Churches will be encouraged to offer a place of sanctuary for young people as part of efforts to combat knife crime and serious youth violence, in a key debate to be held at the General Synod next month.

The Revd Canon Dr Rosemarie Mallett, a priest in Angell Town, south London, will urge parishes to consider opening their doors after school hours as safe havens for young people in hot spot areas for serious violence.

Dr Mallett, a prominent campaigner in combating knife crime, will lead a debate at the General Synod in York calling for church leaders to be trained to support families and communities affected.

She will call for churches to take a range of practical measures – from providing knife amnesty bins to training for clergy and other leaders to protect young people potentially vulnerable to ‘county lines’ exploitation.

But Dr Mallett will also highlight the unique spiritual dimension churches can bring through prayer and pastoral support for communities affected.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released a report that is the closest thing we have to the quantification of despair. Between 1999 and 2017, suicide rates in the United States rose to their highest level since World War II. The increase can be found among women and men, and in every racial and ethnic group. But the spike among people between the ages of 15 and 34 is particularly disturbing. Hopelessness among the young seems a more direct assault on hope itself.

Researchers posit that the opioid epidemic may be partly to blame. Just as a family can be decimated by an overdose, a sense of general despair may take root in communities where overdose deaths are common and visible.

Another proposed explanation is social media, which may expose younger people to bullying while constricting meaningful human interactions — increasing the need for emotional support while narrowing the sources of emotional support. Even worse, emotionally fragile people can find perverse forms of online community that echo and encourage their despair….

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Best read of the day, from @MJGerson “Human beings are fundamentally social creatures who find mental health only in the context of supportive relationships.” This is a call to be a good friend, a good neighbor, to be our brothers’ & sisters’ keeper. https://t.co/ZMytl3aup4

— Scott Cooper (@CooperForNC) June 21, 2019

Secondly, we need to be fully aware that if the bizarre notion that people of the same sex can be married becomes embodied in a change to the Marriage Canon in our denomination, the ACoC will have departed not just from reason but from the Church Catholic. The cause will be complex, but will certainly include the fact that a majority both clerical and lay have voted out of a profound philosophical, theological and biblical naivety. People will vote at General Synod this summer, other things being equal, who believe some or all of the following falsehoods: That the Holy Scriptures are ambiguous about same-sex physical intimacy; that we may not know what were the convictions and practice of the Lord Jesus; that the phe­nomenon was different in the ancient world; that the behaviour of those with same-sex leanings is genet­ically pre-determined; that Christian love requires us to ‘bless’ same-sex ‘unions’; that people of the same sex can consummate sexually; and that all love may legitimately find an intimate physical ex­pression. As I wrote in my Brief to the national Commission: “It is important to note that none of these positions is held by serious biblical and theological professionals: for instance, even those very few scholars who hold that the Scriptures are mistaken acknowledge that they are wholly adverse to same-sex practice. For none of these positions has the case ever been made outside advocacy scholarship, for the very sound reason that such a case cannot be made, and the most positive thing that may be said of such views is that they are less than informed. That busy bishops and other leaders unequipped with the tools of the trade have not tested them is venial. What is less excusable is that our Church has not until now asked any of the tiny handful who are so equipped to contribute.” I am one of that tiny handful world­wide who are so equipped.

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PARISHIONER PROFILES:
Getting to know a bit more about some of Holy Trinity’s parishioners.
DR. PRISCILLA TURNERhttps://t.co/PleXxG0UXh pic.twitter.com/4M3Cx4zJvn

— Holy Trinity VCR (@htvancouver) September 6, 2018

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Inside Nik and Lijana Wallenda’s training for their Times Square high-wire walk https://t.co/xs6zgxegOb via @ABC

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 21, 2019

In response to some of these developments, a group of nine national Christian charities and one charity representing other faith groups has, for the past three years, been meeting as a coalition by the name of ‘Christians Together Against Loneliness’.

During this time, they have produced a resource called ‘Make A Meal of It’ which provides ideas and tips for churches who are running community lunches aimed at socially isolated older people.

Collectively, they have also engaged with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to raise awareness of the key role of churches and faith groups in addressing loneliness.

This also led to a recent opportunity to meet with the ‘Minister for Loneliness’, Mims Davies MP, to explore opportunities for engagement with faith groups.

The Bible teaches us that we are all to care for those on the margins of society and, by definition, many people struggling with loneliness are often unseen.

This provides a challenge in identifying those most at risk, but also provides an opportunity for us all to be alert and aware of those for whom this could be a part of their day to day lives.

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“It is also often the case, particularly in rural areas, that church buildings are the only places to meet within the community.” @LivabilityUK @salvationarmyuk @LinkingLivesUK @FaithActionnet https://t.co/diz5ecvewd

— Christian Today (@ChristianToday) June 21, 2019

The proposals include:

Investment in recruiting and training new ministers – helping dioceses to meet the Church-wide goal of increasing the number of ordinands by 50%; and providing funds towards the costs of an increased number of curates;

Supporting dioceses in making strategic investment in change programmes designed to grow worshipping communities.

The continuation of specific funding to help dioceses to support mission in communities where income levels are low, places of greatest financial need.

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Church Commissioners are to vote on providing extra £155m ‘without selling the family silver’https://t.co/FFXKTljJEq

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 22, 2019

First, the nature of the “conflict”. For more than 100 years now, the popular narrative has been that religion has always opposed science: think medieval Church, heliocentrism, Galileo, Darwin, Scopes, etc. Wilberforce’s taunting, according to this viewpoint, was just another example of religious idiocy.

The reality is different. For all his misplaced wit, Wilberforce’s opposition was based on “the principles of inductive science, philosophy, or logic”, as the Gazette put it — and, as Darwin himself knew; for he called the Bishop’s review of On the Origin of Species “uncommonly clever”. This is more typical of the periodic clashes between “science” and “religion” than the Young Earth creationist parody of our day. Not only were such conflicts rarer than popularly imagined, they were usually much more sophisticated and more scientific than we think. It wasn’t simply a case of “but the Bible says . . .”

Second, the context of the conflict. Huxley was a newfangled “scientist”; Wilberforce was an old-school “clerical naturalist”. What happened at Oxford was as much about the former shouldering the latter aside in the social hierarchy of Victorian England as it was a debate about Darwinism. “What [Huxley] has deprecated”, as the Gazette put it, “was authority like the Bishop’s, authority derived from a reputation acquired in another sphere.”

The history of science and religion, like any history of ideas, is coloured by the political, social, and cultural worlds of the time, from the nervous post-Reformation context of Galileo to the sinister eugenic context of the Scopes Monkey Trial. The Wilberforce-Huxley debate was no different. We ignore such context at the cost of historical subtlety.

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The uncharted history of science and religion

Researching for a new @BBCRadio4 series prompted @theosnick to question some popular perceptionshttps://t.co/z1xAeShlwu

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 21, 2019

Almighty God, who alone gavest us the breath of life, and alone canst keep alive in us the holy desires thou dost impart; We beseech thee, for thy compassion’s sake, to sanctify all our thoughts and endeavours; that we may neither begin an action without a pure intention nor continue it without thy blessing. And grant that, having the eyes of the mind opened to behold things invisible and unseen, we may in heart be inspired by thy wisdom, and in work be upheld by thy strength, and in the end be accepted of thee as thy faithful servants; through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

A Pastor’s Prayerbook #Prayer 4 the Day ‘Almighty God, who alone gavest us the breath of life, and alone canst keep alive in us the holy desires thou dost impart; We beseech thee, for thy compassion’s sake, to sanctify all our thoughts and endeavours..’ https://t.co/5hoFhx12Lv pic.twitter.com/gtd70zlMUm

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 21, 2019

The LORD called Samuel a third time, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” And the LORD said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family–from beginning to end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.

–1 Samuel 3:8-13