FIRST, the “bad” news: the dear old Church of England has been hit by a new slump in its congregations, with the latest figures showing its fifth year-on-year decline.
Also, the Church’s first analysis of its worshippers showed that nearly half are pensioners.
The established Church has lost more than 40,000 worshippers since 2003, shortly after Dr [...]
WE have been asked by Paul Blanchard, Chair of the Labour Humanists, to draw readers’ attention to an important open debate about the future of the Lords Spiritual. It takes place on Wednesday, January 27 in Committee Room 10 of the Houses of Parliament in London.
Tickets are free to the public, but need to be [...]
Continue reading about Should the bishops be evicted from the House of Lords?
THE Archbishop of Canterbury has accused the Government of treating all religious believers as “oddities” and “eccentric”.
Dr Rowan Williams said ministers were wrong to think that Christian beliefs were no longer relevant in modern Britain and he criticised Labour for looking at religious faith as a “problem” rather than valuing the contribution it made to [...]
Continue reading about People ‘with God in their bloodstream’ should not be treated as oddballs
IN May we carried a report that Catholic priest Father Alberto Cutié, of Miami, was contemplating leaving the Church to marry the woman he loved.
Well, he’s since ditched the Church, and gotten hitched to 35-year-old beautician Ruhama Canellis, a divorcee (gasp!) just days before before geriatric Pope Ratzinger – in “a tender, personal and theologically [...]
ASTON Villa drew 3-3 against Everton at Villa Park this afternoon, and Manchester City went down 1-3 against Fulham at the City of Manchester Stadium.
We only mention these scores because Christian leaders are furious – not with the results of the two Premier League matches, but because they were played on the Day of the [...]
Continue reading about Religious leaders want Easter Sunday football banned
HOSPITALS could be reduced to mere workshops where you get your biological parts fixed if the National Secular Society were to run the NHS.
Those are the words of a Catholic priest, father Paul Mason, who, on the BBC Today Programme this morning, opposed a suggestion by the NSS that hospital chaplains should be funded by [...]
Continue reading about Taxpayers should not shoulder the cost of ’spiritual care’ in hospitals
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
