The Archbishop of Canterbury has recorded his Reflections on Holy Week and given a series of Holy Week Lectures entitled ‘The beginning of the Gospel – reading Mark’s life of Jesus’.
The Archbishop has also given an address on The Fellowship of the Baptized.
The Archbishop has also reviewed Philip Pullman’s new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ for The Guardian. It is also reviewed by Christopher Howse in the Telegraph.
Archbishop Vincent Nichols talks about Holy Week through Art (a 13 minute video).
This week’s The Question in The Guardian is Should we observe Easter or Earth Hour? with these responses.
Stephen Tomkins: A glimmer of hope for the world. A cross, or a crescent, is more likely to inspire collective action for the environment than any secular symbol
Alan Wilson: Redemption from the inside out. Scolding is not enough to turn the tide of human nature. Inner change, not scare tactics, is what’s needed to save us.
Harriet Baber writes in The Guardian about The utilitarian case for Easter. Made-up symbolic gestures and holidays like Earth Hour don’t have the same pizzazz as Easter.
Giles Fraser in the Church Times says Preach the power of Christ risen.
Graham Kings writes in the Times about Perceptions of the Cross. He also has a Holy Week poem, The Hostage Deal, online.
Cole Moreton writes in The Guardian about Welcome to the Church of Everywhere. Organised religion has waned but a new faith has bloomed – epitomised by Jade Goody’s funeral.
[Moreton’s new book Is God Still an Englishman? is reviewed in the Independent by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.]
George Pitcher in the Telegraph asks Will we follow Jesus out of the comfort zone? Easter is a time to reflect Christ’s compassion for the wretched.
It’s not really opinion, but here is a fine set of photographs of Holy Week worshippers from around the world: Holy Week, 2010.
Simon. The link to the D Telegraph review of Philip Pullman’s books take one to the Guardian review again.
Also there has been this from the ABC today http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8601381.stm
and there was an excellent talk by Giles Fraser on Radio 4 at 6am this morning which is worth bringing to a wider audience.http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rmxk9
Richard
I am so pleased to see TA taking its aims seriously in engaging the latest knowledge of science and technology. You have however exceeded yourselves today by shifting time! I read Peter Owen’s posting, date stamped “11.33BST” at 11.15BST. Is either Peter’s PC or your server affiliiated with the new Dr Who? Or just maladjusted?
I’ve corrected the link to the Telegraph review.
I’ve also corrected the timestamp on this article. By default this is set to time when the article is started, which in this case was several days ago. It than has to be manually changed to the actual time of publication. But this has to be in GMT and by mistake I entered it in BST.
The theme in Philip Pullman’s new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is a development from the well known Jesus of history Christ of faith division in some theology. As one who has ‘given up’ (in the Archbishop’s words) I’m not convinced by the Archbishop’s shift to apparent reality from the story. That is to say, the Jesus of history is not Pullman’s stripped down, ordinary, Jesus, and in teh gospels, but still a highly supernatural believing Jesus, who even at the last moments will have contrasted his personal agonies and necessity to go through with it… Read more »
Amazing pictures and was really taken with Filipina Roman Catholic Mary-Jane Mamangun nailed to a cross as a re-enactment of the Crucifixion of Christ during Good Friday celebrations. What ever next: women priests in the RC church?
I read the reviews about the book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. It is clearly a story, a fiction: For one thing, any kid named Christ by his mother would have been mercilessly ribbed by the Greek-speaking Jews of the era. But, the idea of someone faking Jesus’ resurrection reminds me of a non-fiction book from the 1970s called The Passover Plot. It involved the author’s attempt to show Jesus faked his death, but it all went horribly wrong for Jesus (a soldier stabbed him too deeply in the side), Jesus died, and when a friend of… Read more »
I second peterpi’s comments on the Resurrection.
I think “something” happened in that tomb that was certainly not a fraud, was far more than a metaphor, and was much more than the resuscitation of a corpse (the Risen Christ is not a zombie or a vampire). The Resurrection was something transformative, whatever it was.
Dear friends,
Happy Easter from Pomona, California and the TEC Diocese of Los Angeles. Christ is risen. My prayer is that we join together in prayer for resurrection within ourselves, in our communties, in our Churches, in the Communion, and in the human community.
Please enjoy a youtube video of Holy Week at our progressive, inclusive, and thriving parish community. Just click on the link below or enter “st pauls holy week” in the Youtube address bar. Much love to all. Christ is risen, indeed! Karen+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z120_GEvock
“This is the Church. We are a body that ought to care about matters of ultimate concern: about life and death, about salvation. Instead, we are in danger of looking like a silly little pressure group overly absorbed with our own existence.” – Canon Giles Fraser – Once again, we have Fr. Giles ‘telling us how it really is’ – with his honest appraisal of the true value of the dying and rising of Christ. Unless, and until; the Church is willing to ‘die unto itself’ – like Jesus – it cannot be trusted with the proclamation of that quality… Read more »
Congratulations to Fr. George Pitcher. His is a truly evocative summation of what God did for us at Calvary, and what he expects of us as a result.
There can be no resurrection without a death. This is the truth at the heart of our religion.
Thank you, T.A. for this article.
Something may have happened… OK, so I wonder. Assuming the death, which reasonably you do, was it a body that would rot reanimated? No. Was it a spiritual body, like a square circle, in which consciousness was continuous. No. Was it a revived man – no, he wasn’t walking about like a cripple. Was it a set of Christian communities some decade/s on writing accounts of a salvation faith that drew on early Jewish last days resurrection/ first of the resurrected beliefs, of altered expectations under retained expectations. Yes, I would suggest. A heady, no doubt confused, waiting, expectant, meal-ritualistic… Read more »
“The ‘something happened’ school is people looking too hard at night with binoculars and full beam headlights into a fog that you cannot see into…”
Not at all. It’s called faith, and it doesn’t depend upon what I can see. I understand you don’t accept the idea of the Christian leap of faith, but I do wish you showed more understanding of it.
Oh, and: Christ is risen, alleluia!
‘Whatever did happen’ back then the love and goodness of so many people around us today in our neighbourhoods, and beyond is very encouraging and moving – and aren’t we glad it is no respecter of persons, but is shown in all kinds of people religious or no.
May be this is how resurrection works or appears in us now ?
For me something this low-key and modest seems to work quite well ……..
Thank you Bill, for your most appropriate response to ‘Pluralist’s pessimistic view of Resurrection. As you so rightly say; Faith is the key ingredient here and the whole conception of Christ’s Resurrection is more to do with the perception of those who are able and willing to accede to the possibility. Faith is what belief in God is all about. You can’t gain it by the process of intellectual subscription, nor can it be bought by striving. It is pure GIFT.
Christ is risen, Alleluia!
He is risen indeed, Alleluia, Alleluia!
I think the “something happened” school have something of an insight. The empty tomb stories are likely a second strata development, probably liturgical, perhaps connected with the alleged site of Jesus’ burial. The most intriguing witness is the list of appearances from Paul. Clearly there is an original religious experience, a set of interior experiences, that cannot now be recovered. The stories of the empty tomb are perhaps largeley attempts at the mythological and legendary expression of such experiences. At its core, the NT witness is an exaltation spirituality/theology, and surely that is sufficient. Given that most of the appearances… Read more »