I was pleased to hear that Bishop Michael Jackson was announced as the new Archbishop Of Dublin And Glendalough today. I don’t, as a rule, comment here on church news any more, but I wanted to post this picture.

This is Bishop Michael Jackson (as he was then) and I sorting the press badges for the 2008 Lambeth Conference into alphabetical order. I can’t remember exactly how we came to be doing this, but I think it was a day or two before the conference and some help was required in the nerve centre of the operation and we both happened to be there with some time to spare. I am known, as you are no doubt aware, for my administrative skills, so I was, no doubt, an obvious choice.

I do remember clearly that he was a very friendly bishop and he was most interested in my cartooning activities. I wish him well in his new job.

Posted by Dave at 10:15 pm on February 2, 2011 and filed under Anglican goings-on, Lambeth 08, Lambeth Conference, Photographs.

2 Comments

A rumour has sprung forth that I have been elected to General Synod. I received the following e-mail from my vicar following a conversation on the subject: ‘Most of the Chelmsford Diocese seems to think you are on it and I was so convinced by them that I’ve put it in the Notice Sheet! OOOPs!’

This is dissatisfactory state of affairs because once something is in the Notice Sheet it more or less becomes true by nature of the stature of the publication. If I am not careful it will become the talk of the parish and I will have to attend services this Sunday in person just so as to convince people that the Notice Sheet is not infallible.

I’d therefore like to take this opportunity to reassure readers that (a) I am not on General Synod, and (b) I am not the Bishop of Dudley, David Walker. To friends of the Bishop of Dudley, David Walker, I’d like to say (1) He is on General Synod, and (2) he is not me.

I hope this clears things up.

The list of who is actually on General Synod is kept on a list maintained by Peter Owen. As you can see I am not on it. It is not the official list, but it might as well be as everyone refers to it, including the officials who organise General Synod. I myself have typed ‘Peter Owen Synod’ into Google about twelve times today just to check whether I was on General Synod. If Peter wanted to cause synodical havoc he would be ideally placed to do so. I on the other hand, am hoping to learn about saving bookmarks at this Saturday’s Advanced Christian Computing Conference. More about that later.

Update: Notice that will appear in our church notice sheet:

Posted by Dave at 7:53 am on October 15, 2010 and filed under Anglican goings-on, Church, Essex Life.

11 Comments

This is one frame of a four frame cartoon- click the word ‘bishops‘ to see this cartoon in full on CartoonChurch.com.

It is taken from the last book, My Pew, things I have seen from it. I’ve got a load of ‘My pew’ cartoons to post this week, before I get on to posting some ‘Exciting world of churchgoing’ ones.

Posted by Dave at 7:14 pm on September 26, 2010 and filed under Anglican goings-on, Cartooning, Cartoons, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

2 Comments

Warning: If you have no interest in Twitter, the well known internet timewasting service, and Christianity, the well known religion, you will find this post dull and an utter irrelevance.

The Twurch of England is the Church of England on Twitter. The bishops, the clergy, and the… hang on… it’s only the bishops and the clergy! The laity (ordinary people) are nowhere to be found. This is an unjust state of affairs which sends out the message that the ordinary people are not as important as the bishops and clergy. Being mildly deeply upset about this I started a ‘Reform the Twurch’ campaign yesterday – you can read all of the tweets on the subject via the hashtag #reformthetwurch. It was great fun and a most creative protest. Proceedings were conducted calmly and peacefully, and from time to time nuns came out and brought us tea.

Of course there are other Anglicans not in the CofE, and other denominations of Christians who are also not a part of this group. I certainly think it would be good to include these people, although I understand that the ‘Twurch of England’ may not be the most appropriate banner under which to gather them. Perhaps there needs to be an ‘Anglican Twits’ (Anglicans who aren’t CofE) group, and one for ‘UK Twistians’ (UK Christians whether they are Anglican or not). I suspect forming a ‘World Christians’ group might be rather more time consuming.

My challenges to Twurch administrators (The Church Moose and Peter O) are as follows:

1) First of all I think you really need to include CofE laity if you are to go on calling it the Twurch of England. It’s OK, there aren’t many of us and we’re declining in number all the time.
2) Secondly, I understand that you may want to restrict membership of the Twurch of England to members of the Church of England. However, if you don’t find a way to include the wider groups of people (Anglicans, UK Christians) in some way I suspect someone else will. There is an opportunity for a creative individual to form the Anglican Twitter community or the Christian Twitter community, and sooner or later someone will do so.

The picture above has nothing to do with this post by the way. I just didn’t have anything else to put in.

Now… stop trying to distract me – I’ve got work to do. My big important project went a bit better yesterday, for which I am thankful.

Posted by Dave at 10:13 am on March 26, 2010 and filed under Anglican bloggers, Anglican goings-on, Blogging, Church, Ecumenical matters, Religion.

9 Comments

There has been a greater-than-average reaction to my What the bishops were doing whilst civil partnerships in church were being voted on cartoon (extract above) on the Church Times blog. By ‘greater than average’ I just mean that there has been one, as an average reaction is for there to be no reaction. See Thinking Anglicans for one place there has been comments.

I have minor regrets about this cartoon as it has given the ‘I hate bishops – they can do nothing right’ brigade who loiter on Anglican blogs something to jump up and down about.

On the other hand blogger Matt Wardman says: “Sorry, Dave – not as well judged as usual in my view”. To blogger Matt Wardman I say that normally I do not knowingly judge things that well, I just draw the first thing that comes into my head. Also I am asking a question about the activities of the bishops and was not prejudging the answer to that question. I am perfectly prepared to accept that they had more important things to be doing if that turns out to be the case. Bishop David Walker, whom I have great respect for (not least because he is my namesake and has done much to make the wearing of sandals acceptable in polite society), says that “most bishops are relaxed about the Ali amendment” and I can understand why that might be the case.

PS. I bet some idiot will try to register pectoralcrosses4u.com.

Posted by Dave at 10:22 am on March 5, 2010 and filed under Anglican goings-on, Cartoons.

9 Comments

Questions have been raised about my appearance on Simon’s Dark Side of the Moon Chaplaincy blog.

Also has anyone ever actually met Dave Walker, in his photos he looks tall and thin…is he? There is a reason for my asking.

I have been trying to work out what these reasons might be. Either the chaplaincy students are planning to knit me a jumper, or the Diocese of Winchester are seeking information about me for a soon-to-be-released photo fit ‘wanted’ poster after my Church Times Blog posts (1,2,3) about the fact they are ceasing to fund Simon’s post. This will mean that unless other initiatives are taken (which they are being) Southampton University will more or less the only university in the UK to be un-pastorally*-cared-for by the Anglicans. Read the whole saga on Simon’s blog and if you want to support his cause join the Facebook group from where news is being posted.

Back to what I look like: So far responses on Simon’s blog suggest that I am “grey-looking and two-dimensional” or, by the Mad Priest: “Dave Walker looks like a geek from a Hollywood teen movie.”

In order to lay these allegations to rest I submit a recent self portrait that proves I am indeed tall and thin:

Whilst I’m here: Thanks for not giving up on this blog. I haven’t been writing it for several reasons. Partly because I’m currently in a continual state of being behind schedule with my diagrams and I’m convinced that the people to whom I owe the work will be continually scanning the internet to see that I’m not frittering my time away. My time therefore needs to be frittered away in other less public ways. There are other reasons too. But I need to remind myself that i do actually quite enjoy writing here, so I will endeavour to post a bit more, starting, I think, with a calendar giveaway in the next day or two.

*Probably not a valid phrase

Posted by Dave at 3:26 pm on December 2, 2009 and filed under Anglican bloggers, Anglican goings-on, Blogging, Cartoons, Church Times blog.

8 Comments

I’ve been having some good ‘Anglican goings-on’ times at General Synod in London over the last couple of days. I’ve been blogging and posting a few cartoons on my Church Times blog and Twittering every now and then. Hopefully a couple more cartoons will follow tomorrow.

Do say hello if you’re there and see me around. I can be contacted via the usual mobile number or CartoonChurch number, 07806 334077.

Posted by Dave at 11:12 pm on February 11, 2009 and filed under Anglican goings-on, Cartooning, Cartoons.

2 Comments

This afternoon I had the opportunity to present a cartoon canvas to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. The cartoon is ‘the parish system‘. The Archbishop has visited my cartoon tent on several occasions over the course of the Lambeth Conference and this was one picture that he had enjoyed.

As you may have picked up I am a great fan of the Archbishop, so to be given this chance was a highlight of what has already been for me a really quite overwhelming conference. The handing over of the canvas was originally planned for 14.30 in the cartoon tent, but in light of the Archbishop’s time commitments today the venue was moved to his flat / office and the time to 16.50. My wife and one of the official conference photographers came with me. The picture makes it look as if part of the image is missing, but that is just the sunlight shining behind the canvas.

Tomorrow is the final plenary session followed by a service in Canterbury Cathedral. I go home on Monday.

Posted by Dave at 11:55 pm on August 2, 2008 and filed under Anglican goings-on, Cartooning, Lambeth 08, Lambeth Conference.

15 Comments

The situation summed up using some drawings

If you’re interested in my writings about Anglican goings-on you can tune in via the Church Times blog. There should be some new cartoon material posted there in the coming weeks too.

Posted by Dave at 7:03 am on June 26, 2008 and filed under Anglican goings-on, Cartoons, Religion.

4 Comments

The Anglican Journal is the independent national Newspaper of the Anglican Church of Canada.

From the latest issue: Cartoonist’s role at meeting of bishops a bit sketchy.

Posted by Dave at 2:24 pm on May 4, 2008 and filed under Anglican goings-on, Cartooning, Lambeth 08, Religion.

4 Comments

I’ve posted a cartoon about Bishop Gene Robinson’s non-invitation to the Lambeth Conference on the Church Times blog. Also a brief observation on the fact that Wesley Owen are to be the official bookshop of the conference.

Don’t worry – I’m not going to write something here every time I make a Church Times post. But I might sometimes say something here when I’ve drawn a new cartoon, especially during these first few weeks whilst there are people wandering aimlessly up and down the corridors trying to work out where my cartoons are and which room they are supposed to be after the coffee break.

Posted by Dave at 11:54 am on March 11, 2008 and filed under Anglican goings-on, Blogging, Cartooning, Religion.

3 Comments

As you’ll have noticed I haven’t been commenting and drawing much about Anglican goings-on. This is a temporary state of affairs. But I couldn’t resist making one or two insignificant remarks about the fact that the ‘Gafcon’ alternative Lambeth Conference has been rearranged so that the ‘political’ bit is now only for invited dignatories. You’ll need to go elsewhere for in-depth analysis of course, but just one or two things that I noticed:

From the Gafcon site:

Participants will include bishops and their wives, key clergy and laity

I wonder how many of each the bishops are allowed to bring.

From the Gafcon brochure (pdf):

When those who are invited indicate their acceptance to the Primate, or lead Bishop, they will be issued with a unique “pilgrim number”.

If anyone reading has a pilgrim number please write in. I will give a prize to anyone who can prove that their number is in single digits.

Posted by Dave at 8:39 pm on February 19, 2008 and filed under Anglican goings-on, Religion.

5 Comments