The day after I returned from holidays I went to the Churches Together in England Forum (which is held triennially) and walked through the ecumenical landscape in the business sessions, at the displays, at the presentations and discussions and at meals. I was (nicely)…
Yesterday was VJ Day and the 70th anniversary of the end of World War 2 in the Pacific. Yes, that’s a long way away in both time and distance. I was asked to conduct a brief service at the Mildenhall Cenotaph and here are…
I did think it ironic at the recent news of the hacking of an ‘infidelity website’ which drew attention to the online dating world – I’m not sure that’s a correct term in this context – for extra marital encoun-ters that people those who…
I am interested in how we construct reality – determine what is. What is real seems to me to be what is in existence and while we use our senses and our reason to largely determine this, the existence of a supernatural world (a…
I need to write a review of Ascension over the last 5 years or so for The British Lutheran. My guess at the moment is that it will be largely a story of the same activities each year but with different people. Ascension’s congregational…
The idea of trusting something or someone involves security or lack of concern – you are safe. Etymologists suggest that the background meaning in the Semitic languages is falling down or lying down or even knocking down. This action transitions when in safety to…
I write this between trips – having just returned from a ‘Luther trip’ and will shortly leave for Plymouth and the anniversary service at St Peter’s. The number 500 is evident wherever one goes in Germany that is part of the Reformation story whether…
I have a getting-on-my-hobby-horse moment from time to time. I suppose for the world it’s almost a Don-Quixote-tilting-at-windmills moment over the use of the word ‘good’. I’d like churches to have big notices on the sides of their buildings ‘Good people don’t go to…
Whereas some in society might have hoped for religious decline in the 21st century and, depending on which statistics you note, might even cite less adherents or religious practices, religion is certainly not invisible on the front page of paper or screen. The recent…
What would we do in all our towns and villages if God communicated to all churches that there was to be only one group meeting together? (Well, for starters, we’d have, at least, to listen to each other if there was no option!) I…
