It is a truly terrible statistic: one in three women will experience violence at the hands of men at some time in their lives. This represents around one billion individuals and today – when so many are celebrating the gentler aspect of relationships between men and women – the One Billion Rising movement attempts to bring people together across 200 countries to call for change. (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/17999)
Last-minute changes have complicated the Church of England’s slow progress towards allowing women to be bishops, says Savi Hensman. Attempts to placate opponents are unhelpfully stalling the process further.
Even more depressing than the puerile, bigoted and deeply unfunny 'banter' that got Sky TV presenters Andy Gray and Richard Keys into hot water over their comments about referee Sian Massey, is the number of otherwise decent people who are feebly trying to excuse it.
The government's initiative for the "white working class" uses a loaded phrase and deflects attention from the real division in British society - between the very rich and the rest of us.
Domestic violence and what the church needs to do to respond to this problem topped the agenda for the recent second gathering of Central American Anabaptist Women Theologians.
The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney has set out his view of women as 'equal but different'. Savi Hensman traces the patriarchal assumptions behind this position, and questions its claims to biblical authority.
The head of the Anglican Church in Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, says that the Easter Gospel means “joining in God’s recreation of the world”. In addition to global injustice and violence, he highlights the suffering of women and gay people in the church.