Worship

Sir Brian Souter barred as sponsor of Turner Prize for being a morally orthodox Christian

Sir Brian Souter is a Christian. He also happens to be a wealthy Scottish businessman, philanthropist, and supporter of the SNP, but he is a Christian first and foremost: his faith guides his work ethic, permeates his politics, and informs…

Children’s Society Christingle song fails to mention God, Jesus – or anything particularly Christian at all

November 8, 2018
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You are probably familiar with Christingle and may well know about all the Christian symbolism which it represents. It’s generally pretty widely recognised that the candle inserted into the Christingle…

Why, when church attendance is falling, is cathedral attendance soaring?

October 25, 2018
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An email was delivered to Cranmer's Tower at 11.15am on Tuesday of this week. It was headed: 'Record numbers attend cathedrals at Christmas', followed by a very red, upper-case warning:…

Lambeth Awards: why is the CofE patting itself on the back over Safeguarding?

April 9, 2018
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The Lambeth Awards were bestowed last week at Lambeth Palace. The Anglican Oscars non-academic honours for exemplary service and inspirational ministry were instituted in 2016 as part of Justin Welby's…

Anglican Communion News Service smears GAFCON and manipulates Archbishop of Canterbury

October 6, 2017
150 Comments

You'd think, wouldn't you, that you could trust the news reports which emanate from the official Office of the Worldwide Anglican Communion. You'd hope, wouldn't you, that the Anglican Communion…

Hurricane Harvey and the $50m mega-church pastor who wouldn’t shelter flood victims

August 30, 2017
166 Comments

Texan mega-church pastor Joel Osteen is reputedly worth $50million. That's his personal wealth. He leads a church of some 16,000 (ie a 'mega-church') which gathers in the Lakewood Church, Houston,…

The Musicians’ Church hasn’t banned non-Christian music, but it has sown confusion

August 23, 2017
601 Comments

"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…

CofE General Sex Synod 2017: not one question about the Persecuted Church

July 6, 2017
203 Comments

Over the past few months Christians in the village of Jalalabad in Ghazipur District, India, where temperatures frequently soar to 40°C, have had their water supply cut to force them…

Elevation of the Blessed Asparagus: a Church of England pantomime

April 25, 2017
406 Comments

Did the Dean of Worcester Cathedral not pause to think for just one second how utterly, utterly absurd this would look? Really, words fail (though some must necessarily follow). A…

Qur’an in the Eucharist? The Provost of Glasgow Cathedral subverts Christian revelation

January 12, 2017
722 Comments

This is a guest post by the Rev’d Dr Gavin Ashenden, Chaplain to the Queen. __________________________ I have just returned from Paris where I was invited to be part of…

Is our worship really “diminished” by the lack of Christian unity?

September 27, 2016
459 Comments

"I was dismayed, but not surprised, to hear so many calls for 'unity' after Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election," writes political historian Dr Robert Crowcroft of Edinburgh University. He expounds: ..."unity" is…

Political spin and media din: the importance of silence

April 1, 2016
85 Comments

There's an awful lot of noise around at the moment. Perhaps there was always a din in the Agora and a racket in the Forum, but they were concerned…

The Church of England is not dying – it is regenerating

October 16, 2015
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It’s been well publicised this week that there are one or two Church of England congregations that aren’t exactly bursting at the seams. If you go to a Church…

Holy Monday: cleansing, anointing and indignation

March 30, 2015
174 Comments

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the…

Welby: "The best decision anyone can ever make is to be a follower of Jesus Christ"

March 6, 2015
391 Comments

Back in January, Tim Montgomerie, writing in the Times, vented his frustration with the Archbishop of Canterbury: I remain hopeful that Justin Welby, a "graduate" of HTB and its famous…

Christianity is the key to foodbank success – it must not be suppressed

December 16, 2014
298 Comments

It's been interesting reading through many of the media articles following the parliamentary launch of Feeding Britain. There have been plenty of them, that's for sure; the Church of…

Songs of Praise goes ecumenical

November 13, 2014
143 Comments

It seems that Aaqil Ahmed, the BBC's Head of Religion & Ethics, essentially agrees with the Bishop of Truro: the Church of England will be dead in six years,…

How to prevent the extinction of the Church of England

October 24, 2014
304 Comments

If anyone isn’t aware that the Church of England is slowly walking down the statistical road to oblivion, the publication of the 2015 British Election Study last week should…

Discerning the future of the Church is not an intellectual exercise

October 12, 2014
101 Comments

When I was at university studying Architecture, we were given the hypothetical brief of designing a new chapel for the campus. Having looked forward to it initially, it actually became…