Withdrawing resources from local communities results in loss of trust and confidence, argues Alan Billings DURING the past few years, the police service in England has had to learn something that the Church of England is currently in the process of forgetting: the importance of being locally embedded. The parallels Read more…
Emma Thompson has a hugely important article in the Spectator today, about a piece of draft legislation heading to General Synod. There is a proposal for draft legislation heading to the General Synod. Its name is ‘GS2222’, but we call it the Church Closers’ Charter. It is designed to make Read more…
Why has Joanna Penberthy still not been sacked? Back in May, the Bishop of St Davids, the most heavenly small cathedral in the world, wrote a post on Twitter about perceived threats to the Welsh Assembly from the Conservative Party: “They say that this is not true, but we know Read more…
This has been a tough year for everyone. Death, mental collapse, grief, unemployment. In my church we’ve lost people to Covid — one of the earliest victims was a regular at our 9 a.m. Communion. We’ve lost people to mental health — one of the homeless men who came to Read more…
A clergyman admitted to me that he’d recently burst into tears. He’d received an email from his diocese in this latest lockdown ‘strongly urging’ vicars to close their churches. He has an elderly working-class congregation in a poor area. Coming to church was ‘the one thing keeping them going’. Local Read more…