You have to ask whether, if we had a different constitution, this would be acceptable. Hard to imagine an American representative doing this and it being met with a shrug.
New favourite genre of tweets is 'people don't believe Oxbridge reading lists are real and some make a decent stab at finishing them.'
Yes, this is how things work at an elite university, and the premium we put on Oxbridge degrees is justified because of the skills it teaches.
Complaints about reading one book a week as "too much" for undergrads blows my mind.
I read 6-8 books, maybe a dozen journal articles, and wrote c.4000 words of essays every week, and I wasn't even trying for a First.
If you're doing that little, join a book club. Far cheaper.
This is deeply unedifying. You get a reminder to renew your railcard by email. You don’t have an automatic right to reduced travel because you’re a particular age; you need to buy a railcard. And it’s your responsibility to look after your documents. Some people need to grow up!
@ElmbridgeLibDem
@brucemcd23
@HCRCMary
It’s dense housing, on a brownfield site, next to a railway station, at a time of national housing shortages. It is EXACTLY what is needed. Would we really prefer 97 new homes on a greenfield site in the suburbs?
@SimpGanassi
Make airplane wings. Plus a big oil refinery at Elsemere Port, but I suspect Airbus plays a pretty big role! Technically over the border in Wales, but most of the staff will probably live in Cheshire and south Lancs.
One of my most cancellable opinions is that we should prioritise public transport where it can run at 15-, 10-, or 5-minute intervals, even if it’s at the expense of other services. Not many people will use a bus regularly that runs every 30 minutes.
Unbelievable. Harrow Green Party going to bat for the carpark at a big Tesco, instead of supporting a development with 559 flats, 32% of which will be affordable housing.
The figures are staggering for the proposed development on the Harrow Tesco site:
559 new flats across 10 blocks up to 15-storeys high, 155 residential parking spaces, a 20% smaller Tesco store & 1/3 less customer parking
@NoToTescoTowers
@WembleyMatters
@yrieithydd
My point is that swearing allegiance is important: to the king in our system or the constitution in a republic. Not because these things don’t change, but because it symbolizes the fact that power is exercised peacefully and according to law.
I enjoy the BBC’s ‘Real Dictators,’ but saying that Oliver Cromwell ‘didn’t have a conventional background for a revolutionary,’ and then using words like ‘gentry not aristocracy,’ ‘middle class,’ ‘prosperous,’ and ‘university’?
Those are EXACTLY the people who make revolutions!
Christians don't believe people are units or numbers because our God became one of us and took the form of a despised, convicted criminal.
Matthew Parris lays bare the contrast between this way of seeing the world, and the alternative where we "cannot afford" some people.
Matthew Parris says the quiet part out loud about euthanasia: “we simply cannot afford extreme senescence or desperate infirmity for as many such individuals as our society is producing.”
And if you want preparation for writing about 2-3000 words a week in a few hours as part of your day job, writing 1-2 essays a week is pretty good practice!
#ThisIsWhatAPriestLooksLike
Two priests and a bishop, actually. Proud to share my ministry with my wonderful wife
@mthr_jo
and deeply blessed by the ministry that she and other women priests have brought to our church for many years. And shout out to our area bishop, +Smitha!
I wasn’t going to wade into the ‘Rave in the Nave’ thing, but Matt makes a good point. Very often, what we consider fits within the requirements of Canon F16 also fits very neatly into what late middle age, middle class people think counts as good taste.
It was in translation and it was in the morning, rather than the vigil (as there is no tradition of a vigil here), but I’m pleased to report that the Exsultet has been sung in this place for the first time since 1559. Happy Easter!
@emzanotti
I'm sure this is well intended, but it's wrong. We know, in a lot of detail, which cathedrals and other major churches were places of pilgrimage and why. They were places people travelled in large numbers from all walks of life. Pilgrimage was a major economy in medieval Europe.
Just heard perhaps the most affirming street preacher ever in Manchester: “We are here to tell you that God loves you. You don’t have to change anything about who you are. God loves you just as you are. God doesn’t hate you, he loves you.”
Good effort, sir, well done.
@TypeForVictory
Dunno, by book 4 when this stuff appears, she could have paid a guy for that. Or licensed any number of ‘official guides’ and spinoff novels that fleshed things out. Classic British failure to capitalise on a successful innovation.
Going to chime in on this loonery to ask what is going on in evangelical Anglican theology with 'informal church family meals in which bread is broken &c.', how is this distinguished from Holy Communion, and where in the nethermost reaches of Reformed theology this comes from.
“Those commissioned for ministry (buy unordained)… will preside at informal church family meals at which bread is broken and the death of the Lord Jesus is remembered.”
I would be interested to know from canon lawyers what the legal steps available to bishops are from here.
Say what you like about the Church of England in these sad distracted times, you’d never get this at synod, not even if you put the most wacky end of the liberals in charge.
This is a nice photo. Go to church. You’ll meet people who have deep joy in their lives. And people who are mad as a box of frogs, but hey, they’re made in God’s image too.
This stuff is just colossally stupid. At the root of most learning lies some rote memorisation, and in nearly every discipline there is a conceptual architecture you need to know to understand other things. This is why the shift to a knowledge based curriculum is so important.
There are currently more than a dozen stipendiary posts being advertised in the Diocese of Leeds. Several on their second or third go around, and they include at least three in the catholic tradition. People don’t apply for these jobs. Come North. Help us pass on the faith.
I was taking today to a priest friend of a friend. His time as a curate is coming to an end. He has been told his diocese has no jobs for him - except 'perhaps' a half time post, without accommodation. He is under 35.
Unbelievable that church authorities behave in this way.
@fakehistoryhunt
The idea that Europeans believed the world was flat before Columbus is my nomination. But most things that the general public believes about the Middle Ages are good candidates!
This is one of the most important issues in the Church of England. For clergy and lay people, the integrity of the confessional is one of the reasons why we’re Anglican and an incredibly important part of our faith. Please pray.
So, am I right in thinking we can basically do what we like now? Because I want to be an archpriest, and I've got some mates who will make that happen. Can I do that because I don't like the fact that Deanery Synod exists, or something?
I think this is one of the single most overlooked factors in explaining why our political life is the way it is: two or three generations (the youngest of which still dominate the electorate) basically saw social stability implode around them.
I think one of my more ‘cancellable’ church opinions is that we make it too easy to skip church. There are, of course, times when people can’t go due to sickness or other hindrances. But Mass on Sunday should be our first priority, because it is there that we find life and hope.
@OurCofELike
Attending Church on the Lord’s Day is not something you do if you just happen to feel like it. It is a duty and a joy. Sometimes a duty before it is a joy. Sometimes you have to drag yourself out of bed. The point is to be there. Why? Because God has invited you…and we all need
@the_transit_guy
Ah, the quintessential Amtrak experience. Nothing like a railway pretending to be an airline. Apart from, you know, giving people seat assignments, unlike any other intercity operator I have ever used.
Christians are “morally bound to find ways of welcoming the stranger and feeding the hungry. This does not mean anything goes, but it does mean everyone counts.”
Solid stuff.
@artieopteryx
@JayHulmePoet
Instead of, I'm afraid. It is supposed to represent a lightening of our Advent discipline. Though some of us will have pink socks underneath our purple vestments, so there's that.
This prayer has been a really good companion through the week, combining as it does divine immutability and grace perfecting our desires. A better summary of why I love the faith I believe in would be hard to find.
I can’t claim any inside knowledge, but everything I have seen from the Winchester Cathedral music meltdown suggests an institution that has completely forgotten its purpose and clergy who have so imbibed a particular management model that they’re unable to get back to it.
I thought I should say something about the whole business of whether and how the church should do reparations for slavery, because the alternative is to say nothing, and I don't think that will do.
Church of England clergy have an incredible amount of freedom to talk about and, indeed, criticise the institution they work for in a way which would be unimaginable in almost any other job.
Imagine a
@churchofengland
where clergy are not afraid to say what they think b/c they are afraid this will get them into trouble with senior clergy or a black mark when they are looking for their next appointment. Imagine an
#honestchurch
where we encourage ppl to speak freely.
Leaving aside the most egregious figure on the list, it's an astonishing insight into where the church is taking our lead from as an institution: nearly all psychologists and management academics - and only two people with a background in the public sector, heritage or education.
Some personal news: I shall be moving to a new post as priest-in-charge of
@BeneficeBatley
, initially for a period of three years. A short move; a big change! Please remember us and the parishes of S. Mary Magdalene Outwood and S. Anne Wrenthorpe in your prayers.
This is very grim reading. Particularly as Liverpool Diocese strikes me as having a number of people who come across as engaged and realistic about the issues we face.
BUT the bottom line is "We spent £1.2 mil and we might have accelerated the church's decline." Never again.
"Transforming Wigan" was the first SDF project & entailed creation of has been described as a "super-benefice". Hats off to the diocese of Liverpool for publishing the full independent evaluation. I've tried to write summary at start of this long piece
Even if we had a republican constitution, this would be a terrible, terrible idea. MPs are not delegates who are there to represent the views of their constituents. They are there to act for the interests of the whole country.
🚨 NEW: Anti-monarchy campaign group Republic say 56% of the public believe MPs should swear allegiance to their constituents, not the king
[
@FindoutnowUK
]
I would say this was an example of knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing, except for the fact that if this donor were to put the same money towards the NHS, it could probably fund the health service for about seven seconds…
I think this is bang on. As this century goes on, more people are going to respond to the suggestion we should help the poor, vulnerable and weak by saying, ‘Why?’
And increasingly, mainstream liberal society won’t have a good answer to that.
I think
@niall_gooch
's judgement on this is the best thing I've seen so far. It's emblematic of a certain kind of clericalism which says, 'We know better than you and better than they did in the bad old days.'
Appalling. 2 billion+ people cut off from BBC programming of one form or another at a time when authoritarianism is on the rise - especially in a number of countries whose languages are listed here. And a huge amount of soft power thrown out the window.
Radio services the BBC is proposing to stop: Arabic, Persian, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, Indonesian, Tamil, Urdu.
Language services the BBC is proposing to move to digital only are: Chinese, Gujarati, Igbo, Indonesian, Pidgin, Urdu, Yoruba.
If a decision about who can marry who is what you use to define whether a church has left Christianity, then IMO you're a straight up heretic. I cannot think of a single precedent for using an ethical position as a test of credal orthodoxy anywhere in Christian antiquity.
"to say mainstream Christianity teaches that marriage is between man and women is being disingenuous." Lorna Hood who was moderator when the C of S taught that doctrine - and reaffirmed it. Was she being disingenous? Scotland is stuffed because the C of S left Christianity
But I don't like the zero-sum game StP are buying into, even though I'm very much a supporter. It's not 'do this' or 'do that.' We can do both. And, I'd argue, we must, if we're serious about history and about what we believe.
An excellent article that summarises the problem that the CofE has: a goldmine at the centre and deficits everywhere else. The one thing to add is that 30 years of trying to fund most clergy stipends through giving means that many of our churches have serious building problems.
The Church Commissioners have posted another excellent set of results for last year. The assets have doubled in ten years—and increase 17-fold in 30. Why, then, are dioceses and parishes still under such financial pressure?
@WalkerMarcus
@AngelaTilby
This is meet and right. While I have endorsed the call to say
#ITrustMyBishop
, it is equally true that he is my bishop whether I do or don't and that his spiritual authority is gifted by his consecration, not contingent on a popularity contest.
It's immaterial whether or not
#ITrustMyBishop
. He's the person to whom the church has entrusted spiritual oversight of the diocese in which I serve. He isn't perfect. We often disagree. But whatever I think of him personally, he's still my bishop. I don't get to pick and choose.
What a wonderful evening we had last night celebrating our Lord's eucharistic love for us and the whole human family. You can watch our High Mass and procession here:
Not remotely surprising if you’ve spent any time in the Red Wall! I’ve lost count of the number of proud grandparents telling me about a grandchild doing nursing at Huddersfield or engineering at Nottingham Trent.
Politics of “too many young people going to university” a bit surprising. Our Loyal National (more Red Wall) segment among most likely to say too few/right numbers going whereas Established Liberal (Cameronite/Blue Wall) among most likely to say too many young people go to uni.
@MadsDavies
I have said several times that it’s cloud cuckoo land. Future has got to be paid professional roles. Even if we didn’t have lots of churches with elderly church officers wanting to give up their roles, we’d still have the problem that anyone working age hasn’t got the time.
@guildofstclare
That’s because it’s not a Roman shape. It’s a Neri or Borromeo shape, which is more balloon shaped, and I’ve never known them to be worn worn with tapes. It wouldn’t make sense to do that as they aren’t supposed to stay in place around the body in the way a fiddleback needs to.
"Forty Bibby Stockholm asylum seekers converting to Christianity
"Nearly one in seven of 300 migrants on barge attending churches under supervision of local faith leaders, says church elder"
Say what now? I’m pretty sure we’re not. I think I know what the collect writer is doing, but I think this turns on its head the Christian understanding of what it means to be created.
(Though if there’s some reference in Shewings that I’m missing, happy to be corrected!)
Capricious behaviour that does not follow CofE policy, and is completely without accountability. We are not the US military before 2011, and I really think the ordinand ought to take legal advice if they can.
Massively sad to be approached today by an ordinand
@churchofengland
who came out gay at their theological college. On hearing the news suffragan bishop (a woman) of their sponsoring diocese gets in car to go & tell them they can no longer be supported by them. Shower of shite!😢
The UK suffers from such a discrepancy of outcomes across the regions that dumping wagons of cash in the streets of northern towns would represent ‘value for money.’ What part of decades of underinvestment do these folk not understand? Treasury Brain’ is one hell of a drug
Excl: Treasury bans levelling up secretary Michael Gove from spending ANY money on capital projects without its approval, due to value for money concerns
Very good to see. The Prayer Book Society has always been a good model for how to live well together across difference AND have a robust theological and liturgical identity. A good clarification.
I’m not going to retweet the original, but this tells you all you need to know about an emerging trend in Christianity to make social or political issues a litmus test for orthodoxy in a way which is quite ahistorical.
@IsabelOakeshott
So… you think we shouldn’t build HS2… because of the reasons we’re building HS2. How exactly do you think we can improve the existing system when the lines are already at capacity?
This is an excellent thread. I'll freely acknowledge my bias as an Anglo-Catholic, but this is exactly what people will say in ten or twenty years about the CofE's current love of church planting (some are saying it already). Especially the stuff about education and shepherding.
@HiddenYorkshire
Which confirms my basic instinct that if you aren’t obnoxious and don’t try to pull the wool over a ticket inspector’s eyes, you’ll nearly always be fine. But six months without realising your railcard was invalid does stretch the bounds of incredulity just a little bit…
This is so very sad. Anna supervised me for a year at St Albans Abbey, and she was the first woman I saw celebrate the mass. She made the difference between believing something intellectually and a real, felt belief. Plus, as many others have said, she was a fantastic preacher.
It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we report the sudden passing of our Reverend Anna Matthews.
Please join us in prayers for Anna at the 12.30 Eucharist today (Thursday 09/03) at which the Archdeacon Alex Hughes will preside.
I just think “We all worship the same thing really” is deeply depressing. Doesn’t take seriously how Christians, Jews OR Muslims understand God, and it suggests the question isn’t important. The sort of thing people say when they think everyone is a liberal Protestant deep down.
I am planning my final service in S. Mary Magdalene's Outwood. Tried to decide which looney Anglo-Catholic tune to have as the final hymn, but have decided there really is no better choice than this:
I like that Fr Christopher has taken it upon himself to heat up Anglican Twitter. But fwiw, I think he is right. Not because there is any virtue in black shoes per se, but because dress codes and sticking to them when it gets tough are signs you’re taking what you do seriously.
'Making stuff up to own the libs' is not good sacramental theology or ecclesiology, no matter what you think about the Church of England's approach to marriage and relationships.
The Church of England is the established Christian church in England.
Our roots go back to the time of the Roman Empire, when the church came into existence in what was then the province of Britain.
Find out more about our history at .
I’m reading George Guiver’s history of daily prayer, and have come to his conclusion that private prayer apart from the liturgy begins with William of St Thierry and his followers… in the 12th century. It’s astonishing how much stress modern Christianity puts on private prayer.
Mark my words, we will see some very significant historic churches demolished over the next century. I think the two biggest existential threats to the Church of England as it currently exists are building repairs and the lack of capable lay volunteers.
It also highlighted high demand for a major-repairs fund, with a “large reported conservation deficit”. In just one diocese — Norwich — this deficit, based on quinquennial inspections between 2012 and 2017, was estimated to be £63 million.
This is where you get when you've spent decades in an institution you don't really want to be part of, when the church consistently doesn't take doing theology seriously, and when you lose what's left of a common liturgical tradition.
@_F_B_G_
What colossal stupidity. I’ve no idea what’s happened and it’s really sad to hear, but for the system to just let people like you and
@TheWomanfredi
slip out of ministry suggests parts of the church have a deeply unhealthy institutional culture.
Quite right. One of the things I have noticed about theological discourse in the CofE is that increasingly it just isn't interested in questions like development of doctrine. But that's completely unsustainable and means we basically shunt serious historical problems to one side.
Hence it would be great for more local churches to teach the development of doctrine (with a few guest lecturers from late antiquity, medieval and early modern eras) and social Christian history as opposed to going ‘yay Jesus’ and pretending 1700 years didn’t happen…
You mean “rioters” and “asylum seekers.”
Reaping the fruits of twenty years or more of inflammatory rhetoric against immigrants and people making false equivalencies between peaceful and violent protest.
@AngelaTilby
@susanhillwriter
@BursonGrace
@CoRMirfield
@mthr_jo
There are clergy in the CofE who don’t visit the sick, don’t say their prayers, don’t study and don’t take their Sunday duties seriously. Mirfield clergy are taught that those things matter. But I’m sure how they wear their hair is more important…
Well, well. The plot thickens. I think there’s a question to be asked as to who decided to label the letter in the way they did. Thank you,
@prudencedailey
, for clarifying that signatories didn’t necessarily know their organisations were going to be included.
When I signed the open letter concerning Prayers of Love and Faith and Canon B2, I did so in a personal capacity. It did not occur to me that my former position as Chairman of the Prayer Book Society might be stated.
@AllisonPearson
A disgruntled priest, who has left the CofE and never raised these concerns when he was in active ministry? Not exactly an unbiased source.
'A spokesman for the Diocese of Durham said: “We do not recognise the picture these allegations present and have not seen any evidence of such claims.' 1/2
Anglicans are more likely to say that they are satisfied with their lives, and many older churchgoers say that they never feel lonely, a new survey has shown.
I personally found incumbency a great relief, as it meant nobody would shout at me and fewer hours of just 'being around.' But I didn't realise six years ago just how relentless it is. We probably don't support people who enter it well enough.
1) The monthly psalter: A+, 5 stars, would recommend to a friend. Ditch the CW Psalter if you can. There are days like today when you gallop through Pss 120-131. But on the whole, I already feel a lot more like I'm getting to grips with the psalms *as a book*.
I'd love to know who these 'less woke' candidates are. If the Tories really are serious about interfering in episcopal appointments, they'll struggle to find many people in senior positions in the CofE who aren't at least centre-left.
I think there's a deep seated issue with this report, which is that some elements it highlights as issues - social media, church traditions and clerical autonomy - are outlets that become problematic in a church where people don't trust the hierarchy.
This report on 'Trust And Trustworthiness Within The C-of-E' is so painfully bad. Everyone is blamed apart from the leadership (esp social media). The only problem is the leadership not getting its way. The only solution: remove autonomy from the clergy.
@MadsDavies
It’s a perfect storm for lay ministry, but the church acts like we’ve got lots of people who have taken early retirement in their 50s and early 60s looking to do some volunteering at church. Well, those days are never coming back.
I have some questions about this. I'm all for encouraging religious literacy (and tackling anti-Semitism). But Messy Church isn't RE; it's supposed to be worship, set in the contexts of crafts and general silliness. And Hanukkah isn't our festival...