Sculler\’s Weblog

The holy heart of the universe:  So a full page ad. in the Guardian (Sept 23rd) claimed.  The next day it was: the sight every believer dreams of seeing, looking down on the Kaaba from the top of the nearly completed Makkah Clock Royal Tower, clearly modelled on Big Ben, but ten times the size.

Did any other clergy candidate from Southwark diocese ask the question: what are the best Gospel responses to how Christians relate to Islam?  Answers are urgently needed, within the next five years.  I covet the opportunity to work with others on the General Synod of the Church of England, to find answers, and together with the large majority of the Anglican Communion.  Christians are of course called, not so much to be believers, as disciples.

Did any other clergy candidate speak clearly about, and do they model the importance of the New Testament family, for society?  Only eight days left for voting in the General Synod election – see my pitch, in the column on the left.  My last ‘blog’ until the result, the night of October 16^th….

Southwark clergy hustings yesterday, only a few turned up – 2 men, 12 women or so, can’t blame the other 97% of the electorate.  We were only given the chance to field questions, not to say anything more off our own bat.  Nearly all the questions were about women’s ordination as priests and bishops.  I should have quoted Archbishop Hilarion, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations for the Patriarch of Moscow, who said earlier this month:  “I can say with certainty that the introduction of the female episcopate excludes even a theoretical possibility for the Orthodox to recognize the apostolic continuity of the Anglican hierarchy.”  Neither any questions about family and marriage, despite Justice Sir Nicholas Wall’s speaking so clearly about the damage divorce does to children.  Had there been the opportunity I could have quoted Hilarion, who also decries “notions advanced by some Christian leaders that the Church should embrace more inclusive models of family life besides traditional marriage.”

See also the page to the left of this column: General Synod of the C of E…