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Spectator
24-05-2025
- General
- Spectator
How to save the Church of England
The Church of England's various travails and dilemmas – on controversial issues, like sexuality and safeguarding – are on one level beside the point. Even if it managed to solve these problems, the Church's drift to the margins of our culture looks likely to continue. The really fundamental issue is how the CofE can reverse that drift, how it can renew itself. This is harder to talk about, as it has little connection with the news cycle. The renewal of the Church depends on the quality of its worship culture, and the traditional forms seem unable to generate new excitement. Its main historic attempts at renewal were rooted in worship culture. The Catholic revival of the mid-nineteenth century, known as the Oxford Movement, involved lots of ritual finery and theatrical pomp. It produced many good things, but the 'high' style could not really unite a Church rooted in Protestantism.
Telegraph
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
It shouldn't take Peter Tatchell to tell us our asylum system is broken
Asylum seekers are gaming the system. They're pretending to be gay to stay in Britain. These bogus homosexuals are exploiting our kindness – or our weakness, some might say – to get a foot in the door of our nation. Who's been making this claim? An old-style Tory, perhaps, the sort who has sleepless nights fretting over our porous borders? Actually it's Peter Tatchell, the famed agitator for gay rights. Yes, one of Britain's best-known Left-wing rabble-rousers, a man who loves nothing better than a noisy protest, is raising the alarm about phoney asylum-seeking. When even a Leftie like Tatchell worries out loud that people are lying their way into the country, it's time to pay attention. In an interview this week Tatchell warned that some foreigners are play-acting as gay to win the sympathy of woke Britain. These fauxmosexuals – if you will – are applying for membership of organisations like the Peter Tatchell Foundation in order to pass as gay. Tatchell clocked a spike in 'small donations' from Pakistani men. Some give as little as £3 and then speedily request membership cards or letters to support their asylum applications. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to see what's happening here – these men are seeking 'proof of homosexuality' to swindle the Home Office and make it believe they'll be strung up if they're sent home. Tatchell says his foundation sometimes receives as many as 30 small donations a day. They're literally playing 'the gay card.' These fake gays crave a piece of paper with their name alongside Peter Tatchell's in the hope that a Home Office bureaucrat will stamp 'APPROVED' on their applications. One wonders how many foreigners are cosplaying as oppressed to win asylum here. We already know about the scourge of fake conversions to Christianity. Last year a whistleblowing priest said there is a 'veritable industry of asylum baptisms' in the CofE. There's a 'conveyor belt' of such sacrilegious stunts, he said, with asylum-seekers pining that splash of baptismal water that might convince the Home Office they were repressed back home. And too often, he said, the Church is complicit in the pantomime Christianity of these cynical asylum-seekers. Tatchell has proved himself a braver voice than many of the nation's bishops by calling out the 'fake conversions' to homosexuality that are also taking place. Asylum seekers who pretend to be gay or Christian are being deeply dishonest. Falsehoods are not a good foundation on which to build your residency here, far less your future citizenship. But the real problem is the system itself. It's too soft, too gullible. There will always be asylum seekers playing tricks – what we need to ask is why the Home Office is so trickable. There have been some mad cases lately. Like the Albanian criminal whose deportation was halted because his kid is a picky eater. Or the Nigerian rapist who's still here because European judges ruled that he has the right to 'family life' in the UK. If some foreigners think Blighty is a soft touch, easily hoodwinked, can we blame them? The horrible irony is that some of the fake gays will likely be homophobic. Coming from Muslim countries, they may well feel hostile towards gay people. If the Home Office is letting in homophobes wearing the mask of homosexuality, that is unforgivable. There are genuinely oppressed people who could do with Britain's help. Real gay people in countries like Pakistan. Women who hate the hijab in Iran. Christians suffering harassment under the Taliban. These good people lose out when we let phonies bring the system into disrepute.
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
American interns aim to make a difference in Ryde
Christian interns from America have moved to the Isle of Wight as part of a project to rejuvenate local C of E churches. They arrived from the US state of Georgia are now living in a vicarage in Ryde and getting involved with local churches and communities. Married couple Ashton and Cody Wood are heading up a team of young believers who have relocated to the Island to help make a difference. The four young people they are leading aim to kickstart a project to increase congregation sizes and engage more effectively with the community. The interns are all part of the 'Ministry Development Year', which enables young Christians to get a taste of working with a church as they consider it as a possible future career. They arrived in November and will be on the Island until August – after which a second cohort will be recruited. It's all part of the project to rejuvenate the five Church of England churches in and around Ryde, which includes creating several new congregations and expanding their work with schools and community groups. Makensley Wyatt, 19, is focussing on working with children and their parents in her Ministry Development Year. She's involved with the weekly toddler group at All Saints Church, and its Sunday groups for children. Alec Mumpower, also 19, is involved with the production and technology side of church life, including livestreaming services, and handling images, video and audio-visuals. Hannah Sansot, 22, is involved with the administrative side of ministry and also with young people via a partnership with Youth For Christ. She serves at a lunch club each week and leads Youth Alpha in Ryde School every Friday. Joseph Sosebee, 19, has got involved with the church's social justice programme, which includes its work to help women in refuges who have suffered from sex trafficking or domestic abuse. The group live near St Michael's Church in Ryde. 'Part of our role is to lead and guide the interns spiritually and practically,' said Ashton. 'That means introducing them to a rhythm of prayer throughout the day, and helping them to develop life-skills in cooking, cleaning, budgeting and so on."
The Guardian
03-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
C of E vicars call for 'urgent and decisive action' on increasing their pensions
Church of England vicars are demanding an increase in pensions amid claims that many face an impoverished old age, with some forced to rely on food banks or move in with adult children. Almost 2,000 C of E clergy have joined an action group on Facebook in the past few weeks and 700 signed a letter to the Church Times calling for 'urgent and decisive action'. The Rev Marcus Gibbs, the vicar of the Ascension church in Balham, south London, and lead signatory, told the Guardian: 'This is a justice issue, and a moral and Christian imperative to ensure that people who have dedicated their lives to the church can have a dignified retirement.' The action group is demanding the C of E reverses a 2011 cut in pensions that meant retiring vicars now get half the minimum clergy stipend (salary) of £28,680 rather than two-thirds. Most working clergy are also provided with housing, which they lose when they retire. The cut in pensions came four years after the qualifying period for a full clergy pension was increased from 37 years to 41.5 years. Clergy with fewer years of service get less than 50% of the minimum stipend. Meanwhile, the C of E's assets have increased in value and are currently worth £10.4bn. Gibbs said: 'Before the church can speak with credibility in the House of Lords on social justice issues, it must ensure it's caring justly for those who've served it.' Citing a biblical proverb, he added: 'The phrase that comes to mind is, 'Physician, heal thyself.'' Providing an adequate pension was good business practice as well as a justice issue, he said. 'If you want people to do a good job, you don't want them living in fear of an impoverished old age. You look after people.' One retired vicar who contacted the action group said: 'After 40 years of service, my pension barely covers my rent. I never thought I'd have to choose between food and medicine.' Another wrote: 'I gave my life to the church, moved my family from town to town, living in parsonages that weren't mine. Now I have nothing to show for it, and can't afford a home of my own.' A third said: 'I had to move in with my children because my pension wouldn't cover even a small apartment. I feel like a burden and it breaks my heart.' Another said: 'My spouse and I both served the church, but now we can't afford our medical bills. The church asked everything of us, but where are they now, when you need help?' Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion The Rev Ian Paul, a member of the archbishops' council, an advisory body, submitted a motion last year to the General Synod, the C of E's ruling body, calling on the church to restore pensions to their pre-2011 levels. It passed unanimously. 'The key issue is that the church commissioners [who manage the C of E's assets] are not letting go of the money,' he said. 'It would cost them £25m a year to restore the cut, which is peanuts compared to assets worth £10.4bn.' Clergy approaching retirement were 'now realising they are going to be in penury'. The action group was the result of a 'crack in the dam opening up, and a huge body of discontent breaking through', he said. 'People have been reluctant to speak out, but many feel betrayed.' The action group also wants an independent review to examine pension provision. In February, Carl Hughes, the chair of the archbishops' council finance committee, told the synod that the C of E planned to 'increase future stipends automatically in line with inflation, on top of a catch-up increase to the national minimum stipend, which will boost both stipends and the starting rate of pensions'. Specific proposals are due be put before the synod in July.
The Guardian
29-03-2025
- The Guardian
Justin Welby was too ‘overwhelmed' by scale of abuse in C of E to take action
Justin Welby, the former archbishop of Canterbury, has said his failure to take effective action over a serial sadistic abuser was because he was 'overwhelmed' by the scale of the abuse crisis in the Church of England. In his first interview since resigning last November, Welby said: 'Every day more cases were coming across the desk that had been in the past, hadn't been dealt with adequately, and this was just, it was another case. It was an absolutely overwhelming few weeks.' This was not an excuse, but a reason for his failures, he told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg. 'The reality is I got it wrong. As archbishop there are no excuses.' He also said there was a 'rush to judgment' of public leaders. 'There is an absence of forgiveness; we don't treat our leaders as human. We expect them to be perfect. If you want perfect leaders, you won't have any leaders.' Welby became the first archbishop in more than 1,000 years to quit after an independent review found that he should have taken more robust action over allegations of abuse by John Smyth. His resignation, announced days after the review was published in November, plunged the C of E into crisis. About 130 boys are believed to have been victims of Smyth, a powerful barrister who died in 2018. An independent review by Keith Makin into the abuse concluded Smyth could have been brought to justice had the archbishop formally reported it to police a decade ago. Welby and other senior figures in the C of E were told of allegations that Smyth had abused dozens of boys who attended evangelical Christian holiday camps, beating them viciously in his garden shed. Welby had volunteered at the holiday camps in the late 1970s but said he was unaware of the allegations at the time. The Makin review said Welby was informed of the abuse allegations in 2013 but failed to take action, and that it was 'unlikely' he would have been unaware of rumours surrounding Smyth when he was volunteering at the camps. The review said: '[Welby] may not have known of the extreme seriousness of the abuse but it is most probable that he would have had at least a level of knowledge that John Smyth was of some concern.' Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion In his resignation statement, Welby said: 'It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.' One of Smyth's victims, known as Graham, who reported the abuse allegation in 2013, told the BBC: 'The archbishop suggests he was just too busy. No one should be too busy to deal with a safeguarding disclosure. The archbishop has never answered why there were not enormous red flags when told about horrific abuse.' Welby's successor as archbishop of Canterbury is expected to be announced in the autumn after a lengthy and opaque selection process led by the UK's former spy chief, Lord Evans of Weardale.
