• A Welcome Forest of Deans

    Last weekend an open letter emerged from within the Church of England which asked the two archbishops in England to take a message to the Primates’ Conference acknowledging that the Church has failed in its duty of care to LGBTI members of the Body of Christ worldwide and calling for repentance.

    The whole letter is here: https://lettertoarchbishops.wordpress.com/

    Others were asked to sign it to show their support and my name was one of the first to be added on Sunday morning when I heard about it. (It was addressed to Our Archbishops which was a bit problematic but sometimes you just have to go with the spirit rather than the letter of the law).

    I was particularly encouraged to see that this letter originated from a couple of people from within the Evangelical tradition in the church.

    I was also encouraged to see how many Deans of Cathedrals in England had signed the letter.

    Here’s a map showing in green those deans who have signed.

    There may be errors to correct or amendments to make – please let me know in the comments below. Nothing should be presumed about the red dots other than that there doesn’t seem to be a record of a dean there who has signed. Some cathedrals may be looking for a dean and some deans may be out of contact and not have heard about it. Some names may yet be added.

    I believe that Durham has no dean in post at present so have marked that in a different colour. I’ll change any others that are like that if anyone lets me know in the comments below.

    There are two cathedrals in London which seem to be on top of one another on the map – both of them are marked in green.

    Rather encouraging to see the green shoots of inclusion springing up, I think and to see leadership coming from England’s cathedrals.

    [google_maps id=”14812″]

    UPDATES
    Worcester added (missed off in original list)
    Wells and Durham marked as vacant.
    Southwell marked as vacant.
    Rochester marked as vacant.

4 responses to “This ain’t persecution”

  1. Beth Routledge Avatar

    Yep. And I think that the Primus has got it badly wrong in responding to this one.

  2. Graham Evans Avatar
    Graham Evans

    Allowing political and religious ad would turn us into another US, where political and religious “debate” centres on who can raise, or already has, the most money.

  3. Ross Kennedy Avatar
    Ross Kennedy

    Oh yes, and while we’re at it we had better ban all films from public showing which contain any religious content – eg: ‘Schindlers List’, ‘Brooklyn’, ‘Magdalen Sisters’, ‘Fury’, ‘Amazing Grace’, ‘Doubt’, etc,etc. We should not risk offending anyone should we? Idiocy – whose idiocy?

  4. Kelvin Avatar

    Surely wanting political and religious ads banned from cinemas is about good taste rather than offence.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Territory

    I’ve heard about fighting in Christian churches in Israel/Palestine at the great festivals before, but the video above does show it rather graphically. The fighting is a consequence of thinking of one’s Christian mission territorially. The Scottish Episcopal Church generally tends to sit rather lightly to territoriality. We don’t really have much of a concept…

  • Zebedee

    One of the nice things about being in a church like St Mary’s at Christmas is that we can keep the little festivals known as the Companions of Christ. I celebrated a mass yesterday for St John and was pleased to see more than a dozen folk out. It has made such a difference moving…

  • St John

    Off to adore the Holy Babe and St John now.

  • Online Evening Prayer for the Feast of St Stephen

    There will be a service of Evening Prayer today [Monday] at 5 pm GMT for the Feast of St Stephen. The liturgy can be downloaded here: EP Incarnation for Internet Evensong This is the third service that has been held in this way and we are still experimenting with it. One limitation is the number…