Category Archives: Church of England

Cathedrals: playgrounds or ‘sacred spaces’?

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Earlier this year, Chichester Cathedral was the venue for a ‘silent disco’ (where the music was played through wireless headphones, rather than loudspeakers).

Previous uses of cathedral space have included:

  • Stars Wars event (Peterborough)
  • Crazy golf course (Rochester)
  • Helter skelter (Norwich)
  • Indoor skate park (Gloucester)

Not surprisingly, these have provoked a certain amount of outrage:

‘Rochester Cathedral was founded in AD 604. It survived the Norman Conquest, 2 fires in the 12th century, and several rounds of pillaging.…

Do most Anglicans support gay marriage?

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The Ozanne Foundation has recently published a piece of research, carried out by YouGov, which claims that 55% of Anglicans believe that same-sex marriage is ‘right’.  The resulting headling in The Times was ‘Majority of Church of England worshippers back gay marriage’.

But this is deeply misleading.

In the representative sample used in the survey, 23% of the population of England and Wales said they were ‘Anglican’.  That’s 13.5 million people!  But we know that the average weekly attendance in Anglican churches is just under 750,000. …

Penal substitution an Anglican doctrine

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As a Licensed Reader within the Church of England, it is of some interest and importance to me to know whether the doctrine of penal substitution is an Anglican doctrine.

Well, the doctrine is not clearly espoused in the Prayer Book of 1662, to which all clergy must assent.  The nearest it comes to it is this:

‘…who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.’…

Banned, or just ‘not invited’?

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When the Christian Union at the University of Derby organised their carol service, to be held in the city’s cathedral, they invited Rev Melvin Tinker, vicar of St John Newland in Hull, to be the preacher.

It transpires, however, that the CU was not empowered to invited Rev Tinker to speak.  Such invitations have to be made by the Dean, the Very Revd Stephen Hance.  The Dean said: “I am aware of online comments this morning claiming that Derby Cathedral has banned the Revd Melvin Tinker from speaking at the Derby University Christian Union Carol Service.”…