Learning things involves listening. That is obvious - we listen to things we didn't know and we try and fit them into the jumble of impressions, facts, traditions and habits that go to make up the way we know anything. Descartes thought that the human mind was a bank slate, ready to receive sense impressions …
Continue reading The Church of England and the LLF/PLF Process: Listening and Learning
We have just started watching the latest series of Grantchester, the clerical murder mysteries set in the eponymous village near Cambridge. The date is 1958, and the timid curate, Leonard Finch, has, with great tentativeness, started to come out of his closet, and embarked upon a very secretive and illegal relationship with a local photographer. …
Continue reading An anniversary: and some weddings and funerals
Why the House of Bishops' new guidance needs a lot more work if it is going to be listened to.
On the day he was enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013, Justin Welby told the BBC Today programme, “You see gay relationships that are just stunning in the quality of the relationship.” He told the BBC he had “particular friends where I recognise that and am deeply challenged by it”. In Matthew 7.15ff Jesus …
This is my panel contribution to the Open Conversation in Chester Cathedral on Saturday 22nd October 2016 as part of the Sexuality and Anglican Identities project of the University of Chester: We are in 1988. In Zaire. It is Sunday morning. It is very hot and there is no air-con. Church is full - there …
Continue reading The Past, Present and Future of Christian Marriage.
Today is the last day of eight and a half years working as an NHS chaplain. I began what you might call my career at the age of twenty-five when I was ordained deacon in the Church of England's Durham diocese, and, with short breaks for study or illness, I have been doing a variety of …
Continue reading Embodying Love and Hope – The Chaplain’s Calling
From The Quire 