Archbishop's views on Brexit and welfare are opposite to most Anglicans, poll suggests

From The Telegraph-

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s views on welfare and Brexit do not reflect those of ordinary Anglicans, research has found.

A study found that the majority of Church of England Christians supported Brexit, with 66 per cent of Anglicans voting Leave, compared to a national average of 53 per cent. 

The research, published in the journal Religion, State and Society, found that Church of England Christians were unpersuaded by their bishops, who were overwhelmingly Remain-leaning. 

Identifying as Anglican is "an important independent predictor of voting Leave even when other relevant factors like age and region are corrected for", the paper, by Greg Smith, of the William Temple Foundation and Linda Woodhead, professor of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University, concluded. 

More here-

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/21/archbishop-odds-anglicans-brexit-welfare/

The Church of England’s views rankle with the laity

From The Economist-

“THE heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of a fool to the left,” according to the book of Ecclesiastes. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury (pictured), might not agree. As the head of the Church of England, the former oilman has championed several causes usually associated with the left. This week the Church held a series of meetings to discuss buying the loan book of Wonga, a lender that recently went into administration, in order to prevent the debts of its borrowers being sold to another high-interest loan firm. The previous week the archbishop had compared socialism to the Christian belief that all men and women are created equally in the image of God.

Archbishop Welby is not unusual among the clergy. If anything, he is seen as a conservative. Rowan Williams, his predecessor, was even more outspoken. Bishop Williams styles himself as a “hairy lefty” and as leader of the Church backed calls for a “Robin Hood tax” on financial transactions. In the 1980s he was marked out as “subversive” for his earlier campus activism as a student at Oxford. Those further down the pecking order also lean leftward. In 2015, 84 bishops signed a letter urging the prime minister to increase the number of refugees admitted to Britain.

More here-

https://www.economist.com/britain/2018/09/22/the-church-of-englands-views-rankle-with-the-laity

Archbishop Welby should spend more time saving his Church from extinction - and rather less copying Corbyn

From The Daily Mail-

The Archbishop of Canterbury is a decent and well-intentioned man. Justin Welby is intelligent, too, and knows about money, having worked in the oil industry before becoming a priest.

Nor is there any question that lots of people in our society feel left behind, or in common parlance 'marginalised'. How else can one explain the astounding success of Jeremy Corbyn despite his obvious weaknesses?

Moreover, as a man of God, Mr Welby has every right to represent the poor, as indeed he should. Jesus Christ spent far more time with the dispossessed than with the rich and powerful.

So I've no quarrel with the Archbishop for speaking up on behalf of those who have no voice. But I'm afraid he is very unwise to have associated himself with a controversial and, I believe, often wrong-headed economic report.

More here-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-6136975/STEPHEN-GLOVER-Welby-spend-time-copying-Corbyn.html

Christian Intellectuals and the Road to Socialism

From Town Hall Finance-

Distributism ideology always leads to socialism

Christians are concerned about the rise to dominance of transgenderism and same-sex marriage in the US. But they shouldn’t worry because R.R. Reno, editor-in-chief of First Things, has the solution: a kinder, gentler capitalism. His essay last October spawned a series of rigorous rebuttals at Public Discourse, the last of which is here. Reno lamented the economic “freedom” that Michael Novak promoted in his classic book, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, has destroyed morality in the country:

"The 'new birth of freedom' that Michael championed largely came to pass. And it has tended to weaken the two other legs holding up society: democratic institutions and a vital religious and moral culture. Michael observes that 'greater incentives will stimulate greater economic activism.' True, but he did not recognize that ever-greater economic activity can crowd out political engagement and sideline religious and moral authority. This is what has happened. Capitalism, now global in scope, is swallowing up more and more of civic life, so much so that in some contexts economists and policymakers present free market principles as ironclad laws about which we have no choice. Dwindling manufacturing jobs, technological displacement, global flows of labor and capital—we are told we have no alternative. This is a cruel reversal of what Michael commended as the source of freedom and openness [...] We are drowning in freedom [...] Age-old expectations of marriage and children have become choices. We can even choose to become male or female.

More here-

https://finance.townhall.com/columnists/rogermckinney/2017/12/21/christian-intellectuals-and-the-road-to-socialism-n2425756

The stand

From The Economist-

IN THE summer of 1974, a 26-year-old Mayan villager lay drunk in a town square in the Guatemalan highlands. Suddenly he heard a voice that was to change the course of his life and that of his home town, Almolonga. “I was lying there and I saw Jesus saying, ‘I love you and I want you to serve me’,” says the man, Mariano Riscajche. He dusted himself down, sobered up and soon started preaching, establishing a small Protestant congregation in a room not far from the town’s ancient Catholic church.

Half a millennium earlier, a 33-year-old German monk experienced something similar. At some point between 1513 and 1517, Martin Luther had a direct encounter with God and felt himself “to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise”. His moment of being born again was private. The day on which he is said to have nailed a list of 95 complaints about ecclesiastical corruption to the church door in Wittenberg, Saxony—widely thought to have been October 31st 1517—made the private public and, soon, political. A mixture of princely patronage, personal stubbornness and chance led what could have ended up as just another minor protest in a remote corner of Europe to become a global movement.

More here-

https://www.economist.com/news/essay/21730868-stand

Can you afford to get married? In the US, it's increasingly the privilege of the rich

From The Guardian-

At 35, Mark Biddiscombe thinks it’s time he finally got married. “I have a woman, I have a kid, I want to do it. I wanted to before we had our son,” he said.

But he has a problem that increasing numbers of his generation encounter: he can’t afford it. Biddiscombe, a construction worker, is part of the changing face of marriage in the US.

In 1960, three-quarters of American adults were married. Today, just half are. Some are getting hitched later, but the share of those who never do has been rising steadily in recent decades, and research increasingly suggests money worries are a factor driving this trend. Nearly half of never-married adults with incomes under $30,000 say being financially insecure is a major reason.

More here-

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/07/marriage-america-privilege-rich?CMP=share_btn_fb