This is my final post of 2007 unless something unexpected happens. I have no plans for this to be the case. I am about to take a bit of a break. All being well I will post again on this blog on the 1st of January 2008. During the intervening time comments may be moderated, and it might take me a while to get around to doing the moderating owing to pre-planned slackness.
2007 has been a good year I think, generally for me and here on the blog. I think this year has been the first when I’ve really been able to see how this cartooning lark could possibly work in the longer run. Glancing through my list of posts I also note that in 2007:
2008 is set to be an exciting year. There are set to be some changes afoot career-wise about which I hope to say more in the New Year. Don’t worry though, I’m not stopping my Church Times cartoons and this site will still be here.
One of my initial challenges during January and February will be to draw the cartoons for a 2009 calendar and to finish the cartoons for a second book. This is quite daunting as I generally struggle for one funny idea a week, whereas I will need to have 5 or 6 a week during this time. This being the case it is likely that I will (if everyone is in agreement of course) be devoting many, if not most, of my posts on this blog to discussion of various church-related topics that will hopefully provide me with my ideas. It might, of course, be unethical to pinch all ones ideas from the internet public, in which case I will go back to sitting up all night staring miserably at a wall. When I’ve done this before it has been quite fun, so hopefully it won’t be too bad an experience for everyone involved.
Finally, a very Happy Christmas to everyone who reads this site, comments on this site, or both. Thanks for all your involvement. See you in 2008.
Posted by Dave at 8:55 pm on December 22, 2007 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, In-depth analysis, Cartooning, Religion.
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This concludes my 2007 Advent series, which may have, at times appeared to be not dissimilar to my 2005 Advent series.
I know it is not yet Christmas Eve, but I needed to speed time up a bit so that I could begin my Christmas break. I’ll explain more about that in that next post.
Posted by Dave at 7:54 pm on December 22, 2007 and filed under Religion.
1 Comment
For logistical reasons the last few days of Advent will all happen today. This means that my last few Advent cartoons will also happen today.
Posted by Dave at 1:15 pm on December 22, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Advent.
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Posted by Dave at 12:26 am on December 22, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Advent.
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The Annunciation to the Shepherds | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction
The slideshow includes images from artists such as El Greco, Giotto di Bondone, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Blake. But whatever you do don’t miss image number 11.
As an aside, I happen to know that this will not be the last one sees of this particular artist in Christianity Today.
Posted by Dave at 11:09 am on December 21, 2007 and filed under Religion, Advent.
8 Comments
Posted by Dave at 10:59 am on December 21, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Advent.
1 Comment
There are ‘Archbishop says nativity is legend’ stories popping up all over the internet. But let’s see what Rowan actually said:
Well Matthew’s gospel doesn’t tell us that there were three of them, doesn’t tell us they were kings, doesn’t tell us where they came from, it says they’re astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire. That’s all we’re really told so, yes, ‘the three kings with the one from Africa’ - that’s legend; it works quite well as legend.
The transcript is here if you’d like to see it in context, or you can listen again to the whole programme.
The thing that Rowan said was legend was ‘the three kings with the one from Africa’. Nothing more. He only uses the word ‘legend’ once, and this is it. Trust me, I’ve been through it with a fine Firefox ‘find’ function. He definitely does not describe ‘the Nativity’ as a legend.
But you wouldn’t know it from the various reports that are popping up. Lets do a bit of ‘didn’t read the transcript’ spotting:
Rowan Williams’ nativity own goal : December 2007 : Holy Smoke : UK : Telegraph Blogs:
Does Rowan Williams EVER think before opening his mouth? He waits until the week before Christmas before describing the nativity as a “legend” and condemning the poor wise men, asses and oxen to the realms of fantasy.
Archbishop says nativity ‘a legend’ - Telegraph:
Dr Rowan Williams has claimed there was little evidence that the Magi even existed
The Daily Mail:
Dr Rowan Williams yesterday debunked a large part of the Christmas story as a myth.
Stand Firm - +Rowan: Nativity a ‘legend’:
But Matthew does claim that the Magi were real rather than legendary figures
Any more?
Update: Geg Griffiths, the webmaster of ‘Stand Firm’ explains why he posted this article with the inaccurate headline “+Rowan: Nativity a ‘legend’”. The italics are a quote from another poster.
But SF should have different standards. Your headline should have either accurately summed up what Williams DID say or it should have made clear that it was the Telegraph, not you, who was claiming Williams said the Nativity was legend.
Christopher,
This brings up one of the more challenging issues of running a blog like this. What do we do when we run across a story like this? Do we dig into it thoroughly and offer an analysis informed by having read every tidbit contained in it? If we did, we’d get one or two things posted a day, if we’re lucky.
Do we rewrite headlines? Well, yes, sometimes we do, when it’s immediately obvious there’s an inaccuracy or an omission, or just when we want to have some fun. In this case, all I did was replace “Archbishop of Canterbury” with +Rowan, following our informal policy around here of using Anglican shorthand when we can, to keep headlines as short as possible without losing any meaning (”KJS” and “DioSJ” are examples).
Are we under an obligation to correct another site’s headline? No. In this case, I read what +Rowan said: It ‘works well as legend,’ and I knew that he didn’t necessarily mean ‘legend’ to mean ‘fiction.’ I decided not to make a judgement about what he meant, but to post the headline as the newspaper had it. My focus, as I’ve said, is on his poor judgement as concerns his statements to the media. Yes, it’s true that the print article isn’t as faithful to the interview transcript as it should be, but neither is it completely in error. I’ve been the subject of media interviews and not once has the result been error-free, so mistakes on the part of the press are a given. But even factoring for that, I say +Rowan needs to do some serious work in the area of what he says to the press, and when. It’s gotten to the point where, come a major Christmas holiday, if you want a remark from a notable Christian leader that seems to pooh-pooh Christianity, just head to Lambeth Palace, and voila.
Which brings up another challenge of running a blog like this: When do we switch from observing a subject, to observing another observer? In some cases a third party’s article on something is transparent, which makes it easy to observe the subject. In other cases, the observers themselves deserve more criticism than the subject they’re observing. In this case I’m doing a little of both. There’s nothing dishonest about it, there’s no subterfuge going on here, and I fail to see how it can be characterized as “not good work.”
Not convinced.
Further update: See also: Nick Page » Archbishop Rowan annoys the Telegraph (again)
Additional further update: Babyblue puts it down to ‘bad staffing’. Any excuse to show the Archbishop and anyone associated with him in a bad light.
Who’s bright idea was it for Rowan Williams to talk to Sophie and Simon at the Telegraph anyway? Where’s Jonathon? Out flyfishing with Stephen Bates?
The interview was with Simon Mayo on Radio 5 which anyone who has read the transcript or listed to the interview would know. I might almost go as far as to say that anyone has hasn’t done either of these things shouldn’t be pontificating on the story.
Posted by Dave at 1:31 pm on December 20, 2007 and filed under Anglican goings-on, Religion, Advent.
24 Comments
I have a surplus of good links clogging up my system. Here are a selection, Christmas-related and otherwise:
Here’s a good use for a disused church, though I suspect it would work in a used one. Si Smith: the walk-through advent calendar
25 little stations, each of which looks at one character or place or item from the christmas story (mary, joseph, the magi, bethlehem, the gifts, the star etc etc…) and a cafe serving festive foodstuffs. folk volunteer in advance to create the stations, and when it’s all up and running, you go round and ‘do’ the stations like you’d open the doors on an advent calendar, exploring the advent/christmas story in the process.
Should have posted this weeks ago: rejesus blog » Generating Christmas Kindness
This Christmas rejesus has a mission for you. How much kindness can you generate with a budget of less than £10. If you think really creatively how far could your act of kindness spread? Follow the instructions below and tell us about what happened in the comments section.
The Recusant Rector returns, but this time with podcasts.
For three hundred and fifty years the Church of England has been haunted by a pattern of parochial ministry, based upon a fantasy and untenable for more than a hundred of those years. The pattern, coming from a romantic and wrong-headed false memory of the life and ministry of George Herbert, finally died on the South Bank of the Thames in the mid 1960s… and nobody noticed.
Joe from Freedom Clothing has been doing a little series ‘Things I Relearnt This Advent’. This from No 8 - the Middle Class Jesus:
We have this perception of antiseptic stables, clean birthing chambers, obedient animals. Yet is it possible we have erected a false god to please our middle class christian sentiments? In India the animals walk in the street and feed on the garbage. A feeding trough/manger is most likely to be on a street corner as anywhere else. The open sewers and filth is overpowering. People scratch a living, their children playing with the dirt as they have nothing else.
Lastly, Hennell has been blogging Advent cartoons:
Also as I’m now halfway through this, I feel I should link to Dave Walker’s Cartoon Blog which is where I stole the advent cartooning idea from. Unfortunately he didn’t say how time consuming it was.
Posted by Dave at 12:36 pm on December 20, 2007 and filed under Saturday links.
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Posted by Dave at 9:13 am on December 20, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Advent.
3 Comments
According to this Gateshead Lib Dem blog the Church Commissioners sold a church to the St Stephen The Great Charitable Trust in November for £100:
The landmark St Cuthberts Church on Bensham Bank has been sold by the Church Commissioners to the American based St Stephen The Great Charitable Trust.
The historic landmark has been sold for £100, reflecting the state of the building which is suffering from structural problems and vandalism. The building needs considerable investment to bring it back into use.
The nineteenth century church was designed by the famous Victorian North East architect John Dobson.
The Church Commissioners were keen to see the building continue to be used as a church. Work on restoring the building is expected to take a year.
The sale of the church has been welcomed by local Liberal Democrat campaigners Susan Craig and Peter Andras.
Does this sound familiar? An Anglican institution is desperate to hand over their asset(s) to someone. Things don’t go smoothly with the first possible recipient, but then SSG are there in the right place at the right time and get given it for free.
The £100 price tag is not really the issue. Such an amount might be entirely appropriate given the hundreds of thousands that will need to be spent on the church. What really surprises me is that the Church Commissioners have decided SSG are suitable recipients at all given:
- The ongoing legal cases between SPCK and SSG as well as between SSG and some former employees. SPCK gave away millions of pounds-worth of assets to SSG and got their fingers badly burnt and yet the Church Commissioners appear to be doing exactly the same thing. [If you are unfamiliar with the SSG / SPCK bookshops story see all the posts in the Save the SPCK category on this blog.]
- The dubious aims of the Saint Stephen the Great Trust. SSG have said they are aiming to restore 47 redundant churches, one for each of the 47 battles St Stephen the great fought against the Muslims (statement now removed from their website, though I have the text recorded here). In their video SSG make it fairly clear that they see acquiring churches in Muslim areas as one of their aims. I just can’t see how giving a church to such an organisation can fit within the requirements for new uses for redundant churches, namely that they should be ‘sensitive to the setting and history of each building‘.
It could of course be the case that the Church Commissioners are unaware of the whole SPCK / SSG situation, but this seems unlikely. It is true that this sale took place before the release of the St Stephen the Great video and the Radio 4 Sunday programme, but a lot of information about SSG was available online before that time. Surely you’d do a quick Google search before giving a church building to someone.
Here’s some background reading:
The page about St Cuthberts (now deleted) on the Church of England site said:
This is a rare opportunity to acquire a landmark building, in a commanding position overlooking the River Tyne. The property is being sold with the benefit of a development brief produced by Gateshead Council supporting the conversion of this Grade II Listed Church to a range of commercial and residential uses. All parties are keen to see the property sold and sensitively converted to secure the future of this landmark building. Built in 1845 to the designs of John Dobson and extended by the addition of an aisle in 1874, the church stands in a large churchyard that has been used for burials. It comprises tower, nave, chancel, vestries, aisle and west gallery. The building has suffered from subsidence due to former mining works in the area and is in need of substantial stabilisation and other restoration costs. Guidance on these likely costs is available from the agents. Offers are invited by 28 July 2007, with detailed evidence of feasibility within three months of submission of offer.
Posted by Dave at 11:58 am on December 19, 2007 and filed under Current events, Anglican goings-on, Ecumenical matters, Save the SPCK, Religion.
28 Comments
Posted by Dave at 11:31 am on December 19, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Advent.
1 Comment
This cartoon is available at We Blog Cartoons and can be freely re-used on your blog.
[Tag to help searchers: Nintendo wii cartoon]
Update: Aaron has named this cartoon ‘The Three Wii Men’. Very good.
Posted by Dave at 6:38 pm on December 18, 2007 and filed under Cartoons, Technical, Religion, Advent.
6 Comments
The not- quite- daily internet column of Dave Walker. Dave writes and draws for the Church Times and is to be the 'Cartoonist in Residence' for the 2008 Lambeth Conference. (
