The Great Debate UK

from UK News:

A nightmare week for the Archbishop of Canterbury

Many members of the Church of England will be wondering "where do we go from here",  the morning after the church's parliament voted down a compromise amendment put forward by its two most senior clerics.

The liberal wing of the church will probably feel the road is clear ahead for the ordination of women as bishops after the Archbishops of Canterbury and York were foiled, though there is still a long way to go.

But some among the traditionalist Anglo-Catholics and conservative  evangelicals will be wondering where their spiritual home now lies. Some traditionalists may be more persuaded to take up Pope Benedict's offer made last October to convert to Roman Catholicism, in the knowledge that they would be able to retain some of their traditions and liturgy.

They were so dismayed by the amendment's defeat in York, northern England, that some asked the archbishop for an urgent meeting before synod resumes its debate on Monday morning, the Thinking Anglicans website said.

It has not been a good week for Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the spiritual head of the Anglican Church.

Not only did he lose the vote, but his attempt to keep the church together by offering traditionalists concessions, drew criticism from people both within and outside the church.

They said it would appear misogynist and out of date, if passed.

The debate over Darwin 150 years on

Debate continues to swirl around the theory of evolution Charles Darwin proposed 150 years ago in his groundbreaking book, “On the Origin of Species,” despite its universal acceptance among scientists.

Before Darwin’s discovery, the world was generally thought to have remained more or less the same since its creation. This belief, based on Biblical interpretations, was contested through fossil studies showing that species change over time.

Darwin’s legendary round-the-world 1831-1836 voyage aboard the HMS Beagle generated his most significant observations and discoveries, inspiring his work on natural selection.

Although Darwin first used the term “natural selection” in a paper in 1842, it wasn’t until 1859 that he published his controversial theory that all living beings share a common ancestry — a discovery that remains vital to modern biology.

Author Nick Spencer, director of studies at Theos, a research organisation launched in 2006 with the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, explained why the debate persists to this day.

“People are encountering evolution not so much as a science but as a philosophy,” he told Reuters ahead of a Nov. 24 lecture at Westminster Abbey to mark the anniversary of the exact date on which Darwin’s book was first published.