Council prayers

More silliness in the media last week with news that Councillor Malcolm Hey, a member of Portsmouth City Council, walked out of the prayers being said before a council meeting, when a local Imam was asked to pray for the council.

The Lib Dem council leader jumped on the opportunity to embarrass Tory member Hey, and wrote to Conservative Central Office, asking them to sack him from the party.

Secularists jumped on the story, claiming this was evidence that council prayers are divisive and should be banned, with the National Secular Society taking the opportunity to remind us that they are still seeking funds to mount a legal challenge over the legality of traditional council prayers (an utterly unnecessary action, which should be struck out with the unfortunate council singled out as the target awarded full costs).

Mouse will keep his discussion of the matter short.  Of course Councillor Hey acted foolishly.  If you can't sit on your hands for two minutes respectfully listening to the prayers of someone of a different faith, you really do need a stern talking to, and should not be an elected representative.

However, Mouse cannot agree in any way with the calls to have the practice banned.  In this regard Mouse will be very brief.  He will not refer to the Human Rights Act, the European Convention on Human Rights, the legal precedent or parallels with other practices, such as Parliamentary prayers.

Instead he will point out that it is already entirely voluntary.  Councils can simply stop doing the practice of saying prayers before their meetings if they want to.  In fact, many have.

So what is really being called for is a law that says people who meet in a public capacity should not be allowed to pray together if they want to.  Even if it is by unanimous consent.

How liberal.

MPs: accept women bishops or we'll change the law to force you

Possibly one of the most foolish Early Day Motions Mouse has ever seen has been tabled by Frank Field MP, attracting six other signatories at the time of writing.

There is a little subtlety to the wording, but it essentially calls on the government to remove exemptions from equalities legislation to force the Church of England to accept women bishops in the event that it is accepted by the dioceses but fails at General Synod through a 'technicality'.

Mouse considers this misjudged, to say the least, and Mouse says that from the position that he supports the admission of women to the episcopate.

If this is supposed to be a great act of principle then why wait until 2012 and this particular scenario to remove the exemptions?  Surely it would just be easier to remove the exemptions now.  And why is the Church of England the only institution singled out for this treatment?  If Parliament is to force religions to apply equality for ministers, then Mouse looks forward to Frank Field taking on Islam and the Catholic Church.

Now, some might say that the Church's established status makes it a special case, but then Mouse would ask why this call now, and why wait to see whether the measure is accepted by the dioceses before compelling them to comply with the will of Frank Field and his six Parliamentary colleagues.

Of course, Early Day Motions are the parliamentary equivalent of a car sticker, in that they are not intended to do anything other than to give MPs a structured process for publicising their opinions.  So the Church of England really shouldn't worry itself about this one.

+++ Exclusive - real reasons why Primates are not at Dublin meeting +++

Earlier in the week the Anglican Communion News Service published the full list of attendees at the Anglican Primates meeting in Dublin, with the official reasons given for non attendance by 15 if the Primates.  Seven cited the attendance of the Primate from the TEC as a reason to boycott, but a further eight gave other reasons.

There has been much speculation as to whether these reasons were a little too convenient, and Mouse can now exclusively reveal the actual reasons given by the Primates for their non attendance:

The Most Revd Henry Kahwa Isingoma (Congo): forgot his kit, and refused to borrow Rowan's spare cassock.

The Most Revd Carlos Touche-Porter (Mexico) & The Most Revd Stephen Than Myint Oo (Burma): asked to go to the loo before the meeting started and haven't been seen since.

The Most Revd Eliud Wabukala (Kenya) & The Most Revd Purely Lyngdoh (India): sent Rowan notes from their mums asking that they be excused.

The Most Revd Valentino Mokiwa (Tanzania): said he had a dentist appointment.

The Most Revd Daniel Deng Bul Yak (Sudan) & The Most Revd Onesphore Rwaje (Rwanda): mums forgot to sign the consent form for the trip.

Mouse has been pretty surprised by the whole meeting.  He asked the ACO what was on the agenda, but it turns out there isn't really an agenda.  They just turn up and talk about whatever they want to, albeit with some stuff they really do want to cover.  Given the rather turgid reports (follow the whole thing at Thinking Anglicans) which have emerged so far, Mouse does actually wonder whether it was worth all the bother.

Perhaps a conference call would be easier next time.

Friday round up

Here's my round up from the blogosphere.  Ten of the best from the blogs this week:

1. Phil Ritchie on the Pope's command to get digital

2. Dave Walker hits several nails right on the head with three rapid fire cartoon blog posts

3. Jubilee Centre blog on the law and the Bible

4. Damian Thompson reckons practicing Muslims will soon outnumber practicing Christians in Britain (Mouse disagrees - all depends what you mean by 'practicing')

5. eChurch blog on the Christian mental health worker who was reinstated after being disciplined for privately questioning the approach by her employer to abortion advice

6. Cranmer on whether David Cameron is 'surrounded by secularists'

7. Thinking Anglicans keep us posted on the Primates meeting (which actually sounds rather dull)

8. Cranmer's Curate once again proposes an Anglo-Cath / Con Evangelical alliance (sounds rather fun, if utterly illogical)

9. Eurobishop plugs the CofE's new youth resources

10. Clayboy on homophobic murder and self blame

Glee - the Jesus episode, Guest Post from Rachel Warwick

Mouse has recently been made aware of a smash hit TV series called Glee, of which he was quite happily unaware.  Last week, the focus of this show was Jesus, and the tale of a religious seeker.

Fellow blogger Rachel Warwick provides some commentary, on a show with plenty to chew on:

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The makers of the global hit TV series Glee addressed sexuality, disability and teenage pregnancy in with a no-nonsense approach so bold it’d be easy to forget there ever was any taboo around the subjects so it was inevitable that eventually, Glee would ‘do Jesus’. The episode, titled Grilled Cheesus broadcast in America in October 2010 and in the UK last Monday, opened with Finn seeing an image of Jesus in his cheese toastie. Taking this as a sign from above, he prays to this cheese Jesus, seeing almost instant answers which spark an interesting conversation amongst the characters, fuelled all the more by Kurt’s struggle to come to terms with his father’s sudden heart attack and its implications.

Through conversation and their choice of repertoire, the Glee Club members address a variety of aspects of faith and spirituality in an evenly balanced and gentle debate. In an interview with an American TV Guide, series co-creator Ryan Murphy says that he was keen to “address religion in a responsible way” yet predicted that the episode could be their most controversial so far. Keen to ensure a fair representation, the show references several faith including Judaism and Christianity, Sikhism and even a mention for the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The script was checked by Murphy and his co-writers to make sure that every anti-religious sentiment was counter balanced by one of a pro-religious nature.

The show is a godsend for preachers, youth workers and RE teachers, providing a library of illustrative material to last at least the rest of the year. In one 40 minute episode, subjects covered include prayer and answered prayer, social stereotyping and perceptions of church, the existence of God, a range of perspectives on suffering, the place of faith in every day life, interfaith discussion and the acceptability of speaking up about your personal beliefs in a public context. On top of all this, the whole concept of a Glee Club – a group of people, diverse to a degree that would make United Colours of Benetton proud, united by their shared love for one thing and finding acceptance and belonging as a result – surely has a lot to offer for those of us considering what church could and/or should look like. Expect to see clips of this in churches and classrooms for a long time to come!

For the church today, this episode of Glee brings a host of challenges as well as opportunities.

The script presented an open discussion of personal faith and spirituality without it being sidelined by defensive aggression or preconceived judgements. The characters aired their views and reacted and responded to each other in the context of their love and mutual acceptance as a community, without the argument and conflict which so often follows these conversations in ‘real life’. So often it seems that we Christians pre-empt the attack, firing out our justifications for our faith like anti-missile shots, whilst so many non-believers switch off at the first mention of God, reverting to pre-prepared responses. Generalisations, I know, but the result is all too often an almost rehearsed performance of a familiar debate, rather than a considered responsive discussion of what we actually believe. A few minutes of a popular TV series reminds us that it doesn’t have to work this way, that it is possible to listen to each other, to engage in thoughtful conversation about beliefs without animosity. How many more of us would feel comfortable speaking publically about personal faith, just like Finn did after his encounter with Cheesus, if we knew that an accepting and considered conversation could follow without the need for there to be aggressive debate, or even a “winner.”

As for the opportunities, whether you like it or not, you’re surrounded by Gleeks. Those teenage and student population will openly admit it, but they’re not alone. The happenings at McKinley High School become the topics of discussion in the classroom and office the next morning. Which means that this week, 1.29 million viewers in the UK are now thinking about, and discussing, faith and spirituality in their classrooms and workspaces. If we, the Church, can engage and respond with the same grace and openness as the cast of Glee, the potential for both personal spiritual development, and the social acceptability of discussions of faith are huge.

If you’ve ever dismissed Glee as fluffy mindless entertainment, as I know I have, watch again and be challenged...

Guest Post: Archdruid Eileen on Growth, George and Gaia

Mouse has featured many guest posts on this blog from a diverse range of people.  Mouse is delighted to have had a guest post provided by Archdruid Eileen, founder of the religious community the Beaker Folk of Husborn Crawley.

Is is uncanny how often the issues that Eileen struggles with in the community of the Beaker Folk have parallels with those of the Church of England and the country as a whole.  Here, Eileen has some thought provoking issues on growth, George and Gaia.

The views expressed are entirely those of Archdruid Eileen.

Archdruid Eileen writes:
----------------------------------------------------

Growth, George and Gaia

There’s been a lot of debate and sneering over the last day or so about the latest growth figures. A 0.5% decline in the size of the economy, say the people that voted for the Other Side (the Liberal Democrats, apparently, most of them), proves that the government has got it wrong. The Coldest Winter Ever – as caused by Global Warming (TM) has suddenly become a bit of snow that any softy southerner could cope with. Indeed, say some, even the Great Ice Age itself could be expected to knock no more than 0.1% off the economy if Mr George Osborne were not in charge of the country’s finances.

As Archdruid of a thriving nature-based, lunar-focussed neo-Christian alt.worship community, I try to ensure I stay above politics. To be honest, I try to stay above religion as well. If you start getting into the minutiae of who believes what and why, it all gets fractious and before you know it there’s a load of schismatic groups, lots of name-calling and anathemas and no real money in it. On the whole, tell everyone that they’re probably right in a very real sense, and then stay out of it. That’s my motto. But on this one I feel I need to say something.

You see, it strikes me that growth qua growth can end up being quite a bad thing. When you’ve already got two 4x4s on the drive, a six-bedroom house, a 64 inch plasma TV set and an interest in Alpine skiing, then that’s probably as much damage as the world needs. Indeed, if you’ve one car, a three-bedroom house, a mere 48 inch telly and a love of out-of-season imported asparagus you’re still going to be hitting the world pretty hard. And oddly the same people that are saying this week that a lack of growth is a bad thing, are the ones that seem to care for the environment. If you want less CO2 emissions (or fewer – are emissions to be counted or measured?), less extraction of oil, fewer wind turbines getting in the way of your private Lear Jet and less general chopping-down of Amazonian rain-forests then it would seem to me that, in general, you want less growth in the United Kingdom. Because whenever we get some growth, we tend to spend that on tangible, physical things that have to be dug up from somewhere, dragged around the place, melted down, chemically reacted with something scary and turned into something else before being hauled to another place again.

At least, that’s what I tell the Beaker People. Which is why our locally sourced souvenir doilies, hand-pressed by volunteer pilgrims and therefore immune from the Minimum Wage (we learnt our lesson well from the political concept of “interns”) are to be highly prized as having minimal Doily Miles. I guarantee that 85% of all profits go towards my bank account in Jersey and this, being stashed up for a rainy day, can be guaranteed not to have any carbon footprint associated with it at all.

And for those that point out – wrongly, although I have not the space to go into it here – that doilies have very little spiritual use, I would point to the souvenir tea-lights that we sell in the Beaker Bazaar. Hand-crafted from bits of wax melted out of other, used tea-lights, they have been sprinkled with holy water from the Beaker Well. Which is why they are £7.45 each. Being recycled, they have no carbon footprint. While given their extortionate price, if they really take off then the economy of the Beaker Community, at any rate, will move sharply into growth. And all with minimum impact on the environment!

Yes, I know. Some will say that my recipe for negative-growth, carbon-free self-enrichment will lead to people basically scraping for an existence, living in hovels and hanging on at a subsistence level. And in the meanwhile I’ll fly around Bedfordshire in my helicopter lecturing other people on the need for environmental awareness. And I say – yes, it will. But as long as I can find enough people to think that by doing this they’re helping the environment, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Thank you for your time. I’m doing this for you all. And for Mother Gaia.

Exploring God's Mercy - with podcasts, YouTube and Lily Allen

Various people within the Church of England produce lent materials each year.  The idea, for those who don't follow these things, is that lent is a period for reflection and preparation for Easter, and so individuals and groups make a special effort to reflect on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as we prepare to commemorate Easter.

This year, Bishop Steven Croft (or @Steven_Croft as he is known in the Twurch) has come up with something a little more web 2.0 than anything that has come before.

The 'Exploring God's Mercy' study course has the traditional study book, but is supplemented with a range of multi-media additions to work with, including videos and podcasts which people studying the material can follow during the week.

The promotional material says:

Exploring God's Mercy is a short study guide that focuses on five classic images of the Christian gospel which are woven through scripture and the Christian tradition:

- Lost and finding the way
- Trapped and set free
- Sick in soul and healed
- In turmoil and being at peace
- Barren and becoming fruitful

Each chapter explores one of these images through stories, popular culture, biblical material and Christian tradition. Discussion starters, questions, prayers, links to free online material and a leader's guide are included, making this ideal for Lent groups or as an introductory course to the Christian faith at any time of year.

There is a companion series of videos and podcasts for Exploring God's Mercy.

Mouse likes the sound of this.

The study course has attracted quite a bit of attention, much of which has focused on the suggestion that participants could listen to Lily Allen's "The Fear" and reflect on the words as part of the course.  Well, if that's what it takes.

It is certainly the first Lent study guide that Mouse can remember reading about on the BBC news website.  Which makes Mouse wonder whether this Lent course was written with not just a discipleship purpose in mind, but also with an evangelistic angle.  Or at least the idea that it should make Christianity more accessible, and invite people who may not be sure of their faith to join in the debate, using contemporary means and reference points to make the steps along the way a little more familiar.

Mouse will have to take the course to find out whether it is any good of course.  But certainly reckons it looks good.

The genorosity of atheists

Christians of a smug disposition often claim that religious people in general, and Christians in particular, are more generous than the non-religious.

A fantastic piece by Tom Rees has challenged that notion. Tom does a survey through the academic studies which relate to the subject, in response to a piece by Tom Flynn on the same subject.  Flynn had considered the fact that non-religious people appear to give less to charity, whilst Rees argues strongly that by most other measures there is no difference in generosity levels between the religious and the non-religious.  He almost argues, in fact, that religious people behave most generously when they are in situations where their level of generosity may be judged by others - in other words that they are doing it just to keep up appearances.

Mouse's question, in response to all this is why this should be the case.  Should religious people be more generous?

The religious mind may instinctively say "yes" - if we take Jesus' call to care for the poor and needy seriously we should be generous.  But of course this is to deny that there is any moral framework outside religion which might implore non-religious people to do the same.

So, there's a Monday morning puzzle to chew on.

Grill a bishop

What a jolly good idea.  Mouse caught this snippet on the Today program on Thursday and loved it.  Bishop Graham Kings has continued an idea that he started whilst he was vicar of St. Mary's, Islington, of offering himself to answer any question.

Now that he has been elavated to the lofty position of bishop, he has re-named the initiative "Grill a Bishop".  There is an online forum (not desparately popular so far) that seems to have been running since December 2010 on the diocesan website.  The Today program featured an event where Bishop Graham visited some young people and answered their questions.

Mouse reckons this is exactly the kind of engagement we need, and thoroughly commends the initiative.  The difficulty will be convincing enough people to join in and actually ask their questions.

Gove signals no change on RE lessons, "very, very happy" with collective worship in schools

Thanks to @daveish2009 for tweeting a link to Education Secretary, Michael Gove's, interview on the Andrew Marr show last week on 21 November 2010 [with thanks to the NSS for pointing out Mouse's error].  The interview was largely uninteresting, with Andrew Marr attempting to get Michael Gove to admit that he was not setting schools free, but actually pulling power back into the centre with his curriculum review.  But there was an interesting snippet in relation to the requirement for collective worship in schools, which has been the subject of quite a bit of debate recently, and on the teaching of RE.

Mouse had completely missed this, but it seems to indicate that those hoping for change in these areas in the upcoming curriculum review will be disappointed.

ANDREW MARR:

Well let me ask about another of the things that many of those applauding head teachers and teachers have asked you for, which is to get rid of the old law which says that there must be an essentially Christian service or moment at the beginning of the school day. As you know, up and down the country lots of schools just ignore this or dodge round it. Do you think its time has come?

MICHAEL GOVE:

No, I don't believe that we should change our approach towards religious education. It's very decentralised. It's up to local authority committees, standing advisory committees on religious education how schools take an approach towards RE, and I think that's right. Now our society has changed and I think changed for the better.

ANDREW MARR:

Sorry, what about the actual religious moment at the beginning of the school day - which is I think what a lot of the problem has been?

MICHAEL GOVE:

Yes, I don't think there's any need to change the law at the moment. I think that there may be agitation from either side - from some people in the Richard Dawkins wing and some people in the Pope Benedict wing as it were. I think we've got a classic, if I may say so, English middle way, which I'm very, very happy to stick to.

Well that's pretty clear then.  Unless this review comes up with something pretty extraordinary and directly contradicts the secretary of state, it looks like those looking for reform of these areas will be disappointed.

Friday round up

Here's my round up from the blogosphere.  Ten of the best from the blogs this week.

1. Wannabepriest with a lament for the Church and the internet

2. Epiphenom says there is no such thing as a gene for religion

3. Greenbelt blog on Poverty and Homelessness Action Week

4. Ethics and Foreign Policy on religious freedom and British foreign policy

5. Krish Kandiah on Starbucks, the Bible and perpetual motion

6. Heresy Corner laughs in the face of controversy and takes on the issue of gay conversion therapy

7. FaithWorld on Baroness Warsi's speech (see Cranmer for an alternative perspective)

8. Chris Ashford on the Cornish B&B legal ruling (also worth reading Peter Ould's forensic analysis of the ruling)

9. Clayboy gets annoyed at the mis-reporting of the baptism-lite story

10. Elizaphanian has some clear thinking on the Ordinariate

Baptism lite - the low God version?

The Daily Mail caused a few raised eyebrows this week with their report that the Church of England is planning to take some of the God stuff out of the baptism service to try to appeal to the younger generation who have grown up with less religion in their lives.

Church of England baptism services may be re-written to remove some references to Christianity.

The plan for a new ‘baptism lite’ service designed to make christenings more interesting to non-churchgoers will be considered next month by the Church’s parliament, the General Synod.

Supporters say the baptism service should be ‘expressed in culturally appropriate and accessible language’ that is readily understood by ‘non-theologically versed Britons’.
But traditionalist clergy said the idea amounted to ‘dumbing down’.

This comes from a motion being put to Synod from the Liverpool Diocesan Synod, the papers for which went online this week.

Obviously when you read the papers, the Daily Mail report appears some way off the mark.  There is certainly no proposal to reduce the Christian elements in the Baptism service.  The Liverpool paper is focused on making the language used accessible, highlighting the example of Godparents who are not normally involved in baptism preparation, so are often hearing the words for the first time during the service.

Three "awkward paragraphs" are highlighted - the decision, the prayer over the water and the commission.  For the first two of these paragraphs there is currently no flexibility in the language used, whilst there is the option to use "similar words" for the commission.  The proposal is to draw up some options which could be used as alternatives to the decision and the prayer over the water.

The papers point to the length of the commission and the prayer over the water, and ask for a shorter version which allows the "Gospel to resonate better with people's experience of life".  There is also concern that the decision is a little abstract and does not relate sufficiently to people's life choices.

So it seems to Mouse that actually this is asking for simpler wordings in some very specific sections of the baptism service which would be more direct and allow the God stuff to be heard more clearly.

Nice try Daily Mail, but you'll have to find something else to accuse the Church of now - "christening without much christianity" is way off the mark.

"Smoking gun" evidence of Vatican cover up on Irish child abuse?

The Guardian was first off the blocks in the UK to report claims by campaigners to have uncovered "smoking gun" evidence of the Vatican's direct intervention into Irish child abuse cases which instructed bishops not to disclose evidence to the police.

Yesterday they reported a letter from the Vatican to Irish bishops which, it is claimed, shows that they specifically instructed the local bishops not to disclose suspicions and evidence of abuse to the police.

Some pretty big claims have been made which, if true, are the first direct evidence of a Vatican cover-up of instances of child abuse by Catholic priests.

"The letter is of huge international significance," said Colm O'Gorman, director of the Irish section of Amnesty International. "It shows that the Vatican's intention is to prevent reporting of abuse to criminal authorities. And if that instruction applied here [in Ireland], it applied everywhere."

Joelle Casteix, a director of the US advocacy group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, described it as "the smoking gun we've been looking for."

However, Mouse has some concerns about this new evidence.

Firstly, the copy of it which is available on the Associated Press website, and has been reproduced in many of the reports is illegible, and no-one has quoted the full text of the letter.  (Update: this is now available HERE.  Mouse has copied the full text below.  Mouse's view has not changed at all based on the full text version.)  This does make it rather hard to follow what has gone on.  Mouse notes that none of the reports quote more than the odd half sentence of the letter, implying that they haven't actually read it either.

The letter is not much more than a page long, so Mouse is suspicious of it's vital importance in the issue.  The Irish broadcaster RTE is cited as the source of the letter in almost all the coverage, yet they do not feature the story at all on their website, as far as Mouse can tell, which is odd in the extreme if they got their hands of a scoop of global significance.

Most importantly, however, those snippets which have been quoted in the media reports do not indicate to Mouse anything like an instruction to cover anything up.

The 1997 letter documents rejection of a 1996 Irish church initiative to help police identify paedophile priests. Signed by the late Archbishop Luciano Storero, Pope John Paul II's envoy to Ireland, it instructs bishops that their new policy of making the reporting of suspected crimes mandatory "gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature".

Storero wrote that canon law, whereby allegations and punishments are handled within the church, "must be meticulously followed"; any bishop who tried to go outside canon law would face the "highly embarrassing" position of being overturned on appeal in Rome.

The implication being made is that this instruction is a warning not to report, with the frequently quoted myth that the existence of Canon Law, dealing with internal disciplinary procedures of the Catholic Church, somehow means that the Church expects to by-pass national civil and criminal law - it does not, and never has.  It is simply the means by which the Church deals with things.  Nowhere in Canon Law does it say that Catholic priests or anyone else is above national law or that they should not comply with it fully.

The instruction that the relevant church laws and procedures "must be meticulously followed" strikes Mouse as a statement of the bleeding obvious.  Any police officer or lawyer knows that a failure to follow due procedure can jeopordise an entire case, and by 1997, when this letter was sent, it was clear that the scandal was broad in scale with seirous criminal behaviour involved by a large number of people, so an instruction to take care to follow established procedures is hardly suspicious.

Similarly, the warning that automatically reporting all suspicions to the police also has potential issues with it is not evidence of a cover up.  It is a very difficult line to draw as to when unusual behaviour becomes suspicious, and this could easily be read as an instruction to make sure there are reasonable grounds for suspicion before making reports. (Update - with the benefit of the full text we can see that the reference to 'mandatory reporting' is not a reference to a proposal by the Irish Catholic Church, as has been reported in the press based on extracts from the letter.  It a reference made within the Irish Catholic Bishops' Advisory Committee document to a proposal which was due to come forward by the Irish Civil Authorities on mandatory reporting.)

Next in the Guardian report is the claim that this kind of failure took place in the case of Tony Walsh, highlighted in the 2009 Irish state report.  This priest is estimated to have abused hundreds of children, and is perhaps one of the worst and most disturbing offenders who systematically used his position as a priest to abuse children.  In December 2010 he was sentenced to 123 years imprisonment for his crimes.  His de-frocking by the Irish Church was reversed on appeal by the vatican, and he went on to rape a boy.  The chapter of the Murphy report dealing with Walsh was not released until after this sentence was handed down, and revealed how the Catholic Church in Ireland failed to report Walsh to the police when they should have (by 1979 at the latest).

However, Mouse struggles a little with this case as an example of this new letter being applied, as the police were involved in the Tony Walsh case by 1990, well before the appeal against his de-frocking and well before the letter was sent.  The Murphy report criticises the police for failing to investigate fully and for deferring to the Irish Catholic Church, but not the Vatican for witholding evidence.

Clearly there is blame and fault in a number of places in this case, and the Irish Catholic Church is to blame for the failure to deal with Walsh's crimes lies when they had early suspicions and evidence.

But Mouse is still struggling to see the evidence of a Vatican instructed cover up.  It may be there, and Mouse does not deny the possibility that the Vatican made such instructions, however, if this letter really is such an instruction Mouse we need to be able to read it, and the snippets quoted so far do not seem to indicate that it is a "smoking gun".

Mouse will, once again (as he has had to make this clear on many occasions), state categorically that none of this should in any way reduce the scale or impact of the abuse scandal. Those who have perpetrated crimes should be brought to justice as swiftly as possible, if this has not already happened, and any instances of cover-ups should be fully investigated and dealt with by the relevant civil authorities.

Mouse is not seeking in any way to defend the Catholic Church on the child abuse scandal where there is blame.  However, he feels that it is irresponsible to put claims out there which cannot be substantiated by evidence.  We do not serve the victims and their families any better for making unsubstantiated accusations against the Pope or the Vatican.

In the case of this letter, we need to see the full text, then to have a sensible reading of it without attempting to read between the lines or misunderstanding the role and nature of Canon Law.  If it really is what campaigners are claiming, then it is of huge importance.


---------------------------------------------
Full text of the letter:

Your Excellency,

The Congregation for the Clergy has attentively studied the complex question of sexual abuse of minors by clerics and the document entitled "Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response", published by the Irish Catholic Bishops' Advisory Committee.

The Congregation wishes to emphasize the need for this document to conform to the canonical norms presently in force.

The text, however, contains "procedures and dispositions which appear contrary to canonical discipline and which, if applied, could invalidate the acts of the same Bishops who are attempting to put a stop to these problem.  If such procedures were to be followed by the Bishops and there were cases of eventual hierarchical recourse lodged at the Holy See, the results could be highly embarrasing and detrimental to those same Diocesan authorities.

In particular, the situation of 'mandatory reporting' gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature".

Since the policies on sexual abuse in the English speaking world exhibit many of the same characteristics and procedures, the Congregation is involved in a global study of them.  At the appropriate time, with the collaboration of the interested Episcopal Conferences and in dialogue with them, the Congregation will not be remiss in establishing some concrete directives with regard to these Policies.

For these reasons and because the abovementioned text is not an official document of the Episcopal Conference but merely a study document, I am directed to inform the individual Bishops of Ireland of the preoccupations of the Congregation in its regard, underlining that in the sad cases of accusations of sexual abuse by clerics, the procedures established by the Code of Canon Law must be meticulously followed under pain of invalidity of the acts involved if the priest so punished were to make hierarchical recourse against his Bishop.

Asking you to kindly let me know of the safe receipt of this letter and with the assurance of my cordial regard, I am

Yours sincerely in Christ

+Luciano Storero
Apostolic Nuncio

Churches Together in Britain and Ireland launch social networking site

Well, Mouse didn't see that coming.

Out of virtually nowhere comes a new social networking site from Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, called Churches Together Connect.

First up, what is it all about.  This is really the big question.  Given the ubiquity of Facebook and Twitter, the big question is why bother launching a new site.  Mouse hopes that the answer is not "because we can".  The site is powered by Ning, which is an open facility for creating social media communities, so it really isn't hard to put these things together now.

The press release says that the site has been launched to coincide with the week of prayer for Christian Unity, and has the strapline "more together, less apart".  Mouse has to admit that this sounds a bit "more marketing, less meaning", but Mouse gets the idea and approves.

According to the press release, CTBI General Secretary Bob Fyffe said "this is about resourcing and developing a new space to work on our agenda for unity. It's about building an on-line community. Significantly, it will allow Christians at a local level to engage directly with each other and with the many organisations in the ecumenical family. It will also be an interactive space that will resource and strengthen the work of local Churches Together groups. It's a good example of our being ‘More Together, Less Apart'"

Mouse is left wondering whether the new site provides anything new in that regard that Facebook, for example, doesn't.

In terms of functionality, it goes without saying that it provides many of the same basic functions - you have a page, you can add friends, post statuses on your wall, blog posts, photos or videos, register events and all the basic stuff you would expect a social media site to do.  But nothing new.

There is a discussion forum which has a chance of developing into something useful, as there are not too many quality Christian discussion forums left.  Ship of Fools and Surefish are perhaps the most active forums, but Fulcrum's discussion board is in rapid decline and beyond that Mouse is struggling a little.

The big problem is going to be getting enough people to join.  At the time of writing there were just 47 members.  Mouse mentioned that it seemed to come out of nowhere, and a quick search on Twitter shows absolutely no news about it.

They urgently need to generate some buzz about the site, or it will soon start to signal it's own demise through lack of activity.

In this regard the organisers seem to be lacking in their use of other social media.  Where is the buzz on Twitter and Facebook that engages users and helps them jump over.  Where was the pre-release to bloggers to help plug the site on day 1?

Oh well, here you go guys.  Mouse has done his bit.

Comments would be very welcome on what Mouse's readers think of the site.

If Mouse was a Primate (no, not a monkey) ...

On the 25th January the Primates of the Anglican Communion (that's the Archbishops, or equivalent, of each Province) will meet in Dublin.  This meeting is one of the Instruments of Communion which make the Anglican Communion what it is.

Which is exactly the problem at the moment.  Ten Primates have announced that they will not attend, essentially because they are unhappy at the Primate of The Episcopal Church of America attending due to TEC's stance on homosexuality.

The ten are:

Dr Justice Akrofi, Primate of West Africa;
Dr Valentino Mokiwa, Primate of Tanzania;
the Most Revd Nicholas Okoh, Primate of Nigeria;
the Most Revd Henry Orombi, Primate of Uganda;
Dr Eliud Wabukala, Primate of Kenya;
The Primate of South-East Asia, Dr John Chew;
The Primate in Jerusalem and the Middle East, Dr Mouneer Anis;
The Primate of the Indian Ocean, the Most Revd Ian Ernest;
Presiding Bishop Tito Zavala, Primate of the Southern Cone; and
The Most Revd Onesphore Rwage, Primate of Rwanda.

Firstly, if you don't want to take part in this, you really don't see yourself as part of the Anglican Communion at all.  There are four instruments of communion - The Archbishop of Canterbury (respect for the role, rather than the individual himself), The Lambeth Conference, Primates Meetings and the Anglican Consultative Council.

A number of the Primates boycotted the Lambeth Conference in 2008 and one (Bishop Mouneer Anis) has added to the list that he resigned from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council.  Since all these actions were in defiance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, they seem to be ignoring that one too.  Mouse reckons when you complete the full set, you have effectively resigned from the Anglican Communion already.

Obviously it is not that simple, however.  There is really not much to resign from.  The Anglican Communion is not like the United Nations, where you can stage a walk out.  It is more like the Commonwealth, where the only real activity that joins the nations together is symbolic.

Still, if Mouse were a Primate he would be there.  What's more, he would make sure the final communique from the meeting gave a pretty stern slap on the wrist to those who didn't turn up.  It is one thing to disagree with someone on a theological issue.  It is quite another to call them a heretic and refuse to sit in the same room as them.

Week of prayer for Christian unity - one place to start

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity starts tomorrow.  This year resources are provided by the Churches of Jerusalem, with the theme of Acts 2:42, ‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.’ 

You can tell from the way the developments in England around the establishment of the Personal Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham have happened that prayer for Christian unity is clearly needed.

Actually, most Catholics and Anglicans are perfectly happy with the arrangements and have no objection to individuals following a difficult path into a new Church.  But the press cannot help themselves in reporting "defections", as if three Bishops of pensionable age were in fact KGB agents deserting their mother-land to work for the cursed enemy.

Nevertheless, there is real division not just between the two Churches, but within the Church of England which has led to this whole situation.  We look only a little further afield, and we see that ten Anglican Primates have announced that they will be boycotting them Anglican Primates meeting later this month.  This meeting is formally one of the Instruments of Communion and one of the few events which is meant to hold the crowd together.

All of this seems like madness when we reflect on the persecution being suffered by Christians around the world, many of whom were unable to openly celebrate Christmas this year for fear of violence.

So Mouse wants to ask what action we will take this year to advance the cause of Christian Unity by the Church of England.

One place we could start is the long over-due re-unification of the Methodist Church and the Church of England.  Official bodies have spent eight years looking at the Covenant, meeting and concluding there are no theological reasons why the two churches are divided.  So that just leaves us with administrative, financial and political reasons - not acceptable in Mouse's book.

Perhaps one good thing which can come from the Pope's "prophetic gesture" in establishing a new structure for Anglicans to join the Catholic Church is that it shows that even the oldest institutions which are slowest to change can deliver radical innovation.

Mouse therefore asks that this year when you pray for Christian unity, as well as praying for unity amongst all Christians world-wide, you also pray for some real action a little closer to home.  Synod will meet again next month, and no doubt this issue will not be on the agenda yet again.  We have a new Synod, which has only met once so far.  Mouse asks Synod members to think very hard about their priorities for the next five years, and to see whether they can get this issue taken up seriously.

We really have no excuses - if we meant what we said at this time every year, we would sort this situation out.

Friday round up

Here's my round up from the blogosphere.  Ten of the best from the blogs this week.

1. Krish Kandiah on reaching the missing 20s-30s generation

2. The Jubilee Centre blog on a Biblical view of AV

3. Phil Ritchie introduces the Penance iPhone app

4. Epiphenom has a little rant about the evolution of religion and why atheism is a bit like obesity

5. Will and Testament on the King James Bible

6. Wannabepriest provides a highly detailed three part review of the new CofE website

7. New Humanist blog recommends the Church Mouse

8. Lesley Fellows on Female Christian bloggers

9. The Twurch of England on the new CofE website

10. Kouya on the elephant not in the room (for evangelicals)

The CofE is not "braced for a wave of defections" to Rome

What nonsense we have to read sometimes.


Let's review the history of this story.  When the Pope announced the establishment of an Ordinariate in 2009, we were told that up to 1,000 priests and 400,000 lay members of the Church of England could be going.  This piece from the normally brilliant Ruth Gledhill was typicall of the stories at the time:

As many as 1,000 priests could quit the Church of England and thousands more may leave churches in America and Australia under bold proposals to welcome Anglicans to Rome.

Entire parishes and even dioceses could be tempted to defect after Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to offer a legal structure to Anglicans joining the Roman Catholic Church.

Mouse's immediate reaction was that he could not see anything like these numbers going, and predicted that the number of priests going would be less than the 440 who left the church in 1992 over the issue of women's ordination.

And now we are on the verge of the real establishment of the Ordinariate.  Elements of the press is now still claiming that the Church is "braced for a wave of defections", whilst revising it's estimates down from 1,000 priests to "up to 50" and from 400,000 members to "up to 600".

Now call Mouse a grumpy old git if you want, but is it too much to ask that if you previously inflated the numbers in such an extreme way to make your story work, surely now a little humility is called for.  This development, historic as it may be, simply will not involve anything like the number of people that some had first predicted.  In fact, the numbers are tiny.

The CofE has pretty much stayed out of the whole development, with the exception of the Archbishop of Canterbury's suggestion that the Church of England work with the Catholic Church to make the transition easier for those who wish to make it.

It is sad that some feel they cannot continue to be part of the Church of England, but everyone I've spoken to wants to part on the best terms we can, and hope that in some way this development will actually serve to bring the two churches closer together.

Mouse in the Guardian on collective worship in schools

Mouse has another piece in the Guardian's "Comment is Free" section this week.  It appeared earlier in the week and is a re-hash of his post on collective worship in schools.

In the article Mouse argues that compulsory collective worship in schools should be ended, but that schools should allow religious groups in to organise voluntary clubs.

Since this is a bit of a hot topic for secularists Mouse was not surprised that there has been quite a number of comments, or that most of them argue that religion has no place in schools.  However, he is surprised at just how illiberal many of the comments are, arguing that religion should be banned from schools entirely, even in the form of a voluntary after school club.

Why not join in the debate.

The British Social Attitudes Survey - non-religious now in the majority

One of the debates which flares up every now and then is the discussion about how many Christians / religious people / atheists there are in Britain.

It is ultimately a pointless debate, as the answer depends entirely on how you look at things.  It depends whether you categorise religious people by what they believe or how they act, and when you ask people these things the answer you get depends on the subtlety of the question you ask.

Secularists are quick to point out that the question asked in the census "what is your religion" is actually leading, so you shouldn't trust the answer that 70% of people gave last time when they said they were Christians.  And they have a point, to the extent that the question you ask influences the result you get.

However, they find themselves rather more pleased when it comes to the latest stat from the British Social Attitudes survey which seems to show for the first time that non-religious people are in the majority in Britain.

The latest British Social Attitude Survey (data taken in 2009) has found that 50.7% of the population call themselves non-religious compared with 43% who call themselves Christian and the remainder other religions.

Mouse is rather surprised by this, as the previous year the answer to the same question showed that 43.4% described themselves as non-religious and 50% Christian.

In fact, the total number describing themselves as non-religions in this study has been bouncing between 40-46% every year since 1995, with no particular upward trend obvious in either direction over that time.

What on earth happened in 2009 to make 7% of the population change their mind about Christianity?

The 2008 result was pretty consistent with previous years, whilst the 2009 result seems to be a bit of a blip, however, Mouse cannot see the underlying data, so it's pretty hard to tell what's going on here.

Nevertheless, Mouse reckons that this looks more like a rogue poll than a sudden seismic shift in public opinion in the past 12 months.

But, of course, Mouse could be wrong.

New website for the Church of England

The Church has finally updated it's website.  And Mouse likes it.

OK, so there have been a few bugs.  If Apple can leave bugs in the iPhone, let's forgive the Church a few bum links and a dodgy hand-over from the old website and look at the substance of the new site.

The best thing about it is the integration of the excellent Church Near You site, so that you can find the nearest Church of England church without having to leave their website.  The same applies with Church Schools.  It is well designed, quick and easy to use.

The layout for the new site is also good.  The front page can be customised to show the areas that you are most interested, rather like the front page of the BBC.  Many of the areas have RSS feeds available, so you can subscribe in your chosen reader to stay up-to-date.  The news feed even has some code for you to embed a widget in your own blog or website with the Church's news feed.

All of the content from the old site is still there, but it is much easier to get to.  The views section is a useful reference guide to "official" church opinions on a whole range of subjects, and a document library provides searchable access to pretty much everything.

In this new media age, the new site provides links from the front page to the Church's presence on You Tube, Twitter and to the podcast.  Mouse would have embedded these in the site better, so that you don't have to leave the Church's website to get to them, but at least they are there and easy to get to.

The "blogs" section misses a few blogging bishops, but Mouse has let the Church know which ones need to be added, so they should appear soon (Mouse won't embarrass those left out).

The section on "Our Faith" is more accessible than the old site, so that's a thumbs up, as no doubt many visit the site to find out what us Anglican's believe.

Overall then, its a good job as far as the Mouse is concerned.  The only significant thing missing, as far as Mouse is concerned, is a Facebook presence.  For a good example of what can be done with that, Tearfund and the Bible Society are both organisations which use Facebook really effectively to engage with their members and with those outside.

Talking about the King James Bible this year

There's already been quite a bit recently.  The BBC have done it.  The Queen has done it.  The Archbishop of Canterbury has done it.  So how will you be talking about the Bible this year on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible?

Mouse would just like to ask what messages we are trying to get across.

So far, the discussion has largely been about how important the King James Bible has been in it's impact on British life and culture.  There has been some talk about how beautiful the translation is.  And all that is true.  Yet is that all we are trying to say?

Mouse's view is that many people will have virtually no knowledge of the King James Bible, and almost as many will have very little knowledge of the Bible beyond half remembered stories from their Childhood about the baby Jesus, Moses in the bull-rushes or Joseph and his amazing technicoloured dreamcoat.  Faint cultural memories of Adam and Eve may persist and perhaps some with a religious education will know more, but beyond that knowledge will be slim.

This pessimistic analysis is actually backed up by quite a bit of evidence, which rolls round regularly, such as the recent study which showed that as few as 10% of people knew who a series of key figures in the Bible were.

So we have an opportunity.  Not just to slap ourselves on the back and insist that the Bible is important.  That will confuse those who have thus far managed to go through their lives without paying any attention to it.  And not just to say that the stories are great and the language is beautiful.  Even Richard Dawkins says that.



Our opportunity is to say that the message is radical and life-changing, and that it is as radical and life-changing not only as it was when people first heard it in England in their own language 400 years ago, but as it was when it was written.

Often we try to think of a message that will land with people, and if we're not sure what they think about Christianity it might be easy to aim for some kind of common denominator.  No matter what you think you cannot deny the historical significance of the King James Bible.  Even if you don't personally like it, you will probably have to begrudgingly accept that it is beautifully written, as that is what everyone seems to be saying.

But that is not really taking this opportunity.  The challenge that we really should be leaving people with is to pick it up and read it for themselves.

Mouse has not yet heard that.

Twurch welcomes yet another tweeting Bishop - progress, but a long way to go

It's been a while since Mouse updated his readers on the state of the Twurch.  What started with a crude hack and a little side-bar on this blog, has now gone a grown up.

Yesterday the Twurch admitted it's 12th Bishop, in the shape of the Rt Rev Richard Frith, Bishop of Hull.  He joins the ranks of one Archbishop (John Sentamu), 12 fellow bishops and 157 vicars.

The Twurch now also lists a whole range of other folk, including churches, cathedrals, ordinands, readers, diocesan staff, national church organisations and of course the good old CofE itself.  Hopefully we'll figure out a way of including the rest of us pew dwellers soon as well.

The reason for highlighting all this is to point out just how widely used Twitter is becoming by the Church.    When the first tweeting bishops appeared Mouse thought it was amazing that a Church of England bishop, of all people, would open themselves up to casual online conversation with anyone who chose to engage.  Now Mouse wonders why all clergy are not using the service on a daily basis.

The fact that around 10% of bishops are now on Twitter is significant, and shows that the church is changing its ways.

Sadly, there is a long way to go.  A piece of research underway recently picked a sample of UK churches to see whether they had a web presence, and was able to identify websites for just 58% of Anglican Churches.  This is not good.

Still, upwards and onwards.

Kingston faith school rejected - but not for the reasons you may be told

Just a very quick one, as Mouse is incensed at the deception that the British Humanist Association have just put out.  He really shouldn't let these things bother him, but this kind of thing should be challenged, so here goes.

The BHA have declared a "Victory for inclusive education" as the Office of the Schools Adjudicator has decided that a new school in Kingston should be run by a consortium of the local council, university and FE college rather than the Church of England.  They state:

SW London Humanists this week celebrated the success of their North Kingston campaign for inclusive education and against a proposed new secondary school being run by the Church of England when the Office of the Schools Adjudicator announced its decision in favour of a bid to manage the school from Kingston Education Trust, a consortium of Kingston Council, Kingston University and the local FE College.

SWLH found much support from local parents for an inclusive neighbourhood school that would not discriminate against their children on religious grounds.

A key role for humanists was to point out what local people often didn't know and weren't being told by supporters of the Diocese bid: how much influence the Church would have over the school's admissions policy for its very small financial investment; that, whatever the Diocese were saying about admissions, policies could change and the school become more religiously selective in future years; and that the fact that many local parents sent their children to Church primary schools demonstrated only that, for historic reasons, there were a great many of them within walking distance, not that parents were committed to faith-based education and demanding its continuation at secondary level.

For the full report from South West London Humanists, including a link to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator's decision, see http://humanism.org.uk/_uploads/documents/good-news-from-swlh.pdf.

No doubt they are enjoying the victory, however, it had absolutely nothing to do with admissions policies as this piece implies.

The reason the decision was made by the OSA rather than the local education authority was because Kingston Council was a member of the consortium bidding for the right to run the school, so it had a conflict of interest.  This is not mentioned, so people are left to conclude for themselves why this review happened at all.

When you read the actual decision of the OSA, they state:

Both sets of proposed [admission] arrangements are workable and compliant with the Code.  The SDBE [Southwark Diocesan Board of Education] is to be commended in having developed a set of arrangements which accommodate the aspirations of the local community and the wider faith community.  The KET’s [Kingston Educational Trust] proposals have the merit of simplicity and consistency with other local schools.  We do not consider that the differences between the proposed admission arrangements constitute a basis for preferring either proposal.

In other words, the decision had nothing to do with admissions policies, which the OSA commend as "fair and equitable, and are in line with the School Admissions Code currently in force."

When you continue to read the decision, the reason they went for the KET bid was because the provision from the University and FE College would be distinctive and new, whilst there is another CofE secondary school nearby.

The BHA may well celebrate the decision, but they should admit that it had nothing to do with admissions policies, and almost certainly nothing to do with their campaign, but everything to do with the fact that another excellent bid was received with a distinctive angle to it.

Wikio Religion & Belief blog rankings - full update

Here are the overall rankings for the top 20 Religion and Belief blogs according to Wikio:

1	Islam in Europe (95)
2	The Church Mouse Blog (97)
3	Anglican Mainstream (160)
4	The hermeneutic of continuity (166)
5	Bartholomew's Notes on Religion (173)
6	eChurch Christian Blog  (189)
7	Nick Baines's Blog (213)
8	Thinking Anglicans (240)
9	The Freethinker (251)
10	Phil's Treehouse (261)
11	Lesley's Blog (267)
12	Epiphenom (323)
13	Bishop Alan’s Blog (348)
14	The Ugley Vicar (357)
15	The Cartoon Blog (376)
16	Adrian's Blog (389)
17	Will and Testament (428)
18	An Exercise in the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy (430)
19	The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley (438)
20	Clayboy (451)

As always all of the blogs above were roundly beaten in the rankings by Archbishop Cranmer (31), the rightful No.1 religion and belief blog, and Heresy Corner (127) should be listed here too in Mouse's view, although the Heresiarch is blogging on religion less and less these days.

Friday round up

Here's my round up from the blogosphere.  Ten of the best from the blogs this week:

1. Cranmer on the plight of Coptic Christians

2. Bishop Mike Hill on departure to the Ordinariate

3. Damian Thompson on where to get handy tips on converting Muslims to Christianity

4. Clayboy has creationists in his sights

5. Phil Ritchie introduces the iBible - a new version of the Bible where you can save the bits that apply to you and delete the bits you don't like

6. Maggi Dawn on social media

7. Bartholomew's Notes on conversions to Islam

8. eChurch blog on the Pope's offer to world leaders to discuss religiously inspired violence - just about the only blog to report it

9. Kouya on Authorised myths, and more Authorised myths

10. Lesley Fellows on the ministry of blogging

Muslim converts - some sanity please

Headlines have screamed out over the past few days that there has been a steep rise in converts to Islam, that there are now 100,000 Muslim converts in Britain, and the average convert is a 27 year-old white woman who is not converting just to get married, but because they are attracted to Islam.

Whoever wrote these headlines appears not to have read the report from which they came.

Allow Mouse to point out some of the errors with the crass media reporting that has emerged in the wake of the report A Minority Within a Minority: A report on converts to Islam in the United Kingdom  by Kevin Brice of Swansea University on behalf of the Faith Matters organisation.

The report attempted to estimate how many Muslim converts there are, and to understand who they are in order to dispel some of the media misrepresentations about Muslim converts.  The effect seems to have been to create a new wave of media misrepresentations.

Lets start at the top:

1. Are there really 100,000 Muslim converts in Britain?  No - and that is not what the report says.

It says that up to 100,000 people may have converted since 2001, however, the report heavily caveats this by saying that firstly this is an estimate only and should not be treated with a "high degree of confidence" and secondly by saying that this is not the number of practicing converts, as many of these will probably have lapsed themselves.

It must be stressed that the figure for converts since 2001 is an estimate only, and as such should not be given a high level of confidence. At best this figure represents the number of people who, at some point in time, have converted to Islam in the United Kingdom. The figures for 2001 and 2010 will probably be met with scepticism from various quarters. Similar figures have been rejected as too high by both Muslims and non-Muslims in the past - usually with the reason that if there were "so many" converts, then they would be much more visible in the Muslim community. However, it is not claimed that this figure represents the number of current practising converts to Islam in the United Kingdom (as this figure would automatically be lower through natural attrition as well as the fact that some converts may have "lapsed" or converted to other religions after their conversion to Islam).

Mouse also has a bit of a question about who is considered a convert by this report, as it seems to include people who were brought up in Muslim households, either by "lapsed" parents of people who lapsed themselves and then began practicing, and hence became converts themselves.  The author says this area is one "that deserves further research" - in other words, he doesn't know.

2. The average convert is a white British woman aged 27?  Only if you define "average" in a pretty odd way.

First up, is the average convert a woman?  Well 62% of converts were women, so in a sense yes, although it is pretty odd to talk about an average gender.  Similarly 56% were white British, so does that make the average convert White British - sort of.  And the average age was 27.5.  However, putting these three things together to create "the average convert" is pretty dodgy.  It's a bit like saying that if you had four sheep and two ducks, the average beast is wooly with three legs.

The report does not break down the data to allow us to correlate these factors, so it is impossible to say whether the proportions were all evenly spread - it is very bad statistics to take three unrelated factors (age, gender and ethnicity), take the largest group in each category and claim the average person has those characteristics.

3. Marriage had a relatively small role in decisions to convert?  Hmmm

Now, it is certainly the case that the author of the report is very keen to make the case that marriage plays a relatively small role in conversions, but Mouse is not so convinced.

In terms of statistics, the survey conducted found that 55% of respondents had married a born Muslim and a further 12% had married a convert, indicating that it probably did play a large factor in up to two thirds of cases.  Of the remaining cases only 24% were either single or married to non-Muslims (the 9% were divorced or widowed, some from Muslim converts, without a precise number given), we have no breakdown of their backgrounds, so cannot tell whether they were brought up in Muslim households or no.  This it is pretty hard to tell what impact the objective of marriage has.

However, this survey was completed by just 122 people, and is not what was used to create the population estimates, which relied on harder data, such as census returns.  So when we talk about these percentages they cannot be claimed to be representative, as the author himself admits:

Finally, it must be noted that the finds of the survey cannot be claimed to be representative of all converts to Islam in the United Kingdom, but given the large number of responses received to the main survey, the findings may provide a useful indicator of trends amongst this under-researched group.

So, what do we actually have here?

We have a ball park estimate of the number of people who have at some point converted, which seems to be in line with previous estimates, but might not be very accurate and does not represent the number of active converts, and some unrepresentative survey data from which conclusions are being drawn.

Even if the very highest estimate is accurate, this still only represents around 4% of the Muslim population of Britain and 0.2% of the entire British population.  LeftFootForward point out that at the rate of conversion being described it would take 213 years before the Muslim population of Britain were to double in size, assuming that no-body lapses.

Media reports which are claiming this as evidence of the Islamification of Britain are way off, and the people who wrote them should be ashamed of themselves.

A bloody Christmas - what can we do?

It has been a strange Christmas.  Whilst the debate gathered steam in Britain about whether Christians are discriminated against here, round the world it has been a blood soaked Christmas for many Christian communities.

Deadly attacks have targeted Christians in Nigeria, Iraq and Egypt, and no doubt elsewhere in less high profile circumstances.

Mouse was thinking out loud about this situation on Twitter, when Richard Littledale sent him a link to this image, showing the blood of the victims of the Alexandria bomb splattered on an image of Christ on the Church wall, which Mouse found to be rather moving.

Mouse was also sent a link to the organisation Open Doors, which works serving persecuted Christians worldwide by supplying Bibles and leadership training.  It is not an organisation Mouse was previously familiar with, but it looks well worth supporting.

Mouse's has been moved to wonder what we should do in response to these terrible events.  Prayer is always the start point.  Organisations like Open Doors may also be worth supporting.

However, Mouse cannot help feeling that the reason behind the persecution come down to some big issues - human rights, justice, the rule of law and democracy are all in short supply in most of the places where Christians are persecuted.  Not surprisingly these are issues where many Christians are active.  Whilst Mouse may have been initially moved by the plight of Christians this Christmas, people of all faiths and none suffer from these situations every day, and God calls us to care for all those who are suffering persecution and injustice.

Mouse doesn't generally believe in new year's resolutions, but perhaps this year he will take a very hard look at where his support goes in this area.  Any suggestions will be very welcome.

Sneak preview - Wikio Religion and Belief blog rankings.

Here is the sneak peak of the January (=December) Wikio rankings.  The bad news is that Mouse has been displaced from the top spot by Islam in Europe.  Since we were around 60 places apart last time, it may mean that one of us has either surged or bombed this month.  However, this does reflect a wider pattern of quite major change to the rankings, with a number of people shooting up and down the list.

Bartholomew's Notes has gone from 11th to 5th, which must have moved him significantly in the overall rankings.  Nick Baines has gone from 12th to 7th, whilst Will and Testament has gone from 5th to 17th.

It may be that the Christmas period has thrown things up in the air a little as people have taken varying degrees of holiday and both blogging and blog reading patters are rather different.



Wikio.co.uk - January Religion and Belief Ranking

1	Islam in Europe
2	The Church Mouse Blog
3	Anglican Mainstream
4	The hermeneutic of continuity
5	Bartholomew's Notes on Religion
6	eChurch Christian Blog
7	Nick Baines's Blog
8	Thinking Anglicans
9	The Freethinker
10	Phil's Treehouse
11	Lesley's Blog
12	Epiphenom
13	Bishop Alan’s Blog
14	The Ugley Vicar
15	The Cartoon Blog
16	Adrian's Blog
17	Will and Testament
18	An Exercise in the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy
19	The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley
20	Clayboy

Ranking made by Wikio.co.uk

Humanists are trying a bit too hard to look nice

Oh dear oh dear. We've been here before and it isn't a good place to be.

One criticism that gets right up humanist noses is the accusation that they spend their time attacking religion when they should be getting out into communities and doing something positive for others, as their entire creed is based on the claim that you don't need religion to do good.

Mouse will start by saying that this is absolutely true.

However, the proportion of charities and aid organisations with a Christian basis is a bit of an embarrassment to secular humanists, who claim that Christians are no likely to be nicer or more caring than anyone else.

Last year Richard Dawkins was so moved to challenge this perception that he established a humanist branded route for giving in response to the Haiti earthquake. However he was so naive in the practicalities that the giving method selected incurred a transaction fee and did not give the option of claiming Gift Aid - a schoolboy error of epic proportions, which Mouse blogged on at the time.

Dawkins Aid was eventually sorted out, but the impression was given that the whole thing was a stunt by people who didn't know what they were doing.

And now we have the latest scheme from the British Humanist Association to attempt to brand new year resolutions with a secular humanist stamp, and to encourage people to resolve to do something for others.

The BHA have set up the Resolutions Revolutions website, with the unspecific aim of encouraging people to make good use of their new years resolutions. The idea is that the new year celebrations don't really have a religious basis (except that the calendar celebrates the years since the birth of Christ), so lends itself well to being appropriated by secular humanists with a point to prove.

Mouse will no doubt be accused of peeing on a generally good parade here - after all, encouraging people to get involved in giving their time to worthy causes is a good thing.

The trouble is, as many in the Church will be all too aware, if it is not done carefully well meaning volunteers who join in with a sudden rush of enthusiasm can quickly lose interest and end up doing more harm than good when they become unreliable or give up.

The basis for this campaign is to try to harness the short lived burst of energy around new year and see how long the commitment can be hung on for.

Naturally there is advice for how to keep your resolutions - which is hopelessy generic and of no practical use.

Mouse's advice to the BHA is to look for something sustainable to support throughout the year. It would probably be best to partner with an organisation which has some experience in placing volunteers too.

The current initiative adds nothing at the moment, except perhaps doing more damage to the individual and the charity when the new year resolution energy innevitably fades. But it smacks of a desperate attempt to keep up with the religious Jonses in the charidee stakes. Not a good motive at all.

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This was written on Mouse's phone so can't embed links - here are the relevant ones:

http://resolution-revolution.org.uk/

http://churchmousepublishing.blogspot.com/2010/01/dawkins-aid-its-worse-than-mouse.html