Health hazard in church? Much press attention has focussed on the EU decision to ban glass jugs for olive oil in restaurants. From next year olive oil must be served in pre-packaged, factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labelled in accordance with EU standards. Dipping bowls with bread will be outlawed. The motive [...]
By Andrew Carey There were intriguing developments over the weekend in both the arithmetic of gay marriage and the implications of the change. The so-called wrecking amendment by one of the Bill’s chief opponents, Tim Loughton, the former children’s minister, seeks to open up civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. Loughton is playing on one of [...]
Bishop Graham Cray, Archbishops’ Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team, looks at discipleship… The ultimate test of any local church’s ministry, whether in ‘inherited’ mode or a fresh expression, is ‘what sorts of disciples are being made?’ To what extent is that expression of church shaping people to be like Jesus? How effectively [...]
By Amaris Cole In a dark hut in the middle of Kachibanda, a small, remote village in central Malawi, a group who have started making banana wine are showing us how it is done. “First, we boil the water, and then let the water cool,” Gertrude Muatcha, a 34-year-old mother of one demonstrates. Sitting on [...]
We interviewed Abba legend Agnetha Faltskog recently, a lovely gentle unassuming woman who announced she lived a fairly simple life, she loves nature, is very grounded, and considers herself a ‘slow’ person. She made me think about the ridiculously fast pace of my life – and perhaps yours, as someone who signs most emails … [...]
By Craig Dyer, Christianity Explored 23 January 2013: I was sitting in the departure lounge of Entebbe Airport about to fly home to Glasgow. I’d been in Uganda for a Christianity Explored evangelism training conference. I finished my report of the trip and turned to the next of that day’s McCheyne Bible readings. There and [...]
CS Lewis: A Life Alister McGrath Hodder, hardback, £20.00 A number of biographies of CS Lewis have already appeared but the most substantial of them, by AN Wilson, was published in 1990 and McGrath is right to suggest the time is ripe for a reassessment. Lewis’ collected letters have now been published, edited by Walter [...]
A prominent gay rights campaigner has claimed the new Archbishop of Canterbury is struggling to support equality because of his opposition to same sex marriage. Peter Tatchell met Justin Welby yesterday at Lambeth Palace, in a historic meeting between the campaigner and the Anglican Church’s most senior figure. The meeting, the first of its kind [...]
This is the full text of the sermon by the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, Bishop of London After the storm of a life lived in the heat of political controversy, there is a great calm. The storm of conflicting opinions centres on the Mrs Thatcher who became a symbolic figure – even an “ism”. [...]
By Rachel Helen Smith Lichtenstein is often referred to as the most intellectual of the artists who championed American Pop Art. His most iconic paintings are comic-book images with bold outlines and primary colours. Whaam! and Drowning Girl are two of the best known examples. They show stereotypical figures entangled in melodramatic stories of love [...]
