‘Collateral blessing’ desired – Archbishop; Government welcome for Edinburgh just Festival 2013; London Church Census
‘Collateral blessing’ desired
Church Times – Church should be a “movement of prayer” which creates “collateral blessing”, the Archbishop of Canterbury said this week. He was speaking at New Wine, a Charismatic Evangelical festival in Somerset, which he and his family attended for 12 years when he was a parish priest.
“The US Army gave us the expression ‘collateral damage’, which means killing people you did not mean to target,” he said. “People seeking Christ create collateral blessing. That means changing the world for the better, in ways you could not have predicted.”
Archbishop Welby continued: “There has never been a renewal of the Church in Western Europe without a renewal of prayer and the life of religious communities. Never. And if we want to see things changed, it starts with prayer.”
He said that he had been kept awake at night by a poll published recently by YouGov, which suggested that more than half of people under the age of 25 saw the Church as “completely irrelevant” (News, 28 June). “Opposition is one thing; indifference is far more dangerous.”
He received applause when he spoke of having voted against the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill ( News, 7 June, 19 July). During debate on the Bill, he “heard the roar of revolution”; those who opposed it “were utterly crushed in the voting again and again and
again”.
The Archbishop continued: “Let me be clear: popular opinion is not a cause for changing obedience to God. But let me be equally clear: an overwhelming change that affects the opinions of the majority of people, and especially of younger people . . . is a revolution to which we must pay attention.”
He went on to say that the Church should not “pretend that . . . our attitude to gay people has always been right. We have not loved them as Christ loves us, and that is the benchmark.”
Archbishop Welby also said that he was worried by “the remorseless power of negative religion in this country. The more we harp on the negative and fail to show love for one another and Jesus Christ, to proclaim service to the poor . . . the more we give in to those who oppose the gospel. . .
“We must be the people who show hope in the face of death, steadfastness in suffering, because we overflow with the good news of Jesus to those around us.”
Listen to the Archbishop here:
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/data/files/resources/5114/NEWA00313L.mp3
Government welcome for just Festival 2013
Edinburgh’s just festival features 129 events across 450 performances in 28 different venues. In 2013 the festival runs from 2-26 August with top-quality speakers and discussion, performance, art, music and family activities. It partners several humanitarian causes.
The Scottish Government, the European Parliament, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and civic and faith leaders are among those who will celebrate the official opening of the 2013 just festival at St John’s Church, in the heart of Edinburgh, today, Saturday 3 August.
Scotland’s Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs Roseanna Cunningham said: “Once again the Scottish Government is delighted to be supporting the Just Festival, which now has a new name and is in its thirteenth year.
“As ever, the vibrant multi-cultural mix of the Festival is a key feature of its continuing popularity and it is great to see a continued commitment to building positive relations within the diverse communities of Scotland.
“Each year, there are some fantastic and engaging talks on important topics such as peace-making, the future of Scotland and working to eliminate sectarianism and discrimination. We wish the Just Festival and all involved in it the very best for their busy programme.”
The opening event, ‘Just Starting’, takes place from 6-7pm in the atmospheric St John’s Episcopal Church on Princes Street, Edinburgh, followed by a reception in the hall until 9pm.
Other speakers include Bishop of Edinburgh John Armes, James Temple-Smithson, Head of Office in Scotland of the European Parliament. There is also a video message from Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa.
The Just Festival, also known simply as Just, runs from 2-26 August 2013. It combines artistic and performance style events with conversations, talks, films exhibits and other ways of exploring how to live together creatively in a mixed-belief society. It is supported by civic, educational, church and faith groups (including the thinktank Ekklesia), and also by the Scottish Government and European Parliament. Some 30,000 people are expected to take part over the month.
London Church Census
Thinking Anglicans – British Religion in Numbers reported back in June on this:
…Church attendance in Greater London grew by 16% between 2005 and 2012, from 620,000 to 720,000, representing 9% of the capital’s population at the latter date, and thereby bucking the downward trend in most national religious indicators.
The number of places of worship in London also rose during these seven years, by 17% from 4,100 to 4,800. Growth was especially to be found among black majority and immigrant churches, which together accounted for 27% of all Christian places of worship in London in 2012 and 24% of churchgoers. Black people were far more likely to attend services than whites (19% against 8%), and in Inner London 48% of worshippers were black.
This reliance upon ethnicity and migration also explains other facts revealed by the census, such as that 14% of all churches use a language other than English or that 52% of attenders are in evangelical churches (reflecting the evangelical proclivities of black Christians). By contrast, many traditional, smaller places of worship (with congregations under 200) are still contracting; they represent 50% of churches but just 22% of churchgoers. Overall, Anglicans are declining and Catholics only just growing. Moreover, the net increase of 100,000 worshippers from 2005 to 2012 disproportionately comprised women (82%), although the female majority in congregations as a whole was much lower (56%). The mean age of attenders was 41 years, ranging from 33 in the Pentecostal and New Churches to 56 for the Methodist and United Reformed Churches…
More recently Crossing London reported:
…The first findings from The London Church Census, commissioned by London City Mission and undertaken by the Brierley Consultancy in October 2012, indicate that 720,000 people in London attend church, nearly 100,000 more than the last time churchgoing was counted seven years ago. That’s an increase of 16% between 2005 and 2012.
“We are very encouraged to see from this census that many hundreds of thousands of people still consider ‘churchgoing’ as an important part of their lives,” said Andy Frost, Mission Director of Crossing London…
…A summary of the findings of the 2012 London Church Census can be found at http://www.brierleyconsultancy.com/images/londonchurches.pdf…