of the Holy Spirit into
many voices and bodies is the unfolding of God’s divine fantasy where no
matter you come from, what you look like, the spaces you occupy, the body
that you live within, or the love you feel, you are part of the
revolutionary intimacy. This is the challenge of love and life together,
this is the Gospel.
And the miracle of Pentecost calls us to not just take this in but to
declare this revolutionary intimacy by going out, establishing a church, an
ecclesia. As I said, these texts are for this moment and here is my
challenge to you, to us – how do we imagine the mission of the church when
we return and listen again to the tongues and voices proclaiming God,
proclaiming love and life together?
Acts 2, verses 4-8, is the epicentre of this revolution and I think it is
worth starting to reacquaint ourselves with this passage: All of them
were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as
the Spirit gave them ability. Now, there were devout Jews from every nation
under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and
was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language
of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are
speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own
native language?
These verses are understood in many commentaries to be the defining
moment of the early church. The beginning of a community without Jesus as
flesh but Jesus as Christ, as The Triune God. This a community just like us
sitting here today, but broken open by the sheer act of God – and it is in
the breaking open, in the risk and the fear and language that the community
is created. It is this risk, and its corresponding responsibility and
accountability where we are called as a church to tell, to proclaim, to
evangelise that another way of loving and living in community is possible.
If we are to do mission as a Mission Area, if we are to offer another
option of what the love of God looks like and feels like then maybe we need
to be less afraid of our own voices, less tentative of our faith and see how
the Holy Spirit can work through our own tongues and mouths and words and
actions. Maybe we need to say the Apostles Creed, listening for those words
and being proud that it’s what we wrestle with and believe, maybe we need to
pray more together in meetings, maybe we need to be more intentional when we
drop items off at the food bank, maybe we need to relearn how to take risks
and talk about our faith so that renews and empowers the communities around
us…because the Holy Spirit can change things but we need to have the courage
to allow this to happen – we need to learn and relearn our own language of
evangelism, of the kind of love that is not embarrassing or you feel you
need to apologise for, so we can say yes, God is here and we do not and
should not and cannot, control that.
The Spirit defies order and control and physics and power. No structure
is safe from the wind and the fire and nothing is beyond its touch. And this
display of divine power signals the coming of the Spirit in the reality of
human life. This is not what the disciples wanted or were praying to God
for, we see that in their bewilderment and questioning…and yet it came and
they were faced with it and it was hard. This is the Holy Spirit on God’s
terms, not confined by human power of who we like, or church buildings or
episcopal oversight but by God, waiting in silence and then touching and
taking hold of tongue, mouth, breath, mind, heart and body. This is the Holy
Spirit that draws people closer to who they really are, the language of
their mothers and of their insides. It is the language of love and life
together, the language of revolutionary intimacy that as a church we are
called to be.
Just imagine what our churches and our Mission Area could look like if we
were prepared to go out…renewed, refreshed and equipped, and let the fire of
the Spirit in…
Society for the Propagation of the Christian Religion in Foreign Parts
(SPG).
After the plantation was left to the SPG, its slaves were branded on the
chest with the word "society", to remind everyone that these were slaves of
the Lord.
The Codrington Plantations were two sugarcane growing estates on the island
of Barbados. In 1710, they came into the possession of the Church of England
'Society for the Propagation of the Christian Religion in Foreign Parts.'
The plantations were run by managers, nominally supervised by a Board of
trustees of the Society headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and a
committee of Church of England bishops.
The plantations depended upon a regular supply of new slaves from West
Africa. For almost a decade after the 'Society for the Propagation of the
Christian Religion in Foreign Parts' inherited the plantations, slaves were
branded on the chest with the word 'Society.'
The Church of England's acceptance of slavery, with exceptions, wasn't in
the least in conflict with Biblical ethics. After all, Jesus Christ preached
the gospel in a slave-owning society, one in which slaves were flogged,
worked to death and crucified, and never at any time, according to the
Biblical record, declared that slavery was an evil and had to be ended.
St Paul showed such energy in promoting the doctrines of redemption and
complete indifference to slave ownership. His epistle to the Galations,
3:28, in the 'Good News' translation:
'So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free
people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus.'
Was there 'no difference' between the branded slaves and the people who had
the power to flog them on the Codrington Plantations? St Paul was interested
only in the fact - or the fact in his theology - that slaves who accepted
Christ as their saviour and free people (including slave-owners) who
accepted Christ as their saviour were in this respect - this all-important
respect, according to him - that their sins were forgiven. The sins of the
two groups would be very different, of course, but not different in every
way. The sins of the slaves might include, in this despicable theology,
swearing, the sins of the slave owners might also include swearing. There's
no record of St Paul, or Jesus Christ, claiming that flogging a slave or
breaking up a family of slaves - selling the parents to one new owner and
the children to a different new owner - was a grave sin.
What of the people who campaigned to end the evils of slavery? Were there
two kinds of anti-slavery campaigner, the campaigners whose sins were
forgiven, and the campaigners whose sins were unforgiven? The verse John
3:16 states that whoever believes in Jesus Christ will not perish but have
'everlasting life.'
Quakers played a very important part in ending the evils of slavery, but
Quakers are without the all-important belief in Jesus Christ.
Evangelicals and many other Christians would be confident that the Quaker
reformers didn't qualify for eternal life. William Wilberforce, in contrast,
was an evangelical Christian and did qualify.
William Wilberforce's contribution to the ending of slavery was very, very
important, although believers in the Bible doctrine of salvation will
obviously regard his contribution as far less important than the fact that
he accepted Christ as his Lord and Saviour.
Wilberforce had some serious faults - although believers in the Bible
doctrine of salvation will regard them as unimportant.
The radical writer
William Cobbett pointed out that Wilberforce campaigned for slaves but not
for workers in Britain. He wrote, ' Never have you done one single act, in favour of the labourers of this
country.
Wilberforce opposed the granting of the right to workers to organise and
join unions. In 1799, he spoke in favour of the Combination Act, which
suppressed union activities. He called unions 'a general disease in our
society.'
Very much concerned by what he thought of as the degeneracy of British
society, Wilberforce campaigned against 'the torrent of profaneness that every day makes more rapid
advances. He considered this issue as important as the abolition of the
slave trade. At his prompting, and the prompting of a Bishop, King George
III was requested by the Archbishop of Canterbury to issue in 1787 the Proclamation for the
Discouragement of Vice, which urged the prosecution of those guilty of
'excessive
drinking, blasphemy, profane swearing and cursing, lewdness, profanation of
the Lord's Day, and other dissolute, immoral or disorderly practices.' To
this end, he founded the 'Society for the Suppression of Vice.'
For nearly a decade, Codrington officials tried to reduce escapes by
branding all slaves on their chests. In the end, though, the chief deterrent
was the lash,
plus, at times, an iron collar
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 the
Archbishop of Canterbury and a committee of
Church of England
bishops. The plantations were reliant on regular supply of new slaves
from
West Africa
The radical writer
William Cobbett was among those who attacked what they saw as
Wilberforce's hypocrisy in campaigning for better working conditions for
slaves while British workers lived in terrible conditions at home.[157]
"Never have you done one single act, in favour of the labourers of this
country", he wrote.[158]
Critics noted Wilberforce's support of the suspension of
habeas corpus in 1795 and his votes for Pitt's "Gagging Bills",
which banned meetings of more than 50 people, allowing speakers to be
arrested and imposing harsh penalties on those who attacked the
constitution.[159][160]
Wilberforce was opposed to giving
workers' rights to organise into unions, in 1799 speaking in favour of
the
Combination Act, which suppressed trade union activity throughout
Britain, and calling unions "a general disease in our society".[159][161]
Very much concerned by what he thought of as the degeneracy of British
society, Wilberforce campaigned against 'the torrent of profaneness that every day makes more rapid
advances. He considered this issue as important as the abolition of the
slave trade. At his prompting, and the prompting of a Bishop, King George
III was requested by the Archbishop of Canterbury to issue in 1787 the Proclamation for the
Discouragement of Vice, which urged the prosecution of those guilty of
'excessive
drinking, blasphemy, profane swearing and cursing, lewdness, profanation of
the Lord's Day, and other dissolute, immoral or disorderly practices.' To
this end, he founded the 'Society for the Suppression of Vice.'
profanation of the Lord's Day, and other dissolute, immoral, or
disorderly practices".[192]
Greeted largely with public indifference, Wilberforce sought to increase its
impact by mobilising public figures to the cause,[193]
and by founding the
Society for the Suppression of Vice.[193][194]
This and other societies in which Wilberforce was a prime mover, such as the
Proclamation Society, mustered support for the prosecution of those who had
been charged with violating relevant laws, including brothel keepers,
distributors of pornographic material, and those who did not respect the
Sabbath.[159]
Years later, the writer and clergyman
Sydney Smith criticised Wilberforce for being more interested in the
sins of the poor than those of the rich
Good News Translation
So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free
people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28
I'd be grateful if you could bring this email to the attention of Pete
Wilcox. A letter of mine was recently published in 'The Star' (January 28,
2019) on the subject of the Church of England's role in Remembrance Sunday
commemoration events. The letter mentioned the Bishop. I think the issues
raised are important ones, and I've now begun to bring them to the attention
of a wider public - Church of England clergy and others outside the city.
My Website www.linkagenet.com has
pages on a wide range of subjects, including the Church of England. It
includes a brief profile of Pete Wilcox. The site does have very high Google
rankings for a wide range of search terms. A few recent examples:
ethical depth 4 / 102,000,000
religion ideology honesty aphorisms 4 / 242,000
(I've an interest in short forms as well as extended forms. I've contributed
to the short literary form of the aphorism - but not to the short form
available at 'Twitter.')
My Website
www.linkagenet.com has pages on a wide range of subjects, including
the Church of England. The site does have very high Google rankings for
a wide range of search terms. A few recent examples:
(I've an interest in short forms as well as
extended forms. I've contributed to the short literary form of the
aphorism - but not to the short form available at 'Twitter.')
contains extended criticism of the Church of
England and general criticism of Christianity. It includes an
examination of the Church of England's role in Remembrance Sunday
commemorations.
contains extended criticism of the Church of England and includes an
examination of the Church of England's role in Remembrance Sunday
commemorations. If you do look at the page, I think it's likely that you
will find it a challenging one.
The Website does have very high Google rankings for a wide range of search
terms. A few current examples:
ethical depth 4 / 102,000,000
religion ideology honesty aphorisms 4 / 242,000
(I've an interest in short forms as well as extended forms. I've contributed
to the short literary form of the aphorism - but not to the short form
available at 'Twitter.')
And a few examples from other spheres:
Israel Islamism Palestinian ideology 5 / 1,520,000
metaphor theme 5 / 53,300,000
poetry line length 2 / 42,600,000
Rilke Kafka 1 / 1,560,000
green ideology immature 9 / 406, 000
structures plant protection support 6 / 330,000
gardening beds boards 6 / 41,000,000
According to the British Social Attitudes Survey, affiliation with the
Church of England (C of E) has never been lower in all age groups: it
amounts to only 2% of young adults.
What can justify the C of E's dominant role in Remembrance Sunday
commemorations, then? I attend the event in the city centre or at Weston
Park. Like ones throughout the country, it takes the form of a C of E
service.
There are many, many prayers and after each one, this is the expected
response (as given in the Order of Service booklet):
All Hear our prayer
What is a non-believer or a believer in another religion to do? Mumble
insincerely? Stay silent? Should non-believers pretend to believe in the
power of prayer, or in the Trinity - the doctrine that there's God the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (also in the booklet)? We attend to
remember the fallen, to show gratitude for their sacrifice, to show
gratitude and appreciation for present members of the armed forces, not to
witness a C of E service.
Sometimes, a decline in support for an organization is unfair, but not in
this case. There are and have been many, many exceptional C of E members but
the catalogue of C of E failings is long.
Edward Wightman was the last person in this country to be burned alive for
heresy. He had denied the Trinity and questioned the status of the Church of
England. The C of E still remembers and celebrates John Calvin, who
denounced Michael Servetus (also burned alive after denying the Trinity).
The Bishop of Sheffield's doctoral thesis was on the subject of John Calvin!
The C of E remembers and celebrates to this day St Augustine, who actually
taught that unbaptized babies are in hell.
A large number of Anglicans believe in hell, of course, although not for
unbaptized babies. This is the view of the C of E conservative evangelical
group 'Church Society.' (There are obvious implications for the fallen and
for those who attend Remembrance events.)
' ... all people are under the judgement of God and his righteous anger
burns against them. Unless a person is reconciled to God they are under His
condemnation and His just judgement against them is that they will be
separated from Him forever in Hell.' The Society claims this is 'clearly
stated in the 39 Articles of the Church of England.'
I understand that the Bishop of Sheffield has evangelical beliefs, with a
conservative tendency. Perhaps he may be able to comment on this doctrine,
perhaps on John Calvin as well. And does he believe that C of E Remembrance
services for the general public can be defended?
'... I will refer to the case of a pupil of mine, who
sought me out in the following circumstances. His father was quarrelling
with his mother and was also inclined to be a “collaborator”; his elder
brother had been killed in the German offensive of 1940 and this young man,
with a sentiment somewhat primitive but generous, burned to avenge him.
His mother was living alone with him, deeply afflicted by
the semi-treason of his father and by the death of her eldest son, and her
one consolation was in this young man. But he, at this moment, had the
choice between going to England to join the Free French Forces or of staying
near his mother and helping her to live.
He fully realised that this woman
lived only for him and that his disappearance – or perhaps his death – would
plunge her into despair. He also realised that,
concretely and in fact, every action he performed on his mother’s behalf
would be sure of effect in the sense of aiding her to live, whereas anything
he did in order to go and fight would be an ambiguous action which might
vanish like water into sand and serve no purpose. For instance, to set out
for England he would have to wait indefinitely in a Spanish camp on the way
through Spain; or, on arriving in England or in Algiers he might be put into
an office to fill up forms.
Consequently, he found himself confronted by two very
different modes of action; the one concrete, immediate, but directed towards
only one individual; and the other an action addressed to an end infinitely
greater, a national collectivity, but for that very reason ambiguous – and
it might be frustrated on the way.
At the same time, he was hesitating between two kinds of
morality; on the one side the morality of sympathy, of personal devotion
and, on the other side, a morality of wider scope but of more debatable
validity. He had to choose between those two. What could help him to choose?
Could the Christian doctrine?
No. Christian doctrine says: Act with charity, love your
neighbour, deny yourself for others, choose the way
which is hardest, and so forth. But which is the harder road? To whom does
one owe the more brotherly love, the patriot or the mother? Which is the
more useful aim, the general one of fighting in and for the whole community,
or the precise aim of helping one particular person to live? Who can give an
answer to that a priori? No one. Nor is it given in any ethical scripture.
The Kantian ethic says, Never regard another as a means,
but always as an end. Very well; if I remain with my mother, I shall be
regarding her as the end and not as a means: but by the same token I am in
danger of treating as means those who are fighting on my behalf; and the
converse is also true, that if I go to the aid of the combatants I shall be
treating them as the end at the risk of treating my mother as a means. If
values are uncertain, if they are still too abstract to determine the
particular, concrete case under consideration, nothing remains but to trust
in our instincts.
That is what this young man tried to do; and when I saw
him he said, “In the end, it is feeling that counts; the direction in which
it is really pushing me is the one I ought to choose. If I feel that I love
my mother enough to sacrifice everything else for her – my will to be
avenged, all my longings for action and adventure then I stay with her. If,
on the contrary, I feel that my love for her is not enough, I go.”
But how does one estimate the strength of a feeling? The
value of his feeling for his mother was determined precisely by the fact
that he was standing by her. I may say that I love a certain friend enough
to sacrifice such or such a sum of money for him, but I cannot prove that
unless I have done it. I may say, “I love my mother enough to remain with
her,” if actually I have remained with her. I can only estimate the strength
of this affection if I have performed an action by which it is defined and
ratified. But if I then appeal to this affection to justify my action, I
find myself drawn into a vicious circle.
Dr Rowan Williams says the apology is 'necessary'
There were individual members of the Church of England who
opposed the slave trade, although usually not at all actively. The
Church of England as a body was completely inactive. It was not
until 2006 that the Church of England voted to apologise to the
descendants of the slave trade. During the debate, the fact was
mentioned that when
the emancipation of slaves took place in 1833, compensation
was paid not to the slaves but to their owners. The information was
given that the Bishop of Exeter and three colleagues were paid
nearly £13,000 compensation for 665 slaves. This compensation
was a very great sum in current values.
The Bible authors neglected almost entirely the issue of cruelty to animals.
Soon after the slaves in the British empire were freed, bull-baiting and
bear-baiting were made illegal. The frenzied attacks of the dogs on tethered
bulls and bears in cities, towns and villages which had never bothered the
vast majority of the population, including the vast majority of Church of
England clergy, was at an end.
From Schopenhauer's 'Parerga and Paralipomena,' the chapter on 'Religion:'
'I heard from a reliable source that, when asked by a society for the
protection of animals to preach a sermon against cruelty to them, a
Protestant clergyman replied that, with the best will in the world, he could
not do so because in this matter religion gave him no support.'
The Church of England has voted to apologise to the descendants of
victims of the slave trade.
An amendment "recognising the damage done" to those enslaved was
backed overwhelmingly by the General Synod.
Debating the motion, Rev Simon Bessant, from Pleckgate,
Blackburn, described the Church's involvement in the trade, saying:
"We were at the heart of it."
The amendment was supported by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan
Williams and Archbishop of York John Sentamu.
Dr Williams said the apology was "necessary".
He said: "The body of Christ is not just a body that exists at
any one time, it exists across history and we therefore share the
shame and the sinfulness of our predecessors and part of what we can
do, with them and for them in the body of Christ, is prayer for
acknowledgement of the failure that is part of us not just of some
distant 'them'."
Branding irons
During an emotional meeting of the Church's governing body in
London, Rev Blessant explained the involvement of the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in the slave trade.
The organisation owned the Codrington Plantation in Barbados,
where slaves had the word "society" branded on their backs with a
red-hot iron, he said.
In 2006, the Church of England voted to apologise to the descendants of
victims of the slave trade.
An amendment "recognising the damage done" to those enslaved was
backed overwhelmingly by the General Synod.
During the debate, Rev Simon Blessant said, in connection with the Church
of England and the slave trade, 'We were at the heart of it.' He gave
information about the involvement in the slave trade of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which owned the Codrington
Plantations.
These were two sugarcane growing estates on the island
of Barbados. In 1710, they came into the possession of the Church of England
'Society for the Propagation of the Christian Religion in Foreign Parts.'
The plantations were run by managers, nominally supervised by a Board of
trustees of the Society headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and a
committee of Church of England bishops.
The plantations depended upon a regular supply of new slaves from West
Africa. For almost a decade after the 'Society for the Propagation of the
Christian Religion in Foreign Parts' inherited the plantations, slaves were
branded on the chest with the word 'Society.'
"The Remembrance Sunday Service at the Cenotaph has always contained
prayers and readings from scripture, and the fact that it continues to be so
central a part of our public life would suggest that it is meeting people's
pastoral needs," said the Venerable Peter Eagles, archdeacon for the army.
The church's director of communications was more forthright, accusing the
National Secular Society of a "rather sad" attempt at seeking publicity.
"As the nation prepares to collectively remember the sacrifice of those
who laid down their lives, it is both misjudged and misguided for the
National Secular Society to attempt to politicise Remembrance Sunday for
their own ends," said Arun Arora.
"As millions of people prepare to gather at churches and war memorials
for remembrance services led by clergy this Sunday, they will be accompanied
by those on active service who will join services led by chaplains in the
field. To see the National Secular Society – and its barely 10,000 members –
hijack this time of solemn remembrance is rather sad."
christ's college Michael Dormandy
Michael Dormandy has published a secondary school Latin textbook and a
critical edition, with translation and commentary of a letter, the
Epistola Fundamentalis by the
seventeenth century Roman Catholic priest, Bartholomaeus Holzhauser.
Michael Dormandy has also been working on 'scribal habits in the Greek
majuscule pandects.'
Bartholomaeus Holzhauser is, of course, the celebrated interpreter of the
Book of the Apocolypse. According to his interpretation, the 7 stars and the
7 candlesticks which were 'seen' by St John signify 7 periods in Church
history. To these periods correspond the 7 churches of Asia Minor, the 7
days of creation, according to Genesis, the 7 ages before Christ and the 7
gifts of the Holy Spirit.
He interpreted the book of the Apocalypse as follows: The seven stars and
the seven candlesticks seen by St John signify seven periods of the history
of the Church, from its foundation to its consummation at the final
judgment. To these periods correspond the seven churches of
Asia Minor, the seven days of the Mosaic record of creation, the seven
ages before Christ, and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. Since, he
claimed, all life is developed in seven stages, so God has fixed seven
periods for regeneration.
I prepared a critical edition of the Epistola Fundamentalis by
the seventeenth century priest, Bartholomaeus Holzhauser.
working on scribal habits in the Greek majuscule pandects
According to the British Social Attitudes Survey, affiliation with the
Church of England (C of E) has never been lower in all age groups, amounting
to only 2% of young adults.
What can justify the C of E's dominant role in Remembrance Sunday
commemorations, then? I attend the commemoration in the city centre or at
Weston Park. Like ones throughout the country, they take the form of a C of
E service.
There are many, many prayers and after each one, this is the expected
response (as given in the Order of Service booklet):
All Hear our prayer
What is a non-believer or a believer in another religion to do? Mumble
insincerely? Stay silent? Should non-believers pretend to believe in the
power of prayer, or in the Trinity - the doctrine that there's God the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (also in the booklet)? We attend
to remember the fallen, to show gratitude for their sacrifice, to show
gratitude and appreciation for present members of the armed forces, not to
witness a C of E service.
Sometimes, a decline in support is unfair, but not in this case. There are
and have been many, many exceptional C of E members but the catalogue of C
of E failings is long.
Edward Wightman was the last person in this country to be burned alive for
heresy. He had denied the Trinity and questioned the status of the Church of
England. The C of E still remembers and celebrates John Calvin, who
denounced Michael Servetus (burned alive after denying the Trinity).
The Bishop of Sheffield's doctoral thesis was on the subject of John Calvin!
The C of E also remembers and celebrates to this day St Augustine, who
actually taught that unbaptized babies are in hell.
A very large number of Anglicans believe in hell, of course, although not
for unbaptized babies. This is the view of the influential C of E group
'Church Society.' There are obvious implications for the fallen and for
those who attend Remembrance events.
' ... all people are under the judgement of God and his righteous anger
burns against them. Unless a person is reconciled to God they are under His
condemnation and His just judgement against them is that they will be
separated from Him forever in Hell.' The Society claims this is 'clearly
stated in the 39 Articles of the Church of England.'
he Church of England is facing a generational catastrophe with only 2% of
young adults identifying with it, while seven out of 10 under-24s say they
have no religion, research reveals.
C of E affiliation is at a record low among all age groups, and has
halved since 2002, according to the
British Social Attitudes survey. Far fewer actually attend church
services on a regular basis.
Meanwhile, the trend towards a secular society has increased over recent
years. The BSA survey found that 52% of people had no religion in 2017
compared with 41% in 2002.
.
Mission
Welcoming all, Following Jesus, Growing together.
We are a friendly and inclusive church, practising a traditional
style and progressive teaching.
We seek to grow in Jesus’ truth through service and bible study.
We seek to grow as a community, coming together in Jesus’ name.
What is the Central Mission Partnership? Mission Partnerships
are the Diocese’s policy for developing the Mission and Ministry of
parishes at a time of shortage of full time clergy. On average there are
only enough paid clergy to provide two for every three parishes. The
solution is not to amalgamate parishes (as seems to be the response of
Roman Catholic and Methodist churches faced with the same problem) but
to find ways of working together. This will be much more than sharing
clergy and other ministers. It should lead to learning from each other,
combining resources on joint projects, and lending resources of people
to parishes which need help. To make this work we will need to get to
know the other parishes, through social events, joint services and
shared study programmes. As an example, one suggested project that is
under development is to organise lunches during the school holidays for
the many children who qualify for free lunches during term time. This
has been explored by the Children’s Ministers in the Partnership working
together.
Most Mission Partnerships will be between two parishes, some for
three but ours, the Central Mission Partnership, is for four.
“I’m really sorry, I have terrible resting snob face”, the Reverend
Andrew Hammond laughs as he poses for our photographer. This might not be
something many people expect to hear from the Chaplain of King’s College,
but Hammond is not one to be weighed down by people’s expectations.
This term, he has been putting Cambridge’s most recognisable building to
new uses – hosting
“radically
inclusive” services in King’s Chapel in a departure from its usual fare
of choral evensongs and televised carol broadcasts. “King’s is associated
with such an amazingly dignified, formal, beautiful… kind of liturgy and
worship”, he tells me, as we sit down for tea in his spacious flat in
King’s, “and it has a very particular appeal, and students do come – but
there wasn’t really anything else much on offer.”
This observation led to Critical Mass: three services held this term with
the aim of creating “inclusive spaces” for LGBT+ christians to “encounter
God”. Hammond describes them as “very different” to typical King’s services:
the congregation sits on rugs on the Chapel’s under-heated floor, with “what
you could naughtily call ‘spa music’ just doodling away in the background.”
“I wanted to do something that was very, very different, but still
cohered with the general values of the place”, Hammond explains, “which very
much are about welcome and inclusion and all the rest of it, but it’s very
hard to articulate that in choral evensong”.
Did he feel as if there was an absence of explicit inclusivity in
Cambridge Christianity? “I think that’s true actually, yeah.” Although he is
“pretty sure” that most chaplains and deans here “would be pretty
affirming”, he feels like now is the time for him to be “a little bit more
vocal”.
How, then, does Hammond feel about the landscape of Christianity in
Cambridge? “I’m slightly resistant to characterising it as liberal versus
conservative”, he begins, before admitting that he does worry that “the
sound that people hear of the Christian voice in this town or in this
University” tends to be “rather puritanical”.
“I’ve been ordained for ten years, but I’ve spoken freely in any context
except in the pulpit about how I think the teaching should change,
particularly on sexuality and gender identity. I finally decided to nail my
colours to the mast at the beginning of this term.”
“It’s the quality of the love that matters between people, not the
gender of the lovers”
I ask about the sermon in question, in which he declared: “In the end,
for me, it’s the quality of the love that matters between people, not the
gender of the lovers.” He beams when recounting the “quite extraordinary”
response people had to it, with “people of all ages” going beyond “the
normal ‘thank you, lovely service vicar’”, instead “seizing my arm and
saying ‘Thank you for saying that, it needed to be said.’”
But it is apparently still not something that can be said in a Cambridge
pulpit without raising some eyebrows — he was visited by some members of the
Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU) shortly afterwards “to have
disputations”.
“It was done in a very friendly way, it was extremely constructive”, he
says, smiling, but ultimately “we didn’t agree”. “They’re trying to save my
soul, I think”, he chuckles.
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I ask how he feels about CICCU generally. The image they project tends to
be of a relatively conservative Christianity – does he see that as an issue?
He says it “worries” him: “On the whole, yes, it’s a rather sort of
conservative with a little ‘c’ and evangelical organisation. It would
describe itself as very much Bible-based, as though other Christians
weren’t. But, at the same time, every individual you’ll meet is as nice as
pie. And that’s not a fake – they are nice, it’s just they’ve got some views
that can give you the heeby-jeebies.
“What really gets me, is the effect that it can all have on people
who don’t feel like they fit this mould”
“There is the particular kind of theology and ethics that they have,
which, are actually, for all that they look terribly numerous, are a
minority position in the Church of England. The other thing, which is what
really gets me, is the effect that it can all have on people who don’t feel
like they fit this mould of a certain kind of human being.”
This is clearly something Hammond feels strongly about, and his
frustration is evident when he tells me: “I’ve had people on my sofa weeping
as a result of their tangle with some people or some events from that part
of Christian life in Cambridge.”
Hammond emailed me a couple of days after the interview to expand on
these concerns, adding: “there are indeed occasions when people are hurt,
upset and potentially damaged – especially when it comes to issues of
sexuality and gender. It can cause depression, anxiety, self-harm and
sometimes even worse.”
He also expands on what he terms his “more outspoken stance on inclusion
and acceptance”, and how it is not simply “giving another Christian point of
view”, but is “more about paying loving attention to other people and to the
way they express their love and identity”.
The role of a chaplain in college welfare support is something that comes
up a lot in our conversation, and I ask Hammond about what he considers a
chaplain’s pastoral responsibilities to be.
“I think some chaplains don’t want to be terribly accessible all the
time”
“It’s easier for me because I’m single, which means I can live in the
heart of college, and be accessible – but I think some chaplains don’t want
to be terribly accessible all the time.”
Should they be? “Well it’s not for me to dictate, but I just get the
sense that a lot of students are pretty fragile, and I don’t meant that in a
pejorative sense at all. They are ill-served by schools, who just stick them
through this sausage machine of A-level achievement, and then they’re shot
out into Cambridge.
“I just think that whatever is possible to provide by way of support is
really really important”, he adds. He makes sure that everyone has his
mobile number – “In the first week, I had three calls in the middle of the
night.
“It’s all joined up: it’s not like I do chapel sometimes, and chaplain
other times: it’s absolutely joined up. The kind of Christianity that I am
wanting to talk about and to live out makes sense of that”, he explains.
Eventually, and inevitably, we reach his arguably the biggest moment of
his Cambridge career so far – singing onstage with drag queen Courtney Act
at last term’s King’s Affair. He recalls the night fondly as “huge fun”: an
organiser knew he was a “huge fan” of RuPaul’s Drag Race, so told
him Act would be performing. “All I said was that in my wildest dreams, it
would be great fun to get on stage and introduce her”, but they had other
plans.
At one point it was suggested the two do a duet of ‘Physical’, “which
would have been an outrage”, he hoots, “but I was so terrified of getting it
wrong”. In the end, it was decided he would sing a verse of ‘Amazing Grace’.
“I had my white summer cassock on, so I was dressed like the pope”, he
says, grinning, “and then she said: ‘I think there’s room for more than one
man in a dress up here.’
“It was huge fun in itself, because I used to be an opera singer, so I
like audiences and showing off”, he enthuses. But as much as he had a
wonderful time, it was the overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic
student
reaction that really touched him. “Isn’t it amazing, just a little thing
like that.”
Does he think it demonstrates the need for more spaces in Cambridge where
things like that could happen, rather than it being a May Week one-off?
“It depends what it would look like in other contexts, because if it
becomes compulsory for Cambridge chaplains to sing with a drag queen...”, at
which point he breaks off laughing.
“But I would hope it made anybody who’s an overt ambassador for the
Church and for the Christian faith in Cambridge colleges to think: ‘well,
what am I doing?’”
Adam’s Fall: A Meditation on the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin
According to the Gospels, one evening Jesus and his disciples were
crossing the
Sea of Galilee in a boat, when a furious storm came up, with the waves
breaking over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the
stern, sleeping on a cushion, but the disciples woke him and said to him,
"Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"[1]
The Gospel of Mark then states that:
He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be
still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to
them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" And they were
filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that
even the wind and the sea obey him?"[2]
'In Sheffield wages are better, and the external state of the workers
also. On the other hand, certain branches of work are to be noticed
here, because of their extraordinarily injurious influence upon health
... By far the most unwholesome work is the grinding of knife-blades and
forks, which, especially when done with a dry stone, entails certain
early death. The unwholesomeness of this work lies in part in the bent
posture, in which chest and stomach are cramped; but especially in the
quantity of sharp-edged metal dust particles freed in the cutting, which
fill the atmosphere, and are necessarily inhaled.'
On the Sunday nearest to 22 February, I attend the wreath laying ceremony in Endcliffe Park to remember the courage and sacrifice of the
crew of the American Air Force plane which crashed in the park on
22 February, 1944. I don't attend the service at St Augustine's Church, not
far from the crash site, as I'm not a Christian believer, or a believer in
any religion. On Remembrance Sunday, I do attend a Church of England
service, the one at Barker's Pool in the city centre or at Weston
Park. There are similar services throughout the country, of course. These
events are always moving and worthwhile, but that's despite the involvement
of the Church of England. Its role in these Remembrance Sunday events
involves great difficulties, surely.
The people who gather on Remembrance Sunday,
members of the Church of England, people who belong to other Christian
denominations, people who follow other religions, people with no religious
belief at all, people with no interest in religion, gather to remember those
who sacrificed their lives in war. Their views were just as varied.
In the cemeteries of the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission, an attempt has been made to recognize this important fact. The
gravestones have a religious symbol, most often the Christian cross, but not
in the case of followers of other religions and people with no religious
belief.
On Remembrance Sunday, the people gather here in
Sheffield and throughout the country,
On Remembrance Sunday, here in Sheffield people
gather to remember the fallen at Barker's Pool in the city centre, at Weston
Park attend the event at
On Remembrance Sunday, I do attend a Church of
England service, the one held at Barker's Pool in the city centre or the one
held in Weston Park. There are similar services throughout the country, of
course.
The order of service includes prayers, many, many
prayers and the order of service
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, in the
belief that God will hear the prayer? This shouldn't be expected and
shouldn't be asked.
The order of service at Weston Park which was used last year, and
throughout the country, contains this
' ... through Jesus Christ our risen Redeemer'
The work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission 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 people of Jewish faith. 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 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 Christians - at least nominal Christians - believers in
other religions, or nominal believers in other religions, and non-believers.
But in services throughout the country, on Remembrance Sunday, no attempt is
made to distinguish between Christians and non-Christians. When the people
who attend are expected to give the responses, what are people who aren't
Christian believers to do? What are followers of other religions, Sikhs,
Jews or others to do? Stay silent? Mumble insincerely? Asking people or
expecting people to show belief when they have no belief shouldn't be
expected.
After each prayer, spoken by the member of the
Church of England clergy leading the service, the response which is
expected is 'hear our prayer.' This is the response which is expected
from all the people present, believers and non-believers alike:
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, in the
belief that God will hear the prayer? This shouldn't be expected and
shouldn't be asked.
The order of service at Weston Park which was used last year, and
throughout the country, contains this
' ... through Jesus Christ our risen Redeemer'
What are the Jews, the Moslems, the agnostics, the atheists and the
others who are present to make of this? Is this an event they can
witness and take part in wholeheartedly? People who come to the
event to show gratitude, to remember and to commemorate those who
gave their lives should be able to take part wholeheartedly, without
any inner reservations.
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 in need of replacement, what can replace
them? This involves difficulties, but they can be overcome. 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 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.
Alternatively, 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, more important to committed
Christians as well.
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. Armed Forces Day is held in late June. Moving the event from
June to Remembrance Sunday, to follow the Remembrance event, would make
sense. 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. Members of the armed forces
would take part in both events. Their presence is very important.
Last year, I attended the Remembrance Sunday
service in Weston Park. As always, I found the religious emphasis
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 upon
theology and ecclesiastical matters. A Remembrance Sunday event wasn't
the place for a clergyman to give his own partial interpretation of
historical events, presenting it as obvious or fact, but this is
what he did do.
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 the claim that the First World War had been
a futile war. Many historians have argued against this claim and have
given arguments and evidence that the claim is mistaken. One of them is
the historian Gary Sheffield, in his book 'Forgotten Victory.' He
writes, 'The First World War was a tragic conflict, but it was neither
futile nor meaningless. Just as in the struggles against Napoleon and,
later, Hitler, it was a war that Britain had to fight and had to win ...
against a background of revolutionary changes, the British army
underwent a bloody learning curve and emerged as a formidable force. in
1918 this much-maligned army won the greatest series of victories in
British military history.' The Germans had invaded France and Belgium,
as they did before the Second World War, and had occupied large areas.
Liberation of the occupied territory was a main British aim during the
war.
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. In individual
cases, this may happen, but this is also a possibility: 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. A Church of England
service doesn't meet their needs.
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 vast 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 at its liberation by the British army.
The people who do such people important work for Remembrance - the
people involved in the commemoration of the sacrifice of the Mi Amigo
crew, the people who do work for the Royal British Legion, for example -
don't need to involve themselves in these issues, which are difficult
and controversial, unless, of course, they want to. Although these
proposals are to do with Remembrance, they are only one aspect of
Remembrance.
No reply is expected to this message.
I’m a member of Walkley Bank Allotment Society. Today, I contacted the Secretary of the Society to express some concerns of mine about LWCG, with arguments and evidence. I also conveyed these concerns to another committee member of the Society. Amongst the issues I raised – according to a member of the ‘Garden Church,’ LWCG – one or more members of LWCG – gave permission to the Garden Church to hold services on Sundays in the LWCG plot. Allotments are, of course, places to grow food plants and other plants, not at all places for Christian evangelism. I made my position clear – I think that for a variety of reasons, WBAS should no longer support or be associated with LWCG.
Best Wishes,
Paul Hurt