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Saturday 28 September 2019

Would I Lie to You?


 Church in Wales bishops Joanna, Cherry (elect) and June                     Original source: BBC/Twitter


Readers may be familiar with the popular BBC comedy panel show Would I Lie to You? where contestants have to bluff about their deepest secrets while the opposing team have to find out which ones are true.

A massive bluff has been disclosed as a lie by one of the pioneers of 'gender theory'. He has admitted that he and his colleagues "basically just made it up". 

From the Coalition for Marriage:

"In an article in online magazine Quillette, former gender historian Christopher Dummitt explains how he and his fellow academics simply ignored the innate differences between men and women. In this way they 'proved' that 'sex was wholly a social construct'.

"What's worse, everyone was at it. 'Everyone was (and is) making it up. That's how the gender-studies field works', he confesses. Over the past 30 years, whole university departments have been taken over by subjects like 'gender history' and 'gender studies', which perpetuate the fiction that sex is not a 'biological reality'.

"Disagreeing with this nonsense is increasingly being regarded by our society as 'tantamount to hate speech'. It’s also being used to push all kinds of dangerous ideas to school children.

"The peer review process, far from providing a check on this groupthink, only made it worse. It was no better than a 'form of ideological in-group screening'.

"Dr Dummitt says that 'critics of the social constructionists are right to raise their eyebrows at the so-called proof presented by alleged experts'.

Parts of the Anglican Church were quick to pick up on the opportunity presented by gender theory to promote a non-biblical lifestyle as if somehow endorsed by references in the Bible to love, compressing its many forms into one. Their distortions have been used to accuse people who disagree with them as prejudiced homophobes and bigots simply for holding contrary opinions.

Despite constant claims of LGBT persecution in the Church, Archbishop Barry Morgan said way back in 2008: "There are a huge number of gay clergy and gay partnered clergy. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be bishops and they will be. We’re not arguing about if, we’re just arguing about when." He also said that he would be willing to consecrate Britain’s first openly gay bishop despite fears that such a move would further split the Anglican Communion.

Today there is a plethora of gender study courses even at some of the most prestigious universities. They are predominantly attended by women suggesting perhaps that either some women are more gullible or that they saw an opportunity to beat the Church into submission by making her more relevant to society.

The 'madness' began in the United States.

In his book The Crockford's File William Oddie wrote about the suicide of Dr Garry Bennett in December 1987 after he anonymously wrote the Preface to the 1987 Edition of Crockford's Clerical Directory: "The problems of modern Anglicanism are highlighted by the case of the Episcopal Church in the United States"(ECUSA).

Oddie writes
"Their intention was to make the Church more relevant to society's perceived needs so that more and more Americans would find those needs answered within the Episcopal Church.

"The Episcopal Church had been in decline for over 20 years. In 1968 ECUSA had 3,588,435 members. By 1989 this had dropped to 2,420,000. This decline had taken place against a steady increase in churchgoing in the American population as a whole, an increase which has been going on steadily since the1950s. During the same period, the classification of ECUSA by the Library of Congress in Washington has changed: it has now been demoted from the status of a 'denomination' to that of a 'sect'."

The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan
 with The Right Reverend Gene Robinson
 Photo: John Robertson. Source: Telegraph
 Gene Robinson was elected bishop coadjutor in 2003 then diocesan bishop, the first priest in an openly gay relationship to be consecrated a bishop in a major Christian denomination believing in the historic episcopate. This was followed in 2009 by the election of Mary Glasspool as a suffragan bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. She is an openly gay woman living with her partner.

Amazingly the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, adopted the ECUSA experiment as his model for advancing a programme of regularising homosexuality in the Church in Wales.

The retirement of Barry Morgan presented the ideal opportunity to right Morgan's wrongs. Instead the bench of bishops under their new archbishop, John Davies, chose "more of the same" - but faster.

The Dean of Salisbury addresses Gay Pride
 marchers. Source: Facebook
A seasoned LGBT campaigner the Dean of Salisbury, June Osborne, whose advance in the Church of England had, like other imports from England, come to an abrupt halt, was elevated to bishop of Llandaff . She joined another LGBT campaigner on the bench who had been fanfared as the first woman bishop in the Church in Wales, Joanna Penberthy. She had been appointed under  Barry Morgan's presidency in what many believe was the first of three episcopal stitch ups.

Osborne's influence led to the first transgender priest in Wales, since elevated to Canon of Llandaff Cathedral, presumably for her work in promoting transgenderism, followed recently by the appointment of the first bishop in a same sex relationship as bishop-elect of Monmouth.

Given the decline of ECUSA (now TEC), the slavish adherence of the Church in Wales and, indeed, of the Church of England, to the United States model remains a puzzle to orthodox, mainly cradle, Anglicans who have been abandoned by the liberal-minded new Anglicans.

The most charitable explanation is that gender studies motivated people to press for the Church to make a stand for the equality of women in the workplace. The consequences have been intolerance and exclusion despite promising that there would be no victimisation of those who in conscience could not accept the ordination of women and all the liberal theology that has followed it.

Many bishops would have you believe that gender studies (feminism, gender, politics and queer studies) make the church more relevant to society.

It's a lie!

Wednesday 25 September 2019

Then there were three


The bishops of St Davids, Monmouth (bishop-elect) and Llandaff                              Source: Twitter


"When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning or in rain?" - At the Sacred Synod regardless.

Following the announcement that the Ven Cherry Vann had been elected bishop of Monmouth she tweeted: "Absolutely thrilled to be joining these wonderful women on the bench of Bishops in the Church in Wales.

Perhaps she was less than thrilled to be joining the three male bishops on the bench!

It had long been rumoured that the bishop of Lancaster, Jill Duff, would be the 11th bishop of Monmouth but not so. Presumably her CV did not match the expectations of the bench.

In her first interview after her election the Ven Cherry Vann told the South Wales Argus: "I found out I had been elected at about 2.30pm on the Thursday afternoon [when] I got a call from Archbishop John".

A little over half-an-hour later at 3.08pm the Archbishop announced that the bishop elect was Cherry Vann, Archdeacon of Rochdale.

Ms Vann is not a member of the Electoral College. The Cathedral would have been locked so she must have been hovering in the vicinity. Cynics may wonder how the archdeacon came to be in Newport for the announcement. Another episcopal stitch up?

What could the Electoral College have found so attractive about the Archdeacon of Rochdale? Few in the Church in Wales would have heard of her apart from the bishops and special interest groups such as Mae Cymru.

Contrary to sentiments expressed by Ms Vann and the Archbishop of Wales in a video message after the announcement, in her first newspaper interview Ms Vann said: "This is a very different province to the Church of England, and it works differently. I am aware that I have a lot to learn both about the church and how it works, but also about the past and what I am inheriting.

“I am also aware that the church is struggling to be relevant in people’s lives. I want to work with people to find ways of communicating, what is essentially, a message of love and hope to people who find the institutional church difficult or inaccessible.

“Institutions do not find it easy to change. I think what we have got, not just in Monmouth but right across the established churches, is an organisation that is struggling to meet the demands of the present age. An age where religion is seen as irrelevant at best and people do not understand what it is about. That is a huge challenge for everyone.”

There must be priests in Wales and beyond, even Welsh speaking, who do not have a lot to learn both about the church and how it works, about the past and what the bishop is inheriting so it appears that more weight was attached to supporting 'an organisation struggling to meet the demands of the present age'.

No doubt being relevant to society is why Ms Vann is absolutely thrilled to be joining the "wonderful women" on the bench of Bishops as they pursue their secular cause.

Now there are three.

Saturday 21 September 2019

Holiness lost in the Church in Wales


Ven Cherry Vann, bishop elect of Monmouth                                               Source: Church in Wales


In the run up to the Electoral College charged with electing the 11th Bishop of Monmouth the President of the College, Archbishop John Davies, gave an account of the qualities required of the successful candidate. If I recall correctly it implied an element of holiness based on biblical guidance of the qualities needed to be a bishop.

I can no longer find the link, only "Page or file not found". No doubt it has been taken down to avoid embarrassing comparisons based on this reaction in conversation with others from an internationally respected commentator on Church affairs to the election of the "first partnered lesbian bishop", that we know of, in the UK:

"Merit and holiness has nothing to do with the election of bishops in the Church in Wales. This is a political process. There are 23 clergy electors in the electoral synod. All but 7 are bishops, archdeacons and deans and you need to have a two-thirds vote so what this means is that the establishment by the way they pack the Electoral College is able to select those people whom they wish to put forward as bishop… Barry Morgan the former archbishop has been pushing for this outcome. Pushing for women clergy, pushing for women bishops, pushing for the normalisation of homosexuality.

"Members of the Archbishop's Council tell me that Archdeacon Vann is a complete nonentity, not as a person but in her role in the substantive debates within the Archbishop's Council. In other words she is not someone who has ideas, is a mover or a shaker, who people when we come to an issue, they look at her and think: What does she have to say? She is just another grey face at a long grey table. She is a committee person, she sits on the dais at General Synod and in 10 years has made no meaningful contribution whatsoever.

“Within the diocese where she is archdeacon she has made life miserable for conservative evangelicals, I'm told, through a passive, aggressive approach to things. In other words she is not a warrior for this cause, she is just an apparatchik. And so now we have another mediocrity who has a good CV of positions but no actual real holiness or merit or intellect or heft…

"The option taken by the Church in Wales is effectively to say the gay issue does not matter to us. We are not going to go through the perambulations that the Church of England has gone through. We are just saying this is who she is, like it or lump it."

All the more surprising therefore to see so much acclamation on Twitter although much of it had more to do with feminism, gender equality and parity than holiness. I also read a congratulatory tweet from the gay activist Sandi Toksvig but as in the case of the Archbishop's letter I can no longer find the tweet as if there were something to hide.

Cherry Vann is a member of the Church of England's Pastoral Advisory Group considering matters such as ‘Next Steps in Human Sexuality’ (GS Misc 1158). She is also a Trustee of the Ozanne Foundation.

The Bishops of the Church in Wales agreed the following statement on marriage between same-sex couples in March 2012.

"We abide by the Christian doctrine of marriage as the union of one man with one woman freely entered into for life. We acknowledge that whilst issues of human sexuality are not resolved, there are couples living in other life-long committed relationships who deserve the welcome, pastoral care and support of the Church. We are committed to further listening, prayerful reflection and discernment regarding same-sex relationships."

The Rev Jenny Wigley who, along with the Ven Peggy Jackson, did everything they could to undermine traditional Anglican orthodoxy, was the Guest Editor for a special edition of Theology Wales In her Introduction she referenced "The statement of the 1998 Lambeth Conference affirmed heterosexual marriage or sexual abstinence as the only choices for Christians; homosexual practice was declared to be incompatible with scripture. But the statement also committed the bishops to listening to the experience of homosexual persons and called on people to “minister  and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation".

Heterosexual marriage was affirmed but has been undermined ever since. The bench of bishops have used every means at their disposal to force through same sex marriage in church, including a one sided presentation by the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church to the Governing Body last September. See Church in Wales bench of bishops in renewed push for same sex marriage.

On the face of it the appointment of Cherry Vann is entirely political. Llandaff boasts the first transgender priest. Now the bench can pride themselves on appointing the first female bishop with a same sex partner. She is also an interfaith enthusiast supporting the removal of church pews to allow Muslim events in church.

No wonder the archbishop expressed his delight in a video announcing the appointment.

It is a sobering thought for any priests stood at the altar in whose name they will be celebrating.

Postscript [23.09.2019]

Bishop-Elect for Monmouth Diocese Cherry Van gives her first interview since being elected to the post

"She said: 'I was quite struck by the process the Church in Wales adopts to find new bishops. It seems to me to be heavily dependent on the guidance of the Holy Spirit and that gives me great encouragement'."

Thursday 19 September 2019

Third woman bishop in a row in Church in Wales


Church in Wales bishop elect Cherry Vann (centre) and her sister bishops with a grim looking Dean Lister Tonge looking on                                Source: Twitter


The Archbishop of Wales, John Davies, has announced that the Ven Cherry Vann has been elected bishop of Monmouth replacing the Rt Rev Richard Pain who retired on health grounds.

Miraculously she was on hand to be photographed with her sister bishops Joanna and June.

Currently Archdeacon of Rochdale, Vann is a musician by background. It is not immediately clear how her name came to the attention of the college but she was one of the signatories to a letter from Church of England Synod members 'piling pressure' on the College of Bishops in appealing for greater inclusion for gay Christians within the Church, thus sharing the same sympathies as her sister bishops.

Is this another stitch up to advance the bishops' drive for same sex marriage in the Church in Wales?

In support of this theory a correspondent who checked the names in the electoral college was disturbed to find that of the 26 Clergy Electors (including Bishops), 17 of them were dignitaries - i.e either a bishop, dean or archdeacon. Leaving only 9 electors from front-line clergy. "Considering any appointment needs a super-majority of two-thirds there is no chance of a popular appointment since the college is loaded with the hierarchy. If the dignitaries voted against a candidate they could block anyone since you need 32 votes to get the requisite majority. They could literally guarantee it goes to the bench and the confidentially rules means we can never know if they are voting as a block - can you believe it? This disenfranchisement of front-line clergy is wholly wrong as is loading the college with deans and archdeacons."

The announcement comes as the three-day meeting of the electoral college was drawing to a close amid suggestions that a number of candidates who had been approached intimated that they wouldn't touch the Church in Wales with a barge pole. 

Monday 16 September 2019

Last Night at the Proms


Remainers at the Proms singing Land of Hope and Glory                                                                                                                                             Source: BBC

I wonder what Sir Malcolm Sargent would have made of it.

A self-proclaimed 'Queer girl with a nose ring' waving the pride flag after singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow to "unify" an audience already unified in music.

The proceedings were brought to a close with the utterly incongruent spectacle of 'Remainers' in EU berets singing Land of Hope and Glory while waving EU flags.

US mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton waving a Pride flag to "unify the audience".               Source: BBC

Political activism gone mad.

Postscript [19.09.2019]



Love is the thing. Presiding bishop Michael Curry drawled it out at the marriage of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle. 

Liberal infiltrators into Anglicanism continually talk of love, conveniently rolling all forms of love into one. 

The BBC is at it too. 

US mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton has been elevated to the status of national treasure having 'unified' the nation under the gay pride flag rather than the traditional Union Flag as she sang Rule Britannia at the BBC's Last Night of the Proms. 

Yesterday I received a promotional email from the BBC celebrating love as portrayed at the Proms.

They are also telling school children ‘There are more than 100 gender identities’. 

Discover more with the BBC!

Saturday 14 September 2019

More rank hypocrisy from the Bench




"The Archbishop of Wales and the Church in Wales’s four serving diocesan bishops are calling on the UK’s political leaders to commit to the rule of law and work together to secure the prosperity of our country." 
- Provincial press release

Full statement HERE.

It is a bit rich when the Bishops of the Church in Wales place on record their "evident concern for the well-being of our democratic processes and constitution in the United Kingdom" when the Bench of bishops regularly ignores democratic processes.

Consultations in the Church in Wales have been regularly ignored when the results have not accorded with the wishes of the Bench. 

Extract from an entry on 9 August 2016:

"Diocesan meetings were organised at considerable expense to discuss a Code of Practice designed to cater for faithful Anglicans who, on theological grounds, were unable to accept the ministry of women bishops. The wishes of the majority were ignored, see True to his word: "Over my dead body!". Then there was the farcical taking of opinions about allowing same sex marriages and/or blessings in church, see Marriage: Dodgy discipleship?. Barry and his bench sitters simply did what they wanted when the result did not fit their secular agenda, see Bishops' rank hypocrisy. So why should anyone expect other than a predetermined outcome this time?" 

Physicians, heal thyselves springs to mind again.

Friday 13 September 2019

Caption corner 13 September 2019


Archbishop Justin Welby wearing Sikh religious headwear at the Golden Temple        Source: Twitter

As usual publishable captions will appear as comments.

Wednesday 11 September 2019

Joanna's US training jolly


Joanne with TEC friends of St Davids                                                            Source: Church in Wales


Another episcopal jolly, again to the United States where Joanna, bishop of St Davids, attended the Living our Vows conference in Richmond, Virginia as part of a three-year programme for newly appointed bishops, run and sponsored by the Episcopal Church of America (TEC). - From Pobl Dewi, September 2019.

Why?

TEC is a failed institution. Dominated by feminized men then by presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Barry Morgan's heretical mentor, under the current presiding bishop, Michael Curry, it is all about love, a euphemism for liberality.

Despite TEC's record of failure, the Church in Wales and the Church of England continue to look to TEC for inspiration as if they have a death wish.

Decline continues apace as the Anglican Church here and in the US insists on making itself relevant to society, abandoning 'otherness' in the process when society couldn't give a fig for the Church.

Joanna and June need no lessons in becoming relevant to society.

Already leaders in promoting fashionable causes one wonders what TEC could possibly teach them other than fulfilling their archbishop's promise of 'more of the same - but faster'.

Katharine Jefferts Schori, former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church
(TEC), acting as mentor to @BishopJuno and Bishop Joanna.      Source: Twitter

Saturday 7 September 2019

'Gif of God'


Orthodox worship                                                                                                                          Source: La France Orthodoxe

Latin worship                                                                                                                                          Source: CatholicEnfield

Anglican (CofE) worship                                                                                                                                  Source: Telegraph


These three photographs illustrate what, in part, has gone wrong with Anglicanism. Mystery and awe have given way to liberal secularism aided by technology.

The Church of England is encouraging clergy to embrace social media as it strives to make the church more relevant to society. In doing so it has lost its sense of otherness.

In church the focus of attention should be on the altar. In this example, which involves a presentation the Church of England's Learning Labs Road Show, a screen becomes the focus, not for spreading the gospel but for 'practical advice on using social media'.

Information is spread at the touch of a button but frequently it is not the Christian message.

Justin Welby has been enthusiastic about his 'pilgrimage' to India but it is all about politics. His performance is serverley put into context in the latest edition of Anglican Unscripted starting @28.50.

Liberal evangelist Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes recently shared the news on her Twitter account that she "Deleted slightly facetious last tweet. Read manifestos. Joined the Greens. Resigned from Labour. Let’s get changing the system not just tinkering with it, it’s the system that’s broken not just the individuals running it - unsurprising that they play the system. People do."

For others it is not so much politics but pride that matters as illustrated by this tweet about a visit to a neighbouring parish and the shared welcoming video.

Anglican clergy regularly tell us how 'very excited', 'thrilled' and 'proud' they are to share their daily experiences on Twitter as here:
"Very excited to be doing a placement at @ChesterCath as part of my curacy! So far I've met lovely people, seen parts of the cathedral that I didn't know existed  (and probably won't find again) and had some really interesting chats... And been to two services and held an owl!" - Wow!

Ex-Communard, the Rev Richard Coles, who has a habit of popping up everywhere recently shared this experience on Twitter:
"In a fit of conscience I told my host that I had to pee in his jug because I was trapped in my room this morning (due to his poor maintenance of the door handle). He now wants the jug destroyed rather than just thoroughly washed. I think this is an over reaction." He might have been advised to micturate elsewhere!

This passion for spreading personal experiences is part of the Gif of God initiative reported in the Telegraph in 2016:

"In the age of instant communications, when some people are thought more likely to venture into their parish church in search of Pokémon than pilgrimage, clergy are being advised - gently but firmly - to keep up with the tide.

The Church of England has issued new guidance to clerics and congregations to help them navigate the seemingly bewildering array of new apps and sites to incorporate into church life...


...clerics with time on their hands after visiting the sick, conducting services and writing sermons are encouraged to make their own Gifs – animated images – to spread the Christian message online."

Spreading the Christian message online would be a novelty.

#CofERoadshow                                                                                                            Source: Twitter

Tuesday 3 September 2019

Dialogue and death


Archbishop of Wales, John Davies, welcoming guests at a dinner hosted by the
Muslim Council of Wales in Cardiff.  Source: Church in Wales


On Tuesday 26th March 2019 the Muslim Council of Wales "were delighted" to hold their Annual Interfaith Dinner. It was held at St Fagans National Museum of History "an illustrious venue that is set in the grounds of St Fagans Castle and chronicles the historic lifestyle, culture and architecture of the Welsh people.

"In the usual tradition of the Muslim Council of Wales interfaith dinners, each table in the main hall was named after a virtuous characteristic such as kinship, compassion and hope. The name cards at each seat also had beautiful quotes from the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), such as 'None of you believes until you love for your brother what you love for yourself'.

"Sheikh Yaqoub Kutkut opened the evening with his melodic recitation of the Holy Quran. Professor Saleem Kidwai OBE, Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Wales welcomed everyone in the opening address and a minute of silence was held for the victims of the Christchurch terrorist attack.

A different culture was in evidence in Sri Lanka a few weeks later.

On Easter Sunday, jihadist suicide bombers linked to the Islamic State (IS) group killed at least 253 people and injured some 500 at churches and top-end hotels across Sri Lanka.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is visiting Sri Lanka taking a message described by the Rev George Conger on Anglican Unscripted as:

"Why can't we all get along? Why can't we just be nice to Muslims who are killing us when what is needed is someone to speak about regeneration, salvation and suffering through persecution. We don't need the pablum of the liberal democratic West.

"While the Christians there are under fear for their lives the response of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and of Pope Francis, is that if we are only nicer to Muslims, if we make friends with them and go to their house for dinner every so often, then all shall be well.

"The response that Anglican Unscripted was hearing from its followers was: 'You don't understand; these people want to kill us. They believe that it is for them, Muslims, a moral duty to kill the infidel and we are the infidel, to kill the idolator'

"There is a mismatch between the pablum of Western liberal Christianity and the on-the-ground Christianity of the suffering persecuted Church."

Bishop Gavin Ashenden added:

"There is an incredible arrogance too in Christian commentators in the West who keep on saying the problem with these Muslim terrorists is they don't understand Islam like we do. If they only understood Islam properly they would know it was a religion of peace. They would know that they had no proper mandate to do these things. We could indeed explain how they are being bad Muslims and we expect them to stop and in fact we expect them to stop any day soon because they must surely see they are bad Muslims.

"Of course this is completely out of touch with reality on the ground and the dreadful overlaying of an enormously shallow and prejudiced view of a kind of Western liberal relativistic Islam which has nothing to do with the way in which people read the Quran, live in Islamic communities or see their priorities and so it's a way of evading the truth and evading reality and of course above all it is incredibly patronising and detached from reality."

The uniqueness of Christianity appears to be lost on those in authority in the Church of England and the Church in Wales.

Instead of delivering Christ's message that there is only one way to the Father they convey the impression that all religions are basically the same as expressed by the Bishop’s Officer for Interfaith Dialogue in the archiepiscopal diocese of Swansea and Brecon with its coverage of  Witchcraft, Atheism, Peace Mala, Hare Krishna, Sufi, Islam, Yungdrung Bön, Judaism and Druids.

Presumably in recognition of such work, Interfaith specialists from Europe and North America will be finding out how Wales "models strong relationships between people of different religions" at a conference next week according to a Church in Wales provincial press release:

"Wales’s First Minister and the Archbishop of Wales will be among those describing pioneering partnership work in Wales at the regional meeting of the Anglican Inter Faith Commission.

"The event takes place at Cardiff’s Pierhead building on September 9. It will be chaired by the Archbishop of Dublin and attended by interfaith specialists from Anglican churches in Europe and North American and also representatives from other faiths and church denominations."

The web site of the Anglican Inter Faith Commission includes AIFC News Feeds, one of which is:
15/03/2019 Church leaders offer prayer and solidarity after New Zealand mosque attacks leaves 49 dead.

Like thousands of other persecuted Christians those murdered in Sri Lanka are quietly forgotten.

No response is expected at the Inter Faith Commission to pleas from the persecuted abroad: 'You don't understand; these people want to kill us. They believe that it is for them, Muslims, a moral duty to kill the infidel and we are the infidel'.

Peace Mala. The Archbishop of Wales with supporters @StDavidsNeath.
Source: Twitter @WelshMuslims

Postscripts

06.09,2019

Archbishop Welby pontificates on climate change, but clams up on persecution of Christians in India


08.09.2019

From Christian Concern:
The press regulator guidelines on Islamophobia were leaked this week and reveal a serious threat to press freedom when it comes to Islam related issues.

Extracts from Islamic thought police target the press

"Newspapers and magazines are regulated by the Independent Press Standard Organisation (Ipso) which was set up in 2014 following the phone-hacking scandal. For months, Ipso has been working on a project to draft guidance for journalists on how to report on issues connected with Islam and Muslims. Drafts of this guidance were leaked to the thinktank Policy Exchange which has issued a report about the revelations."

"Trevor Phillips, former head of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, wrote: 'If we give way to the demands being made, the only people who will find themselves silenced will be those who want to tell the truth'."

"The freedom of the press is under threat from Muslim activists who want to control what is said about Islam. Ipso, the press regulator, is capitulating to their demands. Unless things change, press freedom is set to fall. Truth will be the victim."

09.09.2019

This morning
The Church in Wales Retweeted
"Dr Angus M Slater
@AngusSlater Very proud to be in Cardiff today with Interfaith Professional Doctorate students from @UWTSDLampeter @UWTSD with the Anglican Communion Network for Interfaith Concerns organised by the @ChurchinWales"

"Real, practical, and impactful interfaith work with students assisting Anglican Bishops from across Europe and North America in the reading of scriptures in an Interfaith light."
[My emphasis - ED.]

They could make a start by reading the scriptures in a traditional Christian light.

16.09.2019

Koran read at Westminster Abbey as Royal Cathedral bows to Islam

“By welcoming an uncritical reading of the Koran, Westminster Abbey asserts the legitimacy of Mohammad and in so doing repudiates Jesus.”

“Reading the Koran in cathedrals is sometimes seen as a sign of civility, hospitality or inclusion. Instead, it validates Islam’s teaching that is predicated on the claim that the resurrection was a fraud and Jesus lied to his followers and the world.”

Monday 2 September 2019

Physicians, heal thyselves


Church in Wales diocesan bishops

Church in Wales bishops have called for the Prime Minister to be ‘transparent, truthful and open’.

The Rt Revd Andy John, Bishop of Bangor, has written on behalf of the Church in Wales bishops to Boris Johnson expressing their “grave concerns” over the suspension of Parliament and the prospect of a no-deal Brexit.

The mind boggles given the state of the Church in Wales. They can't put their own house in order.