Bishops Lead Church Attack On Spending Cuts And Welfare Reform; Vicar wears Prada;Christian Aid welcomes UK climate finance support pledge; Coalition marks UN disability day with forced unpaid work for disabled people
Bishops Lead Church Attack On Spending Cuts And Welfare Reform
Church leaders in the north of England have joined together to condemn government spending cuts and welfare reform that is ‘stigmatising’ communities.
Led by the the Bishop of Bradford, the Right Reverent Nick Baines, 30 leading religious figures signed an open letter to the prime minister, the chancellor, the deputy prime minister and the Work and Pensions secretary, detailing their anxieties over how the reforms and cuts were playing out in their communities.
Titled ‘A Christian Overview of Welfare Reform and Cuts in Public Spending’, the letter said: “We are concerned that the theology behind many cuts and reforms serves to undermine fundamental principles of mutual care that are basic to our vision of a good society.”
The signatories also expressed their concern over the imbalance in the UK economy to the detriment of those in the north compared to the south, particularly the South East.
The Bishop of Bradford said the government needed to know how its proposals were impacting on people who live outside London.
“They’re not just dealing with figures in Whitehall, this is having an impact on people every day and the poorest are paying the highest,” he said.
” Welfare reforms mean the poorest people are getting poorer, while the richest people are getting richer – and that’s a scandal.
“In Bradford we have 38,000 children living below the poverty line. That is something we cannot remain silent about.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/12/05/bishops-in-church-attack-prime-minister-welfare-cuts_n_2243278.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
Vicar wears Prada
A little stir in the Church of England over a photo shoot featuring a Vicar wearing Prada. Some think it’s terrible – others laud her style.
The Express writes:
SHE’S dark-haired and vivacious with a penchant for leather trousers, biker jackets and Louboutin heels. She listens to Radio head, reads Jane Austen and watches The West Wing. And no, we’re not talking about a starlet taking over Hollywood but a woman who is an ordained priest. Step forward the Reverend Sally Hitchiner.
You might already have heard of her. The raven-haired Rev became a visible presence in the lead-up to last month’s vote by the Church of England’s governing General Synod about whether women should be ordained as bishops. Rev Hitchiner herself had been tipped for such a position, had appeared on numerous television programmes speaking about the issue and was pictured crossing her fingers tightly before the vote, which resulted in a disappointing “no” result.
She also went on BBC Breakfast to speak about the newly-appointed Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, whom she spent two months shadowing during her training. Little would have been made of this were it not for the fact that the Anglican priest is young, attractive and fashion-conscious. And sometimes even wears a sparkly clip in her hair.
This, it seems, has intrigued and shocked people in equal measure. A chaplain who chooses to be stylish? A priest who knows her Prada from her Pucci?
Daily Mail thinks the photos are causing a “row.”
An interesting poser has been exercising the Reverend Sally Hitchiner over the past week. She has posted several tweets on her Twitter page — where she describes herself as an ‘Anglican priest, faith adviser, broadcaster… and finder of funny things’ — on the subject of ‘the theology of fashion’.
She was so preoccupied by it that she even conducted a Facebook debate on the subject.
So we shouldn’t be too surprised then, that this weekend, the 32-year-old Church of England vicar took her theological studies even further forward, posing for a fashion shoot for a Saturday broadsheet magazine under the headline: The Vicar Wears Prada.
….
It’s a look that hasn’t been received quite so well by the Church’s more traditional followers. But Rev Hitchiner believes she is not alone in the clergy in enjoying the frivolities of fashion.
Explaining that many priests like to ‘accessorise’, she says: ‘Everything in life has two sides. It’s not that the Church of England is perfect and that twinsets and pearls are perfect.
From Lesley blog Heretics Anonymous where she says that Hitchiner is a great role model:
It is difficult to explain how wacky it is to be a priest. Pretty much every one you meet treats you “differently” once you even start training for the priesthood. Most people immediately think that you will judge them. Some stub out their cigarettes secretively when you enter the room. Many say “Sorry – mustn’t swear in front of the vicar”. A few stutter, or flap, because they think that you are scary.
….
I have discovered that there is only one way for me to remain sane and be a priest and that is to be myself. Whether people like it or not, whether I conform to expectations or not, whether it conforms to my own hopes and aspirations of being a good priest or not. I can only be the best me I can be. And most of the time I reckon that I am a pretty poor me, but it is still better than being “not me”. My belief is that priesthood, (and this is true for people who are ordained or not) is merely a calling to be ourselves, to discover wholeness, find our identity and through that be the people God created us to be.
It seems to me that Sally Hitchiner is doing a pretty good job of ignoring the pressure and expectations that come with the dog collar and she is hopefully being herself. And if that means that she wears Prada, then good for her.
Christian Aid welcomes UK climate finance support pledge
UK-based global development agency Christian Aid has welcomed the British government’s promise to provide new money for poorer countries to adapt to the effects of climate change, and called on other developed countries to follow suit.
At the United Nations climate change summit in Doha, Qatar, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Davey, outlined the urgent need to avert climate catastrophe.
Coalition marks UN disability day with forced unpaid work for disabled people
A scheme which could force disabled welfare claimants to work without pay and lose benefits has been introduced by the Westminster government on the UN’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
From 3 November 2012, private back-to-work companies and Jobcentre case managers are allowed to force more than 300,000 sick and disabled welfare claimants into unpaid work experience for an unspecified length of time.
The likelihood of a disabled person in the UK being unemployed is now twice that of a non-disabled person, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).