The Catholic church in Poland

I note two interesting articles in the Guardian on the state of religious observance in Poland, its connection with national identity and (allegedly) with antisemitism, and the mounting excitement ahead of the the beatification of John Paul II. Interesting in themselves, and also by no means polemically neutral in the current state of discourse in Britain.

Geoffrey Robertson on the Papal visit

The work I've been doing for the web archiving project has necessarily picked up much material in the press, little of which can be added to the UK Web Archive for reasons of permissions. I thought therefore that it would be worth capturing some of that material here.

Readers may remember a campaign by Geoffrey Robertson against the Papal visit: see two pieces amongst several, on the legal basis of the Vatican's statehood, in the Guardian, and earlier on the prospects for indicting the Pope for complicity in the child abuse scandal

White evangelicals and conservative politics in the US

I notice this paper by Seth Arbutyn and Steven Brint, in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 49 (2010), and available online. It's interesting to note that this type of analysis is not one that seems to have been attempted to any great extent in relationship to Britain.

Bishops in the Lords

Whilst doing some work for the Politics of Religion project for the UK Web Archive, a selection of interesting links, some of which will be submitted to the UKWA:

On the negative side: Heresy Corner, Johann Hari in the Independent, and Polly Toynbee in the Guardian.
There have also been in recent years ongoing campaigns for reform to change the composition of the House: from the British Humanist Association, and the Power 2010 campaign.

On the more positive side, see a debate from Theos.

Faith schools: an Irish angle

Having just discovered the work of Eoin Daly of Dublin City University on the Irish system, I note it here as a corpus of work worth keeping an eye on: see his Academia.edu page.

Civil partnership ceremonies in church buildings

I note some discussion of the differing policies of the churches in this regard. The Church of England and the Catholic church have both ruled it out, although not officially: see the Guardian, Feb 13th and the BBC; a position welcomed by both the moderate evangelical Anglican site Fulcrum and the Christian Institute. (See also a joint conservative statement by the Christian Institute and others at the Anglican Mainstream site). Reports suggest that the denominations open to the possibility include the Quakers and the Unitarian church. It remains to be seen what happens when the legislation comes forward, but it is an indication of how far the ground has shifted that this is a mostly defensive movement; nothing to do with the right of a secular state to do as it sees fit, but simply to defend against any compulsion of religious groups to comply.

Using the UK Web Archive

I have recently begun to take a part in a project at the British Library, the 'Researchers and the UK Web Archive' project. A group of scholars, including sociologists and experts in the built environment, politics and the visual arts have embarked on a year-long project using the UK Web Archive as a source. Topics include sport, gender, elections and religious architecture, amongst others. More details are available on the project blog.

The project should provide the BL with valuable feedback on the archive itself; in addition, several of us will be helping to create new collections of previously unarchived material relating to our particular research projects. My own is on the politics of religion in Britain in the last five years, paying particular attention to events such as reactions to the recent visit of the Pope, and to Rowan Williams' lecture on the place of sharia law in England. I'm particularly interested in the ways in which the communication of religious ideas has been affected by the web, and by social media in particular.

Of particular interest is how perennial themes in the church/state/law relationship are transmuted in a new information environment. Part of the endeavour is to suggest that contemporary historians are in a unique position to anticipate which present-day websites will be of interest to future historians, by virtue of understanding something about the pedigree of an issue, and the significance of a forthcoming event.