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The Archbishop of York begins a fast:

From a UK Christian news provider:

The second-most senior member of the Church of England, the Archbishop of York, has moved into a tent inside York Minster to reveal an act of “public witness” in which he is calling for peace in the Middle East.

Dr John Sentamu will fast, only being able to drink water, while he camps in the Minster over the next seven days. He hopes the fast will help to highlight the horrid situation faced by those caught up in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

Dr Sentamu announced last week that he was giving up his holiday in Salzburg, Austria, to take part in the act, during which time he will pray in the tent for peace.

Sunday at York Minster saw the week-long vigil commence with the Archbishop publicly shaving his head. Cathedral cleric Canon Glynn Webster was the one entrusted with the archbishop’s haircut, carried out on the altar.

Dr Sentamu expressed to reporters his hope that his example would encourage many others from all faiths to join him in praying for peace.

He will lead prayer every hour for seven days, with his fast ending at 1000 BST next Sunday.

The act has been set up to mirror the situation faced by thousands of people caught up in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, who are having to sleep rough and without proper food.

Archbishop Sentamu last week expressed dissatisfation with President Bush’s language:

(From an editorial in the Telegraph)

The anti-war-on-terror lobby has had a bad week. Not that it hasn’t kept its end up. Oh no. Faced with a threat so devastating that it seemed more like a world-domination plot from a Superman comic than a hard-headed act of war, there was nothing for it but to fall back on semantics.

George W. Bush was pilloried for referring to "Islamic fascists" by, among others, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu. Using that kind of language "on the ranch in Texas" did not help, he said, to make society "a good, neighbourly place".

I don’t know what the ranch in Texas has to do with anything, but Dr Sentamu seems not to understand the difference between describing Islamic fundamentalists as fascistic, and saying that all Muslims are fascists.