A possible solution to Yorkshire’s long-running devolution stalemate that could see a region-wide mayor elected by May 2020 has emerged after an intervention by the Archbishop of York, The Yorkshire Post can reveal. A letter by Dr John Sentamu to Northern Powerhouse Minister Jake Berry, seen by this newspaper, sets out proposals for a two-year phased programme that would finally see vital powers for transport, housing and skills handed over from Whitehall to the region’s leaders.

The plans outlined by the Church of England’s second most senior cleric, who met last month with local MPs, council leaders, trade union leaders and bishops, are a bid to overcome the Government’s objections to the proposed ‘One Yorkshire’ solution for a mayor presiding over the whole region of more than five million people.

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Dioceses may struggle to cope financially with the national target of adding 50 per cent to the number of ordinands by 2020, a Church Times survey suggests.

A questionnaire sent to diocesan secretaries and directors of ordinands discovered that, although all seemed to support the target, all but one of those who responded were concerned, or very concerned, about how this might be financed. One wrote: “The desire is there, but not the funding.” Some are undermining the strategy by capping the number of people recommended for training.

Financial anxiety is focused on the cost of training, but also what happens after training: many dioceses will struggle to support and house an increased number of assistant curates, and are warning ordinands that they will not be able to return. Other dioceses are looking for cheaper training pathways, or hoping for an influx of self-supporting (i.e. non-stipendiary) clergy.

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One of the largest evangelical churches in the country is withdrawing itself from relations with neighbouring Anglican churches over irreconcilable differences on their teaching on sexuality.

St Helen’s Bishopgate, which attracts nearly 2,000 worshippers across its four services each week, declared it was in ‘impaired relationship’ with fellow Church of England parishes in its deanery in central London.

William Taylor, rector of St Helen’s, cited ‘the widely publicised views held by certain members of the deanery chapter’ as reasons for the split.

‘We (the clergy, wardens and PCC of St Helen’s) no longer consider these church leaders who have ceased to ‘believe and uphold the Christian faith Church of England has received it’ to be ‘walking together’ with us in any meaningful partnership’, he told the area dean Rev Oliver Ross.

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Canon Mark Oakley was delivering the Donald Barnes Memorial Lecture, arguing for a renewal of theological language.

The Canon, who is responsible for the educational and outreach work of the Cathedral, explained that a priest’s vocation ‘is not about giving information’ but helping ‘formation’ and ‘growth’, adding that ‘the Church is always in danger of such deadening jargon that means little to the uninitiated’.

He said that talk of faith and God is ‘so often at the moment polarised’ and ‘beaten into crass characterisations and then fired like bullets’.

This leads to ‘a lot of bumper-sticker theology, soundbites on God that we’re meant to honk at if we agree or just drive by if we don’t’.

“We are not here to resolve the mystery of God but to deepen it. We are not to reflect jargon and cliché – the devil is in the drivel when logos have turned to slogan,” he said.

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Nine men will be ordained on Thursday as the first deacons and priests of the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE), the breakaway conservative Evangelical movement that seeks to plant Anglican churches in England but outside the Church of Eng­­land.

The nine are due to be ordained by the Rt Revd Andy Lines — who was con­­secrated missionary bishop earlier this year by the GAFCON-aligned Anglican Church in North America (News, 7 July) — at a service in a Baptist church in east London.

Until now, every clergyman as­­sociated with the AMiE has come from the C of E, or been ordained by Anglican bishops overseas. Bishop Lines, who is mission director of Crosslinks, a mission agency, had permission to officiate in the diocese of Southwark until he allowed it to lapse in June.

The nine men — eight will be ordained deacon, and one as priest — are the first not to have been trained by the C of E. All work in AMiE churches.

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The royal commission into child sexual abuse has found powerful paedophiles in the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle were operating under weak church leadership.

Thursday’s report follows another into the national Anglican Church which found that every church diocese in the country, bar one, had received complaints of child sexual abuse in the past 35 years.

The commission looked at alleged child abuse, bullying and cover-ups within the Newcastle diocese, producing a report of more than 400 pages just on the Newcastle Anglicans.

It has found former Newcastle Anglican Bishop Roger Herft’s response to abuse was “weak, ineffectual and noted a failure of leadership”.

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The Church of England has raised concern at new data on poverty which shows another 400,000 children and 300,000 pensioners have fallen into poverty in the last four years in the UK.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) says a “turning point” has been reached in the fight against poverty following the first sustained increases in child and pensioner poverty for 20 years.

Its state of the nation report said poverty rates increased last year, leaving 14 million people living in poverty, including four million children and 1.9 million pensioners.

Campbell Robb, chief executive of the JRF, said: “These worrying figures suggest that we are at a turning point in our fight against poverty.

“Political choices, wage stagnation and economic uncertainty mean that hundreds of thousands more people are now struggling to make ends meet. This is a very real warning sign that our hard-fought progress is in peril”

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The demands are many. A typical day for a member of the clergy begins with morning prayer, reading from the Bible and mentioning to God the needs of the whole community. They can then find themselves going from a lively school assembly to a visit to a bereaved parishioner to plan a funeral service. They may then attend a meeting to discuss repair works to a listed building, take a communion service in an old people’s home, liaise with organists to choose next month’s liturgical music, report a potential safeguarding concern, and in the evening chair a meeting of the parochial church council. No day is quite the same, which is one of the great things about being a vicar. But a schedule requiring such mental, spiritual and emotional agility can take its toll.

One of the things that is sometimes forgotten is that vicars are (or should be) theologians. It isn’t good enough for the vicar simply to have his or her opinions about God and the world. Theology is a serious academic discipline. So what the vicar says about God has to be doctrinally defensible. But it also has to be kind and accessible. Sometimes that seems like a tall order, which means tired clergy either retreat into well-worn platitudes or become regarded as ivory-tower intellectuals in a society increasingly suspicious of experts. It is exciting to be a person of study and prayer in a community, pointing to God and the possibility of new creation in an often weary world. It is also incredibly draining, and sometimes the pressure becomes a bit too much.

I don’t know the specifics of what made Thewlis write the letter to his congregation. But all the clergy I have spoken to know how it feels to want to write that sort of letter. In particular, he says he perceived a lack of warmth among the people he served. That can be very painful for the clergy, who have often moved significant distances to live in a community they don’t know very well, to do a hard job with a lot of public exposure. It doesn’t take more than a few people who are adept at finding fault, or who resent a new person in their community exercising leadership and making decisions, to feel vulnerable and isolated. A throwaway unkind comment or a hastily written angry email can eat away at a parish priest for days.

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It was at 7am that the Germans came. Exactly a century later, a hush fell over Ripon Cathedral as they marked the enormity of what had happened, and the sacrifice of one soldier in particular. Lt-Col Neville Bowes Elliott-Cooper had been, on that morning of November 30, 1917, among the first to learn that the enemy had broken through the outpost line at Cambrai, on the Western Front….

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Archdeacon John Meade, coadjutor bishop-elect of the diocese of Western Newfoundland, died early in the morning of November 29, 2017. He was 45.

Meade had been in the hospital throughout the summer, but “faced his deteriorating medical situation with a calm faith,” according to a statement posted by the ecclesiastical province of Canada on its Facebook page.

Western Newfoundland Bishop Percy Coffin described Meade as “a dedicated man,” saying he “certainly was a dedicated person to his task—unwavering, unfaltering. He was just so committed.”

It was “a great sadness” that Meade was never consecrated as bishop, Coffin said. “He offered much, and there was a promising future for him.”

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The faith angle of the Markle story is certainly an interesting subject. What does the word “Protestant” mean in this context, as opposed to the word “Anglican”?

That’s a question worthy of discussion, but there are other layers to the puzzle. Some might hint at royal opinions about the match?

For example: If Markle is already a Protestant Christian, why is she being baptized? I have never heard of anyone being re-baptized in order to be confirmed as an Anglican. Protestant converts to Anglicanism, under ordinary circumstances, are simply confirmed. Catholics are “received” into the church, since they were already part of an ancient Communion (there’s that via media, part Catholic-part Protestant factor, again).

Was she part of some Christian movement that did not do a normal, small-o orthodox baptism rite? It’s easy to assume that she had some form of Christian identity, since the American actress is a spokesperson for the Christian charity World Vision.

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Bishop Stuart said he would “certainly be looking at a number of women candidates” for the assistant bishop position he has held since 2009, which he vacates in the new year after his election on Saturday to be the 14th Bishop of Newcastle.

It was the diocese’s first woman Archdeacon to preside over a synod, Sonia Roulston, who phoned Bishop Stuart to say he had the job. He took the call while standing at the top of the Christ Church Cathedral tower “having a look at Newcastle enjoying itself with the Supercar races”, he said.

“It was quite moving to have that communication under those circumstances,” he said.

Bishop Stuart is the first clergyman in more than a century to be elected Bishop from within Newcastle diocese after a synod in 1906 elected the Dean of Newcastle, John Stretch, to be its fourth Bishop.

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Newly-elected Newcastle Anglican Bishop Peter Stuart a 'passionate supporter' of women in ministry
https://t.co/dJpya1GGkh #anglican #australia

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 29, 2017

The Vicar of a North London Church has published a new book sharing his experiences of running a Memory Café in his parish in the hope of encouraging other churches to do the same.

The Revd Steve Morris, Vicar of St Cuthbert’s Church in Wembley, established a memory café in May 2015 as a way to help tackle loneliness and isolation in his parish, and enable the church to play a central role in the heart of community life in Brent.

The memory café concept brings together isolated people from different backgrounds and faiths in a safe environment, allowing them to forge connections, share companionship, and keep mentally active and physically fit through chair aerobics and healthy eating projects. Such has been the success of the initiative that St Cuthbert’s have even assembled a memory café choir, which recently performed with the choir of the Metropolitan Police Service.

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“Marriage is a special and joyous commitment, one that Jesus celebrated together with friends at the wedding in Cana. I am so happy that Prince Harry and Ms Markle have chosen to make their vows before God.

“I wish them many years of love, happiness and fulfilment and ask that God blesses them throughout their married life together.”

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What the papers say about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's engagement https://t.co/2h2O0f1qNh

— Guardian news (@guardiannews) November 28, 2017

Bishop Charlie Masters has just welcomed Bishop Wm. Anderson and his wife Margaret into the Anglican Network in Canada. They continue to reside in Terrace, in Northern British Columbia. Bishop Bill has recently retired as Bishop of Caledonia. He has relinquished the exercise of ministry in the Anglican Church of Canada as of November 16, 2017.

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The people of Christ Church, Harris, announced today that they can no longer remain under the oversight of the bishop of Argyll and the Isles, the Right Reverend Kevin Pearson. This follows his decision to support the change to the canons of the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) which introduced the innovation of same-sex marriage.

At a meeting with Bishop Pearson, they explained their decision and asked if the Scottish Episcopal Church would keep the church they have built and the money they have given. The bishop insisted that the SEC would retain all assets. In response the congregation made it clear that they would walk away rather than submit to a decision which departs from scripture, tradition and the teaching of Jesus Christ,

The people of Christ Church will maintain a faithful Anglican witness on Harris under the oversight of the Right Reverend Andy Lines, who was consecrated as a missionary bishop for Europe in June and who will act under the authority of the GAFCON primates.

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The Archbishop of Uganda, Stanley Ntagali, will be the lead runner in a race designed to raise awareness of gender-based violence (GBV) next month. Archbishop Stanley will take part in the Gender Justice Run as part of the 16-Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. The international 16-Days of Activism campaign begins tomorrow (Saturday 25 November) and runs through to Human Rights Day on 10 December.

The run, at Mengo Senior School in Kampala, begins at 6.00 am EAT (3.00 am GMT) on Saturday 2 December; and follows the successful Run to End FGM mini-Marathon, which was held in Sebei on 16 September this year.

The Run to End FGM was established by the Diocese of Sebei as its response to the Church of Uganda’s campaign against female genital mutilation, which is sometimes called female circumcision (FGM/C). The Church’s campaign began in 2015 in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Uganda’s Ministry of Labour and Social Development, and district teams.

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The state of Victoria is set to become the first in Australia to legalise euthanasia after the upper house of the state’s parliament approved a Bill earlier today. The 40-member Legislative Council approved an amended version of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill by 22 votes to 18. Because the Bill was amended by the upper-house, it will need to be approved again by the 88-member Legislative Assembly next week before becoming law.

In August, the lower house had approved the original version of the Bill by 47 votes to 37. That vote came as the Melbourne Diocesan Synod – meeting metres away, urged politicians to reject it.

The Archbishop of Melbourne, Philip Freier, and six other senior leaders from Lutheran, Catholic and Orthodox churches took the unusual step of placing an advert in the Herald-Sun newspaper in August setting out their objection to the Bill. Their advert said that “human dignity is honoured in living life, not in taking it.”

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I once found myself working closely, in a cathedral fundraising campaign, with a local millionaire. He was a self-made man. When I met him he was in his 60s, at the top of his game as a businessman, and was chairing our Board of Trustees. To me, coming from the academic world, he was a nightmare to work with.

He never thought in (what seemed to me) straight lines; he would leap from one conversation to another; he would suddenly break into a discussion and ask what seemed a totally unrelated question. But after a while I learned to say to myself: Well, it must work, or he wouldn’t be where he is. And that was right. We raised the money. We probably wouldn’t have done it if I’d been running the Trust my own way.

I have something of the same feeling on re-reading C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. I owe Lewis a great debt. In my late teens and early twenties I read everything of his I could get my hands on, and read some of his paperbacks and essays several times over. There are sentences, and some whole passages, I know pretty much by heart.

Millions around the world have been introduced to, and nurtured within, the Christian faith through his work where their own preachers and teachers were not giving them what they needed. That was certainly true of me.

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Concern has been raised since the timing of the publication of the Review is later than that indicated in the Carlile Review web site Q&A pages. However, a tweet by the Church of England at 2:05pm today stated: “The independent review into the George Bell case will be published once the processes, standard in all reviews, are completed. Nobody is delaying it”.

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“To banish all strange and erroneous doctrine” is a phrase that comes directly from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (BCP) and its ordinal service for ordaining deacons and priests and consecrating Bishops. It is part of the charge given one who is consecrated to serve as a bishop in those Churches in the Anglican Communion who subscribe to the 1662 BCP and its ordinal (among other doctrinal statements) as “fundamental declarations.” The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) also uses this language when it consecrates a Bishop. The weighty phrase reminds us of the universal and ancient responsibility of Bishops to guard the faith, worship, order and discipline of Christ’s Church.

For the last two days I have been in Kenya as part of a teaching team for the third GAFCON Bishops Training Institute. One of the first talks I heard here was a brilliant exposition of Galatians 1:1-9 by the new Bishop of Lango Diocese (Church of Uganda), the Right Rev. Dr. Alfred Olwa. I have known +Alfred as a friend and brother in Christ, a gifted preacher and Biblical theologian—and I was not disappointed by his sermon!  In this wonderful passage that many believe Paul penned on his way to the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, Paul makes an unequivocal defense of the Gospel of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone.  As +Alfred noted:

1. The good news of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone needs no addition;
2. The good news must NOT be distorted (Gal. 1:7);
3. Only this gospel of salvation by faith in Christ alone saves people from eternal separation from God (Hell); and
4. Any distortion of this Gospel is, in reality, dangerous, leads people away from God and therefore stands under God’s curse (Gal. 1:9)

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[Wednesday of this week]…marks a significant milestone since the founding of the Digital Communications team at Church House in London one year ago. We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the new Church of England website, which has been rebuilt from scratch with the help of many colleagues in the national office in just seven months from start to finish.
While the old website received lots of traffic and interest, the confusing user experience and the 75,000+ documents and pages on the site were identified as key issues. These were resolved by content and plain English workshops for staff.

In January 2017 we ran an extensive research project with 1,800 Christians and non-Christians across the country. This included doing the following to understand what people found frustrating, what they’d like to see more or less of and, crucially, how Christians grow in faith and how we bring new people to faith:

Focus groups in Carlisle, Blackburn, Birmingham and London
1:1 interviews
Targeted national online surveys through social media
Website analytics and heatmapping how users interact with the content.

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Loving the new @c_of_e #website – especially #prayers #during #the #day and this fab section: https://t.co/w44Y4eQ8bO pic.twitter.com/JCYbLX4Djz

— Lesley Jones (@revlesleyjones) November 15, 2017

Fr Frank Brennan, CEO of Catholic Social Services, wrote on the Jesuit-operated Eureka Street website on 9 November that wrote that with the return rate of the survey “a very credible 78.5 per cent” (compared with Ireland, where 60.5 per cent of eligible voters turned out to vote for same-sex marriage), the Australian vote in favour of Parliament legislating for same-sex marriage was likely to be even higher than the 62 per cent of Irish voters who in 2015 supported a change to the Irish Constitution recognising same-sex marriage.

“After Wednesday’s announcement, let’s hope we hear from some of our Catholic bishops repeating the sentiments of Archbishop Dermot Martin after the 2015 Irish vote: ‘The Church needs a reality check right across the board, to look at the things we are doing well and look at the areas where we need to say, ‘Have we drifted away completely from young people?’

“Wednesday will be a day of celebration for those wanting a ‘Yes’ vote,” Fr Brennan wrote. “It should also be a day when we Australians recommit ourselves to respect for all citizens, especially those whose beliefs differ significantly from our own. Our politicians led us into this divisive campaign. Now they need to lead us out of it with considered and timely legislation and a commitment to better protection of human rights for all.”

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Into Thy hands, O Lord, we commend ourselves and I all who are dear to us this day. Be with us in our going out and in our coming in. Strengthen us for the work which Thou hast given us to do. And grant that, filled with Thy Holy Spirit, we may walk worthy of our high calling, and cheerfully accomplish those things that Thou wouldest have done; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

The Rev. Jacob Worley, whose election as bishop of the diocese of Caledonia was not upheld by the provincial House of Bishops in May, has been fired from his position as a priest effective November 30, 2017.

The termination was made “without cause,” according to a statement released by diocesan administrator, the Rev. Gwen Andrews.

Andrews declined to make further comments, but wrote in the statement that the decision was made by Archbishop John Privett, metropolitan (senior bishop) of the ecclesiastical province of British Columbia and Yukon, “in consultation with those in leadership positions in the Diocese and in prayerful consideration of what is in the best interests of the Worley family and the future of the Diocese.”

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TAP: Is that when you started the church plant?

JW: Yes, it was just at that moment that many of the people who were already leaving the church said to me, “Will you now plant a church for us?” My new Bishop said yes, so I planted the church. So what the majority in the House of Bishops here [in British Columbia and the Yukon] said is they couldn’t accept me as a bishop because I planted the church within the boundaries of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of the Rio Grande, and that I won’t say I’m sorry I did it. They said that constitutes that I have a view that’s contrary to the Anglican Church of Canada–and the National Chancellor was actually involved in all of that. He was talking to the Provincial Chancellor and diocesan Chancellor, as well as Archbishop Privett. And he was quoting Lambeth 1988, Resolution 72 as the rationale for my view being contrary to the discipline of the Anglican Church of Canada. They came back to me and wanted me to say that it was wrong to plant the church. And I can’t say that, because I know that the Lord moved in a mighty way there. And I didn’t go to anybody and say “Come and join us, leave the church”–I never said that. I just did it. At first there were 19 of us, and 7 were my family! There were young families, just having their kids kind of families, in their early to mid-twenties. And they didn’t want to leave the legacy of the Episcopal Church to their kids, because they saw what was happening. And so we started in someone’s living room and within three years we saw substantial growth in numbers. But more importantly than that, the people we were ministering to were those people in the community who had no place to go, people with mental illnesses, people ostracized by the rest of the churches, who felt they needed to worship and have a loving place where they heard the Gospel.

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While the Federal Parliament continues to debate Senator Dean Smith’s bill, which is expected to legalise same-sex marriage, the Anglican Church still deems it illegal to marry a same sex couple.

The Liberal Senator’s bill was introduced to the Senate after a majority of 61.6 per cent of Australians responded Yes to the national survey on same-sex marriage.

Bishop Gary Nelson’s diocese runs from Geraldton to the Kimberley, the majority of which falls into the electorate of Durack — where 59 per cent voted Yes to change the definition of marriage.

“As has occurred in America, for example where you’ve got two Anglican churches — one who disagrees with same-sex marriage and one who agrees.

“I think that would be a more likely scenario than it getting passed.”

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Guidance for the Church of England’s 4,700 schools published today aims to prevent pupils from having their self-worth diminished or their ability to achieve impeded by being bullied because of their perceived or actual sexual orientation or gender identity.

The report makes 12 recommendations for schools including ensuring schools’ Christian ethos statements offer “an inclusive vision for education” where “every child should be revered and respected as members of a community where all are known and loved by God. ”

Clear anti-bullying policies should include HBT behaviours and language, policies on how to report incidences should be accessible, staff trained on recognising bullying, curriculum and collective worship should support the vision and the wider church ensure that schools are responding well to the guidance.

Commending the report, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said: “All bullying, including homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying causes profound damage, leading to higher levels of mental health disorders, self-harm, depression and suicide.

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Watch and listen to it all.