An Islamic State in Iraq

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From the BBC:

Up to a quarter of Iraq’s Christians are reported to be fleeing after Islamic militants seized the minority’s biggest town.

The Islamic State (IS) group captured Qaraqosh in Nineveh province overnight after the withdrawal of Kurdish forces.

IS controls parts of Iraq and Syria and says it has created an Islamic state.

Meanwhile the UN says some of the Yazidi community, another religious minority in the area targeted by IS, have been rescued.

About 50,000 Yazidis are thought to have been trapped in the mountains after fleeing the town of Sinjar.

ISIS says it has created an “Islamic State”. The result is tens of thousands of Christians dying of thirst, a Christian family of eight shot in the face because they would not convert, and Christians beheaded, mutilated, raped, stoned and crucified – just for being Christians.

Is this what an “Islamic State” is supposed to look like? If not, I expect we’ll soon be seeing intervention from the real Islamic States.

Bishop of Gloucester, Michael Perham under investigation for sexual assault

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From the BBC:

The Bishop of Gloucester has been interviewed by police investigating two allegations of indecent assault.

The Right Reverend Michael Perham announced on Friday he was to “step-back” from his duties with immediate effect.

A 66-year-old man attended a police station in Gloucester on Tuesday but was not arrested, police said.

The Diocese of Gloucester said as it was a police matter it would not be commenting further.

The Church of England, demonstrating that it really can move quickly when it has the proper motivation, has changed the web page for the Bishop of Gloucester to say this:

Perham after

Until very recently the page looked like this:

Perham before

In case anyone is tempted to jump rashly to the wrong conclusion, the Church of England categorically denies that its bishops are carefully selected from a genetic pool known for its involuntary, excessive, prurient, lascivious and frequently deviant interest in sex, one that is matched only by overpaid celebrities and Catholic bishops. Stop laughing.

Anglican Church in North America vs. Anglican Church of Canada Sunday Attendance

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An interesting article from VOL about the rise of ACNA and decline of the ACoC.

There is a book by Dr. Marney Patterson called Suicide – The Decline and Fall of the Anglican Church of Canada? Even the bastion of Canadian liberalism, the Globe and Mail, has managed to notice what the ACoC has not: Anglican Church facing the threat of extinction.

Read it all here:

The upstart Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is set to surpass the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) in Average Sunday Attendance, if it has not already done so.

New figures obtained by VIRTUEONLINE (www.virtueonline.org) reveal that over the past two years the ACNA has steadily gained in numbers, while the ACoC, which has been on a steady decline since the beginning of the 21st Century, is now rapidly declining even as it attempts to position itself as a major global player in talks on reconciliation in the Anglican Communion.

In 2001, the ACoC claimed an annual Average Sunday Attendance of 162,138. By 2007, the last year official figures could be obtained, the ASA had dropped to 141,827 a drop of 19,311.

The total number of Anglicans on parish rolls in 2007 was 545, 957. The total number of Anglican parishes was 1,676. The true barometer of health is, however, Average Sunday Attendance.

Based on attrition rates in 2007, including loss of membership to the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), death, moving to other denominations and parish closures, now estimated to be some 300, Average Sunday Attendance, based on annual losses of about 3044, (between 2007 and 2014) the estimated attendance in 2014 in all churches in all provinces would, in fact, be closer to 100,000!

By contrast, the Anglican Church in North America, which officially birthed in St. Vincent’s Cathedral, Bedford, Texas in 2009 under the authority of the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, Robert Duncan, reveals a missionary Anglican denomination of some 983 congregations and a membership of 112,504 with an Average Principal Service Attendance (APSA) of 80,471. That compares to 700 known congregations in June of 2009. This is a 40 per cent growth in absolute numbers of congregations. 105 new congregations were reported (in the 2013 congregational/diocesan reports) as anticipated start-ups in 2014.

The figures for last year (2013) do not include some 230 congregations which did not get reports in, therefore these figures are actually higher.

[….]

Newspaper headlines can now be found which read, “The Decline and Fall of the Anglican Church of Canada.”

In 1961, 1.3 million people attended an ACoC church; making the average yearly number of those exiting the ACoC around 20,300 people. If one assumes a constant number of people exiting per year, one ends up with no one left by the year 2025!

The deeper question is why, and the answer is not too difficult to come by. The ACoC is bent on proclaiming a gospel quite different from that of its immediate rival, The Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), which proclaims itself a missionary diocese out to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, making and baptizing disciples, and spreading the gospel of the kingdom.

Israel and Gaza on the Moral Maze

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Here is a BBC program where, among others, Rev Giles Fraser and Melanie Phillips discuss topical ethical issues. This discussion is about Gaza and Israel. My favourite part is around 35:40 where an incensed Giles Fraser protests that the IDF fired on him while he was standing on a big pile of rubble: of course, the IDF does not fire indiscriminately at civilians.

It comes as no surprise that the least coherent contributor to the debate is a professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London.

Married gay priest to sue the Church of England

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Of all the absurd things that the Church of England says and does, it is interesting that Rev Jeremy Pemberton has chosen to mount a legal challenge to the Church’s following its own clearly stated rules. Surely he is not motivated by self-interest?

Rev Jeremy Pemberton and wifeFrom here:

The first priest to marry his same-sex partner is to issue a legal challenge to the Church of England after his offer of a job as an NHS chaplain was withdrawn when his bishop refused the necessary permission. The Rev Jeremy Pemberton, who married Laurence Cunnington in April, was informed on Friday that Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS trust had withdrawn its offer of a job after Bishop Richard Inwood had refused him the official licence in the diocese of Southwell and Nottingham. “It this is not challenged,” Pemberton said on Sunday, “it will send a message to all chaplains of whom a considerable number are gay and lesbian. This is an area of law that has not been tested and needs to be.” Anglican clergy are allowed to enter civil partnerships, but the House of Bishops has forbidden them to marry their same-sex partners, at least until a two-year discussion process within the church has been completed.

Atheists coming out

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“Coming out” is all the rage these days, so it comes as no surprise that atheists have decided that it is time for them to reveal their inner vacuity, to boldly proclaim their Nietzschean nihilism, to do what the naturalistic predeterminism to which they unwillingly adhere compels them to do: disabuse those of us who still cling to the idea that life has meaning.

atheistsFrom here:

“Sometimes things need to be said, and fights need to be fought even if they are unpopular. To the closeted atheists, you are not alone, and you deserve equality.”

So goes the rousing speech from the American Atheists president, David Silverman, in the opening moments of the first US television broadcaster dedicated to those who do not believe in God, Atheist TV.

A series of testimonies from prominent atheists then follows.

“It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life and I completely advocate people ‘coming out’,” says Mark Hatcher, from Black Atheists of America.

“Coming out” is how many atheists in the USA describe what remains, for many, a very difficult admission to make publicly.

The camera always lies

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As Malcolm Muggeridge used to enjoy saying – even when he was standing in front of one.

Never more so than in Gaza. If you’ve ever wondered why photographs of injured or dead Gazans – or old photos of dead Syrians posing as Gazans – litter Western media yet there are no images of Hamas firing rockets, it’s not because they are off somewhere teaching Sunday school: it’s because they shoot journalists who try to photograph them.

From here:

“I met today with a Spanish journalist who just came back from Gaza. We talked about the situation there. He was very friendly. I asked him how come we never see on television channels reporting from Gaza any Hamas people, no gunmen, no rocket launcher, no policemen. We only see civilians on these reports, mostly women and children.”

“He answered me frankly: ‘It’s very simple, we did see Hamas people there launching rockets, they were close to our hotel, but if ever we dared pointing our camera on them they would simply shoot at us and kill us.’”

Two Church of England vicars play at being refugees

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In an attempt to more clearly define the meaning of “empty gesture”, two Church of England vicars are engaging in refugee playacting by sleeping on the floor of a community centre. Well, alright, it isn’t completely empty: they are donating money to a Gaza charity – of course, that could have been done without the silly political posturing.

From here:

TWO vicars and their family are living as “refugees” to draw attention to the plight of people in Gaza.

Rev Andrew Ashdown, the Anglican rector of Knights Enham, and his wife, the Rev Victoria Ashdown, curate of Whitchurch, are relying on the generosity of others while they and their family live without money in St Paul’s Church and Community Centre in Smannell Road, Andover.

They are spending each night on the floor in one of the community rooms.

[….]

Victoria added: “I feel it is our duty as a church to speak for the oppressed and against injustice. Standing in solidarity with the suffering felt like something we could do here to highlight the plight.”

I wonder if Victoria is as enthusiastic about standing in solidarity with the suffering if those who are suffering are Jews? Don’t bother trying to answer that.