Let's be good. Let's be irrelevant

The Church of England has given further evidence of intellectual decrepitude.

I don't believe that there is a case for the moral acceptability of nuclear weapons that I could with integrity accept.
Rowan Williams

However, if they can somehow rope into their ranks a few more people like Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali (Bishop of Rochester), a 'refugee' from Pakistan, there is hope that the colonies will re-invigorate the mother country.

Nuclear weapons are here and they are not about to be disinvented. As they have done in the past, the Churches have a duty to set out the moral criteria for having, developing or replacing a nuclear capability. It is not their task to tell government what to do or to make policy on its behalf. They need to acknowledge that the government has the responsibility of protecting its citizens, strong and weak alike. They need to ask whether the international situation is such that a nuclear deterrent is needed. In the context of the Cold War, the General Synod agreed that it was. Is the situation any less dangerous today? I don't think so.

Of course, the CofE is not alone. The Scots and the Labour Left offer them solidarity.

"It would be the ultimate in hypocrisy if the UK were to be arguing, for example, that Iran should not be developing a nuclear weapons capability, while at the same time we were extending in scope and in time our own," a Scottish church report said in May.

Former environment secretary Michael Meacher, who is seeking to replace Blair when he steps down from office later this year, has the intervention by the bishops.

"On non-proliferation grounds - it is impossible to say to countries like Iran you should not have nuclear weapons but we must have ours," Meacher said in House of Commons motion, signed by 122 MPs last year.

That might be the case if all countries were equal in responsibilities, achievement and contribution. They are not.

(Second article via Ninme)

Candle in the window

The Church of England just cannot trust itself any more. Time to stop being silly and go back to Daddy.

Radical proposals to reunite Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope are to be published this year, The Times has learnt.

The proposals have been agreed by senior bishops of both churches.

John Sentamu

Lapsed Catholic that I am by nature, if not by nurture, and therefore occasionally contemptuous of the Church of England, especially in these times, I cannot help wishing for the success of an Anglican cleric who says things like this.

“Christianity is the very soil of this place. Look at what you did in the past, remember what you did.”

Furthermore

His campaign against political correctness has addressed the shame so many educated English people feel for their culture, history and religion. He experienced no such feelings as a boy in Africa, listening to the Queen’s coronation on the radio. His family always checked their purchases for a “Made in Britain” stamp. Indeed, he has called for a proper celebration of St George’s Day.

John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, brought up in Imperial Uganda to love Queen and country and seemingly uncorrupted by the flabby thinking that undoes so many of his fellows, including his leader. We need more like him; I'd bet that such people are far more likely to come from some of Her Majesty's more humble ex-possessions than from Blighty.

(via Ninme)