Simon Says ...

A Sermon for Evensong   Proverbs 8.1,22-31 ; Revelation 4 Some words from our second Lesson this evening: “Day and night without ceasing they sing”. In the parish church I served before coming here, we hosted a day for the Royal School of Church Music.   It was a great deal of fun, and a good lot of singing went on.   At the end of the day, perusing the visitors book, I found that one of the children attending the day had written “this is a beautiful church and a very good place to sin”.   Perhaps this is a good point to say to our visiting choir that we’ve enjoyed having you very much and we hope that you have found this to be a good place to sin g !   If you’ve found it to be a good place for anything else, then so much the better.             Singing is a very important part of Christian life.   There are very few places in our society that we come together to sing.   Sporting events, pop concerts and church are probably the only places.  

Below is my speech from General Synod this morning.  It relates to Clause 2 of the Draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination ofWomen) Measure (GS1925A) . At the end of my speech I withdrew my amendment , as it would have created legal problems that were probably insuperable. It is reproduced below for the record and for the sake of transparency. Thank you chair. First of all may I say that I am wholeheartedly in support of the ordination of people of all genders to the episcopate. However, I am troubled by the second clause of the draft Measure before us that offers a blanket removal of bishops from the terms of the Equalities Act 2010.  There is some irony in the fact that in order to bring greater equality to the Church of England, we need to find an exemption from the Equalities Act.  That irony should at least give us pause. However, I am troubled by clause 2.  It troubles me that this is not the best way to proceed.  It also troubles me that there is a

Review of: Graham Tomlin, Looking through the Cross: The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book 2014 (Bloomsbury, 2013). £9.99 in Derby Cathedral Bookshop. Various Authors, Reflections for Lent 2014 (Church House Publishing, 2013). £3.99 in Derby Cathedral Bookshop. Lent is traditionally a season for thinking and taking time to read a bit deeper into the Christian faith.   Each year the Archbishop of Canterbury commissions a Lent Book from a writer of note, and this year is no exception.   Graham Tomlin, the Dean of St Mellitus College, London has written Looking through the Cross .   Commissioned by Rowan Williams, but introduced by Justin Welby, this is a book marking the transition between Archbishops.   That it began as talks to Holy Trinity, Brompton is perhaps appropriate. Tomlin’s uses the action of looking as the key to his approach to the cross.   In his first two chapters, this is looking at the cross, to see what it tells us about