Judgment

Child sponsorship: giving children the power to choose their sponsor is nearer the kingdom of heaven

"It's a new thing a missionary priest started last term. You send five bob to some nuns in Africa and they christen a baby and name her after you. I've got six black Cordelias already. Isn't it lovely?" Evelyn Waugh…

Jacob Rees-Mogg does not deserve to be pilloried for his Grenfell fire remarks

November 8, 2019
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I scarcely thought that 50 years after studying the Law of Tort I should be dredging up my recollection of its principles because they would prove relevant during an election…

Boris, feet, table… Do not judge by appearances

August 23, 2019
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A photograph of Boris Johnson putting his feet on a table in the Elysée Palace has circled the world. How crass, boorish, discourteous and bullish, they all cried. Thing is...…

Tory leadership contest: when did vice signalling become a virtue?

June 10, 2019
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The Tory leadership contest has taken a strange turn. Perhaps it's a purposeful distraction from their (non-)strategies for realising Brexit, but they seem to have taken to vice signalling (or,…

Notre Dame de Paris – the soul of France consumed by unholy smoke

April 16, 2019
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The air is full of mourning and crying. The hearts of Christians are bereft; another tribulation of Christendom defiles God's acre on the Seine. They sang ancient Elysian hymns as…

Insect Armageddon: an Extinction Level Event

February 13, 2019
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The Bible is full of insects and bugs: there are ants (Prov 6:6), bees (Jdg 14:8), fleas (1Sam 24:14), flies (Ex 8:24), gnats (8:16), grasshoppers (Isa 40:22), hornets (Deut 7:20),…

jonathan aitken times credo pray for parliament

Rev’d Jonathan Aitken calls the nation to pray for Parliament

December 9, 2018
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From The Times' 'Credo' column yesterday, by the Rev'd Jonathan Aitken, reproduced here with permission: After a seismic week of political and constitutional upheavals at Westminster, might this be a…

sentamu brexit withdrawal agreement deal

Sentamu: ‘pure’ (‘real’/ ‘hard’) Brexit is “a childish dream”

December 3, 2018
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On the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, the Archbishop of Canterbury was asked about the disparity (/gulf) between the laity and clergy in the Church of England regarding the…

Scrupulous for Christ: saving the Church from the doctrine of the infallibles

November 1, 2018
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Ever since Jesus cried 'Woe' to the scribes and Pharisees, his disciples have been calling out the two-faced hypocrites and judiciously discerning whitewashed tombs – those who look all meek…

Complicit in evil? Church of England has shares in Amazon and uses zero-hours contracts

September 14, 2018
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Imagine the prophet Amos in 650 BC travelling through the southern kingdom up to Bethel in the Samaritan north to sell his figs. It's a long journey, but that's where…

Human Ken Doll: the cult of the young body, and judging by appearances

August 26, 2018
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"I don't watch big brother, I don't know this fella...," tweeted journalist, TV presenter and poet Stephen Dixon. "But a world that allows someone to do this to themselves instead…

Ethan Couch and ‘affluenza’: where is God in the absence of visible justice?

July 2, 2018
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‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers’ (Henry VI, Pt II, IVii). Sure, I know. Some pernickety pedant with a literary bent is going to tell me…

harry meghan doria right-wing christians

BBC comedian smears right-wing Christians in Royal Wedding coverage

May 22, 2018
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Right-wing Christians are all racist. That's what the BBC's 'Good Morning Ulster' programme proclaimed last week on the run-up to the Royal Wedding as they discussed the impending union of…

bishop michael curry royal wedding sermon

Don’t slam the Royal Wedding sermon: Bishop Michael Curry reached two billion souls with the love of Christ

May 20, 2018
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Bishop Michael Curry's wedding address – or the US preacher's Royal Wedding sermon (as he and it shall henceforth be known) in the marriage service of Prince Harry to Meghan…

Steve Chalke: the wrath of God and the experience of Grace

April 30, 2018
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Steve Chalke tweeted about the wrath of God which is apparently often heaped on his head by 'Church people' (as opposed to Christians?), compared to the grace he experiences directly…

Marx over Pareto: why do so many Anglican bishops adopt a socialist economic and political outlook?

January 29, 2018
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In the same spirit as Prof Nigel Biggar, the Oxford ethicist who has provoked hysterical opposition by claiming that the British Empire was a morally mixed phenomenon and was the…

Bishop of Liverpool slams ‘so-called Evangelicals’, and so condemns himself

January 8, 2018
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The term 'Evangelical' as applied to Christians has a long and well-chronicled heritage. In 1525, William Tyndale explained in his Doctrinal Treatises (p8): "Evangelion (that which we call the gospel)…

Boys in tutus and tiara hysteria: media attack Church of England for totally the wrong reason

November 13, 2017
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Today's furore is caused by the Church of England's declaration that unrepentant sinners will go to hell and only Jesus can save them boys ought to be able to wear…

If Brexit can’t be done, then Ted Heath lied, and our “essential national sovereignty” is gone

October 17, 2017
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According to Alastair Campbell, Brexit can't be done. That's apparently what Theresa May has concluded and, if she were honest and any kind of leader, that's what she'd tell the…

Trump’s UN “hate speech” tells the world a few home truths

September 20, 2017
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UN Secretary-General António Guterres doesn't like divisive political discourse: he prefers consensual dialogue about climate change; exhortations to build bridges rather than walls; measured denunciations of Israel rather than the…