Are you aware that if you die tomorrow, as an adult in England, your organs and any other bits someone in the NHS takes a fancy to, can be 'harvested' for the use of others? Whether you want this or not? Wales enacted similar legislation in 2015 and Scotland is planning to do so in …
Continue reading Whose body? Legal issues and religious beliefs in England
https://www.mayflower400uk.org/education/the-mayflower-story/ Can we see any connection between the 400th anniversary celebrations of the Mayflower’s voyage to the Americas and the line that has been drawn in the sand by the Church of England’s leadership during the virus lockdown? I suggest that we can. Both illustrate a picture of western culture’s views about the place in …
The BBC has started broadcasting the Muslim call to prayer as part of its services to Muslims during the coronavirus epidemic. Apparently, Muslims need this in order to feel a sense of community while they are in isolation: Chris Burns, head of BBC Local Radio, said: “Many Muslims will feel a void in their lives where prayers …
Continue reading BBC broadcasts Muslim call to prayer: some religions more equal than others?
Following on from my previous post about clergy being banned from the bedsides of patients in the current crisis, things continue to develop. Various clergy around the country have been expressing their frustration with the ongoing ban on them entering their own churches; news of the bedside-ban on voluntary chaplains seems to have heaped even …
Zeitgeist = 'Spirit of the age' or 'Spirit of the times'. Holy Geist = don't bother asking an archbishop (or archbishop-designate) as they probably won't know. Talking via email last week to the admirable Ian Paul, I happened to comment that criticizing the Church of England at the moment is as easy as shooting fish …
Continue reading English Archbishops: Zeitgeist or Holy Geist?
Ah, the great British blitz spirit. Long gone, apparently, in certain sections of our population. The TV-drivel-fed, media-influenced hordes nowadays seem to have no will to engage their brains before acting like lemmings in supermarkets and pharmacies. Who knew that the go-to items to buy in the face of the Black Death would be …
Photo by banphote kamolsanei from Pexels Well, folks - especially we Anglicans - isn’t it great to know that in a time of national crisis, we can rely on the leaders of our Church to speak out the truth? To point people in the direction of faith in Jesus? To tell people how to get …
Continue reading Welby and Sentamu: a masterclass in moral relativism
Dear God, here we go again. I suppose we ought to be grateful that the Ozanne Foundation (OF) has at least had the sense to commission some work from YouGov this time, rather than repeat the car crash that was its attempt at research in late 2018 (the Faith and Sexuality Survey). The new Same …
Continue reading Same-sex marriage survey: another comedy of interpretive errors
I suppose most thinking people would tend to agree that we now live in a largely secular world, in which folks who actively follow a religion are becoming a minority - certainly in the developed world. The religion that is practised in ‘the West’ is largely of a benign variety – very different from the …
Continue reading The new fundamentalism: Lux Politica Rectitudo
Ask any woman about going for a mammogram and she is likely to wince. These screening procedures are not pleasant, no matter what the situation. Try having your boobs painlessly squeezed and flattened into the scanner as you are manhandled by the operative. This can take several attempts and is often the most time-consuming section …
Continue reading Clare Dimyon and breast screening: whatever happened to ‘patient choice’?
