Simon Says ...

The following is a discussion started for a group looking at Sarah Coakley's introduction to Praying for England , 'Prayer, Presence and the Poor':   I want to start by picking out one word, which occurs twice in the opening paragraph.   The word is ‘re-imagining’. Some of us will know that ‘re-imagining ministry’ is one of the priorities the Church of England has set itself for the next five years.   So it is something of a political word.   In this chapter, the word is linked to something Rowan Williams said at his very first press conference immediately after he had been announced as the Archbishop-elect of Canterbury.   Heady days! And something of an irony to be considering it as he prepares to step down from that role.    But the title of the book, I think, encourages us to drop the prefix, and to imagine.   There is a gentle sporting metaphor in ‘Praying for England’ and for two minutes now, I’d like to crudely take that ge...

Review - Michael Turnbull and Donald McFadyen, The state of the Church and the Church of the State: Re-imagining the Church of England for our World Today (DLT, 2012) Despite the rather long-winded title, this is a very interesting book that repays attention.  Written by a former Bishop of Durham (Turnbull) and a more recently ordained priest (McFadyen), it offers a vision of the Church of England (CofE) at the heart of English society. Inspired by Rowan Williams’ remarks at his very first press conference as Archbishop-elect of Canterbury that he longed to see Christianity able ‘to recapture the imagination of our culture’, Turnbull and McFadyen offer an unapologetic and inspiring vision of the CofE as the Established Church and a Church for England: “a church which belongs to England and which serves England in all its manifestations” (p. 3). The authors see the CofE as a church with a particular vocation, “to live deeply within the nation, insisting on a vi...

Mark 3.20-35 The American journalist Franklin Jones once said that “Honest criticism is hard to take – especially when it comes from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger”.   Well, anyone familiar with the life of Jesus will know that he received some fairly harsh criticism from all of those categories of people.   In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is criticized by his family, by “people”, and by the scribes, the religious and legal experts of the day.   But before we look at the whole of today’s Gospel story, let’s just dwell for a moment on the fact that Jesus was criticized.   Too often we make Jesus a bit safe, a bit too easy to get on with.   We make him into someone that no-one could really criticize.   But Jesus was not safe, and the scale of the criticisms that he faced were pretty large.   In the Gospel this morning, we hear Jesus described as mad and as in league with the devil.   He is quite definitely ...

This reflection is occasioned by the recent decision of the House of Bishops of the Church of England to amend the legislation regarding ordaining women as Bishops that is due to come before the General Synod in July.  The changes are here .  The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have issued an explanatory statement . The ‘ Groupof Six ’ officers of the General Synod agreed (but only by a majority) that the Bishop’s amendments were not enough to require the legislation to be returned to the Dioceses, who had passed the legislation overwhelmingly.    There are good blog posts stating that this is an amendment too far , makes no change and is hurtful .  Forward in Faith and Reform have issues press releases saying it is not enough. Women and the Church (WATCH) have issued a (helpful) discussion paper .  That WATCH have not responded with a clear position is an indication of how difficult the bishops’ intervention makes the situation. Th...

Two sets of lectures are now online. The first is the Eric Symes Abbott Lecture , given at Westminster Abbey by Peter Selby.  It is about Mis-establishment.  But anything by Selby is worth a look. The second set is Sarah Coakley's Gifford Lectures .  This is a very prestigious series, and normally one has to wait and buy the book.  I remember Sarah Coakley's lectures on feminist theology from Oxford days,  What impressed me then was the way that prayer formed an important part of what she was teaching. H/Ts to @paulbayes and Faith and Theology

Today we celebrate the feast of St Matthias, who was chosen to complete the number of the Twelve after Judas, who betrayed Jesus, had committed suicide. Just as an aside, I think it is because Judas was dead that the Eleven decided to add Matthias to their number, not because Judas had acted so badly in betraying Jesus.  After all, the others didn't do so well - Peter denied Jesus and all the rest abandoned him.  If there were points for behaviour, then it would only be Mary Magdalene and some of the other women who followed Jesus who counted as apostles. But let's look a little bit more at Matthias.  First of all, he wasn't the obvious choice.  There are two candidates, Matthias and Justus.  Whilst both fulfill the criteria of having been with Jesus from the beginning and being a witness to the Resurrection, neither is just appointed.  They draw lots and Matthias is added to the number of the Twelve.  So, according to the story from the A...

Walter Wink died on 10th May .  He was a great scholar of the New Testament, but more than that he helped others to read the Bible and to model their lives upon it. I was fortunate enough to hear Walter Wink at the Greenbelt Festival in the early 1990s.  He spoke about the powers and about how Christians should read the Bible.  He offered his party piece Bible study on the sermon on the mount, involving someone stripping down to their shorts, was a powerful demonstration that the Bible has a social context and a radical meaning.  I bought the first two books on the Powers at that Greenbelt and devoured them.  Sometime later, I bought a copy of Engaging the Powers , and found a superbly written synthesis of biblical theology informed by a massive range of sources. Wink was often misunderstood.  His audience at Greenbelt halved, once some realised that he wasn't speaking of the Powers in a way that accorded with the Frank Peretti school of de...

Review – Stanley Hauerwas, Learning to Speak Christian (SPCK, 2011) The title alone makes this book worthy of attention.  For Hauerwas, Christianity is not something that comes naturally to us.  To “speak Christian”, to use Christian language about the world needs to be learned, and it is learned above all in worship, in reading Scripture, and in belonging to the church.  “To learn to be a Christian …” says Hauerwas, “ is learning another language” (p. 87).  This makes Christianity difficult, and Hauerwas is quite upfront about this “I do not want to make Christianity easy.  I want to make it hard” (p. 116).             For those already familiar with Hauerwas’ work, this is full of familiar joys.  There is a marvelous, and beautifully simple, demolition of Jonathan Glover’s Humanity (it lacks an account of human good).  And, of course, Hauerwas is the master of the outrageous turn of...

@RupertMyers has this fantastic, and not entirely untrue, account of how to write a Thought for the Day.  Not how I ever approached it (though I only reached the dizzying heights of BBC Radio Bristol), but it has made me thing about how I did go about it!

Apparently, the Deans of Derby and Durham Cathedrals agree on five words/phrases that encapsulate most of their ministry... 1. Welcome 2. Thank you 3. Please 4. Sorry 5. We have it in mind ... Some wisdom in there, I think.

Today is Vocations Sunday, a day on which the church invites us to think about God’s calling to us.  Often the word ‘vocation’, particularly when said from the pulpit, means nothing more than a recruitment drive by the church – wanting more clergy or religious or lay ministers or whatever.  But it is important to remember that we are all called by God.  We were called into being by God, our very existence is a response to God’s call.  In fact the church is called ekklesia in the New Testament which means the community that is called together.  So individually and corporately we are called. Together and as individuals we have a vocation.          And our primary calling is to be ourselves.  ‘Be yourself’ is a refrain that we hear a great deal in our society, and it can be give great freedom to be yourself, not to worry about other people’s expectations.  But there are also times when ‘be yourself’ tends to me...

Tonight. 8pm. The Undercroft, St Mary Redcliffe. Incarnation; Virgin Births; happy sins; and Christmas carols. Many thanks again to Marc for the picture.

Tonight. 8pm. The Undercroft, St Mary Redcliffe. Reaching the parts of Christmas most carol services leave alone. Many thanks to Marc for the picture.

We are celebrating the return of our newly restored pipe organ on Sunday. Two prayers I have written for the event: Christ our King, angels and mortals sing thy praise and trumpet thy victory, we give thee thanks for thy gift of music, for its power to move our spirits and to raise our hearts, for its accompaniment to joy and to lament, and for its witness to thy creativity and life. May we who worship thee here in this place, join our praise with the whole company of heaven and renew our longing for the coming of thy kingdom. We ask this in thy name alone. Amen. O God, whose praise our lips have sung, hear now our prayers: may the melodies we have sung draw us to the message of your Word; may the harmonies we have fashioned deepen our common life in this community, may the rhythm of our praise guide our lives in your service; we ask this through him to whose glory the music of the spheres is played, even Jesus Christ, our Lord and King. Amen.