Dear friends,Do you know what your next-door-neighbours think and believe about God, the Christian faith and the Church? Do your next-door-neighbours know what you think and believe about God, the Christian faith and the Church? The chances are, unless you … Continue reading
Tim
Dear friends,How do religions begin in the first place? Not by clever theologians producing lists of doctrines for the faithful to believe, nor by moralists producing codes of ethical behaviour. Religions begin with experiences which are then reflected on, interpreted … Continue reading
Dear friends,Nobody much today reads Etienne de La Boetie’s work ‘On Voluntary Servitude’. Yet there was a time when this treatise – little more than a student essay dashed off by a sixteen-year-old in the 1550s amidst the French Wars … Continue reading
Dear friends,Imagine an Anglican Church riven with conflicts, in which the Low Church party was making increasingly strident demands of the ruling body, determined to extend its power and influence. No, it’s not the Anglican Church of 2011 in its … Continue reading
Dear friends,I wish you a happy New Year. Or, as we might soon be saying, I wish you a high rating in your felicific calculus. For our level of happiness is, according to the government, something which the Office for … Continue reading
Dear friends,Many of us at this time of year will have an Advent calendar. Its twenty-four windows mark the countdown to Christmas, and we’re supposed to open one window each day, to build a sense of expectation as Christmas Eve … Continue reading
Dear friends,You might remember the scene in ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’ where two Palestinian would-be revolutionaries are listing grievances about the occupying Romans. One says to the other ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’ Silence follows, then … Continue reading