Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
Richard Peers, who is Diocese Director of Education in Liverpool Diocese, reflects on his attendance at the 2018 Tyndale NT Study Group. Why? Four or five years ago I was invited to sit on a panel at an inter-faith event. Sat alongside Jewish, Muslim and Hindu panelists we we were each asked to begin with …
As part of building a community of reflection related to the blog, I hosted a one-day Festival of Theology last January, and we had a great time of listening, learning, reflection and discussion. We had over 100 people attending, and as a result I am planning a second Festival on Wednesday 17th October again here in …
In reading the headline, you might think that I am about to explore some of the claims of the recent GAFCON meeting on whether the C of E is being led in the right direction. But in fact I want to explore a much more basic question: are the patterns of ministry and leadership, and …
The debate about eating Iftar meals last week highlights the need for a better understanding of Islam amongst many Christians. Here, Will Jones explores one important area of misunderstanding. Who wrote the Qur’an? You may think the answer to this is obvious: Muhammad wrote the Qur’an. And the crucial difference between Muslims and non-Muslims is …
It might seem odd that the question of whether Christians should join in iftar meals with their Muslim neighbours is a pressing one for the Church in the UK. But following the hosting of a Grand Iftar, to mark the end of the Muslim season of Ramadan, at Southwark Cathedral, reaction appears to have been …
Last Sunday the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, addressed the General Assembly of the Conference of European Churches (CEC) in Serbia, on the issue of continuing Christian witness in Europe. In his talk, he gives a brief overview of the history of Christianity in Europe, and makes some important observations about the role of Christian churches …
If you had to sum up the core message that we had to proclaim in one idea, what would it be? My feeling is that, reflecting on things I have read and conversations that I have been involved in, there is a pretty strong consensus amongst Christians and Christian leaders in the UK at the …
One of our favourite family films was the 2004 cartoon The Incredibles—so we are very excited the the sequel is coming along this summer. In the original, Mr Incredible and his wife Elastigirl have been superheroes, but all the superheroes have fallen out of favour, and had to go into hiding, taking ordinary jobs and …
I was recently reading a discussion on using measures of performance in secondary-school education, about which the author was highly sceptical. He quoted this aphorism (from I know not where): ‘Weighing pigs doesn’t make them any heavier!’ There is a general sense that too many things are being measured inappropriately in our culture, causing multiple …
A couple of weeks ago, Angela Tilby (retired Canon of Christchurch Cathedral, Oxford) unleashed a peculiar diatribe against the upcoming prayer initiative Thy Kingdom Come, complaining that it was tantamount to an ‘evangelical takeover’ of the Church of England. The movement itself is interesting, in that I understand it to have been the personal initiative of …
I have spent more than 30 years giving feedback and encouraging others to do so in a range of professional, personal and ministerial contexts. These have included being a personnel professional in an FMCG multi-national, being an ordained leader working with lay and ordained colleagues, and in the context of theological education. As a result …
