Anthony Smith

The Quiet Revival: true or false?

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 14:07:22 +0000

I shared some thoughts yesterday in response to recent developments about the withdrawal of The Quiet Revival, the report from Bible Society. In this post, I want to focus in more detail on the claims of the original report and on what happens next.

One of the things Bible Society are not very good at is admitting when they are wrong.

True, most of the blame for the problems with The Quiet Revival lies with YouGov. They have made a statement and issued an apology:

YouGov takes full responsibility for the outputs of the original 2024 research, and we apologise for what has happened. We would like to stress that Bible Society have at all times accurately and responsibly reported the data we supplied to them.

However, it was a sign of naivety on the part of Bible Society to place so much confidence in one dataset, and a sign of hubris to defend it so doggedly against all criticism. They were wrong on both counts, and I don’t think they have admitted this.

BBC News, reporting on the withdrawal of the report, quotes Professor David Voas, emeritus professor of social science at University College London, who was ‘one of those who raised suspicion over the Bible Society’s findings’:

‘We’ve been telling them (the Bible Society) for the better part of a year that there were serious problems with the data – and even what those problems were likely to be – and they refused to engage with us,’ says Professor Voas.

‘I don’t know whether to feel gratified by the vindication or annoyed by the amount of time I wasted in pointing out that the numbers were clearly wrong,’ he says.

Tim Wyatt has been similarly sceptical of the claims of The Quiet Revival, leading to some unpleasant exchanges, which he outlines in a recent post entitled, ‘I told you so’.

The initial report contained not a hint of humility. When a single dataset gives a surprising result, it is a sign of academic virtue for the claims to be couched in tentative language. For example: this is just one dataset, samples of this nature have various vulnerabilities and should always be confirmed by other datasets, and the headline claims should all be qualified with, ‘if these findings prove to be accurate’ or similar, with calls for further research.

Instead, The Quiet Revival was written with the language of absolute certainty: ‘proof’ (pp. 12, 48), ‘fact’ (pp. 12, 43, 48), ‘proves’ (p. 42), etc. On the reliability of the sample, they say:

Is the methodology sound?

Yes, both surveys we draw from are based on large, representative samples from one of the country’s leading research companies. Both sample sizes give a 1% margin of error at a 99% confidence level, meaning they are highly reliable (p. 46, cf. p. 11).

This means that they thought we could be 99% sure that results based on the whole dataset are accurate to within plus or minus 1%.

It is difficult to square this with their new claim that ‘We’ve always been open about the fact that a 12 per cent figure for churchgoing might be too high’. While that may be true of subsequent comments, there is not a hint of that uncertainty in the original report.

Now that the dataset underlying The Quiet Revival has been withdrawn as unreliable, does that mean Bible Society are withdrawing their claims of a ‘Quiet Revival’? Far from it. From the FAQs (emphasis added):

Were the original findings simply wrong, or is the picture more complicated?

The error means that we can’t rely on the YouGov data, but the amount of corroborating evidence that’s emerged during the last year means that we’re still confident that there is a Quiet Revival going on, with more young people open to faith, a greater warmth towards Christianity, and churches across England and Wales reporting their own experience of growth.

(Notice the subtle shift from statistical evidence to anecdotal evidence when they speak about church growth.)

Bible Society issued a statement, which includes the following:

We would wish to stress that YouGov’s error does not mean that all of the findings were wrong – it means that we cannot reliably support those findings on the basis of this survey.

They have issued a new report, as described on their website:

But this isn’t the end of the Quiet Revival story. During the last year we’ve heard amazing stories of growth from churches across England and Wales. We’ve found new data and surveys that back up our conviction that a real change is happening. Our new report, The Quiet Revival one year on: what’s the story? outlines our reasons for believing this. We hope you’ll be encouraged.

(Notice again the shift from statistical evidence to anecdotal evidence when they speak about church growth.)

However, that new report makes no claims about church growth. It includes Bible Society analysis of Pew Research Center data from 2024, which broadly agrees with the original findings of The Quiet Revival, and also similar research from the British Social Attitudes Survey in 2024, which presents a very different picture. Far greater prominence is given to the Pew data, while the British Social Attitudes findings are confined to a single figure near the end of the report. There is no baseline in a previous year, which is why I say that this new report makes no claims about growth. Indeed, had they included data from previous years from the British Social Attitudes Survey, this would have presented clear evidence of decline.

I have to say that this blatant favouring of datasets that give the results you want to believe to be true is a clear sign of a lack of humility and honesty on the part of the researchers. They seem more eager to advance a narrative than to seek the truth.

What next? From the new report:

It seems to us that, with the appropriate learning applied to changed procedures, such errors can be avoided in the future. For this reason we intend to work with YouGov on a further 2026 wave of our research programme – another large-scale survey of attitudes toward the Bible and faith that will enable us to refresh and update The Quiet Revival report later this year. However, we will also commission other providers using alternative methodologies so we are able to offer a rounded picture of Christianity and the Bible in England and Wales (p. 4).

This is a very welcome development. What might this research find? The new report poses a question:

Are the findings of The Quiet Revival report true or false? (p. 4)

But then there is a bit of bait-and-switch about the claims of the original report.

On [this] question, our conclusion is that the core themes and messages arising from The Quiet Revival report are substantially true (p. 4).

What are these ‘core themes and messages’? As follows (emphasis added):

There is a significant change in the spiritual climate in England and Wales

The default position on questions of religious identity is shifting from ‘Christian’ to ‘no religion’

Cultural shifts are leading many, but especially the younger generation, to be more proactive in seeking spiritual and religious foundations for questions of identity, meaning and purpose

Christianity in Britain is experiencing both a decline in nominal faith, and a growth in active faith Increased Bible sales, baptisms, reports of increased church attendance and a surge in individual testimonies all point toward substantial new conversion to Christian faith in recent years (p. 4)

Notice how ‘reports of increased church attendance’ is merely one small part of what they now identify as the ‘core themes and messages’ of The Quiet Revival.

Let’s be clear: the single central claim of The Quiet Revival was that the church is growing. This, surely, is what is meant by ‘revival’. What else is a ‘revival’ if not a period of rapid and significant church growth? It simply will not do for Bible Society to find later in the year that, actually, church attendance has been declining after all, but that there is still a ‘Quiet Revival’ going on, because of all the other things listed above. If there is no increase in overall attendance, then whatever is happening, it is not a ‘revival’. You could describe it as a ‘spiritual awakening’, or a ‘surprising rebirth of belief in God’ (to use Justin Brierley’s phrase), or many other things, but if the overall statistics for church attendance do not indicate significant growth, then we are simply not experiencing what church historians would describe as a ‘revival’. Those other things might give us reason to believe that a genuine revival is on its way, but they do not themselves count as a ‘revival’ in the most obvious meaning of the word.

Let me substantiate my assertion that the single central claim of The Quiet Revival is that the church is growing.

From the back cover, in bold print (emphasis added):

For many decades now, the general assumption has been that Christianity in England and Wales, and in particular churchgoing, is in irreversible decline.

Further down that back cover (emphasis added):

There has, however, been a growing body of evidence over the last few years telling a different story. … Firm numbers, though, have been hard to come by – until now.

Using nationally representative data from a prestigious polling agency, The Quiet Revival demonstrates that far from declining, the Church has been growing since at least 2018. … The Church is transforming before our eyes, and the figures presented in this report show the proof.

Paul Williams, CEO of Bible Society, writes in the Foreword (emphasis added):

For decades, Church attendance and nominal adherence to Christianity has been declining, and it has been assumed that this decline would continue and was in some sense an inevitable product of modernity. While the decline has certainly been real, we now know that the trend has been reversed. The tide of faith, whose ‘melancholy, long-withdrawing roar’ was described by Matthew Arnold, has now turned.

The results of this thorough and robust study demonstrate that over the space of only six years, there has been a significant growth in the numbers of people going to church … (p. 4).

The next page contains the ‘Report in 30 seconds’, including this (emphasis added):

Where once we saw aging congregations and a steady decline in attendance, we see dramatic growth, led by the young. Where once we saw apathy or even hostility to Christianity and the Bible we see increased openness, again among the young. You may have heard the rumblings and rumours emerging over the past few years, you may even have noticed it in your own community, or it might have passed you by entirely – but this data shows that it is real. This is the Quiet Revival. For the first time, this is not just anecdote, but is demonstrated in the latest results of a large, robust and nationally representative population study that has tracked the religious attitudes and behaviours of England and Wales since 2018.

We found that the Church is in a period of rapid growth, driven by young adults and in particular young men. … But we also see that active engagement with a church has a significant impact on the lives of attenders … . Challenges remain for the Church and civic society in responding to this Quiet Revival, but its reality can no longer be denied (p. 5).

The report then has 10 ‘Key findings’, the first of which is ‘The growing Church’ (emphasis added):

Church attendance in England and Wales is on the rise. This represents a startling change to decades-long trends and presumptions, with the most dramatic increase seen among young people, particularly young men. In 2018, just 4% of 18–24-year-olds said they attended church at least monthly. Today this has risen to 16%, with young men increasing from 4% to 21%, and young women from 3% to 12%. … Overall, churchgoing Christians now make up 12% of the population, up from 8% in 2018. In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 – an increase of 56% (p. 6).

After some introductory material, the report begins in earnest by setting the scene (emphasis added):

For many decades now, the general assumption has been that Christianity, and in particular churchgoing, in England and Wales is in a state of permanent decline. …

Yet over the past few years, a different story has been emerging from the peripheries. … But firm numbers have been hard to come by – until now.

Using nationally representative data through a prestigious polling agency, The Quiet Revival demonstrates that far from declining, the Church has grown.

The first chapter, ‘What’s happening?’, begins with this paragraph (emphasis added):

Our results present a radical challenge to long-established predictions around the future of religion – and in particular Christianity – in twenty-first century Britain. Instead of a continuing decline we see explosive growth; instead of a Church populated predominantly by older women, we see a rising number of men and younger generations joining. As a result, the Church is not just growing but transforming, with young adults leading the way (p. 15).

The Quiet Revival is about ‘The growing Church’ (key finding 1) and also ‘The changing Church’ (key finding 2), but it is the growth of the church that is foregrounded, and it is the growing church (rather than the changing church) that warrants the label of ‘revival’.

Are the findings of The Quiet Revival report true or false? This is a simple question. It could be phrased like this: Is the Church in England and Wales in a period of rapid growth or not? If the new YouGov polling finds evidence of significant church growth, then the central finding of The Quiet Revival might well be true, but if the new polling finds evidence of decline, or no evidence of ‘rapid’ or ‘explosive’ growth, then the central finding of The Quiet Revival might well be false. It’s as simple as that.

I hope and pray that the church is growing. I am sure that growth is taking place in some respects, and that decline is not the whole story. Clearly there is decline, in that a churchgoing generation is passing away. But, simultaneously, there is clearly something of a spiritual awakening among the largely unchurched younger generations. Those two trends are both happening. If the growth is significantly greater than the decline, then you could describe the current situation as a ‘revival’. But If not, then it would be wrong to describe this period of church history as a ‘revival’, although there might well be signs that revival is on the way. Whatever the outcome, I hope Bible Society will have the humility to be honest about the new findings.

From evidence to anecdote: on The Quiet Revival

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 18:31:17 +0000

It seems strangely appropriate that Bible Society should remove their report, The Quiet Revival, the day after the Church of England completed its transition from Justin Welby to Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury. Justin Welby announced his resignation on 12 November 2024, while the fieldwork was in progress for the YouGov survey underlying The Quiet Revival, and Sarah Mullally was installed as Welby’s successor on 25 March 2026, the day before Bible Society issued their statement.

Justin Welby, former oil executive, could be seen to embody a statistical and strategic approach to church growth. Soon after his installation as Archbishop, the Church of England published a report about church growth, From Anecdote to Evidence. The title isn’t explained in the report, but the implication seems to be that anecdotes don’t count as real evidence. Instead, what is needed is hard statistics.

In contrast, Sarah Mullally, former nurse, could be seen to embody a more ‘anecdotal’ approach. While strategy and statistics no doubt have their place, nursing, at its core, is about caring for the person in front of you.

The Quiet Revival made claims that many considered to be implausible, and turns out to have been built on unreliable statistical evidence. But it has led people to pay much more attention to anecdotal evidence. Time and again, you hear people saying that, although they are definitely not seeing growth on the scale described in the report (unsurprisingly, we can now say), something is definitely happening, they are noticing an increased spiritual interest, especially among younger people, they have had a few young adults and especially young men show up out of nowhere having read much of the Bible or learned a lot about Christianity online, and so on. Statistical evidence gives way to anecdotal evidence.

Statistical evidence has its place, but anecdotal evidence is much more valuable for most purposes. Anecdotal evidence tells you what is possible, while statistical evidence tells you what is probable. Statistical evidence is useful if you are investing money or making strategic decisions. It might help you decide where to invest resources, in terms of buildings, training, staffing, and the like. But that is not what most churches spend most of their time doing. Anecdotal evidence can give you ideas of things to try. If you hear that another church has tried something and it worked really well, you don’t need a large and expensive survey to tell you that it might be worth trying in your church. If you hear stories of particular people coming to faith elsewhere, that might encourage you to be open to the possibility of something similar happening in your own community. There is really no need for statistical evidence in these cases. It is even possible to spot trends without recourse to statistics. For example, you don’t need hard statistics in order to notice that many young people seem to be interested in Christianity.

Statistical evidence is also a blunt tool. Individual stories are rich and unique, but they are reduced to a single number in a statistical analysis. And then numerous overlapping trends are merged together into one. So if, on the one hand, you have young adults becoming Christians having previously had nothing to do with the church, while, on the other hand, you have a much smaller number of children and young people growing up in the church and staying in the church as young adults, then you could have two opposite trends that balance out and show up as just one apparently constant number in the statistics. It is much more valuable to hear lots of individual stories, rather than reducing everything to just one number.

Where statistics have an advantage, however, is in generating headlines. We would have never heard of The Quiet Revival if it was just a collection of anecdotes (however valuable that might have been). It simply isn’t national news that lots of individuals have become Christians in lots of different situations. But when a reputable company carries out a large survey leading to a report identifying an unexpected trend in society, then that is something that makes the headlines. (The same issues are at stake in scientific research, for example, when the most important findings often emerge gradually, while only the dramatic ‘discoveries’ have a chance of featuring on the news.) Sometimes the features are more interesting than the news.

Much more could be said, I’m sure. But I’ll simply conclude with this: I hope that Sarah Mullally’s installation as Archbishop of Canterbury, and the removal of The Quiet Revival, will help us to turn away from an obsession with national statistics and big strategies, and instead to focus on what God is doing in the lives of the people in front of us.

The Hum, tinnitus, hearing loss, and hearing aids

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 10:13:39 +0000

My hearing aids were fitted a year ago today, so I thought I’d share a bit of my story.

The Hum

It was in October 2024 that I began to experience the Hum whenever I was somewhere quiet. It sounded like a low continuous rumbling sound, around 30 Hz, with pulsations a few times per second. I remember walking around the house and leaning out of the windows, trying to identify the source. Had we left something on in the kitchen? Was there a lorry parked nearby?

I found that I was far from alone. There is a vast amount on the internet about the Hum. There are documentaries, and even a BBC drama. It has been an active topic of research. I even joined a couple of Facebook groups for people who experience it. People have strong opinions about it, and there are numerous theories. I began to investigate possible sources. Was it the sound of a high-pressure gas pipeline, for example?

Tinnitus

‘Tinnitus,’ according to the website of Tinnitus UK, ‘is the sensation of hearing a sound when there is no external source for that sound.’

One hypothesis for the Hum is that, at least in some cases, it is actually a form of low-frequency tinnitus, with no external source.

I began to suspect an internal source for my experience of the Hum one day when I was over 20 miles from home. Seated in a quiet room, the Hum sounded exactly the same as it did at home.

I began to read around some of the scientific literature. One paper struck me as pretty conclusive in demonstrating the possibility of an internal source (tinnitus), at least in some cases: ‘A Detailed Study of Low-Frequency Noise Complaints’, by Christian Sejer Pedersen, Henrik Møller and Kerstin Persson Waye (2008). The authors studied 21 people who claimed to hear a rumbling noise. They made recordings of the noise in their homes and did various tests of the people’s hearing in a controlled environment. Of the 21, they concluded that seven were hearing a physical sound, six were experiencing a rumbling with no physical cause (‘low-frequency tinnitus’), and the others were mostly inconclusive.

People have some very strong opinions about the Hum. I wouldn’t be surprised if I attract some negative feedback to this post. But, for me personally, I was ready to treat my experience of the Hum as low-frequency tinnitus. I was also beginning to experience high-frequency tinnitus (around 10 kHz).

Hearing loss

Tinnitus takes many forms. Mine has been quite mild: not something I notice except in quiet settings. But it was becoming quite irritating, so that I found it difficult to be in a silent room without putting some music on. In addition, I was concerned that it might have been a sign of something more serious. So I went to the doctor, and was referred to the hospital for a hearing test.

To my surprise, it was found that I have mild hearing loss at higher frequencies. Perhaps I had been in denial about that for some time. My wife would sometimes hear the phone ringing next door, but I wasn’t able to hear it at all. (Also, sometimes my wife would say something to me, and it would be as if I hadn’t been listening at all, but that might be an unrelated issue!)

Hearing loss is very common with age, especially at higher frequencies. It’s possible that there may have been other factors – such as too much organ practice, or listening to too many talks through headphones – but it’s difficult to say.

Hearing aids

The audiologist recommended hearing aids. He explained that it is believed that hearing loss can cause tinnitus. If the brain is struggling to pick up real sounds, it can start ‘hearing’ things that are not there. I was told that hearing aids can help with tinnitus.

I was provided with a pair of Phonak Bolero M70-M hearing aids on the NHS (free of charge).

Wearing hearing aids was quite a big deal at first. I was quite self-conscious, but I needn’t have worried. For a start, I wear glasses to help with my vision, so why is it so different to wear something to help with my hearing? People often wear devices in their ears – headphones, earbuds, and so on – so why not hearing aids? Also, they are quite discrete: sometimes I’ve been talking face-to-face with someone about my hearing aids, and they hadn’t even noticed I was wearing them.

But the change to my hearing was much bigger. I wasn’t sure what everything was supposed to sound like, and I think everything was initially turned up much too high by the audiologist who fitted the hearing aids for me. There was a constant loud hissing sound (white noise) and extreme distortion when listening to music or playing the piano. The hearing aids have various controls, either through the buttons on the hearing aids themselves, or through a smartphone app, but I couldn’t get things quite right. I ended up taking them off when listening to any music, and started to wonder whether this was what life was going to be like from now on.

I was sent a questionnaire a couple of months later, and ended up having another appointment with the audiologist a month after that. I met the same audiologist, and this time he adjusted the settings much more carefully, basically turning everything down, and the results have been a lot better. I can now enjoy music with the hearing aids on, and rarely find myself adjusting any of the settings. (There is a music mode, which engages automatically, and the ‘WhistleBlock’ setting is now set to zero in that mode, which reduces distortion of pure sounds.)

All modern hearing aids are quite advanced these days, and include various features and Bluetooth connectivity. Audiologists can enable features as appropriate, which could mean keeping things as simple as possible for elderly people, or enabling lots of features for nerdy people such as myself. For example, my phone alert sounds can go directly to my hearing aids, and I can listen to podcasts and receive phone calls through them.

When listening to music ‘properly’ or playing the piano, I tend to remove the hearing aids (and turn up the treble if listening to the Hi-Fi). But I keep them in when singing in a choir, and they work fine. I do miss the ‘purity’ of just listening with my ears at times, especially when I am adjusting microphone levels on a sound system or listening carefully for background noise.

My hearing aids can also connect to hearing loops using the T-coil (telecoil) setting, although I’ve never found that to be necessary, and the clearer sound is often accompanied by various background noises. Our church notice sheet used to say, ‘Hearing loop: Turn your hearing aid to the “T” position’, but I’ve found that people typically don’t know what this means: they generally don’t have this feature enabled unless they have asked for it, and there is no ‘“T” position’ as such (‘select the T-coil hearing program’ might be more appropriate). In order to be less confusing, I’ve changed the notice to say, ‘Hearing aid loop system: Ask your audiologist to show you!’

What about the tinnitus? Over time this has definitely improved enormously. I still notice it from time to time, but only occasionally, or if I try very hard to hear it. I suppose it could be a coincidence, but that seems unlikely, and I do think the hearing aids have helped in that regard. They have also made it easier for me to hear speech more clearly. I changed the ringtone on our landline handsets to use a lower frequency, and that has solved that problem, but my ‘selective hearing’ is still an issue at times!

I hope this post might be helpful to some readers. Many people have hearing loss but stubbornly refuse to do anything about it. I can think of one older person who was struggling to hear people speaking, was inspired by my example to have a hearing test and then to get hearing aids, and is delighted with the results. It can make a massive difference!

Can Science Explain Everything? (John Lennox)

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 18:00:34 +0000

This short and readable book by John Lennox, from 2019, has a title that I find a bit puzzling: Can Science Explain Everything? I find it puzzling because I don’t think it is the main theme of the book.

Alternative titles might have been: God and Science: Following the Evidence or Science and Christianity: Foes or Allies? or Is Christianity Falsifiable? or Can Science Disprove God? or (from the title of the concluding Chapter 10) Testing the Truth of Christianity.

The theme in the title appears briefly at either end of the book, and is addressed in Chapter 2. Contrary to the claim ‘that science is the only way to truth … a belief called “scientism”’ (p. 26), science has its limits, in that it cannot answer questions of purpose. Furthermore, although ‘the laws of nature describe the universe … they actually explain nothing’ (p. 35). (To be fair, this is more a matter of different levels of explanation: the laws of nature might provide a proximate explanation for why things behave as they do, but the laws of nature cannot provide an ultimate explanation for the laws of nature themselves.)

If the book’s title is only a minor theme in the book, we get a little closer with the question of whether science and Christianity mix. But I don’t think this is the main theme of the book either. The ‘Introduction: Cosmic chemistry’ poses the question of what happens when you combine God and science. Do they mix? Many think it would be an explosive combination. But Lennox wants to suggest ‘that a different kind of cosmic chemistry is possible’ (p. 12). Chapter 1 points out that lots of eminent scientists (past and present) have been Christians. So there is clearly no essential conflict between being a scientist and having faith in God.

The book’s primary theme is not simply the claim that science and Christianity are not incompatible. Lennox invites the reader to be ‘prepared to follow the evidence where it leads’ (p. 12), and, as the book proceeds, it becomes clear that his claim is that a scientific approach to the evidence leads towards Christianity. This is the theme of Chapters 3 to 10.

The Preface contrasts this book with Lennox’s earlier book, God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? (from 2007, updated in 2009), which I read in 2010. That book contains a lot of similar material about the nature of science and the role of faith and evidence, but its focus is primarily on evolution and the question of whether the existence of complex information points towards the existence of an Intelligence (i.e., God). This newer book is much shorter, and its focus is on the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. As such, there isn’t actually a lot of science at the heart of the book – at least not in the ‘physics, chemistry and biology’ sense. The core of the book is really about history – not one of the ‘natural sciences’, but just as ‘scientific’ in its rigorous examination of the evidence. It is possible to investigate ‘unique past events’ in a scientific way, not using a process of ‘induction’ (‘repeated experimentation’), but using a ‘forensic’ process of ‘abduction, or, inference to the best explanation’ (pp. 90-91).

Chapter 3 begins the process of mixing science and Christianity by arguing that science, like religion, depends on faith. Atheism is a belief system, and depends on faith. Science also depends on faith: faith that the universe is intelligible. Which belief system is better as a foundation for science? Atheism provides no basis for trusting our own rationality. Why should we trust our brains, if they are the result of mindless evolution? ‘How could I be impressed with a worldview that undermines the very rationality we need to do science? Science and God mix very well. It is science and atheism that do not mix’ (p. 49). ‘The Bible gives us a reason for trusting reason. Atheism does not’ (p. 51).

Chapter 4 balances Chapter 3 by arguing that Christianity, like science, depends on reason. The Bible supports reason, and there is a biblical mandate for doing science. ‘[W]e should be prepared to follow the evidence where it leads, even if that involves a supernatural dimension’ (p. 60). ‘Christianity is an evidence-based faith’ (p. 62). Indeed, Jesus used signs and rational argument to provide evidence as a basis for faith.

Chapters 5 to 8 form the core of the book, looking at the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. This evidence comes from the Bible, so Chapter 5 is about how we interpret the Bible. We need to keep in mind that ‘The Bible, like all literature and speech, is full of metaphors and highly pictorial language’ (p. 69).

Chapter 6 is about miracles. God established the laws of nature, but this doesn’t mean he cannot intervene to bring about a miracle. This is because ‘Christians do not believe that this universe is a closed system of cause and effect’ (p. 81). ‘Whether any specific miracle, like the resurrection, has actually occurred, is now a historical question, and not a philosophical one, and depends on witness and evidence’ (p. 82).

Chapter 7 looks briefly at high credentials of the New Testament, both in terms of the quality of the manuscript evidence, and in terms of historical reliability.

Chapter 8, ‘How to disprove Christianity’, provides the turning point of the book, and argues that the resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation for the evidence. ‘The existence of the Christian church throughout the world is an indisputable fact. What explanation is adequate to explain the transformation of the early disciples? … If we were to ask the early Church, they would answer at once that it was the resurrection of Jesus’ (pp. 100-101).

Chapter 9 begins to explore the ‘personal dimension’. If the resurrection is true, what does that mean for me? Lennox explains why Jesus died on the cross, and how salvation in Christianity is a gift of grace, not based on merit.

Chapter 10 concludes by urging the reader to test Christianity experientially, by recognising the way that Christian faith has transformed countless lives, and by taking a step of trust in Christ.

The book is really quite evangelistic in it purpose, but in the gentle way you might expect if you’ve ever heard John Lennox speak. It would be ideally suitable for people who are committed to science but who struggle with Christianity.

The Bible Course (as a Lent course)

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 12:42:14 +0000

The New Edition of The Bible Course by Bible Society was launched on 19 May 2025. It consists of eight videos (available for free), a beautifully illustrated Guidebook (£9.99), and loads of resources on the Digital Hub (also available for free). Videos are accessed via the Digital Hub, or the first two are available on YouTube.

I haven’t tried it in a group setting yet, but my impression of the videos and the book is that they are exceptionally good.

Here’s the introductory video:

The back cover of the book explains something of the purpose of the course:

Explore God’s big story one step at a time

Using a unique Storyline, The Bible Course illustrates how all the books, characters and events in the Bible are part of God’s big story, from Genesis to Revelation.

As Bible introductions go, I would say it strikes a healthy balance between paying attention to the Bible’s unity and the Bible’s diversity. It helps people to encounter the Bible in all its rich variety, explaining the different kinds of literature we find in the Bible, and how the Bible speaks into our lives in all sorts of ways. But it also seeks to trace the ‘big story’ from creation to new creation, centred on Jesus Christ. Reading the Bible well always involved zooming out and zooming in – trying to see the big picture, while also paying attention to the details – and this course helps people to do both.

The Bible Course is written and presented by Dr Andrew Ollerton, ‘a theologian, pastor, author and presenter who makes complex ideas simple and relevant’.

This has been my first encounter with The Bible Course, but it is a tried and tested resource going back well over a decade. The ‘New Edition’ is actually the fourth edition. I don’t know when the first edition was released, but the second edition dates from 2013, originally as a set of DVDs with a printed manual, with the videos made available online in 2014. The partnership with Bible Society began in 2015, who republished the manual in 2016, and the third edition was released in 2018.

The course could be completed simply by watching the videos alone, but it is ‘best experienced with others’ (p. 7), and the sessions include Bible studies and questions for group discussion (with a dedicated host area on the hub). There is also a Daily Bible Plan, with readings that help set the scene for the next session.

The eight sessions cover the Bible’s story in chronological order, but with different biblical themes also highlighted in each session, as is clear from the session titles:

Introducing the Bible
Genesis: The Story Begins
Exodus: The Story of Freedom
Kings: The Story of Power
Exile: The Story of Loss
Jesus: The Story of Rescue
Acts: The Story of Mission
Revelation: The Story Completed

We are planning on running The Bible Course in my churches as our Lent course this year, with six sessions during Lent and two after the Easter break. I’ve been perhaps overly excited to find that it fits in very well with the readings in the Church of England’s Sunday lectionary for this year (Year A), especially the Old Testament readings from Lent 2 to Lent 5, providing the opportunity to make connections between Sunday sermons and the course sessions, while still following the lectionary:

2 before Lent: Genesis 1:1 – 2:3 (creation-themed Sunday)
1 before Lent: Exodus 24:12-end (transfiguration)
Lent 1: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
- Session 1: Introducing the Bible
Lent 2: Genesis 12:1-4a
- Session 2: Genesis: The Story Begins
Lent 3: Exodus 17:1-7
- Session 3: Exodus: The Story of Freedom
Lent 4: 1 Samuel 16:1-13
- Session 4: Kings: The Story of Power
Lent 5: Ezekiel 37:1-14
- Session 5: Exile: The Story of Loss
Palm Sunday: Matthew 26:14 – 27:66
- Session 6: Jesus: The Story of Rescue
Sundays after Easter: Acts
- Session 7: Acts: The Story of Mission
- Session 8: Revelation: The Story Completed

ICYMI 6

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 18:16:52 +0000

In case you missed it … 10(ish) things I’ve recently(ish) shared elsewhere.

(1) Worth setting this up: ‘if you’re unconscious or unable to speak, how will first responders know about any medical conditions you have or who to contact? … Most smartphones allow you to set up an Emergency Medical ID that can be accessed directly from the lock screen.’ Why Emergency Contacts & Medical IDs Matter

(2) Hoping that Sarah Mullally’s time as archbishop will be less frenetic than that of her predecessor (but I fear that Andrew Atherstone is in a for a frenetic few months, as he ‘is writing Bishop Mullally’s biography’, as he did for Justin Welby): Sarah Mullally will be a Primate who takes care.

(3) Not sure what’s going on in the (G)global Anglican Communion, but it looks worryingly like the beginning of a split – within the ‘orthodox’ provinces.

The Gafcon Primates Council declared that they are cutting all ties with Canterbury, and that they are the true Anglican Communion. The membership seems to be 12 primates (plus a general secretary). Interestingly, two of those primates are also members of IASCUFO, whose Nairobi-Cairo Proposals of December 2024 are an attempt to reform the Communion from within, making it more conciliar, and allowing ‘degrees of communion’. One of those two primates, Archbishop Samy Shehata (Alexandria), is also very senior in the GSFA, which is the other ‘orthodox’ Anglican body along with Gafcon (click on ‘Team’ under ‘Our Structure’).
GSFA has been issuing their own statements recently, first on 29 September in response to the appointment of a new Archbishop of Wales. In that statement, they reaffirmed their commitment to the ‘Covenant’: ‘“We cannot walk together in sin” but the existence of the Covenant means that there is no need to “walk away from the Communion and its rich inheritance of biblical faith”’. (The ‘Covenant’ has lots of overlaps with the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals.) GSFA’s other recent statement, on 3 October, in response to the announcement about the next Archbishop of Canterbury, also expresses commitment to reforming the Anglican Communion from within: ‘To remedy this, the GSFA offers to all orthodox Provinces a framework of covenanted relationships, rooted in an explicit commitment to orthodox Anglican doctrine and mutual accountability which we commend to the whole Communion as a matter of urgency.’
I don’t know what this all means, but it’s certainly possible to discern different voices among ‘orthodox’ Anglicans. Is this the beginning of a split, with some cutting ties with Canterbury altogether, and others trying to reform the existing Anglican Communion from within?
Helpful analysis from The Living Church: GAFCON Creates Global Anglican Communion
More context: the Gafcon statement was made in Sydney at a meeting of ‘a group of Primates and the founding fathers of Gafcon’ then ratified at ‘an online Global Primates Meeting’. (GSFA mentioned at 23:00.) Enough’s Enough! – A Bible-Centred Reordering of Global Anglicanism – with Laurent Mbanda (The Pastor’s Heart)
This is quite heartfelt (and pointed), from Matthew S.C. Olver at The Living Church (I fear I might not be too surprised about the answer to Question 1…): ‘You Have Broken My Heart’ – A Letter to My Siblings in GAFCON.
Michael Bird: ‘these demands will be divisive within GAFCON provinces and GAFCON sympathetic diocese and churches. The GAFCON exhortation is, in effect, “Pick a side and burn your bridges.” But many conservative Anglicans will not be willing to do that, at least not yet.’ The Anglican Schism: A Brief Guide to What Just Happened and What it Means
Important background information about GAFCON’s statement on the Global Anglican Communion, in an article published by The Living Church: The Inside Story on GAFCON’s Communiqué. The statement was approved in a short online meeting: ‘seven of GAFCON’s 12 primates attended, and an eighth primate confirmed his support the next day. The secretariat has not heard from the four other primates. One [said] he was not invited to the meeting.’ ‘TLC attempted to contact the leader of every Anglican Communion member church that has been associated with GAFCON and received only two replies. Both archbishops acknowledged they had serious reservations about the project but requested anonymity.’ Kenya’s position is unclear. One bishop said: ‘No archbishop can take Kenya away without changing the church’s law. This will be hard to achieve. Breaking with Canterbury may result in breaking the church locally, creating two provinces.’
More on the GSFA’s position in a separate article: GSFA Leader Questions GAFCON Communiqué. As I suspected, this looks like the beginnings of a split within the ‘orthodox’ wing of global Anglicanism.
If you’re following what’s going on with GAFCON and the Anglican Communion, this from The Living Church podcast is well worth listening to: Questions for GAFCON. (For context, based in the USA, ‘The Living Church Foundation is a ministry of unity that champions the catholic and evangelical faith by supporting and resourcing the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion’.)

(4) I think Nigel Biggar makes a strong case here: Is there a case for slavery reparations?. (See also the recent video/podcast at Irreverend.)

(5) I’ve joined a choir: the Cleveland Philharmonic Choir. My first concert was great! You might spot me in one of the photos on Facebook.

(6) The new CofE attendance figures prove that the claims made by Bible Society’s Quiet Revival report just don’t hold up, says Tim Wyatt: CofE attendance is up – but it’s no quiet revival.

(7) Enjoyed reading this feature about Hurworth, one of the villages where I am the vicar: Hurworth near Darlington ‘one of North East loveliest spots’.

(8) Astonishing. We know that the (CofE) Church Commissioners have around £11bn in assets. Well, Trinity, Wall Street – just one church, and by no means a megachurch – has assets which ‘were valued at more than $6 billion in 2020’: Wall Street church resists contributing double to parish-share scheme.

(9) Is ‘genocidal’ (or ‘genocide’) the right way to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza? Nigel Biggar lays things out clearly, as you might expect: Israel’s acts are not ‘genocidal’. (Before you shout ‘rage bait’ – Oxford Word of the Year – let me add: You’ll never guess how it ends!)

(10) Verse 2 seems to be the place to find the richest Christology:

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see!
Hail, the Incarnate Deity!

God of God, Light of Light

He came down to earth from heaven
who is God and Lord of all

a stable place sufficed
the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ

Christmas card message: Peace on earth?

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 10:10:38 +0000

A brief Christmas message, included in Christmas cards distributed around the Riverside Parishes (near Darlington).

When the angels told the shepherds about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, they said: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth’.

It’s easy to wonder what happened to that ‘peace on earth’! Conflicts continue around the world, with no sign of resolution. Life, for many of us, is far from peaceful. And so often we lack the inner peace we long for. What, then, are we to make of the words of the angels? And what should we make of the birth of Jesus?

The first followers of Jesus knew that the world was still far from peaceful. But they continued to speak about the peace that Jesus brought. One of Jesus’ followers put it like this: ‘we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’.

There was peace in the beginning, in the Garden of Eden. But before long we find fear, strife and violence. It all started to go wrong when the first people rejected God. Fear and conflict are the symptoms, but our rejection of God is the root cause.

When Jesus came as our Saviour, he didn’t just come to deal with the symptoms. Instead, he came to deal with the problem itself, by making peace between us and God. Through Jesus, we can know peace with God, and then we can find greater peace within, and we can be agents of God’s peace in the world around us.

May you know peace with God this Christmas!

Hark! the herald angels sing,
‘Glory to the new-born King,
peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!’

Flags, national pride, and God's transforming grace (a sermon on Philemon)

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 14:14:23 +0100

Approximate text of my sermon from a week or two ago, on Paul’s letter to Philemon, relating it to the contemporary situation in the UK.

For what it’s worth, I say ‘Phy-LEEmon’ and ‘Oh-NESSimus’. But you can say whatever you like!

I want to start by saying a bit about flags. If you’ve been out and about or watching the news, I’m sure you’ve noticed that there are loads of flags lining the streets, whether that’s the English flag (the cross of St George), or the British flag (the Union Jack). It’s known as ‘Operation Raise the Colours’, and it’s described as a display of patriotism.

Now, there’s nothing with being patriotic. It’s entirely appropriate to value and celebrate the good things about your country, your family or your culture. There’s an appropriate sort of pride that we can take in these things.

We’ve just heard a letter from the Apostle Paul to a man called Philemon. And Philemon had a lot to be proud about. Philemon lived almost 2000 years ago in the city of Colossae, in modern-day Turkey. He was clearly a man of some means. He had a big house and a big household. He was probably quite successful in business. He would have been quite wealthy. It’s likely that he was a Roman citizen, with all the freedoms, rights and privileges that came with that. Philemon had a lot to be proud about.

And if we feel that we’ve got a lot to be proud about too, then we need to listen carefully. Because this letter that Paul wrote to Philemon is very challenging.

Let me explain a bit more of the story, because it’s quite easy to get lost.

Colossae was around a hundred miles from Ephesus. It might have been when Philemon was visiting Ephesus that he met Paul. And through Paul, Philemon became a Christian. His life was transformed. And he started to use the things he had for the sake of his brothers and sisters in the family of God. He opened his house to others, he was hospitable. They didn’t have church buildings in those days, but a church met in his house. Like a big home group. Christians who were in need would come to him, and he would help them. His life was full of love and faith.

Now, like pretty much anyone of his status in the ancient world, Philemon owned slaves. When we hear that, it’s really shocking to us. How can a Christian have slaves? We’ll come back to that later. But we need to remember that slavery in the Roman world was just the way things were. It was hard to imagine a world without slavery. And we also need to remember that slavery in the Roman world was very different to the transatlantic slave trade, for at least three reasons. First, it wasn’t about ethnicity. Second, slaves could purchase their freedom, and many did. And third, you could rise to quite high status even as a slave.

Anyway, Philemon owned slaves. And one of those slaves was a man called Onesimus, a name which means ‘useful’. Onesimus had run away from his master Philemon. We don’t know why. Maybe there were good reasons.

Onesimus wasn’t a Christian when he ran away. But somehow he’d ended up with Paul. And, through Paul, Onesimus became a Christian.

Now, if you want, you could think of Onesimus as an asylum-seeker. He had fled from his master, and it wasn’t safe for him to return. Maybe he was an economic migrant? But, for Onesimus, it was clear what he needed to do. He needed to go back. But maybe it wasn’t safe for him just to go back on his own.

Earlier in the summer we were looking at Paul’s letter to the Colossians. And that letter was sent at the same time as this letter to Philemon. They didn’t have the Royal Mail in those days, so letters were delivered by hand. And the letter to the Colossians, along with the letter to Philemon, was delivered by one of Paul’s fellow missionaries, a man called Tychicus.

So Onesimus went back to his master Philemon, along with Paul’s friend Tychicus, and along with a letter from Paul to Philemon, urging him very strongly to receive Onesimus back into his household. Paul wanted Onesimus to find asylum – safety, refuge – back in Philemon’s house.

It’s quite risky, isn’t it? Put yourself in Philemon’s shoes. How would you feel about Onesimus? Disappointed? Angry? What would you do if you found him? What would you do if you were an employer, and one of your employees deserted you, or stole something big, or damaged the reputation of the company? How would you feel? Philemon has his reputation to think about too! Paul is asking him to do the unthinkable!

Back to the flags for a minute. Both the English flag and the Union Jack have a big red cross. And that cross, of course, is based on the cross of Jesus. The dominant symbol of Christianity is the cross. If you want to understand the message of Christianity, you need to understand the cross. Some people think that Christianity boils down to this: be nice, just like Jesus. No: Christianity is about Jesus dying on the cross. What’s that all about?

In this letter to Philemon, Paul doesn’t mention Jesus’ death on the cross. (He does mention the cross in the letter to the Colossians, so it’s clearly in his mind.) But the letter to Philemon does include a word at the beginning and end that we often find at the beginning and end of letters in the New Testament. And that word is: grace.

Verse 3 (all quotations from the NIV): ‘Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.’

Verse 25: ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.’

What does grace mean? ‘Grace’ means ‘gift’. Jesus is God’s gift to us, and Jesus gave his life for us.

Now, the thing about God’s grace is that it is given to people who don’t deserve it. Jesus didn’t just die for people who have things to be proud about. Jesus died for people who have nothing to be proud about. Bad people, outsiders, slaves, weak people, sick people, and so on.

Christianity is all about the cross of Jesus. And Christianity is all about God’s grace. It’s about Jesus dying so that people who don’t deserve it can be forgiven and welcomed back into God’s family. People like Onesimus. And people like Philemon.

I want to say three things about grace.

First: Receive God’s grace.

Philemon received God’s grace when Paul told him about Jesus. Onesimus received God’s grace when Paul told him about Jesus.

What about you? Maybe you are exploring Christianity? Maybe you think being a Christian is about trying to be good. Maybe you’ve never thought that Christianity is all about God’s grace.

The most important thing I want for you is for you to receive God’s grace in Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you have done. The offer is there. All the bad things you have done can be forgiven. You can be welcomed into God’s family, not as a slave, but as a son or a daughter. And you can find acceptance and healing because Jesus died and rose again.

And the first thing we should want for anyone we meet is for them to come to know Jesus. So if anyone comes in here – whatever their nationality, whatever their status, whatever they have done – we want them to receive God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

That’s what Paul wanted for Onesimus. Yes, eventually Onesimus needed to return to his master Philemon. But not before he was introduced to Jesus.

That’s the first thing I want to say: Receive God’s grace.

The second thing is this: Be humbled by God’s grace.

Jesus went from heavenly glory to a shameful death on the cross, for our sake. And when we receive God’s grace in Jesus, that leads us to humble ourselves too.

It’s really interesting how the letter begins: ‘Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus’. Now, Paul was in prison, because he was a Christian. But he could have introduced himself differently. In fact, listen to how the letter to the Colossians begins: ‘Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God’. Paul had a lot that he could be proud about. Paul was a Roman citizen. Paul had a good family and a good upbringing. Paul was an apostle, specially chosen by Jesus. But instead, he says, ‘Paul, a prisoner’.

And we see here that Paul is turning the values of the world upside down. That’s what the cross does. And when we see the sign of the cross all around us, that’s what we should think. Jesus humbled himself, for our salvation. And whatever we might boast about, we need to put that to one side.

So, if I was introducing myself, it’s not, ‘Anthony, English and proud of it’. It’s, ‘Anthony, a refugee in the kingdom of God’.

Paul urges Philemon to welcome Onesimus back. Why? Because Onesimus is now Philemon’s brother. That’s what we are: brothers and sisters in Christ. In God’s eyes, Philemon and Onesimus are of equal status! In the church, all of us enter through baptism. It’s a level playing field. All of us receive communion in the same way.

And this is the beginning of the end of slavery.

How can a Christian have slaves? Slavery was everywhere until Christianity came along. True, it took hundreds of years. But there’s no doubt that it was Christianity that led to the abolition of slavery. And we get hints of that in this letter.

What was Paul encouraging Philemon to do? Verse 17 is the key verse: ‘welcome him as you would welcome me’. And welcome him, verse 16, ‘no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother’. Maybe there are even hints that Paul hoped Philemon would grant Onesimus his freedom? If you think of your slave as your brother, you’re not going to treat him the same. And by saying this, Paul planted a stick of dynamite under the whole institution of slavery.

The reason slavery is basically illegal throughout the world today is this: because of Christianity. Because of the grace of God, seen in the cross of Jesus.

Receive God’s grace. Be humbled by God’s grace.

Third: Be an instrument of God’s grace.

Onesimus could have started a new life elsewhere in the world. It would have been quite easy for him to do that. But instead, he took the hard route to reconciliation. Philemon wasn’t just his master now, he was his brother too. They were part of the same family. And when there’s a breakdown of relationships within a family, you do something about it.

Many families are torn apart because of broken relationships. And the family of the church is no exception. When we see the lengths that Paul and Onesimus went to, to bring about reconciliation, we need to stop and think. Are there any broken relationships in our own lives? Are there any fellow Christians that we’re not on speaking terms with? Should we do something about that?

Onesimus didn’t seek reconciliation on his own, but he got Paul to help him. So Paul writes this bold and courageous and risky letter to restore a broken relationship between Philemon and Onesimus.

Sometimes reconciliation isn’t possible. Sometimes it’s simple. And sometimes you need to have someone else involved, as is the case here.

So, again, are there any broken relationships in your own life? Do you need to ask for the help of a third person, to act as a mediator? Or are there broken relationships between other people that you could help to heal? Could you act as a mediator between other people?

Like Paul, and like Jesus, we need to be reconcilers, bridge-builders, peacemakers. We need to be people who search for the lost sheep and bring them home.

Receive God’s grace. Be humbled by God’s grace. Be an instrument of God’s grace.

I wonder what happened next with Philemon and Onesimus. It’s quite interesting that we’ve got this letter, isn’t it? I’m sure Paul wrote lots of letters that haven’t survived. I think it means that Philemon responded well to the letter. Otherwise why would we have it today?

And that same story of transformation is worked out in the lives of every Christian believer, as we receive God’s transforming grace, and as we start to see other people not as slaves and masters, not as citizens and asylum-seekers, but as sisters and brothers in Christ.

And that’s the difference the cross of Jesus makes in our world.

ICYMI 5

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 11:26:03 +0100

In case you missed it … 10 things I’ve recently shared elsewhere.

(1) Justin Welby… Following the TV interview released on Sunday [30 March], I really hope he is able to move on. I’m reminded of two rather sobering articles from a couple of months ago. First, Ian Paul asks, What is Justin Welby’s legacy to the Church of England?

(2) … and second (linked from the first), from The Living Church: Editorial: A Very English Resignation.

(3) This looks quite solid. Some good news about church attendance in England and Wales…?! ‘The Quiet Revival’: huge increase in young people attending church (Religion Media Centre). Research undertaken by Bible Society

(4) Fascinating discussion about ‘The Quiet Revival’, reporting huge increases in church attendance among young adults (impressive cast on the panel!)

(5) What about the (‘imprecatory’) psalms that call on God to be nasty to our enemies? Helpful videos by Steffan Jenkins, showing that the whole book of Psalms is about God showing mercy to his enemies. View the playlist on YouTube, or on the Union website.

(6) This is helpful from Fred Sanders (a few years ago): ‘The eternal God, who always was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, made himself known in the central biblical act of the Father sending the Son and sending the Holy Spirit. … if I know that the Father sent the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are God, then I actually know the central most important thing about the Trinity.’

(7) Jesus is ‘true God from true God’ … Many Christians say this frequently in church, but have you ever paused to think about it? Fred Sanders explains in this video how it gets right to the heart of the Nicene Creed, and right to the heart of who Jesus is as ‘Son of God’

(8) I had been quietly hoping the ‘Quiet Revival’ was on the mark, despite finding it a little hard to believe. Clearly, a lot of younger people are exploring and finding faith in Jesus - which is wonderful - but I’m becoming more sceptical about the scale on which this is happening. See this article by David Voas, who is very much an authority on this kind of topic (to put it mildly) … or listen to the latest episode of More or Less.

(9) Getting ready for driving in the Netherlands again in a couple of weeks. The basic rule is: traffic from the right has priority. Effectively, this means giving way to traffic emerging from side roads to your right (unless otherwise marked). Usually the markings are clear on major roads, so this only really happens on minor roads, but it’s still very confusing!

(10) Kemi Badenoch recently shared about how she lost her Christian faith after learning about the terrible abuse Elisabeth Fritzl endured from her father Josef, despite praying daily to be rescued. Here’s Graham Tomlin’s response to the problems of unanswered prayer and continuing evil in the world.

The Assisted Dying Bill: some brief reflections from a Christian perspective

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 09:08:35 +0100

What should we make of the Assisted Dying Bill?

Here’s how it is described by Dignity in Dying: ‘The Assisted Dying Bill is a proposed law that will give terminally ill, mentally competent adults the option to control the manner and timing of their death.’

It sounds quite reasonable, doesn’t it?

But it’s worth looking a bit deeper. Under the surface, we find two of our culture’s values, rooted in Christianity, but given a secular twist.

First, in our culture, we believe in individual freedom. This is rooted in Christianity. If there is no Creator God, or if the universe as a whole is God, then I am just a drop in the ocean, with no individual significance. But if God created me, then I have value, and my choices matter. However, in our modern world, we have taken the Christian belief in individual freedom, and we have uprooted it from belief in God. Without its Christian moorings, individual freedom means that I am God, my life belongs to me, and I determine whether I live or die.

Second, in our culture, we believe in happiness. This is also rooted in Christianity. If there is no Creator God, or if the universe as a whole is God, then ‘it is what it is’, and we have no reason to expect life to be easy. But if the world is created by a loving God, then there is something deeply problematic about suffering. However, in our modern world, we have taken the Christian belief in happiness, and we have uprooted it from belief in God and belief in eternity. Without an eternal perspective, happiness becomes something that must be enjoyed in this life.

How does Christianity help us to think about assisted dying?

First, in releation to individual freedom, Christianity reminds us that we are not isolated individuals. We are dependent on God, and we are dependent on each other. The greatest gift we can give to others is to be a ‘burden’ to them. This gives them the privilege of sharing in God’s loving care for us. We should never feel bad about relying on the help of others.

Second, in relation to happiness, the best life we can live is in union with Jesus Christ. Jesus endured the pain of the cross on his way to eternal glory. This doesn’t make suffering a good thing – we should always seek to alleviate it – but it does mean that life is always worth living, even when things are tough. There is an eternal perspective.

The Assisted Dying Bill would inevitably encourage people to weigh up whether their life is worth living, and that’s something we should strongly resist. We should never encourage people to consider ending their lives. Life is always worth living, and it’s in relationship that life finds its greatest value: in relationship with others, and in relationship with God.

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry (John Mark Comer)

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 21:40:08 +0100

As I start reading Practicing the Way, John Mark Comer’s bestseller from 2024, I realise I had been meaning to share a few thoughts on his 2019 bestseller, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which I read a couple of years ago.

First, the style.

It’s a bit.

Like this.

I recently shared a link to a very thoughtful post by Samuel D. James on the style of John Mark Comer’s books: The Ruthless Elimination of Paragraphs. The post is behind a paywall now, but if I recall, the basic point is that Comer’s books are light on actual argument, which is the traditional role of a paragraph. The book is extremely readable and very practical, but it’s the kind of book you can read very quickly. I found myself agreeing with much of the book, but the problem with Comer’s style is that it doesn’t force you to think deeply.

The basic claim of the book is exactly as it says on the tin: that we need to be ruthless in eliminating hurry. At times, Comer seems to write as if this is a problem faced by everyone. It certainly resonated with me, but I wonder whether it is quite as widespread as he seems to assume. Perhaps in some contexts it might seem as if everyone is going through life on overdrive, but in my own experience, I keep encountering people who have a much healthier pace of life.

The solution is to copy Jesus, especially in adopting ‘four practices for unhurrying your life’:

Silence and solitude
Sabbath
Simplicity
Slowing

There is a lot of helpful advice in here, but I found Comer’s approach to sabbath somewhat jarring. The biblical sabbath is thoroughly communal: everyone stops work, and everyone rests (and worships) together. Comer’s sabbath, in contrast, is something that individuals or families might practise at a time that suits them. For Comer and his family, it starts on a Friday evening and finishes on a Saturday evening – not because this is the timing of the Jewish sabbath, but because this fits in with their schedule, especially his busy schedule on a Sunday, as a pastor.

As a church minister, I’ve grappled with this myself. I’m quite ‘religious’ about my day off, and it certainly gives me a break from ‘the pressure of my concern for all the churches’ (2 Corinthians 11:28). But I’m also quite determined that Sundays should be a day that I find uplifting and refreshing. I want Sunday to be something of a ‘sabbath’ for me, and not just for my congregations.

Comer clearly reads extensively, and the notes at the end of the book are filled with glowing recommendations. Here are a few of the resources he recommends (*extremely highly), roughly in the order in which they are mentioned in the book:

Peter Scazzero
- The Emotionally Healthy Church (2003)
- *Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (2017)
- The Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast
John Ortberg
- Eternity Is Now in Session (2018)
- Soul Keeping (2014)
- The Me I Want to Be (2014)
- *The Life You’ve Always Wanted (2002)
Dallas Willard
- *Renovation of the Heart (2002)
- The Divine Conspiracy (1998)
- *The Spirit of the Disciplines (1988)
- The Great Omission (2006)
- Life Without Lack (2018)
Ronald Rolheiser
- *Sacred Fire (2014)
- The Shattered Lantern (2005)
Ruth Haley Barton
- Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership (2018)
Richard Foster
- Celebration of Discipline (1998)
- Freedom of Simplicity (2005)
Eugene Peterson
- The Pastor: A Memoir (2011)
Walter Brueggemann
- Sabbath as Resistance (2014)
Alan Fadling
- An Unhurried Life (2013)
Frank Laubach
- Letters by a Modern Mystic (2007)

This should give some idea of where John Mark Comer is coming from.

Darkness and light and the date of Easter (the Venerable Bede and Simon Oliver)

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 11:57:41 +0100

The following is from something I wrote last year for the church in Middleton St George. It was based on my vague recollections of hearing Simon Oliver speak on the topic in much more detail online from Durham Cathedral in 2021, and on Radio 4 in 2022. I’ve just tracked down the first of these (embedded below), and I’m relieved that my vague recollections were reasonably accurate!

The events of Good Friday and Easter invite us to ask the question: Which is going to triumph? Darkness or light? Or will the conflict just continue for ever?

The date of Easter gives us a helpful reminder about the triumph of light over darkness.

The first Easter Day happened at the time of the Passover: the Jewish feast that celebrates God’s victory over the false gods of Egypt, and the deliverance of God’s people out of slavery in Egypt. Passover happens in the Spring, around the time of the March Equinox.

Easter Day is (more or less) as described by the Venerable Bede: ‘the Sunday following the full Moon which falls on or after the [March] equinox’.

Sunday is the first day of the week. It reminds us of the first day of creation, in which God spoke into the darkness and said, ‘Let there be light’ (Genesis 1:3). The resurrection of Jesus is the first day of the new creation.

The March equinox is the moment in the year when light triumphs over darkness, as the day become longer than the night. ‘The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light’ (Romans 13:12, NIV).

It is the full moon that dispels the darkness completely. Without street lights, it would be truly dark at night, except when the moon is shining. The moon is above the horizon for around 12 hours each day. But it is only when the moon is full that those hours fall during the night. Roughly speaking (astronomy is complicated), the first day in the year when you have 24 hours of light will coincide with the first full moon after the March equinox.

If you notice these things, let them remind you: Easter Day is on the way!

Here’s Simon Oliver on the topic, starting at 9:30.

(If the video doesn’t appear, click to watch it on Facebook.)

ICYMI 4

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 13:50:15 +0000

In case you missed it … 10 things I’ve recently shared elsewhere.

(1) The Archbishop of Canterbury is resigning. But do you know his name? This is very striking (Church Times):

[Two days after Justin Welby announced his resignation], “in another YouGov poll, 5856 UK adults were asked whether they had a ‘favourable or unfavourable opinion’ of the Archbishop: 42 per cent said that they had not heard of him…

“A wider YouGov poll was taken a week earlier … Of the weighted sample of 2177 UK adults, 78 per cent did not know who the current Archbishop of Canterbury was.”

(2) Pleased to be listed as a signatory to this letter (published in the Telegraph), opposing the introduction of assisted dying. Full list of signatories here.

(3) Enjoying this recording of one of my favourite Bach chorale preludes, for the season of Advent (the first one in the video). You shouldn’t try to be too clever when playing Bach. Let the music do the work. The walking bass needs to walk, and the rest fits in.

(4) House of Bishops, post-Welby: LLF is no longer going heLL-For-leather. A most welcome development.

(5) Interesting to have a sermon in the news headlines. I wonder what people make of it? Not an enviable task to preach on such an occasion. But I would be surprised if many people were actually challenged by this sermon. In a divided context, those on her “side” will praise her for her courage, and those on Trump’s “side” will just be annoyed. I’m not sure how such a sermon advances the cause of unity, to be honest.

(6) This makes for truly devastating reading: The devastating impact of 15 months of war on Gaza (The Guardian). If you want to do something to help, search for “Gaza appeal” or “Middle East appeal”… .

(7) Very thoughtful post on the style of John Mark Comer’s books (hat tip: Andrew Wilson): The Ruthless Elimination of Paragraphs (Digital Liturgies).

(8) I’d been eagerly awaiting an announcement about the next Bishop of Durham, so I’m very sad to read this update from the Diocese of Durham.

(9) My brief comments on the lectionary are finished! Lots of brief comments, so it’s turned into quite an epic project. Hope it is useful to some… Common Worship Lectionary Commentary.

(10) “Do you have a favourable or unfavourable opinion of the Church of England?” That question makes me think not of my local parish church, but of the CofE nationally (archbishops, etc). But if I was asked about the NHS, I would think local (hospitals, etc). Why is that? Church of England: just 25% now have a favourable view (YouGov).

Churches and schools and church schools: more reading

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 12:35:46 +0000

Continuing to read some Grove Booklets about churches and schools and church schools (see previous posts on church schools and collective worship).

Here are some brief reviews of three booklets from the Grove Education series (starting with the most recent), followed by one from the Grove Youth series.

Paul Rusby & David Tait, Developing a Theologically-rooted Christian Vision in Schools

Published in 2024, this booklet answers the question I was asking myself after reading about church schools: How does a school go about developing a ‘theologically rooted Christian vision’?

The authors are certainly qualified to answer that question, being (respectively) a SIAMS QA inspector and the Deputy Director of SIAMS. (SIAMS, the Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools, is the framework for inspection of church schools.)

Chapter 2 is focused on how to develop the vision, while the remaining chapters are about how the vision is worked out in various aspects of school life (following SIAMS inspection questions 2-5).

A theologically-rooted vision should be rooted in something about God, and it should be appropriate to the context of the school (in terms of the kind of school it is, and also the kind of community it serves). The key is to explore the needs of the school and the community, and to find connections with ‘Christian beliefs about the nature of God and God’s relationship with the world’ (p. 7).

There are plenty of examples in the booklet of what it looks like to have a ‘theologically-rooted Christian vision’. Some of these are more theological than others, it has to be said, while some simply draw on an image in the Bible, with no specific connection with God, such as the image of things growing, as in some of the parables of Jesus. (Given the authorship of the book, this does suggest that schools won’t be criticised for having a vision that is not really very theological, which is reassuring on the one hand, but slightly disappointing on the other.)

This booklet would be very helpful for anyone preparing a church school for SIAMS inspections.

Judie Horrocks, Church in School: From Separate Buildings to Shared Premises

Published in 2018, this booklet is based on some research into ‘churches worshipping entirely in schools’ (p. 3). The research began in the Diocese of Manchester, where the author was based as ‘Church in School Development Worker’ between 2014 and 2017.

(This is particularly interesting to me, as one of my churches worships almost entirely in a school.)

Many of the findings are relatively unsurprising, but worth noting anyway.

The main benefits of such an arrangement are: financial freedom (not having to look after a church building), self-understanding (having to think about what it means to be a church), accessibility (school buildings are accessible and familiar), and greater potential for growth. There are also benefits for the school in having such a close relationship with the church.

The main challenges are: having to share the space, the building not being ideal for ‘occasional offices’ (baptisms, weddings and funerals), being visible, and relating well to the community:

[C]omments [were] made by those who were not able to identify with a church that no longer had a traditional building. A church-in-school did not speak to them of God in a way that they could recognize and understand (p. 15).

However, on balance, ‘there was a consensus that church-in-school was a way of being church that was worth embracing’ (p. 17).

Good practice includes: sustaining good relationships (involving multiple people on both sides), having appropriate written agreements, and creating ‘a climate of mutual respect and tolerance’.

The booklet points to a full report for the research project, and to a special resource pack, both of which are … not available on the Diocese of Manchester website. I have emailed them to enquire, and I’ll update this page if I hear back. (It’s a constant frustration the way that diocese and national Church of England websites become dumping grounds for all sorts of wonderful material, but then so much is lost when it gets out of control and someone decides to start again from scratch.)

Anthony Buckley, Help, There’s a School in my Parish!

Published in 2013, this booklet has a lot of helpful advice about developing relationships with schools. ‘It is written partly with a three-session discussion day in mind; possible questions are listed towards the end’ (p. 3). There is a lot of emphasis on relationships and listening, with some specific comments on assemblies, chaplaincy and governance.

Matt Brown, Loving and Serving Your Local School

Finally, from the Grove Youth series, this booklet was published in 2019, and is written by the National Director of Reality Youth Project. The content overlaps with the previous booklet, but more from the perspective of a youth worker. Again, the emphasis is on relationships, with specific comments on lessons, assemblies, lunchtime groups, chaplaincy, Prayer Spaces in Schools, mentoring, and serving as a governor. It’s a very inspiring read too!

Being Real: The Apostle Paul's Hardship Narratives and the Stories We Tell Today (Philip Plyming)

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 17:08:37 +0000

I purchased Philip Plyming’s book, Being Real, soon after it was published in 2023, and then I took it with me on retreat around a year ago. I’ve just taken it with me on another retreat, only to find that the book that was being read over mealtimes was none other than … Being Real, by Philip Plyming. I took that as a hint that maybe I should actually read it this time!

Philip Plyming has been Dean of Durham since 16 September 2023. Prior to that, he had been Warden of Cranmer Hall in Durham since 8 May 2017. I mention the dates specifically because I was there on both occasions. I trained for ministry at Cranmer Hall between 2016 and 2019, and Philip arrived at the end of my first year. During my final year, I worked closely with him as one of the first pair of co-producers for the Talking Theology podcast, which he hosted, and which was launched in 2019 (I even get a mention in the book’s acknowledgements). Philip was a great support to me as I found a curacy in Durham Diocese, and as I found a post in the diocese as a vicar, and he was kind enough to attend my licensing service just over a month before he took up his new post in Durham Cathedral.

Being Real is about The Apostle Paul’s Hardship Narratives and the Stories We Tell Today. The book had its genesis in the author’s doctoral research, and then developed for over 20 years since that research began. It’s about Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, and it’s about today. There are striking parallels between the two.

The story of Corinth was ‘a story of success’ (p. 23): ‘financially driven and shaped by self-promotion, physical success, image and approval’. In fact, ‘The stories being told in Corinth bear remarkable similarity to the stories being told in our social media world today’ (p. 25).

The young Christian community in Corinth was still living within this story: ‘they were more Corinthian than they were Christian’ (p. 30). This is seen (for example) in the divisions within the church, and in the way they were beginning to look down on Paul as someone who simply didn’t look very successful. Once again, there are similarities with our own day and age. In many churches today, ‘the culture of the church is shaped by the values of the surrounding area’ (p. 37).

This brings us to Paul’s so-called ‘hardship narratives’. This is the name given to six passages in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians in which Paul speaks quite openly of his own hardships: physical, emotional and social (1 Corinthians 4:9-13; 2 Corinthians 1:8-11; 4:7-12; 6:4-10; 11:23-33; 12:7-10). This is a particular feature of 1 and 2 Corinthians. What is the reason for that?

Paul emphasised his hardships in his letters to the church in Corinth because of the cross. For Paul, the cross wasn’t simply an event in the past; it was also a pattern for the present (e.g., p. 57). The message of the cross was diametrically opposed to the values of secular Corinth: ‘because of the cross of Jesus all concepts of divine wisdom and strength need to be redefined’ (p. 60).

It is worth noting in passing that this makes sense only if you have quite a rich theology of the atonement. If Jesus’ death was just an unfortunate episode at the end of his life, or an inconvenient detour on his journey to glory, then there’s no reason for the cross to have enduring significance as a pattern for the Christian life. That can only be the case if Jesus’ death actually accomplished something. This is hinted at in the book:

Because he was utterly convinced that God had been powerfully at work when Jesus died on the cross – paying the price for sin, defeating death, conquering evil – Paul was able to see God at work in his own cross-shaped places of physical, emotional and social suffering (pp. 114-5).

What does it mean to say that God was at work in Paul’s suffering? This is where the resurrection fits in. For example, in 2 Corinthians 4:7-12, Paul speaks about ‘experiencing both the (crucified) death and the (resurrected) life of Jesus at one and the same time’ (p. 69).

This is not Good Friday one day followed by Easter Sunday some time later. This is Good Friday and Easter Sunday happening at the same time.

These are stories of a life patterned on the cross of Christ and empowered by Christ’s resurrection life. Into Paul’s Good Fridays the power of Easter Sunday breaks through (p. 70).

Moving into the present, social media means that we are ‘constructing and curating stories about ourselves … more than ever before’ (p. 76). Very often this is a matter of ‘looking good and being liked … it’s all about the positive impression’ (p. 81). For Christians, there is the added dimension of the way in which people share their testimonies, which tend to have ‘a trajectory towards the positive’ (pp. 86, 91).

What happens when we view our stories through the cross?

We will end up talking more about our own weakness and more about God’s resurrection power.

We will model a dependence on God rather than an image of self-sufficiency.

We will nurture a reputation as a faithful disciple – with all the costs that brings – and not necessarily a successful one.

We will model joy as something that can be held on to through the tears and not just through a broad smile.

We will point to the Jesus of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as God’s good news for a hurting world.

And we will encourage more people than we might have thought possible.

Paul’s shared story of the cross can be ours too (pp. 129-130).

There is lots of helpful advice about how to do this, and various pitfalls to avoid. We need to be wary of oversharing, which can turn into emotional manipulation and an appeal for sympathy (pp. 121, 124). And the stories we share need to be stories of God being at work, not simply stories of things going badly.

What might that look like? Something like this:

‘I thank God that even though this week has been hard, I have been given strength to keep going.’

‘I don’t find it easy to keep hopeful, but I keep looking to Jesus as the one who can handle my fears.’

‘I’ve got some things badly wrong this week, but I am grateful that Christ offers me more compassion than I often show myself’ (p. 126).

Speaking in this way points to a life that is patterned on the cross of Jesus, but simultaneously empowered by the resurrection of Jesus. (The book has several real examples of this kind of thing.)

Being Real is a very helpful book, and well worth reading.

A few reflections.

It would be easy to go against our culture’s obsession with success by simply trying to tell stories about how rubbish everything is. But this would be a mistake. First, it isn’t true: there are always good things going on that we can be thankful for. And, second, such stories might display the pattern of the cross, but they don’t display the power of the resurrection. It’s perfectly appropriate to be honest about how bad things are in many contexts. But the stories we share deliberately in a public or semi-public way should be stories that point people to Jesus, crucified and risen.

As a vicar, I’m conscious that, as well as sharing my own stories, I also find myself ‘constructing and curating’ stories about my churches (not least because I have recently resurrected the Facebook pages for my two larger churches). What kind of stories should I tell?

I want them to be positive stories, on the whole. But is that just an example of buying into a culture that values the appearance of success?

Many churches are very small, with ageing congregations, dwindling resources, and demanding buildings. There are good news stories to be told in those settings – of conversions, new initiatives, special services, and the like. But what about the more challenging stories? How can we tell stories of the decline or even the closure of churches in a way that points not only to the cross of Christ, but also to his resurrection power? Many churches have closed in recent years, and – unless there’s a miracle – many more churches will close in the next few decades. That clearly sounds like a story of weakness and failure. But could it also simultaneously be a story of resurrection power?

This book has certainly encouraged me to start looking more carefully for God at work in unlikely places:

God is fully present in times of brokenness and his resurrection power can be fully at work within them (p. 104).

The true meaning of the manger

Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:21:40 +0000

Jesus wasn’t born in a stable. He was born in the living room, where the animals feed, because there was no room in the guest room (not the ‘inn’).

But that isn’t the point.

Luke, in his Gospel, isn’t interested in the fact that Jesus wasn’t born in a stable. Now, in our our day, we might need to spend a bit of time deconstructing some interpretations that have developed around the mistaken idea that Jesus was born in the stable. But if we devote too much attention to that task of deconstruction, we risk missing the actual point.

What is the point?

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them (Luke 2:4-7, all quotes from the NIV).

Luke is particularly interested in the manger and the cloths. How do we know that? Because he repeats it, and repetition is a sign of emphasis.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields near by, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger’ (Luke 2:8-12).

Again, Luke mentions the cloths and the manger.

Skipping ahead a few verses:

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger (Luke 8:16).

No cloths this time, but there’s the manger for the third time.

The point of the manger is not a roundabout way of saying that Jesus was born in the house surrounded by extended family. If Luke wanted to emphasise that, I can think of easier ways of doing so!

What is the point of the manger?

A manger is a feeding trough, made of stone.

The shepherds are told that the manger and the cloths are a ‘sign’. In other words, they signify something.

What might the manger signify?

A manger is a feeding trough. So the significance of Jesus being born in a manger is that Jesus is … food.

Specifically, Jesus is food for sheep.

Jesus is the ‘good shepherd’ who ‘lays down his life for the sheep’ (John 10:11). He is also the ‘bread of life’ (John 6:35). He said, ‘Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world’ (John 6:51).

These themes return at the end of Luke’s Gospel.

Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea, and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid (Luke 23:50-53).

Here we have another ‘upright’ Joseph, and the body of Jesus is wrapped in a cloth and placed into something made out of stone.

A couple of days later, Peter, who came to think of himself as one of the ‘shepherds of God’s flock’ (1 Peter 5:2), came to the tomb.

Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened (Luke 24:12b).

If we want to grasp the significance of Jesus being wrapped in cloths and laid in a feeding trough made out of stone, we need to head to the stone tomb, where Jesus was wrapped in cloths.

Jesus is the food we need, and he feeds us by dying and rising again.

And that is the true meaning of the manger.

Nostalgia and Christmas

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 20:31:05 +0000

A brief Christmas message, included in Christmas cards and newsletters distributed around the Riverside Parishes (near Darlington).

Nostalgia. I try to avoid it, but it keeps bugging me. Especially at Christmas. Memories of childhood come to mind: the decorations, the anticipation, the excitement, the presents, the food … happy family times!

It’s not often that churches are full these days. But lots of churches are getting bumper attendances at Christmas time (though not on Christmas Day, interestingly). Whether it’s a Christingle service or a traditional carol service, often it’s standing room only. Why is that?

I wonder if nostalgia is part of it. You leave the house, silence your phone, and make your way to a special building – one that brings back happy memories of the past. For an hour or so, you forget the stresses of today and the worries about tomorrow, you listen to familiar stories and sing familiar songs, and you allow yourself to be taken back to a time when life was … simpler.

Why is nostalgia so appealing? I think it reflects a longing that we all have. It’s really a longing for home: a place of comfort and security, surrounded by those we love.

But why is nostalgia so dangerous? If life is difficult in the present, and if the future is uncertain, then by indulging ourselves in the past, it just makes us feel worse when we return to the present. We need more than a bit of nostalgia to sustain us into the bleakness of January and into the rest of 2025.

What if the familiar stories of Christmas might actually be … true? The Christmas story is one of God making his home among us, and inviting us ‘home’ as part of his family.

Try listening carefully to the Christmas message this year, and see if you hear God calling you home. The Christmas story doesn’t need to be something that’s only in the past. It can also be something that sustains us in the present, and gives us hope for the future too.

Vicar ruins Christmas: the truth about ...

Sat, 21 Dec 2024 12:17:32 +0000

… the donkey.

I hate to break it to you.

But there is no donkey.

In the Bible, at least.

There were donkeys around at the time, of course.

And there are donkeys in the Bible.

But no donkeys are mentioned in relation to the Nativity.

(There probably wasn’t a cattle shed either.)

To help set the record straight, a more historically-accurate Christmas song to offer have I…

Not a donkey!
Not a donkey!
Not a cattle shed!
We don’t know how Mary travelled –
Was it on a sled?

How did they go so far?
We don’t know!
We don’t know!
Maybe they had a car?
We don’t know!
We don’t know!

Not a donkey!
Not a donkey!
Not a cattle shed!
We don’t know how Mary travelled –
Was it on a sled?

ICYMI 3

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 19:55:23 +0000

In case you missed it … 12 things I’ve recently shared elsewhere.

(1) Gordon Brown arguing that we need to be shown ‘the benefits of cooperation’: a majority ‘now see life as a zero-sum game. … In every major European country, the results are dramatic: 59% of British respondents believe they can only enhance their personal wealth if others do badly, and just 17% disregarded this notion.’

(2) Gender-distressed children ‘need reassurance, not scaremongering’. Helpful new factsheet from Sex Matters on Gender-distressed youth and suicide risk and blog post on Dispelling the suicide myth.

(3) Better Off Dead? Worth watching this documentary on assisted suicide by actor and disability rights activist Liz Carr. ‘In a society where disabled people are often told they are “better off dead” than disabled, Liz asks: “Should we really be giving more power to end that group of people’s lives?”’

(4) What is politics? Podcast interview with Luke Bretherton. Faced with ‘enemies’, you can kill them, coerce them, or cause them to flee. Or ‘you can do politics: you can negotiate some form of shared life’. Much more than ‘statecraft’. From the Re-enchanting podcast of Seen & Unseen (listen from 5:50).

(5) While watching a video on a desktop (laptop) browser, right click on the video twice to get a magic secret hidden menu, which allows you to launch Picture-in-Picture mode, and the video will always be on top even when you switch to a different application. Who’d have thought! Amazing! (Works for YouTube on a Mac with Safari and Chrome.)

(6) Interesting (to some, perhaps)…

A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies, which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquially as the ‘vestry’. …

During the 19th century, their secular functions were gradually eroded, and finally in 1894 the secular and ecclesiastical aspects of the vestries were separated in local government reforms by the creation of civil parishes. The vestry’s remaining secular duties were transferred to newly created parish councils. Their ecclesiastical duties remained with the Church of England, until they were abolished and replaced by parochial church councils (PCCs) in 1921. …

The only aspect of the original vestry remaining in current use is the annual meeting of parishioners, which may be attended by anyone on the local civil register of electors and which has the power to appoint churchwardens.

(7) Here we go … Scientists find humans age dramatically in two bursts – at 44, then 60 … ‘a sudden accumulation of wrinkles, aches and pains or a general sensation of having grown older almost overnight’.

(8) If you choose hymns and songs for your church … I’m experimenting with a simple spreadsheet that makes it easy to keep track of what has or hasn’t been sung recently … to try it out: File > Make a copy

(9) Enjoying watching and listening to a few of the Proms (as in, ‘the world’s greatest classical music festival’, that kind of ‘Prom’!). Two particularly good ones to watch, with conductor Nicholas Collon…

One is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, played by heart, and preceded by a “musical and dramatic exploration” of the work. Beethoven was deaf, and 139 of his notebooks survive, containing (usually) the other person’s half of a conversation involving Beethoven. We hear extracts from these notebooks, along with an introduction to the piece, involving instrumentalists and singers.
The other is Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony, which is quite simply extraordinary in every possible way.

(10) Web forwarding with SSL/HTTPS … domain provider was going to charge £35 per year to add SSL … is there a free service out there? … Yes! redirect.pizza

(11) Helpful statement about assisted suicide from the Archbishop of Canterbury. He’s not making an explicitly “religious” case (sanctity of life), simply that legalising assisted suicide would inevitably lead to many people feeling that they ought to end their lives early (in order to avoid being a burden), and that good palliative care is where we should be investing our energy.

(12) Have you ever found WhatsApp is suddenly recording a video of you when you were least expecting it? I’ve finally figured it out. All you need to do is swipe up from the bottom of the screen (as if you were simply scrolling through the chat), briefly making contact with the video icon on the way. Then, hey presto, WhatsApp starts recording a video of you, ready to send to everyone in the chat! It’s a ‘feature’ called ‘video notes’.

Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say (Preston Sprinkle)

Sun, 15 Sep 2024 20:10:31 +0100

The best thing about Preston Sprinkle’s 2021 book, Embodied, is the way the author combines truth with grace. Although the transgender conversation is fraught with complexity and controversy, Sprinkle never allows his readers to forget that it is always about people:

This book is about people. A diverse group of beautiful people created in God’s image. People who are often marginalized and misunderstood, shamed and shunned by those who don’t share their experiences. People who are infinitely valuable in God’s eyes (p. 21).

It is clear throughout that Sprinkle never writes from a distance, but that he has deep and meaningful friendships with many people who have transitioned or experience gender dysphoria or live with intersex conditions, and who hold a wide range of views. His passion is for the church to be a place of love, compassion and kindness, while still holding on to traditional convictions about sex and gender.

The Conclusion is entitled ‘Outrageous Love’:

Our cultural moment is one of outrage and uncertainty. … But outrage doesn’t change the world.

Love changes the world. …

We need less outrage and more outrageous love (pp. 221-2).

His words are quite challenging:

The marginalized, the hurting, the shamed and shunned—they all wanted to be around Jesus. They wanted to go to his church. Do they want to go to yours? (p. 222)

Key to this is listening: ‘To listen is to love’ (p. 59). It’s about friendships, much more than about having all the right answers (pp. 61-2).

After emphasising the centrality of people in Chapter 1, the first (and longer) half of the book focuses on the question underlying the topic (while never losing sight of people):

If someone experiences incongruence between their biological sex and their internal sense of self (gender identity), which one determines who they are—and why? (p. 48, cf. p. 24)

This question is explored first by clarifying the terminology in Chapter 2. Some of the key terms are as follows (emphasis added):

Male and female are categories of biological sex based on structures of reproduction (p. 38).

Gender roles have to do with how males and females are expected to act in any given culture. … Gender stereotypes, or masculinity and femininity, describe the general or typical ways in which most males and females act (p. 41).

[G]ender identity is commonly defined as ‘one’s internal sense of self as male, female, both, or neither’ (p. 45).

Gender identity can seem nebulous, but for those who experience gender dysphoria, it is a helpful way of describing their experience (p. 46).

Next, Chapter 3 explores the diversity of transgender experience. Mark Yarhouse is quoted repeatedly: ‘If you’ve met one transgender person, you’ve met … one transgender person’.

Chapters 4 to 6 focus on the Bible. Biological sex—‘our male and female biology’—is ‘a significant part of human identity’ (p. 77). However, the Bible is really very relaxed about gender stereotypes:

Some people identify as trans* in part because they don’t fit the narrow, artificial boxes of gender stereotypes—unbiblical stereotypes sometimes mandated by so-called ‘biblical’ Christians (p. 223).

Chapter 7 is about intersex conditions. Sprinkle challenges the assumption that ‘since intersex, therefore transgender’ (p. 115). Intersex and transgender, he argues, ‘are quite different’, and it is ‘unhelpful to map one upon the other’. People with intersex conditions, also called ‘differences of sex development’ (p. 117), are almost always ‘unambiguously male or female’ (p. 120). In those few cases where this is not the case, they are ‘a blend of the two biological sexes rather than a third sex’: they ‘exhibit a combination of both—the only two—biological sexes’ (p. 122).

Most people are male or female. Some people are both (p. 123).

Chapter 8 examines ‘brain-sex theory’: the idea that ‘some brains are male and others are female’ (p. 129). This idea, Sprinkle argues, is about overlapping traits, rather than a strict binary, and ‘relies on gender stereotypes’ (p. 139).

Chapter 9 is about ‘sexed-soul theory’: ‘Could someone’s soul or spirit be sexed differently than their body?’ (p. 143). The trouble with this is that ‘sex isn’t a spiritual category. It’s a biological one’ (p. 151).

Concluding the first half of the book, Sprinkle answers the ‘question of incongruence’ as follows:

I would say that the Bible and science offer much more evidence to support the view that our biological sex determines who we are. Our sexed bodies determine whether we are male, female, or both; and our embodiment is an essential part of how we image God in the world.

Hence the title of the book, Embodied. He continues:

I don’t think the Bible or science offers enough evidence to suggest that our gender (identity or role) overrules our sexed identity, even if we experience incongruence (p. 152).

The second half of the book addresses some practical matters, beginning in Chapter 10 with so-called Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD).

Whatever you name it, the percentage of teenagers identifying as trans*—a growing number of whom later detransition—has risen exponentially, especially among female teenagers (p. 161).

What would a Christian response look like? It’s important to recognise that ‘ROGD describes one kind of trans* experience’ (p. 174). We need to resist unhelpful gender stereotypes, which can ‘exacerbate the problem’ (p. 176). And we need ‘to create safe communities of love and listening for teens’ (p. 175).

Chapter 11 is on ‘Transitioning and Christian Discipleship’. Sprinkle argues that ‘we should help people accept their sexed bodies as part of their God-given identity’ (p. 185), and that ‘transitioning is not just unwise but also morally wrong’ (p. 186). However,

I can’t emphasize this point enough—if you are a Christian in leadership, or any Christian mentoring or parenting someone who’s trans*, we must give trans* people space to wrestle with the ethical aspects of transitioning (p. 188).

But what if someone has already transitioned?

First, Christians should want trans* people … to flood our churches. … If a trans* person who has transitioned is coming to your church, praise God. I hope they are treated with the utmost kindness and respect (p. 194).

Second, meaningful relationship requires taking a good deal of time to get to know and learn from a trans* person. …

Third, people may come to your church in various shades of transition: social, hormonal, or surgical. Each category presents its own questions (p. 195).

Fourth, discipleship is a long process … . No matter what you think discipleship should look like for a person who’s transitioned, let’s give them some space and grace to work through their obedience to Jesus in the context of a loving, nonjudgmental community (pp. 196-7).

Chapter 12, the final chapter before the Conclusion, is about ‘Pronouns, Bathrooms, and Sleeping Spaces’. On bathrooms (toilets) and sleeping spaces, creative solutions can often be found. On pronouns, Sprinkle argues (gently) for what he describes as ‘pronoun hospitality’. Sometimes it is necessary to meet people where they are (p. 209), and to use someone’s pronouns and chosen name might be ‘necessary for continuing relationship’ (p. 206). But is it lying?

I think a good case can be made for using [a person’s chosen] pronouns, even if they don’t match a person’s biological sex, based on the flexibility of language. In other words, I don’t think using the pronouns a trans* person identifies with is necessarily lying, since they might view the pronoun as a reference to their gender identity—whether you agree with that identity or not—rather than their biological sex. Again, language is a shared social space. In order for people to communicate with each other, somebody has to give in (pp. 210-1).

Finally, there is an appendix on suicidality. ‘No one disputes that suicidality is high among trans* people’ (p. 230). This is clearly a cause for concern. But it is important to remember that ‘trans*-identifying people—especially teenagers—have a rate of co-occurring mental health issues much higher than the average’ (p. 230). In addition, ‘completed suicide rates are still much higher for trans* people who transition than among the general population’, so transitioning is not necessarily the solution (p. 233). Social contagion is also a factor (p. 232).

Suicidality should be addressed with the utmost precaution and thoughtfulness. May we all hope and pray that the church will embody Jesus more vibrantly, working tirelessly to reduce the suicide rate among the people God has entrusted to us (p. 241).

I think this is an excellent book. It is quite thorough, and not everyone will feel inclined to read well over 200 pages on the subject (let alone the copious notes at the end). But it is well worth it. If the book helps to take away some of the fear that surrounds this topic, and to make churches more hospitable to transgender people, it will have served its purpose well.

Our cultural moment is an outrageous one. What we need is a different way. A fresh posture. A radically biblical community. One that affirms bodies, rejects stereotypes, pursues truth with humility, and lavishes grace on everyone who fails (pp. 223-4).