Here goes...

The past few months have been a bruising one for our country. The debate over our continued membership of the EU has divided opinions significantly, just as it did in Scotland over the independence debate. The tone of the debate has been unpleasant, and will leave a damaged government, a fractious nation, and contribute to a dangerous trend of a more polarized world. While the USA flirts with a version of politics that threatens global stability, the last thing we need here is an angry Britain, with hurts that may take years to heal. The main lines of the debate have been gone over many times. Each side has its own stronger points – the economic arguments seem to lean towards the Remain campaign, with most financial analysts and commentators arguing for the merits of staying in. Immigration however remains a significant concern for many people, especially perhaps those whose wages might be undercut by immigrants from other European countries who are willing to work for a lower wag...

I have just been in on a series of fascinating discussions on the future of theology in Yale Divinity School in the USA. The premise we were there to discuss was that theology needs to re-think itself as the ‘secular’ world no longer listened to theologians (they don’t produce anything useful, scientifically verifiable or economically profitable) and church didn’t much either (churches being more interested in pragmatic leadership training and no longer read theological books). As a result, theology has tended to drift into the descriptive mode of ‘religious studies’ and lost interest in God. The suggestion was that theology should ultimately be about ‘articulating visions of human flourishing’. It was a fascinating 24 hours. Broadly speaking the thesis held up. Guilty as charged, the theological guild does often come over as talking to itself in ever-smaller circles about ever more abstruse subjects, and did need a new vision of itself and its purpose. The idea that we live in ...

One of  the  characters in Bruce Chatwin's novel 'Songlines' says: “ If the world has a future, it has an ascetic future.”  The point was that unless we learn the disciplines of self-denial there is little chance of a future for the human race, and indeed the very planet on which we live and depend. We know this with our bodies – unless we learn to limit our intake of unhealthy food, our health and wellbeing will suffer. The same is true for the whole world. If we continue to disregard the deep rhythms of creation, consuming all we can of the earth’s resources without limit, we will destroy ourselves, our communities through competition over increasingly scarce resources, and eventually, the very earth God has given us to sustain life. Our culture often subtly treats us first and foremost as consumers – we exist to consume food, wine, TV, clothes, gadgets and all the rest, and so keep the economy afloat. And we can just as subtly buy into that agenda, thought...

The Christmas decorations are emerging from their year-long hibernation and appearing in our streets. Christmas card lists are being prepared, presents planned. The average British person will spend £350 on presents this year. This year £16.5bn will be spent on Christmas in the UK. A walk in Knightsbridge, glancing into shop windows brings a reminder of the luxuriant affluence of this part of the world. Black Friday sweeps all before it, and the financial crash seems a distant memory. This affluence provokes very different reactions. Over recent months we have been painfully aware of two major crises facing us: the migrant issue and the incursion of Islamic radicalism onto the streets of western Europe. One of the reactions that western wealth provokes is envy. People become migrants for all kinds of reasons. Some are fleeing exactly the kind of murderous terror that the citizens of Paris experienced, and yet many others come from north Africa, or other Middle Eastern countries ...

I have a new book coming out,called " The Widening Circle ", published by SPCK - it comes out on November 20th, and the theme is Priesthood - not in the narrow sense of ministers (although it does get onto that in the end) but looking at the broader theme of priesthood in Christian theology. Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting excerpts here on this blog to give you a bit of a taste of the whole thing. First up: Created for Joy The creation accounts in the book of Genesis do not tell us why God created the heavens and the earth. They just tell us that he did. To find the beginnings of a reason, we need to look elsewhere, to one of the other Old Testament books that develops a theology of creation: the book of Psalms. There, the creation exists as a reflection and expression of the goodness and glory of God himself. Psalm 19 begins with the classic statement of this idea: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” (Ps 19.1). Psalm 104 is perhaps the greatest creat...

It's not hard to feel the case for assisted dying. Watching a loved one in pain while terminally ill is hard. The desire to relieve people of suffering is strong and the instincts behind it are often noble. However to legalise assisted dying is is a big step for us to take as a society and there are historical factors that might make us pause before making such a step, however minor it may seem at the time, and however many safeguards surround it. Michael Burleigh's book, ' Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to Al Qaeda'  (2006) is a long read, at times depressing and sometimes inspiring, but always impresssively erudite. One of the most interesting sections is a description of the early development of the Nazis' extermination policies. In 1930s Germany, it started with the gradual acceptance of the idea (as it happens, agreed to by the 'Inner Mission' - one of the main Protestant welfare agencies), that sterilization was ...

" The Savior is working mightily among men, every day He is invisibly persuading numbers of people all over the world.., to accept His faith and be obedient to His teaching. Can anyone, in face of this, still doubt that He has risen and lives, or rather that He is Himself the Life? Does a dead man prick the consciences of men, so that they throw all the traditions of their fathers to the winds and bow down before the teaching of Christ? If He is no longer active in the world, as He must needs be if He is dead, how is it that He makes... the adulterer [cease] from his adultery, the murderer from murdering, the unjust from avarice, while the profane and godless man becomes religious... All the disciples of Christ despise death; they take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead. Before the divine sojourn of the Savior, even the holiest of men were afraid of death, and mourned th...