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IT is one church separated by a border - but this week Anglicans in the Church of England and in the Scottish Episcopal Church face falling out over the issue of same-sex marriages.
In the progressive corner is the Scottish Episcopal Church - in effect the Anglican church in Scotland - which is preparing to vote for clergy to be allowed to carry out same sex marriages. Meanwhile, its southern neighbours, the Church of England, is on the reactionary side, opposing any such move.
A Christian union has been barred from holding prayer and Bible study meetings on college premises as a result of the government’s anti-terrorist Prevent strategy.
Toni Coulton, director of Festive, a charity that supports Christians in the UK’s further education and sixth-form colleges, said: “Senior management were not happy to have Christians meeting for prayer and fellowship and the reason they gave was because of the Prevent initiative.”
Britons could be sleepwalking into a new era of state surveillance powers, judging by a new poll conducted by the civil rights organisation Liberty.
Before a Commons battle over the investigatory powers bill this week, the poll found that 92% of respondents who were aware of the proposals – described as a “snooper’s charter” by critics – disapproved of them. But 72% of respondents said that they knew nothing about it.
The two-day Commons report stage of the bill, which will increase the powers of the intelligence services, is scheduled for tomorrow and Tuesday and is the final major piece of parliamentary business before the EU referendum is held.
Cruel murder of Fife toddler must lead to further scrutiny of the controversial Named Person scheme to protect the vulnerable
It was a crime so dreadful that any response to it can only sound trite. Of course it was shocking, of course it was heartbreaking, of course we find it hard to comprehend such cruelty. Of course our instinctive response is to hold our own children closer.
A publicity campaign designed to win over critics of the Scottish Government's named person scheme has been shelved in the wake of the trial which convicted the murderers of toddler Liam Fee.
The push to persuade parents and the public of the merits of the policy is long-awaited by supporters of named persons, who are desperate for ministers to get on the front foot about the under-fire scheme, which will see every child assigned a named contact to look out for their wellbeing.
Catholic bishops guilty of negligence in child abuse cases can now be dismissed from office, Pope Francis said on Saturday in a move that intensifies pressure on the Church's hierarchy.
The move was announced just two weeks after the Pope came under fire for meeting a senior French cardinal accused of covering up for a paedophile priest in a scandal that has shaken France's Catholic Church.
The decision, which will also apply to other senior Church officials, was unveiled in a papal decree which said such cases would now fall under existing canon law allowing for prelates to be sacked for "serious reasons".
The Government is to propose new powers to protect children following an investigation by The Independent which revealed thousands of children are attending illegal faith schools in the UK where they are at risk of abuse.
The Department for Education has confirmed new proposed powers will be brought forward to Parliament with a view to enabling intervention in "unregulated education settings which teach children intensively" and will be included in the forthcoming Home Office Counter Extremism Bill.
Here’s a very helpful resource in debating euthanasia: the code of practice for the regional euthanasia review committees in the Netherlands in English. (This is a link to a PDF. Choose the second option to download the file.)These are the guidelines which doctors must follow in carrying out euthanasia. For those who cannot read Dutch, the fine details of the legislation and regulation have been difficult to reference. Now they are available in a definitive form.
The film adaptation of Jojo Moyes' 'Me Before You' has enraged disabled activists with its depiction of a man living with quadriplegia who wants to end his life.
Many people enjoy spotting laughable inaccuracies in film portrayals of their specialist areas - science, engineering, politics, history - but when books and films portray human lives as not worth living due to disability, and then shoehorn in a little 'romance' for good measure, it's hardly surprising that disabled people are incensed. Activists, led by Not Dead Yet UK, have been shining a light on the issue (as discussed by Ryan Gilbey for the Guardian).
THERE is no “political will” to question the value of the 366 Catholic schools in Scotland, according to the church’s new head of religious education.
Barbara Coupar, the new head of the Scottish Catholic Education Service (SCES), also claimed Catholic schools should be a place “for children to become friends with Jesus”.