Church of England's moment in the global spotlight

It is pretty rare that the Church of England takes such a prominent place on the world stage.  However, today's Royal Wedding pushed the good old CofE right into spotlight of the global media.

So, Mouse is here to pick over the bones and see how we got on.

The headline must be that it was a storming success overall.  Only the most cold hearted republican can have seen the wedding and not be moved.  Everything went according to plan, with the extra bit of fairy dust sprinkled liberally on top in the form of pomp that only the British royalty can pull off.

So at least in that respect the CofE can bask in some reflected glory.

Before the wedding itself, the CofE had a bit of a coup, with Kate Middleton, as she used to be known, getting confirmed.

And it seems that the faith that The Duchess of Cambridge expressed in her confirmation is real, as the bride and groom took the novel step of composing their own prayer to be said during the ceremony.  The CofE can take some extra brownie points for getting that up onto their website within hours (the CofE website now seems to entirely sit within a frame, so Mouse can't link directly to the prayers, but click on the prayer link at the top, then go to 'topical prayers'.

As for the ceremody itself, it was rather glorious, in Mouse's view.  There was some twitter debate about the form of words used and the Bible translation used, but Mouse felt that the royal couple managed to mix traditional forms with modern forms effectively, using the NRSV Bible translation for the readings and the 1966 Series 1 Book of Common Prayer wedding service.

Perhaps more importantly, the Bishop of London's sermon was simple, clear and concise.  Mouse joked on twitter that he could have put a couple of gags in to lighten it up a bit, but on such a grand occasion this would not have been appropriate, and Bishop Richard is more natural with the stately than with the comedic.

You can read Bishop Richard's address on his website.  He focused on the need to avoid self-centeredness in order to allow a full and spiritual life to flow.  Mouse would have liked a little more that touched on the Gospel, however.  He very nearly got through the whole piece without mentioning Jesus.

Rowan Williams played his part well too, as did the Dean of Westminster Abbey, although theirs was a little more according to the text book.

Perhaps the highest point for the church came with the emergence of footage showing an Abbey verger cartwheeling back down the aisle after the royal party have left.  This may have done more for the Church's reputation than any of the rest of the day's events.

So, we have lots of positive points.  We have a couple who seem to be growing in their faith within the Church of England, we have a good performance from the main Church protagonists, and we have a bit of fun on top.

All round a good day for the Church of England.

The question which will remain will be whether there is any lasting impact on the Church.  It would be crass to attempt to 'cash in' on the royal wedding, but it is likely that many will have been inspired by yesterdays events.  I would be surprised if it did not lead to a short term up-tick in demand for Church weddings, which should be encouraged.

We should also take the opportunity highlight the prayer that William and Catherine wrote, and explain what baptism and confirmation are to a generation who have not grown up in the Church.

The fake origins of Easter

Before the Easter season has passed, Mouse wanted to quote a large part of a blog post from Catherine Meyer's About.com blog on alternative religions.

Every year Catherine gets annoyed by people quoting made up history about the origins of Easter.

Catherine explains:

The historical record of Eostre is incredibly small: a single reference written by a Christian monk named Bede, writing after the supposed worship of Eostre has already vanished from England. he comments that the word Easter, in English, comes from Eostre, or perhaps from Eostremounth, the mouth in which Easter occurs.

That's it.

Bede doesn't know anyone who worships Eostre, and no worshiper of Eostre has left any records of her at all. There is no mention of a specific holiday for Eostre, and no mention of rabbits or eggs. Most of the claims equating Eostre and Easter, therefore, are entirely made up. The only potential connection is the word Easter and the name Eostre, an issue that only exists in English. In Romantic languages, the word for Easter is based on Pesach, the Hebrew word for Passover, which Jesus was celebrating at the time of his execution. And the Romantic language speakers have been celebrating Easter far longer than the English.

Stop repeating the fallacy. Please. And stop presuming world practices revolve around what went on in England.

Mouse agrees, and now you know. So next time someone tells you that Easter was originally a pagan festival called Oestre, you can set them straight.

Should Christianity be prescribed on the NHS?

This is the rather provocative question being asked by the Christian Medical Fellowsip, the organisation with over 4,500 Christian doctors and 1,000 medical students.

They have published a report setting out their conclusions based on a survey of over 1,200 studies and 400 reviews involving health and religion.  The overwhelming message will not be a surprise to most readers of this blog.  The CMF found that there are clear health benefits to faith, and that those benefits increase with a life-changing commitment.

What is perhaps more interesting to Mouse is that the CMF are positioning this as a challenge to the view that religion is some kind of psychological problem or a 'medical risk factor' which is outside the remit of health practicioners.

Mouse's experience is that there is generally a pretty good understanding from the medical community that the whole patient needs to be treated, which includes their spiritual side as well as their physical sides.  However, there is a vocal element, including the trade unions, which see religion as a problem to be taken out of health care.

The CMF summary sheet is well worth a read, and sets out the evidence they have reviewed, and Mouse is pleased they have taken a mature view to this, including admitting that it is hard to prove causality when looking at correlated factors.

Rowan's letter to a six year old girl answering her question on God

A lovely news item hit the news in the build up to Easter.  Apparently the story goes that a six year old girl called Lulu, who attends a Church school, wrote a letter to God as part of a class exercise asking how God was 'invented'.

Her father was impressed with the letter, and wanted to encourage her, so sent the letter on to the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Scottish Catholic Church, the Presbeteryians and the Church of England at Lambeth Palace.  The Catholics replied with a theologically complex letter, whilst the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Presbyterians didn't answer.

As for the Church of England, the letter somehow made its way to Rowan Williams's inbox, and here's how he responded.

Mouse reckons he did rather well.

Dear Lulu,

Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.

But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’

And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.

I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lors of love from me too.

+Archbishop Rowan

Bishop of Oxford blunders on Church School admissions

Holy Week this year has been a good time for the Church.  We've had Archbishop John Sentamu doing what he does best, writing on MSN News about Christians on the web before getting out in the open air for some baptising.  Rowan Williams, whilst preparing for the Royal Wedding, got some lovely PR for replying personally to a 6 year old girl's letter to God.

And yet Bishop John Pritchard has bizarrely chosen Good Friday to discuss admission policies in Church schools.  Not only that, but he has made a mess of it.

For a while the BBC were leading with it on their bulletins, and the story was their lead story online.

Secularists were semi-jubilant at the 'admission' from the bishop that Church schools only outperform others due to their 'selection' policies.

By way of clarification this does not have much to do with the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord, which really should be the focus at this time.

Nevertheless, let's take a look at the issue itself.

Bishop John has taken Church schools to task.  There really is no other way to look at it.  He has said that he would like to see Church schools limit the number of reserved places for families from the Church to no more than 10% of the intake.  In doing so he has told Church schools that don't currently abide by this policy that they are not serving their communities and are only serving themselves by collecting "nice Christians into safe places".

All of this came from an article in the Times Educational Supplement which carried the quotes from Bishop John.

Every school will have a policy that has a proportion of places for church youngsters … what I would be saying is that number ought to be minimised because our primary function and our privilege is to serve the wider community. Ultimately I hope we can get the number of reserved places right down to 10 per cent.

However, he also made some comments around the topic, which are what has caused most of the stir.  In a series of interviews, Bishop John said that results would fall if this policy is adopted.  This is what has got the secularists in a spin, as they see that as confirmation that they were right all along, and Church schools results are all due to covert selection through their admissions policies.

We may not get the startling results that some church schools do because of getting some very able children, but we will make a difference to people’s lives

All of this is the build up to a new guidance document soon to be issued by the Church on admissions, although Bishop John did make clear he was speaking his own views in these interviews.

The reaction, other than from those who have always been hostile to faith schools, is that this is a mistake.  It has been condemned by those who run other faith schools, including the Catholic Schools, who feel this is pandering to a secularist agenda.

As for Mouse, he takes a slightly different view.

Firstly, this is utterly dreadful timing.  We don't know when Bishop John did the interview with TES, but they published on Good Friday.  Why Bishop John decided to do rounds of follow up interviews on BBC News and the Today Program is quite another question.

The next issue is what Bishop John is actually up to.  Presumably he is attempting to lay the foundations for a change in the guidance, but this is not a good way to go about that.  What he should have done is set out the relevant facts and evidence and teed up a debate.

It is highly relevant information to know what the average level of reserved places currently is.  Whilst it will vary hugely, Mouse knows of Church schools which reserve no places for Church families, and others which reserve 50%, when they are highly oversubscribed.  Other useful information might have been the level of children in Church schools on free school meals.

We still don't know and due to the timing of this we can't even call up the Church's Education Department and ask them.

Mouse can only imagine the reaction from school heads and others involved in church schools who are listening to this and wondering why this has been announced at a time when their staff are not around and they can't speak to people at the diocese or anywhere else and fearful at what it may mean for their schools.

Then onto the details.

Bishop John's 10% figure has been the one which has grabbed the headlines.  But on the Today program he said that "10 to 15% feels about right", indicating that this was his gut feel rather than a considered and researched position.  He then went on to say that there will be no figure in the guidance to be issued later in the year, and that this was his personal view, and that he didn't actually have any authority to enforce that in any case.

So Bishop John's talk of limiting intake from Church families to 10% was completely off-piste.

And finally on the principle, Mouse has some issues with what Bishop John is saying.  On the one hand, Mouse agrees completely that Church schools should serve their local community, but disagrees with Bishop John in a crucial area.  The reason why places are reserved for families from the Church is because the schools are oversubscribed, and the schools want to preserve their identity and ethos by ensuring that a certain level of children from within the Church are able to attend Church schools.

So this is all about a solution to the problem of not enough places at Church schools.

The solution to that should be focused on increasing the number of places available so that no Church schools is in the position of having to make choices about who they accept and who they reject.

As for comments that results may suffer, it looks to Mouse like Bishop John freewheeling again.  On the BBC News interview Bishop John actually said "even if" results suffer.  In other words, he was saying that he doesn't really care about whether this change affects results or not.  Bishop John should have been more careful with his words on this subject.  As Toby Young points out in his critique of Bishop John's comments, Church schools outperform their neighbouring schools even when they use fair banding to ensure they are not covertly selecting by ability.  They are also rated higher by Ofsted on a whole range of criteria, not just on academic results.

It seems to Mouse that however well intentioned Bishop John has been it is a case of poor handling of the issue and dreadful timing.  There are 51 other weeks in the year when this could have been discussed.

Happy Easter

Christ is risen!

Happy Easter to all Mouse's readers.

David Cameron: In principle, Queen should not be head of the Church of England

That's not quite what he said, but it was certainly the effect.  Cameron was interviewed at length on the Today Program on Tuesday, during which he was asked about reforming the royal succession to allow equality in succession between male and female heirs, and to allow Catholic succession.

His response was that "in principle" he wanted both reforms to go ahead, but that it was a matter which requires discussion with all Commonwealth Countries and with the Palace.

No mention of the Church.

The obvious knock on effect of that change, however, is that it would be impossible for a Catholic monarch to also be Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

Cranmer has written an interesting piece on those calling for reform.  He has rightly pointed out that the discussion about whether female heirs should have equality with male heirs will only become on issue in the situation where Wills and Kate are blessed with a daughter followed by a son.  In other words, still some years away.  He also questions whether those calling for reform to allow a monarch to be a Catholic are really motivated by a desire to take a pop at the Church of England.

Well perhaps.  But nevertheless, Mouse reckons you have to answer the point.

To this end, Mouse would build on Cranmer's earlier point.  Since Kate Middleton has affirmed her Anglican credentials recently by getting confirmed in the Church of England, discussing the possibility of a Catholic Monarch really is rather academic too.

There is a distinction between the two reforms under discussion.  The issue of female succession should be quickly settled.  There is no debate about whether women can ascend to the throne and become Supreme Governor of the Church of England (no the irony is not lost on anyone, so don't go there).  Since it has happened regularly throughout England's history, and some of our greatest rulers have been women, it is not an issue and never should be.  It is a simple, common sense move to which no-one would object.

When it comes to changing the rule to allow Catholic monarchs it seems to Mouse that changing the rule to only allow Catholics to become Kings and Queens is an absurd reform if the idea is equality.  What sort of equality law is it that only applies to one individual, who is chosen by the hereditary principle?

If you want to reform the monarchy in the name of equality, the only logical position to hold is either to leave them alone as a historical anomaly, or call for a republic.

The reality is that this reform is a much bigger issue for the Church than it is for the Royal family.  There seems to be no desire to convert to Catholicism from anyone within close proximity to the immediate line of succession, so discussing this without the Church being involved is not on.

Since there is no need to change this for the next two generations, pushing through a reform which would, at a stroke, remove the monarch from their historic role in the Church is unnecessary and foolish.

Mouse hopes that the discussions that are going on behind the scenes between the palace and the government are making clear that they are happy to talk about female succession, but cutting them off from the church is a different matter entirely.

Twurchcast Ten, with Maggi Dawn

TwurchCast Ten has arrived over at the Twurch website, just in time for Holy Week and Easter. @peterould and @thechurchmouse chat about podcasts, godparents on video, EasterLive and the fund raising talents of marathon runners.


@peterould is then joined by @maggidawn who reveals interesting facts about watching (or otherwise) TVs, how to write a book of devotions and the joys of being a College Chaplain.


It’s all in the Easter 2011 Twurchcast!  You can download the twurchcast to your PC or signup via the RSS feed or iTunes to listen later on your mp3 player.

Bad news for the Church of England

Two bad news stories appeared recently in the press, which are worth looking at.

The first is the piece by Jonathan Wynne-Jones in the Telegraph, which is a thoroughly gloomy piece, setting out why Holy Week will be miserable for the Church of England this year, as it watches 'traditionalists' leave for the Ordinariate.  "Holy Week will be marred by bitterness and despair as Anglicans defect en masse" is the depressing quote, which Mouse couldn't disagree with more.

The overall message is that the Church is rather depressed about the whole affair.  Mouse responds to that with a big "!?"

Mouse will reiterate the points he has made before on this, that firstly he has not had a single conversation with anyone in the real world about the Ordinariate, and that it really is only something discussed by news hounds or by Anglo-Catholics who are considering the move.  For everyone else in the Church of England - and lets not forget that the numbers involved really are tiny - they are simply wishing those involved well, and hoping they do whatever they think it right for themselves.

Some must be quietly pleased that some of the old guard of troublemakers are leaving, but they are keeping quiet.  The overall mood is certainly not depressed.  Most churchgoers are probably entirely unaware of this whole development.

The second story is another old chestnut, this time in the Independent, in which Adrian Hamilton asks whether the Church of England is in terminal decline, under the rather insulting headline "Will the last person to leave the Church of England please turn out the lights".

This article picks up the theme which seems to be buzzing around a bit at the moment on whether the established status of the Church is actually hindering.   However, it lacks facts and evidence, as well has historical understanding.

Whilst it is fine to look at arguments over homosexuality or women bishops as evidence of a church in trouble, you could look back to the church of the 1960s arguing over divorce and abortion, and draw the same conclusions.  Except the rapid decline didn't happen until the 1990s, so how do you draw all these things together?

Besides this, however, it does make the valid point that many within the Church of England, including some senior leaders, doesn't really see the point of the established status.  Mouse would happily do away with some elements, for sure.

Mouse gets the feeling that through all this, the Church is not really getting it's perspective accross.

The narrative that the good old CofE should be putting round is that church attendance has levelled off, and is now holding constant, that the church has changed and continues to change, and that the Church of England is one of the few remaining institutions that can for some element of civil society and hold communities together.  Our message is not one of 'will the decline continue' but 'can we turn the green shoots into positive growth'.

There is plenty of evidence for this, if we took the time to dig it up and shout about it.

Extreme vicars

This bit of fluff has appeared in a few news outlets over the past 24 hours, and what fun it is too.

It seems that Alton Towers and Thorpe Park have got together to promote their attractions provide a unique way of worshipping this Easter, by jointly holding an Extreme Easter event.

As part of the publicity preparations, they have been auditioning vicars to lead the worship.

16 members of clergy took part in the promo audition, by taking on rides such as Oblivion (not so scary if you've read Rob Bell), Storm Surge and SAW.  Don't ask Mouse what these are, but he understands they get the blood pumping a little.

Someone is bound to say that this is legitimising people going to fun fairs on Easter day, when families really should be wearing their hair shirts, but Mouse reckons it is a good thing to be involved with.  Lecturing people back into churches won't work.  We must step out to where they are and challenge their notions of Christianity and the Church.  This kind of thing helps.

Metro have some more photos, which are all rather fun

Steve Chalke breaks world record & raises over £2m through London Marathon

Simply astonishing.

Steve Chalke, founder of the Oasis charity, has raised over £2m through sponsorship by running yesterday's London Marathon.  This incredible achievement means that he regains the world record for the most money raised through a marathon from Sir Steven Redgrave.

So far, Mouse has not seen this reported anywhere other than some Christian websites, and obviously on the Oasis site.

Perhaps it just doesn't fit the narrative the media are looking for, but for a person whom most of the general population will not have heard to have done this really is remarkable.

Update on the lead codices

Mouse reported some time ago on the relic which was being touted in the media as a possible rival to the Dead Sea Scrolls in its importance.  Mouse sounded a note of caution as he had seen reports escalate the potential significant of the find, embelish details and increasingly omit crucial sceptical voices from the academic community.

This is just a quick note by way of an update.

It now looks almost certain that this is a fake, with the inscriptions added within the last 50 years.

The crucial evidence is that an inscription on the codices seems to be a badly transcribed sentence from an ancient tombstone currently residing in the British Museum, which is effectively meaningless out of context.  It looks almost certain that these were copied out to give plausible looking writing to the 'find'.

So the mystery of the coded text is actually pretty simple.  It is meaningless.

Shame, but the bigger shame is that the hype was allowed to escalate to the levels that it did.

Kate Middleton's confirmation

After her remarkable appearance in a Jelly Bean, the news that Kate Middleton has been confirmed in the Church of England (first reported some time ago by the anonymous Ekklesileaks twitter feed) has met with a range of interesting reactions.

Some have described it as 'bold', pointing out that she was under no obligation to get confirmed.  Some less gracious reactions have included the view that Ms Middleton has gone through the ritual out of a sense of obligation, assuing that "if Kate Middleton had been serious about her Christian faith, she would have been confirmed in the Church of England at a somewhat younger age than 29".

From Mouse's perspective, he won't try to guess what was in Kate Middleton's mind when she undertook this.  There is clearly no outward pressure to get confirmed - Mouse cannot remember it ever being mentioned in the press before the event - however, she is about to marry a man who will one day be Supreme Governor of the Church of England, so doing things by the book has a certain attraction.

BRIN have put together some useful statistics showing the decline of confirmations dating back a hundred years or so, culminating in the chart which Mouse has pinched and copied here.

There is some interesting stuff in there all round.  BRIN try to explain the decline of confirmations by saying that it is intricately linked with the decline in church attendance, pointing out that people don't want to attend a church which you are not fully part of.  However, they also point out that the Church of England doesn't really have much of a place for confirmation any more.  For the average member, confirmation makes no difference to whether they can take communion or engage fully in the life of the church, and they would have no idea whether anyone else is confirmed or not.

This reverses the argument and as it makes the point that people wouldn't bother to get confirmed if it makes no difference to their experience of church.

As for Mouse, he is always impressed when adults get confirmed.  There are always some who will make snide remarks, or suggest that it is something that real Christians go through as teenagers.  But this is simply rubbish.  Waiting until later in life to reaffirm your baptismal vows in many ways reflects the reality of modern life that teenagers are now dealing with a wide range of competing views and lifestyle choices, with a new found diversity and freedom to explore and express themselves.  It often takes until later in life before people have settled in their beliefs now, which is why courses like the Alpha Course are constantly growing in popularity.

The only remaining question for Mouse is why Kate Middleton's confirmation was secret until now.  It is intended to be a public event, and whilst it clearly could not be quite as public for Kate as for most of us, the fact that it took place in secret is a little odd.

And just in case you were wondering.  Mouse was confirmed at 29 too.  Good age, that.

I trust the Salvation Army

It has been in the news this week that the Salvation Army were given grant funding by the government to provide services to the victims of human trafficking.  This provoked a response from secularist groups, who have expressed concern that this funding was being diverted from a secular group who had previously benefited from this funding, and that the Salvation Army would use the opportunity to evangelise to vulnerable people.  They accused the government of an ideological move to include religious groups in the provision of services more.

When Mouse first read the story on the British Humanist Website, he guessed that there may be more to the story than they were discussing.

He was dead right.

The Poppy Project is a feminist organisation with a political campaigning arm as well as a charitable services arm.  In the past they have drawn some criticism.  It is run by Eaves Housing and has been in the news before - rarely for the right reasons.

The service provided by the Poppy Project has been criticised by groups representing sex workers.  Notably, in 2009 Cari Mitchell from the English Collective of Prostitutes wrote to the Guardian arguing that the Poppy Project's approach, which insists on sex workers not only turning their back on their trade but also on shopping their former pimp, put women in danger when brothels are closed and they are thrown on the streets.  They also accused the Poppy Project of inflating the number of trafficked sex workers to attract more funding.

This suspicion had been very publicly aired the previous year after the Poppy Project published a high profile report on the growth of trafficked sex workers, only for it to be heavily criticised by 27 leading academics in this field who publicly stated that the report was fatally flawed, and the evidence gained in unethical and unreliable ways.

Most recently, however, the head of the Eaves charity which runs the Poppy Project, Denise Marshall,  publicly set herslf up in opposition to the government.  She started off by giving back her OBE to protest at government cuts, and splashing this in the Guardian.

Marshall told the Guardian in that interview that she was refusing to tender for the contract, as the government was asking for a lower cost service.

She has declined to submit a tender to provide services at a radically reduced level, and has pulled out of tendering to continue to provide refuge services in Kensington and Chelsea, west London, at similarly reduced rates.

"I'm not prepared to bid for a service that did not enable women to get the quality of service that is essential," she said. "If you run a refuge where you don't have the support staff it just becomes a production line, where you move people on as quickly as possible to meet the targets. You're not helping women to escape the broader problems they face. They may get a bed, but no help with changing their lives and moving out of situations of danger."

However, the Poppy Project successfully lobbied for the terms of the tender to change, and were eventually happy enough to take part in the tender.

Denise Marshall then took further steps to endear herself to the coalition government by speaking at the March For The Alternative demonstration against government spending cuts, and denouncing them as immoral.

So the next question is whether we trust the Salvation Army to provide housing services to trafficked men and women (one of the interesting points about the Salvation Army's bid is that unlike the Poppy Project, they were prepared to work with trafficked men as well as women).

Will they seek to take advantage of their position in providing these services to evangelise to people at the point of their greatest vulnerability?

Well we should have plenty of evidence for this, as the Salvation Army is an organisation which has provided similar services to the poor and needy around the world since their formation in 1865.

Backing up their claim that the Salvation Army can't be trusted, the BHA quoted the Salvation Army who said that they cannot be "religiously neutral".  Mouse does not think this means what the BHA think it means.  It just means that they won't and can't forget that they are Christians as they do their work.

If the concern around the Salvation Army is simply that Christians might seek to evangelise as they go about their work, then the logical extension of that argument is simply to ban all Christians from all public service provision.  The BHA insist that legislation is required to prohibit evangelism whilst providing public services.  Targeting Christians for legislation in this way is not necessary, however.  If they pressurise people to follow their religion, then they can be disciplined already, as we have repeatedly seen overzealously applied in areas such as health care.  The concern at the moment is more that they will be sacked simply for mentioning they are a Christian, rather than anything else.

Mouse, for one, trusts the Salvation Army, and wishes them well as they embark on this important work.

Welcome to the Church of the Home Office

Yesterday guidance was put out by the House of Bishops, which essentially told all clergy in the Church of England that they if anyone from outside the EU asks to have their banns read in Church, they should be declined.  Instead they should be instructed to apply for a common licence.

The issue has been heavily debated on twitter, and Mouse is grateful to those who have shared their experiences with him.  The view amongst clergy mainly seems to be that they don't want to be put in the position of having to work out themselves whether an engaged couple are genuine or whether it is a 'sham marriage'.  There are potentially grave consequences for clergy if they fail to act on their suspicions, and it creates a pretty difficult pastoral situation if it is the vicar's responsibility not just to prepare the couple for marriage, but also to act as Border Agency officials and vet the couple.

It is a pretty sad state of affairs, which has required Ministerial approval and an exemption in the Human Rights Act to prevent couple's bringing cases for discrimination, as clearly the rules are different for EU citizens and others.

Mouse understands that some dioceses have been operating this policy for some time.

It seems hard to argue with the logic as far as it goes, but Mouse can't help feeling uneasy at the whole situation, and wondering whether a more radical change in the marriage laws is a better solution.

The present situation is pretty strange, with completely different rules operating for those who want to get married in the Church of England and marriages in other settings.  Mouse wonders whether a better solution is to bring the whole system of registering marriages under a single umbrella.

There may be advantages to the Church in taking the administrative elements out of the Church and putting them into a common framework, and there is no reason why the symbolic acts, such as reading banns, could not continue but without the legal formalities that this entails.  There is no reason why this would lead to a major change in the way marriage is conducted in the Church, except that some of the bureaucracy is take out of the process and combined with the civil process.

This may not go down well with some clergy, who relish their right to select who is worthy of being married in their parish, but it may still be possible to build some of these elements into a system - for examply by requiring a simple letter (or email, come on its 2011) from the vicar confirming that they are happy to conduct the wedding.

Well, just a thought for the middle of the week.

Vatican to host blogging conference

The Vatican is to host a conference for Catholic bloggers on 2 May.  According to Vatican Radio, the aim is to allow 'dialogue' between bloggers and the church to see how they can help each other.

Here's a little of the write up:

Among those participating at the meeting will be Cardinal Ravasi of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Archbishop Celli of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and Father Lombardi of the Vatican’s Press Office and Vatican Radio. An important dimension of the meeting is to allow an opportunity for informal exchange and contact between those attending with a view to opening further avenues of interaction.

The most interesting line in the report is "The meeting will also allow for a presentation of some of the initiatives to engage with new media practitioners being taken by the Church, both in Rome and at the local level. "  Gosh - they're trying to engage with new media practitioners.

So a few thoughts were set buzzing round Mouse's little mind.  A few naughty thoughts immediately sprung to mind, with Mouse wondering whether this is about the Catholic Church attempting to tell bloggers what to say, or whether it is about the Catholic Church wondering what they do.

However, the serious thought came when Mouse wondered whether the good old CofE would ever do something similar.

Mouse is pretty sure that the good old CofE could learn something from the blogosphere, and the blogosphere could certainly benefit from more engagement from the powers that be in the Church.

Sounds like a good idea, no?

CofE issues prayers for the Royal wedding

Bishop Pete Broadbent, look away now.

The good old CofE has updated the prayer page on their website with a special prayer for the Royal wedding.  It is not very inspiring, being a hardly changed version of the wedding prayer found in Common Worship.

God of all grace,
friend and companion,
look in favour on William and Catherine
and all who are made one in marriage.
In your love deepen their love
and strengthen their wills

to keep the promises they will make,
that they may continue
in life-long faithfulness to each other;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

I'm sure some will find it odd that the Church of England has issued a prayer asking God to help Wills and Kate keep their wedding vows, but of course that is exactly what we pray for everyone getting married, so shouldn't be a total surprise.

Mouse much prefers the prayers written by school children [oops - they were written for school children, not by them. Apologies for the error.] for the royal wedding, also on the CofE prayers page.  In fact, could we update Common Worship with this one please?

Dear Jesus,
we pray for Prince William and Catherine Middleton
as they get ready for their wedding day.
Keep them safe,
make them happy
and help them
to look after each other always. Amen

Tearfund launch new climate change campaign

Next week Tearfund will be launching this climate video as part of their ongoing campaign to live sustainably to stop climate change and to protect the poor in the mean time who suffer most from the effects of climate change.

The film is pretty good, and makes a compelling case for Christians that the issue is something we must take seriously, using the strap-line "The Earth is God's and everything in it".  It is impossible to disagree, and hopefully will be enough to push a few more Christians into some kind of action, whether to change our lifestyles or to campaign on the issue.

Mouse still, however, feels there is an elephant in the room here for Christians - the N word.  It is easy stuff to call for programs to protect the poorest in the world who suffer the most, and it is easy to call for those of us in the rich world to live more sustainably.

So what do we think about the bigger debate on energy policy?  Should we support a rapid expansion of nuclear energy as a low carbon alternative to coal, oil and gas?  Some argue that we can achieve the same reduction in carbon emissions that nuclear energy promises through other means without taking the risk inherent in dealing with radioactive waste.  Others argue that we should take those actions as well as switching to nuclear energy to move to a radically low carbon economy.

Whatever the answer, the way countries produce their energy will have a huge impact on our greenhouse emissions, so is just as much a justice issue as the kind of car we drive or the number of flights we take.

Bishops in the new Lords

Details are starting to emerge of the likely shape of the next stage of Lords reform.  It seems that this will result in an 80% elected chamber, with the remaining 20% appointed.

What has hit the religious news pages, is the detail which seems to have been sourced from a Times article (paywalled, so Mouse can't get to it) on Bishops in the Lords.

The New Statesman report on the Times story, however, so we get some information as follows:

The Deputy Prime Minister had hoped to establish a fully elected second chamber but has settled for (£) one that is 80 per cent elected and 20 per cent appointed. He has also agreed to reserve some places for the Anglican Bishops, 26 of whom currently sit in the House. We will remain the only semi-theocracy in the western world.

The Times reports that a "committee of both Houses will be set up before the summer recess to consider the plans and will report next year." Should the Yes camp lose the AV referendum, David Cameron will almost certainly offer Lords reform to Clegg as a consolation prize. But he will have to contend with a Tory Party that, with honourable exceptions, remains hostile to reform and, of course, the Lords itself.

Mouse is rather baffled by these two sections of the same report.  One claims that the plan for legislation, a draft of which will not be published until the end of next month, will definitely contain the retention of some Bishops in the Lords, whilst the second part claims that a committee of both Houses will consider the plans, which shows that there is some way to go before any firm plans are drawn up.

Nevertheless, Mouse is prepared to accept the contention that some Bishops will retain their places in the Lords.  The reaction to this around the secularist blogs has been one of condemnation.  However, Mouse would urge caution, given the tiny amount of information we have to go on.

Most secularists have argued that the issue with Bishops in the Lords is not their presence, per se, but their automatic entitlement to a disproportionate presence.  Most quite reasonably say that Bishops could sit in the Lords, but only on the same basis as everyone else.  Having 26 reserved places is the issue, rather than being there at all.  After all, it would be a strange form of democracy which banned Bishops from involvement, just as it is a strange one which mandates their involvement.

Mouse agrees with this position, but also adds that as a member of the Church of England he would rather his bishops spent their time being bishops, rather than playing at being politicians.

So, if the issue is that Bishops should only be allowed in the Lords on the same basis as everyone else, Mouse is not entirely clear that the proposals we haven't yet seen won't meet this requirement.  We don't yet know on what basis the remaining Lords will be present - whether ex officio or appointed on the same basis as the other 20% of members - and we don't know how many will be there.  We don't know whether representatives of other faiths will be appointed and we don't know an awful lot else besides.

So Mouse suggests that before we condemn these proposals, we wait to see what they are.

Bible for atheists by AC Grayling - a terribly ill thought out venture

Extraordinary stuff, kicked off by this piece from the Channel 4 News, in which AC Grayling gets some good publicity for his new book - a God free version of the Bible.

Professor Grayling has attempted to draw on thousands of years of non-theistic moral thought to pull together the ultimate moral guide from atheists, modelled on the Bible.  The idea seems to be that you can strip out the God stuff, and still have a really good moral guide.

Grayling seems to have made the fatal mistake of thinking that the Bible is just a moral guide.  He was put straight on the Today program yesterday morning by Giles Fraser, who pointed out that the Bible is not so much about how to live a good life, but how to be saved.

Mouse reckons this is a dreadfully mistaken venture, for a host of reasons.  To attempt to sum up 2,500 years of moral philosophy is a rather arrogant idea, but to try replicate the Bible is laughable.

Commenting on the Book the Bishop of Bristol, Bishop Mike Hill, said:

This is a man who apparently also seriously believes that everybody can and should understand philosophy, “Anybody could read Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in the bath, it’s great stuff”. And he thinks we’re up with the fairies!  I know which Bible I’ll stick with.

What is doubly interesting, however, is that AC Grayling has just been announced as the new President of the British Humanist Association, picking up where Polly Toynbeen left off.  So it seems he is taking the opportunity to promote his new book at the same time.

CofE targets £10m savings for parishes in procurement initiative

Back in October Mouse commented on Sir Philip Green's report for the Government on making savings for government departments through improved procurement, and noted that it would be interesting what he would have to say about the Church of England.

Perhaps someone at the good old CofE was listening, as they announced today that they have appointed two specialist national procurement officers, with a target to save parishes £10m per year.

Parishes across the Church of England stand to save £10 million a year thanks to lessons learnt responding to floods and earthquakes. Robert Kissick and Russell Stables have been appointed as National Procurement Officers to establish deals that will aim to save parishes that much and more.  

There isn't much detail on exactly where this £10m will come from, although we are told that they will develop a web-based system of some sort.  And when you spread £10m across the country that isn't actually very much per parish, but it is a start.  Mouse suspects greater savings are to be had from working with dioceses rather than parishes directly, although no doubt there is much that can be done at the parish level too.

The posts have been given three years of funding, and presumably if they do a decent job they'll pay for themselves many times over. 

Mouse is glad to see this.  He pointed out in October that the difficulty in setting up centralised procurement schemes is often that you have to spend money at the centre to save money elsewhere.  Thankfully the Church Commissioners have seen that this is worthwhile and have stumped up some money.

Watch this space for further developments.

New survey reveals Christians volunteer more

Very interesting stuff from BRIN.  It seems the Department for Culture, Media and Sport pull together statistics on volunteering, and that they show Christians consistently volunteer more than others.

The data is based on opinion polling, and although the question wasn't asked in 2009, it is clear that every year it has been asked for the past six years Christians shown higher levels of volunteering that others.

BRIN point out that this is in line with other studies, including the British Social Attitudes Survey and the Citizenship Survey.

Critics still have issues with this.  Since it is based on opinion polling, this data shows how much volunteering people claim to do, rather than what they actually do.  Is it possible that a little exaggeration creeps in when people who feel they should do lots of volunteering are asked whether they do?  Perhaps, although the problem with this argument is that there is no evidence to support it.

BRIN offer another possible angle, pointing out that the demographics for Christians is older than the overall population, and that older people are more likely to volunteer in general.

Lets hope that there is a little more to it than that.

Wikio Religion and Belief April blog rankings preview

Here's the sneak peek at the Wikio rankings. The full rankings will be updated in the Wikio site shortly.

1	The Church Mouse Blog
2	eChurch Blog
3	Islam in Europe
4	Lesley's Blog
5	The hermeneutic of continuity
6	Anglican Mainstream
7	Bartholomew's Notes on Religion
8	Epiphenom
9	Thinking Anglicans
10	Phil's Treehouse
11	Adrian's Blog
12	Clayboy
13	The Freethinker
14	Maggi Dawn
15	Nick Baines's Blog
16	Of course, I could be wrong...
17	Apologetics 315
18	The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley
19	An Exercise in the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy
20	Bishop Alan’s Blog

Ranking made by Wikio

Friday round up

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

1. Clayboy on the Manchester 'tarot' hoopla, and whether St Paul would read the cards

2. Phil Ritchie wants to know where the poet priests are

3. Epiphenom on the evolution of nice

4. Cranmer may find himself in a minority at the launch of Christians for Cuts

5. Lesley Fellows wants to find the best and worst diocesan websites

6. Will and Testament on whether religion makes you fat

7. Bishop Alan Wilson tries to square the human rights circle

8. Clayboy gets a discussion going about what he wishes he knew before he started blogging

9. Revising Reform has some useful tools to help choose your ecclesiastical wardrobe

10. Ethics and Foreign Policy posts a series from the briefing he is giving to bishops on foreign affairs

"Modernisation fund" to eliminate use of overhead projectors in church

The Church of England is setting up a £250,000 modernisation fund to eliminate the use of overhead projectors in church.

The idea is that OHP gives a bad impression, and waste everyone's time in producing acetates, so a fund is being made available for parishes to invest in a laptop and projector.

According to the press release, the good old CofE has done some research showing that up to 1,000 parish churches still rely on OHP technology, which dates from the 1940s, in weekly worship services and other parish meetings and events.  Dioceses are to be instructed shortly to try to eliminate the use of OHP by 2013.  Diocesan offices will be exempt from the edict as they are not public facing.

A spokesman for the Church said,

OHP sends out all the wrong signals.  It gives the impression of a church that can't keep up with the modern world.  This fund will make it possible for all parishes to invest in newer technologies.  Not only will this update the church's image in these parishes, but it will also introduce some much needed efficiency in parish life.

Not everyone is keen on the idea, however.  One parish priest got in touch with Mouse to protest.  Here's an extract from his email:

It is a terrible waste of money, during these tough economic times, to try to force us to throw away perfectly good OHP machines and buy table-top computers.  My parish has been using the same machine since 1965.  We only have to replace the bulb every three or four years and it runs like a dream.  It is amazing to think that we have a piece of technology which was paid for in pounds, shillings and pence, but that shows how well it was made.  This is yet another example of the hierarchy of the Church of England trying to force out traditionalists.