How well has Britain treated the Jews?

This week marks the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration which paved the way for the establishment of the modern State of Israel 30 years later. The seemingly intractable controversy created by Balfour was summed up by the Hungarian-born Jewish writer Arthur Koestler, who quipped, “one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of … Continue Reading

Tyndale NT Study Group 2018

The Tyndale New Testament Study Group is part of the Tyndale Fellowship for biblical and theological research, based at Tyndale House in Cambridge, and including evangelical scholars from all over the world. The 2018 NT Study Group will be meeting at Tyndale House from 27th to 29th June 2018 (note: one week earlier than previous years). Our theme this year is … Continue Reading

What did large churches ever do for us?

Most of my experience, discipleship and ministry has been in large (or largish) churches. As a student, I attended St Aldate’s in Oxford. After attending small churches in Southampton and Slough, I had the formative experience of seeing a medium-sized church grow large in Poole, Dorset, and in Nottingham have been involved in what had … Continue Reading

Can Hereford change the Church on sexuality?

My favourite film last year was the magnificent Arrival, in which giant alien pods arrive in 12 random places around the world, and the challenge is to interpret their unusual language. (You can’t really go wrong when a film is about hermeneutics). At a critical point half-way through the film, the interpreter Dr Louise Banks … Continue Reading

Where will it all end?

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard … Continue Reading

The shame of Britain’s prison system

Yesterday I went to London to a meeting of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG) which was set up in the 1990s following a clash in Synod about how the Church Commissioners were making investments. It has done some really good work, not only in thinking carefully about complex issues of investment ethics, but also … Continue Reading

What on earth is God up to?

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by … Continue Reading