It will be much more difficult for clergy from foreign churches to be brought into this country under new immigration laws, the Anglican Bishop of Ripon and Leeds has warned.
Bishop John Packer has criticised the Government’s new scheme, which is aimed at tightening immigration controls and allowing the implementation of the points-based system.
Under the new system immigrants from outside the European Union can enter under one of five new tiers, depending on their skills and occupation.
“The restriction on charitable and religious workers will affect how people of faith from other countries come here and experience and contribute to the life of faith in this country,” Bishop Packer during a debate on the new rules in the House of Lords.
Please forgive me if I am reading something into this that is not there, but did Bishop Packer claim that contact with Buddhists is vital to Christian faith??
As with airport checks, the real purpose of this is to keep crazy imams out of the UK, where they have been stirring up antisemitism and encouraging terrorism. But of course, in post-Christian UK, Christians and othere msut be made to suffer for the failures of their government.
I too had the same though a azusa.
Is +Packer just another wet Christisn, who for the sake of PC pluralism, is down with allowing radical imams to suck up all the oxygen in the room?
I understand he’s as liberal as they come – very pro-gay ‘Modern Churchpeople’s Union’.
I’m an American living in the UK, working as a School CHaplain and youthworker in a CofE school/parish… for the moment. The change in the immigration rules means that when my visa experies in March, I will be unable to continue my ministry in this country because I no longer qualify under the new rules. I’m not being paid enough, and neither the parish nor the school has the funds to give me the pay rise (of almost 10,000 pounds) necessary to meet the ‘points.’
Yes, these rules are designed to keep ‘baddies’ out. But make no mistake, these rule changes were brought about solely as a result of public misinformation from the popular press and the sillier members of the Conservative Party/UKIP. It’s a strategic feel-good measure that accomplishes little.