eChurch Blog

Under the 1944 Education Act, schools must provide “broadly Christian worship” every day. New research has revealed that of the 1700+ parents surveyed by ComRes, some 64% said their children did not attend a daily act of collective worship at school.

Although most primary schools abide by the law, some 80% of secondary schools do not.

Many will view this as further evidence of the march of secularism; however, it should also be noted that 60% of parents want the law abolished.

There’s much talk online of teachers feeling pressured and coerced to perform the daily act of worship; which begs the question as to the quality of worship.

In view of this, I find myself broadly in agreement with Archdruid Eileen:

And I know that some school assemblies are led by dedicated, Christian teachers (or teachers of other faiths) who can give high-grade instruction and inspiration based on their beliefs. But I likewise question whether that is what we should be sending children to school for either? In my opinion it may be time to scrap the whole misguided state-inculcated religion campaign in non-faith schools. It’s unfair to teachers, who could gain an extra fifteen minutes scanning the Guardian job ads and eating biscuits. It merely inoculates children, who come to see low-grade drivel of a broadly deistic nature as what “religion” is all about. And I’m not sure what God gets out of it either.

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The gospel message doesn’t seek to deny suffering, or minimize its devastation, or explain it away with a lot of happy talk, or make fatuous promises of health and wealth in exchange for prayer and worship. Rather, it tells us that there is a purpose and a reason for it, as difficult as that reason and purpose may be to comprehend let alone embrace. It tells us that we matter, that our lives and actions matter, that “no one lives, and no one dies, save in the embrace of God’s love”.

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Although my blog posts charting the warming of relations between the Orthodox and Catholic Church are not widely read, nor particularly popular, I still love to observe and write about this. My last post on this topic can be found here.

I hope to one day witness the reversal of the Great Schism and the establishment of a full communion agreement. For that process to begin in our day and age, it would require an historic meeting between the Pope and Patriarch Kirill.

With all of this in mind, it was interesting to read of Serbian Orthodox Church leaders considering inviting the Pope to the celebration of Constantine’s Edict of Milan.

There is a however a potential problem with the Pope attending, and here is the rub:

As such, the event could provide an opportunity for a meeting between the pope and Kirill, patriarch of Moscow, who will certainly be present. This is why the Russian Orthodox Church wants to stop the Serbs. The Moscow Patriarchate wants in fact to decide when and where the two religious leaders should meet face to face.

“It is an internal matter of the Serbian Patriarchate,” Metropolitan Hilarion said in the interview with Politika. “As far as I know, there is no single position on the papal invitation among Serbian Orthodox bishops, nor a single view about the meaning of the anniversary” as an historical event “for the representatives of the various Christian denominations or as an opportunity to express the brotherly unity of local Orthodox Churches.”

For now, the Patriarchate’s official position is simply one of “non-interference”, at least until the Serbs make their final decision.

Furedi is a famous contrarian – he takes on accepted wisdom and turns it on its head – and tolerance is the perfect subject for him. He knocks down the pieties and delusions of our age with neat elegance, but lands you up in very uncomfortable places. His argument is that in our enthusiasm for tolerance, we have actually become a deeply intolerant culture. We pass legislation to police hate speech, campaigners launch tirades of abuse on climate change deniers, New Atheists lambast religious believers. On all fronts, Furedi sees examples of a new intolerance – the very popularity of the phrase “zero-tolerance” indicates the problem.

SOURCE

The ‘revelation’ that Tony Blair is the Godfather of one of Rupert Murcdoch’s children, is all over the news media and the Interweb at the moment.

Seriously, who cares?

Blair wasn’t even prime minister when the baptism took place.

Is it really so startling to discover that the ‘elites’ of our world know each other in a personal capacity. Or are we supposed to be morally outraged? Oh yes, that’s right, News Corp is the only company in our world to operate unscrupulously.

For men so vilified for all manner of evil, faith seems to play a significant part in the lives of Rupert Murdoch and Tony Blair.

I find it quite heartening that the Murdoch’s, the Blair’s, Queen Rania of Jordan, and all the other superstars in attendance, take Christianity and faith seriously enough to have themselves “garbed in white” on the banks of the River Jordan.

Can we really blame Tony Blair for wanting to keep this quiet? Judging by the opinion pieces today, I don’t think so.

The security situation for Christian minority groups in North Africa and the Middle East has always been precarious at best; however, I know I’m not alone in fearing a deterioration as a result of the Arab Spring uprisings.

As despotic as these regimes were, they often kept the extremist element of Islam in check for their own security purposes.

But what happens to our Christian brothers and sisters when these countries confer on Islam politcal power? Can we seriously envisage an improvement in conditions for Christian minorities, when Islamists want the principal source of legislation to be: Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia)?

As one example, there’s currently a crisis in Egypt over the draft constitution; what is it exactly that has angered the Islamists so?

The charter maintains the article of the previous constitution recognizing Islam as the state religion, Arabic as its official language and the principles of Islamic Law as the primary source of legislation. However, it adds a new clause stipulating that non-Muslims should be able to follow their own creeds in their personal status matters and religious affairs, an amendment that many liberal and Coptic forces have been calling for.

Hint: It’s the part in bold.

Secular groups and religious minorities in Egypt – and around the region – are rightly worried when Islamists comprise the best organised and most homogeneous group.

Anyway, this brings me on to a piece in the Independent today detailing some of the fears held by Syrian Christians looking down the barrel of a post Assad society, in which the largely secular state is potentially replaced by Islamic rule:

Syria’s more than 2 million Christians account for around 10 per cent of the total population and are just one minority in patchwork of different creeds. But in interviews this week, some of them said many in their community were uneasy about the anti-government protests convulsing their country.

According to one activist called Yusef, who used to be an organiser for his local church in Damascus, many Christians have no great love for the Assad regime. Yet large numbers are worried about what will happen if he falls.

[.....]

There is also, he admits, a fear that Islam might usurp the secular – albeit repressive – brand of Baathist socialist rule in Syria.

“Right now Christians can celebrate Easter. They can wear whatever they want. They can go to the church in safety and they can drink if they want to.

“They are afraid they will lose all this if the regime falls down.”

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On the one hand there is a common distraction or even insensitivity to transcendence, on the other hand, there are many signs which attest the persistence, in the heart of many, of a deep longing for God, who manifests himself in different ways and raises many men and women in an attitude of genuine research.

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I didn’t, but find the concept so fascinating I had to share it. Jimmy Akin has the details:

In Utero Baptism

Jim’s not impressed, but you have to hand it to the Catholic church, they really do think of everything.

What do you make of this?

Hat-tip: Blondpidge on Twitter

A Christian organisation has been ditched by a national charity for offering to pray for people with debt problems.

Christians Against Poverty (CAP) has been forced to leave AdviceUK, an umbrella group representing the interests of thousands of advice workers, after it was judged that praying was ‘incompatible’ with membership.

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Yesterday, Steve Johnson, chief executive of AdviceUK, described the offer of prayer by CAP as an ‘emotional fee’. Asked to explain what he meant, Mr Johnson replied that CAP was effectively expecting clients to ‘pay’ for their advice by agreeing to pray with the counsellors. ‘Advisers must not offer or impose their values,’ he added.

CAP has been a member of AdviceUK for six years and says it has never made prayer a condition of its free service.

In a statement, it said: ‘While CAP is committed to providing impartial help and advice to all members of society, as an expression of our care for clients we do offer to pray with people.

‘In discussions around ethos and purpose, AdviceUK made it clear that they saw any form of promotion of faith to be incompatible with membership criteria.

‘In order to protect the integrity of both organisations, it was amicably agreed that CAP would not continue to be an AdviceUK member.’

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Hat-tip: David

Lisa Graas notifies us of a survey hosted by BeliefNet which purports to identify the ‘type’ of Catholic you are:

Take the test

Rather bizarrely, I was categorised as:

You Are a Daily Rosary (Very Traditional) Catholic

You’d like the church to revive the time-honored devotions, liturgical practices, and strong institutional discipline that prevailed before the Second Vatican Council—and you’re hoping that Pope Benedict XVI will lead the church in exactly that direction. Your favorite hymn is probably a traditional Latin composition such as the “Panis Angelicus,” and your favorite pope is probably a pioneer of the Church’s great liturgical tradition such as Gregory the Great.

Let me know your result if you take the test.