Faith schools 'shunning other religions'

Many complain that it is “inappropriate” for pupils to learn about faiths other than their own, particularly at a young age, it is disclosed.

According to Government inspectors, some schools also used teaching materials that displayed a “bias” in favour of certain groups.

In one instance, a Muslim school used “inflammatory language” to describe the situation in Palestine and a Jewish school stocked books with “strong language” about the Middle East.

“Some of the published teaching materials seen contained biased or incorrect information about the beliefs of other religions,” said the report.

The report was commissioned after Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said "concerns" had been raised about the extent to which private faith schools were preparing pupils for "life in wider British society". Earlier this year, a think-tank study claimed some Muslim schools were allowing pupils to be influenced by extremist values.

At the moment, there are about 7,000 state-run faith schools in England and several hundred in the private sector, the vast majority of which are Christian.

In the latest study, Ofsted inspected 51 fee-paying faith schools, including those teaching Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu children, to evaluate how well they prepare children for “modern Britain”.

It said that all schools “worked hard” to develop children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Pupils were also brought up to feel they belonged as British citizens, but usually within the context of their own religion.

“There was some dissatisfaction… with the phrase 'preparation for modern Britain',” said the report. “For some of the schools, their concern was to protect children from the perceived negative influences of secular society, such as electronic media.”

Twelve of the schools visited raised “concerns about any requirement to teach details of other faiths”, it said.

In a further conclusion, many parents told Ofsted they wanted more acceptance of religion in state schools, particularly the opening of prayer rooms and uniform rules which allowed children to wear religious dress.

One parent questioned why a state school could provide facilities for prayer during Ramadan but not during the rest of the year, the study said.

Miriam Rosen, executive director of Ofsted, said: “All schools have an important role in preparing their pupils for life in modern Britain. Our inspectors found that in these independent faith schools, pupils gained a strong sense of identity and of belonging to their faith, their school and to Britain.”

In Britain it’s pop music till death

Canadian singer Celine Dion performs on stage at the Stade de Geneve in Geneva on July 9, 2008. Her song Wind Beneath my Wings is one of the popular secular tunes played at funerals. Photo/REUTERS

By OLIVER MATHENGE and AgenciesPosted Wednesday, October 21 2009 at 19:48

What music would you like to have played at your funeral? Hip hop, Pop, Rock or the good old hymn? A British priest has expressed concern over the number of funeral he has led with little or no Christian content. Church of England priest Father Edward Tomlinson has stirred controversy following a post on his blog where he questioned the role of a priest at non-religious services at the crematorium.

Fr Tomlinson, 35, said hymns and prayers were often replaced by a “poem from Nan” or a “saccharine message from a pop star”. Entitled “The death of death”Tomlinson’s blog attacked civil funerals saying he is troubled that pastoral care is being left in the hands of those whose main aim is to make money.

Church service

According to the priest, such services left him feeling like “a lemon” and questions why people chose a church service when they do not want Christian input or songs.

“I have stood at the Crem like a lemon, wondering why on earth I am present at the funeral of somebody led by the blaring tunes of Tina Turner summed up in pithy platitudes of sentimental and secular poets and sent into the furnace with “I did it my way” blaring out across the speakers,” he wrote on the website for St Barnabus Church in the southern English county of Kent.

Locally, Federation of Evangelical and Indigenous Christian Churches of Kenya chairman Bishop Joseph Methu concurred with the British priest saying that people should be careful with what kind of music they play at funerals. He noted that music was very influential especially to the minds of the listeners. “If the funeral is spiritual led then the music has to be Christian. Other faiths too should do it their way. But you cannot have a mix of the two,” Bishop Methu said.

Similar sentiments were shared by African Inland Church Bishop Silas Yego who however said that at times men of cloth may attend funerals that they are not necessary presiding over. He noted that in such instances, it is difficult for anyone to dictate what music is to be played having gone there as a “comforter”.

“At AIC we use religious music since we print them out at funeral services,” said Bishop Yego. Anglican Archbishop Eliud Wabukala declined to comment in detail on the matter saying he needed to familiarise with father Tomlinson’s arguments. He however said that “funerals are contextual” and one must make the music relevant to the context.

In an earlier article entitled The Death of Death he said: “In the last few years it has become painfully obvious that many families I have conducted funerals for have absolutely no desire for any Christian content whatsoever. To be brutally honest, I can think of a hundred better ways of spending my time as a priest on God’s earth. What is the point of my being present if spiritually unwanted?”

The priest clarifies that he was not attacking mourners but was seeking answers to what the society understood funerals to be for. He argues that funerals offer an opportunity to say good bye and to offer loved ones into the hands of a living God, praying that sins may be forgiven and that they may be granted eternal life.

“It is of course quite possible, and often even fitting, to include a whole range of music (even Tina Turner) within a funeral service. And I am only ever delighted if such music is a comfort to those who mourn,” the priest says. The British Humanist Association said their funerals are a good way for people to pay personal tribute “with words and music particularly fitting to them.”

“What a shame this particular priest seems more concerned with his own feelings than allowing bereaved people a ceremony that reflects their beliefs and wishes and those of the loved ones they have lost,” said Tana Wollen, BHA’s Head of Ceremonies.

A survey carried out earlier this year found that only 35 percent of Britons chose religious music at funerals, a fall of six percent on four years earlier. The song played the most at funerals is “My Way” by Frank Sinatra or Shirley Bassey. Other popular tunes include Celine Dion’s “Wind Beneath My Wings” and “Angels” by Robbie Williams, according to a poll carried out by Co-operative Funeralcare

Manchester Square: Christian Dixon, 5

Christian Dixon, a 5-year-old black child, was shot and killed by his mother on Saturday, Oct. 17, in the 7200 block of South Gramercy Place in Manchester Square, authorities said.

The Times' Tami Abdollah has the full story: South L.A. woman allegedly shoots 2 sons

 The following is an excerpt:

    A young mother who allegedly shot her two boys Saturday -- killing her 5-year-old and critically wounding her 1 1/2 -year-old -- shouted, "I've wasted my life!" from her balcony and threatened to kill herself before she was arrested, police and neighbors said.

    LaTonya Dixon, 25, called 911 about 8:30 a.m. Saturday and told the dispatcher that she had killed her children. When officers arrived at the three-unit apartment complex in the 7200 block of South Gramercy Place in South Los Angeles, the woman was standing on a second-floor balcony waving a handgun.

    After hearing a woman scream, next-door neighbor Sandra Jones said, she saw Dixon on the balcony rail and yelled out, "No, don't jump! You have [the elder son] and the baby to think about! They're going to need you."

    As officers arrived at the beige stucco apartment, Dixon told police to shoot her. She was walking in and out of her apartment with a handgun, police said. Officers ordered her numerous times to drop the gun, but she refused, police said.

Opinion - Historic moment in Christian history

Many Catholics have watched in prayer with hopeful, heartfelt longing for their Christian brethren in the Anglican Communion. Many Anglican Christians have suffered from the ravages of their community from within brought about by moves away from Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Now,there is a way to the safe harbour of the Catholic Church.
The prayers of millions have been answered and Christian history was made on October 20, 2009. Pope Benedict XVI has fashioned, after much serious theological and pastoral work, a way home for many of our Anglican brethren. This canonical vehicle will allow for a form of corporate entry into full communion which could conceivably enable not only the "Traditional Anglican Communion" a path over the troubled Tiber but also provide for other groups of Anglicans including parishes, religious communities and even entire dioceses.
There is only one word for this historic announcement - extraordinary. The Apostolic Constitution signed by Pope Benedict XVI will dramatically affect the ecclesial landscape of the entire Christian world. It will also change Christian history going forward. To this observer, who has been writing about these events for a long time and holding firm to the hope of just such an opening while others dismissed it, this is only the beginning of an historic period of Church history, a new missionary age.

Seehofer Says New German Coalition to Craft Special Debt Fund Share | Email | Print | A A A

(Bloomberg) -- German Christian Social Union party leader Horst Seehofer, one of three top negotiators for the country’s next government, said the coalition will seek to create a special debt fund outside the budget to pay for rising unemployment and health insurance costs.

“There have been special funds before in Germany on singular historic occasions,” Seehofer said in Berlin yesterday after eight hours of negotiations. “At the moment we have special funds for medium-sized companies and corporations and a special fund for banks. Now we’re going to create a special fund for workers.”

Business lobbies and economists have said a special fund would cloak the true state of Germany’s public finances and may undermine a debt brake put in place this year that aims to keep future liabilities under control.

The decision highlights the difficulties Chancellor Angela Merkel faces as she seeks to reconcile the goals of tax relief and budget consolidation. The Free Democratic Party, one of the three prospective parties in government, called for 35 billion euros ($52.5 billion) in tax cuts in its election campaign while Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian CSU sister party offered 20 billion euros in negotiations last week.

“To hide 50 billion euros in new debt for labor and health in a shadow budget is nothing more than an accounting trick,” Patrick Adenauer, head of the ASU lobby of family- owned businesses, said earlier yesterday in an e-mailed statement.

Structural Deficit

Adenauer said Merkel’s prospective coalition lacks the strength to tackle the so-called structural deficit, the budget shortfall that has to be covered by new borrowing even in times of average tax revenue. Merkel “neglects spending cuts because it’s more comfortable to raise debt,” he said.

“Aggregate net government borrowing would be much higher in 2009 than planned and we had anticipated” under the proposal, Eckart Tuchtfeld, an economist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, said before yesterday’s coalition negotiations in an e-mailed statement.

Deutsche Bank AG Chief Economist Norbert Walter said all government spending should come out of one budget. He said the plan violates basic accounting principles and is similar to the off balance sheet vehicles created by banks that contributed to the financial crisis, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported.

“The special fund is part of the budget and will be published in a transparent matter and of course it has to be repaid,” Seehofer said.

Tax cuts and health spending have emerged as sticking points in discussions on an agreement, which politicians from all three parties plan to wrap up this week to elect the new government in Germany’s lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, next week.

Catholic Church welcomes Anglicans

The Pope has today approved a global institution to received thousands of Anglicans to the Catholic Church.

The move from the Vatican will see the first time since the Reformation that Protestant communities have reunited with Rome.
Pope Benedict's move caught Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams off guard, saying while he knew talks were underway he was not aware until two weeks ago that the plans had been finalised by Rome.
The move paves the way for thousands of Anglicans to move to the Roman Catholic Church. It came after six bishops in the Church of England asked the Vatican to provide a wing of the Catholic Church for them, after they felt disgruntled about the introduction of female bishops and gay ordinations.
Today's move could clear the way for bishops in the Church of England.
Dr Williams said it was still "business as usual" between the two churches.

Local Catholic is discouraged by diocese bankruptcy filing

 find it sadly amusing that the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington filed for bankruptcy. Now countless victims will have received little compensation for the horrors they suffered.
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Being raised as a Catholic, I have been baptized, had holy communion and been confirmed. I now consider myself lucky that nothing happened to me. What a twisted tale of sodomy abuse and concealment. Who would think the money my parents gave to put in the collection basket would go to aiding pedophiles?

The spineless former attorney general of Delaware, Jane Brady, said there was nothing she could do because of the statute of limitations had run out when she was in office, all while the district attorney of Philadelphia, Lynne Abraham, produced a scolding 300-page plus report on the Philadelphia diocese detailing all the sexual abuse through aiding and abetting of immoral priests.

I would tell the Catholics of my area now is the time to break the chain of abuse and abstain from worshipping at your Catholic church until it is safe for you and your children.
Matthew Del Pizzo, Townsend