Simon Says ...

This is a fantastic way of looking at St Paul (H/t @frsimon):

A Sermon for Evensong Ecclesiastes 3.1-11 ; 1 Peter 1.3-12   The book of Ecclesiastes is an insidious book, a rebel within the canon of Scripture.   It claims to be written by Solomon, the great king of the golden age of Israel.   It recalls the time when Israel and Judah were one people, before the rebellious schism that happened under Solomon’s son.   This was the time when the riches of the kingdom were countless.   Gold, precious stones, cedars, spices, garments, weaponry, ships, ivory, apes and peacocks are all recounted as among the wonders of the age ( 1 Kings 10 ).   This was the time when the Queen of Sheba came to see the great wisdom of Solomon, and marvelled at the wisdom of the king, and the opulence of his palaces.   This was the king with at least a thousand women in his harem ( 1 Kings11.3 ).   This was the king who built the Temple of the Lord, and a palace for himself to match.   And to all ...

Review of Steve Jones, The Serpent’s Promise: The Bible Retold as Science (Little, Brown, 2013). This must surely qualify as one of the worst books I read last year.   That I managed to finish reading it is itself something of a feat. Jones purports to be writing something different to the “Polemical works for and against the power of belief” (p. 4).   But this book is nothing if not polemical. There is a (seriously held) view that science and religion have much that is complementary and that each can illuminate the other.   Jones has dismissed this by page 5.   What is more interesting is the reason why Jones junks this understanding.   There is no exploration of the view, let alone a philosophical account of why it does not hold water.   Rather Jones simply states “the view that science and doctrine occupy separate, or even complementary, universes and that each provides an equally valid insight into the world seems to...

There has been a lot of fevered comment since the Mail on Sunday published an article (on its front page no less) that the Church of England had abandoned sin in its new baptismal liturgy. There is much that is simply wrong and lacking in understanding on the part of the Mail and its rentaquotes.  For example: Contra the headline ('Welby casts out "sin" from christenings') Justin Welby himself had little to do with it - the origins lie in a decision of the General Synod The liturgies are experimental, and only being used so that they can be 'road-tested' and amended Just because the word isn't used doesn't mean that we no longer believed in sin There's nothing wrong with the language of EastEnders, and Common Worship isn't really the language of Shakespeare anyway I could go on, but this is an article in the Mail - what would you expect? But what it has done is provoke some really good and intelligent commentary from within the Ch...

A Sermon for Christmas 2 Ecclesiasticus 24.1-13 ; John 1.1-18 Some words from our Gospel reading this morning: “we have seen his glory”. Let me begin by wishing you all a very happy new year, and (because today is still the 12 th day of Christmas) a very happy Christmas.   Tonight all the decorations should be stowed away for another year, trees come down, fairy lights are boxed up and lots of us will be making trips to attics and lofts with boxes of stuff.   And in the midst of this we hear again the Gospel read at the heart of our Christmas celebrations, with this line that “we have seen his glory”. Glory is not something that we should put away with the decorations, but there is a real danger that we miss the glory for the trappings of Christmas.   There is a Christian tradition, which we will observe here at the Cathedral, that crib sets do not get put away on twelfth night, but that they remain out until the end of the greater C...

Today is the feast of the Epiphany, the showing-forth of Christ to the world.  Here are five insights from the Gospel for today ( Matthew 2.1-12 ) on how we might encounter the God who shows himself to us. 1. Observe.  Just as the Magi saw the star which was a sign to them of the birth of a king, so if we attend to the people, places and stuff of life around us we may find signs of God. 2. Unexpected.  The Magi go to Jerusalem, only to find that they are in the wrong place.  God is found in unexpected and out of the way places, in stables rather than palaces. 3. The Bible.  When the scribes need to answer Herod's question, they turn to the Bible.  We too can find God shown-forth to us in Scripture.  We should read it, little and often, and we will find it shows us God. 4. Silence.  It is in the restfulness of dreams that God tells the Magi to return home a different way.  So too in silence and space can God reveal himself to us to...