Jen Williams A brave faith What Open Table means to me
Janet Fife Surviving Church Shibboleths and the Love of God
Giles Goddard ViaMedia.News C of E Risks Failure on Human Sexuality Because of Privileged Power
Church Times No action songs, please: there are adults present
“Services that infantilise are counter-productive, says Ines Hands”
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Challenges for Lambeth 2020. The end of the Anglican Communion?
Erika Baker ViaMedia.News Gender Recognition Act – Whose Lives Are Actually At Risk?
David Ison ViaMedia.News Brexit, Sex & Science: How Do We Tackle “Fake News”?
Winnie Varghese Patheos Oh, preacher, give us a good word
Andrew Brown The Guardian The Church of England should learn from Harry Potter this Halloween
40 CommentsAndrew Lightbown Theore0 Reflecting on ecumenism, liturgy and mental health.
Harriet Sherwood has interviewed Michael Curry for The Guardian: Bishop Michael Curry: ‘moderate religious voices’ are not being heard.
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Reflections on human power. The Christian stand against bullying
Andrew Lightbown Theore0 Speaking of cathedrals, mission and evangelism.
Archbishop Cranmer Why, when church attendance is falling, is cathedral attendance soaring?
Fergus Butler-Gallie Church Times ‘Stay weird, Church of England’
“Fergus Butler-Gallie celebrates the evangelistic potential of the weird, and mourns their demise”
Madeleine Davies Financial Times Why I’m still an evangelical in the age of Trump [£]
“Madeleine Davies explains why she isn’t giving up on the movement despite its support for the president”
Jonathan Merritt The New York Times It’s Getting Harder to Talk About God
“The decline in our spiritual vocabulary has many real-world consequences.”
Steve Morris Christian Today Why do I have such a problem with Christian books?
David Goodhew The Living Church Mission in Europe and the Future of Anglicanism
Simon Jenkins Ship of Fools Why Halloween ought to be part of the church year
Jayne Ozanne ViaMedia.News Bishops’ Letters and the Case for the Defence – “Lunatic, Liar, or Lord”
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love The Church of England is open and welcoming to LGBTI+ people – discuss
27 CommentsMadeleine Davies Church Times Clergy Discipline Measure: a harsh discipline?
Laudable Practice ‘And take this holy Sacrament to your comfort’: the heart of the 1662 rite
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Religious Trauma Syndrome. When Faith causes Harm
4 CommentsNeal Michell The Living Church Outreach in the Smaller Church: Four Lessons
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Bible translations and dogma
Andrew Lightbown Theore0 Talking of The Clash, Bonhoeffer, and the Church of England.
Bishop David Walker Viamedia.News My Struggles with Fear & Distrust
Ian Gomersall St Chrysostom’s Church News and Views Mother N and Father M
Jody Stowell Women and the Church God; She, He and everything in between
23 CommentsStephen Parsons Surviving Church Institutional Narcissism and response to abuse survivors
Harriet Sherwood The Observer Church and state – an unhappy union?
Rosie Harper ViaMedia.News Toxic Masculinity & Our Use of Pronouns
… and in response …
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love The myth of the masculine God
Colin Blakely ViaMedia.News Preaching to the Converted?
Tim Matthews Church Times Let’s dispel some myths about church-plants
“There is much more to them than smoothie bars and smoke machines”
Roy McCloughry Church Times A theology of pain
“Roy McCloughry considers the presence of God in the experience of pain”
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Toxic Masculinity -A problem for the Church?
Stephen Mattson Sojourners The Church Must Listen to Women
Diocese of London Why open up?
Richard Peers Quodcumque – Serious Christianity Celibacy: The Gift of Alone for the Whole Church
Erika Baker ViaMedia.News Lizzie’s Legacy – The Urgent Need for Signposting in Every Church
3 CommentsPaul Bayes ViaMedia.News “Welcome to My Church!”
Andrew Lightbown Theore0 Speaking of sexuality, continence and pretense
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Was Jesus heterosexual?
15 CommentsStephen Parsons Surviving Church Church Safeguarding and the Needs of Survivors
[This post refers to the document: Key Roles and Responsibilities of Church Office Holders and Bodies Practice Guidance.]
Giles Goddard ViaMedia.News Bishops – Please Show Us Your Workings
Richard Peers has published a series of four posts on mission on his blog Quodcumque – Serious Christianity.
(1): Mindfulness for Mission – there is no God Shaped Hole
(2): Learning for Mission – it’s all about memory
(3): Seriousness for Mission – the easier we make it the less attractive it is
(4): Morality for Mission: why people think the church is immoral
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Morale of the Clergy of the Church of England
Richard Peers Quodcumque – Serious Christianity Sex, flags and the Bishop of Ely
Andrew Lightbown Theore0 Talking of God to the church and in the public square
Jayne Ozanne ViaMedia.News Is Good Disagreement Possible?
5 CommentsThere was an ecumenical conversation on the Eucharist, organised by Liverpool Parish Church, on 8 September with introductory contributions from the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool and the Chair of the Liverpool Methodist District. The texts of their talks are available here. The Bishop of Liverpool has also published his contribution on his own website: The presence of Jesus.
Jo Kershaw Church Times Keeping the Catholic flame burning
“Let’s not lose the gift of laughter”
Kelvin Holdsworth Who would true valour sing?
Jeremy Morris Viamedia.News Time for “A New Evangelism”?
8 CommentsNeil Patterson ViaMedia.News Sex, Lies & Voting Records
and in response
Jeremy Pemberton From the Choir Stalls Sex, hypocrisy and the body
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Tales of Unhappiness in Anglican Parishes
Andrew Lightbown Theore0 Talking of the future and Archbishop Justin’s potential legacy
The Archbishop of Canterbury addressed the Trades Union Congress earlier this week. You can watch or read his speech here.
For a summary read Hattie Williams in Church Times: Five years ago, Welby shamed Wonga. Now he names Amazon…
“Archbishop of Canterbury launches a scathing attack on the tax system in the UK”
The Archbishop’s speech provoked a lot of comment. Here is a very small sample.
Archbishop Cranmer Curate’s egg or Archbishop’s omelette? Welby tells TUC: gig economy is “reincarnation of an ancient evil”
Anoosh Chakelian New Statesman No, Archbishop Justin Welby isn’t “parroting” Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour
Nick Spencer Theos Arguments against Archbishops
Leader comment The Telegraph The Archbishop of Canterbury should stick to religion and stay out of politics
Tom Harris The Telegraph The church thinks dabbling in politics is cool, but it only hastens its decline
And here’s something the Archbishop wrote earlier this year for Huffington Post: Is Mixing Faith And Politics Worth The Risk?
21 CommentsDavid Runcorn The gift of tears
“Suppressed, hidden, apologised for, writer and speaker David Runcorn asks us to look again at how God can use our tears”
The article refers to photographs of tears by Rose-Lynn Fisher; you can see some of them here.
Rachel Mann The Limits of Sex: The C of E, priggishness, and its violence against LGBT couples
Justin Welby Church Times Religious communities — a work in progress
“They face serious challenges — but there are signs of hope and renewal, says the Archbishop of Canterbury”
Updated to add the Jeremy Pemberton article
Richard Peers Quodcumque – Serious Christianity Sex, Lies and Honesty in the Church: An Anglican Response to James Alison
Jeremy Pemberton From the Choir Stalls Honest to God: responding to James Alison and Richard Peers
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Church Teams – What are they?
Richard Kew The Living Church Living with Cranmer’s Lectionary
Ian Paul Psephizo Why we all need printed Bibles
11 CommentsHarriet Sherwood The Guardian Religion: why faith is becoming more and more popular
Becky Clark Buildings for Mission Shout Out Loud: Why I welcome disagreement on caring for churches
Christopher Exeter Church Times The C of E must speak louder on medical ethics
“Society needs help to navigate the health issues arising from rapid technological advances”
‘Christians don’t like hearing the truth’
Josiah Idowu-Fearon, the first African Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, talks to Madeleine Davies for Church Times.
There’s a podcast of the interview here.
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Some reflections on Evangelical support for Trump
Here’s another article on the same topic from earlier this year
Michael Gerson The Atlantic The Last Temptation
“How evangelicals, once culturally confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory”
22 Comments
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Defending the Church from Scandal -Catholic and Anglican Approaches
Andrew Lightbown Theore0 Talking of depression, anxiety, lies and liturgy
Ruth Hunt gave this year’s Inclusive Church lecture last month. A transcript is now available: LGBT and Faith: Building Bridges in a Polarised World. There is also a video.
2 CommentsRichard Peers Quodcumque – Serious Christianity New Wine United (2): LGBT Issues – “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted …”
Martin Sewell Archbishop Cranmer CofE clergyman tells suicidal sex-abuse victim to “crawl back under a stone”, and that he “probably enjoyed” it
Marcus Green The Possibility of Difference flagging up issues of pride
24 CommentsAndrew Lightbown Theore0 Leadership? What sort of leadership? What sort of Church?
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Secrets, Transparency and the Age of the Internet
Church Times ‘Once we connect on to something, that’s it’
Pat Ashworth discovers the gifts that those with autism are bringing to the Church
Phil Johnson and David Greenwood Premier Christianity Why we need a new law to prevent churches from covering up abuse
2 Comments