News Round Up See
the Archbishop this summer - at Greenbelt The
Archbishop of Other
speakers will include: Dame Anita Roddick, authors the
Rev G P Taylor, Rob Newman and Catherine Fox, Radio 4
‘Thought for the Day’ favourite John Bell,
black theologian and broadcaster Robert Beckford and
American radicals Shane Clairborne and Ched Myers. The
theme for this year’s festival is ‘Freedom
Bound’. The word ‘bound’, the organisers
say, is meant to imply a journey to the kingdom that one
has not quite reached yet, as well as taking on a
political slant by identifying with those whose freedoms
are bound. Tickets
from www.greenbelt.org.uk. New
ship for Operation Mobilisation Operation
Mobilisation has a new addition to its fleet: the Norrona
I. It cost
3.6m Euros – nearly £2.4m, and will replace the
present mission ship, Logos II, in her work at the
different ports of call. Logos
II has been involved in hosting HIV/Aids seminars,
carrying teams to visit schools, prisons and orphanages,
and holding an on-board ‘floating book fair’
for the last 15 years. The
Norrona I will be renamed Logos Hope, and is expected to
enter active service in 2005. It is a much larger ship,
and will continue the organisation’s evangelistic
and educational ministry. Now
you can go to church in 3D online The
Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, was guest
preacher in the “The
visible congregation of 20 cartoon characters can be
joined by up to 500 ‘lurkers’ at any one time,
who can move invisibly round the sanctuary and crypt,”
said Simon Jenkins, editor of shipoffools.com. “There
are hymns, prayers, a liturgy and the congregation is
able to walk, sit, kneel and whisper to each other about
how good the sermon is - like real church. They’ll
even be invited to put something in the collection plate
- via mobile phone.” Built
by hi-end digital media company Specialmoves, who create
cutting-edge interactive solutions for the likes of
Vivendi Universal and MTV, the initiative aims to make
Christian worship accessible to web surfers who may never
darken the doors of their local church. Lead sponsor is
the The
vicar-turned-novelist GP Taylor, bestselling author of
Shadowmancer, preached in the online church in June. The
idea came out of shipoffools.com’s internet game
show, The Ark, during which 12 Bible heroes and villains
were successively voted off Noah’s famous floating
zoo - Big Brother-style. More sailings are planned. ”When
Now
established as one of the most popular religious sites on
the web, shipoffools.com, the self-styled magazine of
Christian unrest, attracts more than two million page
requests each month from more than 80,000 people. It
recently concluded a hugely-successful campaign with the The
online church has run as a pilot from May to the end of
this July. “The full costs of creating the
environment have still to be met,” said Simon
Jenkins. “So the project’s future depends on
finding enthusiastic sponsors. Long term, we hope to work
in partnership with a variety of churches in creating
online environments which offer genuine spirituality to
people on the outer edges of faith.” Christian
concern as Civil Partnership Bill has second reading in
House of Lords Following
the recent second reading of the Civil Partnership Bill
in the House of Lords, the Evangelical Alliance has
continued to reject suggestions that there can be moral
or legal equivalence between marriage and same-sex
partnerships. The Evangelical Alliance opposes the
Government's approach to legislating for same-sex
relationships. Don
Horrocks for the Evangelical Alliance explains: "The
word 'marriage' is effectively being hijacked, even
though the Government claims these proposals do not
amount to same-sex 'marriage'. However, this will clearly
be the result, as the Bill will appropriate virtually the
same rights as married couples. The very text of the Bill
itself largely mimics matrimonial law." He
continues: "Most Christians would accept that there
are legitimate issues of basic human justice to be
considered for same-sex couples. However, marriage is
unequivocally a unique institution involving the life-long,
exclusive union of one man and one woman. Christians
highlight the importance of the creation of human beings
as male or female in the image of God and emphasise the
complementarity of husband and wife. ”We
continue to believe it would have been preferable to deal
with any perceived human rights injustices by amending
existing law, rather than introducing a nation-wide
ideologically conceived Bill. We think marriage will
certainly be further undermined by this Bill." The
Bill, which has now gone to Grand Committee for detailed
scrutiny is expected to proceed through both houses of
parliament for at least the remainder of the
parliamentary session. Launch
of new EU Election website A
website aimed at enabling Christians to make an informed
decision in the recent European Parliamentary Elections
was launched by CARE and the Evangelical Alliance this
Spring. www.x2004.net provided detailed information on
“everything you need to know about the elections”.
Roger
Smith, Head of Public Policy at CARE says “CARE and
Evangelical Alliance encourage all Christians to be
active in politics. That includes voting in the election
of representatives at whatever level.”
Christian
Brethren strong in Scotland The
Christian Brethren, an important evangelical group of
churches in These
young people are encouraged in their church attendance by
their parents, some of whom are already in leadership in
local congregations.
The
Passion brings the highest response ever to Christian
Enquiry Agency
“We've
never known anything like this, and had to pull out all
the stops to cope with the demand for information about
Jesus. We’ve been totally overstretched, but it is
great to be helping so many people,” said Andrew
Taylor at the CEA Enquiry Office. Around
150,000 response postcards were placed in cinemas across Commenting
on the campaign, Jeff Bonser, the CEA Director, said
“We felt it was vital to provide an opportunity for
people to find out more about Jesus while they were still
in the cinema and thinking about what they had
experienced. “Cinema
is the most popular form of cultural activity outside the
home, attracting over 80% of the entire population in one
year and more than 60% of all cinemagoers are under 35.
This is the age group that is missing from churches and
the film offered a great opportunity to reach them with
the reality of the cost of God's love for us all.” The
response postcard also refers enquirers to the
evangelistic website, www.rejesus.co.uk/thepassion.
The website has background notes to moments from the
film, covering the Last Supper, King Herod, the shadowy
‘devil’ figure, and other details – plus a
special page on ‘what happened next’. These
pages have received thousands of hits.
The The
move comes in a new document, Redemptionis Sacramentum:
On certain matters to be observed or to be avoided
regarding the most holy Eucharist, recently published in The
document notes “with great sadness” that “ecumenical
initiatives which are well-intentioned nevertheless
indulge at times in Eucharistic practices contrary to the
discipline by which the Church expresses her faith.”
Last year the Pope expressed “profound grief”
at apparent deviations from historic papal teaching and
at ecumenical initiatives that breached strict Roman
Catholic discipline. Respect
for Holy Days Senior
MPS are backing a campaign to protect the rights of
Christians who do not wish to work on Holy Days. It is
hoped that stronger legislation could be passed to
provide for religious observance following the success of
a Bill looking to ban trading on Christmas Day. Nearly
2000 people have already written to their MPs, asking
them to sign the petition, following encouragement from
the London Christian radio station, Premier Radio. If the
petition gains enough support, the prospect of it
becoming a Bill, or being incorporated in a Bill, would
be significantly increased. The
hope is to protect Good Friday and Boxing Day (though not
specifically a ‘holy’ day), among other special
days. This
summer, help put some soul into London Christian
leaders are hoping to mobilise 15,000 young people from
around the Soul in
the City will run from 26 July to 6 August. It will
include community projects, sports initiatives, children’s
clubs, music events and other schemes throughout Greater
London. As a finale there will be an afternoon of live
music for Londoners in Soul in
the City has been developed by 623 local churches and has
the backing of several leading public figures, including
Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mayor for London Ken
Livingstone, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John
Stevens and the Archbishop of Canterbury the Most Rev
Rowan Williams. Details
from: www.soulinthecity.co.uk New
kind of church school for Wales Concern
over gambling The An NOP
poll commissioned by the Salvation Army found that 93 per
cent of the public felt that there were enough
opportunities to gamble in the The
Churches welcomed the government committee’s
recommendation that fruit machines be prohibited in
unlicensed places such as fish and chip shops, but
expressed disappointment that it still advocated allowing
children to gamble on low-value fruit machines. Christian
Unions threatened with ban Some
Christian Unions are being threatened with bans by their
Student Unions because they do not allow non-believers to
run their organisations. At The
move to revoke the CU’s status would mean that they
would not be able to try to attract members at the
Freshers’ Fair, put posters up promoting their
activities, or use the Christians
in Athens prepare for the Games Christians
in Athenian
churches have been asked by the Athens Olympic Committee
to provide a chaplaincy service to serve the spiritual
needs of the 16,000 visitors, and have invited Christians
from other countries to take part. According
to the Rev Michael Counsell, a minister at “Teams
of local volunteers will provide an exhibition,
literature and answer questions about what can be seen of
the Methodists
and other Christians are stepping up their campaign
against rogue gangmasters who exploit casual foreign
labour used on farms and in fisheries and food production
plants. The
campaigners fear that attempts in Parliament to regulate
the industry – dubbed ‘modern day slavery’
by one senior police officer – are in trouble. The
Gangmasters (Licensing) Bill, introduced by Labour MP Jim
Sheridan, was given an unopposed second reading but it
currently faces substantial changes during its committee
stage. The
Government and Parliament have yet to decide whether
compulsory regulation of the traditional gangmaster
system for seasonal work will be introduced or whether
some form of voluntary code of practice will suffice. Read
ancient Bibles – on the internet Ancient
Bibles and devotional works are some of the items that
are now available to browse through on-line, thanks to a
British Library initiative. The
Turning the Page system allows viewers to see historic
books from the Library’s collection page by page at
the click of a mouse. The 10 works which have been made
accessible include the Lindisfarne Gospels. Adrian
Arthur, head of web services at the British Library,
described putting Turning the Pages on-line as “an
unprecedented opportunity to experience some of the great
treasures of our collections in all their glory –
not just as isolated reproductions.” ‘Turning
the Page’ is at: www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/digitisation2 Birmingham
to be full of Baptists This
time next year The BWA
began in Life
peerages for Welsh Methodist ministers Two
Welsh Methodist ministers have been made life peers. They
are: the superintendent minister of Wesley’s Chapel
and Leysian Mission, the Rev Dr Leslie Griffiths, and a
supernumerary minister in the Dyffryn Conwy circuit, the
Rev J Roger Roberts. Dr
Griffiths said that, on being offered the life peerage,
he moved “from stupefaction, through denial into
exhilaration. It was a complete surprise.”
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