Newsline 14 February 2014

Newsline 14 February 2014

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News, Blogs & Opinion

Girlguides offer concessions over Promise following religious pressure

News | Thu, 13th Feb 2014

The Girlguides Association has given in to religious pressure and said that a religious preamble can be used in conjunction with its secular Promise, which came into effect last September.

The concession came after a Girlguide troop in Jesmond, near Newcastle, refused to accept the new secular promise. The compromise means the group has won a reprieve from being expelled from the organisation.

The 37th Newcastle Guide Unit meets in Jesmond Parish Church. The vicar of this church is Revd David Holloway, a conservative evangelical, who is a Council member of the Christian Institute which, in turn, has been highly critical of the Girl Guides decision to change their oath. The Christian Institute's offices are nearby.

Glynis Mackie – who is a solicitor – also has close links with the Christian Institute and provides them with legal advice.

The Guide group was originally given a deadline of 31 December to embrace the new oath. They – or, at least, Ms Mackie – declined to do so. Despite this, the GirlGuides Association has now lifted the threat of expulsion.

A spokesperson for the Guides said: "Girlguiding has taken on board the view of a minority of our members who struggle with the new wording and suggested those members can provide the context of their own belief if they wish before making our Promise.

"This suggestion ensures the wording of our Promise is unaltered and, rather than having an alternative, ensures we maintain our one Promise for all that celebrates shared values and embraces all beliefs".

The move was welcomed by the Church of England's Synod, which this week passed a resolution calling on the Girl Guides to change their recently introduced secular Promise to permit Christians to preface it with "In the presence of God I make my Guide Promise".

The resolution was proposed by Alison Ruoff, a conservative evangelical Christian. The original version had read:

"That this Synod believe that girls of all ages in the Girlguiding Movement should not suffer discrimination but be able to continue to promise to love God when enrolled rather than making a wholly secular promise".

The amended version reads:

'That this Synod:

(a) congratulate Girlguiding on its recent Centenary and applaud the work in helping girls and young women to take their place as full and responsible members of their communities;

(b) believe that girls and women of all ages in the Girlguiding Movement should be able to continue to promise to love God when enrolled; and

(c) commend the suggestion that, when a member chooses so to do, the Promise may be prefaced with the phrase "In the presence of God I make my Guide Promise".'

In a briefing paper to accompany her motion, Ms Ruoff wrote:

"Girl Guiding has always been a faith based organisation as begun by the Baden- Powells. Obviously at the time it was predominantly Christian but over the years has been extended to include girls of any faith. Why should this change and exclude a sense of spirituality? The new promise revolves around self. Muslim girls are quite content to say 'love my God'.

"From a wholly Christian perspective, how can a Christian girl or leader revert to the new promise? They are being forced to choose between faith and Girl guiding. It is also a wonderful opportunity for girls to hear about God and the Lord Jesus Christ when learning to understand what the Promise means. This then is a serious Gospel issue.

"The Scout movement have retained their 'old 'promise, to love God, as well as having a secular promise. Why therefore should the Guiding movement NOT be allowed to have choice? It is rank discrimination against the girls of this wonderful youth movement.

"Finally it could be seen as contributing to the further marginalisation of Christianity in this country which as Christians, it surely is our duty to resist."

She made clear that she was not calling for Girl Guide groups to be kicked out of church halls.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: "This compromise should calm the protestors. Let's hope the Church will now ease off in its condemnation and bear in mind that the Girlguides organisation does not belong to them and they shouldn't try to run it as though it does.

"The Guides may depend on church halls for its meetings, but that doesn't make it a Christian organisation. The Girl Guides is too important to too many young people for it to be bullied in this way by religious chauvinists. The Church of England would be first to complain if anyone tried to interfere in its decision-making".

Meanwhile, the Church of Ireland has sent the following statement to Girlguiding Ulster and Girlguiding UK:

"The Church of Ireland wishes to convey to Girlguiding Ulster and Girlguiding UK the high value it places on their work with children and also partnership between the Church and Guiding through the provision of premises, leadership and other support.

"However, we are deeply concerned that, as of 1September 2013, all new members and leaders will be expected to make a new promise: "To be true to myself and develop my beliefs", replacing the previous promise to "love my God".

"We regard the words in the promise "To be true to myself" as falling far short of Christian values and therefore cannot support this promise being used.

"We request that Girlguiding Ulster and Girlguiding UK, as soon as possible, provide its many children and leaders from a Christian background the option to make a promise to serve God.

"In addition, we request that no Church of Ireland based Guiding unit compel its new members to make this new promise containing the wording "to be true to myself".

MPs urge action on Crisis Pregnancy Centres

News | Wed, 12th Feb 2014

MPs are calling on Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt to regulate Crisis Pregnancy Centres (CPCs) following evidence that at least 38 nationwide abortion advice centres have misled vulnerable women, according to The Telegraph.

A recent report by Brook, an organisation that provides free and confidential sexual health advice and contraception to young people, has yet again revealed that CPCs, very often run by religious bodies, are providing misleading information on the mental and physical health outcomes of abortion and using inappropriate language and emotional manipulation when providing advice to women considering an abortion.

Of the five main CPCs, four are either outwardly religious or have religious roots. One, the Good Counsel Network (GCN), is a "Catholic, pro-life group based in London", that provides counselling to pregnant women "founded on prayer and the teachings of the Catholic Church"as well as hosting "abortuary vigils" outside abortion clinics. A counsellor at one of its Centres, the Central London Women's Centre (CLWC), told an under-cover reporter that after abortion there is "an increased statistical likelihood of child abuse" because women had to break "natural barriers that are around the child that you don't cross" in order to terminate a pregnancy. The counsellor also falsely claimed that women who had terminations were 25% less likely to be able to carry a pregnancy to full term.

Another group running CPCs, Image, is a Christian charity that is expressly anti-abortion. It organises a "National Day of Prayer about Abortion", and distributes a prayer guide, encouraging people to "pray that those who advocate arguments which rationalize away the killing of unborn children would come to understand that the sanctity of human life is paramount".

The third group, Foundation for Life, was founded by American pastor, Dr Joel R Beeke, who has compared abortion to the Holocaust.

The fourth group, an organisation responsible for providing the largest number of CPCs in the UK, is the CareConfidential. CareConfidential was founded by the charity Christian Action Research and Education (CARE), whose charitable aims, as listed with the Charity Commission, are: "The advancement and propagation of the Christian Gospel and in particular Christian teachings as it bears on or affects national and individual morality and ethics". CARE has a network of 162 Crisis Pregnancy Counselling Centres across the UK, most of which are attached to evangelical Christian churches.

Amongst some of the claims made by centres run by, or affiliated with, CARE was that there is such a thing as 'Post-Abortion Syndrome', a fabricated medical disorder which is unrecognised by any medical body. Counsellors also shared their religious beliefs, personal experiences or made value-judgements on abortion and adoption, as well as giving out booklets produced by the American anti-abortion organisation, Focus on the Family.

CPCs are supposed to offer counselling on pregnancy choices, and sometimes free testing and other services. Unlike the Government registered Pregnancy Advice Bureaux, CPCs are unregulated. And whilst they are independent of the NHS, a number of CPCs have established links with the NHS (Care Confidential is actually signposted to by the NHS Choices website) and some claim to be receiving referrals from local GPs and hospitals. According to Brook, at least four Care Confidential affiliated CPCs are located in GP practices or hospitals.

Following Brook's latest report, a number of MPs have asked the Government to look into abortion counselling services.

Stephen Dorrell, Conservative MP and chair of the Health Select Committee, told The Telegraph: "most people in this country will regard it as unacceptable for pregnant women to seek advice from somewhere, which says it offers advice, and receive people's prejudiced opinions instead". He has written a letter to Jeremy Hunt urging action.

Dr Sarah Wollaston MP, a member of the Health Select Committee, also called for Mr Hunt to review the abortion counselling services: "There has to be transparency about who is funding these organisations and whether they are anti-abortion". She noted: "If a 'clinic' is giving medical advice it should come under the remit of the Care Quality Commission which should then have the powers to close it if it is giving out completely false information".

Luciana Berger MP, Labour's shadow public health minister, commented, "in light of this emerging evidence on women receiving incorrect information, we must look again at the lack of regulation in this area".

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has commented that it "believes that Clinical Commissioning Groups have a duty to ensure that pregnancy counselling services contracted follow national guidelines. It is important to ensure that impartial, non-judgemental advice is provided to women at this difficult time".

The NSS is also writing to Jeremy Hunt, asking that he investigate the regulatory issues surrounding CPCs, to ensure that women are given factual, impartial and value-free advice when using their services.

MEPS call on Saudi Arabia to allow freedom of religion and belief

News | Fri, 7th Feb 2014

MEPs have called on Saudi Arabia to respect the freedom of religion and expression of all people living in the country. The European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs voted in favour of a report, drafted by MEP Ana Maria Gomes, which calls for a progressive package of reforms regarding the human rights and civil liberties of Saudi citizens. The report notes that the changing political and strategic context of the Middle East and North Africa has necessitated a reassessment of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the EU.

The call from the Committee has come just days after mutawa chief Sheikh Abdul Latif al-Sheikh was quoted in a Saudi newspaper as saying that he would "eliminate" religious extremists within his organisation's ranks who are "advocates of sedition".

Currently in Saudi Arabia, there is no freedom of belief or expression. Sharia law forms the basis of Saudi Arabia's legal system, and it allows no deviation from Sunni Islam, treating blasphemy as apostasy – an offence usually met with a death sentence. To aggravate matters further and increase the pressure on Saudis to adhere to the official government interpretation of Islam, the deep connection between the royal family and the religious establishment means that there is no separation between state and religion.

In February last year, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah Al al-Sheikh said it is "necessary to destroy all the churches in the Arabian Peninsula", and in February 2012, Saudi King Abdullah ordered that Hamza Kashgari, a journalist who had posted messages on Twitter in which he imagined himself in conversation with the Prophet Mohammed, be arrested "for crossing red lines and denigrating religious beliefs in God and His Prophet". Kashgari spent nearly two years in jail, without trial.

In their report, MEPs called for the Saudi state to "respect the public worship of any faith and to foster moderation and tolerance of religious diversity". The report also calls for the abolishment of the death penalty (currently used against people found guilty of crimes which include drug offences, apostasy, sorcery and witchcraft), and for Saudi Arabia to "respect the fundamental rights of Shias and other minorities, including the right to full political participation".

The Committee urged reforms that would help women be treated more equally to men; deploring the fact that the legal system is "in the hands of male judges of religious background" and calling on Saudi Arabia to "to revoke the medieval male guardianship system, and to take further steps aimed at lifting restrictions on women's rights".

The report pulled up Saudi Arabia on its financial and political support for religious and political groups internationally who reinforce fundamentalist and obscurantist forces that undermine democratic governance and the participation of women in public life. It criticised Saudi Arabia's support for Salafi rebellion movements, which undermine governments in countries like Mali, and destabilise entire regions.

The European Parliament will vote on the report during its next plenary session in March.

Church of England is kept alive only by its presence in our schools

Opinion | Thu, 13th Feb 2014

With the Church of England is on its last legs, it's about time its continued involvement in state education was called into question, argues Terry Sanderson.

The Church Times has been carrying a series of supplements over the last few weeks taking a "heath check" of the Church of England.

Most of the time it has had difficulty finding a pulse.

The statistics it has published, on attendance, age profile of members and finances, show a once-powerful organisation that is now on its last legs, but obdurately hanging on using the state-funded life-support machine.

The Church Times admits that its schools are now the CofE's "single largest engagement with the state" and that with the help of a sympathetic government, it intends to increase the numbers substantially in the next few years.

It repeats the unconvincing mantra that it is not using schools to evangelise or try to create new members for its dwindling congregations.

But everything it does indicates the opposite.

The General Synod resolution declaring that schools "stand at the centre of the Church's mission to the nation" says it all.

Is that what schools are for? Mission?

Look at the article in the Church Times supplement entitled "How to rescue RE" and you find suggestions that teachers should "Grab time from any subject by making cross-curricular RE work well."

Cross-curricular RE? That sounds remarkably like injecting religion into every lesson, ensuring that there can be no escape from it. You might well choose to withdraw your child from RE and collective worship, but you can't exempt them from all lessons.

And that's really what "cross-curricular RE" means – no option.

When Ruairi Quinn, the Irish education minister, last month suggested that maybe – at half an hour a day – there was a little bit too much religion in Irish schools and that maybe some of the time could be handed over for other subjects, he rapidly felt the full force of the Catholic steamroller.

Yet here we have it the other way round, with the Church of England suggesting that religion steal time from maths and science to push its ideas even harder at children.

The author of the Church Times article writes: "A teacher fromWalsall reports that linking RE to drama, dance and art has had good effects in her urban primary school. Many previously unenthusiastic staff became committed to RE because they see the creative side of the subject in action. And many creative pupils did their best work exploring sacred stories in Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, through the arts." [Islam doesn't seem to figure here, for some reason].

Another suggestion from the same author: "At Hazlemere CofE Combined school in Buckinghamshire, the RE co-ordinator Susan Brice, has been getting pupils aged eight to 11 to plan reflective RE experiences. RE experiences for the younger children – such as working in pairs on blind-faith walking, life-journey planning, making a cross of lights (in this, the children heard the story of Jesus's forgiveness of even the people who killed him, and thought about how forgiveness is like a light and how hard we sometimes find it hard to forgive), and inviting parents and other adults to share in the experience."

Oh yes, there's nothing churches like better than blind faith.

There is a lot of talk of "spirituality" and its encouragement. Spirituality is, of course, a word that could have been invented for those who wish to sneak a heavy sectarian religious agenda into schools (and hospitals) under a benign-sounding banner.

It's amazing though, how "being spiritual" rapidly morphs into being Christian and thence into being Anglican or Catholic or Muslim or Hindu.

Whenever the word "spirituality" is bandied about in schools, you can be sure that the evangelists are at work somewhere.

So, we return to the strange anomaly of a church that hardly anyone goes to that controls a third of the nation's schools, uses public money to practice discrimination in staffing and pupil selection and blatantly proselytises children who cannot escape.

I'm utterly mystified as why we, as a nation, allow it to happen. The National Secular Society will continue to advocate an education system in which no religious organisation controls our state schools.

Vatican’s attack on its critics is a familiar tactic

Opinion | Fri, 7th Feb 2014

After hearing the UN's scathing attack on its child abuse record, the Vatican's counter-attack against its critics is a familiar tactic, argues David Clohessy

Inadvertently, by their comments over the past day, Vatican officials are essentially proving what a UN panel has concluded: that the Catholic hierarchy is not reforming its handling of clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

For decades, when abuse and cover up reports surface, many church officials "shoot the messenger" and divert attention. Vatican staffers are doing that now.

One of them, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, attacks the motives of 21 independent children's experts who volunteer to serve on a respected United Nations panel, calling them "ideological" and implying they are deceitful (The report, he claims, "appears to have been written before (Vatican) representatives even had a chance to tell their side of the story..."

He also says that "the report in some ways is not up to date" even though the panel met with Vatican officials just last month (and spent hours quizzing both abuse victims and Vatican staffers).

(If an archbishop blasts an objective panel of volunteers who work for children in public like this, imagine how bishops treat victims in private.)

Another "Vatican insider," who is nameless, tells a journalist that the UN report was full of "spite" and attempt to "bash the Church," while of course providing not a scintilla of evidence to support such a claim.

This kind of attack is part and parcel of the long-standing, deeply-rooted Catholic clerical culture and practice of assaulting those who report abuse and cover up or question the hierarchy's handling of abuse and cover up.

We are both repulsed by and grateful for these comments. On the one hand, attacks like this discourage and deter victims, witnesses and whistleblowers from speaking up. On the other hand, they reveal a defensive, self-centered Vatican mindset that is one of the reasons kids remain vulnerable to child molesting clerics and victims keep being hurt by callous church officials.

Finally, veteran papal spokesman Fr. Frederico Lombardi claims, as hundreds of his colleagues and supervisors have done for decades, that things will soon get better.

We'll believe it when we see it happen. We'll believe it when we see Pope Francis clearly disciplines – or even expose - just one Catholic official who is endangering kids or rebuffing police or deceiving parishioners.

We'll believe it when he demotes Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn, a convicted wrongdoer.

Right now, St. Paul Minnesota police want to question, Fr. Kevin McDonough, Archbishop John Nienstedt's long-time second-in-command, who has acted selfishly and secretively in clergy sex cases for decades. McDonough refuses and Nienstedt does nothing.

We'll consider it progress when a Vatican official publicly denounces them both and insists that McDonough sits down with police.

David Clohessy is Director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). His piece originally appeared on the SNAP website and is reproduced here with kind permission. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the NSS.

NSS Speaks Out

Terry Sanderson was on LBC radio talking about the loss of interest in Bible stories.

The CofE General Synod motion on the Girl Guides oath was widely reported with reaction from the NSS, including London Evening Standard Daily Telegraph, MSN, York Press Belfast Telegraph and The Times (subscription)