Usually when a politician is described as being plain-speaking they’re backbench mavericks. Dennis Skinner is plain-speaking; Nick Winterton too. Rarely do we hear of a front-bencher or a high-ranking minister being acclaimed for speaking their mind openly and honestly. But maybe things are changing with this new government. This week alone we’ve had a health minister – albeit in a ‘personal capacity’ â...

Twenty seven percent of British people believe that the Church of England should not have gay bishops and ten percent believe that they should not have female bishops. Whether the church should have gay women bishops was not asked but you and I could make a fair guess how the numbers would fall, right?

The Church, of course, has just had a rather tormented weekend away in York to discuss the issue of women bisho...

We find it easy in Wales to blame others for any harm done through colonisation of other countries by the British or other European Empires. We can paint a picture that is very black and white, charging the English or the Spanish say with imperialistic crimes while absolving ourselves of any culpability. The truth, however, can often be more subtle and when we begin to scratch the surface of history we find that we too, at ...

The news from Syria is interesting this week (oh yes it is!), for according to AsiaNews.it the government there has banned the wearing of the niqab by students and teachers in schools and colleges. They have done so, apparently, in order to counter the spread of ‘extremist ideas’.

Syria, of course, is ruled by a secular government that is keen to keep religious radicalism away from their young people. This o...

DC launching the Big Socieity - though I've no idea who the woman in the funny hat is.

During the election David Cameron’s idea about a ‘big society’ was dismissed as fluff. Yesterday, however, he offered us some details of how it could work and set up a number of regions where trials would be put in place. I particularly like the fact that there are pilot schemes being set up before the whole policy goes nationwide – ...

Media outlets in Wales like the BBC and Golwg360 thought the fact that the Welsh language was spoken in an official capacity for the first time in Westminster Cathedral was the worthy story on Saturday, and not the fact that the British State used to execute Christians. The great and the good of England and Wales gathered in that great non-conformist cathedral to celebrate the martyrdom of John Roberts, Trawsfynydd.

Robert...

The temple in Jerusalem represented the six days of creation, with the Holy of Holies representing the first day, the veil representing the second and so on. This is one of the many new things I’ve learned from Margaret Barker in a book of hers that I’m reading at the moment – Temple Theology: An introduction (London, 2004).

She also says that there are basically two streams of thought in the Old Testament...

For as long as I can remember I have had a lot of anger in my heart. This anger rarely spilled out in public – but it destroyed my first marriage. And because I generally kept a lid on it, this anger was turned inwards and resulted in a lot of depression over the years – a depression that resulted in two episodes of serious ill-health needing medicine.

To read Jesus saying that keeping a lid on anger won’t do in the Ki...

The story emerging from Afghanistan about three of our soldiers being killed by a ‘renegade’ Afghan soldier is tragic indeed. We are told that we are there in order to bring stability to the country and save our streets from terrorist attacks. To see an Afghan turn on British soldiers like this is therefore quite shocking.

Like many, I feel it is high time we brought our troops home. They have been there far too long. ...

For those with long memories (!) I have been looking at what the NT says about the apostolic ministry. You can see previous posts here and here. In those two posts I looked at Matthew 10 – the first mention of the apostles in the NT. In this post I want to look at the parallel passage in Mark 3. It is, of course, a much shorter passage and does not include the long discourse by Jesus as recorded in Matt 10. But it does se...

Putting someone in prison can be an upsetting business but it can also feed the power-grabbing side of one’s personality. I faced these two contrasting emotions a couple of weeks back when I made a decision – with two other magistrates – to detain a 20 year old for 9 weeks.

The circumstances were simple enough – this young man had caused criminal damage to a number of cars and had been sentenced to a community order ...

Depending on what your poison may be, the Church of England’s General Synod starting today could the most interesting or the most boring event in York this weekend. If you’re an Anglican you’ll probably be following quite closely because the whole thorny issue of women bishops is to be discussed and the meetings are held in the context of the gay priest, Jeffrey John, once again being rejected as a potential bishop. T...

Magnus being martyred

We had some visitors in our Sunday morning church meeting this week – which is big news in itself, really, but there’s more to it than that. To my shame I didn’t catch their names or where they currently live, but they have connections on the Orkneys and used to live there. For a small congregation like ours getting visitors can be quite scary. And of course, visitors can enhance a worship meeting...

A quick update from the Big Brother House – Dave was not nominated by the housemates last night, so he’s probably safe for another week. In fact, not a single person chose him for eviction. This is such a reversal from previous weeks when he’s been up for eviction every time and clearly held in considerable suspicion by some. For those who haven’t followed the series or the fuss surrounding it, Dave is a charismatic Chris...

A howl of anguish is the most frequent response by Christians as the church continues to see how its influence is diminished in the UK. Indeed, this diminishing is sometimes portrayed as the beginnings of persecution as some on the right become ever more strident in their views. Whatever our views on this, we would all have to agree that the church is becoming more marginal in its influence on Western society today. The que...

With Wimbledon over and the football world cup drawing to close, let me pose this question at the beginning of the week – will there be sport in ‘heaven’? Or to put it more precisely, will there be any competitive sport in ‘heaven’? I put the word heaven in quotation marks, of course, because I don’t believe that heaven will be our final destination; rather there will be a new heaven and a new earth and it is on...

It’s not a programme you would usually recommend Christians to follow but with Sloshfest’s Dave Vaughn being one of the housemates, Big Brother has become compulsive viewing in our house. Yes, the language is terrible; yes, the sight of scantily clad women is unhelpful; yes, the culture-meter is very low – but the interaction between the housemates makes this series fascinating.

In this post I want to reflect on how ...