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Fratricidal tensions at the Church of England Synod

The Guardian - 1 hour 10 min ago

Members of the church's parliament spend an afternoon politely pummelling each other over perennial issue of woman bishops

If you think David Cameron frets about his uppity Lib Dem coalition partners and loses sleep over eurosceptic Tory hooligans at Westminster, trot across Parliament Square to Church House this week and weep for a leader with serious problems and conflicting thinktank advice that goes back 2,000 years.

All afternoon on Wednesday the archbishop of Canterbury sat hirsuite, silent and glum (it's a Rowan Williams speciality) while members of the Church of England's parliament – its 477-strong Synod – politely pummelled each other's soft tissue over the perennial issue of woman bishops, the church's Clause IV.

If this was vulgar secular politics, the protagonists might reinforce their claims with an erudite quote from Edmund Burke, the Radio Times or Twitter. But members of Synod think nothing of invoking the blog according to St Mark and the emails of St Paul, or drawing attention to the famous Synod held in 664 at Whitby whose abbot was – wait for it – St Hilda. Not a chap then, as Sister Faith, a modern Whitby-ite, was keen to point out on Wednesday.

In fairness to the Synodistas, both sides were studiously civil and constantly invoked the importance of mutual tolerance and their cherished Anglican heritage, which is strong on inclusivity and diversity. Wishy-washy C of E, as the more authoritarian papal model might put it. The Vatican would have handed this lot over to the Inquisition via rendition the moment it heard a bishop saying "bishops do not dissent lightly from the views of their archbishops".

There were also a lot of appeals for love – the elevated variety, not the "Randy vicar and the church organist" kind beloved of the Daily Beast. But no one listening from the gallery of Church House's assembly hall could miss fratricidal tensions between the Manchester dioscesan faction – which favours a bit more delay in the name of Anglican unity – and the Southwark dioscesan posse, which advocates a bit less delay for the same reason.

It was touchingly, tragically, a perfect John Stuart Mill dilemma, to quote a more recent authority than St Paul. How does an inherently liberal institution, as the church has become since it lost its secular power, implement the will of the majority while protecting the convictions and consciences of a minority, Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals, who insist the Bible doesn't do lady bishops (and sometimes call the majority intolerant Trots and atheists)?

Divorce among the over-60s is on the rise, so it is no surprise that dissenters are threatening to walk out of the Anglican marriage, though they have been together since Henry VIII divorced the pope in 1534. "You'll be sorry," they warned on Wednesday. "I've had enough of your bullying ways," came the reply. "Deaf old bugger," they muttered simultaneously.

Being the sort of New Statesman beardie he is, Williams and John Sentamu, his coalition partner as archbishop of York, stitched up a compromise. The "archbishops amendment" would revise their own draft legislation by allowing traditionalist parishes to have vicars and bishops who are chaps and have been ordained only by other chaps. Vicar of Dibley, eat your heart out! The Williams compromise, defeated in 2010, has been dusted off by Manchester in 2012.

Even without the disconcerting references to loving each other, which never happens at Westminster ("I really love you, Dave." " I know, Nick. You too, Ed."), Wednesday's debate was not easy to follow. Sentamu's speech was passionate, funny and largely incomprehensible. But he is the church's John Prescott, so everyone understood what he meant: he is on the leader's side. Unlike Prescott, he is also after his job.

Sensibly, wannabe women bishops seemed to be lying low. But what to make of Rebecca Swire of Chichester? She described herself as a traditionalist who was also ordained but just didn't believe in women bishops. Or of Emma Ford, a "young Anglo-Catholic" from Exeter, whose conscience directed her to the same conclusion?

Plenty of speakers argued the other way, that the will of the majority had been thwarted too long and that great issues of our time – poverty, climate change and heathenism – awaited the church's undivided attention. And, much to everyone's surprise, they eventually carried the day.

All that is needed now before the first Anglican woman bishop is appointed, probably by 2014, is a confirmatory vote at next year's Synod. But, like those Tory eurosceptics (some of them the same people) Anglican dissent never rests. Gay marriage, the Occupy movement, Rowan's beard … there's never a dull moment.

Michael White
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Mitt Romney's Santorum setback is a big win for Barack Obama | Michael Cohen

The Guardian - 6 hours 49 min ago

Rick Santorum's caucus and primary wins have brutally exposed Romney's weakness as the GOP's unloved nominee apparent

There's a regular joke that has been employed after pretty much every single Republican debate and practically every Republican primary and caucus this election cycle: tonight's big winner was … Barack Obama.

It is perhaps the most cutting and yet appropriate critique of the GOP nomination fight. The more America sees of the prospective Republican candidates and the longer this race goes on, the more four years of Barack Obama doesn't seem like such a bad thing.

Rarely has Obama's advantage been more obvious than after the past few days – and, in particular, after Tuesday night's stunning and wholly unexpected defeat for presumptive GOP frontrunner, Mitt Romney. Romney didn't just lose to Rick Santorum – he got destroyed. In Missouri, he trailed Santorum by 30 points; in Minnesota, he finished third, behind Ron Paul, with a paltry 16% of the vote (in a state he won handily in 2008); in Colorado, another state he won in 200, with 60% of the vote, Romney took just 34% to Santorum's 40.2%.

Now, granted Romney didn't put up much of a fight in either Minnesota or Missouri – and the Missouri vote was purely a beauty contest with no actual delegates at stake. But in Colorado, he devoted significant time and resources and led in pre-election polls, but still lost. This was as bad a night as a frontrunner has had in a primary race, maybe ever.

Just one week ago, after Romney's convincing win in the Nevada caucus, the former Massachusetts governor appeared to have the political wind at his back. But in just a matter of days, his brief momentum has been completely upended and the creeping doubts about his candidacy, which he appeared to have silenced, have loudly returned.

It's not just the election results that show how quickly the tide has turned.

First, there was Friday's jobs report, which indicated that unemployment in the US has dropped to 8.3% and that the US economy may slowly but surely finding its way out of the hole it's been buried in for the past two years. This is almost certainly a more important story than the returns in Minnesota and Missouri. The entire rationale – indeed, one might say only rationale – for Romney's campaign against Obama is that he will be a better steward of the US economy. But if the economy continues tentatively to improve between now and November, neither Romney nor any other Republican will have a very compelling message to take to the electorate this fall.

Next came a Washington Post/ABC poll that showed Romney was trailing President Obama by six points in a general election match-up, and that by a two-to-one margin, the more voters learned about Romney, the less they liked him. This comes on the heels of earlier polling that indicates Romney has unfavorabilities above 50%. That isn't dangerous territory for a presidential candidate, it's fatal ground.

It's often the case that candidates are strengthened by long primary battles – certainly, that was the case for Barack Obama in 2008. But the opposite effect is happening with Romney. Facing off against a band of second-tier rivals that includes a former senator who lost his last Senate election by 18 points, a former speaker of the House who was last relevant in national politics when email was an emerging technology, and a congressman who wants to return America to the gold standard, Romney has won only three states. In fact, Santorum has now won more primary and caucus races than Romney. Anyone who told you that was going to happen five weeks ago would have been laughed out of the room.

But as the Republican party has moved further and further to the right, Romney's less-than-stellar conservative bona fides has been his Achilles' heel. While he leads his rivals in the all-important delegate count, it's fairly obvious that he has yet to capture the hearts of the GOP rank and file. Indeed, the entire tale of the Republican nomination race can be seen as an unceasing effort on the part of GOP voters to find someone, anyone, to cast their ballot for who isn't Mitt Romney.

When all is said and done, Romney is still likely to be the Republican nominee. He has the most money, the most establishment support, the strongest ground game and is probably the best-equipped of all the candidates for a long slog toward the nomination. But if the last few days have shown us anything, it is that Romney is a seriously flawed candidate who has rather dramatically failed to seal the deal with conservative GOP voters.

And every day longer this race goes on, the more damage will be done to Romney's hope of winning the White House. In short, last night was yet another great night for Barack Obama.

Michael Cohen
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Church of England general synod debates female bishops - day three live

The Guardian - 8 hours 57 min ago

Latest news from the Church of England's gathering, with Riazat Butt

Riazat Butt

Deport Abu Qatada: or if not, give him the law's full protection | Simon Jenkins

The Guardian - Tue, 02/07/2012 - 21:30

Qatada champions al-Qaida and delights in terrorist outrages. But Britain is robust enough to tolerate madcap clerics

There is no argument. The Muslim cleric Abu Qatada is as unpleasant a character as ever graced Britain's shores. Wanted on terrorism charges in eight countries, including his own of Jordan, his championing of al-Qaida and his delight in terrorist outrages puts him beyond any reasonable pale. He propounds violence and seeks to corrupt the young. There is no obligation on any country to tolerate such a guest. He is a citizen of Jordan and has forfeited any serious claim on the hospitality of the British judicial system.

As for the European court of human rights, its role in helping him avoid deportation is otiose. The convention it claims ponderously to enforce prohibits anyone's removal to places where there is "a real risk" of torture. No one says Abu Qatada risks torture, so the court, frantic to administer Eurosceptic Britain a bloody nose, conflates opposition to torture with article six on getting "a fair trial", where a plaintiff might be vulnerable to evidence derived from torturing someone else. The fair trial article is so vague it could plausibly be invoked against any justice system. The ECHR is bogged down in empire-building and is a mess.

That the risk of Qatada not getting a fair trial back home in Jordan should override the risk of his continued pro-terrorist activities in Britain is inherently absurd. Meanwhile, the government's failure to win deportation – permitted by British judges up to the supreme court – is justifying Britain's increasingly odious methods of holding Qatada and others like him in various forms of detention, without the necessity of bringing them to trial.

The antics of Whitehall lawyers in Belmarsh jail are like those of President Obama in Guantánamo Bay. This week they found themselves in the bizarre position of being ordered by a judge to release Qatada on "control order" bail, with total release in three months if there was no progress in the negotiations to have him face trial in Jordan. This is under rules that the Home Office itself drew up. The result has been a real crisis of confidence between judges and public opinion. Ministers might reflect that it is easy to stray from the rule of law, but hard to retrace one's steps.

I can't see why the government does not dump Qatada on the next plane to Amman and have done with him. He has been declared a public menace, and charged with a serious offence back home. Britain is entitled to treat the ECHR finding as advisory and put its security first. Qatada broke his last bail condition and is as cast-iron a candidate for expulsion as can be imagined. The ECHR can go eat muesli.

So far so simple. But there are deeper implications to this affair. While I would happily deport Qatada, as long as he is in this country he is entitled to the full protection of the law. Lord Hoffmann in the 2004 law lords' "Belmarsh judgment" warned parliament that the steady erosion of habeas corpus and extension of detention without trial threatened "the very existence of an ancient liberty of which this country has until now been proud: freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention". That liberty also extends to free speech, however odious.

The judgment was opposed by the then home secretary, Charles Clarke – one of a succession of ministers who have struggled and failed to marry Westminster's weak commitment to civil liberty with the howling of the securocrats and media for extrajudicial action. Clarke sought refuge behind parliamentary sovereignty, code for securocrat capture. The illiberal Home Office misses no chance to extend executive discretion.

Britain's post-9/11 edifice of detention without trial is the judicial detritus of George Bush and Tony Blair's war on terror, a specious conflation of two quite different concepts: a random terrorist act, and a realistic threat to state security. A smokescreen of paranoid spin-smothered civil liberties with headline-grabbing authoritarian initiatives. It created a new category of political criminals who could be locked up peremptorily as enemies of the state. Like the red menace during the cold war, the war on terror was a naked exploitation of the politics of fear.

Since the outrages in New York and London in the last decade, successful bomb attacks on western cities have been remarkably few. They have been prevented not by aggression against distant regimes but by intelligence and sound policing. Even if some bombers were to "get through", it abuses common sense to portray them as threats to the security or stability of the nation, let alone to what Blair called "western civilisation as we know it". When ministers waffle about criminals in such grandiose terms, we should worry not about the criminals but about the sanity of ministers and the company they keep.

Qatada clearly incited others to criminal acts, which merits his arrest and trial or, on a lower threshold of evidence, his deportation. What he and his activities surely do not merit is the continued suspension of the rule of law, or of freedom of speech under the shrill catch-all of "hate crime".

Some preachers peddle messages so crazed as to merit surveillance. But Britain is robust enough to survive the occasional outrage and not cede freedom to the grim citadels of a police state. Its conduits of argument, education and information are robust enough to tolerate a few madcap clerics. I cannot believe Qatada is worth the fuss. If we cannot expel him, leave his ranting to the wayward disciplines of democracy and watchful eye of Scotland Yard.

Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfree

Simon Jenkins
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The faithful must learn to respect those who question their beliefs | Lawrence Krauss

The Guardian - Tue, 02/07/2012 - 18:27

Tensions between religion and science will persist unless believers recognise that skepticism is a hallmark of science

Issues of personal faith can be a source of respectful debate and discussion. Since faith is often not based on evidence, however, it is hard to imagine how various deep philosophical or religious disagreements can be objectively laid to rest. As a result, skeptics like myself struggle to understand or anticipate the vehement anger that can be generated by the mere suggestion that perhaps there may be no God, or even that such a suggestion is not meant to offend.

Last week, police in Rhode Island had to be called to suppress an angry crowd at a school board meeting, and a 16-year-old atheist had to take time off school after being threatened and targeted by an online hate campaign. She was even described on the radio by a state representative as an "evil little thing". All the girl had done was to press for the removal of a banner bearing a prayer that asked "Our Heavenly Father" to grant pupils the desire "to be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers" and "to be good sports".

Equally disturbing was a paper just published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, based on a study of American adults and Canadian college students, that suggested atheists are among the most distrusted groups in society – on a par with rapists. An earlier Gallup poll ranked atheists as the least popular hypothetical minority presidential candidates, and the group that people would most disapprove of their child marrying.

The researchers of the new paper concluded: "Outward displays of belief in God may be viewed as a proxy for trustworthiness … believers may consider atheist's absence of belief as a public threat to cooperation and honesty." This probably explains recent electoral successes of openly devout presidential candidates who previously demonstrated dubious ethics, while also explaining the absence of any serious candidates without known religious affiliation.

It is fascinating that lack of belief, or even mere skepticism, is met among the faithful with less respect and more distrust even than a fervent belief in a rival God. This, more than anything, leads to an inevitable and deep tension between science and religion. When such distrust enters the realm of public policy, everyone suffers.

As a scientist, one is trained to be skeptical, which is perhaps why many scientists find it difficult to accept blindly the existence of a deity. What is unfortunate is that this skepticism is taken by many among the faithful to be an attack not only on their beliefs, but also on their values, and therefore leads to the conclusion that science itself is suspect.

One can see this in many domains appropriate to public policy from the local scale (school boards and the teaching of evolution) to the global scale (climate change and what international codes of behaviour may need to be changed to address it). But what may be surprising is that even on rather esoteric questions, the suspicion that science is akin to atheism, and that therefore science cannot be trusted, easily surfaces.

Over the past 25 years there have been remarkable revolutions in our understanding of the universe on its largest scales – revolutions that have transformed our picture of the cosmos and its possible future, and which may shed new light on its origins.

What is truly remarkable is that observations and the theoretical advances associated with them, from particle physics to astronomy, have produced such progress that we are now being driven to address questions that science has previously shied away from. In particular we can imagine increasingly plausible natural mechanisms by which our universe came into existence from non-existence.

As a result, the longstanding theological and philosophical question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?", like many earlier such questions, is increasingly becoming a scientific question, because our notions of "something" and "nothing" have completely changed as a result of our new knowledge.

As science continues to encroach on this issue of profound human interest, it would be most unfortunate if the inherent skepticism associated with scientific progress were to drive a further wedge between science and society.

As a cosmologist, I am keenly aware of the limitations inherent in our study of the universe and its origins – limitations arising from the accidents of our birth and location in a universe whose limits may forever be beyond the reach of our experiments.

As a result, science need not be the direct enemy of faith. However, a deep tension will persist until the faithful recognise that a willingness to question even one's most fervently held beliefs – the hallmark of science – is a trait that should be respected, not reviled.

Lawrence M Krauss is director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. His most recent book, A Universe from Nothing, was recently published

Lawrence Krauss
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Church of England general synod debates female bishops - live blog

The Guardian - Tue, 02/07/2012 - 18:24

Traditionalists are expected to speak out against the prospect of women being ordained as bishops - follow developments with Riazat Butt live throughout the day

11.47am: Morning morning! I'm back at Church House today for day two of the Church of England's general synod. I've got biscuits, I've got wifi, I've got synod ... who could ask for anything more? On the agenda today are fees for weddings and funerals, female bishops and a presentation on the Anglican Alliance for Relief, Development and Advocacy.

More than one person has asked me what the general synod is. It is the Church of England's law-making body. It meets twice a year - once in London and once in York. Except every five years, when it meets three times a year. On Twitter yesterday a Muslim very helpfully explained (to another Muslim) that it was like all the imams in Britain meeting up to talk about and introduce policy into mosques.

This afternoon, we're hearing a presentation from the Bishop of Edmundsbury and Ipswich on the code of practice for the female bishops legislation.

In very simple language the code of practice will be a set of rules outlining, but not dictating, what bishops could do in the event that people don't want a woman as their bishop. I say "will be" because it hasn't been written yet.

So Nigel Stock (for it is he) will give a presentation on a code of practice that doesn't exist. There will be questions and answers. It will be a bit heated because - surprise, surprise - there are some people who aren't happy with the idea of something that is discretionary. They would rather have something cast-iron and enshrined in law that protects them from women. I really did just write that.

So when or if general synod approves the legislation in July 2012, it goes to parliament for consideration by the ecclesiastical committee and each House of Parliament (Commons, Lords).

For the full history of this legislation, and the saga about women's ordination, click here. The ball started rolling in 1975. Yes, that's right. 1975.

Yesterday, the subjects of assisted suicide, female bishops, and racist emails kept us busy in the press gallery - click the links to read some of the coverage, and here's my full coverage of day one's events.

In the time that it's taken me for to dodge the crowds outside Westminster Abbey for Dickens, sit down, have my coffee and tap out some paragraphs, a move to slash wedding and funeral fees by 25% has been rejected.

The background to the thrillingly titled "Parochial Fees" debate can be found here - when it last came before the synod in July and a 50% price increase was rejected on the ground that it might discourage couples from marrying in church.

The number of couples marrying has declined by about a third in 30 years ...

With weddings, the Church's own share of the market has diminished quickly in the face of competition from alternative venues such as stately homes and hotels …

In recent years, the Church has significantly relaxed the rules governing where couples may marry.

People have generally had the right to marry in their own parish church, or the one they attend. But access to other parish churches has historically been far more restricted.

Recently, however, the synod has allowed couples to marry in any parish church where they can show a "connection". It could be as distant as a grandparent having married there.

That has inevitably increased the pressure on a number of more popular "picture postcard" churches, and allowed them to command a higher price.

So far, we've heard people say that raising fees will "punish the poor and reward the rich" and that if you charge for reading the banns you're giving people "a discount for fornication". More details soon ...

12.14pm:

It is more expensive to have a funeral and a wedding in the Church of England. A burial and service has gone up from £298 to £420, while the price of getting married has gone up from £296 to £415. The increases include lighting but not heating. This being the Church of England, it is more nuanced than that.

1.21pm: Right, so we've crunched some numbers and, er, done some maths. It nearly tipped us over the edge. A standard fee is being brought in to avoid budget airline style "extras" like lighting or (perish the thought) heating being stuck on to a funeral/wedding bill. What you get for £160 (from January 2013) at a funeral is a service. Burial costs you extra. A small cross of wood has gone up from £21 to £36. A small vase costs £81 instead of £62. One of my press colleagues alleges that is more expensive to bury a pot of ashes than an human body. I could verify this but I'd rather go for lunch.

If you're tying the knot in a church then flowers, vergers, chorister, bell-ringers (?) and organists will still cost you extra as they always did.

Here's what some people said during the debate. Fr Simon Killwick, from Manchester, opposed changes.

Such a fee increase seems to me hard to justify in times of financial austerity and even harder to justify in poor inner-city parishes.
The Church of England ought not to be seen to be making a big increase at this time and ought not to be making it difficult for the poor to access these services at a time when a simple ceremony can be had at a register office for around £100.
People do talk. The poor don't want to be patronised by fees being waived they want their church to be affordable to them. It would be a crying shame if poor people end up being married in register offices because the Church of England has priced them out of their parish church.

The bishop of Ripon and Leeds, John Packer, begged to differ.

What it costs matters. Those who are being married in our churches do understand there is a need to contribute to the reality of what it's going to cost.

Some Synod members thought that not folding in heating charges was a mistake. Here's the Rev Eva McIntyre, from Worcester.

I'm quite disconcerted that we can tell people they can choose to have the heating on. We will freeze if someone is too tight to pay the £50 to have the heating on.

I'm off for lunch and I'll be back at 2.30 for women bishops.

2.30pm: Right. The chamber is full. I have settled down with a biscuit (Fair Trade, stem ginger) four pens and I am ready for this presentation about a non-existent code of practice on women bishops. Bring it!

2.49pm: The bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich is currently threatening to say something interesting about the non-existent code of practice on women bishops, so while he's doing that I am going to include a link to my story about the hike in fees for funerals and weddings.

3.25pm: We're hearing questions from the floor. Some are a bit touchy-feely (about the life and mission of the Church of England) while others are more pointed and revealing about the mood of Synod.

RT @jackytheluddite: #synod working party on code of practice did not consider experience of women bishops in other provinces

— Tim Moore (@TimothyJMoore) February 7, 2012

#synod CS- do we have a code which leaves both bishops working together when neither of them agrees with the basis on which they work?

— rosie harper (@rosieswiss) February 7, 2012

If the code can achieve consistency there will not be confusion up and down the county - bish eds & ips #synod

— Rachel Beck (@Rachelb105) February 7, 2012

There is an awful lot of discussion about the differences in meaning between delegation and derivation, and must, should and may. These questions have led some to express their dismay over the quality of exchanges.

#synod I think I'm learning that a dustbin load of pompous legal verbiage is less effective communication than direct speech

— Bishop Alan Wilson (@alantlwilson) February 7, 2012

Oh dear.

4.43pm: I must apologise. I - along with 470 other people in Church House - though that this afternoon's debate about the code of practice on women bishops would be interesting. It was nothing of the sort.

Rev Peter Mullen, on the other hand, has plenty of stuff to say on the subject of women bishops. Who is Peter Mullen? He is the rector of St Michael, Cornhill and St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London. He writes for the Daily Telegraph and this is what he has to say about women bishops and General Synod.

Campaigners for women bishops call themselves "liberal" and "inclusive". But their liberality and inclusiveness extends only as far as those who agree with them. This is not liberalism at all, of course. Those bigots are like Trotskyists who work within an institution to subvert it and to turn it into its opposite. They are the Church Militant Tendency. I have seen (and worse, heard) their raucous and savage triumphalism, sneering and gloating at the discomfiture of traditionalists. These people who began their feminising movement by pleading for tolerance are themselves intolerable.

Peter Mullen once said that gay men should be tattooed with health warnings.

5.11pm: For me, the most interesting thing about the non-debate debate was that the Church of England did not seek see how other Anglican churches, that do have women bishops, cared for traditionalist parishes and clergy. It seems like a chuffing big oversight in fact. If you've never had women bishops and you have people who oppose them, why not see how other people have handled it so you can either copy them or avoid making the same mistakes?

Anyway, I'm logging off now because a) nothing is happening b) I want to catch up with episodes of Borgen and c) it's going to be a late one tomorrow and I need my beauty sleep

5.24pm: Hilarious. The BBC has the wedding fees story as its ticker tape on its news site along with Abu Qatada and the Brazilian government suing Twitter. Even funnier, or perhaps not, a press colleague has started a Synod story with: "The Church of England is expected to embark on another round of debates on women bishops..."

And yes, I too will be embarking on another round of stories about how the Church of England is expected to embark on another round of debates. See you then

Riazat Butt
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Can Mitt Romney seal the deal with the Christian right? | Harry J Enten

The Guardian - Tue, 02/07/2012 - 17:30

Missouri's primary seems a minor stopover in the GOP race, but it may show if, crucially, Romney can woo evangelical voters

Mitt Romney won an impressive 29-percentage point victory in Saturday's Nevada caucuses. For some analysts, the triumph suggested that Romney is well on his way to winning the nomination. For me, the win was expected and confirms my forecast about where the race is heading. Romney maintains his status as the favorite for the Republican nomination, but potential trouble lurks down the road.

Romney maintains a great funding and organizational advantage in comparison to his peers. If he senses any candidate (such as Newt Gingrich) might be a serious challenge, Romney can drown out his opponent with television advertising and establishment endorsements (as Elliott Abrams describes in the National Review). Romney's ability to turn a five-point deficit in Florida into a seven-point lead in three days, with an eventual 14.5-point win, shows what his campaign is capable of doing.

The outstanding issue for Romney, though, is that he has yet failed to break through in a state that doesn't favor him demographically. Think about the states where Romney has done well: New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada. Some are liberal, some are conservative, but they share one demographic feature: they have a below-average percentage of Republican primary (or caucus) voters who identify as born-again Christians or evangelicals. The two states, Iowa and South Carolina, in which Romney has fared poorly have an above-average percentage of Republican primary (or caucus) voters who so identify.

Graphically, the relationship between born-again Christian and evangelical and the Romney vote becomes quite clear. Romney's percentage of the vote as opposed to the proportion won by the conservative alternatives (by now, just Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum) tallies quite closely with the percentage of voters in a state's exit polls who say they are born-again Christian or evangelical.

While the relationship is quite strong, we have very few data points to test the hypothesis. But some corroboration comes from eminent author and political analyst Sean Trende, who found the same strong relationship among counties – that is, counties (which provide a much larger dataset) with higher levels of white evangelicals are voting in a lower percentage for Romney. The reasons for this relationship are open to interpretation, but as Trende notes, and I agree, "The most interesting conclusion we can draw – and this is pretty firm – is that very little has changed over the past three contests."

This means that we can do a decent job of predicting how future states will vote based on the percentage of Republican primary voters who identify as born-again Christian or evangelical. A good test of Romney's future fortunes will be Tuesday's non-binding Republican primary in Missouri.

Missouri's Republican electorate has relatively high proportion of born-again Christians and evangelicals, and the conservative alternative vote will not be split among different candidates, as Newt Gingrich is not on the ballot. If Ron Paul gets 20% of the vote, as Public Policy Polling found he would win, then Romney's projected percentage, given the born-again/evangelical percentage of the vote, would be 30% (see table below). A percentage above that bodes well for Romney, while a percentage at or below that suggests he is still not winning over the type of voters he has failed to enthuse in earlier states.

If Romney were to lose to Rick Santorum in Missouri, and in Minnesota (where we do not have any exit poll data on which we could utilize our model, but which polling suggests is possible), he would, again, lose his cloak of inevitability. He would have been defeated in two states by a challenger who is potentially a far more formidable foe than Newt Gingrich. Without Romney unable to build momentum from consecutive wins, it's likely that the born-again Christian and evangelical divide will solidify. We could then be in for a very long nomination process.

After Tuesday, we will have to wait until 28 February and then 6 March to see if Romney is uniting the Republican vote. Here are Romney's projected percentages of the vote v the conservative alternatives in those upcoming primaries. Please keep in mind that these "forecasts" exclude Ron Paul's percentage and are only intended as benchmarks; they have very large margins of error. Caucuses are not included because no exit polls were conducted for them in 2008, so we don't know the percentage of born-again Christians and evangelicals who will make up the electorate.

Looking at the table, the race to watch most closely will be Ohio on 6 March. It's the ultimate swing state in the general election, and its Republican electorate is about average for the percentage of born-again Christians and evangelicals for the upcoming contests. A convincing Ohio win for Romney would mean he's almost definitely going to win the Republican nomination. A loss would mean news producers on CNN will not have to worry about filling the schedule for the next few months.

Romney is still the favorite going forward. He will probably start to win contests he wouldn't necessarily have won earlier in the primary season, but all the talk about Romney not being able to close the deal may be real. After Missouri, we will probably have a clearer idea on that.

Harry J Enten
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Should the Church of England allow female bishops? | Rosie Harper and Adrian Furse

The Guardian - Tue, 02/07/2012 - 17:05

Rosie Harper and Adrian Furse debate one of the biggest questions facing the church, as the synod starts its discussions

Rosie Harper: The church's stance does not reflect its flock

Out in the normal world, Christians around the country have voted loud and clear for female bishops. Full stop. But in the Hogwarts world of synod it feels more precarious. The archbishops are likely to put forward yet another carefully crafted work designed to fudge the issue. That's despite their last attempt being thrown out. On Wednesday the debate will focus on a motion from Manchester, which despite being probably well-intentioned, would if adopted lead to legalised institutional discrimination. What a ghastly result that would be.

In Buckinghamshire, where I live, the sort of folk who feel they need protecting from women are only 3% of all churchgoers. In synod, the numbers game plays differently. Indeed there are allegedly some people who will do their utmost to undermine the church they fully intend to leave anyway.

History doesn't not offer much hope. When women were eventually allowed to become priests, the synod patched together a dirty little compromise which gave the anti-women brigade a ghetto clause. They did it for the best of motives. They felt the pain of those who signed up to the church on the basis that it would be a woman-free zone. It's as if, when South Africa finally stopped apartheid they were to have said: "We understand how much pain some people will feel about this and so we'll protect those who still wish to live lives uncontaminated by their black neighbours."

How you act reveals what you believe. There's no way round it. You might believe you are not an alcoholic, but downing a bottle of Scotch a day tells its own story. The Church of England maintains that it is not institutionally discriminatory, but acts in such a discriminatory way that the facts expose the heart.

If the Manchester amendment goes through, the sensible people there might well be a very difficult decision to make: is it better to throw out the whole thing than end up with a tacky compromise where there are indeed female bishops, but they are second class?

Adrian Furse: We're not misogynists living in the past

In 1987, as a 10-year-old boy in church on a Sunday morning, I looked at a priest standing at an altar, and in a 10-year-old sort of way, I said: "I really want to be a priest." My parents were less than keen on the idea and, I suspect, hoped I'd grow out of it. But it kept coming back, I couldn't resist it. So here I am.

It's fair to say that the debates within the church in the 1980s and 90s passed me by. As a schoolboy I had other things on my mind: I wasn't bothered with theological niceties, I just went to church and sang in choirs. I don't remember ever being in favour of the ordination of women, probably because it struck me that the church was accommodating itself to the ways of the world. I came to realise that neither the Bible nor the tradition of the church could convince me that the ordination of women was the right thing for the church to do.

In the 1990s, promises were made assuring those whose convictions I share that we have a place in the church, that it was an honoured and valued one, and that it would continue. Twenty years on, we wonder what has changed: is the process of reception now over? Were the promises were made for the sake of expediency: a cynical insurance policy to allow the legislation for the ordination of women as priests to be approved by parliament?

It's not about equality. I believe men and women are equal and different. I believe passionately that women have a lot to offer the church in teaching and pastoral care, but not as bishops or priests. I say this not to be perverse or awkward, but because my conscience, informed by debate and study, will not allow it to be otherwise.

The church was not wrong to ordain me, and I can genuinely say that in serving God's church I have found my life's true meaning. I'm a miserable sinner, but I hope through God's grace to continue to serve him and his people, to preach his word, to administer his sacraments, and to care for people and their souls, whether they share my theological convictions or not.

People need priests and bishops, and deacons for that matter, who hold the faith quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est [which is believed everywhere, always and by everyone]. There are lots of people out there who will continue to need us. We're not negligible, we're not misogynists or reactionary bigots living in the past. We're just trying to be shepherds, laying down our lives for his flock.

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Rosie Harper Adrian Furse
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Church of England votes to increase marriage and funeral fees

The Guardian - Tue, 02/07/2012 - 15:18

Fears that the poor could be priced out of church weddings as General Synod agrees to raise fees from £296 to £415

It will be more expensive to get married or have a funeral in the Church of England next year after its law-making body voted to increase fees for both.

The General Synod, which is meeting in London this week, agreed to push funeral service fees up from £102 to £160 and wedding ceremony fees from £296 to £415 in an attempt to standardise costs across the country's 16,000 churches. The increase includes lighting and administration, but not heating, and comes into effect next year.

While there was overwhelming support for the price hike, some Synod members spoke against it.

Simon Killwick, a priest from the Moss Side area of Manchester, said: "Such a fee increase seems to me hard to justify in times of financial austerity and even harder to justify in poor inner-city parishes.

"The Church of England ought not to be seen to be making a big increase at this time and ought not to be making it difficult for the poor to access these services at a time when a simple ceremony can be had at a register office for around £100."

He warned that the Church of England could not rely on the right to waive fees in cases of hardship as it could place clergy in the "invidious position" of attempting to "means test" parishioners.

"People do talk," he added. "The poor don't want to be patronised by fees being waived. They want their church to be affordable to them. It would be a crying shame if poor people end up being married in register offices because the Church of England has priced them out of their parish church."

The bishop of Ripon and Leeds proposed the changes and said without them the Church of England would go back to the days of "plucking a figure out of the air".

John Packer said: "What it costs matters. Those who are being married in our churches do understand there is a need to contribute to the reality of what it's going to cost."

There were some clerics pressing for a greater increase. The Rev Eva McIntyre, from Worcester, said a failure to include the cost of heating in a standard national fee meant that she, the chorister, the organist and the verger would ultimately pay the price.

"I'm quite disconcerted," she told Synod, "that we can tell people they can choose to have the heating on. We will freeze if someone is too tight to pay the £50 to have the heating on."

A spokesman for the Church of England later said he did not envisage a stampede of couples attempting to beat the price rise.

Riazat Butt
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Algeria slides into prohibition

The Guardian - Tue, 02/07/2012 - 14:59

Bars shut under pressure from Islamists, driving alcohol sales and consumption underground

There is no longer a single bar left in Constantine, Chlef, Tlemcen, Batna or Boumerdès. Only two remain in Sétif. In Algiers, once renowned for its many bars, about 15 struggle on. Last month La Butte and La Toison d'Or, two of the oldest and best known watering holes in the Algerian capital, pulled down their shutters for the last time.

One after another bars selling alcoholic beverages are closing and retail outlets are increasingly rare. Algeria is sliding into prohibition.

"We are on our last legs," says Tahar, one of the largest wholesalers. "I've been in the trade for years and I can't see any future in it."

"We're heading for the disappearance of all that," says Mohammed Delabeche, sales manager of a drinks importer, pointing at a few of the remaining bars in Algiers. For passers-by there are no distinguishing marks, no signs or adverts.

The trend started in 2005. Only Kabylia and the Oran area have resisted so far. Elsewhere there is a gaping void, and VL (wine and spirits) retailers fear they too will soon be for the chop. "It is a constant worry," says a vendor at Aïn Bénian, 40km from Algiers.

"They should stop this campaign and define clear rules," said the president of the Society of Algerian Beverage Manufacturers (Apab), Ali Hamani, who expects "additional pressure" as the general election in May looms.

There are more and more fly-by-night supply networks. In Jijel, 300km east of Algiers, there are about 30. Licensed bars often have to close at 8pm; these networks take over with deliveries from mobile bar-vans or someone's home. Sales are concealed, with drinks generally hidden in bags, but the gatherings are perfectly visible. At Sétif, an unlicensed vendor does the rounds to his customers with a van and a mobile phone. Actual consumption has not dropped, indeed it may have increased a little.

On average, Algerians consume around 100m litres of beer annually, 50m litres of wine, and up to 10m litres of spirits. "These figures put us well behind Morocco and are only about half the amount consumed in Tunisia," Hamani said.

Closing the bars has given rise to new habits. From the middle of the afternoon onwards, it is commonplace to see cars parked beside the road with the occupants setting up a bar on the bonnet and enjoying a beer. The verges are littered with beer cans. "If it goes on like this it will become a public health hazard," a wholesaler said. "People have learned to drink like that, on the sly. They don't even bother with bars any longer," Delabeche said.

According to people in the trade, the "anti-alcohol attitude" began in 2006 with a memorandum from the trade ministry, which has been headed since that year by a representative of the Islamist Movement of Society for Peace (MSP). The memo required bars to comply with safety regulations and update their details on the business register every year. Many lost their licence in the process, and have no hope of getting it back. Others opted to become snack bars.

Unanswered letters piled up at the offices of the officials who issue licences. At a local level, petitions by residents protesting against the trouble caused by the bars were the last straw.

"It has to be admitted that society is gradually being Islamised," said the secretary general of Apab, Meriem Bellil-Medjoubi. "They use all the available tricks, particularly with residents and petitions; our letters to the authorities go unanswered, unlike other branches of the food industry," Hamani said.

When questioned on this, the MSP's president, Boguerra Soltani, a minister of state without portfolio, said: "The government's prime concern is the availability of food." He denies the existence of a memo. "Clearly at the MSP the consumption of alcohol is prohibited, not as part of a ban but for [public] education," he adds. "We are convinced Algerians prefer to drink Coca-Cola or Pepsi rather than alcohol. For that matter, in Algeria it is forbidden to breed pigs or consume pork, and no one has a problem with that."

Tahar recalled the 1990s, when the civil war between the Islamists and the regime prompted a very different response. "During the war against terror, the police protected points of sale and even encouraged us to stay open till 11pm," he said. "It was a form of resistance. Now it's the other way round."

The state-owned Vine Marketing Board (ONCV) still produces wine, but all the outlets (the brasseries) have been privatised. However, not many jobs – 3,000 according to Apab – are at stake.

"No one, not even a entire industry, can put pressure on the authorities because all the [state] money comes from oil, not trade," said a despairing importer. "And things won't improve after the next general election either."

This article originally appeared in Le Monde

Isabelle Mandraud
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Presidential nominee resurrects a holy ghost of Mexico's past | Luis Hernández Navarro

The Guardian - Tue, 02/07/2012 - 14:25

With the support of ultra-right Catholics, Josefina Vázquez Mota is a divisive figure who uses controversial tactics

The triumph of Josefina Vázquez Mota in Sunday's primary election puts the final piece in place for Mexico's presidential elections, set for 1 July. The three main coalitions now each have their presidential candidates. Vázquez Mota won the governing National Action party (PAN) primary, making her the first woman to be nominated by the rightwing party for the post of head of state.

Vázquez Mota won despite not being the candidate preferred by President Felipe Calderón and his team. Her motto "change without rupture" presented her as the candidate for those citizens who want a new direction, without breaking with the ruling party. However, she did have the support of important federal and state officials who used public resources to sway voters in her favour.

Vázquez Mota, a federal representative, resorted (as did Ernesto Cordero, her main opponent) to the same old corrupt methods used for decades by the political party, which has ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century, the Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI); threats, giving food to poor voters and using public resources to favour candidates were all commonplace in PAN's primary.

Coming from a highly conservative, private sector guild, Vázquez Mota also enjoyed the support of an important coalition of ultra-rightist forces, among them the notorious El Yunque (the anvil), a secret society who want to "defend the Catholic religion and fight against the forces of Satan, even through violence" and to "establish the kingdom of God on Earth". Its members have infiltrated the federal government's ranks since PAN's Vicente Fox was elected president in 2000.

Throughout her campaign for her party's nomination, Vázquez Mota managed to gain sympathy from those who would welcome a female president. However, her religious fundamentalism disappointed those who, without being PAN supporters, do not trust the leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. On 31 January, the candidate told her party's members that on election day: "We all should get up early. First to mass, and then to vote. I ask you to go to 8am mass and then to vote." Many were disenchanted. Soledad Loaeza, author of the most important history of PAN, called it the "holy ghost vote".

Since the 18th century, Mexico has been riven by conflicts between the Catholic church and the state. From 1926 to 1929, there was an armed religious uprising against the federal government, known as the Cristiada, which caused wounds that have not completely healed. Vázquez Mota's call to mass was widely regarded as a call to a vanished past and as proof that the PAN is a religious party.

Vázquez Mota was also minister of public education during the first three years of the Calderón administration. There she established a close alliance with a group of powerful businessmen who promote the privatisation of education and the abandonment of secular teaching in schools, and who want to head an all-out offensive against the teacher's union and its members. Those Catholic businessmen put forward important financial resources for her campaign.

Like the other presidential hopefuls, Vázquez Mota confronts the challenge of overcoming the citizen's disenchantment with politicians and elections. Despite the fierce competition of PAN's primary campaign, the internal election attracted only 25% of the party's members registered to vote.

Even so, the primary election caused a real fracture in the party's ranks. The dirty war between the contenders left many open wounds. For Calderón, Vázquez Mota's victory is not good news. The fact that his party's nominee to succeed him was not his favourite adds to the sense that his government is now weak. For Vázquez Mota herself, things are not easy either. Enrique Peña Nieto, PRI's candidate, is 20 points ahead of her in the polls. Her "change without rupture" proposal will be difficult to advance.

Luis Hernández Navarro
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Church of England General Synod - live blog

The Guardian - Mon, 02/06/2012 - 19:58

Riazat Butt with all the developments and debates from the Church of England's General Synod

Hello and welcome to the Guardian's live blog from the Church of England General Synod. Why are we liveblogging this? Because we're the Guardian and we'll live blog the opening of an envelope. Seriously, there is a lot up for grabs this week and the key debates focus on the legislation allowing women to become bishops. Think of it as a cheaper, more exciting version of Davos. With cassocks.

The lovely Martin Beckford from the Daily Telegraph has done this handy story outlining who wants what and why:

Women bishops could be ordained by 2014 at the earliest and each of the Church's 44 dioceses would have to develop schemes for how to deal with the conservative evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics who believe scripture and tradition teaches that church leaders must be men.

The Archbishops say the "majority" of bishops are "strongly and positively committed" to the introduction of women bishops, but they are also keen to ensure the Church of England remains a broad church "in which conscientious difference of theological judgement is fully respected."

So the archbishops want women to lead but they want to help those who don't want to be led by women. Christian? Or just annoying?

3.26pm: Just had the first hour or so of General Synod here in Church House, Westminster. While there have been a few nods and winks to the main business for this week's meeting, much of today's action has been taking place off site.

Women and the Church, which has been campaigning for greater sexual equality, held an event earlier today. It is doing a rather good line in ecclesiastical purple tea towels, umbrellas and other paraphernalia proclaiming: "A woman's place is in the House...of Bishops." Nice.

One of the speakers at said rally was Peter Price, the bishop of Bath and Wells. He was asked what would happen if the legislation failed to get the votes it needed in July. He said:

I wish I could say there is a plan B, I don't think there is. The implications of this going down are so far-reaching that we almost dare not face it.

There is a possibility that the legislation won't get the votes needed in July. If it is changed - to offer access to alternative, male leadership for traditionalists - then progressives could kick it into the long grass. If it isn't changed then the traditionalists could kick it into the long grass. It's all very political and very tactical.

I've written a story about the WATCH meeting, it should be on the Guardian website later today and I'll also post a link to it here when it becomes available.

4.04pm: In spite of someone's here saying that "not everyone at Synod" has access to the internet, the Church of England has a pretty active twitterati.

I'm posting a selection of tweets below, on everything from assisted suicide to navel gazing.

Debate on assisted dying seems to have killed off #synod. Was more life in debate on business committee.

— Ruth Gledhill(@RuthieGledhill) February 6, 2012

#synod-another call to synod to discuss really important stuff, the economy, the Middle East -understanding that synod is too introverted.

— rosie harper (@rosieswiss) February 6, 2012

Breaking: #Synod in 'vote for youth' shock *goes for lie-down in darkened room*

— Rachel Mann (@metalvicar) February 6, 2012

@clroters @metalvicar priests wear shoes, bishops flip-flop... #synod

— Mark Broadway (@6Eight) February 6, 2012

#synod excellent speech by ++Rowan. Changing the law on assisted dying protects no one and redefines our view of what it is to be a person.

— Robert Hammond (@rhwinetasting) February 6, 2012

Oh and the link to my "No Plan B for women bishops" story - which came out of the Watch meeting this morning - is now up on the Guardian's website.

6.04pm: General Synod is crawling its way through 100 written questions (although these and the answers are being read out). Right now we're on question 45 but I've skimmed through the list and summarised some below. I'll post a link to the full 100 when they become available online.

The Church of England is not planning to disinvest from oil companies given the global economy cannot function without energy.

The Church of England cannot provide figures on a) ethnic minority clergy, laity or staff but it knows there are 12 people living as enclosed hermits.

Senior C of E appointments are not subject to MI5 (security) vetting.

The position on not allowing civil partnerships to be registered in churches remains unchanged, unless the matter is brought before Synod, debated and agreed on.

The archbishops of Canterbury and York do not see the need to have women on a group assessing the Church of England's approach to homosexuality.

6.19pm: My colleague, Andrew Brown, has been reflecting on what General Synod is and what it isn't. He writes:

Returning from a General Synod meeting in York with a story to write, I once typed "The Church of England yesterday decided", and fell immediately into a profound sleep over my laptop. I was entirely sober at the time. It's just the effect that synod has; and I'm beginning to wonder whether this isn't part of its real purpose.

The General Synod now meets only twice a year. This week it's in Church House, in Westminster. In theory it is there to make the decisions that parliament can no longer be bothered with about the Church of England; but in fact it's a device to make decision-making more or less impossible.

You can read the full article here.

We are only on question 56. If you'll allow me, I'll post the full list tomorrow morning.

6.37pm: One of the bigger, well the only substantive debate from today looked at assisted suicide, specifically the independent commission on assisted dying, headed up by former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer. The archbishop of Canterbury said that changes to the law would spell "disaster" and drew parallels between the shift in social attitudes towards abortion in its legalisation and a similar impact should there be a change in the law of assisted suicide. The Press Association has this report.

The default position on abortion has shifted quite clearly over the past 40 years - and to see the default position shift on the sanctity of life would be a disaster. We are not committed to the notion - the eccentric notion - that Christians believe we should cling to life at all costs.
To say that there are certain conditions in which life is legally declared to be not worth living is a major shift in the moral and spiritual atmosphere in which we live. We can be realistic, we can be compassionate, in the application of the existing law.

Someone said that Synod was a form of assisted dying. I think this unfair.

We're on question 63.

6.40pm:

Martin Beckford from the Daily Telegraph is reporting that the archbishop of York has received a number of offensive racist emails after he gave an interview urging David Cameron not to legalise gay marriage.

A spokesman for the Archbishop said in a statement: "A large quantity of correspondence was received in response to the archbishop's interview with the Daily Telegraph, which touched on a wide range of issues.

"Amongst many positive emails that he has received, there have been a small number of abusive and threatening emails of a racist nature which North Yorkshire Police are investigating as hate crimes."

6.58pm: As far as I can tell we're finishing at 7pm so I'm going to say goodbye. It was not terribly exciting today, everyone is hoping for high drama on Tuesday and Wednesday. I will be prepared - with DVT stockings and a better selection of biscuits. This was a warm-up. If that sounds like a threat, it's meant to. See you tomorrow!

Google and Facebook block content in India after court warns of crackdown

The Guardian - Mon, 02/06/2012 - 19:29

Judge tells 21 companies to bar access to material deemed religiously offensive, or face China-style action

Google and Facebook have removed content from some Indian websites after a court warned that India would crack down "like China" if they did not take steps to protect religious sensibilities.

The two are among 21 companies ordered to develop a mechanism to block material considered religiously offensive after private petitioners took them to court over images deemed offensive to Hindus, Muslims and Christians.

Individuals have brought two cases against internet companies in India, fuelling fears about censorship in the world's largest democracy.

"[Our] review team has looked at the content and disabled this content from the local domains of [Google] search, YouTube and Blogger," said a Google spokeswoman, Paroma Roy Chowdhury.

At the heart of the dispute is a law India passed last year making companies responsible for user content posted on their websites, and giving them 36 hours to take down content if there is a complaint.

Last month, the companies said it was impossible for them to block content. Roy Chowdhury declined to comment on what had since been removed, and a Facebook representative said only that the company would release a statement later.

A New Delhi lower court hearing one of the cases, a civil suit brought by an Islamic scholar, told the companies on Monday to put in writing the steps they had taken to block offensive content, and submit reports within 15 days.

"Microsoft has filed an application for rejection of the suit on the grounds that it disclosed no cause of action against Microsoft," a spokesperson for the company said. "The matter is sub judice and no further comments can be given."

That suit was brought by a scholar, Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasm, who runs a website called fatwaonline.org, which gives answers to moral questions.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft have appealed in the Delhi high court against a separate criminal case successfully brought by Vinay Rai, a journalist.

The high court has yet to rule on their appeal, but the sitting judge warned in January they were responsible for content on their websites and said he could, "like China", block sites if the company failed to put its house in order.

In the Rai case, the court ordered the companies to stand trial for offences relating to the distribution of obscene material to minors, after being shown images it said were offensive to the prophet Muhammad, Jesus and various Hindu gods and goddesses as well as several political leaders.

"If the companies have actually removed some content, they should put in place a mechanism to do it regularly, instead of waiting for a court case every time," Rai said.

Fewer than one in 10 of India's 1.2 billion population have access to the internet, but that still makes the country the third-biggest internet market after China and the US. The number of internet users in India is expected to almost triple to 300 million over the next three years.

Despite the new rules to block offensive content, India's internet access is still largely uncensored, in contrast to the tight controls in place in neighbouring China. But, like many other governments around the world, India has become increasingly nervous about the power of social media.

While civil rights groups have opposed the new laws, politicians say posting offensive images in a socially conservative country with a history of violence between religious groups presents a danger to the public.

General Synod: the perfect forum for Anglicans who want to avoid decisions | Andrew Brown

The Guardian - Mon, 02/06/2012 - 18:40

Women bishops, collapsing church attendances – it's issues like these that synod won't be dealing with this week

Some Christian churches can't make decisions because they don't have decision-making bodies. The Baptists are the best example of this. Some can't make big decisions because they think that all the interesting ones were made by about 787 AD. That would be the Orthodox – although they do in fact meet in synods to discuss other matters. The Roman Catholics don't believe in democracy as a form of church government, but the bishops gather every century or so to make decisions too large even for a pope.

But the Church of England can't even decide whether it wants to make decisions. The arguments about women bishops that will take up much of this week illustrate the point very well, because what the opponents deny is that the synod should ever be capable of deciding who is or isn't a bishop. For that matter, they don't believe that the synod should decide who is or isn't a priest. So what appear to be wrangles about what decision to make are in fact disputes about whether to make a decision at all.

Speaking as a neurotic procrastinator myself, I see all the attractions of synodical government. It may be especially attractive to a contemplative temperament, but it also has charms for nerds and other basement dwellers. There is a way in which people who fiddle with their computers when they should be using them have a lot in common with synodical Anglicans. I would much rather update the operating system on my smartphone than use it to make a difficult phone call.

But sometimes the phone calls just have to be made. This week's voting on women bishops is one example; and it is, obviously, a case where the whole church needs to be involved. But there are an awful lot of decisions that could be pushed down to a much lower level. In practice, they usually are. The synod follows what churches do on the ground about policies like the remarriage of divorcees, and it really owes its existence to the refusal of thousands of parishes to use only the Book of Common Prayer that parliament authorised.

But there are still huge questions that it doesn't deal with at all. David Keen, a vicar in Yeovil, published on his blog last week a simple graphic showing the general trend of church statistics since 1989:

"It's a sea of negative numbers, north and south, urban and rural, pretty much wherever you look. The majority of dioceses have lost over a fifth of their membership in 20 years. That's a fifth of the income, a fifth of the ministers (because everyone's a minister), but strangely, not 1/5 of the parishes. In eight diocese the figure is higher than 30%. This is arterial bleeding, not a minor scratch."

You can't blame this on liberalism, out-of-touch conservatism, or anything else that's simple. The Diocese of London, which has actually shown a 17% rise in church attendance over these years, is more liberal as well as more conservative than almost everywhere else. The Diocese of Southwark, which covers London south of the river, is to my eyes indistinguishable in its clerical make-up from the other half. But it has lost 15% of its membership.

The synod failing to talk about the practical consequences of this slide is like obsessing about the wallpaper on my phone when the problem is that it won't make calls at all.

There is no shortage of theoretical discussion or sniping at the other side for everything, which is mostly what the synodical parties do. But the synod is the wrong place for much of these discussions, because what seems clear from the research is that churches grow or shrivel at an individual level, in ways that have lots to do with the personality of their priests and the attitudes of the congregation and almost nothing to do with theology.

What's needed is a straightforward discussion of the administrative and organisational changes needed to respond to the slide. That doesn't happen partly because to do so would be to admit too much reality. The problem with a synod that looks as if it might be able to make decisions is that its mere existence becomes a hindrance for other people to make them, and an excuse for not making them at all.

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Church of England has 'no plan B' on female bishops

The Guardian - Mon, 02/06/2012 - 16:35

Bishop of Bath and Wells says church will have 'substantial period of shock' if it rejects moves to let women become bishops

A senior cleric has warned there is "no Plan B" if the Church of England rejects legislation allowing women to become bishops, claiming such a move would lead to a "substantial period of shock".

The Right Rev Peter Price was addressing supporters of female clergy before a General Synod meeting this week that will decide what provision, if any, there should be for people unwilling to accept women's leadership. Price, who is bishop of Bath and Wells, was asked what would happen if the General Synod voted against the legislation in July.

He replied: "I haven't got a clue. I think we will be in such a critical place that it is extremely difficult to see how we will proceed without going through a substantial period of shock.

"I wish I could say there is a plan B. I don't think there is. The implications of this going down are so far-reaching that we almost dare not face it."

Two amendments to the legislation, which is in draft form, will be debated on Wednesday. One proposes access to an alternative male bishop for traditionalist parishes, the other that the legislation remain unamended.

The conservative evangelical group Reform is lobbying for a concession. Its chair, Rod Thomas, said on Sunday: "If the draft legislation comes back to General Synod for final approval next July unchanged, then we will have the unsavoury dilemma of either having to vote for a measure [law] which will lead to disunity and division, or of voting against it and thus prolonging the debate for another five years."

Women and the Church, which is campaigning for greater sexual equality, has threatened to vote against amended legislation in July.

Giles Fraser's Thinking Aloud podcast: how valuable is shame?

The Guardian - Mon, 02/06/2012 - 08:00

"Let one man's shame be a symbol for all" was the Daily Mail headline. Likewise, one Facebook page has a petition to shame Fred Goodwin into giving up his pension. And Shame is, of course, the title of Steve McQueen's new film about sex addiction.

So how valuable is shame as a means of changing behaviour? According to the American social critic Christopher Lasch, the trouble with modern culture is that we have lost "the shared social and legal boundaries that shame one policed." This is why a number of legal theorists have argued for the shaming of criminals as an alternative to prison or financial penalties. There is little transformative potential in simply paying a fine as if one were just paying an unwelcome bill, they argue. This sort of punishment is just too anonymous. Shaming criminals, on the other hand, makes a very clear public statement about right and wrong. Those caught urinating in public ought to clean the streets with a toothbrush. Those who pick up prostitutes should have their names published in the newspapers. According to several thinkers, shame is a valuable way to reinforce social values.

But all of this makes me feel deeply uncomfortable. For the trouble with shame punishments is that they target too much – the whole person rather than simply the act itself. It is surely one role of a liberal state to uphold the intrinsic dignity and humanity of all its citizens. This is the secular equivalent of the Christian idea that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. In the ancient world, criminals often had their crimes tattooed on their foreheads. After his conversion to Christianity, the Emperor Constantine issued a decree that branding be banned: "let him not be marked on the face, so that which has been fashioned in the likeness of divine beauty, may not be disgraced." Both the secular and religious versions of this sentiment are deep sources of resistance to shame punishments. And this suerly applies as much to Fred Goodwin, as to the rest of us.

Giles Fraser

Chinese lantern festival - in pictures

The Guardian - Sun, 02/05/2012 - 23:37

During the festival, which marks the end of the Chinese new year celebrations, children visit temples to solve riddles on the lanterns

Nietzsche's passionate atheism was the making of me | Giles Fraser

The Guardian - Sun, 02/05/2012 - 21:10

Nietzsche's pious lack of faith led to my own conversion to Christianity

The Big Ideas series has for several months now explored the meaning of a number of familiar intellectual phrases, among them Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message", Hannah Arendt's "the banality of evil" and Adam Smith's "invisible hand". But none of these feels quite as big an idea as Friedrich Nietzsche's "God is dead". After centuries of Christianity, a new dawn is being announced. And the language Nietzsche uses in his famous passage from The Gay Science reflects the enormity of his discovery: "How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?" Nothing again will ever be the same.

But what is his discovery? It isn't a eureka moment in which Nietzsche comes to understand that God does not exist. Indeed, he is not all that interested in the question of God's existence. The Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson recently told me that he would be an atheist even if God walked into the restaurant. Similarly for Nietzsche, it's not a question of evidence or the lack of it.

He is in a completely different place to the new atheist brigade of Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling. If God walked into the room, Nietzsche would stab him – for his "God is dead" revelation is that humanity can only become free if it rejects the idea of the divine. Christianity is not a mistake. It is wickedness dressed up as virtue.

Nietzsche himself was raised in an overly pious religious household. And on the death of his father, who was the local pastor, Nietzsche was brought up to fill his father's shoes. In his first year away from home he wrote some nauseatingly sentimental Christian poetry and won the university preaching prize.

But all this weight of expectation was profoundly claustrophobic and so it was almost inevitable that rejecting God came as a great release. Indeed, such was the enormous freedom that Nietzsche felt in throwing off his Christian upbringing that he came to describe it in terms of salvation. With the most extraordinary rhetorical daring, he borrowed the language of Christianity to articulate the liberation he discovered in this new-found lack of faith. Which is why one of European culture's most dedicated atheists can sound so religious. And why the death of God story feels so much like a biblical parable.

Nietzsche's case against Christianity was that it kept people down; that it smothered them with morality and self-loathing. His ideal human is one who is free to express himself (yes, he's sexist), like a great artist or a Viking warrior. Morality is for the little people. It's the way the weak manipulate the strong. The people Nietzsche most admired and aspired to be like were those who were able to reinvent themselves through some tremendous act of will.

I have never seen anything to admire in Nietzsche's view of morality or immorality. He was badly interpreted by the Nazis. But his ethics, if one can call them that, are founded on the admiration of power as the ultimate form of abundant creativity. His hatred of Christianity comes mostly from his hatred of renunciation and the promotion of selflessness. Jesus was a genius for having the imaginative power to reinvent Judaism but a dangerous idiot for basing this reinvention on the idea that there is virtue to be had in weakness. The weak, Nietzsche insists, are nasty and cruel. They take out their frustration on those who have the power of genuine self-expression.

It may seem perverse but it was Nietzsche who was partly responsible for my own conversion to Christianity. As a philosophy student in the 1980s, I had served my time with the analytic tradition and its logic-chopping ways. Like many students, I was expecting something more from philosophy than an ability to break down "the cat sat on the mat" into its semantic parts or wading through dreary and unconvincing proofs about the existence of God. I wanted the excitement of big ideas. Marx did it for a while. But my own public school version of revolutionary communism was inevitably a brittle thing, despite its evangelical fervour.

As radical socialism collapsed around my ears, Nietzsche invaded my consciousness with a whole range of new and exciting questions. I took the anti-God line entirely for granted. As a good communist, atheism had always been my unexamined default position. And because Nietzsche was so passionate an atheist, I had my defences down to his unusually intense religiosity and elliptical desire for salvation. Which, I suppose, is how the question of God crept under my intellectual radar.

Nietzsche hated Christianity with all the intensity of someone who had once been caught up in its workings, but he would have equally loathed the high priests of new atheism and their overwhelming sense of intellectual superiority. "How much boundlessly stupid naivety is there in the scholar's belief in his superiority, in the simple, unsuspecting certainty with which his instincts treat the religious man as inferior and a lower type which he himself has evolved above and beyond", he wrote. Nietzsche's big idea goes much deeper than a belief that there is no God. His extraordinary project was to design a form of redemption for a world beyond belief. And to this extent he remained profoundly pious until his dying day.

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Church of England failing gay Christian couples, says bishop

The Guardian - Sun, 02/05/2012 - 18:59

Bishop of Salisbury's remarks are further evidence of divisions in the church hierarchy as General Synod opens in London

The Church of England is failing gay Christian couples and must rethink the traditional, biblical portrayal of homosexuality as "idolatrous, promiscuous and exploitative", according to one bishop.

In remarks that reveal deep divisions in the church hierarchy, the Right Rev Nicholas Holtam said there were gay couples who were living faithfully and lovingly for life and that the quality and nature of their relationships meant it was appropriate to use the language of marriage.

Holtam, who as bishop of Salisbury is the most senior cleric to have spoken favourably about gay relationships, told the BBC: "Marriage is between a man and a woman. What has happened now is that we have begun to see in a way, which is not there in the Bible, that there are people in same sex relationships who are living faithfully and lovingly for life."

He added: "I don't think there is much there [in the Bible] which addresses the issue of faithful, same sex relationships. We have had the experience of civil partnerships for six years now and we need to review where we are."

The Church of England has blocked the registration of civil partnerships in its buildings unless its parliament, the General Synod, agrees to it. It tolerates clergy who are in civil relationships, but expects them to be celibate.

The archbishop of York last month criticised the government for opening a consultation on the legalisation of gay marriage, saying David Cameron would be acting "like a dictator" if he allowed the change to happen.

His remarks, in addition to angering equality campaigners, also spurred on more than 120 London-based clergy to say they wanted civil partnerships to be registered in their buildings, a call swiftly rebuffed by the bishop of London, Richard Chartres.

But dominant and emotive the issue of homosexuality has been in recent weeks, it is unlikely to feature heavily at the synod, which starts on Monday, where hundreds of Church of England members will thrash out the small print on the legislation permitting women to be ordained as bishops.

The four-day meeting could defy the image of the Church of England as the "Tory party at prayer" as traditionalists and liberals square up to each other once more over the historic development.

Anglo-Catholics and conservative evangelicals seek an amendment that will give them the legal right to ignore the authority of a female bishop and choose to be led by a male one instead.

It could be their last chance to introduce such a change, with the final version of the legislation presented to the synod at its July summit in York.

They face formidable resistance from supporters of women clergy who have successfully voted down similar proposals on several occasions, embarrassing and frustrating the archbishops of Canterbury and York, who want concessions for those opposed to female leadership to avoid a split or further defections to Catholicism by disaffected Anglican clergy and parishioners.

The Big Ideas podcast: Friedrich Nietzsche's 'God is dead'

The Guardian - Sat, 02/04/2012 - 14:30

One of the most frequently quoted – and hotly debated – passages in modern philosophy appears in Section 125 of Friedrich Nietzsche's The Gay Science. It's worth quoting in full:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

But the core statement is as ambiguous as it is catchy: was God a actual being that had ceased to exist, or had we merely stopped believing in him? In Nietzsche's book, the words are spoken by a madman: did this mean that God was in fact still alive? Many have quipped: Nietzsche doesn't look that alive these days either.

In the latest episode of The Big Ideas, Benjamen Walker discusses the legacy and relevance of Nietzsche's statement with Giles Fraser, the former canon chancellor of St Paul's, Lesley Chamberlain, author of Nietzsche in Turin, and Jennifer Ratner, author of American Nietzsche: a History of an Icon and His Ideas.

Benjamen Walker

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