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News
Archbishop calls for Christian-Muslim co-operation on global poverty The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has said Christian and Muslim leaders should work together to forge a new vision of a prosperous society to challenge the orthodoxies of the global economy.
In an address in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, where he is chairing a major seminar of Christian and Muslim scholars, Dr Williams insisted poverty was not just a matter of material deprivation or lack of access to power and influence.
It was also, he said: “the modern Western person cut off from the depths of religious and cultural meaning by a series of relentless messages about consumer gratification.”
New framework for statutory inspection of Anglican schools (SIAS) From 1 September 2005, all maintained schools will be inspected under a new Ofsted regime every three years, with very short notice, a smaller inspection team and a much briefer process.
The National Society, the Church of England's education service, has approved a new framework for the statutory inspection of Anglican schools. This will replace the current Section 23 inspection framework. Like the new Ofsted framework, it will be 'light touch' and assess the school against its own self-evaluation.
A national and regional / diocesan training programme for SIAS inspectors will equip existing and new inspectors for this demanding and important work.
Navigating Fresh Waters The number of new and different expressions of church life is "hugely encouraging" and "very exciting", according to Dr. Steven Croft, Archbishops' Missioner and leader of Fresh Expressions. Dr Croft says that Fresh Expressions has attracted a tremendous amount of support and excellent resources. "Fresh Expressions is about what it means to be Christian in contemporary culture, and we are navigating fresh waters," said Dr. Croft.
Church Commissioners' quarterly investment update... The Church Commissioners' newsletter for January to March 2005 records steady progress during the first quarter this year, with significant activity on the commercial property front. For details see: http://cofe.anglican.org/about/churchcommissioners/news/newsletterq12005.html
Common Worship offers Daily Prayer Common Worship: Daily Prayer provides structured prayers for every day of the year. The preliminary edition, published in 2002, sold more than 25,000 copies and the new definitive version has been revised in the light of the feedback.
The volume offers orders of service for Prayer During the Day, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer for each day of the week and each season of the Church's year. The service of Night Prayer (Compline) has variants for each day and season.
Common Worship: Daily Prayer is published by Church House Publishing, priced £20 (hardback), and is available from all Christian bookshops and Church House Bookshop, 020-7898 1300, email bookshop@c-of-e.org.uk, or on the web at: www.chbookshop.co.uk (mail order available).
Easier access to doctrine classics Church of England doctrine became more accessible with the publication of Contemporary Doctrine Classics. The volume not only draws together three of the most significant books from the Doctrine Commission in the last two decades but also provides an extensive foreword and commentary by Professor Stephen Sykes, who chaired the Commission from 1997 to 2003.
The new volume combines the Doctrine Commissions' work on three fundamental aspects of Christian doctrine: belief in God (We Believe in God, 1987), belief in the Holy Spirit (We Believe in the Holy Spirit, 1991) and the atoning work of Christ (The Mystery of Salvation, 1995).
Contemporary Doctrine Classics is published by Church House Publishing, priced £20 www.chbookshop.co.uk (mail order available).
Church of England - Annual Report & Accounts Details of how the Church Commissioners support the Church of England's ministry were set out in their recently published Annual Report & Accounts for 2004.
The Report details the contribution that the Commissioners make to the ministry of each of the Church's 44 dioceses, in addition to their major role of funding all clergy pensions earned before 1998. It includes supporting the ministry of bishops and cathedrals, as well as parish ministry particularly in poorer dioceses.
The support for ministry within dioceses (including support for the ministry of bishops and cathedrals) totalled £51.6 million in 2004 - an increase of £1.3 million on the previous year.
Andrew Brown, Secretary of the Church Commissioners, said: "The strong long-term performance of our investments has enabled us to further our mission to support the Church, particularly in areas of need and opportunity. To this end, the Commissioners contributed around 18p in the pound towards the cost of running the Church of England last year."
Today's publication of the Annual Report follows the recent announcement that the Church Commissioners had achieved a return of 13.6 per cent on their investments in 2004, placing them in the top three per cent of more than 700 similar funds.
Over the past ten years, the Commissioners' total return on their investments has averaged 11.1 per cent compared with 7.9 per cent per year for the industry benchmark. As a result, the Commissioners are now able to distribute to the Church £37 million more each year than would have been the case if the investments had performed only at the industry average.
The Commissioners are responsible for managing some £4.3 billion of assets - a mixture of UK and global equities; rural, commercial and residential property; bonds and cash; and loans for Church purposes.
Total expenditure in 2004 was £163.8 million (£164.0 million in 2003). Transitional help with the cost of clergy pension contributions continued to taper off as planned, and administrative costs have also been reduced. Spending was maintained or increased in all other areas.
Expenditure included: * £100.2 million (£98.3 million) for clergy pensions * £1.5 million (£3.7 million) transitional help for dioceses and parishes with the cost of clergy pension contributions * £27.1 million (£26.4 million) for parish ministry, mainly payments made under the direction of the Archbishops' Council to dioceses for clergy stipends * £18.5 million (£17.8 million) for bishops' stipends, office and working costs and housing * £6.1 million (£6.1 million) for stipends of cathedral clergy and grants to cathedrals, mainly for staff salaries * £8.0 million (£8.4 million) for administration and restructuring costs, support for other Church bodies and church buildings
Achievements in 2004
To help meet tomorrow's challenges, the Commissioners have: * built up their holdings of industrial and other commercial property assets offering higher income yields and opportunities for active management, including through change of use. * increased their global equities holdings while keeping the share of their fund linked to the UK housing market under close watch. * held a well-supported consultation meeting at General Synod in July on the new draft accommodation and management guidelines for diocesan bishops' houses. The Commissioners will work with bishops and dioceses to assess the houses against them. * contributed to working groups on the use of Church resources to support mission in coming years and on the role the Commissioners' funds can play in that. It is hoped to make a report to Synod in July 2005. * helped promote the Pastoral (Amendment) Measure which gained Synod's final approval in February 2005 and will make it easier to lease parts of churches where this meets local pastoral and mission needs. ends
Evangelical Alliance calls for more respect for human life in the wake of cloning breakthrough The Evangelical Alliance has urged the scientific community, policy makers and society as a whole to show more respect for human life after scientists at Newcastle University succeeded in cloning the first human embryo for research purposes in the UK. This development flouts the United Nations' declaration in February that overwhelmingly banned all forms of human cloning.
Dr Don Horrocks, Head of Public Affairs at the Evangelical Alliance, said: "Creating and destroying human life for a potential, but as yet unproven and risky future therapeutic benefits remains profoundly unethical, representing as it does the trading-off of one human life against another. It is ironic that just a week after Tony Blair highlighted respect as crucial for the survival of society the first human embryo is cloned for experimentation in Britain. Civilised countries need to be agreeing now to remain committed to the most fundamental expression of respect - that human life in all its stages must be respected as sacrosanct - before it is too late."
The scientists at the University of Newcastle believe that the cloned embryonic stem cells will pave the way for treating diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes. However, the Evangelical Alliance suggests that other avenues of ethical research, including the use of adult stem cell technology, which could achieve similar results, should be pursued instead.
Dr Horrocks added, "We are increasingly seeing the cheapening of human life by those who claim to represent life. Critical ethical boundaries continue to be crossed which tend to be justified by emotive and academic, rather than ethical considerations. And despite customary denials, how long will it be before the next boundary is crossed and a living human being is cloned for reproductive purposes? Many Christians take the view that life starts at conception - a fertilised egg is a human life and is just as deserving of the same amount of respect and protection as a grown adult."
Britain is only one of a small number of countries to permit the cloning of human embryos for research. The Newcastle team was granted a licence by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) last year and they are now only a few steps behind Korean scientists who are currently using cloned human embryos to extract stem cells. In contrast, many countries throughout Europe have introduced bans or severe restrictions on this kind of research.
Statistic of the month:- More Black Churches The Fourth English Church Census took place on 8th May 2005. (If perchance your church didn't get a form, you can get one from Christian Research 020 8294 1989). Forms had been sent in the middle of April to 24,000 ministers looking after 38,000 churches. Thousands have already replied giving details of Sunday attendance on that Census Sunday.
In order to send out 38,000 forms, however, one has to have 38,000 addresses! On the Christian Research data base these are recorded by denomination and location. In preparing for the Census the numbers of churches are compared with what they had been a few years ago. One of the most striking discoveries was the huge increase in the number of black congregations.
In London, for example, there were 3,750 churches in 1998. That figure is already well above the 4,000 mark because of the extra numbers of African and Caribbean congregations being formed. And not just in London – the same is true in many other urban settings.
So it will be especially important to analyse what is happening to the black community. Watch this space! By Dr Peter Brierley, Christian Research
Church of England attendance increases On average each week in 2003 1,190,000 people attended a Church of England church. That was better than the 1,170,000 in 2002, but not quite as good as the 1,210,000 in 2001. This 'Average Weekly Attendance' includes adults and children and Sunday and weekday attendances.
It is the adult's figure which has gone down and then up again as the children's figure remained virtually unchanged during these two years. Likewise the Sunday figures have gone down and up again, while the weekday figures have increased.
The children's figures are the most interesting, though. They are declining on Sundays but growing during the week. That suggests an exodus from Sunday School and an increase in youth club-type activity during the week (to which other surveys testify).
Does it mean that children don't like getting up early on Sunday morning but are very happy to go to an evening activity instead? Does it mean that children prefer midweek because food and drink are usually available whereas they are not in most churches on Sundays?
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