Marcus Borg has been Thinking about Advent.
Christopher Howse of The Telegraph writes about The lonely virtues of a virtual prayer book (with reference to this: Church boosts digital presence with new app).
The BBC reports that MPs discuss plight of Christians across the world. The statistics are a matter of dispute, as Ruth Alexander of the BBC asks here Are there really 100,000 new Christian martyrs every year? and we reported in this opinion article.
The plight of Christians across the world was a good 3 hour debate on the floor of the House of Commons which has received little press attention. The fact that some M.P.s repeated dubious statistics should not detract from the seriousness of the issues raised or from contributions such as that of Sir Tony Baldry on the situation in Syria and Iraq. The question of whether western foreign policy has made the situation for Christians worse was also raised.
Very app-ropriate from Christopher Howse. Luddites, of which I count myself a proud member, will weep of course. Praying should be an always surprising activity.
The subscription based CHP prayer app is good, but a bit steep.
James Porter, via Simon Kershaw, has a subscription-free one that taps in to the daily prayer stream from the CofE.
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/common-prayer-browser-for/id517092836?mt=8
Disagree with the Christopher Howse piece, and it’s wrong to imply the ‘virtual’ Prayer Book is new. The Common Worship smartphone apps have been around for a few years now; they were the first thing that ever got me saying the Daily Office regularly and that is, for most, a solitary activity.