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There has been a record-breaking rise in antisemitic incidents in the UK since the attack by Hamas on October 7th 2023. Antisemitic incidents reached the highest level recorded, the monitoring and community safety organisation the Community Security Trust (CST) said. In the 12 months after the 7 October attacks there were 5,583 incidents in the … Continue Reading
Last Friday, the statistics unit of the Church of England released an ‘early snapshot’ of attendance figures, based on the returns from the count that happens in churches in October last year. The headline looked promising: Attendance at Church of England churches grew for the fourth year in a row last year, preliminary figures show. … Continue Reading
Andrew Goddard writes: This week the number of confirmed members of the Canterbury Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) rose from 3 to 14 with only 3 names left to be determined and announced (those from Canterbury diocese). A helpful website provides details of each of the people and the 3 non-voting members. What can we learn … Continue Reading
Ian Silk has written a Grove booklet on the vital subject of encouragement. I interviewed him about it, and include the video below. Here is the start of the chapter of the booklet, to give you a flavour. You can buy from the Grove website here. What is encouragement in common experience, and where is … Continue Reading
Earlier in the year, I was at a conference listening to John Wyatt, the well-known Christian medical ethicist. He spoke about the importance of friendship, and I bought and read his fascinating book Transforming Friendship. Ed Shaw was also there, and had been very influenced by the book, so I asked him some questions about both … Continue Reading
Summary Andrew Goddard writes: Election processes are of limited interest to most people but it is a matter of serious concern when they go wrong. This is especially the case if they are important elections such as those with an impact on who will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. On the basis of the … Continue Reading
I interviewed Dr Rhiannon McAleer about the Bible Society’s report ‘A Quiet Revival’. We started by looking at the headlines from the report, then I pressed her about questions of methodology and whether the findings are robust, before we explored some of the encouragements and challenges arising for the church and church leaders. You can … Continue Reading
Project Spire is the name that has been given to the Church Commissioner’s decision to put aside £100m of their investments to be directed to working with and for communities affected by historic transatlantic slavery, with the intention that it creates a lasting legacy. The £100 million, which will be built up over the 9-year … Continue Reading
There are three questions which come up in relation to the growth of religious movements, particularly the Christian faith. How would you answer each of these? a. Why is Islam growing in the UK and in the world at the moment? b. What was the primary reason for the growth of the early church? c. … Continue Reading
Andrew Goddard writes: Given the events in Canterbury diocese set out in my previous articles (here and here) I was expecting the result of the election of the Canterbury Vacancy in See Committee (ViSC) might raise further concerns—but I did not foresee just how many and how serious they would be. Thankfully few people have … Continue Reading
John Smith writes: My wife sent me a text message a few months ago: ‘Could this be a possibility?’ Attached was an advertisement for a teaching post at a theological college. She thought that here was an opportunity, in that the college was giving preference to candidates who were female, from a non-white ethnic background, … Continue Reading
Ian Paul: theologian, author, speaker, academic consultant. Associate Senior Research Fellow, Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology; Associate Minister, St Nic's, Nottingham; Managing Editor, Grove Books; member of General Synod and Archbishops' Council. Mac user; chocoholic. Tweets at @psephizo
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Gospel commentary index Lectionary Year A
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