Religion cannot be confined to private sphere – Williams; Churches step in to fill affordable housing gap; Gay marriage: ban on same sex church weddings ‘may not be legally watertight’; Church of England 2.0
Religion cannot be confined to private sphere – Williams
Religious commitment cannot be a purely private matter, the former Archbishop of Canterbury has said.
Dr Rowan Williams was speaking during a debate with atheist professor Richard Dawkins.
The debate at Cambridge University last week considered the motion that “religion has no place in the 21st century”.
Dawkins described himself as a “cultural Anglican” and said that if he were a cultural Muslim, he would have something to say about the faith’s “appalling attitude to women and various other moral points”.
He contended that religious belief was a “cop out” and a “betrayal of the intellect” and “all that’s best about what makes us human”.
“It’s a phony substitute for an explanation, which seems to answer the question until you examine it and realise that it does no such thing,” he said.
“It peddles false explanations where real explanations could have been offered, false explanations that get in the way of the enterprise of discovering real explanations.”
In the end, the audience was persuaded by Dr Williams as he won the debate by 324 votes to 136.
Defending religion in the public sphere, he recalled that the religious roots of human rights and the notion of respect for human life.
“The convention of human rights would not be what it is were it not for the history of philosophical religious debate,” he said.
“Religion has always been a matter of community building, a matter of building relations of compassion, fellow-feeling and, dare I say it, inclusion.
“The notion that religious commitment can be purely a private matter is one that runs against the grain of religious history.”
Churches step in to fill affordable housing gap
The Church in Wales is supporting a project aimed at making spare church space available for housing.
The Faith in Affordable Housing project aims to address the nation’s housing crisis by converting unused church property or land into homes.
The project is run by Christian charity Housing Justice and is looking to appoint its first project officer to work with Welsh churches.
The project officer will be responsible for identifying suitable space in rural as well as urban areas, with the aim of bridging the gap between churches and housing associations.
The project will provide support in the selling or leasing of closed churches and glebe land, as well as church halls and vicarages which are no longer used.
Alex Glanville, head of property services at the Church in Wales and a member of the project’s steering group said, “This is an exciting project which could benefit people in desperate need of housing.
“It will also help churches free up land or space they don’t use and enable them to invest more in the community.”
Tracey Bessant, Project Coordinator for Faith in Affordable housing, said, “The new officer will work with churches to look imaginatively at how land and buildings could be used for the future and facilitate partnership working between the church and charitable sector to deliver much needed affordable housing.”
MEDIA REVIEW
Gay marriage: ban on same sex church weddings ‘may not be legally watertight’
Telegraph.co.uk – The Church of England may not be safe from court challenges forcing it to conduct gay marriage as there is “no unanimous” legal opinion on the issue, a research briefing for MPs says.
Ahead of today’s crucial vote in Parliament, MPs have been advised that lawyers are conflicted over whether the Government’s ban on same-sex weddings in church is legally watertight.
Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, also confirmed that the Church of England remains opposed to the legislation. Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow Home Secretary, this morning said she hoped the Church will in future change its mind.
Church of England 2.0
Spectator – Welcome Rt Rev Justin Welby, who became the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury this morning at St Pauls.
The Church of England’s first tweeting ABC has been a bit quiet online of late, but that hasn’t stopped us nosy parkers getting a glimpse into life behind the scenes of this most holy transition. If Welby’s twenty-something daughter
Katherine is anything to go by the flaws in process have not gone unnoticed:
‘Off to St Paul’s today for the confirmation of election. Anywhere else in the world an ‘election’ that had only 1 candidate it was illegal to vote against would be called corruption.’
Well quite, but it’s not all self-flagellation. While her father has taken over a turbulent and split synod, and will lead the church through some very rocky gay marriage waters, at least one Welby is having fun. Upon moving into Lambeth Palace Katherine declared ‘so excited for hide and seek.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/steerpike/2013/02/church-of-england-2-0/