BRIEFING
Call for urgent change to Church culture
THE ARCHBISHOPS' ANTI-RACISM TASKFORCE has published its report From Lament to Action proposing a suite of changes to begin bringing about a change of culture in the life of the Church of England. It issues a warning to the Archbishops that a failure to act could be a...
UK arms sales to Yemen face legal challenge
CAMPAIGN AGAINST ARMS TRADE has been granted permission for its legal challenge against the UK government’s decision to renew arms sales for use in the war in Yemen to proceed to the High Court. The Honourable Mr Justice Jay ordered on 20 April 2021 that the case was...
UK incomes hit harder by Covid than French or German ones
UK HOUSEHOLDS ARE FAR MORE LIKELY to have experienced a severe income shock during the Covid-19 crisis than their French and German counterparts, and are more likely to have taken on additional debt in response, according to a new report published this week by the...
Almost a million food aid parcels given to British children
TODAY, THE TRUSSELL TRUST REPORTS that food banks in its UK network gave more than 2.5 million emergency food parcels to people facing crisis between April 2020 and March 2021. More than 980,000 of these went to children - that is almost two parcels on average every...
Scottish Government’s tax and benefit policies progressive, says IFS
THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT HAS USED its devolved tax and benefit powers to craft a more progressive system than is in place in the rest of the UK. On average, taxes are higher for high-income households, and benefits more generous for low-income households, says the...
COMMENTARY
The UK Government, disabled people, and the pandemic
LAST MONTH, a year after the UK went into lockdown and on the very morning that a judicial review on the matter was about to begin, Matt Hancock’s department agreed, “To consider how information on shielding can be given in an accessible format to disabled people...
‘A gentle discipline’ or Williamson’s whip?
'EXERCISE A GENTLE DISCIPLINE’ is a phrase often heard amongst Quakers. It may be used in reference to matters as diverse as the conduct of our Business Meetings or the wording of funeral notices. It works, perhaps one might say, because we are raised to it. But note...
C of E: siding with power or choosing resurrection?
TWO DISTURBING REPORTS have recently been published on serious failings in dealing with abuse in Christian circles. These describe how worldly imbalances of power and privilege were embraced within sections of the church and wielded, sometimes brutally. Despite...
Thank you to a great generation
MOST OF US who have reached middle age or beyond can look back to our younger days and think of a year which really set the course for the rest of our lives. In our late teens or twenties, what happened in a single year was often highly significant. Whether we started...
Freedom and its opposite, in universities and beyond
THE UK GOVERNMENT has proposed “tougher legal measures to strengthen free speech and academic freedom in English higher education”. Yet the case is poorly argued, with confusing proposals more likely to undermine than uphold these important freedoms. Other new...
MEDIA
UPDATES
Introducing the Good Conversation podcast
WE ARE PLEASED to announce the launch of the Good Conversation podcast by independent scholar, author, Church in Wales priest and Ekklesia associate, the Rev Dr John Gillibrand. The podcast debuts on Sunday 28 March 2021. The link is being shared on social media here....
Redemptive Justice? Survivors of church-related abuse
THIS new paper from the Rev Dr David Atkinson (retired Anglican Bishop of Thetford) and Dr Sue Atkinson (survivor of childood abuse, with a PhD in professional development and how groups learn to change) proposes a framework for the Church of England's on-going...
Welcome to the new Ekklesia website
EKKLESIA IS PLEASED to be launching its new website for a new year – our twentieth in operation as a pioneering think-tank (and now change network) on beliefs, ethics and politics. This is the fourth redesign since we appeared on the web in 2002. It also marks a...
