Thinking Anglicans

Opinion – 11 February 2017

Simon Butler ViaMedia.News The Anti-Testimony (on reading the House of Bishops’ Report)

Giles Fraser The Guardian The church’s strategy on protecting the child is designed to protect itself

Ysenda Maxtone Graham The Spectator The slow, strange race to be the next Bishop of London

Erin Clark a funny thing happened on the way to decorum the duchess be with you

Jem Bloomfield quiteirregular Vada the Omi: On the Polari Evensong

Tim Thorlby Church Times Open up the doors and let the people come in

Emma Percy WATCH What we might learn from the business world about equality and diversity

6 Comments

Opinion – 4 February 2017

David Monteith, Dean of Leicester, On Not Taking Note and Dreaming Dreams

Andrew Nunn, Dean of Southwark, Why we should value the true treasures of the Church

Archdruid Eileen Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley The Church of St Julian and St Sandy

Andrew Lightbown Theore0 ‘Good news!’ ‘Andrew there is no good news.’
Dear Bishops (an open letter suggesting you withdraw your report)

Helen King So, what was the point of all that?

Jeremy Pemberton From the Choir Stalls Anglican Alternative Facts

Savi Hensman Ekklesia Sexuality, gender and disrespect for scripture

Letters to the Church Magazine: February 2017

33 Comments

Opinion – 28 January 2017

Miranda Threlfall-Holmes Baptising Aliens

Church Times leader comment God on Monday
[refers to Setting God’s People Free and Clergy wellbeing]

Andrew Brown The Guardian When faiths collide, the first victims are always the moderates

Kelvin Holdsworth Thurible How to change the Church of England – quick recap

Giles Fraser The Guardian Church language may be hard. But God must transcend words

Phil Groves Living Reconciliation Torture Works, but Love Conquers

2 Comments

Opinion – 21 January 2017

Kelvin Holdsworth marked Winnie the Pooh day with Prayer for the Day – Script 2.

Lynn Wray National Museums Liverpool LGBT artwork marks Saint Sebastian Feast day

Justin Welby Archbishop of Canterbury ‘It defies description’: Archbishop Justin on visiting Auschwitz

David Ison ViaMedia.News An Old Dirty Candle to Transform the Darkness…

4 Comments

Opinion – 14 January 2017

Reactions to Martyn Percy’s 95 New Theses for the 21st century, which we listed last week

Ryan Cook A Reflection: Martyn Percy’s 95 Theses, Bishops & the Transcendent
Ian Paul Psephizo Can bishops save the Church?
Sam Norton Elizaphanian What’s really wrong with the House of Bishops

Andrew Lightbown Theore0 Management, Leadership, success-failure, heresy & idolatry

Jayne Ozanne ViaMedia.News Hopes and Dreams

Nick Young Londonist How London’s Churches Got Their Unusual Names

Anne Jolis The Spectator How the Church of England changed my life: Death, grief and love in a strange city

Miranda France Granta Words and the Word

Nick Tolson Church Times Beware of the siege mentality

19 Comments

Opinion – 7 January 2017

Martyn Percy Archbishop Cranmer The Reformation 500 years on: do we need 95 New Theses for the 21st century?

Andrew Lightbown Only Connect! Thoughts on episcopacy and R&R

Miranda Threlfall-Holmes Church: Ice Dancing or Musical Statues?

Giles Fraser The Guardian A man recently broke into my church. Good on him, I say

The Archbishop of Canterbury preached this sermon during Evensong at St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town, South Africa, on Friday 30th December 2016.

Jonathan Jones The Guardian Crucifixion is horribly violent – we must confront its reality head on

22 Comments

Opinion – New Year's Eve 2016

Madeleine Davies Christian Today Women In Leadership: Is 2017 The Year HTB Will Practise What It Preaches?

Ruth Gledhill Christian Today Should We Work On Christmas Day? After All, Vicars Have To

David Walker ViaMedia.News Bursting the Bubble

Geoff Bayliss Church Times Speaking more of the language of the people
and in response
Doug Chaplin Liturgy: words for speaking, not for reading
Gary Waddington Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi
Justice, Peace, Joy If necessary, use liturgy
[Note: There was a subbing error in the Church Times article, now corrected online. A heading “Complex words that it could be difficult to avoid using” was originally “Complex words that might be avoided”.]

37 Comments

Opinion – Christmas Eve 2016

Linda Woodhead Journal of the British Academy The rise of ‘no religion’ in Britain: The emergence of a new cultural majority
[the text of a lecture delivered in January 2016]

Brian Zahnd Missio Alliance My Problem With the Bible

Alex Taylor, Children’s Ministry Trainer for the Diocese of London The worst Christmas song

Andrew Lightbown Mary & Elizabeth: Renewal & Reform

Harriet Sherwood The Guardian Christmas highlights pressures on C of E’s stretched rural clergy

Andrew Dunning British Library Medieval manuscripts blog The Medieval Origins of the Christmas Carol

Ian Paul Psephizo Should clergy have Christmas day off?

7 Comments

Opinion – 17 December 2016

Simon Jenkins Reform Magazine Jumble sales of the apocalypse

Paul Bayes ViaMedia.News Couldn’t We Just “Dissolve the People”??

Richard Peers Snoring, belching and farting: the stuff of koinonia – Retreat 2016: Glenstal Abbey

Rachel Pugh The Guardian Meet the vicar who’s swapping the sacristy for the surgery

Andrew Brown Church Times The Corbynista path to irrelevance

Jeremy Worthen Church Times The theology behind Renewal and Reform

Kenwyn Pierce Renewal and Reform Peer review – why bother?

Gary Waddington The Busy Priest Estates, the Poor and Culture War Stereotypes

David Goodhew The Living Church Is Anglicanism Growing or Dying? Statistics, the C of E, and the Anglican Communion

Andrew Goddard Church of England Newspaper Why 2017 will be a crunch year for the Church of England

26 Comments

Opinion – 10 December 2016

Andrew Lightbown Renewal, Reform and the ‘resource church’

Sarah Schofield What matters most is how I read my own parish

Richard Peers Advent 2 Sermon: Renewal & Reform, Philip North and Beechgrove

Philip North Church Times Heeding the voices of the popular revolution

The Guardian view on Christianity in Britain: neither here nor there

4 Comments

Opinion – 3 December 2016

Martyn Percy Understanding the Ministry of the Church Today: a lecture in honour of the late Rev’d Canon Dr Ian Tomlinson

Diana Butler Bass Washington Post Forget red and green: Make it a blue holiday instead

Justin Welby New Statesman Travelling to Pakistan, fighting face-blindness and getting cross with myself
The Archbishop of Canterbury writes The Diary.

Kelvin Holdsworth Ten Key Skills for Priestly Ministry

Colin Blakely talks to Philip BaldwinChurch of England Newspaper The campaigner who can’t stop talking about his faith

Jody Stowell ViaMedia.News A Political Advent…

Church Times Leader comment Mammon’s victims

24 Comments

Opinion – 26 November 2016

Jonathan Robinson ξἐνος Measuring Success or Faithfulness

Bishop James Jones delivered the The Tenth Anniversary Ebor Lecture on 23 November: A Journey around Justice.
[also available in alternative formatting here]

David Ison ViaMedia.News “Absolute is NOT fabulous!”

St Chrysostom’s Church, Manchester Bishops’ choices of funeral hymns

Nick Bundock Church Times Grief, self-criticism, and a new immanence

16 Comments

Opinion – 19 November 2016

Lucy Sixsmith On learning from Nineveh

David Emmott Hard or soft?

Simon Butler ViaMedia.News Time to Cultivate Your Garden?

The atheist Derren Brown’s stage show draws heavily on religious influences. He talks to Madeleine Davies for Church Times: An illusion of miracles.

Stephen Bullivant Catholic Herald The real Blessed Lucy of Narnia was even more amazing than CS Lewis’s imagination

3 Comments

Opinion – 12 November 2016

Updated Tuesday to add the last two Percy/Hilton letters

Miranda Threlfall-Holmes Talking Jesus and the natural grammar of evangelism

Linda Woodhead ABC Religion and Ethics How the Church of England Lost the English People

David Walker ViaMedia.News “Monks & Nuns of the Marrying Kind…”

Martyn Percy and Adrian Hilton have been exchanging letters, and Hilton is publishing them on his Archbishop Cranmer blog. Here are the first four; there are two more to come all six.

Martyn Percy on Justin Welby: “there is a marked absence of salient and resonant ‘God-talk’, or any persuasive public theology”
Adrian Hilton on Justin Welby: “he is challenging the ‘principalities and powers’ of institutional existence”
Adrian Hilton: “Is Justin Welby not showing the world Jesus?”
Martyn Percy: the Church of England is being “reformed by bankers.. theology is ruthlessly excluded.. populism and narcissism are in the ascendancy”
Adrian Hilton: Would the appointment of Bishop Martyn Percy offer remedy against Justin Welby’s asserted theological ignorance?
Martyn Percy: Justin Welby “is preparing the ground for a complete volte-face on human sexuality”

The Church of England has published this open letter from William Nye to Martyn Percy in response to fourth of these letters.

46 Comments

Opinion – 5 November 2016

Mike Eastwood Renewal and Reform Neglecting the gifts

Martin Thomas The Spectator Vicar, will you clean my drains? — The things people ask for at an urban rectory

Andrew Lightbown R&R: it really is in the numbers!

Madeleine Davies asked five churchgoers who had not been brought up as Christians for their experiences and their advice. Church Times Faith from a standing start

Mark Hart If only the Church of England didn’t believe in genocide

Hayley Matthews Viamedia.News The Making of Beautiful Women

9 Comments

Opinion – 29 October 2016

Richard Moy Tearing down the Barriers of Corporation Sole

John Wraw, Bishop of Bradwell, Is our vicar-shaped mould too middle class?

Miranda Threlfall-Holmes Infant Baptism: An Anglican Model for Same Sex Blessings?

Andrew Lightbown Getting the leverage into R&R

Madeleine Davies Church Times Making evangelism the main thing, not an optional extra

Jayne Ozanne ViaMedia.News More Tea, Vicar?

9 Comments

Opinion – 22 October 2016

Paul Bayes, Bishop of Liverpool, ViaMedia.News “Calm Down Dear…” – Love and Anger
This article has attracted the attention of The Telegraph (‘Calm down, dear’: how bishops talk down to gay people – by leading bishop) and Christian Today (You Have The Right To Be Angry! Bishop Of Liverpool Advice To LGBT Christians).
Ryan Cook blogs in response.

Andrew Brown The Guardian Scepticism gets you only so far. Even nonbelievers need to have faith

Liz Clutterbuck Church Times Wanted: young women priests

Madeleine Davies Church Times Funding decision sharpens debate about the vision

23 Comments

Opinion – 15 October 2016

Church Times is running a series of articles on Renewal & Reform.
Ethnicity falls behind gender in vocations project Hattie Williams looks into the C of E’s bid to increase ordinations.
High flyers’ training proves popular but can’t escape flak Tim Wyatt discovers perceived gain and loss from the Green report’s outcome. [This one is behind the paywall.]
Shake-up in lay ministry aims to elevate the laity’s calling Hattie Williams talks to the people behind a forthcoming C of E report on leadership.

From the Church of England Communications blog
Sarah Thorpe, Dementia Support Worker for the Diocese of Lichfield, How and why to embrace those living with dementia in your church
Revd Peter Wells, Lead Chaplain at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, ‘None of us is the perfect image of God. We meet each other knowing that no one is perfect.’ How chaplains and the Mothers’ Union support dementia patients in hospital

Simon Jenkins The Guardian There is one sure way to save our ailing churches – give them away
And these letters in reply from Richard Harries, the former bishop of Oxford, and others.

Andrew Lightbown Management, Leadership, Renewal & Reform

36 Comments

Opinion – 8 October 2016

Michael Sadgrove Woolgathering in North East England Evensong

James Harper Ian Paul and moral arguments against homosexuality

Jules Middleton Dog Collar Dilemma: women’s clericals – what on earth to wear?!
Dog Collar Dilemma Part 2: Uniform vs Individual Style

Jemima Thackray Church Times Following the Quanglican way

Deacon Gill No Mention of the Diaconate

8 Comments

Opinion – 1 October 2016

Andrew Lightbown One Church’s mission but many opportunities
[Church Times subscribers can read the article here.]

David Keen Vicars of the Future: Finding More, Keeping More

David Ison, Dean of St Paul’s, ViaMedia.News Vocations in the Cupboard?

Chris Godfrey The Guardian I‘m the gay son of a preacher man. When I came out to Dad, he was perfect

Single Evangelical women are fighting the stereotypes, reports Madeleine Davies for Church Times The women who hang in there.

Linda Woodhead LSE Religion and the Public Sphere blog The government’s changes to faith schools sides with hardline religion

4 Comments