‘Oh, that’s a bit young!’ I was reading the accompanying paperwork that came this week with my registration as an approved marriage celebrant in Scotland. My limited experience of solemnising weddings in different countries knows enough to check the ‘fine print’ because each country…
I know I jokingly say at times ‘Put two Lutherans in a room and you’ll get three opinions’. If you can’t have a dig at ‘family’ then life’s pretty serious. The trouble is that family squabbles can be serious. In relation to church squabbles…
I was in Scotland driving to Livingston when I saw the all the red … what? Cotton wool on legs? Sheep with big red jumpers on them? (Seems unnecessarily redundant.) As I got closer I could see that they were just sheep but sprayed…
I’m writing this less than 48 hours after last Sunday’s service – after preaching on the ‘resurrection reality’ as seen in John turning around to see Jesus standing among the lamp stands holding the seven stars in his hand. Trying to understand Jesus (and…
I remember at university (in the 70s and 80s – before the internet) the discussion about knowledge and its expansion. The figure of the polymath was becoming a rare species because knowledge was increasing at an exponential rate. The days were long gone when…
Perhaps it’s because I’m not British … well, I didn’t grow up here. Or maybe it is because I’m a Lutheran and whether in Australia or here, that is part of being a very small group. So I read with interest and perplexity the…
This week my thoughts have turned away from the Tiber in Rome to the Thames in England (thinking about Pastor Steve’s column in The British Lutheran). Actually the river I should have been thinking about is the River Stour because on it lies the…
On Wednesday the Roman Catholic cardinals elected a new Bishop of Rome. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentinean by birth, becomes the 266th one but the first one to take the papal name of Francis. The world has watched with interest and for the…
Dressing up. The fashion industry testifies that clothes have importance to us. They allegedly ‘make the man’! If nothing else, they communicate messages about the wearer whether they be functional or ceremonial or personal. Wearing a uniform isn’t necessarily dressing up but it can…
Wednesday night’s service in Cambridge got me thinking. (I’m sure that was one of the hoped-for outcomes!) At some stage I must have known about Ignatius of Antioch. Well, I think I must have. I have read Eusebius’ ‘The History of the Church’. Eusebius…
