Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
Yesterday morning, at 10 am, the historic announcement was made as to who will be the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury: Dame Sarah Mullally, the current bishop of London, and former Chief Nurse—appointed to that role when she was 37, the youngest ever appointment. As I have set out previously, the Church of England faces a …
The use of individual cups at Holy Communion is again being hotly debated in Church of England parishes and PCCs. I asked Prof Andrew Atherstone about the fruits of his latest historical research into the topic. IP: As you and others have pointed out in the past, the command of Jesus is to ‘drink you …
Last weekend, in an online conversation, someone highlighted to me the most recent ministry statistics, which were released in June, but seem to have gone under the radar. I certainly did not spot them, and I don’t recall anyone commenting on them. They show that 47.5% of current C of E stipendiary clergy are aged …
Tim Wyatt is an interesting and often astute commentator on things Church of England. Ten days ago he expanded an article he had written in the New Statesman, setting out the challenges facing whoever will be appointed next Archbishop of Canterbury, in a much longer piece on his substack. Tim has interviewed a number of …
When bishops and archbishops speak about migration it always hits the headlines—and never ends well. In 2016, Justin Welby got into trouble when he said that it was quite reasonable to ‘fear’ the consequences of mass migration. There is a tendency to say ‘those people are racist’, which is just outrageous, absolutely outrageous. But in …
There has been some fascinating conversation about this subject in a Facebook group I am part of in the last week. One contributor to that has been Zachary Arden, and I asked him about his interest in this subject and why it concerns him. IP: Zachary, where are you from, and what are you doing …
Andrew Atherstone’s new publication, “Draw Near With Faith”: Invitations to Holy Communion, is out now with Grove Books. I asked him why we need the booklet, and what questions it is trying to answer. IP: What gave you the original idea for this booklet? AA: Almost all my writing begins as a personal question, on …
John Root writes: ‘Being Built Together Volume 1: A Reference on Racial Justice in the Church of England’ (hereafter BBT) is a ‘book of readings and testimonies about the work of racial justice and the experiences of people of colour in the Church of England’ according to the Church’s leading administrator, William Nye. It includes …
Attending General Synod is always an intense experience, and I always need a couple of days to recover, despite trying to be wise in the use of my time and energy whilst there. And it is dangerous making early judgements about the significance of a particular meeting, since this often only comes to light with …
General Synod is currently meeting in York (you can watch the proceedings live on the Church of England YouTube channel), and the debates can vary from the sublime to the ridiculous. Everything is improved with a sprinkling of humour, and to that end I asked ChatGPT how Anthony Trollope might describe the opening of Synod. …
Graham Hunter writes: I have spent a good deal of time in recent years reflecting on questions of personality, role and my impact on others in my work as a Vicar in an inner-city east London parish. In my early years in ministry, if anything was going wrong, or was troublesome and challenging, I would …
