We need to make more space for silence
High School student Jack Higgins has a severe form of autism which makes him hypersensitive to noise. His graduation rite of passage was looking to be an impossible occasion, with…
Worship
Ely Cathedral holds a special service to bless and celebrate animals
Did any cathedral or parish church hold a service to celebrate animals before the Vicar of Dibley did so on 15th December 1994? The Rev'd Geraldine Granger was visited by a distraught villager whose had been bereaved at the death…
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…
Children’s Society Christingle song fails to mention God, Jesus – or anything particularly Christian at all
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?
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?
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
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
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
"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
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
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
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?
"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
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
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
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"
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
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
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
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…