Blogging and the voice of the Church
Someone recently tweeted that this blog should close down because people mistake it for a legitimate voice of the Church, and so it conveys a spiritual falsehood by sustaining a…
St Paul
The real presence of Christ in the community of the virtual Church
This morning I want to depart from our Lectionary readings to offer a text which inspired a first-class sermon which I once heard at Rochester Cathedral. A few years ago, Bishop Chad Gandiya visited the Diocese and preached from the…
Boris Johnson becomes the first baptised Catholic to made Prime Minister
Today is the Feast Day of St Boris (really). And today Boris Johnson kisses hands with the Queen (not the hand of the Queen) to become the 55th person to…
Child sexual abuse: the Blackburn Pastoral Letter is game-changer for the Church of England
When St Paul began writing his letters I doubt he expected them to become as copied, shared, dissected and analysed as they are today. He wrote to help and support…
Israel Folau – a fool for Christ’s sake
Israel Folau plays rugby in Australia. He plays at quite a high level, actually, being paid around $1.6m per season. He is, however, considered to be worth every cent, not…
Church of England’s Brexit prayers – what exactly do they mean?
A few months ago the Archbishop of York issued a Brexit prayer, or, rather, 'A Prayer for Parliament in Time of Brexit Trouble'. It was a fairly benign effort which…
Charles, Defender of the Faithful persecuted for Jesus’ sake
Yesterday, from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey, the Prince of Wales made a plea for peace; and not only peace, but for reconciliation. And not only did he make a…
Does installing Tim Peake’s spaceship in a cathedral glorify God and lead people to salvation?
If you install a junk spaceship or other space detritus in a sacred space and then pat yourself on the back for increasing your visitor numbers by 600% to 58,000,…
Jumping, skipping, dabbing and bouncing clergy – are we ordaining Tigger?
'Likewise must the deacons be grave', writes St Paul in his first pastoral letter to Timothy (3:8), expounding the necessary character and qualifications for Church leadership. The adjective is associated…
That wedding sermon: Bishop Michael Curry’s critics would have carped at St Paul
St Paul in Athens (Acts 17:16-34 NIV): Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are…
Why is the General Synod of the Church of England so poor at holding Bishops to account?
Travel is said to broaden the mind, but occasionally it reminds us to pay more attention to what is closer to home, right under our noses. Many years ago, on…
Advertising Standards Authority probes billboards declaring ‘The Messiah has come’
Billboards have been popping up around London declaring 'The Messiah has come'. According to Harry Farley in Christian Today, these have attracted a number of objections, and the Advertising Standards…
Is the Church of England doing religion without the Holy Spirit?
Much has been written about the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Ghost, or the Paraclete; the third person (hypostasis) of the Trinity. In fact, so much has been written over…
The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh celebrate their 70th Wedding Anniversary – the longest and most successful marriage in royal history
Never in the history of royalty has a monarch reached a 70th wedding anniversary. A few have come quite near, but that coveted Platinum milestone is reached today for the…
Theological illiteracy: 46% of Protestants think it’s okay to worship idols
Talk about theological illiteracy: the recent YouGov poll asking whether the 10 Commandments are still widely considered important principles to live by yielded some data of jaw-dropping incredulity. There's no…
Mawer, Percy, and the See of Sheffield: what if Conservative politicians had supported Philip North?
Sir Philip Mawer's report on the circumstances surrounding the nomination of Bishop Philip North to the See of Sheffield makes interesting reading, in particular what it means for the 'mutual…
One in Christ? Why do liberal Christians abuse conservative Christians?
The Most Rev'd Nicholas Okoh is the Archbishop of Abuja Province and Primate of the Church of Nigeria in the Anglican Communion. A glance at his biography establishes his fraught…
The Musicians’ Church hasn’t banned non-Christian music, but it has sown confusion
"Absurd and obscene to see a church in London banning classical groups that want to perform non-religious music", bleated the Humanists on Twitter, knowing full well that the secularist hordes…
Charlottesville: white supremacists are fundamentally anti-American and anti-Christian
Charlottesville has gone downhill a bit since The Waltons: the town where John Boy negotiated his first bank loan, Jim-Bob learned about his dead twin brother, and grandma and grandpa…
Prison chaplains may no longer convict offenders of sin: preaching must be ‘sensitive’
Remember the case of the Rev'd Barry Trayhorn, the 'tent-maker' (gardener) volunteer prison chaplain at HMP Littlehey in Cambridgeshire? Being an ordained minister in the Pentecostal Church, he quoted Scripture…