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Who is Gavin Ashenden?Gavin Ashenden (born 1954) is a British Anglican clergyman. He was an Honorary Chaplain to the Queen from 2008 until his resignation in 2017. He was ordained in the Church of England, but left it in 2017. In 1998 he was a Church of England delegate to the 8th Council of the World Council of Churches held in Harare, Zimbabwe. He was a member of the General Synod of the Church of England for from 1995-2012. He has lectured in the United States, most recently as a visiting theologian for the Lutheran Church in Oregon.
What is Secular?As a philosophy, secularism seeks to interpret life on principles taken solely from the material world, without recourse to religion. In political terms, secularism is the principle of the separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institution and religious dignitaries (the attainment of such is termed secularity). Under a brief definition, secularism means that governments should remain neutral on the matter of religion and should not enforce nor prohibit the free exercise of religion, leaving religious choice to the liberty of the people. Secularism draws its intellectual roots from Greek and Roman philosophers such as Zeno of Citium and Marcus Aurelius; from Enlightenment thinkers such as Erasmus, John Locke, Denis Diderot, Voltaire, Baruch Spinoza, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine; and from more recent freethinkers and atheists such as Robert Ingersoll, Bertrand Russell, and Christopher Hitchens. It shifts the focus from religion to other 'temporal' and 'this-worldly' things with emphasis on nature, reason, science, and development.
What is the Church?A church is a building used for Christian worship services and Christian activities. The earliest identified Christian church is a house church founded between 233 AD and 256 AD. The word church also describes a body or assembly of Christian believers, while "the Church" refers to the worldwide Christian religious community.
