Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
Last weekend I preached at the church where a good friend is curate, on the occasion of this person’s presiding at Communion for the first time. I am going to label this church as ‘liberal catholic’, since that is how the vicar described it when I asked him, though he did say that not all …
My post last week on whether ordination ‘makes you a priest’ provoked a good deal of discussion and debate. As part of that, I receive a long response from Simon Oliver, who is Van Mildert Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham. I got to know Simon when he was the highly respected head of …
Many people on both sides of the debate have been shocked and alarmed at the rise in abuse towards people from other countries since the result of the referendum. Tanya Marlow is a writer who often explores questions of disability and faith, and she offers here a framework for making sense of what is happening—and offers suggestions for practical action that Christians can take in response.
This is the time of year when ordinations happen, traditionally on the weekend nearest to the festival remembering Peter (‘Petertide’ which fell yesterday) which is either the last weekend of June or the first weekend of July. (It would be much better if this happened in September, but that is the subject for another post.) …
I have been contributing to the Church’s Renewal and Reform stream on developing lay leadership, and one of the questions that has come up is: ‘What does the Church of England actually believe about the laity and lay leadership?’ I am not referring here to what some have called ‘ecclesial lay leadership’, that is, the …
The first dust has settled from the EU Leave vote, but it feels as if the earthquake has only just begun, and there is no telling what foundations it has yet to disturb. David Cameron has resigned; George Osbourne is likely to follow soon. Jeremy Corbyn faces a vote of no confidence, and already Nicola …
We have woken up to the biggest decision in British politics for the last 40 years . Many will be gratified; many will be shocked or surprised; many will be bitterly disappointed. It has resulted immediately in the resignation of the Prime Minister; it will have repercussions across the EU, and might begin a process of …
It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen. Rather than say anything immediately about the Orlando shootings at Pulse, the gay nightclub, I wanted to listen carefully to what others said. I am not sure I have anything better to add, so I am not going to. These are the comments I …
David Clough, Professor of Theological Ethics, University of Chester, writes: Last week, Westminster Abbey found itself in the midst of an unusual controversy. Controversial enough for the Abbey to be hosting a high fashion show, but then People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury pointing out that Gucci, one …
For some time I have been toyed with writing a blog post about what education and medicine need—amateurs. What I mean by that is that in both professions there has been an ‘industrialisation’ of what should be a relational task. So children become products of learning, educational widgets if you like, and through the mechanical …
Today the Ministry Statistics for 2015 are released (soon to be posted on the C of E stats web page) and they tell us the stark reality of decline in clergy numbers. On Radio 4 this morning, Rose Hudson-Wilkins suggested that this wasn’t too worrying, since we can dispense with the model of the ‘white, …
