Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
Have you ever had the experience of attending a church (visiting another, or even attending your own), and what you need is some sense of encounter with God—but the entire attention is taken up with the words on the screen not appearing on time, or the person leading constantly going ‘Ummmm…’ or the thurifer not …
At some point today, someone reading this will be the one millionth page view on this blog! Mostly since June 2013, I have written 544 posts, comprising around 650,000 words, and had 10,277 comments. My first response to this is gratitude—gratitude to God for his faithfulness as I have responded to his call to write, …
It is always entertaining to read the online theological commentary following Trinity Sunday. One of the most popular memes was ‘Heresy bingo anyone?’ (Do a search if you did not see it.) The most strident comment amongst my Facebook ‘friends’ was this: This morning had to listen to another tediously irrelevant sermon on the lines …
There are moments of the year which all preachers dread. Perhaps ‘dread’ is too strong a word; but there is a definite sinking of the shoulders as we, once again, think about finding something new to say on the occasion of the major festivals. Christmas and Easter are, of course, the regular challenges—yet in both …
One of the great puzzles of modern politics is why Donald Trump has done so well when so many people dislike him (and Hilary Clinton too—the US Presidential election is being contested by the two most disliked politicians of modern times). Part of the answer is to be found in his willingness to think the …
It is often claimed, with pride, that the Church of England is a ‘broad church’, and to think this is a bad thing is to be narrow-minded and unreasonable. But the question never addressed is ‘how broad can a church be?’ I would certainly agree that sound theology can never come down to a single …
David Cameron claimed yesterday that leaving the EU could threaten the peaceful co-existence of European nations. Can we be so sure that peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking? I would never be so rash as to make that assumption. His comments were …
Leicester City’s triumph in the Premier League has been hailed as a miracle; even “the most unlikely sporting triumph ever”. On the surface, it appears as though manager Claudio Ranieri is as surprised as anyone at how it turned out. In an interview yesterday he was quizzed on the secret of his success: Interviewer: “What has …
Earlier this week I had a conversation with a friend who has just been recommended for ordination training. He has been meeting with someone else going through selection, and they have been working through the ordinal together. ‘It’s funny—we couldn’t find all that Catholic stuff in the ordinal—it comes over as quite, well, if not …
Leicester City’s triumph in the Premier League is being hailed as ‘the most unlikely sporting triumph ever’ and ‘a miracle’. On the surface, it appears as though the manager, Claudio Ranieri, is as surprised as anyone at how it turned out. In an interview yesterday he was quizzed on the secret of his success: Interviewer; …
Driving back from deanery chapter last week with a colleague, the subject of emails come up—I cannot now remember why, possibly in discussion of ‘What does the rest of the day hold for you?’ The mere mention of the word elicited a deep groan; who looks forward to dealing with their email inbox? It is …
