Toby Green writes about the Inquisition in Face to Faith in the Guardian.
Roderick Strange writes in The Times that True prayer begins when we find the kingdom within.
Christopher Howse in his regular Daily Telegraph column writes about A meeting with three unknown persons.
In the Tablet Alain Woodrow writes about the Church in France in No sign of a rapprochement.
The Church Times had a second leader, noting the Church of England connection of John Wolfenden, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 (scroll down to 1967 and all that).
The (second)Church times leader is a true voice of the C of E.
Good for John Wolfenden and Michael Ramsey and the sensible down to earth, love thy neighbour bishops of that time. It took courage back then to stand up publically for a beleaguered minority.
I was only 6 years old when the Wolfenden Report came out, but it changed my life, and I’m forever grateful to him. When at 12 or 13, I realized I had homosexual feelings, I went searching for information. All we had back then were newspaper reports (always about dreadful scandals, violence, arrests of Gay people) and encyclopedia articles. I picked up the Britannica and read about Wolfenden’s Report. It was an eye-opener. I learned that not everyone believed that homosexuality is criminal, immoral, a mental illness; that numerous people in medicine, law and the Church believed (50 years ago!)… Read more »
Thanks for that encouraging piece Josh Thomas.
I too was 16 when the law was reformed in 1967.
And TODAY is the 49th anniversary of the 1967 Act.
Yes much for which to be thankful.
I find Tony Green’s article unconvincing, in that nationalism and religion have always been bedfellows, each feeding off the other. Here is a pasage from The Tablet article showing the connection, referring to the Catholic liturgical Latin traditionalists: _Their political heroes are equally typecast: Charles Maurras, whose far-right Action Française was finally condemned by Pius XI in 1926, the Catholic dictators Franco, Salazar, Pinochet and Videla, and French fascist leaders from Pétain and his Vichy regime, collaborating with the Nazis, to Jean-Marie Le Pen and his racist Front National._ Catholics were pretty happy to chase Mighel Servetus until he went… Read more »
As Ekklesia reports http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5493, some now understand that there are limitations in trying to make everyone alike. Yet, there is a huge scope to rejoice in what another tradition has explored more fully that might have been overlooked in your own. For example, a strange parallel struck me after reading Strange’s article and attending a Catholic funeral earlier this week. Both priests completed the Lord’s Prayer with the line asking God to forgive our trespasses as we are to forgive those that trespass against us. Yet, my mother taught me a version that concludes with “For the power and the… Read more »
For your meditation, Cheryl, thanks. John’s Gospel has always been my favourite, somwhow. Forty-two years ago today, I accepted Christ – not realising then that he has already accepted me. I always remember this milestone in that boy’s life with thanks. I feel especially thankful today for fellowship with ‘God’s people’, or as the Quaker John Woolman put it ‘the Church Catholick’–which he said, at the end whatever our skins and religions, we will all be revealed as one people, God’s (he expressed it better than that) ( spiritual) questors all In my post yesterday, I meant to say the… Read more »
L Roberts
I concur. I always felt that John most represented the character of the man. Whereas Mark, Matthew and Luke were more concerned about the historical veracity of the man. Yet the book of Luke also tried to acknowledge both the character of the man and historical accuracy. All moderated that what was retained was many decades later by an incipient church trying to retain the core of Jesus in a turbulent world, filtered by what would survive in their times (e.g. respect for the feminine was a definite faux pas).
Yes, Cheryl I can see that. I think I liked the Cosmic Christ and universality of John, linked to the light that is ever shining and the logos.
Luke for his attitide to women and the poor of course, and his special tenderness. And the sermon on the plain. And Matthew for the sermon on the mount and for chapter 25.
To me as a Swede, the Wolfenden Report says little (sexual acts between men were criminalized here between 1864 and 1944) but I once knew a Scottish refugee who spoke glowingly of it.