Christopher Howse “loves nothing better than a really terrible bit of verse in church.” He writes about it in the Telegraph: An embarrassing poem for Chelsea Clinton’s wedding
Giles Fraser spoke about the cost of weddings on Wednesday’s Thought for the Day on BBC Radio4. You can read what he said here, or listen to a podcast here. The broadcast prompted this piece from Andrew Brown in The Guardian: What’s wrong with weddings. And Giles also appeared at MailOnline with: I despair of so many weddings – they’re more about ego than love.
Giles Fraser’s Church Times column this week is titled Why Mary Magdalene is a true apostle.
John Milbank gave an interview to Asia News about the impending papal visit to Britain, see Anglican Theologian: Pope’s visit “crucial” for relations between two Churches.
Colin Coward wrote about the launch party this week for James Alison’s new book, Broken Hearts and New Creation – James Alison’s latest book launched at CA London and Southwark meeting.
A great many people have written about the TV programme Rev but I agree with the criticism of Gillean Craig which you can find first here, and then again here.
Rowena Loverance has written the Face to Faith column in the Guardian: Images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An exhibition at Friends House offers a chilling insight into the suffering wreaked by the A-bombs, 65 years on.
Stephen Tomkins wrote at Cif belief that William Wilberforce was complicit in slavery. Wilberforce and his supporters permitted slave labour in Sierra Leone. But is it a fatal blow to his reputation?
I liked Giles Fraser’s piece on Mary Magdalene. For me, John 20:11-16 makes Mary Magdalene human to the point I feel I can almost touch her. Her grief, her distress, and finally, her overwhelming relief when awareness dawns. Between the various gospels, Mary and other women see and believe, then they tell the men, … and the men question the women’s experience or they have to see for themselves. I’ve thought of several wry and rude comments over the years, but I’ll refrain. Women, including the much-maligned Mary Magdalene, were the first witnesses, the first believers, and the men seem… Read more »
Fr. Giles Fraser raises the point that, in the Pope’s latest publication about the friends of Jesus, he omits to mention Mary Magdalene. Not too surprising that – especially in the light of the Roman Catholic Church’s traditional attitude towards the ministry of Women in The Church. Mary Magdalene’s significance as a female disciple and apostle of Jesus, sadly and misogynistically, has been ignored by Rome – in its lack of discernment of the need to harness the particular gifts of the female contribution to apostolic ministry in the ongoing mission of the Church. The original male apostles were not… Read more »
John Milbank seems to be on his own Anglican and ecumenical island, misreading Roman Catholicism. misreading Forward in Faith, and actually I think misreading postmodernism.
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/08/fantasy-island.html
Ron, I fear you confuse apostolic ministry with Apostolic order and the quorum of the twelve.
Here’s the follow-up of the pope’s book, “The other friends of Jesus”
http://www.liturgy.co.nz/blog/other-friends-of-jesus/3741
“Ron, I fear you confuse apostolic ministry with Apostolic order and the quorum of the twelve.” – Robert I. Williams – Robert, in reply to this last statement; one might respond with the phrase ‘Apostolic is, as Apostolic does’ – in other words, Apostolic action is sometime more important in the Mission of Christ than the notion of ‘Apostolic order’ (in the way that you have represented it). A pity that your idea of what you have called *The quorum of the Twelve*, could be seen to be exclusive of any subsequent ministers or ministry – especially that of the… Read more »