Is China hacking Blogger?

 I've just had a post from 2007 (yes folks, I'm that old) for violating community guidelines. I can't see anything in the post that violates any guidelines at all, but it does contain this paragraph: 

Had a momentary panic over the weekend when I was told I couldn't sign in to my blog to update it. Blogger (the hosts) have been taken over by Google - you know, the people who won't allow folk in China to do a browser search for 'democracy' - and I mistyped my email address when signing up to continue my account. For a few weeks that seemed ok, and I woudn't be getting any unwanted emails from Google either. Trouble is they discovered the email didn't exist and wouldn't let me get at my posts. All is now resolved.

So either the grammar police are after me because I can't spell wouldn't, or it's another example of China reaching its tentacles into the West, alongside all the other stuff -beating up protesters, closing down university societies who speak up for Hong Kong, having software with a T&C signup to let it record all your keystrokes (I'm looking at you Tiktok), and so on. 

Read this post whilst you can folks, by next week it might be taken down too. 

Rubbing Shoulders

It was a nice surprise to crop up on a list of 'influential' Christians last week, I'm not really sure in what other context I'd rub shoulders with the Queen and Tyson Fury. The main virtue of the list is in showing the spectrum of Christian involvement in politics and society in the UK, as well as highlighting the very real persecution of Christian converts from Islam in the UK.

I'd happily swap with Katharine Welby Roberts, Tania Marlow, or the people behind Mind and Soul. There's only 1 out of the 100 who's making any noise about mental health (unless you count Tim Farron), and that's not enough. And for anyone, like myself or Stephen Croft, who is there because we have something to say about the CofE and church growth, Bob Jackson is the one who should get the credit.

Anyway, thankyou to whoever nominated me, not sure if I've struck the right balance of mild surprise and self-deprecation, or whether I should just give up and go around feeling a bit proud for a few days.  Mind you, the commendations clearly haven't been written by anyone in my parish - 'spiritual and discerning perspective on everything'? My family could set you right on that one.... The rest of the list is worth a look, and threw up a few names and ventures I'd never heard of, and which were good to read about.

Top 10 posts of 2015

The most-read posts of 2015 were, in no particular order:

The new year began with a blizzard of new thinking from the CofE. Yes, you read that right...
In Praise of the Green Report which was at the time just about the only positive thing online about the 'Green Report' into CofE leadership training.
'Green Shoots? Archbishops Introduce CofE to Smell of Coffee, on some fairly trenchant words from messrs Welby and Sentamu about the need for serious change in the CofE
CofE discussion papers and forums - an overview of the CofE's 'Reform and Renewal' papers and discussion forums

The Spirituality Spectrum: some helpful research which goes beyond the normal binary believer/nonbeliever pigeonholes

Fresh Expressions of Vicar: guest post from Andy Griffiths on church leadership, using Titus as a model for how we prepare and model leadership.

They Didn't Think it Through: Sunday Trading: My response to the so-called 'consultation' on Sunday trading - at the time of writing the government is still 'analysing your feedback'. Which doesn't explain why they tried to change the law before this analysis had been done. Window dressing, deception, broken election promises, in the pockets of the big retailers, one-sided presentation of the facts, rearrange these phrases into any paragraph of your choice.

Inappropriate Clergy Awards glad I managed to pen something vaguely amusing, though that's usually best left to Archdruid Eileen

London: Lessons for the Church of England: digest of a fascinating talk by Richard Chartes, Bishop of London, on lessons learned in his diocese that have led to the growth of the church in the capital.

When Should My Parish Church Be Demolished? Thought I'd get the Express in to write some of my post titles. Some pretty eye-opening stats on the number of tiny CofE congregations running huge listed buildings, It's easier to identify the problem than to know how to deal with it.

Would it be better if we didn't talk about Jesus? New research showing that when Christians share their faith it's more often off-putting than uplifting. Oddly, I'm in agreement with the Church Times on this - we need to spend more time looking at the findings before we come up with recommendations for action. The answer to the question is, of course, no, but we have to find a better way of talking about Jesus. I'd recommend this for starters.

the main reason for most of these being clicked on more than the rest was a link from Thinking Anglicans, so a big thankyou to the team over there. And fair play to them for linking to a blogger from a different perspective - I don't find it easy to be in disagreement with people, but we need to learn to disagree well, in the church, and in society at large. And for that we need practice....

thankyou for all the comments, shares tweets etc. and bless you for reading

Inappropriate Clergy Awards

International Buy a Priest a Beer Day has passed without incident, and indeed without beer. On the same day a CofE vicar was reported as winning 'Funeral Celebrant of the Year', and I wondered if the beer had just found its way to the wrong place. Maybe it's just my British wibbliness about death that makes me slightly unnerved by a 'Good Funeral Awards'. After all, why not recognise excellence in this vital vocation?

There are so many awards going around now, and so many 'days' for different things (world sparrow day anyone?), half of them invented by someone on t'internet with a spare couple of hours. So I figured, why not enter the market?

Dishy Bishop Award presented by the staff of the Daily Mail, because what someone looks like is always far more important than what they think or believe.

Fullest Immersion: national competition for churches to see how many baptism candidates can be fully immersed in 5 minutes. Regional dunk-offs, followed by a national final in the Thames. Usually won by Vineyard, CofE churches often run out of candidates before the time is up.

Formation Thurible Swinging: troupes of altar boys and girls compete, bringing increasingly complex routines to tunes by Rutter (junior) and Bach (senior). This year, a new individual heavyweight contest, adult servers compete in an endurance test with a 20 kilo incense swinger, to see who can cense the most side chapels in Canterbury Cathedral during a sung Latin mass.

Most Tenuous Use of a Bible Passage nominations accepted from parishioners nationwide, though the winner is usually a speaker at New Wine.

Shortest Meeting: there has been an unofficial competition happening in village Church Councils for many years. Under the CofE's Simplification programme, PCCs are now offered a pro rata discount off their Parish Share (money paid to the Diocese) for finishing before an hour is up, whilst still discharging all their legal obligations. To date no-one has managed it.

Worst Lyrics to a Chorus there have been joint winners to this for as long as anyone can remember.

Vicars Voice Award for the vicar whose pulpit voice varies the most from the voice they use in everyday conversation. Congregations of 100 are blindfolded and asked to identify their own vicar from a lineup of 6 speakers. Several vicars have emerged pointless.

Sunny Side Up Award: presented annually to the people who compose the press releases about CofE attendance.

Action Song Leader of the Year: for the person who can most enthusiastically lead 100 repetitions of  'Our God is a Great Big God'

King Key Vicar: subcategories for Most Keys on a Bunch, Biggest Key to a Church Door, Most Keys that Don't Fit Any Locks in the Building and Nobody Knows What They're For, Worst Thought-Through Title For an Award.

Biggest Timewaster on Social Media who put that there?

Offline

see you after Lent

Top Posts from 2014

Here are the 10 most viewed posts from 2014 on Opinionated Vicar

1. Latest Church of England Attendance Stats: making mud seem clear: written in the light of the CofE stats released in March.

2. The Parish system: game over? (also attracted most comments)

3. Vicars: Personality Type and  Church Growth (some of the church growth research published at the start of the year linked particular clergy personality types to growing churches, though the growth was self-reported: do extrovert visionaries tend to big things up, or are they actually more suited to parish leadership than the average?)

4. First Woman Bishop: the Shortlist (not entirely serious...)

5. Vicars - A Great Resource Squandered? (in the light of some research which showed a large % of clergy saying the church was bad at recognising their talents and gifts)

6. Women Bishops: the morning after (a lament that the CofE had taken so long to get round to it, and had taken its eye off the main business of the church)

7. Questions for the CofE to ask itself  (how realistic & ruthless does the CofE need to be in order to survive?)

8. Is the Bishop of Bath and Wells a person or a tourist attraction? at the time when there was a public outcry at the prospect of the new Bishop of B&W living somewhere more normal than the Palace in Wells (complete with moat, swans etc.)

9. Latest CofE stats: Attendance by Diocese 2009-13 (table of attendance change by Diocese, based on the figures up to 2013).

10. Growing Churches and Good Vicars: Blog round up and thoughts  posted after Justin Welbys comments early in the year linking church growth to having a 'good vicar'

Looking at the list, it's striking how Anglican they all are - nearly all are about CofE structures, practice and priorities. There's a danger in that of becoming too niche, a talking/blogging shop for Anglican concerns alone. I blog regularly about all sorts of other things - mental health, politics, money, media, culture etc., but none of it gets the kind of traffic that these things do.

On one hand, I'm pleased these posts are getting the visits and comments - part of the reason for posting them is to get a debate going in the CofE. A few years ago I felt like a bit of a lone voice, going on about mission, growth and leadership, but now these are mainstream topics of discussion. And there are some easy ways to grab Anglican traffic (e.g. the #synod hashtag during General Synod meetings) which I haven't really worked out for the other denominations!

On the other hand, I'm still frustrated that a comedy list of women bishops gets more than 10x as many visits as a post on mental illness a few days later.

For info, because people sometimes ask, the top post here has had just over 4000 hits (according to Blogger stats, which I don't think are very accurate!!) The site gets roughly 500-700 hits on an average day, but again I'm not convinced that's accurate, and a lot of it is spam. As a sign of how blogging has evolved since I started, main traffic sources are Twitter and Facebook, though a link from Thinking Anglicans is still worth quite a bit.

Lent

Closing down for Lent, there's a good post here from someone who's giving up Facebook for Lent:

This lent I want to challenge you to think about giving up something that sucks your time, something that is bad for you or something that doesn’t actually really matter to you, and put something that you enjoy, something that brings you life in its place.

hope you have a life-giving Lent and a joyful Easter. 

Top Posts from 2013

Here are the posts that have had the most hits in 2013, total recorded hits according to Bloggers 'interesting' stats reporting are in brackets:

General Synod: Sneaking in a radical growth strategy whilst everyone else is looking at women bishops  (1556)

Church Growth in the CofE - Discussion Paper (1275) short paper for local clergy/churches based on a CofE General Synod paper on church growth

Absent Fathers Day (1154) reflections on a Centre for Social Justice report on fatherhood, or rather the lack of it, in vast numbers of families.

The Church of England, the Gospel and the Future: my prayer for General Synod (993) having seen the agenda for the next synod, the prayer is still in the 'wait' queue. It's mostly about sex, again.

Flashmob Wedding (914) Kate Bottley sets an example to vicars everywhere

Church of England Headline Generator (837) can't take any credit for this, simply a one sentence link to the Beaker Folk

2-Faced Facebook (819) is Facebook a force for good or bad? Or, like all the people using it, both?

Minion Praise (816) excellent.

Church of England - Not Levelling Out (805) doing my Morrissey act on some positive reporting of CofE attendance stats earlier in the year.

David Mitchell on Faith, Atheism and Agnosticism (769) video clip

Christians the most persecuted religious body on the planet (741)

Papal Shortlist (728) not entirely serious. Perhaps we should be thankful someone else got the job.

Youth Run riot in Yeovil (725) possibly not what you're expecting from the headline. That's deliberate.

Most commented was Making Parenting Pay, which isn't saying a lot as most of these posts don't get any comments at all!

Most popular posts overall on this blog are from previous years, on the spirituality or otherwise of Coldplays Mylo Xyloto and this one on the future of the CofE (yes, yet another one, it also generated most discussion), looking at how a church based on having 15,000 full-time frontline staff will cope when it only has 5,000.

More and more traffic to the blog has come via Twitter - it's no coincidence that several of these top posts were written around the time of General Synod, and the #synod hashtag generated a lot more interest than usual. Inter-blog traffic is fading, but thankyou to anyone who's blogged or tweeted a link here, especially Cookies Days, Thinking Anglicans and God and Politics. I hope there's been something worth reading!

Blent

Think I'll just be quiet for a while, see you after Easter.

New Year, New Blogs

Just in case you're getting a tad jaded with reading posts about sex at Thinking Anglicans, posts about sex at Anglican Mainstream, posts about sex at An Exercise in the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy (there's a pattern here - Ed), here's a few new blogs to look at.

These are culled from the Ebuzzing 'religion and belief' blog lists, they rank them each month but the data collection is seriously up the creek. Most of the top ones will probably be familiar, so these are from the lower reaches, but worth a look.

Resistance and Renewal: great passion for justice and the poor, I wish we were having more of our Anglican discussions on blogs like this, and topics like this.

The Vicars Wife  - latest post is a very useful and powerful set of questions to use at the start of a new year. Print them off and book that quiet morning now in an undisturbed place.

Thorns and Gold - on faith and suffering, Ht The Church Sofa 2012 awards

Jake Belder - mainly about theology, some good links, almost 10 years in the blogosphere which makes him a serious veteran.

Living Wittily  really good, better to visit than me try to describe the content & style. Great reflection on Rowan Williams recently.

Psephizo: no I don't know what that means either. Blog by Ian Paul, tutor at St. Johns Nottingham, very clear and easy to read, if you're a preacher, worship leader, interested in Biblical studies or Anglican matters it's worth a look.

Just Luckie - doesn't blog very often, but some excellent reflections.

Thomas Creedy - I couldn't really cope with the interface on this, but that's because I'm an old fuddy duddy who likes words and text, rather than things that look like an Iphone. So if you're under 40 you'll  probably be ok.

Talking Christian good spread of topics, easy to read, lively style.

Top posts of 2012

Its too early in 2013 to say anything profound, so here are the most-read bits of this blog from last year:

1. The Leading of the 5000: Redesigning the CofE by a long stretch the most read (3000+ views) and most commented upon (30), which in a way is encouraging. Looks at projections for full-time Anglican clergy and wonders aloud about what kind of church we can sustain.

2. How to Select the New Archbishop of Canterbury not entirely serious.

3. British Summer, Installation failed. which is a pic I cribbed from Facebook, so can't take any credit for this one.

4. Major Minus: Church of England Attendance 1989-2010 One thing you can be sure of, I'm going to keep wittering on about declining membership in the CofE until the coffee is fully and repeatedly inhaled  by everyone involved. Come back in a roughly a month, when the next batch of attendance stats is announced, for more wittering.

5. Christmas and Advent ideas. Perhaps one to bookmark for November now.

6. Keep Calm and Be Forgiven, and yet again the Queen put across a clear and gracious Christian message in her recent Christmas Day outing

7. House of Bishops statement and links roundup: has there ever been a year when Anglicans have spoken/written more and achieved less?

8. How to Advertise for a New Vicar. Very funny home vid 'advert' from a parish looking for a new rev. Hope they got one!

9. Ed Miliband 'I am a person of faith' re-reading this I'm still not sure what I think. Is this another politician testing the elasticity of words to push electoral buttons, or sincere conviction politics?

10. High Church Higgs Boson Joke. which just goes to show that you can compose an entire blog out of daft pictures you find on Facebook, and it will get 5x more readers than one about the persecution of Christians in the Arab Winter, mental health, or mission.

Lovely Links List

A recent Jubilee + conference on 'Churches that Change Communities' - lots of talks and presentations now online, on things like food poverty, housing, ex offenders, mental health etc.

Presentations and audio from the recent Headroom conference on faith and mental health are now online.

The latest Research Bulletin from the Church Army's Sheffield Centre is now online. I must admit I still can't tell my modal from my sodal, and I'm not sure I want to, but I'm sure it's all very important.

I subscribe to the Lead On email from CPAS every month, it usually has a thought provoking short article and lots of good links to websites and leadership resources.

The new Mission Scene newsletter from the Baptist Union is just out, this is one ebulletin I read cover to cover every month, great way to find training opportunities and learn about new mission initiatives.

Archdruid Eileen has posted 'her' 3000th post. Cue rejoicing all round. This is the kind of creative mind we need to redraft the women bishops legislation.

Whilst we're on anniversaries, the excellent God and Politics has been going for a year now, a deserved popular and well recognised blog. It's worth reading what Gillan thinks he's learned over the past year, both about blogging, and about God and Politics.

Contemporary Advent Candle

Thanks to Cake or Death.

Well, this is post no. 2000, so I needed a candle of some sort. Anyone who manages to blow it out gets a free copy my unpublished (and indeed unwritten) memoirs.

Ebuzzing top blogs for July (aka June) 2012

Time for that monthly plunge into the mysterious world of the Ebuzzing rankings for religion & faith blogs. I've given up trying to understand how they work, but if nothing else it's a good way of finding other blogs. As has become the tradition (i.e. I've done it a couple of times before), the top 15 is followed by a carefully selected cross section of other blogs. Because it's July, it's the turn of 27, 37 and the rest. Happy browsing.

1 The Freethinker
2 Thinking Anglicans must be some kerfuffle about women bishops going on.
3 eChurch Blog
4. Anglican Mainstream. You know what I'm going to say.
5. BIGBible project
6. iBenedictines
7. God and Politics in the UK
8.  Adrian Warnock
9 Krish Kandiah
10 Peter Saunders - Christian Medical Comment surprised, I would have expected this to rise in the month of the BMA conference
11 Apologetics 315 looks like a US site, so not quite sure what it's doing here, but hey...
12 Barthomews Notes on Religion
13 Nick Baines
14 Vicky Beeching
15 The hermeneutic of continuity

and this months specials
17 Peter Ould still exercising the fundamentals of orthodoxy. Rivals 15 for most baffling title.
27 Ismailmail
37 Maggi Dawn
47 Dean Roberts - he seems to make this section every month, cunning chap.
57 Purple Words on a Grey Background nothing to do with Shades of Grey. At least I hope not.
67 The remarkable Steve Tilley
77 New Kid on the Blog
87 The Urban Pastor
97 Transforming Grace

'top' Ebuzzing blogs - the ones that got away

By mistake last week I couldn't tell the difference between 5 and 6, so here are the blogs I mistakenly left off the list from the Ebuzzing top religion/belief blogs from June.

56 Resistance and Renewal well worth a look, doesn't post every day, but good pieces, well set out, very readable.
66 DoDifferent writing about web design theology and mission
76 Theblogofkevin been around a while, and I still haven't got used to the typeface, but 2 fascinating recent posts, one comparing church streams to airline companies, and another on the latest offering from Jay-Z and Kanye West.
86 Postmodern Bible not exactly a frequent poster, and if you're a Methodist you may want to shield your eyes before looking at the stats quoted.
96 Talking Christian very nice, personal blog, good place to go if you want to avoid all the media-induced church politics frenzy and find a normal person trying to be a normal Christian.

and if you're still into lists, TallSkinnyKiwi has a list of the 'Worlds Best Christian Blogs'. Of course, these are just the top blogs in the opinion of the person who authored the list and the people who appear on it (wink), but there'll all good ones and worth a look if you've not come across them already. 

Ebuzzing top religion blogs, June 2012

Alongside the normal 'yes buts' of any ranking system (see last month) Ebuzzing is also struggling to cope with Bloggers switch from .com to .co.uk for UK blogs. but for those of you who like lists, here's the top few:

1. the Freethinker
2. Krish Kandiah
3. Islam in Europe
4. Thinking Anglicans
5. Echurch blog
6. The BIGBible Project
7. Peter Saunders - Christian Medical Comment
8. The 'Anglican' 'Mainstream' new aggregator
9. The Cartoon Blog  the marvellous Dave Walker is currently publishing a series of former Church Times cartoons, hence the bounce
10. Welcome to the top 10 Vicky Beeching, worship leader.

It being the 6th month, here are some 'randomly' selected others -
16. Bishop Alan (last month it was Bishop Nick Baines at 15, wonder who'll be 17 in July? #patternemerging
26 Bartholemews Notes on Religion
36 Emerging UMC  United Methodist website, mission perspective.
46 A Reader in Writing (those with good memories will remember this was 75 last month. See what a link from my blog will do for you?...)
55 Per Crucem ad Lucem well, exactly. Really worth a look.
65 Dean Roberts a 'worshipping welshman'. If he's still worshipping today, I'll take my hat off to him. Though a wetsuit might be more use.
75 Distinct Reflections some good posts on discipleship at the moment, concise and punchy.
85 Apples of Gold
95 Digging a Lot. I do like this one.

Full list here.

update: oops, sorry, someone's pointed out that I've slipped from 6's to 5's, apologies, you'll get a link later in the week.

Guidelines for Social Networking

One of the issues of managing your own time is that there aren't 'company' policies or procedures to guide/police what I do. Particularly with blogging and tweeting, I struggle to work out the optimum amount of time, usually swinging between too much and none at all.

Tim Chester has produced some guidlines for use of social media. Some of them are about time use, some of them are about character and values:

Twelve Guidelines for Social Networking

1. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say were the people concerned in the room.

2. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t share publicly with your Christian community.

3. Ensure your online world is visible to your offline Christian community.

4. Challenge one another if you think someone’s online self reflects a self-created identity rather than identity in Christ.

5. Challenge one another if you think someone’s online self doesn’t match their offline self.

6. Use social networking to enhance real world relationship not to replace them.

7. Don’t let children have unsupervised internet access or accept as online friends people you don’t know offline.

8. Set limits to the time you spend online and ask someone to hold you accountable to these.

9. Set aside a day a week as a technology “Sabbath” or “fast”.

10. Avoid alerts (emails, tweets, texts and so on) that interrupt other activities especially reading, praying, worshipping and relating.

11. Ban mobiles from the meal table and the bedroom.

12. Look for opportunities to replace disembodied (online or phone) communication with embodied (face-to-face) communication.

what do you think? Is there anything else you'd add? Is there another set of guidelines you use?

Ebuzzing top blogs, May 2012

I have no idea how accurate these are (see below), but for the record:

1. the Freethinker
2. Thinking Anglicans
3. Krish Kandiah
4. Peter Saunders - Christian Medical Comment
5. eChurch Blog
6. is the news aggregator Anglican Mainstrem, which isn't a blog
7. iBenedictines
8. Islam in Europe
9. the BIGBible Project
10. God and Politics (good to see this in the top 10, great blog)

It being the 5th month, here are some 'randomly' selected others - my main use of Ebuzzing is to discover other blogs -
15. Nick Baines
25  An Exercise in the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy
35 What's in Kelvins Head (Provost of Glasgow Cathedral, very readable)
45 Dyfed Wyn Roberts: theology beyond the fence
55 Looking Deeper (Lucy Mills). Love the poems
65 Rev Ruths Rantings
75 A Reader in Writing (has sections on 'Wildlife', 'Theology' and 'Mothers Union'. I'm just glad if I can tell the difference)
85 Distinct Reflections  written by baptist minister Neil Brighton
95 Views News and Pews

Full list here.

For statistical purists, a few riders
 - as far as I know, the ranking above depends on links and traffic from other Ebuzzing registered blogs. That cuts out plenty of traffic sources, and it also means if you're not registered, you don't get in the listing.
 - Ebuzzing isn't that good at spotting all said links, based on the evidence of my own blog!
 - most of my traffic actually comes via Twitter and Facebook, not sure how well this is picked up either.
 - Cranmer, the top blog in this category, is in the 'politics' category, and apparently you're not allowed to cover more than one subject.  Heresy Corner would be somewhere in here too, if it were allowed.
 - but, in the absence of Church Mouse and Rev Lesley, someone has to keep new media lists alive, so....

It's quite US-centric, but the best ranking device for Christian blogs is this one, which combines several different indicators into a single rating.

Saturday Sweep

Some inspired speech-bubble theology at Madpriest

God and Politics on the shrinking Big Society, and why the church bucks the trend.

Connected to this, there are an increasing number of local studies on the contribution of faith groups to their communities. 'Faithnet Southwest' co-ordinates our local ones, and findings on North Somerset and Bristol are available, one of the rest of Somerset has just been published. More on that next week, if I get the chance to read it in detail.

The Beaker Folk visit Mornington Crescent

In this Depression Awareness Week, numpty corner is hosted by eChurch blog, via Channel 4.

I normally can't be bothered keeping up with all the politicking about the future of the Anglican church, but have suggested in that cauldron of in-depth theology, Twitter, that the ABofC's job should be split in 2, one to run the global Communion (if that's possible) and one to lead the CofE in mission. It looks like GAFCON like the idea. If you don't know who GAFCON are, don't worry. Or read this, and worry a great deal.

And Richard Franks blog in general, if you've not already had a nose around it.

word of the week: if a congregation can’t afford to repair or improve its cathedral (or church?), then it should leave it and build a new one, perhaps from cardboard, which would probably meet its needs more economically. Or if the cathedral is really of sufficient historic interest, its administrators should be able to raise the funds for its upkeep from other sources, such as charging tourists for admission. If, however, the historic interest is largely in the mind of the Victorian Society, then they should be responsible for the cost of preserving the all too abundant heritage of their favoured period. (Peter Kirk)

Should the Media be the Medium? How the CofE Talks to Itself

A couple of recent instances:
 - a letter to the Times by various senior clergy calling for the church's understanding of marriage to change to include same-sex couples.
 - a front page in our local paper a few weeks ago, which then was picked up by several national papers, on a dispute in the local church.

A question:
 - is the media, local or national, the place to have our debates within the Church of England?

In the local case, I don't get the sense that there was an attempt to stimulate debate, and the way it was reported was very adversarial. All the piece did was made any possibility of resolution impossible, whilst inflicting a large amount of strain and anguish on the parish concerned. In the national case, given that the House of Bishops is having another look at its position on sexuality, where do these debates happen - on the floor of Synod, via the letter pages of secular newspapers, or face to face?

I'm aware of the irony of asking this question on a blog which, at times, has tried to engage in debates about the CofE via the blogosphere rather than via the institutions the church has for discussions and governance.

My strongest thought is this: the media should be neither the first port of call, nor the last. It shouldn't be the first place we go with an opinion, we should be able to talk to each other first. And it shouldn't be the last place we go, because we've lost the argument and we want to go down with as much noise and collateral damage as possible.