The number of people attending midweek services at cathedrals has doubled in the past 10 years, show new figures published today from the Church of England’s Research and Statistics department. One of the factors attributed is the need for a place of peace in increasingly busy lives.

Midweek attendance at cathedrals was 7,500 in 2003 rising to 15,000 in 2013 (compared to 12,400 in 2012). In a Church of England podcast published today the Dean of Lichfield, Adrian Dorber, said he has seen the need for people wanting a short snatch of peace midweek in what are now very pressurised lifestyles. “At the weekend you’ve got commitments with children doing sport, shopping, household maintenance – life’s run at the double these days and weekends are very pressurised and committed. Taking out half an hour or an hour every week is much more negotiable.”

Anecdote to Evidence research published earlier this year showed that that the highest motivating factors for Cathedral attendance were peace and contemplation, worship and music and friendly atmosphere.

Read it all.

Bishop Robert completed the third of his official Cathedral installations on Saturday 22 November 2014 with a rousing service in the Pro-Cathedral of Holy Trinity, Brussels ”“ the church where before consecration he served as Parish Priest.

You can find pictures here and his sermon there.

She notes with sadness the general absence of religious coverage in the media ”“ “until there is a crisis, and then, all of a sudden, our voice is needed”. But rather than complain of prejudice, this practical, roll-up-your-sleeves -and-get-on-with-it Christian feels the onus is on churches to say something that is worth printing and broadcasting. And she doesn’t mean Thought for the Day. The mere mention makes her shudder.

Many of the first wave of women priests in the Church of England had been waiting for years, even decades, to be allowed the chance to follow their vocation. Alison Joyce, though, grew up in Sussex, in a house where religion was rarely mentioned.

“My parents were occasional churchgoers, but had no sense of Church membership. I can remember, when I was exploring faith in my mid-twenties, pinning my poor mother to the kitchen wall and saying: ”˜Explain the doctrine of the Trinity to me.’ There was fear in her eyes.”

Canon Joyce, you may have gathered, is not one for half-measures. It was during her postgraduate studies at Bristol that she found Anglicanism, but only after “a church crawl. I also went to the Orthodox, the Methodists, the Catholics and the Plymouth Brethren. As a non- churchgoer, I needed to know what was out there.”

Read it all.

Take the time to watch it all (about 16-19 minutes).

[Canon Andrew] White has the optimism of the truly religious but he found this news devastating.“You can’t stop yourself despairing. You can only despair in that situation.”

In parts of the Middle East, Christianity is in danger of extinction. In 1991 there were 1.5m Christians in Iraq. Today there may be as few as 300,000. In Syria and Egypt, in places where there have been churches for almost two millennia, Christians are being persecuted and killed and their places of worship destroyed.

A report by the Pew Research Centre think tank in Washington found Christianity to be the world’s most oppressed religious group. What remains of the Iraqi Christian community has now lost one of its leaders. White, known as “the Vicar of Baghdad”, was recalled last month from St George’s Church by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, because of the danger posed by the terrorist group Isis.

Could the conflict spell the end of centuries of Christian life in Iraq? “If you’d asked me four months ago I would have said no,” says White. “But in the past four months I say yes. What is a Christian life there now? The Bishop of Mosul said recently that for the first time in 2,000 years there was no church in Nineveh [an ancient city that is now part of Mosul]. That’s the reality.”

Read it all (requires subscription).

The 17-member commission held its second meeting at St. Peter’s Church on the Six Nations Reserve in southwestern Ontario from Nov. 6 to 8, welcoming Janaki Bandara from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada to the commission.

Finlay and Wesley reported that the commission began to develop a theological reflection on the Doctrine of Discovery, its continuing impact and ways that it might be dismantled. Secondly, members discussed “what reconciliation looks like in parishes and communities, particularly around the understanding of healing and wholeness and the Circle of Life,” which Wesley explained is a part of the teachings of the medicine wheel. Thirdly, they explored how the quality of life in indigenous communities could be improved by understanding the nature of treaties and the Indian Act, an act that he said “crippled the aboriginal people” after it was passed in 1951 and became law.

Read it all from the Anglican Journal.

A bishop’s crozier, or pastoral staff, discovered in a cupboard in New Zealand is being returned to Maori by the Anglican Church.

The carved crozier was presented to the then Anglican Bishop of Auckland, Bishop Averill, in 1914 by four northern Maori tribes.

It marked 100 years since Samuel Marsden and other Anglican missionaries set up a permanent European settlement with Maori in the Bay of Islands and it is now being returned 200 years later.

Read it all.

Christian and Muslim leaders fear more violence in the coastal city of Mombasa after the government indefinitely closed four mosques over suspected terror activities.

On Friday (Nov. 21), religious and political leaders united to urge the government to reopen the mosques. Muslim leaders accused the government of insensitivity, while Christian leaders feared being targeted in revenge attacks.

“We have always advised the government against adopting these counterproductive and draconian measures. It is unfortunate they ignored the Muslim leaders,” said Sheikh Abdulghafur El-Busaidy, the chairman of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims.

Read it all

Make new Friends”¦ there are some great examples of Church Friends Groups in the diocese. They take a bit of effort to get going, but can typically double the number of people involved in supporting the heritage of the church and help with fund raising. National Churches Trust offers a useful guide ”“ ask us for a copy.

Arrange an exhibition”¦ this can be a great way to engage local people, especially if this can involve children. Is there a local history link that you could make? Don’t forget that the ”˜Lindisfarne Legacy’ pop-up exhibition is still available for free use by churches to help complement local events.

Design a trail”¦ what are the ten most interesting things about your church, churchyard or immediate surroundings? Why not create a short trail leaflet to encourage visitors to explore and appreciate the significance of your church? We can send you an advice sheet and a template you could use for this.

Read it all.

[Archbp Justin Welby]…also told reporters that he could not say with any certainty when the first women might be appointed bishop. “The Archbishops have just one vote out of 14 [on the Crown Nominations Commission], and our ability to control or prevent appointments is very limited. I know there are some very good people, and we hope that some will also find their way on to the bishops’ bench.”

If bishops retire as expected, Archbishop Welby said, women could make up half the College of Bishops within ten to 15 years.

Campaigners for women bishops reacted with pleasure to the news that the long road to allowing women into the episcopate had now ended. The chairwoman of WATCH (Women and the Church), Hillary Cotton, told the BBC that the move was highly significant.

“It is not just about having women wearing purple, it is about changing the culture of the Church to be more equal.”

Read it all.

Nobody can deny that Mr Welby has tried hard to keep the family intact. He has visited Anglicans in almost every part of the globe and was well received everywhere. But this week he acknowledged the deep divisions which, he told the synod, may be “too much to manage”. Anglicanism, he went on, is in a state so delicate that “without prayer and repentance, it is hard to see how we can avoid some serious fractures.” Mr Welby also acknowledged for the first time that the splits are so great that the Lambeth conference, a once-a-decade gathering of global Anglican bishops, might never happen again.

The split is mainly but not solely over same-sex relations. At one end of the spectrum, the Episcopal church in America has consecrated an openly lesbian bishop; at the other end, African bishops have supported harsh anti-gay laws. By comparison, the issue of female bishops is not so divisive. But developing-world conservatives are also dismayed when their northern colleagues make liberal theological noises””by suggesting, for example, that Jesus might not be the only way to salvation.

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Anglicans and Episcopalians from Communion provinces worldwide are being invited to share their thoughts on the ministry priorities and qualities of the next Secretary General of the Anglican Communion.

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He served his title at the parish of Bottesford with Ashby, Scunthorpe in Lincoln Diocese from 1978 to 1980. He then returned to New York City where he served as curate at the Church of the Epiphany and Assistant Director of Trinity Institute, Trinity Wall Street, from 1980 to 1985. From 1985 to 1990 he was Executive Director of the Thompson Center, an ecumenical lay and clergy education programme in St Louis, Missouri.

Read it all.

Anglican worshippers are saying good-bye to their churches in the Sudbury area.

Long-time St.James parishioner Lori Cameron says the congregation has dwindled to 25 and can’t afford to maintain the Paris Street building.

The last service will be held Dec. 7. After that, they have tentative plans to rent a storefront in a mall.

Another church, St. Mark’s in Garson, was just put on the market and the worshippers are now populating other congregations.

Read it all.

With General Bishop Angaelos of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Bishops Nick Baines and Christopher Cocksworth, Dr Fuad Nahdi and others
Well worth listening to here and there are biographies here

Amid loud sighs of relief in many quarters, and muffled moans from a traditionalist minority, the Church of England has cleared the last procedural obstacle to the appointment of women bishops. At a meeting on Monday of the church’s General Synod, only around 30 of the 480 people present raised their hands against the necessary change in canon law. This means that a woman could be wearing episcopal purple by the end of the year, and a lady could join the ranks of the “lords spiritual”””Anglican prelates who sit in the upper chamber of Parliament””by next spring.

This was a big but expected landmark; a Synod vote two years ago, in which the measure narrowly failed to gain the approval of lay delegates, looks in retrospect like a rather weird anomaly. The change was overwhelmingly favoured by the leadership of the church, the clergy (one-third of which is female), and by public opinion””which matters for a church which aspires to be spiritual voice of a whole nation, however diverse or secular. The feelings of low-church evangelicals who oppose women bishops have to some degree been assuaged by a promise that one of their number will be appointed to high office; among high-church opponents, quite a few have taken up an offer to join the Roman Catholic church. So hard-line opposition to ladies in purple has gradually faded.

If this week is remembered as an important one by church historians, it may be for a different reason: it was the moment when the archbishop of Canterbury finally acknowledged that the Anglican Communion, the global family of churches numbering about 80m of which he is head, may be impossible to hold together.

Read it all.

Check it out and note the speakers included–Nigerian Anglican Archbishop Nicholas Okoh and Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks.

It is perfectly understandable that an organisation that believes in resurrection ought to be generally less anxious about the prospect of its own impending death. Or perhaps this lack of anxiety is a form of denial. Whatever the explanation, it seems that the Church of England continues to slip quietly into non-existence; at present it’s on the gentle downward gradient of a 1% loss in membership a year.

The bishop of Truro recently told his diocese that, unless this trend is reversed, the Cornish church will be unsustainable in about six years. Likewise, the bishop of Blackburn has said that the Anglican church is set to go the same way as Lancashire’s cotton mills. But despite these apocalyptic prognostications from the top brass, individual churches just keep on keeping on, often oblivious to the noises-off that speak of death. And I think that the churches are right and the bishops are wrong.

About a million people go to a Church of England church each week. It’s not the glory days of the church, admittedly. But just compare: the membership of the Conservative party is just 134,000 and has been very nearly halved since David Cameron took over. Membership of the Labour party is higher, at about 190,000. And the Lib Dems have just 44,000. But add them all together, and even throwing in Ukip for good measure, and you still don’t have half the number of people who go to church.

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The final barrier to women becoming bishops was removed on Monday, when the General Synod, meeting in Westminster, voted to promulge and execute the Amending Canon.

After the vote in July, which gave final approval to the women bishops Measure…and subsequent parliamentary approval, members of the Synod voted by a simple majority to formally enact the change in the law. A small minority of about 30 members voted against.

Speaking after the vote, the Archbishop of Canterbury welcomed the result, admitting that the process has taken a “very, very long time”.

Read it all.

Update: I see an RNS story is there.

Half of the most senior bishoprics in the Church of England could be held by women in ten years’ time, the Archbishop of Canterbury said today after the general synod voted to permit their consecration.

The church was also challenged to end the next area of “prejudice” and appoint its first gay bishop.

The Most Rev Justin Welby hailed a “completely new phase” of the church’s existence and said that it could take as little as ten or 15 years for women to make up half of the house of bishops, the church’s senior leadership.

“It depends on how many people retire,” Archbishop Welby said. The church was building a large pool of candidates for its highest offices where “gender is irrelevant”, although he would not give any indication of which diocese would be the first to be overseen by a woman.

Read it all (requires subscription).

Western governments have to be aware that there is no such thing as a clear distinction between moderate and terrorist Islamist organizations nor a clear distinction between mainstream Islamic organizations and Islamist (or Islamic political) organizations. In fighting Islamic State and preparing to tackle returning jihadis, as well as in preventing future jihadis from leaving their country, Western governments should not turn for ”˜moral compensation’ to whatever non-terrorist organizations they know, believing they are radically different from the terrorist organizations.

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A British Muslim activist is to speak before the Church of England’s general synod on November 18 — the first time a non-Christian has addressed the assembly.

Counter-extremism campaigners, however, have expressed disappointment that the Church would choose an activist accused of connections with extremist groups.

Fuad Nahdi, director of the British Islamic organization Radical Middle Way [RMW], has a long history of working with activists and groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, described by the former head of the MI6 as being, “at heart, a terrorist organization;” and Jamaat-e-Islami, the Brotherhood’s South Asian cousin, responsible for acts of genocide during Bangladesh’s 1971 Independence war.
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In 2006, however, the journalist Martin Bright reported that the initial government-funded events organized by RMW were conducted in collaboration with the Federation of Student Islamic Societies and the Young Muslim Organization — groups that Bright described as “heavily influenced by the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group… which is committed to establishing Islamic rule under sharia law.”

In 2008, while still receiving government funds, speakers at RMW’s events included an outspoken supporter of Osama Bin Laden, Kemal el-Helbawy, who founded a number of Muslim Brotherhood institutions in the UK. El-Helbawy has said, “[The Palestinian cause] is an absolute clash of civilizations: a satanic program led by the Jews and those who support them, and a divine program carried by Hamas and the Islamic Movement in particular and the Islamic peoples in general.”

The same year, counter-terrorism expert Shiraz Maher revealed that RMW appeared to be supporting a campaign run by the global Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global network dedicated to imposing sharia law through armed jihad. Hizb ut-Tahrir publications sanction the killing of Jewish “women, children and elderly”; describe human rights as the “trumpets of the Kuffar [derogatory term for non-Muslims]”;[1] and label Muslims who oppose their agenda as apostates who should be killed.[2]

Today, speakers listed on the RMW’s website include preachers such as Jamal Badawi, Muslim Belal and Suhaib Webb.

â– Badawi, a Muslim Brotherhood cleric, has described suicide bombers and Hamas terrorists as “freedom fighters” and “martyrs,” and advocates for the right of men to beat their wives.
â– Muslim Belal is a “performance poet” who composes nasheeds (Islamic songs without instruments) that promote fundamentalist Islam. One of his nasheeds expresses support for the Al Qaeda operative and convicted murderer, Aafia Siddiqui.
■Suhaib Webb is an Islamic preacher who, according to FBI surveillance documents, spoke at a dinner in 2001 alongside Al Qaeda operative, Anwar Al-Awlaki, in order to raise £100,000 for the legal defense of Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (aka H. Rap Brown), an Islamic fundamentalist who murdered two American police officers.

Even without RMW, Nahdi’s connections are troubling. In 1992, Nahdi founded Q News, an Islamist youth magazine that promoted Jamaat-e-Islami ideology…
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What is most troubling is that the first non-Christian to address the Church of England synod can be linked to extreme Islamist networks. By inviting Fuad Nahdi, the Church is lending credence to the notion that only radical Islamism can represent British Islam.

Sheikh Muhammad Al-Hussaini, an Islamic scholar and interfaith advocate, told the Gatestone Institute:

“For far too long, Lambeth Palace and the Anglican interfaith establishment have colluded with and promoted Muslim public relations actors with Islamist connections and a history of double discourse, like Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin of the Muslim Council of Britain and Fuad Nahdi of Radical Middle Way.”

“In the context of the heinous persecution of Christian minorities in the Muslim world, the Lambeth Palace-sponsored political spectacle of showcasing Muslims who routinely condemn ISIS, but themselves have Islamist associations with Jamaat-e-Islami, Muslim Brotherhood or other groups and individuals, is a dismal exercise in hypocrisy to the suffering of those non-white and non-Western Christian people who have so badly been let down by the liberal Western Church of England.”

The Church is deliberately legitimizing extremist ideology. What hope, then, is there for those lonely, genuine moderates within Britain’s Muslim community?

Read it all

It is troubling that the first non-Christian to address the Church of England synod can be linked to extreme Islamist networks. By inviting Fuad Nahdi, the Church is lending credence to the notion that only radical Islamism can represent British Islam. What hope, then, for those genuine moderates within Britain’s Muslim community?

So writes Sam Westrop for the Gatestone Institute, in a rather smeary piece entitled ”˜The Church of England Chooses Extremist Islam”˜, in which he twists together a few frayed threads of tenuous association to weave a desperate anti-Anglican fiction of “Church conspires with Islamists just like it always has” kind of narrative. You know, the sort where the sapless Church of England caves in to corruption, compromises with iniquity, dances with demons and cavorts with the Devil. The social objective is a brave new world of undiscerning inclusion; the method is imaginative interfaith dialogue where Christian orthodoxy is safely caged away in episcopal notions of diligence and adequacy. This is sludge-dredging masquerading as theo-political scholarship, all swallowed hook, line and sinker by Donna Rachel Edmunds for the frenzied Breitbart UK, without so much a theological reflection or rational rumination. As sure as tweet follows blog, it is now doing the rounds in email boxes and social media feeds around the world to the manifest glee of the apocalyptic fellowship of the teleological clash of civilisations…

Read it all

During the last eighteen months or so I have had the opportunity to visit thirty-six other Primates of the Anglican Communion at various points. This has involved a total of 14 trips lasting 96 days in all. I incidentally calculated that it involves more than eleven days actually sitting in aeroplanes. This seemed to be a good moment therefore to speak a little about the state of the Communion and to look honestly at some of the issues that are faced and the possible ways forward.

A Flourishing Communion

First of all, and this needs to be heard very clearly, the Anglican Communion exists and is flourishing in roughly 165 countries. There has been comment over the last year that issues around the Communion should not trouble us in the Church of England because the Communion has for all practical purposes ceased to exist. Not only does it exist, but almost everywhere (there are some exceptions) the links to the See of Canterbury, notwithstanding its Archbishop, are profoundly valued. The question as to its existence is therefore about what it will look like in the future. That may be very different, and I will come back to the question.

Secondly, Anglicanism is incredibly diverse. To sit, in the space of a few months, in meetings with the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Primate of Australia, the Primate of South Africa, the Moderator of the Church of South India, the Primate of Nigeria and many others is to come away utterly daunted by the differences that exist. They are huge, beyond capacity to deal with adequately in the time for this presentation…
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In an age of near instant communication, because the Communion exists, and is full of life, vigour and growth, of faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and love for him, everything that one Province does echoes around the world. Every sermon or speech here is heard within minutes and analysed half to death. Every careless phrase in an interview is seen as a considered policy statement. And what is true of all Provinces is ten times more so for us, and especially us in this Synod. We never speak only to each other, and the weight of that responsibility, if we love each other and the world as we should, must affect our actions and our words.
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At the same time there is a profound unity in many ways. Not in all ways, but having said what I have about diversity, which includes diversity on all sorts of matters including sexuality, marriage and its nature, the use of money, the relations between men and women, the environment, war and peace, distribution of wealth and food, and a million other things, underpinning us is a unity imposed by the Spirit of God on those who name Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. This diversity is both gift and challenge, to be accepted and embraced, as we seek to witness in truth and love to the good news of Jesus Christ.

Thirdly, the potential of the Communion under God is beyond anything we can imagine or think about. We need to hold on to that, there is a prize, the quest for which it is worth almost anything to achieve. The prize is visible unity in Christ despite functional diversity. It is a prize that is not only of infinite value, but also requires enormous sacrifice and struggle to achieve. Yet if we even get near it we can speak with authority to a world where over the last year we have seen more than ever an incapacity to deal with difference, and a desire to oversimplify the complex and diverse nature of human existence for no better reason than we cannot manage difference and dealing with The Other.
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the future of the Communion requires sacrifice. The biggest sacrifice is that we cannot only work with those we like, and hang out with those whose views are also ours. Groups of like-minded individuals meeting to support and encourage each other may be necessary, indeed often are very necessary, but they are never sufficient. Sufficiency is in loving those with whom we disagree. What may be necessary in the way of party politics, is not sufficient in what might be called the polity of the Church.

In this Church of England we must learn to hold in the right order our calling to be one and our calling to advance our own particular position and seek our own particular views to prevail in the Church generally, whether in England or around the world. We must speak the truth in love.

In practice that has to mean the discipline of meeting with those with whom we disagree and listening to each other carefully and lovingly
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I have not called a Primates’ Meeting on my own authority (although I could) because I feel that it is necessary for the Anglican Communion to develop a collegial model of leadership, as much as it is necessary in the Church of England, and I have therefore waited for the end of the visits to Provinces.

If the majority view of the Primates is that such a meeting would be a good thing, one will be called in response. The agenda for that meeting will not be set centrally, but from around the Primates of the Communion. One issue that needs to be decided on, ideally by the Primates’ meeting, is whether and if so when there is another Lambeth Conference. It is certainly achievable, but the decision is better made together carefully, than in haste to meet an artificial deadline of a year ending in 8. A Lambeth Conference is so expensive and so complex that we have to be sure that it is worthwhile. It will not be imposed, but part of a collective decision.

The key general point to be established is how the Anglican Communion is led, and what its vision is in the 21st century, in a post-colonial world? How do we reflect the fact that the majority of its members are in the Global South, what is the role of the Instruments of Communion, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury, and what does that look like in lived out practice?

Read it all from CofE General Synod 17th to 18th November 2014 Links.

The November Synod has now ended – reports and audio recordings for each session are below
Tuesday November 18th
Tuesday Afternoon
Report on Tuesday Afternoon Business and Spare Room Subsidy Removal and Audio
– Anglican-Methodist Covenant – Report and Resolution from the Council for Christian Unity (GS 1971), to which is appended the Final Report from the Joint Implementation Commission – Passed
– Diocesan Synod Motion Spare Room Subsidy (GS 1965A and GS 1965B) – Passed
– Possible Contingency Business
– Farewells and Prorogation
[more to follow]

Tuesday Morning
Report on Tuesday Morning Business and Audio
– Violence against Religious Minorities in Iraq and Syria – Presentation under Standing Order 97 [Background Paper GS 1068] [Audio]
– Legislation
– – 507 Draft Diocesan Stipends Funds (Amendment) Measure (GS 1969 and GS 1969x) – Draft Measure for First Consideration – Passed
– – 505 Draft Naming of Dioceses Measure (GS 1935A and GS 1935Y) – Draft Measure for Revision – Passed

Monday November 17th
Monday Afternoon:
Report on Monday Afternoon Business, the Women Bishops Canon Enactment and Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy.
Audio Part 1 and Audio Part 2 [Draft amending Canon No 35 to Questions]
– Introductions, Report on progress of Measures and Statutory Instruments, Business Committee Report
– Amending Canon No. 33 (GS 1926D) enactment of Women Bishops provision – this was enacted [CofE Media Report]
– Presidential Address by Archbishop of Canterbury – Read and watch here
– Legislative Business:
– – 501-2 Draft Care of Churches and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction (Amendment) Measure (GS 1919B and GS 1919Z) – Draft Measure for Final Drafting and Final Approval – Passed
– – 503-4 Draft Church of England (Ecclesiastical Property) Measure (GS 1921B and GS1921Z) – Draft Measure for Final Drafting and Final Approval – Passed
– – 506 Draft Amending Canon No. 35 (GS 1964A) – Draft Amending Canon for Revision and Final Drafting
– – 508 Draft Scheme amending the Diocese in Europe Constitution 1995 (GS 1968 and GS 1968x) – Passed
– Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy (GS 1970) – A member of the House of Clergy to move: ”˜That the Synod do take note of this Report.’ which duly happened [Report]
– Worship
– Questions and Answers
——————————-

â–  Press release about Agenda
â–  Press Reports
â–  Daily Agenda and Timetable and Brief Agenda and Papers
â–  Live Video Feed when in session or listen here for prior recordings
â–  Twitter: #synod and it may be worth following: CofE Official Synod tweets; and @C_of_E if interested.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols and the Rt Revd Tony Robinson, the Anglican Bishop of Wakefield, lit candles and prayed yesterday in St Anne’s Cathedral in Leeds for the couple and their unborn daughter who were burned to death in Pakistan last week.

Sajjad Maseeh, 27, and his wife Shama Bibi, 24, who had three children, were attacked by a mob of 1,200 that had gathered after rumours they had desecrated the Koran. It is thought the mob burned them to death at the brick kiln where they worked.

Cardinal Nichols, president of the bishops’ conference of England and Wales, said: “This is a horrific and tragic event which sullies the reputation of a great nation. Surely all people of true religious spirit will, in response, turn to God in prayer, seeking forgiveness for the violence and destruction of life, pleading for peace in our troubled world.

“For my part I pray for the repose of the souls of the couple and their unborn child.”

Read it all.

Setting aside the fact that Jesus had “connections” with prostitutes, tax collectors, religious zealots and one or two occupying Romans; and that British prime ministers and foreign secretaries have routinely made “connections” with a few murderous autocrats and “extremist groups” in their time; and that the Supreme Governor of the Church of England herself has shaken hands with Martin McGuinness, dined with dictators and bestowed honours upon nihilist thugs like Nicolae Ceausescu and Robert Mugabe inter alia, it is clear that if we are to coexist with Muslims at home and understand the religious inspiration of extremism at home and abroad, we must apprehend and challenge extremist ideology from within. It is not for the Church of England to define the tenets of ”˜moderate’ Islam: it is for Muslim scholars to formulate their own 95 Theses and pin them to the principal gateway to Mecca.

Fuad Nahdi is an academic ally in this process of reformation: his mould-breaking Radical Middle Way (RMW) does indeed have “a long history of working with activists and groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood” (which is, as Westrop observes, “at heart, a terrorist organization”) because “working with” includes notions of historical correction, religious enlightenment and diplomatic struggle. Was Senator George Mitchell “working with” the IRA in the late 1990s? Was the IRA not “at heart, a terrorist organization”? Was this “working with” not morally justifiable in pursuit of the Good Friday Agreement that led to lasting peace?

The problem with a phrase like “working with” in the context of terrorism is that it denotes complicity and conveys a sense of collaboration. That was plainly Westrop’s intention here: to tarnish Fuad Nahdi by association, trawling the internet to bolster a prejudice. Of course, you can list organisations like the Federation of Student Islamic Societies and the Young Muslim Organization ”“ groups “heavily influenced by the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group”¦ which is committed to establishing Islamic rule under sharia law”. But Fuad Nahdi has also been working with Toby Howarth, recently appointed Bishop of Bradford.

How troubling is that?

Read it all.

The Right Reverend Paul Bayes will be officially installed in his new position as Bishop of Liverpool during a special service at the city’s Anglican Cathedral.

Read and watch it all.

To say, as Jerome Starkey does, (The Times 11 Nov) that insurgency in the North of Nigeria is fueled more by poverty than by Islamic extremism, is to undermine the truth with the same old story we hear again and again from those unwilling to face the connected and organized global jihadist network we face today.

Poverty does not explain the death by suicide bomb of 40 school children- Muslim children- in Potiksum yesterday. It does not explain the abduction, forced conversion, and forced marriage of some 200 girls in Chibok. To say that this is the result of poverty and corruption is to play down the evil of Boko Haram, and their form of Islam- an Islam we do not know from the Quran, or from the Muslims of my generation. Remember that often- as yesterday- those Muslims who do not share their extremist ideology are often their victims too. Boko Haram and their kind delight in massacres, slaughters, rape and murders- this is not the face of poverty, but the face of radical Islamist jihad.

Read it all.

Attendance at C of E churches continues to decline slightly, the latest statistics have revealed. In 2013, the average weekly attendance across England was 1,009,000, two per cent of the population. In 2012, this figure was 1.05 million.

The latest figures come from Statistics for Mission 2013, which was released on Monday. The report suggests that, on an average Sunday in October last year (when the figures were collated), a total of 849,500 people attended a C of E service.

In another measure, the Usual Sunday Attendance, 784,600 people attended. Forty years ago, the Usual Sunday Attendance figure was approximately 1.25 million, but population increases mean that the percentage of English residents who attend church has halved, from three to 1.5 per cent over this period.

Read it all.