But I trust in thee, O LORD, I say, “Thou art my God.” My times are in thy hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors! Let thy face shine on thy servant; save me in thy steadfast love!

–Psalm 31:15-16

A dozen more countries have been added to the list of areas where Christians experience high persecution, according to Open Doors International.

The latest survey by the persecution watchdog shows one in nine Christians globally experience “high” levels of persecution, as compared to one in 12 the previous year. It is worst across Asia and the Middle East, where one in three Christians experience “high” levels of persecution.

Open Doors also warns that new laws in China and Vietnam are part of an effort to control all religious expression. In China, the wave of persecution is as high as that experienced during the cultural revolution of Mao Zedong in the 1970s. Many churches have been forced to close down, crosses have been removed from a number of buildings and some believers have been sent to “re-education camps”.

The annual ranking of religious persecution in 50 countries indicates that at least 245 million Christians in 73 countries experience high levels of persecution – up from 215 million in 58 countries in the previous year. The sources of persecution vary from government and nationalist crackdowns to Hindu and Islamic attacks.

North Korea remains the world’s worst persecution hotspot, as it has been every year since 2002. Persecution rose in Myanmar – it is now up to 18th position from 24th – and Indonesia rises to 30 from 38th position last year, mainly due to suicide bombing attacks against churches. China moved up 16 positions to number 27.

Read it all.

Drivers using a pioneering app to gather information on modern slavery in hand car washes made more than 900 reports of potential cases over a five-month period, according to research published today.

The Safe Car Wash app, which allows drivers to respond to a check list of key factors that may suggest modern slavery or labour exploitation in hand car washes, has been downloaded 8,225 times since its launch by the Church of England and the Catholic Church in England and Wales last year.

Between June and December 2018 there were 2271 completed entries using the app, with 41 per cent, or 930 reports, where after responding to a number of questions, users were told there was a likelihood of modern slavery at the hand car wash. They were then asked to call the Modern Slavery Helpline and their anonymised findings were shared in real time with police and the Gangmasters’ and Labour Abuse Authority.

Analysis by the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab in a new policy report released today showed that nearly half of reports, or 48 per cent, commented that workers did not have access to suitable protective clothing such as gloves or boots, despite many hand car washes typically requiring their workers to use potentially harmful chemicals such as hydrochloric acid.

Read it all.

Do not miss it!

In other words Christians are justified by the righteousness of Christ whereby they dwell in him and are thus acceptable to God, but this is not on account of any inherent righteousness of their own.

–C. FitzSimons Allison, The rise of moralism: the proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter (New York: Seabury Press, 1966)(cited by yours truly in the morning sermon)

in the early Caroline period 2 a moralism and deism in the 18th century +on to the secularism of the 19th+20th centuries’ 2/2 C. FitzSimons Allison, The rise of moralism: the proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter (New York: Seabury Press, 1966) #anglican #soteriology pic.twitter.com/nJHSYVpCOU

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 6, 2019

O God the Holy Ghost, Who hast called us to Thy service, as Thou hast begun Thy work, so also continue and finish it in us. Save us from our besetting sins, from pride, and bitterness, and faintness of heart, from sloth and self-deceit, and the curse of an unsubdued will; and grant us to know and to follow, to do and to suffer Thy will; Who with the Father and the Son livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever.

–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)

It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in man.
It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.
All nations surrounded me; in the name of the LORD I cut them off!
They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side; in the name of the LORD I cut them off!
They surrounded me like bees, they blazed like a fire of thorns; in the name of the LORD I cut them off!
I was pushed hard, so that I was falling, but the LORD helped me.
The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.
Hark, glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of the LORD does valiantly,
the right hand of the LORD is exalted, the right hand of the LORD does valiantly!”

–Psalm 118: 8-16

After a steady decline in conditions for India’s Christian minority in recent years, there are fears that things may be about to get worse if the ruling BJP holds onto power in the forthcoming election.

Millions of Indians will cast their votes from 11 April to 23 May in the world’s largest democratic elections, but one pastor who asked to be unnamed for security reasons fears election rigging.

“People regret their choices of 2014. Where I live, most people don’t like the BJP at all,” the pastor told Open Doors UK.

“They shouldn’t win. But we are afraid that the elections will be rigged. Maybe the voting machines will be hacked or maybe people will be given money if they vote for the BJP.

“We, as pastors, were promised land and protection if we voted for them.”

Instead of land and protection, Christians have seen an increase in attacks since the BJP came to power in 2014.

Read it all.

The situation for India’s Christians is “worsening year on year” @OpenDoorsUK https://t.co/39yZZ7IwXG

— Christian Today (@ChristianToday) April 6, 2019

Three historically black churches have burned in less than two weeks in one south Louisiana parish, where officials said they had found “suspicious elements” in each case. The officials have not ruled out the possibility of arson, or the possibility that the fires are related.

“There is clearly something happening in this community,” State Fire Marshal H. Browning said in a statement on Thursday. “That is why it is imperative that the citizens of this community be part of our effort to figure out what it is.”

The three fires occurred on March 26, Tuesday and Thursday in St. Landry Parish, north of Lafayette. A fourth fire, a small blaze that officials said was “intentionally set,” was reported on Sunday at a predominantly black church in Caddo Parish, about a three-hour drive north.

“But just as we haven’t connected the three in St. Landry, we haven’t connected the one in Caddo,” said Ashley Rodrigue, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, on Friday.

Read it all.

3 black churches have burned in less than 2 weeks in one Louisiana parish. “There is clearly something happening in this community,” said the state fire marshal. https://t.co/iish89EPlf

— NYT National News (@NYTNational) April 6, 2019

It was [Samuel] Coleridge who acutely observed: “Socinianism is as inevitable a deduction from [Jeremy] Taylor’s scheme as Deism and Atheism are from Socinianism.” This remark not only exposes the fatal flaw in Taylor’s own theology but also sums up the trend from orthodoxy in the early Caroline period to a moralism and deism in the eighteenth century and on to the secularism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

–C. FitzSimons Allison, The rise of moralism: the proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter (New York: Seabury Press, 1966)

in the early Caroline period 2 a moralism and deism in the 18th century +on to the secularism of the 19th+20th centuries’ 2/2 C. FitzSimons Allison, The rise of moralism: the proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter (New York: Seabury Press, 1966) #anglican #soteriology pic.twitter.com/nJHSYVpCOU

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 6, 2019

Ernest Frederick “Fritz” Hollings, the charismatic and quick-witted former U.S. senator and South Carolina governor who became one of the state’s most important national political figures, died early Saturday after a period of declining health.

He was 97.

“Our father, Fritz Hollings, was dedicated to his family, the United States Senate and the people of South Carolina,” his three surviving children said in a statement. “He was a hero for us and millions of Americans.

“While we are heartbroken, we hope that in the coming days and weeks as we celebrate our father’s life, all South Carolinian’s will be reminded of his service to our state and nation.”

In a career that spanned more than half a century, Hollings steered South Carolina through the civil rights era, established a program to feed poor pregnant women, enacted legislation to protect the environment and brought home millions of dollars as he also fought to balance the federal budget.

No recent history of the state could be written without him in it.

Read it all.

JUST IN: Former SC governor, US Senator Ernest F. ‘Fritz’ Hollings passed away this morning at age 97.

Read more: https://t.co/RG5Fyu9Fv8

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) April 6, 2019

Almighty and most merciful God, who hast given thy Son to die for our sins and to obtain eternal redemption for us through his own blood: Let the merit of his spotless sacrifice, we beseech thee, purge our consciences from dead works to serve thee, the living God, that we may receive the promise of eternal inheritance in Christ Jesus our Lord; to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be honour and glory, world without end.

Concerning the prophets:

My heart is broken within me,
all my bones shake;
I am like a drunken man,
like a man overcome by wine,
because of the Lord
and because of his holy words.
For the land is full of adulterers;
because of the curse the land mourns,
and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up.
Their course is evil,
and their might is not right.
“Both prophet and priest are ungodly;
even in my house I have found their wickedness,
says the Lord.
Therefore their way shall be to them
like slippery paths in the darkness,
into which they shall be driven and fall;
for I will bring evil upon them
in the year of their punishment,
says the Lord.
In the prophets of Samar′ia
I saw an unsavory thing:
they prophesied by Ba′al
and led my people Israel astray.
But in the prophets of Jerusalem
I have seen a horrible thing:
they commit adultery and walk in lies;
they strengthen the hands of evildoers,
so that no one turns from his wickedness;
all of them have become like Sodom to me,
and its inhabitants like Gomor′rah.”

Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets:

“Behold, I will feed them with wormwood,
and give them poisoned water to drink;
for from the prophets of Jerusalem
ungodliness has gone forth into all the land.”

Jeremiah 23:9-15

The Anglican Communion has nearly eighty-five million members spread around the globe. Until the mid-twentieth century, these were concentrated among the Anglo-American immigrant churches associated with the British Empire. But by the 1960s, this concentration began a dramatic shift towards Africa and, more recently, Southeast Asia. Derived from the steady and sacrificial work of missionaries in the century before, and then the even more remarkable work of indigenous evangelization and church-building, Anglican membership exploded in places like Nigeria, East Africa, and Singapore (which is a leader in missionary work in Asia today). Such demographic change brings with it inevitable cultural confrontations within the Communion.

But theological differences are even more decisive. Of the four Christian commitments that David Bebbington famously identified with Evangelicalism—biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism—all but the last seem to have disappeared from Western Anglicanism. But the first three are the heartbeat of the rest of the Communion.

Recent struggles over sexuality are but expressions of this deeper theological imbalance, where Scripture, divine sacrifice, and transformed discipleship are at stake. The moral significance of all this, however, is just coming into view, as the Anglican Communion has almost reached its existential crossroads. After thirteen years of turmoil, I’d give it another two for the verdict. One set of opposing choices member churches have before them—same-sex marriage or support for the punitive imprisonment of gays—demonstrates how the extremes have now brazenly unveiled themselves. The coming year will lay the groundwork for how these choices are made. Given the extreme directions in which things have moved, some Anglicans like me are uncertain what future for faithful witness remains. It is there, I am sure, but what will it be? Perhaps other ­Christians can help us here; certainly they can provide warnings.

Read it all.

‘Of the 4 #Christian commitments that D Bebbington famously identified w Evangelicalism-biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism,+activism-all but the last seem 2 hav disapprd frm Wstrn #Anglicanism. But the 1st 3 R the heartbt of the rest of the Communion’ https://t.co/8anPNsOLmi

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 5, 2019

The American public holds negative views of social-media giants like Facebook and Twitter, with sizable majorities saying these sites do more to divide the country than unite it and spread falsehoods rather than news, according to results from the latest national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

What’s more, six in 10 Americans say they don’t trust Facebook at all to protect their personal information, the poll finds.

But the public also believes that technology in general has more benefits than drawbacks on the economy, and respondents are split about whether the federal government should break up the largest tech companies like Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook.

“Social media — and Facebook, in particular — have some serious issues in this poll,” said Micah Roberts, a pollster at the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies, which conducted this survey with the Democratic firm Hart Research Associates.

“If America was giving social media a Yelp review, a majority would give it zero stars,” Roberts added.

Read it all.

“Social media — and Facebook, in particular — have some serious issues in this poll. If America was giving social media a Yelp review, a majority would give it zero stars.” https://t.co/DuHs1D57ug

— Samuel Scott (@samueljscott) April 6, 2019

The book emphasizes biblical reconciliation, which it describes as “the removal of tensions between parties and the restoration of loving relationship.” Perkins, who has dedicated his life to reconciliation work, sees his latest book as a manifesto of sorts.

“The problem of reconciliation in our country and in our churches is much too big to be wrestled to the ground by plans that begin in the minds of men,” Perkins writes. “This is a God-sized problem. It is one that only the church, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can heal.”

While there is still much work to be done, Perkins has seen signs of unity in the American church, especially in the past 15 years or so. He has been encouraged by the inclusive attitudes and determination of young people and by congregations successfully starting new multi-ethnic and multicultural churches.

“I praise God for that,” Perkins said.

He pointed to a successful Memphis church as an example, saying that its congregation also has gotten involved in trying to heal some of the city’s wounds, too.

Read it all.

The Church of England’s National Safeguarding Steering Group (NSSG) has rejected an independent review’s recommendation to centralise safeguarding nationally and strip diocesan bishops of oversight of diocesan safeguarding advisers.

The suggestion that safeguarding be made a solely national responsibility came from a new report by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), which has recently audited each dioceses’s safeguarding procedures.

Its report, published on Thursday, is broadly positive. Its diocesan audits concluded that there had been a “major improvement in the safeguarding resources, national policies and training courses” since 2015, which was clearly trickling down to the dioceses.

But the report also describes how the work of diocesan safeguarding advisers (DSAs) is managed by diocesan bishops and their staff “without any requirement to have safeguarding knowledge and expertise”.

This lack of a “command and control structure” from the national Church means that inconsistencies in the way parishes and dioceses deal with child abuse are inevitable, the SCIE concludes.

But the NSSG has decided against employing diocesan safeguarding advisers nationally. A senior C of E official said that cultural change was the priority, and, therefore, each bishop had to maintain control over diocesan safeguarding and remain personally invested in the work.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has honoured 27 people, including peacemakers, nuns, academics and gardeners in the 2019 Lambeth Awards. Archbishop Justin launched the non-academic awards in 2016, and each year presentations have been made to “people who have made an extraordinary contribution to the Church and wider society”, Lambeth Palace said in a statement. This year’s recipients included Bishop Graham Kings, who was award the Cross of St Augustine for Services to the Anglican Communion. His award recognised “his outstanding work in mission and theology for the global South.”

Bishop Graham “has long experience of working in the Anglican Communion, a passion that began early in his career when he spent seven years working as a Mission Partner for the Church Mission Society in Kabare in Kenya”, the citation for his award reads. “On his return to the UK, Bishop Graham was appointed as the first ever Lecturer in Mission Studies at the Cambridge Theological Federation. He then went on to found and direct the Henry Martyn Centre for the Study of Mission and World Christianity. Following stints in more domestic dioceses, including Area Bishop of Sherborne and a Canon and Prebendary of Sarum [Salisbury] Cathedral, Bishop Graham returned to his love of the Anglican Communion, being appointed Mission Theologian in the Anglican Communion.

“The purpose of this innovative project was to raise up new ‘Doctors of the Church’ in the global South to write, network, publish and engage with theologians in the global North, to renew the worldwide Church and to influence wider society.

“Bishop Graham worked tirelessly to achieve this, organising conferences around the world (in Egypt, India, Fiji, Jerusalem and Brazil), arranging regular seminars in Durham and London and creating a website with a wealth of papers and resources.

“After making a unique contribution to the Anglican Communion, Bishop Graham stepped back from the project in 2007 as it merged into a new phase of its development.”

Read it all.

Peacemakers, nuns, academics and gardeners are amongst 27 people honoured by Archbishop Justin Welby in the 2019 Lambeth Awards.#AnglicanNews #Anglican #Anglicans #Ecumenical #Interfaithhttps://t.co/mQB9IgQUCH

— Anglican Communion News Service (@AnglicanNews) April 5, 2019

Harriet Starr Cannon was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 7, 1823. Both of Harriet’s parents died of yellow fever when she was 17 months old; she was left with her elder sister and closest friend Catherine Ann, then three years old. An aunt welcomed the two orphaned sisters into her home in Bridgeport, Connecticut — making for seven children in one house in this then-bustling mercantile center on Long Island Sound. As a young girl Harriet lost her sight in one eye in an accident, but all accounts point to a happy childhood despite many significant early setbacks. One relative described her as fond of dancing, “a great society girl and not at all religious.”

The decision to consecrate her life completely to God came in the wake of a personal tragedy. Catherine Ann Cannon married in 1851 and moved to California, intending for Harriet to join her when she had established a home on the West Coast with her husband. A telegram brought the news in 1855, just as Harriet was preparing to leave for the West, that Catherine had died. The event changed the direction of her life completely; later, she wrote: “You know, she was my all — neither father, mother, or brother. We were two, but were one — but if God had left her with me, I should not have been here.”

In New York City in 1856, the 32-year-old Harriet was received into the Sisterhood of the Holy Communion, a parochial association of “evangelical sisters” who worked under the direction of William Augustus Muhlenberg (1796-1877) as nurses at his newly built St. Luke’s Hospital. Harriet thrived in her earliest medical and religious work among the poor. By 1863, however, conflicts with Muhlenberg’s collaborator and friend Anne Ayres, who was in immediate charge of the sisterhood’s activities, led to the withdrawal of four sisters and the essential dissolution of the order. (The last Sister of the Holy Communion died in 1940.)

Harriet was one of the four who left.

Read it all.

Gracious God, who didst call Harriet Starr Cannon and her companions to revive the monastic vocation in the Episcopal Church and to dedicate their lives to thee: Grant that we, after their example, may ever surrender ourselves to the revelation of thy holy will; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

Today in @iamepiscopalian calendar we remember Harriet Starr Cannon (d. 1896), religious https://t.co/9j6Pwt7Fa0 #GreatCloudOfWitnesses pic.twitter.com/kEk8gHiGF2

— TrinityColumbusOH (@TrinityCapSq) May 7, 2018

O God, who by the example of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ hast taught us the greatness of true humility, and dost call us to watch with him in his passion: Give us grace to serve one another in all lowliness, and to enter into the fellowship of his sufferings; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, says the Lord.

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when men shall no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land.”

–Jeremiah 23:1-8

In 2018, happiness among young adults in America fell to a record low. The share of adults ages 18 to 34 reporting that they were“very happy” in life fell to 25 percent—the lowest level that the General Social Survey, a key barometer of American social life, has ever recorded for that population. Happiness fell most among young men—with only 22 percent of young men (and 28 percent of young women) reporting that they were “very happy” in 2018.’

We wondered whether this trend was rooted in distinct shifts in young adults’ social ties—including what The Atlantic has called “the sex recession,” that is, a marked decline in sexual activity for this group in recent years. Human beings find meaning, direction, and purpose in and through our social relationships with others. We’re happiest when our ties with others are deep and strong. And the research tells us that the ebb and flow of happiness in America is clearly linked to the quality and character of our social ties—including our friendships, community ties, and marriage. It’s also linked, specifically, to the frequency with which we have sex. In the antiseptic language of two economists who study happiness, “sexual activity enters strongly positively in happiness equations.”

So we investigated four indicators of sociability among today’s young adults—marriage, friendship, religious attendance, and sex—in an effort to explain the “happiness recession” among today’s young adults.

Read it all.

American unhappiness is tied to the “sex recession.” @WilcoxNMP @lymanstoneky @FamStudies in the Atlantic today.

“Declining sex is…partly about family and religious changes that make it harder for people to achieve stable, coupled life at a young age.”https://t.co/zgj7VC9805

— Michael Toscano (@MichaelTToscano) April 4, 2019

The diocese of the Arctic elected three new suffragan bishops at its diocesan synod on March 28.

The new bishops are Annie Ittoshat, Lucy Netser and the Joey Royal. Each was consecrated at a ceremony on March 31.

The diocese held three separate elections for suffragan bishop of the Arctic. Royal was elected in the first election on the fourth ballot, Ittoshat was elected in the second election on the fourth ballot, and Netser was elected in the third election on the first ballot.

Read it all.

Three suffragan bishops elected in diocese of the Arctic https://t.co/djRWDSTImZ via @anglicanjournal

— Janice McAlpine (@Rascal1159) April 2, 2019

As Smith threw herself into being “the world’s greatest aunt” for her 13 nieces and nephews, her siblings picked up on her pain.

“I always pictured Liz as a mom, since she’s a nurturer by nature,” said one of her sisters, Elly Smith, 40, a homeland security analyst with three boys.

Liz Smith, who had hoped to conceive through in vitro fertilization, found out her health insurance wouldn’t cover the treatment, and she couldn’t afford it on her own. Her sister suggested adoption or fostering, but Smith didn’t want to consider it.

Then she saw Gisele.

“Since the moment I met her, there was something behind her striking blue eyes capturing my attention,” she said. “I felt that I needed to love this child and keep her safe.”

After putting in a request to foster Gisele, Smith went to the baby’s hospital room every day after work to sit next to her crib and talk in a soft voice.

“She was behind developmentally, and I wanted to get her out of the hospital and get her thriving,” Smith recalled.

Read it all.

“Her new favorite song is ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ ” said Smith. “And every time she sings it, I think to myself, ‘You have no idea.’ ” https://t.co/79RxaaVJ1v

— Carrie Melago (@carriemelago) April 4, 2019

A game in the park with the kids. A backyard barbecue with neighbors. A Saturday afternoon spent tackling that yardwork you and your roommate have been putting off. These are all things that might make their way onto your household’s to-do list this time of year, as spring’s arrival makes it easier to spend more time outdoors or being active together. These are also things that, new Barna research shows, often coexist with spiritual vibrancy. The Households of Faith report, produced in partnership with Lutheran Hour Ministries and based on an extensive study of practicing Christians and their living arrangements, finds a consistent connection between households that prioritize quality time and households that prioritize faith formation.

Generally Active Households Are Spiritually Active Households
If we’re regarding any effort toward faith formation in the household as an outcome on its own, and if we’re seeking to understand what distinguishes the people who prioritize these efforts, it’s instructive to know that they are the same people who appear to make any activity a priority. Welcoming guests, watching TV, sharing breakfast and other routines and rituals are also common in households that carve out time to read the Bible, pray or talk about God together. Conversely, households that do not engage in faith-based group activities are much more likely to say they don’t do anything together (31% of those who do not have spiritual conversations, 23% of those who do not pray or read the Bible together).

In short, practicing Christians who intentionally cultivate a spiritual environment in their household are simply intentional to begin with. Good fun, good work and good faith seem to go hand in hand, indicating spiritual growth is yet another way of being present, interested and engaged in the lives of those around you, or vice versa. Barna has seen a similar correlation in some of its other reports, where positive tendencies are not exclusive, but hang together: In a study of perceptions of global poverty, the more someone cared about one issue, the more they cared about any injustice; in a study of vocation, the more someone was attuned to faith, the more they were attuned to their work. Similarly, in this study of Christian households, the more housemates engage in general activity, the more they engage in spiritual activity.

Read it all.

Vibrant households stand out from the other groups in a range of behaviors—including in their commitment to togetherness and play. https://t.co/7Q9O9tkRMe pic.twitter.com/Qj0sHIK0CT

— Barna Group (@BarnaGroup) April 4, 2019

A formal complaint of serious misconduct has been lodged with the Church of England against the Bishop of Chester, it has emerged.

Known as a Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM), it was brought against Dr Peter Forster by Sir Roger Singleton, interim safeguarding director at the Church.

A spokesman told the Standard that permission is currently being sought to bring the CDM ‘out of time’.

This is because under C of E rules there is a 12-month time limit between the date of the alleged misconduct and the lodging of the complaint.

Read it all.

In response to all this, Muslim representatives frequently stress that the problem of Islamophobia (a term that remains contentious in many countries) is by no means confined to a far-rightist fringe. They insist that an anti-Muslim climate has been created by politicians much closer to the respectable centre-right, or in the French case by zealous advocates of the century-old doctrine of laïcité, or strict secularism.

At Birmingham Central Mosque, one of the leading places of Islamic worship in Britain, the initial reaction to New Zealand’s horror was one of inter-faith solidarity. Representatives of all local creeds gathered to offer sympathy and support. But mosque leaders say their people live daily with abuse, spitting, jostling and in the case of women, attempts to grab their scarves. Nassar Mahmood, a mosque trustee, says social peace in the city is challenged on many fronts. Reduced levels of policing (because of budget cuts) lead to a rise in petty crime that, he fears, may be blamed on Muslims. “We could very easily face attacks similar to those in New Zealand that would destabilise our social harmony,” he says. In the early hours of March 21st, five mosques in Birmingham were attacked with sledgehammers.

Salma Yaqoob, a local politician of the left who may be Birmingham’s best-known Muslim woman, has been adamant that the problem goes far beyond an extremist white-nationalist fringe. Her response to the New Zealand massacre was to “call out” mainstream Tory politicians who in her view played to the gallery with anti-Muslim innuendos.

Read it all.

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

You can find the full text here.