Second Thought podcast with Dan Beach

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20 Dec 25 – Rev Roy Jenkins

As December crept all too slowly towards the excitement awaiting, a single sentence was heard in my childhood home, as predictably as the sound of jingle bells.  Someone would say, it always seems worse at Christmas.  The same words today are often a verdict on the particular pressures, the festival brings to people already struggling with loneliness or depression, with paying the bills or dealing with difficult relatives.  Or with the loss of the one person who gave life, meaning, and purpose, and whose absence now makes celebrating, feel like a betrayal, or, at least, disrespectful.  But as I recall the words, they were usually a response to a recent tragedy, a minor being killed underground, a child run over.  And it seemed worse because it subverted the joy meant to shape the season.  An unwelcome dark intrusion into the promised light.  Just as it was, last weekend, when Sydney’s Jewish community lost 15 people in an anti Semitic attack, as they played and sang and worshipped on Bondi Beach to mark their own Festival of Light.  For many years to come, I suspect, their Hanukka will feel very different beneath the shadow of those murders.  The overwhelming sadness of the atrocity remains raw.  But darkness hasn’t been allowed the last word.  Well-deserved praise has poured in for the Muslim man who risked his life in disarming one of the attackers and was seriously injured in the process.  And the youngest victim, 10-year-old Matilda, has also inspired a joyous child who spread love everywhere she went, says her aunt, who appealed to the grieving community to take their anger, and then follow Matilda’s example.  There was deep darkness in the world of the first Christmas.  An all-powerful Roman Empire occupying and exploiting its subject peoples, slavering torture, mass killings, casual cruelty, and desperate poverty, and ambitious collaborators content to keep them there.  And into this murky quagmire, says the one who called the universe into being -in the form of a vulnerable child, a refugee in infancy – by teaching an example, demonstrating God’s way of love, ultimately, on a cross, offering a new beginning for the world, and for anyone prepared to risk it.  As the gospel writer John asserts, The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out, even when horrors like the Hanukah Massacre can seem even worse, because it’s this time of year.

19 Dec 25 – Rt Rev Richard Harries

Like many people, I keep an address list on my computer, and at this time of year, bring it up on screen with a view to sending Christmas cards, then my eye focusses on the name of a dear friend who’s died in the year, and my finger hovers over the delete button.  To press it seems like another death.  At Christmas, many people are conscious of those who are not with them, which is why it can be such a poignant and isolating time for some.  On Christmas Eve, Radio 4 will be broadcasting the festival of nine lessons and carols from King’s College, Cambridge.  In the introduction to that service, the congregation are reminded that they worship together with those who rejoice with them on another shore and a greater light.  It’s a lovely phrase and a wonderful belief which I share.  But I know how difficult it is for so many, even church people, to believe.  In relation to that difficulty.  I also love some words of the nineteenth century American poet, Emily Dickinson, who said about the next life.  I believe we shall be in some manner cherished by our maker.  That the one who gave us this remarkable earth has a power still further to surprise that which he caused.  Beyond that, all is silence.  The power still further to surprise us.  When presents are opened on Christmas Day, it’s always fun if there are a few nice surprises, a child who is expecting a fairly small present suddenly discusses that they’ve been given a new bicycle.  A mother has given her favourite perfume, which earlier she decided she couldn’t afford to buy for herself.  For Christians, God is a god of surprises.  First, in the very fact that we exist at all, what Emily Dickinson called this remarkable earth, so that when we wake up in the morning, we wake to the gift of a new day.  Then, of course, at Christmas time, the extraordinary disclosure of divine life in a human story, beginning with the vulnerability of a babe in a homeless family.  All through the Hebrew scriptures, there’s a longing that God’s kingdom might come on earth, that the devout poor, who lose out in the world as it is, might be vindicated.  And it’s natural to picture this in terms of power and glory.  But what was revealed at Christmas, was simply a human life in a loving family.  God searching us out to the extent of becoming one with our humanity, changing the world from within it, a total surprise that transformed the way those first followers of Jesus understood the world, and one which still astounds believers today.

18 Dec 25 – Rev Dr Sam Wells

‘Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.’  So says Jane Austen of Fanny Price in Mansfield Park. But she could equally have said it of herself.  Jane Austen’s 250th birthday this week is being widely celebrated on this network.  She was swathed in the practice of faith: her father and two of her brothers were ordained, and two visits to church on Sunday were her lifelong pattern.  She certainly knew the shortcomings of religion: parodying the servility and self-importance of the parson Mr Collins, she says he ‘was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society.’  Her gift is to turn the interactions of family and community, and especially the elaborate dance and fragility of finding a marriage partner, into a whole moral universe. Her characters transcend their surroundings.  One, Mr Bennet, says laconically, ‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?’  Another, Mr Knightley, says poignantly to Emma Woodhouse, ‘If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.’  It’s a truth universally acknowledged that it’s never been clear what it actually means to be a Christian.  Some insist on adherence to specific doctrines.  Others on obedience to identifiable moral codes.  Others point to formation in a traditional culture.  A woman of her time, Jane Austen’s participation in worship and devotion was socially conventional.  But she has her own answers to this perennial question.  If she were to identify a favourite parable, my guess is she’d choose the story of the two sons, one of whom refused his father’s request to go into the vineyard, but did; while his brother said, ‘I will,’ but didn’t. For Austen, Christianity’s about actions not words.  ‘Christian’ is more of a verb than a noun.  The many suitors are sifted out not by their protestations of love, but by their true character.  Of Fanny Price, we’re told, ‘She made herself indispensable to those she loved.’  Which connects Jane Austen in a significant way to Christmas.  For the Christmas story’s not about what God says.  It’s about what God does.  In Northanger Abbey, Isabella Thorpe exclaims, ‘There’s nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends.  I have no notion of loving people by halves.  It’s not my nature.’  Coming in person as a vulnerable baby is communicating by action rather than by word.  Maybe Jane Austen knew exactly what she thought being a Christian meant.  It meant not loving by halves.  Perhaps she’s more of a theologian than she’s usually given credit for.

17 Dec 25 – Rhidian Brook

Hark!’  ‘Do you hear what I hear?’  ‘They said there’d be snow this Christmas; they said there’d be peace on earth’ ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ ‘I pray God it’s our last!’  Throughout the land the lyrics of Christmas songs are being piped in shopping centres and pubs and, loved or loathed, we sing along.  This year’s official Christmas number one will be decided on Friday.  Current favourite is Kylie, with oldies from George Michael and Slade chasing hard.  As Slade’s Noddy Holder sings; ‘Does your granny always tell ya that the old songs are the best.’  Then, in a tradition begun by Lennon and taken up by Rage Against The Machine, there are the Christmas protest songs.  This year’s from Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel with ‘Lullaby’, a song for Gaza, and Billy Bragg’s ‘Put Christ Back Into Christmas’, with Bragg asking us ‘to stand with those who need the most’ and reminding us that Christmas celebrates the birth of a refugee.  It seems very British to me that we are free to mix protest in with sentimentality and silliness.  The Christmas story is spacious enough to contain all our hopes and fears, our joy and praise, our rage and indifference.  Even our scrooge-iest revulsion.  For I contend that the birth of Christ is itself a kind of cosmic protest song.  The original Christmas number one was after all sung by angels to people at the margins of society: the young Mary and Shepherds, those far from the corridors of power and status; a startling song that announces a change to the status quo, a tune sweeter and louder than the prevailing mood music of despair, the monotonous dirge of violence and oppressive power, of one bad thing after another: ‘Do not be afraid’ it declares.  ‘There will be peace on earth.’  It’s arguable that we might never have heard this story had the message not been sung to people who were immediately in tune with it, and able to sing back in words of astonished wonder and praise: ‘he has scattered the proud, put down the mighty, exalted those of lowly degree.’  Or ‘My eyes have seen your salvation.’  Once you’ve ‘hailed the incarnate deity’; or seen the Godhead veiled in flesh, the chances are you’re going to sing about it.  Christmas invites the world to sing a different tune.  I’d even suggest that part of the reason we still sing about it – even if we stray into sentiment – is that its core melody is like a pop tune or great carol you can’t help but sing along with.  ‘No.  I can’t get you out of my head; because God and sinners are reconciled; because mild he lays his glory by; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee; And so this is Christmas.’

16 Dec 25 – Tim Stanley

This year, for the first time, I’ve bought a real, six-foot Christmas tree – and I hit the shops in search of baubles and tinsel.  The only problem?  Fashions have changed.  I want the kind of tree I remember from the 80s: a multicoloured glitter bomb that looks like a dozen boxes of quality street.  Alas, things have gone posh.  It’s all pink and white now, or cold blue; coordinated and minimalist.  As if decorating a hotel foyer.  I stared for days at my naked tree, preferring that to the retail option, and wondering why I was so bothered.  Well, trees clearly do still matter because people are furious that a public tree was cut down at Shotton Colliery in County Durham, a green spruce the village planted over a decade ago in remembrance of the dead from two world wars.  It reminded me of the grief that was felt when the Sycamore Gap tree was butchered in 2023.  Christmas trees are far more than decoration.  One legend has it, that they were introduced by Martin Luther, when he was out walking one winter night and saw the stars twinkling around the top of a fir.  He put a tree hung with candles in his home, to remind onlookers that Jesus came from Heaven.  This German tradition was imported to Britain by Queen Charlotte, who, in 1800, decorated the first known royal tree at Windsor – with fruits, toys, raisins and candles.  It was already custom here to hang greenery indoors, probably to cheer us up while, in a colder age, the view outside the window was barren and white.  To this pagan-ish spirit was added a Christian spin, the sparkling Christmas tree, like Christ, suggests light in the darkness and the promise of new life.  For nature this comes with spring.  For human beings, with resurrection.  Faith, far from being at odds with the tangible world of nature, sacramentalises it.  In psalm 96, “the trees of the forest” are ordered to “sing for joy” in praise of God.  The author of the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood encounters a talking tree that provided the wood for Christ’s cross, bedecked with gold and gems.  This fits with my instinct that Christmas trees should be sparkly and bright, so bright that when the lights are switched on they’re visible from space.  A wise friend pointed out that most Christmas decorations are not bought in one go, but accumulated over a lifetime.  When they’re taken out of the attic and hung from the tree, the odds and ends are a trip down memory lane.  Christmas trees invite wonder.  Adults, I suspect, think of childhoods past.  The tree connects us to mysteries of time and nature and promise.

15 Dec 25 – Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis

There is one feature of Hanukah that distinguishes it from other Jewish festivals. Almost every meal, ritual and act of worship in Jewish life takes place privately at home or in the synagogue, but Hanukkah is different.  It carries an obligation which is known in Jewish tradition as Pirsumei Nisa to publicise the miracle of Jewish survival.  Yesterday, my cousin and his wife spent 15 terrifying minutes, hiding under a donut stand as terrorists were shooting at them and those around them on Bondi Beach in Sydney.  Today, they went to synagogue to offer prayers of gratitude for their survival.  Many others weren’t so fortunate.  Once again, Jews were targeted for the simple act of gathering together, visibly and peacefully, as Jews.  Hanukkah recalls the defiance of a small band of Jews, some 2,150 years ago, who were targeted by Emperor Antiochus Epiphanes.  He denied them the right to openly practice their faith, demanding conversion on pain of death.  On Hanukah, we publicise not only their survival, but also their refusal to be intimidated or erased.  They insisted that Judaism must never be driven into the shadows.  On Hanukah, Jews around the world declare, we are here, we belong, and we will not hide who we are.  Yesterday in Sydney, that declaration was met with murderous hatred, and this moment demands more than sympathy.  He demands moral clarity.  The right of Jewish communities to gather freely, safely, and publicly, is not a Jewish issue alone.  It is a test of the moral health of any society, that claims to value freedom, difference, and human dignity.  Jews have lived with security concerns for as long as I can remember, but the fact that today every public Jewish gathering must be weighed for risk is a sign of something deeply wrong, a society in which a minority must calculate, whether it is safe to be seen together in public, is a society that is failing all of its citizens.  That is why we must address not only the symptoms of toxic anti Semitism, but its causes.  We must stand together against the normalised rhetoric that demonises Jews, and the only Jewish state.  We have a shared responsibility to ensure that the impact of this hatred does not simply fade from our minds, as it fades from the headlines, both the story of Hanukah and yesterday’s attack, or a sober reminder, that darkness will advance wherever decent people retreat, and that light can only be preserved when people are prepared to stand up for it.

13 Dec 25 – Martin Wroe

Here’s an old one I recognise, from a pen held in a shaky hand at the end of a long life, the last Christmas card from my mum.  Here’s one this week from a family I’d been wondering about.  That’s good to read. They’re doing okay after all.  This one needs deciphering.  Like most of us, the author is out of practice at holding a pen.  December is a month when the greetings card brings handwriting back from the dead.  The hundreds of millions of cards that we exchange may include the bland box-ticking, but many will be thoughtful, considered, and personalised.  In the twenty years since digital communications overwhelmed us with email and text, the handwritten letter has become a rarity.  But for all its efficiency, an electronic message will not hold the warmth and personality of the sender.  In some way, the hand-writer becomes incarnate in her letter, not least because she’s taken so much longer over it, finding paper and pen, thinking the thought before writing, the envelope, the stamp, the delay between postbox and letterbox.  I’ve written five cards so far, in the time I could have sent a dozen emails.  The pen slows you into considering the recipient and your relationship.  When my friend became unwell, she said that while every message was welcome, it was the handwritten cards and letters that meant the most.  And the writing may be as good for us as the reading.  Research in the European Medical Journal finds handwriting, and like typing, activates wider neural networks linked to memory and cognition.  The tactile kinaesthetics boost creativity.  In one of this year’s most moving novels, the correspondent by Virginia Evans.  Her ageing protagonist, Sybil Van Antwerp, sits down most mornings to write a letter.  To old friends, her distant children, or famous authors.  The letters help her understand her own difficult life, and explain herself to others.  Even if, as she writes, they will remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth, like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion.  Traditional Christmas card images, the light in the dark sky, the angelic choir, the animals in the stable, point to the signature motif of the Christmas story, the invisible becoming visible, the intangible becoming physical, love handwritten in the life of a small child.  The word became flesh, and dwelt among us, as one ancient writer wrote on one ancient parchment.  Perhaps in the future, those who follow us will regard handwritten letters as we now regard ancient cave wall drawings, baffling, mysterious, endearing, but connecting us through generations, reaching out across time. 

12 Dec 25 – John Studzinski

Over the next week or two. Whatever your degree of vocal prowess or religious belief, you are likely to join in some form of communal singing. Whether it’s, Oh, come all your faithful, all I want for Christmas is you, or Felice Navidad, you will be obeying the exhortation of Psalm 100. 
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. 
Carols and seasonal songs are so integral to this time of year. that we don’t probe the reason for their presence in churches, homes, and many other shared spaces. St. Augustine of Hippo, born in the 4th century can enlighten us. 
He said, contare amantis est, in other words, to sing is the act of a lover, or, as Pope Leo put it, at the jubilee of choirs in Rome last month, singing belongs to those who love, when we love deeply, silence is not enough. Love with all the trust and joy and engenders, seeks expression, and it finds expression through song. Christmas is the feast of God’s love made flesh. 
Our carols are songs of love, to the God who comes among us, as Pope Leo reminded the singers assembled in St. Peter’s Square, song can be a way of praying, lifting the soul towards the mystery, we celebrate. When we sing, we join the angels who announced glory to the newborn king. 
Of course, the spiritual power of song is not restricted to Christmas and the people who celebrate it. It was in Judaism that the Psalms 1st became sacred prayers. And at Hanukah, the Festival of Light, that so often coincides with Advent or Christmas. 
Families and congregations sing to glorify God, as candles glow. In the Kawali music of Sufi Islam, voices weave together in devotion. In Hinduism, there are the Bajams. 
In Buddhism, chance, all expressing the universal impulse to give voice to love and reverence. To return to Psalm 100. Our songs will ring out as we enter God’s gates with Thanksgiving and his courts with praise. 
In a world that is so often fractured, communal singing produces both musical and spiritual harmony. So let us sing, not because custom demands it, but because love compels it. Through the simple and affirmative act of raising our voices together in the season of joy, and as members of the human race. 
Let us both convey and embody a crucial message, that what unites us is far greater than what divides us.

11 Dec 25 – Dr Krish Kandiah

This time yesterday I was sitting in a cosy barn in the Chilterns, surrounded by a herd of goats and a surprisingly well-mannered donkey. A friend had kindly loaned me his farm to broadcast a live nativity to forty thousand primary school children across the country.  During the broadcast, we linked up with Kakuma Refugee camp in northern Kenya. Ajok, a 17-year-old from Sudan, explained what life was like for her there. She told us that her camp houses 200,000 refugees, and that each day she walks 5 kilometres to get to school, where she learns in a class of 130 students. When she gets home, she has to beg for food so her family can eat one meal a day. Despite all the hardship she is a young woman full of hope planning to graduate and become a teacher.  A friend at the UNHCR, who runs her refugee camp alongside the World Food Programme and the Kenyan Government, explained to me that, due to international aid cuts, supplies in the camp are severely limited. Ajok’s family have been categorised as “low need,” which means they now receive no food assistance.  Ajok’s Christmas will, sadly, be very different from mine. Yet it is her story that echoes most clearly the grittiness of the first Christmas. Her experience of being displaced is not dissimilar from Mary and Joseph’s – who were forced from their home at the worst possible time. Her anxiety over the lack of basic necessities reflects the Holy Family’s desperate search for accommodation in Bethlehem.  It is no wonder that Jesus identifies with the vulnerable and the outsider. Matthew’s gospel records him saying: “For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”  Many of us miss this central message of hospitality to outsiders in the Christmas story. Some of us get distracted by the superficial, synthetic trappings of the festive season, others by the belief that immigrants are threatening our nation’s Christian culture. Both approaches fail to grasp the core of the Christmas story and its call to open our doors, our hearts, and our lives to those who need welcome most.  Mary and Joseph welcomed precisely those others would have turned away – humble shepherds and road-weary foreigners, sent to them by God himself. Little did Mary and Joseph know at the time that they too would suddenly find themselves fleeing across the border to Egypt – refugees reliant on the kindness of strangers.  This is why, in this time of Advent, it is people like Ajok —those struggling simply to get by who have much to teach us. The nearer we draw to the real Christmas story, the more we see just how the true Christ of Christmas is still breaking down walls, restoring dignity and inspiring generous hospitality.

10 Dec 25 – Rt Rev Philip North

An intriguing video on the BBC website shows a group of teenagers discussing the Australian ban on social media for under sixteens.  As you would expect, there are a range of reactions, but there are also plenty of tips to get round the legislation, which left me wondering if the lawmakers have catered for the infinite ingenuity of the teenage mind.  As someone who spent 30 years working with young people.  I know it’s near impossible to enforce bedtime.  Never mind, a social media blackout.  Number of strong arguments have been made for the legislation passed in Australia.  There’s particular support amongst parents, many of them concerned about the mental well-being and safety of their children.  While some worry about the restrictions to children’s rights, The experiment will be monitored closely around the world, where plenty of people are calling for similar action.  For me though, before rushing to legislation, there’s another question to address.  If adults stop young people from accessing social media, what will they offer in its place? Recent decades have seen an erosion of opportunities for the young.  Youth centres have been closed down.  Sports activities have become increasingly pricey, and a narrowed curriculum, these little space for music, arts, and other activities that allow for association.  Meanwhile, fears around safety, mean that a lot of children rarely leave their home.  I suspect a lot of young people spend so much time on their mobiles, because there’s now so little else to do.  Central to the teaching of Jesus Christ was a broader vision of human flourishing.  For example, he spent much of his public ministry, in dialogue with the Pharisees, a group whose interpretation of the scriptures led to harsh restrictions on the people.  Jesus did more than just criticising them for, as he saw it, missing the spirit of the law.  He also offered a whole new narrative for being alive, one defined, not by restrictions, but by possibilities and opportunities.  He set before people a vision of a life lived in all its fulness.  And surely that vision is relevant to this debate.  If all the adults do is ban activities and close down opportunities, then young lives risk becoming so restricted, that something of their humanity is lost.  People of all ages need spaces to create, to imagine, to play, to be with friends.  A social media band could well be a sensible step.  But it is crucial that we also ask, what else instead? Because wouldn’t it be great to have a society in which young people have so much else to do that phones just seem boring?

09 Dec 25 – Vishvapani Blomfield

There’s no more vexed issue in politics at present than the status of asylum seekers. 
It’s a complex debate that understandably focusses on the difficulty of absorbing more people and the struggles of those who are already here, but for now, I want to focus on just one aspect because I think it can get lost. We’re talking about people many, though by no means all of whom are eventually recognised as genuine victims of persecution. Take Connie.  She fled Congo, where soldiers in one of the warring factions had raped and tortured her. She came to the UK, where she received treatment for trauma, and I met Connie because my father and stepmother befriended her. Over time, they helped her build a new life. 
Behind the statistics, and many more people like Connie, and their presence in our society confronts us with an issue that’s at the heart of Buddhist practice. How do we respond when we encounter suffering? A political response is one thing, but there’s also a spiritual dimension. 
Buddhism teaches that when we encounter suffering with an open and balanced mind, the natural response is compassion. Compassion differs from pity, which includes a sense of being superior to another person, and from hatred, which rejects them entirely. For Buddhists, compassion begins with a willingness to recognise the reality of others’ suffering, and it brings an impulse to help them. 
My father responded to Connie because of his own experience. He came to Britain, in 1939, on a kind to transport train from Berlin, Britain’s rightly proud of the scheme that rescued 10,000 Jewish children, from the Nazis, but is less often mentioned, that it came very late, and on the condition that private groups took financial responsibility for them. Only unaccompanied children were allowed to come, and adults remained behind, where most were killed, like my grandfather, and many others in my family. 
My father responded to that history, with determination to be compassionate, and that, in turn, prompted my own faith in the Buddhist insight that what we dwell on becomes the inclination of our minds. Compassion, moulds us, and so does anger. Whatever immigration policy we favour. 
I think the role of wisdom traditions like Buddhism is to remind us of the cost to ourselves and to society as a whole.

08 Dec 25 – Rev David Wilkinson

In the midst of despair for many, at the lack of international progress on combatting climate change, comes a small but significant story of hope.  Last week, scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, published measurements of this year’s ozone hole over Antarctica.  It showed the whole continuing to shrink, demonstrating that the ozone layer is recovering.  This is a glimmer of hope, giving confidence that science and governments can combine in healing the world. Forty years ago, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey first observed this hole caused by the release of chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere.  Chemicals used in a wide range of goods from refrigerators to hairspray.  The erosion of the ozone layer, exposes the earth to dangerous levels of ultraviolet radiation, governments moved swiftly, and two years later, they adopted the Montreal protocol.  This led to a curtailing of these chemicals, even if their concentration in the atmosphere, would reach their peak some 13 years later.  But the protocol built on good science and political willpower means that by the 2060s, the ozone hole will be closed and the planet protected.  This achievement needed committed action and long-term vision to solve a problem over many decades.  Sir John Houghton, a leading atmospheric physicists, subsequently chaired over 100 international scientists, in producing the First scientific assessment report as part of the intergovernmental panel on climate change.  In contrast to the Montreal protocol, combatting wider global warming was and still is slow progress, resisting considerable pressure from some governments and fossil fuel advocates.  When asked whether he ever despaired, his reply was, absolutely not.  It’s a totally solvable problem.  This was based in his confidence in science, but also in his deep Christian faith that God was active in the world and had not given up on it.  For Christians, the creator God becoming flesh and blood in the baby born in Bethlehem is an embodiment of hope.  This incarnation shows that God is committed long term to the physical world, in both the healing of human beings and the environment, and that science is a gift to contribute to that.  Further, the good news of Jesus is that love can change people from selfish greed to generous service.  In a complex world, where problems seem so intractable.  I’m thankful for glimmers of hope, either from science or from the advent story, to sustain action over the long term, and to resist the darkness of despair.

06 Dec 25 – Rev Canon Rob Marshall

Well, what does true generosity look like? It’s a good question to ask today as the church here in the West celebrates the feast of St. Nicholas. Now, not much is known about him, but we do know that he was a 4th century bishop of Myra in what is now modern day Turkey. The stories and the myths and the legend about him gathered much later on over many centuries and many agree that he was a generous man. He is said to have assisted families in difficulty, supported the vulnerable, but always quietly and without seeking any recognition or reward. Now after this one, there are only two weekends before Christmas and inevitably, many of us focus on what we might give to other people. And I’m not only talking about practical gifts. I didn’t know, but if you did, it was on Tuesday that we had what’s called Giving Tuesday, which followed hard on the heels of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Now, Giving Tuesday is a global movement calling on everyone, and I quote the website, to give, collaborate and celebrate generosity. Now, theologically speaking, there’s no shortage of advice in the Bible about what generosity looks like. Hebrew wisdom literature defines it as speaking up for the voiceless, as well as defending the rights of the poor and needy. This theme is later embraced by Jesus, who emphasises on more than one occasion that giving should be done quietly, without fuss or boasting. Even your left hand shouldn’t know what your right hand is doing. This is God’s way of giving. Pope Leo, whose first overseas visit as pontiff this week included a pilgrimage to Turkey, has already taken up Pope Francis’ mantra. The church needs to be generous, alongside the poor, supporting the marginalised. And the Pope has already posed this question. Do we follow the path of selfishness, thinking only of ourselves, or do we recognise everything as a gift from God to be used to build a more just and equitable world? As Advent deepens, today, St. Nicholas’s Day, comes at exactly the right moment. And as I light the second Advent candle tomorrow, the question I’ll be asking myself is, am I as generous as I can be? And not just in terms of money or goods, because even a small act of kindness can shine brighter in the life of someone else than you or I might ever know.

05 Dec 25 – Chine McDonald

This week, Wendy Dalrymple, canon pastor at Ripon Cathedral, shared on social media her experience of being in an abusive relationship when she was young.  Like many other women who face violence at the hands of men they know, she was locked in a cycle of abuse, followed by remorse, followed by forgiveness, followed by more abuse.  The relationship only ended when her then-boyfriend assaulted her in a public place, and onlookers intervened, telling him to stop and calling the police.  We’re in the middle of the UN’s 16 days of activism to end gender-based violence, which highlights the bleak reality that one in three women experience some sort of abuse in their lifetime.  To raise awareness, Ripon Cathedral’s Leave Her Alone exhibition showcases art created by male prisoners, many of whom have been perpetrators of violence against women.  It hopes to encourage all to speak out, drawing on the words of Jesus, who told his disciples to leave the woman who anointed his feet alone.  But speaking out, intervening when we know or see someone is being abused, is easier said than done.  Our instincts may push us towards self-protection and self-preservation.  This week, Farah Naz, the aunt of murdered law graduate Zara Elena, called for a new law that would require bystanders to step in when they see people in danger.  Her calls followed the publication of a report by Lady Elish Angelini into the prevention of sexually motivated crimes against women in public.  Among the recommendations, which come four years after the rape and murder of Sarah Everard, was one suggesting the government implement a so-called good Samaritan law.  Speaking on the Today programme earlier this week, she said such a law, requiring people to step in if they can reasonably help someone in danger, would create a culture change and encourage us all to see the safety of women in public as a whole society action.  Whether or not a good Samaritan law will or even could be implemented is one thing, but I think a society in which we notice and try to help others in need, even against our own interests, is the kind of idea at the heart of the Christian story.  Drawing on the parable of the good Samaritan, Martin Luther King, in a speech the day before he was killed, pointed out that it’s reasonable to ask, when confronted with another in need, if I stop to help, what will happen to me?  But for King, the motivating question for the good Samaritan is instead, if I don’t stop to help this person, what will happen to them?  Perhaps this motivating question can help us to recognise that when it comes to the scourge of violence against women in our societies, we are all our sisters’ keepers.

04 Dec 25 – Catherine Pepinster

I’ve spent a lot of time this week reading the obituaries of the playwright Tom Stoppard and the founder of the independent newspaper, Andreas Wittam Smith, and while I was doing so spotted a notable coincidence, they were born just three weeks apart and died the same day.  At first glance, they seemed very different people, Stoppard, the Czech refugee who wrote dazzling plays such as The Real Thing and Night and Day, who was, though Jewish by birth, very secular, while Whittam Smith, a quintessentially English gentleman, was the son of an Anglican vicar with a serious faith who also spent time as one of the church commissioners.  But to me, they had far more in common than they had differences.  They were committed to storytelling.  Stoppard dealt in fiction, while Whittam Smith’s newspaper covered the facts.  And whether through the insights of stage characters or reporting events, they wanted to highlight truths about the human condition.  They both, it seemed to me, shared the conviction that freedom of thought and of speech are essential to the thriving of humanity.  Stoppard made that clear in many interviews.  Whittam Smith wanted the newspaper he founded to not be beholden to entrenched political and economic interests.  For both of them, born in 1937 in a Europe overshadowed by totalitarianism, and then emerging into adulthood during the Cold War, freedom was the essence of civilization.  The words of Jesus to his followers, that the truth will set you free, could well have been the leap motif of both men’s work.  The next few weeks, those of Advent, are traditionally a time of preparation for the celebration of Jesus’ birth.  At the end of his life, stripped, beaten, mocked, he stood before Pontius Pilate, arch compromiser, pragmatic servant of the Roman Empire, the kind of regime and man that both Stoppard and Witten Smith might well have loathed.  Rather than make a decision as to what to do with Jesus, Pilate left it to the angry, bellowing crowd to demand his death.  There is a moment, though, when Pilate seems nonplussed when Jesus starts talking about truth.  What is truth?  Pilate asks him, but then he walks away, without waiting for an answer.  What Jesus had said and inspired Pilate’s question was that he had come into the world to witness to the truth.  I imagine Stoppard and Whitton Smith might have empathised with that ideal.  Advent is a time when Christians traditionally stop and pause to think about the big questions of faith, questions like whether they are witnesses to the truth.  Others might consider that too, even if, like Pilate, sometimes they might ask, what is truth?

03 Dec 25 — Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith

On a Monday morning last July, I stood with others in the Grand Council Chamber of my local town hall and took the oath to become a citizen of the United Kingdom. We had worked hard to be there, every one of us. We had taken the Life in the UK test, filled in forms, assembled documents, attended interviews, and paid our fees. As part of the ceremony, the presiding officer read a charge about the obligations we were undertaking. Prominent among them was the duty to serve on a jury. This obligation will not change, whatever the outcome of proposed reforms to the system of trial by jury in England and Wales this week. But listening to the argument and counter-argument about the reforms has led me back to some basic observations about this country’s legal heritage. Part of the Christian inheritance underpinning our democracy is the notion that each person is endowed by God with a conscience, with will and judgment, the ability to know right from wrong and choose between them. In Christian teaching, this does not come from faith in God, but is part of how we are created. We have the capacity for wise judgment because of the image of God in us, not because we belong to a church or carry the label of a particular faith. Thus, a wise jury made up of our fellow citizens, or for that matter a wise judge or magistrate, is possible. Christian scripture gives many examples of communities or individuals exercising that wisdom. However, an equal Christian inheritance underpinning our democracy is the reality that humans are deeply flawed. We make wrong judgments through misunderstanding or malice, narrow vision, self-interest or soft thinking. Scripture is equally full of examples of communities, judges, or rulers presiding over extraordinary miscarriages of justice. Jesus himself would be judged many times, and yet, when thrust into the role of judge himself, confronted by a mob ready to stone a woman to death, he did not say put down the stones, but let the one without sin cast the first one. And she had done the thing of which she was accused, which was adultery, though presumably not on her own. I can think of no better demonstration that with Jesus justice is always more nuanced than what happens in courtrooms, important though they are. Justice belongs to and begins with each person in a community, long before we get to juries and judges. Whatever happens with the reforms proposed this week, I hope the debate reminds us that our democracy depends equally on our capacity for good and our humility about what we get wrong.
 

02 Dec 25 — Dr Krish Kandiah

The Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year is Rage Bait, online content deliberately engineered to push our emotional buttons, to make us click, share and seethe. While I’d begun to think my growing frustrations were simply an unfortunate side effect of aging, now I’m wondering if it has more to do with rage baiting, or even, as some suggest, rage farming. Rage has become such a valuable commodity that there’s a whole industry working on the cultivation of indignation. It seems to be working. I’m noticing it is not only me who feels angrier. The world around me appears to be getting angrier too. I experienced it last week, travelling to work. The man next to me was outraged about a story that he’d just read on social media. The story was unfounded, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was angry with a whole group of people who in actual fact had done nothing wrong. Soon he was angrily blaming them for all the ills in society. Anger and public transport don’t mix well. I sat there wondering how I should respond and whether it would make any difference. Seventy years ago this week, Rosa Parks found herself on public transport in Montgomery, Alabama. She’d just finished her work for the day as a seamstress. She needed to get home because in the evenings she volunteered as an evidence gatherer, recording the stories of black women who had been abused by white men. It was dangerous work, but as a committed Christian, she trusted God to keep her safe. Then, on December 1st, 1955, she sat on the fifth row of the bus and refused to move when the driver told her to make room for white passengers. She was not the first to resist bus segregation, but her arrest and the bus boycott that followed sparked a nationwide civil rights movement. That led to the toppling of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial discrimination in public spaces, workplaces and schools, and most importantly, established the principle that African Americans were entitled to full dignity, equal citizenship and federal protection of their rights. It laid the foundation for every major civil rights victory that followed. The brilliance of the civil rights movement was its commitment to respond to the rage around them with non-violent resistance. The Apostle Paul gave a similar call to all Christians. Do not be overcome by evil, he wrote, but overcome evil with good. When I find myself getting angry, whether it’s social media or in real life, and when I see others around me getting angry, I cling to that verse and to the example of Rosa Parkes. I try to resist the rage. May God give us all the strength to resist indignation with steel willed compassion.
 

01 Dec 25 — Dr Anne Rowlands

This morning, as many of us will, I’ll open the first door of my Advent calendar. I’m fascinated that this tradition has endured, even as much else about Advent has been overshadowed by all-things Christmas. We owe the origins of the Advent Calendar to 19th- and 20th-century German Lutherans, who also bequeathed us Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most striking writers on the Advent season. Bonhoeffer, famous for his resistance to fascism, loved this season, but his vision of it was far from gentle festive ease. Bonhoeffer’s sermon for the first week of Advent in 1931 addressed a culture at a turning point, a culture he described as ‘an age of worldviews.’ He wrote that how a person dresses, eats, speaks, and even exercises was now being read as evidence of worldview, worldviews clashing with increasing violence. At the root of these disagreements about worldview was the struggle to define human value: who has value, who decides on the terms of human value? Bonhoeffer said he was afraid of a culture that answered that question by equating human value with mastery over ourselves, the world, and other people. He warned us against desiring leaders – political or religious – who promise such an impoverished vision of mastery and triumph. He was afraid of an impatient culture, tempted by easy answers that turn out to be very costly. Bonhoeffer finds in Advent a better story of what it means to be human, a story that teaches us expectant waiting. He preaches it as a season of restless desire and liberation from the substitute, counterfeit gods that get in the way of a more just future. He thinks those who are powerless and restless in spirit often grasp best what Advent is. Advent rewards those who yearn for a new world, but who will wait until it is one capable of being good news for all; one which will come as a child for whom there was no room. His model of those closest to the spirit of Advent is the prisoner, which he himself became, and the pregnant woman. The Church lights a candle on its Advent wreath for each of the four virtues of the season: hope, peace, joy, and love. In an age of worldviews in which rival visions of the future once again abound, these remain candles worth lighting in the darkness.
 

29 Nov 25 — Rev Canon Dr Rob Marshall

Well, today, churches and cathedrals across the country are making their final preparations for Advent. For Christians, it’s a glorious time. The season offers a complete alternative to the increasingly premature, noisy Christmas build-up, because Advent invites us to pause, to breathe, to wait, some respite from the noise of any worry or concerns. The world was a different place in 1964 when Simon and Garfunkel first released their global hit celebrating the sound of silence. Yet even then they were drawing attention to the relentless noise of daily life, how people choose superficial distractions instead of genuine human connection. Adrian Chiles, now also of this parish, recently wrote a memorable article in The Guardian where he observed, our world is getting noisier. The sheer racket, the crashes, bangs and wallops, the engines, the yelling, the bings and bongs of phone alerts. He’s definitely right. I don’t know if it’s just me that dreads getting the last train home on a Friday night after, say, a theatre visit. For instance, last weekend I couldn’t hear myself think and suddenly realised how calamitous and disruptive the sheer din of my carriage was. But everyone just kind of accepts it as a new norm. It reminded me also of a young person who came into our parish church a few weeks ago, and she asked innocently, is there any time when I can come in here simply for some silence? That’s all I need, she said. I explained that some of our services are certainly quieter than others, but as I searched for a genuinely helpful response, I realised that the truthful answer was no. And it’s a gap I’m determined to address in the new year. Being silent before the Lord was a command made by the prophet Zechariah. And of course, the books of the Bible make frequent reference to the spiritual renewal that being still and the resulting silence can bring. Indeed, the Catholic writer Maria Boulding, reflecting on Advent, challenges that anything we can do to help people recover a sense of silence, as necessary and positive as elements in human life, is a contribution to human sanity. Well, my Advent hope is simply to rediscover a little bit of that healing gift of silence. That’ll certainly be my intention as I light the first Advent candle tomorrow. There is, of course, always a time for everything, including a time for joyful noise, but there is also a time for the sound of silence. And for our sanity, we need both.
 

28 Nov 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

Good morning. This week saw the beginning of this year’s Reith lectures in which the Dutch historian Rutger Bregman is calling for a moral revolution. This annual lecture series is the chance to hear a distinguished person speak philosophically on a subject which concerns us all. The lectures are named after the BBC’s founder John Reith who believed it was the BBC’s mission not only to inform and entertain but also to educate the public, to help us gain not only knowledge but wisdom. I remember an inspiring series by Atul Gawande on the Future of Medicine, in which he invited us to confront our mortality, and then there was Mark Carney’s series on Financial Value and Human Value. The lectures which had the most impact on me were by Onora O’ Neill, in 2002, and was called A Question of Trust. She discussed why it was that our society, both as individuals and institutions had become so lacking in trust. Though she was speaking over twenty years ago the issue has become even more urgent today. Only yesterday on this programme, the Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride was lamenting the lack of trust in our institutions. Onora O’ Neill argued that our problem with trust was that we had come to put our faith not in each other but in processes. Analysing problems, constructing rules, monitoring behaviour, keeping records. All this is important of course, especially if you’re flying a plane or working in an operating theatre. But trust, trust, involves something different which goes beyond paperwork. It’s a kind of faith in the integrity of others, the belief that others are capable of behaving with more than their own interests in mind. It is much more risky, of course, and can be betrayed; but equally paperwork can be falsified and conversations denied. Trust at best is a virtue, and it is demanding of ourselves and others. Often it is when others instinctively trust us that we are inspired to trust others. On Sunday the Church begins the season of Advent, a time of looking forward in hope for the coming of Christ. Much of the imagery of the Advent season calls on the experience of Israel in exile as described by the Old Testament prophets. The prophets speak of restoration and salvation. Everything depends on trust, trust in God and a rejection of false gods, trust that a good life is possible in a homeland which is a real home. The hoped for restoration will put things right between people and nations, between friends and neighbours and between humanity and God. Trust ultimately is an essential ingredient of wisdom, the quality that John Reith hoped that his new broadcasting organisation would come to bestow on its audience.
 

27 Nov 25 — Daniel Greenberg

As a contributor to Thought For The Day I have been surprised at how many people take the trouble to make contact after each slot to offer honest and often trenchant criticism, including from a secular viewpoint that can be sceptical of, or openly hostile to, religious assumptions and concepts. As well as receiving direct messages, I regularly check online discussions about Thought For the Day and other religious programming, including satirical content from a secular perspective that can sometimes provide a particularly penetrating critique. Most religious people by definition believe that our own world vision is true, which puts us at particular risk of complacency and self-satisfaction to which robust and fearless external criticism is the most effective antidote. An early recorded instance of a religious leader realising the importance of bringing in external auditors to receive honest feedback is Moses who turns to a Midianite priest, his father-in-law Jethro, for an objective assessment of the religious judicial system and is rewarded with a blunt, critical and creative response. The strongest and most constant voices in the Bible are those of the prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah and others – warning each King and High Priest of their mistakes and self-delusions: those who listened generally prospered and those who insisted on their own moral or strategic superiority generally suffered as a result. And the Mishneh in Pirkei Avot advises testing life-decisions not on rabbis or scholars but by consulting simply representative human voices. The recurrent theme is that finding sources of criticism is essential for growth and development. In the words of the nineteenth century American writer Elbert Hubbard, “To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing” . Every group with strong ideas should welcome their refinement through external criticism, recognising that it will be more constructive, and less dangerously self-affirming, than internal validation. There is a particular danger for leaders – religious, political and others – that they can become surrounded by a group of advisers and admirers who, however well-intentioned, insulate them from robust and critical analysis of their performance. But the more strongly we believe in our own ideas, the more essential it is to expose ourselves to the checks and balances of alternative perspectives. One of my favourite sources of Thought For The Day critiques has left the internet recently due to ill-health; I take this opportunity to wish them well, to thank all our critics and to hope that people will never hold back from sharing our differences openly and honestly.
 

26 Nov 25 — Rev Dr Michael Banner

Working in a university, hardly a day seems to go by without me engaging in a conversation, often a vexed conversation, about the challenges artificial intelligence poses to traditional learning, teaching and assessment. Difficult though these issues may be, they seem rather trivial besides the prediction that AI could replace 3 million jobs in the UK by 2035, according to a report from the National Foundation for Educational Research. There is some dispute as to which jobs are most at risk. Some think management consultants, legal professionals and psychologists will be the first to be let go. Others think it will be software engineers and machine operators. There is an emerging consensus, however, that wherever the losses occur, they will be substantial, and they will leave a large number of displaced workers and those seeking employment for the first time facing hugely significant challenges in re-entering or entering the workforce. In the book of Genesis, Adam’s punishment for listening to Eve and eating the forbidden fruit could be summed up in the phrase, get a job. No more swanning about the Garden of Eden, enjoying its abundant produce. Life will now be toilsome, and only by the sweat of his brow will Adam find his daily bread. Leisure is replaced by labour, and it’s a curse. Without sharing my precise age, I can less coyly admit that retirement for me is not too far over the horizon, and when I talk to contemporaries who are already retired, they are, give or take the odd grumble, mostly glad to have stepped back from the stresses and pressures of work, which often leave us feeling we do not have enough time for husbands, wives, children, parents or friends, let alone for the interests and activities which may be as important or more important to us than what pays the bills. A colleague snapped at me the other day when I was less than immediately helpful about some practical issue that my trouble was that I had my head in the clouds. In facing up to the dual aspects of the contemporary problem of work, that some have too much and others are anxious about having too little or none, I can’t help thinking, however, that the most relevant location for the head is definitely in the clouds. Artificial intelligence seems to create a problem, which plainly from another angle is an opportunity. Real human intelligence, imagination and ingenuity, blue sky thinking, is surely what is needed to address this particular situation. Yesterday’s Reith lecturer on Radio 4, Rutger Bregman, has written a book entitled Utopia for Realists. Too many voters, he suggests, vote for the sake of some supposedly better past. What we need, however, is to imagine and realise a better future. In the book of Acts, the early church is pictured as having all things in common and sharing with all in need. Head in the cloud stuff, but if we translate that into ideas of universal basic income, a radically different tax regime, and new patterns of shared working, a sense of looming anxiety might just be displaced by a sense of burgeoning possibilities.
 

25 Nov 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

I would have preferred a more ambitious agreement, the UK Energy Secretary commented to journalists after the final press release of the COP30 summit in Brazil didn’t commit to an international reduction of fossil fuels. The G20 leaders are meeting too in Johannesburg, unusually issuing a statement at the beginning of their meeting, urging more global action on issues including climate-related disasters. The world is reorganising itself, declared the Chancellor of Germany, the third largest economy in the world. And in Geneva, international negotiations are continuing this week, provoked by the United States, to discuss the terms on which the war might end in Ukraine. In all of these international meetings, hugely consequential for people suffering the results of war or climate change, economic instability or political turbulence, the art of negotiation will be crucial. In Brazil, South Africa and Switzerland this week, judgment calls are being made all the time, assessing the relationship between compromise and appeasement, between realism and idealism, between certainty however unpalatable and the damaging exhaustion of permanent instability. And the state craft of diplomacy and negotiation is a public service that often seems in the shadows. Pithy comments are made about the skill needed to get people around the table and keep them there, like that quotation often attributed to Winston Churchill, that the art of diplomacy is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip. The language of religion isn’t often consonant with these accommodations, and will more readily speak of the absolute principles of peace, justice, the common good, high ideals and noble ones. In the light of these absolutes, the trade-offs necessary in political negotiation can feel more like abandoning these ideals or at least weakening them. But in reality, these global negotiations go to the heart of human behaviour and desire, the exercise of power, and the ability of human beings to imagine together a different and better world. One of the lesser reported questions asked by Jesus concerned a builder who wanted to build a tower. Would you not, he asks, make calculations with regard to budget and process, this in order to avoid the ridicule of others if a half-built tower is all that’s achieved? A Christian ethic will demand that we recognise our connection to, not our distance from, the sorts of consequential negotiations that can feel as if they’re happening above our heads. We are leaders in our own lives, mediators at our own tables. All of us have a voice in the negotiations of living, and making a contribution to this sort of peacemaking is never as far away as we think.
 

24 Nov 25 — Jasvir Singh

Over the weekend, I went to the cinema with some old school friends to see the eagerly anticipated film Wicked for Good. My husband and I have been fans of the stage musical for years, and I’m relieved to say that the film lived up to my expectations. Without giving any spoilers, one line really stood out to me from it. We can’t let good be just a word. It has to mean something. This seems particularly pertinent to me this week, as Sikhs mark 350 years since the martyrdom of the ninth Sikh Guru. Guru Degbahada gave his life not to save his own faith, but to defend the rights of another religion. The Guru was known for his humility, and in 1675 he was approached by a group of Hindu pundits from Kashmir, who were under attack because of their beliefs. They were in danger of being forcibly converted to another faith on pain of death, and they feared that if they converted, the majority of their Hindu followers across India would feel they had no choice but to do the same. The Mughal Emperor had told them that if they could find someone more holy than them to sacrifice his own life instead, they would not have to convert. Daguru thought carefully about what he could do, and he eventually realised that the only way to help was to offer himself in place of the Bundits. He and some close disciples made their way to the imperial capital. They were arrested, tortured, and publicly executed on the busy street of Dili as a warning to others. It was a watershed moment in Indian history, and over the course of this week there will be celebrations of the Guru’s life and ultimate sacrifice across India, including at the iconic Red Fort in Dili, the place where the order for the Guru’s execution was given by the Mughal Emperor. Amongst his many verses within the Sikh scriptures, Guruteg Bahadur said, One who does not cause terror to anyone, and who is not afraid of anyone else, saith Nanak, listen, O mind, call him spiritually wise. It’s easy to just look out for oneself in this chaotic world. After all, human self-interest is a powerful force, and we do live in a highly divisive society where even the simplest conversation can quickly become deeply heated. But if we take a moment to stop and reflect before we act, and if we respect the genuinely held views of others without ever compromising our own beliefs, I think those walls of division would crumble far more easily than we might think. The word good can mean something.
 

22 Nov 25 — Brian Draper

As a Christian, the buccaneering English cricketer of old, Dickie Dodds, once asked God how he should play the game. Cricket is God’s game, after all. He says he heard this in reply. Hit the ball hard and enjoy it. As the first Ashes test match exploded into life yesterday, it feels as if the current English team led by Ben Stokes carries that spirit in them. Their exuberant brand of cricket is so infectiously entertaining, albeit so often tough for the nerves of those of us who love to watch it. The Ashes is one of the world’s great crucibles of sporting intensity, with its fierceness, its beauty, its combat. But what helps to make it so captivating and transcendent, I think, is the spirit of cricket too, that intangible, enduring something which guides the game’s conscience, but for me takes us deeper still. The very fact that we’ll be talking about it if and when that spirit is broken, speaks of how much it really matters. Many fans are still discussing an unfair dismissal from the last time the teams met two years ago, which just wasn’t cricket. The former England captain and psychiatrist Mike Brearley has spoken helpfully of how cricket’s dilemmas, such as whether you walk or not if you know you’re out, reflect human matters of honesty, integrity, generosity that apply to each of us. I find it fascinating how instinctively we seem to know what’s good and fair and right, how we have it within us, whether we then choose to play with a straight bat or not. And I’m reminded theologically of the way Celtic Christianity in particular has always held that we are born not with original sin which cheats us, but original blessing which guides us because we are part of God’s good creation. As the Celtic expert John Philip Newell writes, what is deepest in us corresponds to what is true, even though we so often live from the surface of things and forget who and whose we really are. I love how cricket has its laws, yet also its spirit, which can take you beyond merely rule keeping for the sake of it, and into a love for the goodness of the game that now and again releases an electrifying and joyous freedom too. And it reminds me that Jesus didn’t come to do away with God’s law, summed up as love God and love each other, but to fulfil it, to embody the spirit of life which brings us freedom, as the Apostle Paul said, freedom to live well and to love, freedom to hit the ball hard and enjoy it.
 

21 Nov 25 — Akhandadhi Das

Maybe, like me, you learned a new word this week, Parasocial, Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year. The term relates to the connection that someone feels between themselves and, say, a celebrity or created character from a book or film, even an AI chatbot. Principally, parasocial relationships are one-sided, often imagined and essentially non-reciprocal. They can be positive, increasing a person’s motivation and social comfort, but might lead to unhealthy attachment, obsession and disappointment. Some scholars have categorized belief in God as a form of parasocial relationship, albeit one that often confers assurance and social sensitivity. I’m sure many religious believers testify they experience a tangible reciprocation with God in prayer and in service. Even so, it is claimed that, like human and digital parasocial comparisons, the object of one’s attention is either imaginary or distant and not accessible for regular interaction. Conversely, the Vedic texts suggest that it is God who undergoes the imbalance of a one-sided relationship with ourselves. The Gita relates the many ways in which God speaks to us through our insights, intelligence, intuitions and moments of conscience. Communications we might never acknowledge. A metaphor from the Upanishads describes that within the blossoming tree of life there are two birds, one eagerly tasting the fruits, sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter. Meanwhile, the other bird representing the divine patiently waits for their parasocial friend to turn to them for a proper relationship. Theologian Graham Swig highlights how many Vedic texts depict the Supreme as the form of Krishna holding a flute. The enchanting vibration of Krishna’s flute, he says, is his love call, an invitation to be embraced by the heart of the divine. Personal and communal prayer is a feature of Vaishnav worship. However, practitioners are more encouraged to engage in kirtan, the singing of mantras composed of names of God. The Vedas describe this not as a one-sided invocation from human to God, but as our response to his love call to enter the presence of the divine in his form of sacred sound. Love is a two-way experience freely given by both parties. So I ask myself, who might be hoping for my reciprocation? Is my partner or family, friends, or someone in need wondering if I will ever properly acknowledge, understand or respond to their need or love call.
 

20 Nov 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

Good morning. On Monday in St Thomas Church in Leipzig the world heard for the first time for over three hundred years two lost organ pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach. The manuscripts had been discovered in the Royal Library of Belgium in 1992, without any indication of the date of composition or the composer. But they were so like known examples of Bach’s early organ work that the Director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, set out to establish whether they were in fact his. After thirty years research he says he is now 99.9% certain that the two organ chaconnes (in d minor and g minor) are genuine Bach compositions. It’s an exciting discovery for those of us who love Bach’s organ music. For me, being able to play Bach on the organ would be an achievement beyond my wildest dreams. I did once try to learn to play but co-ordinating hands-on keyboards and feet on pedals proved beyond me. One of the giveaways in establishing the authorship of the two pieces was that they show Bach’s development of the fugue, a fugue being a musical phrase that is repeated and developed in a variety of ways and builds in complexity towards the climax. Bach was a complex character. He could be bad tempered and over demanding, he quarrelled over his salary, he was in no way a saint. But in his music – and this was his genius – he rose above himself. More than perhaps any other Western composer he managed to blend extraordinary mathematical precision with deep human feeling. From his great settings of the St Matthew and St John Passion and to his apparently modest keyboard pieces there is a message, that our world is at the same time both rationally ordered and deeply felt. We are creatures of both head and heart. The fugue form which repeats and varies itself, always moves onwards. Bach’s music, perhaps again more than that of any western composer, suggests to me that there is a story going on, a narrative, which we are all part of whether we recognise it or not. As the music of time progresses there are discords and dissonances, which are not forgotten or easily resolved. Yet we remain creatures of hope in spite of the conflicts and tragedies of life. For Bach the final note is triumph and peace. Not an easy triumph or a bland peace but one which reflects the core of his faith in a God who loves humanity so much as to become human, and by being human raises us to God. These two new pieces will no doubt become part of the organ repertoire, a discovery that makes it just a bit harder to dismiss the testimony of faith.
 

19 Nov 25 — Tim Stanley

Today is international men’s day, the concept of which I am very suspicious. My gender has problems: low self-esteem, violence, addiction, uncertainty about what it means to be male. But many of us are resistant to therapy, and the self-pitying man is almost as unattractive as the muscle-bound influencer shouting at me to drink protein on Instagram. Like a lot of men, I don’t like talking about being a man. I don’t much enjoy talking at all. It’s striking that in one of the best ads for the Christmas season – that’s for John Lewis – the male characters say nothing. A son doesn’t know how to talk to his dad. He buys his dad an LP. His dad hugs him. Neither expresses themselves vocally, they don’t have to because actions say it all. Likewise the most prominent dad in the Bible, besides God, is completely silent. This is Joseph, the father of Jesus, whose greatest virtue is his patience. Here is a man who discovers that his fiancé, Mary, is pregnant, and not only accepts the explanation that God was responsible, he raises the child as his own. We never hear Joseph speak in the gospels, instead he is given a series of assurances or commands from God – take Mary as your wife, take your family to Egypt – and he wordlessly obeys. I suspect some of the online influencers who promote a return to traditional, rugged masculinity might regard Joseph as the ultimate cuckold, devoid of self-respect, barely a man. How wrong they’d be. Joseph’s silence doesn’t denote a lack of thought – we’re told he considered divorce – but a confident faith. To quote Pope Benedict, he said a silent but echoing “yes” to God – and by so doing, to his wife, to a baby and to responsibility. Such accumulated duties are, like wrinkles and grey hair, proof that we have lived. I’m convinced that gender is not defined solely by what we are – our biology – but what we do, and this is what gives femininity or masculinity its moral quality. When someone says “man up”, they typically mean the very opposite of juvenile or sexist or “toxic” behaviour. They mean be strong so you can be a rock for others. Be courageous, so you can dare to do the right thing. In my Catholic tradition, most ministers are called to celibacy and, so, cannot have children. Yet we call priests father, just as monks are brothers. And when we speak of a brotherhood of man, this is not to exclude our sisters, of course, but to extend the definition of family to the whole of humanity. In so far as it is a project to love others, being a man is truly an international endeavour.
 

18 Nov 25 — Dr Krish Kandiah

“The epicentre of global inhumanity.” That is how the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, now describes El Fasher, Darfur. New satellite analysis of Sudan reveals what investigators claim are unmistakable signs of mass killing. There have been reports of fires, graves and rust-red scars on the earth, patches of ground stained with human blood. It feels as though all four horsemen of the Apocalypse – war, famine, death and conquest – are riding through Sudan at once. Yet this catastrophe has unfolded largely unnoticed by the wider world. Since April 2023, the latest conflict has claimed an estimated 150,000 lives. More than 12 million people have been driven from their homes, over half of them children. It is chilling to think that violence on earth can be so extreme that it leaves a mark visible from the heavens. I cannot help but be reminded of a moment in the book of Genesis, when God comes down to earth and asks Cain “Where is your brother?” Cain knows exactly where Abel is – he has just killed him. But he deflects, answering the question with one of his own: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The cold indifference to the death of his brother, the defiance of talking back to God, the feigning of ignorance and shunning of responsibility only compound Cain’s guilt. God declares: “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” When we turn away, when we change the channel, when we decide that a conflict is too far away or too complicated for us to care about, the ground does not forget. It bears witness to the injustice. Its stain can be seen from space. The blood cries out to God from the ground, and God turns to us and asks: “Where is your brother?” Whether we like it or not, we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. The people of Darfur — mothers, children, families — are not strangers to be filed away under “foreign affairs”. Their cries, heard through the silent testimony of a satellite image, call us to heed our responsibility. This week the government presents its new asylum and immigration strategy – it’s an area I am very interested in. The strategy is designed to be more robust, to deter migrants from fleeing towards the UK. But the Home Secretary’s plans contain a seed of hope for those suffering in Sudan, with the promise of community sponsorship. My work means every day I see the impact safe and legal routes have – they’ve already saved the lives of thousands of Ukrainian, Syrian and Afghan brothers and sisters fleeing war. I pose the question – is it now time to now extend our hospitality and compassion to some of those fleeing violence in Sudan?
 

17 Nov 25 — Professor Tina Beattie

This month, millions of toxic plastic beads have been released into the sea due to a failure at a wastewater processing plant in East Sussex. The beads have been washing up along the shore from Dungeness to Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. This coastline is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, home to a rich diversity of birds and marine life. Thousands of migrating birds are arriving to over-winter in the salt marshes and lakes. The pristine beach at Camber Sands has been particularly badly affected. Volunteers have joined the local community for a clean-up operation, digging through seaweed and sand on their hands and knees, using a make-shift assortment of sieves and buckets to attempt to gather up the beads. It seems like a hopeless task. We moved to Camber five years ago. In summer, it’s a flourishing holiday resort, with multi-cultural crowds attracted by its miles of beach and sparkling seas in the shelter of the dunes. In winter, it’s a place of haunting and beautiful isolation, where one can walk for hours without encountering anyone other than the occasional dog walker. On the other side of the planet, world leaders are gathering in Brazil for COP30 to negotiate over their environmental obligations. Representatives of indigenous communities have been joined by climate activists, demanding action. Those who have the power to act must be held to account, but none of us is entirely powerless. That’s why I see those people on Camber beach with their sieves and buckets as a sign of hope. There’s something both absurd and inspiring about what they are doing. Absurd because the challenge is so vast. Inspiring because they have refused to succumb to despair and defeat. Poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins lamented that ‘all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil’, but his poem God’s Grandeur does not give the last word to the merchants of destruction. He reminds us that ‘for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.’ From Belen in Brazil to Camber in East Sussex, when people act together, our small acts of loving care for the environment are more than the sum of their parts. I believe they link us in mysterious ways to the love of God for creation. As Hopkins reminds us, The Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! Bright wings.
 

15 Nov 25 — Rt Rev Philip North

Tonight Channel 4 will be screening an extraordinary documentary called, ‘Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator.’ Its makers have been able to locate a patch of material from the sofa where Adolf Hitler took his own life in May 1945, and from a tiny trace of blood, they say they have sequenced the DNA of the man most people consider to be the embodiment of evil. It can’t be denied that the results are fascinating. A deletion in a gene suggests that Hitler had Kallmans syndrome which can cause delayed puberty, meaning that the well-known song about the tyrant’s sexual organs may have had a ring of truth to it. Those who have analysed the DNA also suggest he had a heightened susceptibility to a range of neurological conditions including schizophrenia, autism and bipolar disorder. It’s all very interesting, but for me there are serious risks to such an analysis if people start to jump to the simplistic conclusion that Hitler’s DNA accounts for his actions and decisions. I’ve already seen comments online suggesting that his alleged sexual problems or his possible personality disorders explain his appalling tyranny and the destruction that his actions unleashed on the world. Not only does such speculation stigmatise those who live with the same conditions as Hitler may have done, almost all of whom are decent and moral people. But as the ingenuity of the science in this field increases and as people become more interested in looking into their own genetic history, there is a growing danger of genetic determinism. Some people may be led to believe that the person you are and choices you make are somehow preordained by a genetic disposition over which you have little or no personal control. Not only are such conclusions bad science, they also have moral consequences because they strip a person of responsibility for their own actions. Christians have always held that the human person is infinitely more complex than that. The Bible speaks of human life as beautiful and dignified: we are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God. It is also powerfully aware of the human instinct for greed, conflict and hatred which unmakes that which God has so beautifully made. Jesus is clear that each person is responsible for their own actions and decisions and will be held to account for them. That’s why Christians like me rely on the forgiveness he offers. Human beings are not robots. Never mind how hard we try, human life will never be predictable or fully explicable either by geneticists or theologians. And personally I am rather glad it’s like that.
 

14 Nov 25 — Daniel Greenberg

The UK Youth Parliament just held its annual debate in the House of Commons Chamber. Permission to use the Chamber is granted to the Youth Parliament uniquely, because of the importance of encouraging and training the rising generation in the art of Parliamentary debating. But what is that art? What are Parliamentary debates really for? I asked a group of school students that question earlier this week and their answer was that Parliament is a place for people to speak. But after discussion they agreed that there are many other places, physical and online, where people are able to speak freely, and that the value of Parliament is less as a protected place for speaking, and more as a protected space for listening. Parliamentary procedure is structured to encourage listening. For example, MPs are not generally called to speak in debates unless they were there at the start and they are expected to stay after their own speech; and they are encouraged to take interventions to show that the purpose of debate is not just to state my opinion but to refine it by listening to other perspectives. Judaism frequently challenges its adherents to understand the importance, and difficulty, of listening. In his translation of the daily prayer book the late Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks explains that the common Hebrew word “shema”, the name of a core prayer, can be translated as to hear, which he says is purely passive, or as to listen, which he says is active and takes care, thought and practice. In similar vein the Talmud records an argument between two sages – Hillel and Shammai – about truth and falsehood in answering questions; the essence of Hillel’s argument is that you cannot answer a question truly unless you have listened sufficiently carefully to the question to understand exactly what is being asked and why. The world today is full of people shouting at each other, physically or electronically. All too frequently, neither side appears to be listening to the other, and the purpose seems to be simply to create and inflame tensions by hurling slogans at each others’ heads. If we want to reverse cycles of hostile tension we need to look to our youth to give a lead not in effective speaking or writing, but in sensitive listening and reading. So I hope the members of the Youth Parliament last week enjoyed their visit to Westminster, and that they learned something about how to speak, but much more about how to listen.
 

13 Nov 25 — Professor Michael Hurley

On Monday, Crisis – the UK’s leading homelessness charity – published its State of the Nation report. It makes bleak reading. Last year, almost 300,000 people across England either found themselves sleeping rough or living in unsafe temporary accommodation. That’s 45% higher than in 2012, and up 21% even since 2022. The solution to such a vast problem must be political as well as charitable. But the problem is also, it seems to me, psychological. As a nation, we seem to have accepted homelessness as an inevitable fact of modern life. Or perhaps we’ve just forgotten what being homeless really means. Consider some outdated synonyms: Vagrant, tramp, vagabond, drifter, itinerant, hobo, down-and-out, beggar, derelict, wayfarer, mendicant, squatter, rover. They are all striking in their own way, and there are other modern coinages too, like street-person, or rough-sleeper. Yet ‘homeless’ remains, I think, the best term we have. For a start, ‘homeless’ doesn’t carry the negative or criminal connotations that go along with, say, vagrant, tramp, or derelict. Nor does it risk romanticising, like vagabond, wayfarer or drifter, which imply a free, chosen, or even adventurous life. And the modern variations seem rather thinly descriptive. ‘Homeless’, by contrast, is a word with Old English roots that carries a deep meaning while also being boldly simple. It affirms a fundamental human need – the home – while signalling that this need remains unfulfilled. The word’s meaning is almost self-explanatory, but it’s been worn away by overuse, so that we rarely reflect on what it actually spells out. From a Christian point of view, the home is not merely shelter, but a place of belonging and dignity. “My people shall dwell in a peaceful habitation”, says Isaiah. Catholic social teaching calls decent housing a basic human right, a matter of justice rather than charity, because to have a home is to share in the stability and security that God wills for every person made in His image. To be made home-less is therefore to be made, in some sense, less human. Research on people suffering homelessness in the UK documents, among other things, social isolation and stigma, depression, anxiety and a loss of confidence. The moral measure of society is how far it allows such damage to go unanswered. Of course, merely talking about homelessness cannot itself solve the problem. That will cost money and requires practical changes of the kind laid out by the Crisis report. Still, there is value in pausing over the language we use, to remind ourselves why the problem matters in the first place. To recover what it really means to be home-less is no substitute for action, but it may just be where the will to act begins.
 

12 Nov 25 — Rev Roy Jenkins

‘To begin at the beginning’: what a joy to be hearing those words of the poet Dylan Thomas on this programme yesterday, delivered in the unmistakeable rich baritone of one of the most famous of Welsh actors. This week marks the centenary of Richard Burton’s birth, with tributes in print and on film, and the unveiling of a blue plaque on a terraced house in Pontrhydyfen, a former mining village near Port Talbot. Both Thomas and Burton have been lauded around the world. Both had their early talent recognised but struggled to make their mark, had problems with drink, and despite their success left many of their admirers regretting that so much potential remained unfulfilled. What might have been? They had very different backgrounds. Dylan Thomas’s father was a teacher in Swansea, who’s said to have read him Shakespeare and the Bible in his cradle. At 39, he left behind some timeless writing, but also fed the legend of ‘the roistering, drunken and doomed poet.’ Richard Burton lost his mother when he was two, and grew up in the care of his older sister. He came close to abandoning his studies until a school teacher Philip Burton became his legal guardian. The Richard born a Jenkins adopted his surname and he was on a path to a stellar career, from The Spy who came in from the Cold, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, his Biblical epic The Robe, which I watched as a child, entranced both by the story around Christ’s crucifixion, and by the wonders of the dazzling new Cinemascope. There were also the five marriages (two to Elizabeth Taylor), the jet set lifestyle, declining powers and battles with the bottle. He still revelled in his heritage, and regularly stayed with family who’d remained in Pontrhydyfen, where the protective pride remains evident to this day. What might have been? Not for us to say, I think. One of Dylan Thomas’s best-known works is Under Milk Wood, his portrait of the fictional seaside village of Llaregub. Among his earthy characters is the Reverend Eli Jenkins. The prayer which bears his name might be dismissed as lightweight wishful thinking: ‘We are not wholly bad or good/ Who live our lives under Milk Wood/ And Thou, I know, wilt be the first/To see our best side, not our worst.’ That’s not a way of saying that bad and good are equal, but it is affirming that the God Christians recognise in Jesus Christ is gracious, treats us all much more generously than we deserve, and sees the possibilities even in those who might seem the most hopeless. And he wants us to reflect that.
 

11 Nov 25 — Professor Mona Siddiqui

Today on Armistice day we will share a 2-minute silence at eleven o’clock. It’s a sacred kind of silence honouring the lives lost, the grief that never found words and the courage that often went unseen. At a time when so many question what holds our nation together, this poignant moment of remembering which stretches across schools, streets and offices, is a collective act of silent gratitude. There is the silence that heals and the silence that can harm. For the controversy unfolding at the top of the BBC, the accusation against the organisation is not only one of bias but also one of silence. A silence by those who took too long to admit mistakes, to explain, to restore confidence. The delay in coming forward has challenged accountability, trust, and the future of a national institution on which we rely and which many of us cherish. And then there is the kind of silence which in our personal lives can feel like betrayal, making you doubt the very foundations of a relationship — when you want someone to have the courage to admit they’re wrong but they don’t, when you want someone to be there for you when you’re hurting but they’re not, when you want someone to be happy for you, to share in your joy, but they stay quiet. This is the kind of silence that wounds, heavy and sharp. In leadership, in friendship, in family, and in public life, cruelty is often quiet. In an age of endless noise and opinion, silence can seem like an absence. But many thinkers eastern and western regarded silence as a form of discipline. Pythagoras who required his students to train in silence for years, the Indian poet philosopher Allama Iqbal who saw silence as the dynamic space of spiritual work, of self-realisation, a kind of discipline that doesn’t offer escape, but clarity. It gives us time to hear the voice of conscience, the whisper of remembrance and the guidance of God. And the Persian scholar and poet Rumi who wrote that “Silence is the language of God; all else is poor translation.” It takes courage to know when to be silent and when to speak up – both are moral choices we all face every day. So as the two minutes silence ends today and the sound of life returns I will reflect on how silence not only enables us to remember but carries with it the weight and hope of living differently.
 

10 Nov 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

How do wars end? When a war is being fought, all that anyone can think about is when it will be over. In contrast to the wars of previous centuries, where two opposing armies would arrive at a field to fight, in modern wars, so-called ‘non-combatants’ – civilians – are often the main casualties. In that terrible phrase ‘collateral damage’. For a bombed civilian population, an overwhelming longing is all-consuming for the nightly peril and noise to cease, get some sleep and comfort your children. But how do wars end? This question might sound like a “high” subject; by which I mean, a mixture of military theory, political will and tactical assessment. And it can seem either long ago, or far away, or over there. But the fighting and ending of a war is a human endeavour that is much more ordinary than we think. To end a war requires not just exercising compassion for exhausted people but also facing hard truths: that not everyone wants peace. That for some leaders, governments, groups and gangs, war is a choice and its length a matter of their will. It means assessing the balance between justice, deterrent and revenge. Ending a war also requires facing the unanswerable question as the casualty lists grow: did they die in vain? Today we’re between two silences. Yesterday on Remembrance Sunday, in towns and villages across the UK, people of all generations and backgrounds gathered at war memorials to keep silence, to pray and remember. And tomorrow, Armistice Day, at the 11th hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, silence will be kept again. In those silences, in those prayers, we have a chance to see again that it’s human beings who make war. And it’s human beings who can choose at any moment on any day to start to broker peace. The Christian tradition allows that in very limited circumstances, the confrontation of evil acts and unjust rulers can lead to war. But also teaches that whether a truce comes with victory, negotiation or a stalemated mutual exhaustion, the ending of war grows in the earth of ordinary day to day peace making about which every one of us has choices every day. Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn we say. Which reminds us that there are those of us who do have the years. What will we do with the years they did not have? Will we prolong conflict in the pursuit of victory, or chasing revenge, or will we take the first step – in our families, in our communities, in our neighbourhoods and nation – to choose to make and keep peace.
 

08 Nov 25 — Rev Canon Michael D Parker

Private Robert Edward Johns was one among many young servicemen to die in the Second World War. His story begins with a lie, running away from his Portsmouth home and enlisting as a 14-year-old. Bobby, as he was known to his mates, was physically strong and volunteered to serve with the Parachute Regiment. He was just 15 when he earned his paratrooper wings. At the age of 16 he was part of the D-Day invasion force, dropped into action near Ranville on the Normandy coast. Bobby’s war came to an end on the 23rd July 1944 – killed in action by a sniper, 2 days before his 17th birthday. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemorates over 38,000 servicemen who died in the Second World War as teenagers. Amid the sea of shocking statistics from the Second World War, this I find particularly poignant. Young men, boys, giving their life in service of their country. It is all too easy to make a glib comparison between that generation and this. Indeed, earlier this year saw headlines declaring that Gen Z aren’t proud to be British and wouldn’t go to war for their country. Despite what some headlines suggest, the young men and women I meet are every bit as proud to serve as the generations who have gone before them. On a recent visit to a military cemetery with some of our newest soldiers, they told me about the motives for their own service. ‘Giving something back; becoming a better person; making the world a better place.’ There was a genuine sense of altruism in their comments. Then one young woman pointed at a headstone and read the inscription: “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” I asked her why this had made such an impact. “Because these are my friends” she said pointing to her colleagues “and I would do this for them.” I hope and pray she never has to, but in that moment the past and the present felt very close. In a letter written by Bobby’s mother on 22nd September 1944 she spoke from the heart ‘Let’s hope these brave fellows will never be forgotten after the war.’ When I stand at the cenotaph this year, I’ll remember Bobby, just as his mother hoped. But I’ll also remember the words of that young soldier and her colleagues. Their courage and service remind us that the spirit of sacrifice is not confined to the past. May we honour them not only in our silence, but in the way we live, serve and care for each other.
 

07 Nov 25 — Rt Rev Richard Harries

I don’t normally take the slightest notice of fashion but my eye was caught earlier in the week by an article in which several women were all shown wearing striped rugby shirts. Apparently this is the new fashion. Then I saw another piece on fashion: how Michele Obama, like many women, got unfairly picked on for her clothes, particularly her bare arms. Finally there was David Beckham’s new suit, designed by his wife, which apparently the King admired. Fashion gives a lot of people enjoyment and no doubt it all adds to the gaiety of the nations. But beyond clothes there is something much more fundamental-the fashion of our times, the intellectual, spiritual and moral outlook which shapes our age – what Germans call the Zeitgeist. This too, like all fashions, changes and the question is what is of lasting value and what will simply pass away as mistaken or trivial. How can we discriminate? It is just as easy simply to be swept along by currents of thought as it is by changing fashions in suits, shoes or handbags. And as someone well put it ‘Whoever marries the spirit of this generation will find himself a widower in the next’. T. S. Eliot, regarded as the quintessential modern poet for expressing the sense of meaninglessness and dislocation felt by so many in the 1920s believed that we can only truly understand our own age if we are rooted in a tradition. Otherwise you simply get carried along unaware that you are being carried. If you stand within a tradition however you can see your age for what it is, what is truly new about it and what might be valuable. What Eliot said applies much more widely than to poetry. It is true of our whole stance on life. A religious, moral and cultural tradition gives you a standpoint from which you can judge your own times, a base from which to discriminate what is of lasting worth and what will simply disappear. There is a fine phrase in the Hebrew scriptures ‘Look to the rock from which you were cut and the quarry from which you were hewn.’ On that rock we can stand and build our lives. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus uses a similar powerful image. He says that if we build our house on sand the storms will sweep it away. But if we hear his words and act on them then as he put it is like someone building his house on a solid foundation. The storms will come, the river will burst against it, but it will stand. The house of our life will hold firm.
 

06 Nov 25 — Rhidian Brook

Once a month I go to the barber to get my beard trimmed. We usually discuss life, football, faith, and his latest search for love. But lately, he’s been keen to discuss the end of the world. He seems convinced that we are living in the last days. All the signs are there: wars, fires, storms and plagues. Maybe we are ripe for a Second Coming. As the poet Yeats described: the centre isn’t holding; anarchy is loosed, the best lack conviction; and the worst seem full of passionate intensity. ‘Careful with that razor,’ I joke. Before asking him, half in jest, if he thinks he will find love before the world ends. He gives it proper thought. Before saying, ‘I hope so.’ ‘Me too,’ I say. ‘Truth is, there’s too much life to live and I’m twice your age. You’ve got a business to grow and love to find, I’ve got a beard to grow and stories to write – plus we still don’t know who has won Traitors. On the plasma screen there’s a clip of Attenborough’s film about the Oceans showing a bottom trawler destroying the coral rich seabed. It may be legal, but this activity seems to capture humanity at its wilful and short-termist worst. Attenborough sounds like a prophet admonishing the world. Of course, there are people who want it all to end, and are keen to induce it. Like some who buy property in Megiddo thinking they’ll have a front row seat for Armageddon. Or the mega rich who build nuclear bunkers beneath mountains, the survivalists stockpiling tins of over-dredged fish. Willing on a deus ex machina. Last time I checked, God instructed us to do the intervening, it is we who are to care for the planet and each other; Jesus was clear, too: there’s enough to be getting on with in this life here and now. We can leave the Da Vinci code theology to the conspiracy theorists. There is a planet to fix, wealth to distribute fairly, and wars to be ended. And, thankfully, there are people trying to step up to these challenges, like those trying to arrest and reverse the damage we’re doing to the planet; or those trying to find better ways to share the commonwealth; and the millions of kind people doing what they can to end wars by choosing to love their neighbour. Meanwhile on the Plasma, a miracle is un-folding: beneath the Ocean, the ruined seabed, with enough protection and good stewardship, shows a startling capacity for renewal. We watch a heaven growing back from a hell. ‘Would you like some oil in that beard,’ the barber asks. He anoints my beard. ‘Cologne?’ Splash it all over. We hug, I say see you next month, and at the door I make a prophesy that he will find love before the end of all things.
 

05 Nov 25 — Jasvir Singh

Sikhs are today celebrating the birth of Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh faith. He was born more than five and a half centuries ago, and he saw great changes over his own lifetime, with society becoming more divided and polarised as time went on. Guru Nanak’s philosophy was simple yet revolutionary, with his three key teachings being to remember the Almighty at all times. To make an honest day’s living through one’s own hard work. And to share whatever one has with others, so that nobody is left behind in society. One of the verses written of his birth says “When Guru Nanak emerged, the fog and mist disappeared, and the world saw light”. His teachings continue to enlighten and influence millions of Sikhs and non-Sikhs across the globe. Gurdwaras will be busy over the coming days as devotees go to pay their respects, and one of the most striking architectural aspects is the flag that flies outside them. The Nishan Sahib. The tall pole is covered in a bright yellow or orange cloth, and many gurdwaras will be having a flag changing ceremony to mark the festivities. The congregation will come together to lower the flagpole, remove the old fabric, and wash the pole carefully. After it has been dried with reverence, the new covering and flag is put onto the pole before it is lifted back up with great pomp and ceremony. The ritual of the flag changing is significant, not just because the flag lets people know that the gurdwara is a Sikh place of worship, but because of what the flag itself represents and inspires. Wherever the flag of the Nishan Sahib flies, there is a langar or community kitchen, with volunteers preparing and serving free food to everyone who comes in, regardless of whether they are Sikh or not. The flag is a welcome sign to say that, no matter who you are, you can come in and spend time in a place of tranquillity away from the chaos of the outside world. And the emblem on the flag reminds us of the need to be willing to put one’s life on the line to defend others, just as up to half a million Sikhs did during the First and Second World Wars. Flags are important, of course they are. But if you don’t put in the hard work and effort necessary to live up to the values and beliefs that the flag represents, then just putting one up for the sake of it is meaningless. Coming together to actively give back to the community, protect the most vulnerable, and raise everyone up in society at the same time. That’s what Guru Nanak taught centuries ago. And that’s what I see when I look at the Nishan Sahib flying proudly outside the gurdwara.
 

04 Nov 25 — Rev Dr Sam Wells

‘Do you believe in miracles?’ someone asked me last week. Viswashkumar Ramesh believes in miracles. He’s been talking about June 12, when a plane crashed in Ahmedabad killing 241 people, including his brother; but he walked away from the wreckage – the lone survivor. Miracles went bang out of fashion in the eighteenth century. Scientists say ‘Some things can physically happen and some can’t. The laws of nature can’t be suspended.’ Theologians counter. They say, ‘Science studies things that happen repeatedly. Faith rests on events, most obviously the resurrection of Jesus, that happen once, uniquely.’ Science and faith don’t have to fight. Meanwhile moral philosophers argue, ‘It’s all very well for one person to be saved, but what about all the others? Why weren’t they saved too?’ In truth, theology has never had much of an answer to the moral problem. Today attention focuses more on the emotional complexity of being the only one to get out alive. Viswashkumar said, ‘I just sit in my room alone, not talking with my wife, my son.’ We recognise survivor guilt. We understand PTSD. The enormity of his trauma is hard to comprehend. For me, the question of miracles starts in the wrong place. It takes our existence for granted. But if I pause for a moment, I begin to apprehend my life, breath, relationships; the wider creation, the beauty, texture, detail and wonder of every single second. Then I reflect on the very fact of my being here, my parents having met, the occasions I could have died, the mystery of metabolism and oxygen and blood vessels and air. All this is a constant, overwhelming, indescribable miracle. And in the astonishing process of conception, how many elements could (and indeed more often than not do) go wrong? Every one of us is an extraordinary survivor against the odds. Each of us can sit back and ponder the chances of our becoming a fertilised egg that somehow got implanted in a womb. Behind that, the very existence of the world, the universe, is a mind-expanding wonder. Whether you believe in a creator or an impersonal beginning, it’s an awesome thing to contemplate how unlikely any kind of existence really is. We spend all day trying to get our lives under control. In truth, the whole thing is way beyond our imagination. Viswashkumar Ramesh is a miracle. But he’s discovered in a traumatic way something that is true of everyone. We’re all a miracle. Everything in existence is. It’s all gift.
 

03 Nov 25 — Chine McDonald

Millions of us today will use public transport to get to work, drop off kids or grandkids, and visit friends and family. Perhaps you’re feeling a sense of trepidation as you board your bus or tube or train and wonder who you might be making the journey alongside. To be able to share space with others we don’t know, and to trust they won’t harm us, is part of what makes society function. But it’s also this very human ability to trust others that dangerous people can exploit, causing us to doubt our safety and the intent of others. As details emerge of the horror that took place on the train from Doncaster to London, I’m struck again by the profound acts of human kindness and courage also emerging. The man who put himself in harm’s way shielding a woman who was about to be attacked, those who used their clothing to stem the blood of a wounded stranger, the LNER staff member whose actions were described by the police as nothing short of heroic. The world feels increasingly dangerous – and I sometimes fear I wouldn’t find the courage – to act selflessly in such situations. But often people who show such bravery will say that they acted from instinct – after all there isn’t always time to think things through. This suggests to me that people are hard-wired to think of others; the idea that the hallmarks of humanity are selfishness, narcissism, and the survival of the fittest, doesn’t ring true at times like these. The Kerslake Report into the Manchester Arena attack that killed 22 people in 2017, for example, found there were “hundreds if not thousands of acts of individual bravery and selflessness”. There were similar Impulsive acts of altruism following the Southport attack last summer, and after 9/11 and many other tragic moments. We might think that our society is becoming more and more polarised, with tighter and tighter lines drawn around who we consider ‘us’ and ‘them’ to be. But on Saturday’s train-full of passengers from all walks of life, backgrounds, cultures and ages – there was one common enemy; the attacker. At times of tragedy we are bound together in our humanity. What we see in the examples of altruistic bravery is people seeing others’ human need first, they don’t stop and ask them first where they are from. There’s a famous example of this in the Bible – the Good Samaritan is a story of someone who stops to help someone society says he should not be bothering with. Human fragility and commonality pierce through political polarization. In his 1963 sermon on this story in Luke’s gospel, Martin Luther King wrote that we must not ignore the wounded we encounter. Because, he says: “He is a part of me and I am a part of him. His agony diminishes me, and his salvation enlarges me.” So as we board trains today, we have a choice. To trust in the humanity and goodness of others. Not just because the alternative is too unbearable to contemplate – but because this is who we are.
 

01 Nov 25 — Rev Canon Dr Rob Marshall

How are you coping with the darker nights? It’s a question that’s resurfaced this week as the evenings draw in, just days after the clocks went back. In Scotland—where some areas experience up to two hours less daylight than the rest of the UK—Professor Hester Parr of Glasgow University has launched A Wintering Well guide. Its purpose is to help people manage the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, which can bring persistent low moods, fatigue, disturbed sleep, poor appetite, and difficulty concentrating. Intriguingly, The Wintering Well guide recommends using a light box—sitting in front of it for about half an hour each day to receive around 10,000 lux. It also offers other practical ideas, such as lighting candles to help lift your mood. I have to admit, the past week has felt a little challenging—especially knowing it will be a couple of months before the days begin to lighten again. Lighting a candle each evening, as a small sign of hope for brighter times ahead, I find is always reassuring. Of course, people light candles for different reasons—to celebrate, to mourn, to remember, to hope. It’s no coincidence that candlelight plays such a central part in many of November’s observances, from All Saints and All Souls this weekend to Remembrance and the beginning of Advent. The theme of light and darkness is a continuum throughout Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Though the root causes of daily darkness can press in on us and sometimes pull us down, people of faith are called to keep their eyes fixed on the eternal light as the author of Psalm 139 puts it: “even the darkness is not dark to you, (for) the night is as bright as the day, the darkness is as light to you.” Christians embrace the teaching of St John the Evangelist, whose Prologue proclaims Jesus as the true light that shines in the darkness, for the darkness has not overcome it. Few would disagree that the world, especially at this time of the year, could use a renewal of the joy that even the smallest sources of light can bring, and everyone can play a part. Pope Francis encouraged us to ‘light candles of hope in the midst of darkness’ to encourage others with small acts of faith and love and remembering. In this weekend of All Souls, we should take him at his word and in some little way, illuminate the lives of those around us.
 

31 Oct 25 — Rt Rev Richard Harries

Hanging on the wall of our house for decades now has been a copy of Vermeer’s painting, The Girl with a Pearl Earring. It shows a young girl in an Oriental-style turban half-turned towards the viewer, with the shape of her large, liquid eyes matched by a pearl dropping down from her ear. I’m hardly alone in loving this painting, for it’s one of the most iconic pictures of our time, and has been the basis of both a novel and a film. This painting and its artist Vermeer is now in the news, for a new book by the art critic Andrew Graham Dixon, based on a decade of careful research, seeks to revolutionize the way we understand these paintings. He shows that they weren’t just pretty scenes designed to be sold on the art market, but were commissioned to hang on the walls of a single house by a woman who belonged to a devout Christian sect. In this house, surrounded by these paintings, the group met to pray and make music. Verme himself participated in these gatherings. Andrew Graham Dixon argues that each of these paintings has a particular symbolic significance. The girl with a pearl earring, for example, is dressed as Mary Magdalene, whom the community revered. The painting entitled Woman Holding a Balance indicates a weighing of the woman’s conscience before God, whilst the milkmaid, in which a woman pours milk out of a jug, indicates food being prepared for the poor. No doubt critics will continue to argue for years about the exact details of this symbolism, but what interests me is perhaps something even more fundamental. What is it about these paintings that makes Vermeer one of the most popular artists of our time? Why do they make such an intense, almost spiritual impact? I think it’s because Vermeer, in his depictions of people, captures something of the shock of their being, the fact that they actually exist, their sheer is-ness. At the same time, he conveys something of their mystery. These women, reading a letter or playing a musical instrument, have a life of their own, different from ours and unique. In all this, he is able to convey the miracle of the ordinary, the marvel of the everyday. Women in his paintings go about their ordinary business, sweeping or sewing in some hidden corner, with a stillness that is almost palpable. In retrospect, it doesn’t seem surprising that these paintings should come out of a religious sect that was at once intensely devout and tolerant. And apart from the pleasure they give us, they show us that nothing is ordinary, that the daily routine is a miracle.
 

30 Oct 25 — Vishvapani

About ten years ago a young Muslim woman called Abeer Amir came on a mindfulness course I taught at the Cardiff Buddhist Centre. She wore a hijab, worked as a dentist and was very quiet. One part of the course particularly struck Abeer. Having learned to settle the mind and tune in to the body, we ask people to turn towards difficult aspects of their experience. The principle, which Buddhist thought shares with cognitive psychology, is that, behind problems like stress, anxiety or anger, are often unaddressed feelings of pain or upset. Healing comes when we allow ourselves to turn towards those feelings and experience their emotional truth. Abeer came on more courses and told me she’d started creative writing classes. She’d never written before but, as she turned towards the shadows in her past, poems poured out. A couple of years ago she gave me her first collection. It explores her family’s suffering in Iraq and her own life as a refugee. The strongest poems evoke both the beauty of ordinary life and the terrible impact of Sadaam Hussain’s dictatorship, calmly, without anger or rhetoric. This was around the time of the October 7 attacks in Israel, and I told Abeer that as a person of Jewish descent, I felt I’d been attacked myself. For the last two years I’ve barely been able to follow events in Gaza. They were too upsetting. Meanwhile, Abeer wrote poem after poem about the war, often describing casualties with her characteristic calm, reinforcing her message with understatement and irony. This week, one of these poems, entitled ‘At Least’, was named Best Single Poem in the Forward Poetry prize, the UK’s leading poetry award. It ends: at least/ now they’re just waiting/ for a proper burial/ at least/ at least/ it’s over now/ at least/ for the dead/ at least/ these children/ don’t need to fear the dark/ at least/ not anymore/ Whatever our political position, we cannot deny the pain the Gaza War has brought. But when people identify more closely to one side, it can be hard to understand the other’s suffering. As a Buddhist, I believe our humanity calls us to turn towards the whole truth, however hard that may be. Abeer’s journey has shown me the grandeur that lies in the quietest person and that power that’s unleashed when we face the truth without flinching.
 

29 Oct 25 — Chine McDonald

Would you sip a cappuccino within sight of headstones? Brunch at a burial ground? Dine among the dead? These acts might to many of us seem morbid, but they’re becoming more commonplace in Germany due to the rise in popularity of the nation’s new “cemetery cafés”. These are spaces where people can gather among the graves to reflect, remember, and celebrate those that have gone before – places of stillness away from the hubbub, and hustle and bustle of life. A Guardian article this week explored the phenomenon, describing how cities such as Paris or New York where the dead are buried on the outskirts of town are less conducive to such cemetery cafes. In cities such as Germany’s capital Berlin, cemeteries have always been kiezbezogen – that is, rooted in communities. The dead among the living. This week, as we walk through our own communities, we’ll see houses decked out with ghosts and skeletons for Halloween – each dark decoration acting as a memento mori – a reminder that we will die. All Hallows Eve precedes All Saints Day in which the departed saints and martyrs are remembered. Though some Christians choose not to take part in Halloween festivities, for others, these symbols point to something profoundly hopeful: that Christ has overcome death, and that the grave no longer has the final word. We remember that we will die, but we believe that death is not the end. As it says in 1 Corinthians: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” It’s because of this belief that the earliest Christians were once thought strange for their closeness to death. While first century Roman law said the dead had to be buried far away to avoid contaminating the living, Christians would raise the bodies of martyrs in the air and parade them through the streets like trophies. They would gather to worship among the tombs, proclaiming that love is stronger than the grave. Perhaps, as we find new ways to remember the dead today, we’re recovering something of that ancient wisdom: that to face death honestly is also to glimpse the hope that lies beyond it. At the weekend during a family celebration, we took a moment to name those we had lost; quietly speaking their names – a susurration of grief as we ended with the words: we remember them. Maybe this all speaks to a deeper human need: to keep the dead close, to make peace with our mortality rather than push it away. Perhaps acts like these, taking time in the midst of celebrations to remember those we have lost, or sitting quietly in a cemetery café, marking All Hallows Eve, or wearing poppies ahead of Remembrance Sunday – can help us all honour those who’ve gone before, but also to live more fully aware of the preciousness of our own brief lives.
 

28 Oct 25 — Professor Mona Siddiqui

This week President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are preparing for a pivotal summit – potentially to finalize a new trade agreement between the United States and China. For months there’s been the spectre of a trade war between the two countries with each imposing huge tariffs on the other’s imports and goods. In his own style Donald Trump said “I think we’re going to end up having a fantastic deal with China,… fantastic for both countries, and it’s going to be fantastic for the entire world.’ Let’s hope so because trade isn’t just about economics – it’s a conversation and relationship that can build trust and connection across borders. And while, for most of us trade deals may sound like the work of diplomats, economists, and boardrooms, their impact reaches into our daily lives in often quiet but powerful ways – the price of a loaf of bread, the cost of a new phone, the availability of clothes, medicines, or the food we eat every day. Jobs too can rise or fall with the tides of trade; factories can thrive or close, farms and industries flourish or struggle under the weight of foreign competition. We all share this world and understanding these connections is a way of valuing the threads of our shared economic tapestry and prosperity. Yes, international trade like many things can be selfish even corrupt; but when done with a level of honesty and integrity, it can also be the lifeblood of creativity and trust. Perhaps this is why the Prophet, a merchant himself who traded in leather goods, spices, perfumes and jewels that passed through Mecca, elevated the importance of trade. He emphasised trade that was fair to be the foundation of commerce, a way of building bridges and bringing cultures together, saying, “The honest and trustworthy merchant will be with the prophets, the truthful, and the martyrs.” Sometimes it takes a trip abroad to really appreciate how international trade has over the ages, left powerful cultural legacies. For me personally a recent trip to Sicily reminded me that civilisations can compete, collaborate and create something enduring. Sicily was like a living poem, its architecture, hills and seas a testament to how beauty and commerce are intertwined. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder once suggested that the Mediterranean was the `wine of civilisation’ and Sicily poured generously into that cup. As the super powers meet this week, let’s hope that they see the sanctity of trade, that it affects us all — not just in what we buy, but in how we live, and how we belong to one another.
 

27 Oct 25 — Rev Dr Sam Wells

It’s been a weekend for the number twos. Lucy Powell was elected Labour’s deputy leader. Kamala Harris has been reflecting on how she handled Joe Biden’s fitness to run for a second term. Some people think, ‘All roles are stepping stones until I become the boss.’ Others say, ‘Actually, I feel more fulfilled in a number two role. So long as I maintain trust with the top dog, I can focus less on setting the vision and more on embedding it in an organisation, establishing a culture, and empowering individuals at all levels.’ In their book Leading from the Second Chair, Mike Bonem and Roger Patterson suggest the key to thriving in such a role. They say it’s not about planning how you’d act if you were in the first chair. It’s about finding delight in the paradox of being both a leader and a subordinate at the same time. This dynamic is the stuff of endless comedy. P.G. Wodehouse made a whole career out of the relationship between the all-knowing valet Jeeves and his floundering employer Bertie Wooster. The comedy depends on Wooster getting into scrapes from which only the serene but studiously subservient Jeeves can extricate him. The interplay between Jim Hacker and his senior aide Sir Humphrey in ‘Yes Prime Minister’ is the same. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul turns conventional notions of leadership upside down. He points out how Jesus didn’t treat his equality with the Father as something to be exploited. Instead, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. In doing so, Jesus upset all conventional forms of hierarchy. He demonstrated how true authority can be exercised from any social location. This displays a different kind of power. Conventional leaders like Pilate, Herod and Caiaphas discover how powerless they are. Obscure characters like lowly Mary and fisherman Peter become influential figures. The fashion seems currently to be for dictatorial leaders. But the story Paul tells is one in which authority’s something all of us can cultivate. It’s not about getting to be alpha gorilla. It’s recognising that – whatever our official role – we have some, under whose authority we rightly live, and others, over whom we may have formal authority or informal influence. Flourishing is not about the freedom and power of muscling our way to the first chair. It’s about accepting the disciplines and maximising the opportunities of our assigned role so as to serve a greater good. That good is to be a blessing to all in our organisation and beyond.
 

25 Oct 25 — Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra

I was telling a friend about a family holiday we had in Wales where we enjoyed the beautiful mountains and valleys of Snowdonia and the seaside – in between the rain of course. She said her family often holiday in the Lake District. I told her we’d been there one summer a few years ago. She highly recommended that we should go there during autumn. She excitedly described the vivid and breathtaking colours of the trees and their reflections on the calm waters of the many lakes – a mosaic of colours she said. The other day, I took my little granddaughter to our local park. And as I pushed her on the swings and helped her up the slides, I looked at the magnificent trees all around. I find it fascinating that in autumn the colourful leaves bring us such joy and delight even as they are dying, and then they fall off covering the ground. It felt like my granddaughter and I were walking on a carpet of leaves, crisp, but devoid of life. If these dead leaves did not fall off, the trees would be ugly to look at. And it is only after the trees shed their leaves that they can have a fresh, new and beautiful look again with the arrival of spring. Trees that don’t shed their leaves don’t get a makeover. It’s got me thinking about us human beings and how we compare. For example, how much joy and delight do we take from our frail and old grandparents and loved ones. I believe it is only the fortunate ones who are able to appreciate their beauty – I mean their real inner beauty. And as for the shedding of the leaves I wonder how much fresher, healthier and happier I would be if I could learn to shed off some of the rot that has set in my mind, body and soul. If I could give up wrong deeds, bad habits and negative thoughts to make room for good deeds, good habits and positive thoughts just like these trees make room for fresh leaves, I’m sure my life would be better, more colourful and more meaningful. God says in the Qur’an, “Allah does not change the situation of a people until they change what is within themselves. Like the trees in spring, I too can adorn myself with the fresh leaves of good manners, kindness, generosity and many other virtues. But first, I must undergo an autumn.
 

24 Oct 25 — Rt Rev Nick Baines

Yesterday, for the first time in half a millennium the English monarch and the Pope prayed together in Rome. For many people this was a profoundly significant moment; for others it was probably a non-event. But, I wonder what viewers thought was actually going in the Sistine Chapel. Well, much has been made of the symbolism of the event itself – a visible reconciliation as Pope and King listened to music and readings that quietly emphasise the ultimate accountability of powerful people to God – every person being made in the image of God. In other words, the content of what was said and done was as important as the symbolism. It wasn’t merely an act or an empty gesture. Prayer is not neutral – especially in a place that holds the judgment of God in exquisite art. I watched it and couldn’t escape the power of articulated accountability. The trappings of glory, the glory of art, the beauty of music; and, yet, the words all spoke of humility. Here a pope is not the ultimate head of a church. A king is not the ultimate power of a state. Power must always be rooted in the humble recognition that the most powerful people on the planet are themselves held accountable – in my view to God – for their words, actions and decisions. If power can easily corrupt, then prayer can slowly change us for the better. For prayer opens space for us to tell God – and each other – the deepest longings of our heart … even when we know that this has as much to do with wishful thinking as it does hope for change or deliverance from bad stuff. Prayer is the space where we can be true – even about our worst instincts and emotions. Just read the Psalms with their raw honesty. However, as I have got older I have realized that prayer is less about changing God’s mind than having my mind changed by exposure to God. In this sense, prayer means shutting up and listening, facing the reality of God, the world and myself. Saying the Lord’s Prayer leads me to uncomfortable reflection: if I want God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, then what do I have to do to help that happen? How or what do I need to change in order to be the answer to that prayer? In this sense, prayer is about exposing myself to God’s character and light, rejecting hypocrisy, being stripped back, and discovering that repentance – literally ‘changing my mind’, looking and seeing through God’s eyes – is a massive, challenging and transformative gift. Even for kings and popes.
 

23 Oct 25 — Rev Dr Michael Banner

As the first sightings of crocuses and daffodils herald the dawning of spring, so the first sightings of poppies – not real ones you understand – tell us that we are headed from autumn towards winter, and this year, to the 80th anniversary of the ending of the second of the two conflicts which we remember every November. At the Manchester Museum last night, there was an event which sought to enlarge our remembrance by telling the story of three million Indian civilians – British subjects at the time – who died from starvation and malnutrition at the end of the Second War in the famine beginning in 1943which afflicted Bengal in what was then known as British India. To give that number some context, that’s 3 million compared with approximately 385,000 British soldiers who died across the world in the World War II, and around 70,000 non-combatants who died chiefly in enemy bombing raids. That for 80 years after the end of the Second War – and some 107 years after the armistice of 1918 – we have continued to commemorate the terrible loss of life suffered by British soldiers, shapes who are as a nation and people. A country which suffered such fatalities and failed to recollect them in a formal and regular way might be convicted not of mere forgetfulness, but of callousness. But those 3 million in Bengal – casualties as a result of a war not of their making – have apparently no memorial – not even a plaque – anywhere in the world. As the philosopher Judith Butler puts it starkly – some lives are deemed grievable, others not so much. Christianity is a religion in which remembering is extraordinarily central and important. Not for a mere 80 years after the end of hostilities, but for 2000, Christians have devoted themselves to remembering one life and death as not only especially grievable, but as especially significant. The Gospels remember Christ’s life. The creeds remember his conception, birth, suffering, death and burial. And the central service of many denominations – variously called the Mass, Eucharist, Holy Communion or Lord’s supper – not only includes the memories contained in Gospel and Creed, but is structured as an enactment of Christ’s own recollection of his life and death. ‘Do this in remembrance of me’. Many Christians in times of trouble recall Christ’s words to his disciples in Luke’s Gospel – ‘are not five sparrows sold for two pennies’ – a better bargain than in Matthew’s Gospel where it is ‘two for one penny’ – ‘and yet’ he continues, ‘not one of them is forgotten before God’. Since sparrows then, as now, were small, numerous and not specially charismatic, the point is the more touching. God’s remembrance of his creatures is capacious and reaches to all. It seems to me that 80 years after the second War it is overdue that our remembrance of that conflict should encompass more than it has. War imposes grievous losses and terrible costs, and we do well not to forget the wars but to widen and deepen our recollection of them.
 

22 Oct 25 — Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith

At the Covid enquiry yesterday former Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke of a ‘huge price’ children paid during lockdown. Meanwhile, in our schools today, there’s a new trend among that ‘Generation Alpha’ who started during Covid: the 6/7 phenomenon. ‘6,7’ began online but has morphed into a shared ritual among pre-adolescents and young teenagers, crossing continents and cultures. Speaking the numbers 6,7 in any subject or context in school right now can trigger an unplanned, unchoreographed class shout: ’6,7, 6,7,’ accompanied by two palms up, as if in invocation. What does it mean? Well, 6,7. Not much, in other words – it’s an in-joke, an affirmation of shared identity and a chance to disrupt lesson plans. Founder of Methodism, John Wesley had much to say to children of the 18th century: ‘…beware of trifling conversation, particularly with those of your own age. Let your words be few and weighty, such as may minister grace to the hearers.’ I fear Wesley wouldn’t have been impressed by the 6, 7 fad, and many teachers and parents aren’t either. But remember, in our day generation x’ers like me set teeth on edge with our ubiquitous use of the word ‘like’ for pause or emphasis – like, really there is nothing new under the sun. So my question is, how are we listening to this Generation Alpha now? Not just talking about them retrospectively, in an inquiry – especially those who struggled to get back into the habit of school and even now remain outside its reach. Let us not forget Jesus put a child at the centre and said ‘you must be like this little one to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Linguist Taylor Jones has called 6/7 a ‘generational shibboleth,’ by which he means a password of sorts. But this is to reference a blood thirsty story in the book of Judges: a fleeing population was forced person by person to pronounce that word, Shibboleth, and if their accent was not right, put to the sword. Our children do not always find good online or in person role models for how to make common cause across different accents, opinions or nationalities. Maybe a shared joke, a shared cultural moment like ‘6,7’ however ‘trifling’ it seems, is a hopeful trend. Even one that might just ‘…minister grace to the hearers,’ to return to John Wesley’s words. For this generation, the digital landscape is just as real as any other part of life. They are natives in a world where I’ll always be a foreign migrant. They’ve paid a heavy price on our behalf, in lockdown and since. And, if we’re not always paying as much attention to them as we might, be assured they are paying attention to us.
 

21 Oct 25 — Akhandadhi Das

In thinking ahead to today’s Diwali festival, I found myself reflecting on the “No Kings” protests in the US at the weekend. Somewhere around seven million Americans gathered to affirm commitment to a constitution drafted to avoid being governed by an absolute monarch. Diwali, of course, marks the celebration of the return of King Rama to the throne of Ayodhya. However, the festival’s message highlights both the issues of unfettered human power as well as the qualities of ideal leadership. The Ramayan text relates Rama’s travails; the internal intrigue that sees him banished and the cowardly abduction of His wife, Sita, by the tyrant, Ravana. In response, Rama forges alliances ultimately defeating Ravana in battle. It is a story that reveals the nature of human interactions–on the broad political scale as well as in inter-personal dealings. As the Ramayan testifies, justice is needed to rectify harm and wrong-doing; sensible precautions are needed for security. And, although a deal lasts only as long as the win-win balance, it may still defuse a war zone. But, the intention of the Ramayan is to emphasise the vital importance of value-based leadership. As we navigate our hopes and aspirations against life’s challenges, we tend to assign other people to one of three categories: friends, neutrals or enemies. Based on these calculations, we strive to please our clan, keep allies on board for when they might prove useful, and scheme to distance or overcome our adversaries. The Vedic texts say such an approach to politics and even every-day interactions is “petty-minded”. And is the cause of much of our anxiety and the constant conflict we find ourselves in. By contrast as an example to us, Rama’s rule as king is said to embody the principle of “vasudhaiva kutumbakam” – to see the world as one family, indeed one household. Not because we share the same interests, politics, language, or religion. But because, within our hearts, every human shares exactly the same access to a relationship with the Supreme. The Diwali message is therefore that we do not nurture that relationship for ourselves or encourage it within others, as long as we remain “petty-minded”. Today, there will be a clean home and a sharing of gifts and new clothes amongst those nearest and dearest. But the message for would-be kings as well as for each of us, is that we will find the real spirit of the festival in the renewal of our outlook towards others. Happy Diwali to you all.
 

20 Oct 25 — Rt Rev Dr David Walker

It began with a messy divorce, but this week may see an important step of reconciliation. British monarchs, whose office includes being Supreme Governor of the Church of England, have met popes before. What will make this week’s royal visit to Rome unique in half a millennium is that Pope Leo and King Charles will pray together. Beyond kings and popes, barely a century ago, Catholics were not allowed even to pray the Lord’s Prayer with non-Catholics. We’ve come a long way. I’m not expecting events in Rome this week to lead Anglicans and Catholics to come together into a unified church. Whilst many of us essentially believe and teach the same things, 500 years of separation have seen us develop distinctive patterns of church order and governance. The recent announcement that Bishop Sarah Mullally will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury contrasts sharply with an all male Catholic priesthood. Yet setting aside any expectation of unification, that such senior figures from different denominations can not just speak but pray together matters to me hugely. Meeting and speaking with other Christians is one thing. Being alongside them, as together we speak with God is, in my view, something qualitatively different and richer. That willingness to pray together is something I’ve found can cross wider boundaries of religion. As the first anniversary of the terrorist atrocity at the Manchester Arena drew near, I spent a day travelling with a BBC producer, speaking with people who had been involved in the response to the attack. One of our interviewees was a local Imam with whom I’d worked closely in the days following the tragedy. After several minutes of conversation we realised that speaking with each other was not enough. First in silence, then in words, we prayed. He and I hold very different understandings as to how and where God has most fully revealed himself, but the petitions we needed to make, for victims of terror, for our city and beyond, were drawn from wells deeper than our divisions. That prayerful common ground stretches far beyond responding to terrorism. When the King and Pope meet to pray this week, they will do so in a service crafted to reflect both the longstanding environmental concerns of the King and the powerful encyclical Laudato Si issued by Pope Francis. It was that same issue of combatting climate change which drew me, alongside other religious and civic representatives from Greater Manchester, to meet with Pope Leo’s predecessor two and a half years ago. Mindful of our different traditions, we didn’t then pray. Perhaps, taking a lesson from Charles and Leo, were we ever to repeat the trip, we should.
 

18 Oct 25 — Rev Roy Jenkins

I had a strange but lovely experience earlier this month – taking the funeral of a friend who sat next to me in the first form at Abertillery Grammar School, a very long time ago. Threaded with music that he loved, it affirmed an identity he cherished through many years away from Wales. Derek’s origins were always a mystery. His parents seemed much older than mine or those of our classmates. They died when he was in his teens. When he was 19, the family solicitor informed him that he had no birth certificate or any legal identity. He left the office stunned. He was in turmoil, briefly homeless, with drink a significant problem. Who was he? The question never went away. A friend’s invitation to church led him to a quiet but profound discovery of Christian faith. Within a few years he was in university starting a journey which would take him eventually to a doctorate, ministry in four very different churches, and a rich variety of experience – leading 15 school assemblies a month, setting up an Alcoholics Anonymous group, caring for heroin addicts, and much more. As an industrial chaplain he served, among others, the rescue services – and, despite his deeply held pacifist principles, the military, available to top brass and office cleaners alike. But the question of the confused 19-year-remained: who was he? Long fascinated by Hebrew, he wondered about having something Jewish in his background. He and his wife spent decades researching, before discovering that his birth mother had been an evacuee from the London blitz living in a neighbouring valley. At 59, and to his immense delight, he found a brother he’d never known he had. The families welcomed one another to their homes and shared Passover and other meals. His new identity as a Christian believer had changed his life. In the little congregation, he found an acceptance and care that he felt he’d never experienced before. ‘I could only believe that it was because they believed – not in me, initially, but in the God they recognised in Jesus.’ Finding a further identity, and being accepted by his Jewish family, had taught him, he said, ‘that our God is much, much bigger and more accepting than we think and believe – an openness which already marked his life He was once asked where he would have been if his mother had not given him up for adoption: ‘I would probably have been a rabbi.’ Well, rabbi or Baptist minister, I know that this oldest of my school friends still has much to teach me, maybe especially that ‘God is much, much bigger and more accepting than we think and believe’.
 

17 Oct 25 — Rt Rev Richard Harries

Ian McEwan has published a new novel in which he imagines Britain flooded by a tsunami, and existing only as a series of small islands. Interviewed in connection with the book he said that deeper than any fears about climate change or war he believed something even more fundamental has happened in our time. He defined this as the ‘collapse of a belief in the future or…. the fading of a belief in progress’ He regards this loss of hope in a better future as catastrophic. The first question to ask is whether he is right that a belief in progress has now faded? After all, young people can often still seem full of hope for their lives. But for those of us who are older, something has indeed changed. During the 1960’s people really thought the world could be changed for the better. During the 1980’s and 90’s people believed the world was becoming more and more prosperous. Apartheid ended, the Berlin wall came down, The Good Friday agreement was signed, democracy seemed ascendent, and a rules based international order was widely accepted. Now, alas, it all feels so different. So yes, I think Ian McEwan is right, something fundamental has changed in our time. We do not think progress is inevitable – that the future will necessarily be better than the past. My second question is: what difference should this make to how we actually live our lives? My short answer is that this should not divert us from what really matters- because the Chrisian church has never believed in the inevitability of progress. Taking a realistic view of human nature it has always known that things can get worse as well as better, and that communities set up on the most idealistic ideas can get wrecked on the rock of human egos – this of course applies as much to religious communities as to secular societies. The Victorians had a powerful belief in progress fuelled by the newly discovered theory of evolution. But this was quickly shattered by the first world war and the horrors of Soviet Communism. Of course there has been, and will continue to be, wonderful scientific and medical advances, but the challenge of human beings to live together in harmony so that the well being of everyone is fostered is the same now as it ever was and will continue to be so. It is not a belief in progress that matters but the moral duty to alleviate suffering and promote the good of all however the future looks – and if the future looks sombre as it does to many now, that moral duty becomes even more pressing.
 

16 Oct 25 — Rabbi Charley Baginsky

Today, Jews around the world mark the memorial for October 7th, two years since the attacks that tore through what should have been a day of joy. In the Jewish calendar, the attacks took place on Simchat Torah, the festival that marks both an ending and a beginning. Now, as this year’s Simchat Torah ends, the joy is replaced with a memorial. On Simchat Torah, we reach the final words of the Torah —the Five Books of Moses —and then, without pause, roll the scroll back to the very beginning to read the story of creation once more. It is a ritual that insists the world can begin again, that learning and hope must never stop, even in darkness. That difference in time matters. Time in Judaism is not a straight line. It moves like a coil, circling forward, gathering what has been and carrying it into what might yet be. Each year we return to the same stories, the same losses and longings, but we return changed. The Hebrew word for year, shanah, means both to repeat and to change. That tension lies at the heart of this moment: the pull between repetition and renewal. Two years ago, on Simchat Torah itself, celebration turned to catastrophe. The singing stopped, replaced by sirens and disbelief. Since then, the circle of grief has widened, from the trauma of Israel’s murdered and kidnapped to the destruction in Gaza, where families and neighbourhoods have been lost. The grief is no longer one people’s story; it is the grief of two, bound together in tragedy. This week, as a ceasefire takes hold and hostages return home, there is relief and reunion — but also unbearable absence. And fear that it may not last. The quiet feels precious and fragile, as though any sound could break it. Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun. It is hard not to escape that weariness, that sense that we have been here before. But the turning of the Torah teaches that even in repetition, change is possible. That creation begins not once, but again and again. The scroll never closes. There is no space between ending and beginning. To turn it back is an act of defiance, to keep believing in renewal when the world feels broken. The question it asks of us, Jews, Israelis, Palestinians, and all who watch from afar, is whether we can let the next turn of the coil rise a little higher than the last. Whether we can take the memory of loss and turn it into a beginning that does not repeat the same pain. To live in that hope is hard work. But perhaps that is the work of this season: to live inside the circle and still believe that something new can yet be born.
 

15 Oct 25 — Anne Atkins

This House Believes Black Lives Matter intentions are more important than its methods. Thus, Cambridge Union will debate tomorrow night. Well, yes, intentions matter. Of course they do. Remember the widow praised by Jesus for giving away her last mite, referring to a Jewish coin, like the tiny insect of the same name because so small and worth almost nothing. And yet her sacrifice made it generosity beyond price. You, God said to Samuel, see the outside but I see the heart: and he chose a puny shepherd lad to be King instead of all his strapping older brothers. He tests the heart and knows the mind: His eyes are everywhere, seeing evil as well as good. And yet look at all the characters He chose to do his work. Abraham, father of three monotheistic faiths, offered his wife to other men to save himself; not once but twice. Moses was a murderer, Jacob a cheat, the hero King David – that same weedy boy close to God’s own heart – was both, killing a soldier because he fancied his wife. His son Solomon inherited this entitlement, with a harem of a thousand. Elijah brought down fire on his enemies while his successor Elishah set a bear on a bunch of children, or at best a gang of adolescents. When we meet “Saint” Paul he’s intent on murder and even after conversion comes across as tetchy and arrogant. Not many I’d like to have dinner with. It’s hard to think of any biblical heroes without deep flaws. Agents to advance the narrative of antiquity rather than models of morality for us to emulate. I have no idea how the students at the Cambridge Union will vote tomorrow. But I hope they acknowledge that both matter: motive and method, means and ends. God cares about our intentions because these shape our character, which he loves. But also about our results because these change the world, which He created. Oskar Schindler was allegedly a gambler, womaniser and black marketeer but he saved the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust . President Trump made no secret of his lust for credit in his work for peace. But each was acting for the greater good of humanity. So if the Nobel peace prize committee decide to give the American President the award for his work to achieve a lasting settlement and security for both peoples, won’t the peace prize have been put to good use? Only one person, though, has ever demonstrated perfection in both: with a heart as pure as God’s and such power to change history that we date it from His birth.
 

14 Oct 25 — Professor Tina Beattie

Dr Ezzideen Shehab runs a clinic in Gaza. Over the weekend, he posted these words on social media after he returned to his home: “I came back today. I thought I had known despair before, but what I saw today is beyond despair. … It is something colder, a stillness where even God seems to have withdrawn His hand.” He describes how he and his family are living “in a state of total psychological collapse” as they survey the bulldozed remains of their home and their neighbourhood. On the other side of this human abyss, surviving Israeli hostages are returning to their families, traumatised and broken after the horrors they have endured and witnessed over the last two years. The joy of their return and the relief of their loved ones will surely be tempered as they face the enormity of the struggle for healing and hope that lies ahead. The return of hostages and the ceasefire are of course good news – but I find myself wondering what people are celebrating. For the victims on both sides, there is such trauma and desolation, as survivors begin to piece together the shattered remains of their lives. So many must be hoping and praying that this is indeed a new era of peace, and that the world’s leaders will make good on their promises. What we are witnessing is the aftermath of a catastrophic failure of humanity. If true peace is to emerge from such horror and violence, there is so much more to be done. Violence sows its seeds deep in the human heart, and future generations reap its bitter fruits of vengeance. I resist the Christian language of forgiveness and love of enemies, for only those who have mourned their murdered loved ones and stood in the ruins of their homes have the right to use such words at a time like this. Only the crucified can know the full cost of forgiveness. The prophet Jeremiah calls us to attend to a timeless cry echoing through history in the wake of every war and conflict: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.’ Jeremiah warns against false prophets who say ‘peace, peace, when there is no peace’. In this time of mourning and great weeping, we must hope that a genuine and just peace will emerge for all the peoples of that tormented region. Only then might there be cause for true celebration.
 

13 Oct 25 — Rt Rev Dr David Walker

On a day when events in Israel and Gaza dominate the headlines, I’ll be boarding a flight from London to Barbados, heading for Codrington College, the site where the Anglican Mission Agency I now chair inherited and ran a sugar plantation with enslaved labour for over a hundred years. The burial places of those whose, often short and brutal, lives ended at Codrington, were noted neither on plans nor on the ground. We think however, in these last few weeks, we may have found some of them, ironically, like King Richard III, beneath a car park. Finding and marking the graves is one small part of a much wider programme. Our aim is to recognise and respond to the legacy of enslavement in ways that will build a better future for the descendants of those who produced the sugar that returned so much wealth to Britain three centuries ago. At the heart of it lies the task of learning to tell history not simply from the perspective of the rich and powerful, but from the actual experiences of ordinary people. Black History Month, which reaches its midpoint this week, adds a particular energy to that task. At the height of the American Civil War, Confederate envoys based in Liverpool sought to bring Britain into the conflict, on the side of the South, arguing that the UK’s primary interest lay in protecting the cotton trade. Famously, Manchester’s weavers refused to handle the slavery produced cotton they supplied, even at the cost to their own employment. The US President himself wrote a letter of thanks. Today his statue stands in the city centre, in a spot appropriately named Lincoln Square. Telling the story of slavery is for me not just an exercise in history but also a theological imperative. The Christian gospel compels me to recognise the intrinsic worth of every Individual. Christ died not just for the sake of a fortunate few but for the whole of humanity. When the story of what has happened in Gaza and Israel these last two years finds its way into the history books, I believe it must not just be the story of clashing ideologies and geopolitical forces, but centre on the experiences of those massacred by terrorists or held as hostage, or starved, or killed in bombed out buildings, and of all who survived but bear the scars Alongside this, recovering the memory of enslaved people buried beneath a Barbadian car park long ago, may seem less compelling, but it is by remembering and retelling all the stories of human beings at the heart of them that I hope a journey to a better future, in Barbados, the Middle East and for all of us, can be made.
 

11 Oct 25 — Rev Roy Jenkins

So many striking images from Gaza in this historic weekend One of the most powerful for me has been the long processions of people making their way back to whatever may be left of the towns and villages they fled in haste to save their lives. Some move in eager anticipation of a new beginning, wondering whether their home might just have been spared among the colossal devastation. Many dread what they might find, trembling at the prospect of what might be beneath the piles of rubble: the once treasured family mementos, but far worse the unburied casualties. There is at least now the prospect of regular and sufficient food and fresh water; maybe the beginnings of adequate health care to succeed the heroic efforts of medics who daily put their lives on the line; safe places for children to learn and play; proper buildings to replace the tents in which they often shivered. Maybe a much-loved mosque or church will remain to offer spiritual sustenance and possibly make some sense of it all. I wonder what the dominant feeling is among those in the ragged processions: or the Israeli families the other side of the border, desperate to embrace the loved ones held hostage for two years. Is it anger and rage at what’s been done to them? Is it depression, grief, fear – or maybe an overwhelming sense of helplessness? Or persistent hope? A mixture of all of the above, I suspect. Just as it is for many of us, looking on from a safe distance and sometimes uncomfortable to the point of distress that we’re apparently unable to do anything which would make a difference. That’s never the whole truth. Being angry at injustice, for instance, is important to both Hebrew and Christian traditions. The prophets railed against powerful people who exploited their workers, oppressed the poor, and corrupted the law. Jesus rebuked religious leaders who twisted scripture for personal profit and used pretty strong language as he did so. But our anger is meant to drive us to action which just might change some things for the better – often alongside others: the persecuted Venezuelan democracy advocate Maria Corina Machado did just that and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday- to evident disappointment in the White House. Christians are under instruction to ‘Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep,’ And keep on praying. That can lead us in some unexpected directions, but it should certainly be taking us to the dusty roads of Gaza, and grieving families everywhere.
 

10 Oct 25 — Dr Anna Rowlands

Yesterday, Pope Leo issued his first substantial text. Addressing the theme of poverty, it’s a sequel to Pope Francis’s text exploring the role of the human heart and Jesus’s sacred heart in our common life. The heart, for Francis, evokes the idea of our affections, closeness, encounter, proximity. The heart’s language is intimacy. By contrast, heartlessness and distance often go hand in hand. Yet, Francis believed, it is the cooler language of rational self-interest, efficiency and the bottom line that dominates, and at a cost. It privatises our affections. Leo’s new text now applies this social vision of a heart that is capable of proximity to what he calls ‘the needs of the poor’. Much anticipated, the most striking thing about Leo’s letter is that it says absolutely nothing new. Any pundit rapidly thumbing its pages for novelty will be disappointed. Instead, it reads as a quiet, steady testament to a basic, unchanging, unending Christian responsibility to be at the side of and on the side of the most marginalised – margins that come in different forms. The message is, ideologies come and go, but the basic Christian responsibility remains the same. He repeats all the uncomfortable, life-giving teachings of Christianity, including: The awkward truth that Christ reveals himself to the most despised and marginalised; that the goods of creation are meant for the benefit of all, that Christians are called to be advocates for the poorest knowing that one day they will become our advocates, that the only real power that Christian faith has is to recognise the good and cooperate with it, co-create with it; there is no real distance between the rich and the poor, our welfare is bound together, we merely create the cold fiction that it is not; that responsibility for the person lying in a doorway is personal and structural; that death, the ultimate poverty, is a reality we all share; that Christ dwells in all this poverty and overcomes it. It strikes me that it is precisely in its lack of novelty that this letter is most urgent and counter-cultural. It speaks ancient truths in the face of new ideologies and the ever-inventive history of poverty. In the face of rising inequalities and growing techno feudalisms that reassert old hierarchies in new forms, and as the fashion to revile empathy and proximity as risible weaknesses grows, Leo gives the counter witness, as heart speaks to heart.
 

09 Oct 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

A debate this week has been taking place in public across one of the key faultlines of national life. The important relationship between legislators- our elected politicians- and the operation of our independent justice system. The serving Director of Public Prosecutions unusually intervened after the collapse of a case against two men accused of spying for China. While the government expressed ‘frustration’ at the outcome, Stephen Parkinson said it collapsed because of a government failure to supply evidence referring to China as a threat to national security. In the same week, an opposition politician criticised what he called ‘activist judges’ on the issue of immigration. These interventions in public are historically unusual in themselves, arguably becoming more common: but they can also be seen as a feature of a legal system which debates its evolution through case law and precedent. And champions the strong commitment to independent interpretation of any legislation passed by elected politicians. A former Attorney General from the early seventeenth century, at a time when the relative places of law, parliament -and the church- were being debated (and were soon to be violently changed), said famously that ‘our laws are as mixed as our language’. Sir Francis Bacon was making the point that just as languages have mixed and sometimes contradictory cultural roots, evolving as they go, so does the law of this land as it is constituted. Not top down but bottom up. This system of checks and balances with regard to the exercise of power over the making and keeping of laws, arguably gives the best chance for societal change to be evolution rather than revolution. Christ spent a lot of time answering questions from lawyers, mostly not giving a straight answer but replying with a question or a parable. It was a lawyer for instance who asked the question ‘who is my neighbour’ that elicited the powerful story of the Good Samaritan. Christ’s teaching in the gospels emphasises both the letter of the law being fulfilled, at the same time as the spirit of the law being paramount. In a society such as ours, the letter and the spirit of the law find expression in the courtroom principles of advocacy, testimony and judgement enacted every day by solicitors, barristers, witnesses, juries and judges. But in public conversation, the principle of maintaining trust while offering challenge in the relationship between legislators and the operation of the law is vital. And as individuals, in contemplating similar principles of the exercise of power, trust and the promise to tell the whole truth, an adaptation of an old preacher’s question comes to mind: if I were in the dock for living a just life, would there be enough evidence to convict me?
 

08 Oct 25 — Vishvapani

The Conservatives are holding their conference with the party consistently polling below twenty percent. Labour isn’t much higher. It seems the UK is following the trend in other parts of Europe, when the momentum shifts away from the centre and towards parties that get called ‘populist’, ’far right’ or ‘far left’. Hearing about the growing polarisation that takes people to increasingly extreme positions, I have the odd sense that I know how this works. I recognise these patterns from Buddhist thought and what Buddhist practice has taught me. The lesson isn’t about politics. It’s about my mind and our minds, individually and collectively. The politics of grievance – leftwing or rightwing – locates the source of our unhappiness out there, in the government, immigrants or the system. That’s at least comparable to the psychology of blame when we place responsibility on our parents, our neighbours or our boss. What that leaves out is ourselves. We don’t see that our beliefs are based on what we feel. That’s a central Buddhist insight. We feel insecure or unhappy and rationalise our feelings as an account of the world that says someone else is responsible. An ideology. That may be reassuring, but it conceals the fundamental reality of our lives. There’s a Buddhist reflection that goes like this: ‘I am of the nature to age. I am of the nature to become ill. I am of the nature to die. I will be separated and parted from all that is dear to me.’ And finally, ‘I am the heir to my actions.’ The first four reflections seem to me a realistic appraisal of the human condition. The last is a call to action. If I am the heir to my actions, then what I experience depends on my past responses; and my future experience will depend on how I respond right now. That doesn’t mean excusing violence or blaming victims for their troubles. It means we always have a choice, even if we don’t see it. The rigid, reactive beliefs we call ‘ideology’ tell us that the right choice is to drive out our enemies and avenge our wrongs. Buddhism teaches that this sows the seeds of future suffering. Other responses are possible, but to see them we must we free ourselves from ideology and the emotions that produce it. Then we will encounter another question. If we are truly heirs to our actions, what then should we do?
 

07 Oct 25 — Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner

It’s October 7th, so of course I’m flooded with memories of two years ago: the terror of not knowing what was happening to our eldest, Tal, who lives near Jerusalem; of Hamas’ massacres and repulsive abductions, calculated to torment, entrench trauma and to trigger violence. And then, a spiralling, horrendous war. I yearn for these Egypt talks to bring a lasting ceasefire; All Israeli hostages – alive and dead – brought to their homes or graves; and millions of displaced Palestinians in Gaza, given immediate safe access to medicine, food and water. And a secure and just future. Today is also the start of the Jewish festival, Sukkot, meaning – booths or tabernacles; for a week, we eat inside our temporary huts, to identify with the mobile shelters of the ancient Israelites on their journey from Egypt to Israel. It’s tempting, especially in light of the Manchester synagogue attack, to turn inwards and shut out others to protect ourselves, but, on Sukkot, we’re commanded to do exactly the opposite. We have to invite strangers, guests, into our flimsy, vulnerable space. And when we’re in close proximity with guests, whilst we’re eating, we talk. We talk together, ask questions, explain and debate. The simple act of talking tests out our own views and we hear what others think. I’ve often asked myself, what’s that person in the gym thinking when they give me that look? Are they inappropriately holding me, a British Jew, to account for something that’s happening in Gaza – or maybe, they’re not giving me that look at all? It’s only by taking this risk of talking, that we can counteract the corrosive effects of the war over there, on communal relations here. Rachel Goldberg-Polen, mother of one the murdered hostages, Hersch, says, we must avoid being ‘swept up in the enticing, and delicious world of hatred’ which we saw in the attack on the Manchester synagogue and the arson on the Peacehaven mosque. These are atrocities, affecting all of us. We mustn’t let them corrode the hard-earned cohesion that we as a country have achieved. There’s one more vital Sukkot commandment. We’re commanded to celebrate and rejoice. Surely you can’t feel something on demand. ‘Pain’ is the unifying emotion that British Jews have felt since October 7th two years ago. But we’re commanded to step away from fears and pain, if only temporarily. I’m celebrating living in a democracy, grateful for the police and for the community response, appreciative of the strangers who contacted me immediately, offering solidarity. This is my Sukkot celebration – for a whole week.
 

06 Oct 25 — Jasvir Singh

If, like me, you have ever taken photos of a well-presented meal or put your holiday snaps online, you may like or unlike the fact that Instagram was launched to the public 15 years ago today. The popularity of sharing news and information via images has grown at pace during that time, and faith communities have not been immune to this. In the last week alone, the announcement of the next Archbishop of Canterbury and the details of the appalling Manchester synagogue attack were shared widely on social media with accompanying images and videos. From the very first cave painting over 60,000 years ago, humans have used images as a means of communication and self-expression. They predate written languages, and they often provide a better connection to an experience than mere words could ever convey. For example, the famous photo of Earthrise, showing our planet rising over the moon’s horizon, speaks more about the fragility of existence than countless articles or books ever could. I remember as a child seeing a vivid painting of Guru Nanak at a feast holding a rotti or chapati in each hand. One roti had been cooked in the home of a rich merchant who had exploited the poor, and the other was cooked by an honest and hard-working carpenter. The guru is squeezing the rottis as though they’re lemons, and the merchant’s rotti drips with blood, whilst a carpenter’s one drips with milk. It’s a visual explanation of one of the central Sikh teachings, the importance of making a living from one’s own hard work rather than the exploitation of others. Although the story of Guru Nanak and the lesson it taught were things that I had been told many times, it was seeing that image which pulled everything together in my mind. Images are powerful. They can unite people behind a concept or a belief, and, as the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. I do wonder if that still holds true, though. We’re living in an era where camera phones dominate all aspects of our lives and where we’re constantly being sent photos by friends and family. How do we stop ourselves from becoming overwhelmed by it all? With over 14 billion images being shared via social media every single day, it might be helpful to take a step back every now and again and marvel at the beauty actually in front of us instead of that which is mediated on our phones. For a few moments to stop scrolling and appreciate what we have without filters, without hashtags, just us and the glorious world about us.
 

04 Oct 25 — Dr Krish Kandiah

My social media feeds continue to buzz around the appointment of Dame Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London, as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday — the very first woman to hold the post. Dame Sarah steps into this role at both a challenging and exciting moment for the Church. While it faces issues around safeguarding and theological divisions, there is also renewed interest in the church from Generation Z in what is being called the Quiet Revival. She takes on the role at a time of heightened tensions in our nation, with faith sometimes being coopted to incite fear, sometimes blamed for division, violence or exclusion. This week we have also sadly seen religious hatred at its worst with the tragic attack on the Manchester synagogue. The new Archbishop will have to navigate all of this and more. As a spiritual leader she will be expected to provide guidance and example in all matters of faith and integrity. As the head of the Church of England, she will oversee its clergy and institutions through the complexities of a rapidly changing society. Her role also reaches beyond the church, as a national voice on social and ethical issues. And as a global leader she will seek to unite and bless the 85 million Christians in the 165 countries of the Anglican Communion during a time, in her words yesterday, of “profound global uncertainty” This is no easy task. Rowan Williams summarised the role as requiring ‘a newspaper in one hand and a bible in the other’ saying “You’ve got to learn neither to simply keep your head down nor to become a rent-a-quote.” Knowing when and how to speak up effectively is always a challenge. I think about John the Baptist who was beheaded for his commitment to speaking truth to power, or Daniel who was thrown into a lion enclosure because he refused to stop practicing his faith in public, or Esther, who risked her life not only to call out the racial hatred against the Jewish community in her time but to also prevent a genocide. These biblical role-models are not just there to inspire the most senior of our church leaders but for all of us. Their stories are included in the Bible because they have deep significance for every generation. We don’t need a lectern in Lambeth Palace or a Cathedral in Canterbury or a seat in the House of Lords to speak up for truth, justice and compassion, to challenge racism or to practice kindness. We all have a voice, and opportunities to use it for good. I congratulate Dame Sarah on her appointment. She has an important path to forge. But so do we all. May God give each of us the strength, wisdom, courage and compassion we need today.
 

03 Oct 25 — Rt Rev Dr David Walker

Every atrocity brings its own unique awfulness. In 2017, it was the killing of people leaving a pop concert attended by many children and young adults. Yesterday, Manchester was target again. This time, the victims appear to have been chosen for their Jewish religious faith, the timing selected because they’d be gathering for worship on Yom Kippur, that most solemn of holy days. I won’t speculate on the motives behind the attack, not only because the facts are still emerging, but because to do so can all too easily slip into imagining there can be some rationale or justification for the cold-blooded murder of innocent people. In my experience, the acts of individual perpetrators owe more to their own warped and twisted life journeys than to any moral or political inspiration. The overwhelming majority of human beings, no matter how passionately we may favour some ideology, do not seek to wreak havoc among those who do not share our position or perspective. We affirm that common humanity, to which Judaism, Christianity and other world religions hold fast. The hardest challenge, though, would be to recognise that those who commit such dreadful deeds are also fellow human beings, but they are. In my own religious tradition, the story of Jesus facing down even death itself and rising victorious is the ultimate demonstration that love is the one thing stronger than hate. As we did in Manchester in 2017, we defy the hatred espoused by those who seek, through violence, to sow divisions amongst us, not by seeking revenge against them or the communities from which they come, but by drawing ever closer to one another. Just before the summer holidays, I and other civic and community figures joined Jewish and Muslim leaders from across our city and region at Manchester University as they signed a new concordat, pledging themselves and their communities to strengthen dialogue, especially in difficult times. These are the small practical steps that lead towards a future very different from that which those who kill and maim are seeking. Sadly, the Jewish families who live and worship in this part of Manchester, a neighbourhood that is my own home too, are used to having to hold on to God in the midst of atrocity. Many of their ancestors came here fleeing the violent pogroms that scarred Eastern Europe and Russia in times past. Others fled Hitler’s Holocaust less than a century ago. I know they will draw on the long stories of their faithfulness in times of adversity to see them through this present time of darkness. I, along with the people of Manchester and from far afield, will do what we can to stand with them.
 

02 Oct 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

The way we pay for things is changing fast. Something we do every day – at a till in a shop or settling a bill for a coffee- is now dramatically different from even a few years ago. More than half of UK adults are now regularly paying for goods and services not just without cash but without cards too. 78% of adults between 16 and 24 and 20% of those over 65 are now comfortable leaving home with no cards or cash – just their phone. So far, so useful, you might think. This is a practical shift based on our desire for ease, speed and convenience. But more fundamental questions are raised about our use of the money that we have, but no longer see, and some risks are greater too: In London, a mobile phone is stolen every 6 minutes. And on Monday, a woman was convicted in the largest crypto currency fraud case ever heard in a UK court. She, with just one or two others, defrauded over 128,000 victims and the virtual haul in Bitcoin alone according to the Met Police was £300m. The Christian tradition has much to say about the ethics of making, keeping, saving and spending money. ‘Whose head is on this coin?’ asked Jesus of his 1st century contemporaries, in a discussion about loyalty, nationality and tax. On UK banknotes, there’s a picture of a person- the monarch- who promises to pay the bearer of the note, not valuable in itself but an IOU. Other banknote faces currently include the novelist Jane Austen and the scientist Alan Turing. The meaning of money in human interaction, its power and value, can arguably start to feel more remote without the faces and promises that are carried by the physical notes. Digital exclusion becomes an issue too, especially of older or poorer people who may not have bank accounts or smart phones. Moral and spiritual questions of worth, equality and value lie underneath our persistent pursuit of ease. It’s an often misquoted tenet of Christianity that money is in itself a bad thing. But it’s the love of money that’s at the root of the self-centredness Jesus consistently condemns. And he further cautioned that it is not possible to devote your energy, your love and attention to ‘two masters’ as he put it: you cannot serve both God and money. No one will argue for a wholesale return to cash. Our digitally literate society has moved past what in the 1960s Harold Wilson called ‘the pound in your pocket’. But recognising the loss as well as the gains in this fundamental shift might help us resist our becoming a society of cynics: famously people who ‘know the price of everything but the value of nothing’.
 

01 Oct 25 — Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis

Jewish communities around the world are standing on the cusp of two profound anniversaries – one that weighs particularly heavily on our hearts, and another that many may not even realize is an anniversary. In a few days, it will be two years since the appalling atrocities of 7th October, when Hamas invaded the State of Israel, brutally murdering around 1,200 women, men and children and taking more than 250 hostages. The past two years of conflict have seen horrific suffering. For so many, the wounds run deep. Yet tonight, we mark another anniversary – one rooted not in violence, but in redemption. Yom Kippur marks the day on which Moses descended Mount Sinai for a second time. On the first ascent, he received the Ten Commandments. But, in his absence, the people lost hope and worshiped a Golden Calf. Moses returned and smashed those first tablets in despair. But then came a second chance: God granted new tablets, and the Israelites were offered renewal. Consequently, the original Day of Atonement was when Moses descended with the second pair of tablets, which were to survive for all time. In Jewish tradition, anniversaries are not exercises in nostalgia. They are invitations to look forward with purpose. Judaism is an optimistic faith. And so, the holiest day on our calendar is called Yom Kippur – Day of Atonement, because we anticipate a favourable outcome even before the day arrives. This week, events in Washington have sparked fresh hopes for peace. A new proposal looks to be the best opportunity yet for the return of the hostages, a sustainable ceasefire, the end of Hamas’ rule and for a future of hope and promise for Israel and for the people of Gaza, where there has been tragic loss of life and enormous suffering for so many innocent Palestinians. While the terrain is complex and the road uncertain, we pray that the harsh winds of despair will shift, and aspirations for peace will be achieved. As we approach these two anniversaries – one of deep pain, and one of sacred possibility – they impart a lesson of critical importance: The devastation of war never precludes the possibility of peace. Hatred does not erase the possibility of compassion, and brokenness does not silence the possibility of re-creation. Anniversaries are not only markers of what has been, but signposts toward what might yet be. However fragile or fraught the present may feel, there is always the possibility of establishing a new reality – for individuals, for communities, and, we must dare to believe, for nations.
 

30 Sep 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

The end of September brings the Christian feast of Michaelmas, when the Church celebrates that mighty army of benign beings who worship round the throne of God and support the faithful on their earthly pilgrimage. The Creed describes God as the ‘maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible’, and I take that to include angels. The orthodox Church describes angels as ‘bodiless powers’. They are not physical in the way that we are. Chief among them is Michael the Archangel, the warrior who drove the devil out of heaven; Raphael, the Archangel of healing, and Gabriel the messenger, who brought news of Christ’s coming to the Virgin Mary. I’ve always liked the idea of angels because they suggest that God’s creation is more complex and more connected than we might otherwise think. It isn’t just me and God, or us and God. There’s much more going on and I am not surprised that more people claim to believe in angels than those who claim to believe in God. Driving through the autumn countryside last week I heard a fascinating programme about black holes, those tears in the fabric of the universe where the laws of physics break down and matter is crunched into nothingness. Episodes of Dr Who have built on the idea that black holes might be ‘wormholes’ providing instant passages into other parts of the universe, which is fine, except that it you fell into one you would be unlikely to return. I personally believe that the back of my washing machine connects to a black hole which is why I have so many missing socks. The film Interstellar, which has become something of a cult movie in recent years, built on the idea that black holes might enable time travel and that a perilous journey through space time, supported by future beings, could ensure human survival. For me, angels are protective, hinting that we are not as alone as we might think in this vast universe. The science tells us that everything ultimately belongs together, from galaxies, to neurons in the human brain, to subatomic particles. Some would go further insisting that consciousness, the awareness that we exist, is not an accident or an anomaly, but a feature of the whole. And though it is possible to dismiss this instinct the vast majority of human kind have always responded to the mystery of the world with awe and wonder, exulting in the abundance of nature, the crops and fruits and seeds, the golden trees, the stars and the angels. At Michaelmas it makes sense to me to believe that this universe of ours is on our side.
 

29 Sep 25 — Rt Rev Dr David Walker

Like a single blackened tree picked out against a snowy winter’s landscape, it’s often the contrast that strikes home. It felt to me like that when, following the assassination of Charlie Kirk in the USA, his widow addressed a ceremony to honour her husband. In a powerful and emotional speech, she spoke of how her Christian faith led her to forgive his killer. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer to hate is, as we learn from the gospel, always love, said Erika Kirk. Yet, speaking immediately after her, the U.S. President declared his own attitude to his opponents to be one of hatred. When he later went on to demand legal action to be taken against one such opponent, former FBI Director James Comey, threatening others with similar reprisals, the contrast seemed to me complete. Erika Kirk’s affirmation of love in the face of hostility and tragedy is, I believe, central to the Christian faith. Yet it’s not the exclusive possession of Christians. Eight years ago, one day after a terrorist had killed 22 people, injuring and traumatising hundreds of others at a pop concert in the city centre, I was asked to address the people of Manchester, along with the millions watching on TV. I called then for our response to be love, not hate, for the tragedy that we had suffered to unite us, not divide us. Manchester held together. Across our diverse religious and faith traditions, we discover the vital fork in the road, where the path divides between revenge and resistance. Revenge comes only from hate, but the most powerful resistance to evil is that which is rooted in love. As Mrs. Kirk tearfully affirmed in the face of her appalling loss, love is the better way. In increasingly polarised societies across the world, division and hatred can provide convenient political tools for those wanting to gain or hold onto power. Here in the UK, we’ve seen evidence in recent years of a rising tide of anger, often fuelled by a sense of injustice. Many have been seeking someone to blame, be it political opponents, or some sector of society seen as not sharing the same personal views or values. Hard as it is to respond in love to a personal tragedy or terrorist atrocity, my own experience is that it’s harder still when the sense of grievance and victimhood is ongoing, but appears unaddressed by those charged with the nation’s welfare. Yet it is into this darkness that the words of Erika Kirk offer me a glimpse of a better way, a way that I hope and pray the USA and all of us can take.
 

27 Sep 25 — Brian Draper

I was stopped in my tracks this week by words from the poet Patti Smith: ‘Seek out what magnifies your spirit,’ she says. For me, it’s nature and poetry. Poetry may not be your thing. But in this ‘mast year’, this super-abundant season of autumn, as we’ve been hearing this week – my own go to is John Keats. I’m lucky to live in Winchester where he wrote his much-loved ode ‘To Autumn’ in this very week in 1819, aged only 23. It was one of the last he wrote before his death from TB. So I love to lead retreat walks here as we follow in his footsteps, first trying to see the world through the poet’s eyes – the ‘later flowers for the bees’, ‘the ripeness to the core’, the ‘wailful choir of gnats’, even – and then through our own eyes too. Seeing well is both an act of care and an act of prayer, I like to think. As we walk along College Street we pause beneath a cherry tree by the house in which another literary favourite, Jane Austen, lived and died just two years before Keats was passing by – and with thanks we recall the people who have inspired us in life, famous or not. No answer is usually the same. And how inspiring to think that someone else’s answer might be you or me. Autumn, in Austen’s words, is a season ‘which has drawn from every poet … some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling’. But I’m sure it draws good things from us all if we let it. Perhaps the deeper sense that life’s not about success but fruitfulness; or that we can let go, like a leaf falling, when required; or break open, like a chestnut husk, and welcome the cracks in our life as we do. And while we’re not all poets, the apostle Paul writes, exquisitely, that we are God’s handiwork or ‘poeima’ (in the Greek) – from which we get the word ‘poem’. So with poetic licence, we might see ourselves as part of the very poetry of this autumn, part of the created beauty, the ebb and flow, the colour and leaf-fall; part of what can indeed draw goodness from another, and magnify the spirit. ‘Where are the songs of spring? Ay where are they?’ Keats asks, of autumn. But he’s speaking to us all, I’m sure, when he says. ‘Think not of them, for thou hast thy music too’.
 

26 Sep 25 — Professor Mona Siddiqui

A few weeks ago, a family friend told us that her husband had been diagnosed with dementia. She said, `I knew things weren’t right for a while, but we were on holiday in summer, and he started to become confused, he couldn’t even find the hotel room and just seemed lost.’ She was telling me this over the phone and I could feel her holding back her tears, there was a helplessness in her voice as she said softly, ‘this isn’t how I imagined our lives growing old.’ I struggled to comfort her thinking about my own life – it all seemed surreal, unfair and just very sad. So, I was moved to hear the news this week of a groundbreaking gene therapy that has given hope to another incurable disease – Huntington’s – An illness which runs through families, relentlessly kills brain cells and resembles a combination of dementia, Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease. This new treatment is a type of gene therapy given during delicate brain surgery and trials show that it can slow the disease by 75% potentially giving patients decades of a better quality of life. Families once bracing for decline can now embrace hope. At a time when the significance of scientific research is being discredited by many, this moment reminds us of the importance of science. There may not be certainty or consensus in many areas, and yes, science can be politicized, even weaponised. But at its core science is about curiosity and the fundamental desire for progress. Despite challenges, setbacks and failures, advancements small or big can help restore human dignity and even rebuild futures that once seemed lost. I talked to my friend again last week – she spoke of her family’s support, how her children have been helping her and how she finds new meaning in her faith. She said, `it’s in God’s hands. I’m praying for strength and his mercy because we will all be tested in some way – isn’t that part of having faith?’ I thought of the Qur’anic verse, ` and when I am ill it is God who cures me’ and how hope wears many faces – the hope which comes though medical progress, scientific innovation and breakthroughs and the hope that simply helps us endure, helps us feel less alone when we are frightened, when life seems narrow and full of shadows. Hope isn’t a cure. But perhaps it’s the reason we seek one, the reason we fight, love, and believe even when for a while it seems that our world is falling apart.
 

25 Sep 25 — John Studzinski

Every generation and every culture has its martyrs. The world has never stopped hearing of people who are ready to suffer, or even die for their convictions, and hardly a week goes by without us hearing or reading about another martyr in the news. Reflecting the Greek origins of the word ‘martyr’, they are witnesses – witnesses to a cause they believe in with all their hearts and souls. While the rest of us might compromise, martyrs remain resolutely single-minded. There are the martyrs of the Bible – from Isaiah, who was “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows”, to Stephen, who forgave his killers as stones rained down on him. There are the famous martyrs of history, such as Joan of Arc, who sought to save her country, Sir Thomas More, who chose conscience over crown, or Martin Luther King, who dreamed of justice and dignity for all citizens. And, though he went on to transform his country and die peacefully, Nelson Mandela sacrificed 27 years to imprisonment in his struggle for equality. The world knows these martyrs as heroes. But sometimes deep convictions become distorted into aspirations to martyrdom through wreaking death and destruction. Though we are horrified by their evil actions, we must still stop and think about what makes these misguided martyrs ready to die for their cause. It remains our duty to critically interrogate the principles and beliefs they claim to represent – and the implications these hold for our own lives. Even martyrs who are justly admired and celebrated have often proved controversial in some way. But not all martyrs become public figures. Some act quietly and inconspicuously. I think, for instance, of the many religious sisters I have met who risk their lives every day as, they work to save women, children and men from modern slavery and human trafficking. Martyrdom is not romantic. It is not glamorous. It is painful. It is service. It is the surrender of one’s life to something greater than oneself. At best, martyrs, through the force of their conviction, prompt the rest of us to stop, look, listen and, importantly, learn. A martyr’s energy – often imbued by their faith – radiates outward. As the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, “We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” Paradoxically, that cloud does not obstruct our view: it illuminates our path, powered by the energy that emanates from the martyrs among those witnesses. The legacy of the martyr is catalytic, and it should rouse us to action. It must motivate us to unify. To care more deeply for one another.
 

24 Sep 25 — Chine McDonald

I’ve been thinking about the power of human stories after hearing about the newly-launched Universal Turing Machine. It’s an innovative collective writing project, which celebrates what it means to be human as opposed to a machine. Created by novelist Richard Beard, the project started with him telling stories of his own life in the form of a 64-square chess-board-style grid, each digital square revealing a 1,000-word mini memoir of that year in his life. And he’s inviting others to do the same. Because for Beard, if you can write your memoir, you are passing the Turing test. “You are showing that you’re human through the life that you’ve lived, through the memories that you have,” he says. Beard hopes the result will be a public archive of lived experience – its highs and its lows, its chaos, catastrophe and joys. For me, the project highlights the very human realities of choice, story and memory in a world of automation. Remembering the stories of our lives is part of what it is to be human. Sometimes I find myself running through my brain’s stored memories to relive moments from my past: cradling my babies when they were small, dancing with dear friends; falling in love. Human stories, however, are not perfect. Although painful, I recall too those moments in which I’ve failed or been rejected; I can be transported back in my mind to life’s hardest moments. Part of the point of the Universal Turing Machine project is the encouragement to detail the honest realities and imperfections of being a person rather than a machine programmed to get things right – no typos and no failures. One of the dominant narratives of our age, however, seems to be the strive towards self-optimisation: ever-increasing productivity, life hacks, fitness trackers and supplements; the quest for eternal youth; as if a good life is one that experiences no physical vulnerabilities, hardship or suffering. Stories give shape to our identities, and the stories that make up our lives are not just individual, but collective, too. What are the stories we tell about ourselves as a family, as a community, as a nation? They tell us not just what happened, but who we are. For me, part of the beauty of the Christian story is its texture. Just like any human life, it is neither all victory, nor all tragedy. The Psalms, for example, detail the highs and lows of human experience: depression, wonder, anger, joy. The story of Christ’s death doesn’t shy away from suffering, either. Part of the Christian’s hope is that even in the suffering, hope can be found. “God’s power is made perfect in weakness,” in the words of St Paul in second Corinthians. In an age of machine-like perfection, maybe we can all find a bit of hope in our very imperfect – human – stories.
 

23 Sep 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

It was heartening to see the pictures of Peter and Barbie Reynolds arriving at Heathrow from Afghanistan on Saturday and being greeted by the family they feared they might never see again. The elderly couple had been imprisoned by the Taliban in February and separated and held in dire conditions until their release was negotiated with the help of Qatari mediators. Along with the relief and the joy at their return there were a few grumpy comments online – why had these do-gooders stayed in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s return, what had their release cost the British tax payer etc. To me it raised questions of motivation and faith. Peter and Barbie Reynolds had married in Afghanistan and fallen in love with its people and culture. Their organisation Rebuild had a mission to foster good relationships in homes and communities across the country. After the return of the Taliban they felt they could not desert the Afghan people in their hour of need. At one point they actually received a ‘certificate of appreciation’ for their work. It’s not clear what led to their arrest and they were never formally charged. Both suffered in prison: the conditions were squalid, the food scarce. Barbie had malnutrition, Peter was deprived of essential medicine. Perhaps they wondered whether they had been right to stay on. But in the plane on the way home Peter smiled and raised a glass to the camera. I was reminded of a phrase coined by the novelist Ernest Hemingway in which he wrote of courage as ‘grace under pressure’, by which he meant that rare ability to retain calm in extreme situations when most of us would blow up or melt down. In prison Barbie described herself as being in her element when she found she had an opportunity to give some teaching to her fellow prisoners. And that’s surely showing grace under pressure. Like most of us I am relieved at their return but I can’t help but have a little sympathy with the grumpy comments. People who genuinely do good whatever the cost to themselves are a huge challenge to the rest of us. Good people attract irritation because they insist on believing that there is a force for good in the world which will inevitably overcome evil. They are not afraid of defeat. They just battle on. This is a challenge to our familiar self-seeking and complacency. In a way such people are a nuisance not only to others but to themselves. But there would be less grace in the world without them, and less hope.
 

22 Sep 25 — Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis

My mind is made up – don’t confuse me with the facts!” This sentiment – widely attributed to American Senator Earl Landgrebe, in his defence of President Nixon during the Watergate scandal, is a mindset which surprisingly persists in the minds of millions. For example, according to a recent report in The Times, a large majority in the UK believe that there has been a troubling increase in violent crime over the last 25 years. In fact, ONS data shows that in that time, it has fallen by more than half. We know how students learn to write a thesis by weighing evidence and drawing conclusions. A polemic, by contrast, begins with a conclusion and then selects only the evidence that fits. News feeds and social media postings driven by polemic, sound authoritative, but let down their readers with their often-inaccurate accounts. Good people can end up being demonised and bad people glorified when the real facts are not considered to be central to the storyline. This week, as Jewish communities around the world celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the centrepiece of our prayers is the shofar, a ram’s horn, which has been sounded since Biblical times. Our liturgy strikingly declares: “A great shofar is sounded, but a still small voice is heard.” – words taken from the Prophet Elijah, who recorded that he did not encounter God in a mighty wind, an earthquake or fire, but in a still small voice. The sounding of the Shofar is a dramatic moment, when it echoes like an alarm call. But, if all we hear is the noise and not the still small voice, then we have missed the point. This message could not be more timely. The loudest noise, the voice that dominates the airwaves or our newsfeeds, is not always the truest or the wisest. We tend to look back disdainfully at those who once believed that the world was flat, or that illnesses could be cured by bloodletting. Yet today we see how falsehoods flourish in echo chambers, with each side convinced that it alone is immune to propaganda. The shofar blasts point us back toward the still small voice of conscience, humility and self-reflection. We are called upon to resist being swept away by the noise of outrage, and to search instead for the quieter truth that can heal, renew and guide us responsibly forward. The facts do count. And it should not be the echo of outrage that defines us, but the choices we make when we stop and listen.
 

20 Sep 25 — Rev Roy Jenkins

He was exasperated. ‘It’s been happening before our eyes for two years,’ said my friend a couple of days ago. ‘and no one seems able to do anything.’ He was speaking about Gaza, whose agony it’s been impossible to ignore since the Hamas atrocities. Suffering linked to ongoing conflict scars dozens of countries where killing continues alongside hunger and displacement. But they make the news bulletins or trouble our social media feeds only occasionally. Gaza has been unavoidable. My friend was trying to rouse support for projects which could make at least some difference. But with the most powerful country in the world this week vetoing for the sixth time a draft UN security council resolution demanding an immediate and permanent Gaza ceasefire, and the return of hostages, the sense of helplessness and despair can seem overwhelming. Ironically, tomorrow is the UN’s International Day of Peace, grandly urging ‘all humanity to commit to peace above all differences, and contribute to building a culture of peace.’ Unrealistic? Almost certainly. Yet working for a world without ‘hatred, violence, discrimination and inequality’ seems a great deal more inviting than endorsing them. Religious communities are taking up the challenge, and at their heart is a commitment to prayer. It’s not an alternative to social action and practical community reconciliation but close to their motive and their sustenance in pursuing it. It’s why next week people from churches and other faith communities will gather in Parliament Square, and outside the Senedd building here in Cardiff and in other places for ‘peaceful public prayer and witness to the need for peace’ – and a commitment to work for it in any way possible. For those who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, that’s not an optional extra. He’s given the title Prince of Peace, the key to unlocking divisions between individuals and communities. Through his own self-giving he offers peace with God to anyone ready to receive it, and makes it clear that this is an example to be taken seriously. As anyone caught up in a longstanding dispute between family members, neighbours or former friends can testify, true peace-making can be a costly process, challenging pride, reputation, deep resentments. It can be painful to be standing between those who’ve become enemies. What it’s like for the people who spend their lives doing this on an international stage, knowing that their efforts can have life or death consequences for vast numbers of human beings, I can barely imagine. They certainly need our prayers, as well as the promise of Jesus: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God’.
 

19 Sep 25 — Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith

As President Trump returns to the USA and prepares to attend the funeral of Charlie Kirk, we are living with the reality that words do escalate to violence. It is not clear that more laws will help. Amidst arguments about ‘free speech’ I would ask a different question: what is good speech? Whether we are people of faith or not, Christian tradition and scripture has much to say about ‘good speech’ that might be a help right now. ‘A soft tongue can break bones,’ says the book of Proverbs, and ‘a wise rebuke to a listening ear’ is like ‘an ornament of gold’. Scripture takes seriously the power of speech and the harm it can do, not drawing easy lines between speech and action, as most law tries to. And Christian tradition assumes that each of us has the power to think, to choose what to say and when, and how. The tradition acknowledges our power to bless or to harm, and our accountability. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it good. Much of the response to Charlie Kirk’s murder has made scapegoats of either ‘the radical left’ or the ‘MAGA right’. It has escalated a sense on all sides of having a powerful, faceless, evil enemy with whom there is no dialogue, only attack and defence. This gives less power to those in its sway, not more – the question is not ‘do you agree,’ but ‘are you one of us’. There is no constructive response to that question except fear. This is not freedom. In contrast, good speech in Christian tradition is about restraint. That is, refusing to de-humanise those who cause us harm or make us angry. However, it is not just about being nice. It is about being willing to speak up when there is a cost and no one else will. Good speech often brings conflict into the open especially when it gives voice to someone who is suffering harm. Jesus did not shy from speaking against the grain: when people tried to get him to quiet his disciples, he said, ‘If these were silent the very stones would shout out.’ By which he meant, a truth will not cease being true because we silence the speaker. Good speech engages our curiosity in the service of finding solutions to problems: it encourages us to question and think. It might even lead us away from our phones and social media to speak and listen to one another in real life, to make common cause with those who are different, to think casting a vote or helping a neighbour is still worth doing.
 

18 Sep 25 — Jasvir Singh

I’m very proud to be a Londoner born and bred. My uncle and aunt are true Cockneys, born within the sound of the Bow Bell. The capital has always been my home, with its raw liveliness and pageantry providing the constant backdrop to my life. And yet last Saturday, with crowds descending on the capital for the Unite the Kingdom march, it felt a very different place to me. I’m not the only one to feel like that. A Sikh MP told me how he’s been inundated with emails and Direct Messages from constituents over the last week, worried for themselves and their families because of the divisive rhetoric that’s around. Last week British Sikhs came out in protest after a young Sikh woman was sexually assaulted in the Midlands and allegedly told ‘go back to your own country’ It’s clear that some people are concerned about where they live, the perceived erosion of pride, the pace of change, limited life chances and they want to express how they feel to the powers that be. Such concerns are not new, but for me, the danger is that this sort of frustration can tip over into people pitting themselves against others who look or sound different to them. I also worry when I see people using their religion in ways that sow the seeds of division. When Guru Nanak founded the Sikh faith, his first words were “There is but Oneness, Truth is its Name, Creator Being, Without Fear, Without Hate”. These became the opening words in the Sikh scriptures, the Guru Granth Sahib. The world we should be striving for is one where we aren’t afraid or anxious of the unknown, but also one where we don’t have hatred for the other either. We should be able to understand each other’s viewpoints, even if we don’t agree with them, but do so from a place of oneness. Sikhs also believe in the concept of Sarbat Da Bhalla, the idea that all that we do should be for the betterment of society as a whole, regardless of differences. Over the coming weeks and months, difficult conversations need to happen on issues that we find hard as a nation. In my view, we can’t afford to ignore those or kick them into the long grass anymore. But when we talk about identity, national pride, and what our flag means to various people, we need to be able to do so meaningfully and with respect for others. “Without fear. Without hate.” – It’s a description of the Almighty, but for me it’s also a manifesto for humanity.
 

17 Sep 25 — Chine McDonald

Have you ever considered that… you might be… wrong? It’s something that occurred to me while listening to this programme yesterday. Professor Brian Cox was interviewed about his appointment to a new role at the Francis Crick Institute championing the role of science in shaping our world. He explained how scientists provide a great example to the rest of us of being open to being wrong, to having our preconceptions challenged. Cox quoted 20th century physicist Richard P. Feynman who described science as “a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance”. For Cox, science provides a “flexibility of thought” that means you’re not upset if your worldview turns out to be wrong in some way”. One of the markers of the polarised age we’re in is a seeming unwillingness to concede we might be wrong. So many of us are uncompromising in our views of the world; we know where we stand on immigrants, or flag wavers. We’re unable to see that these views might be shaped by echo chambers and what we’re being fed by the algorithm. When St Paul said that in this life we “see through a glass darkly”, he was saying that when it comes to divine truths, none of us has the full and objective picture; our view is obscured. The New Testament has many stories of people getting things wrong and being surprised by their assumptions of who Jesus is versus what they had expected him and the kingdom of God to be like. Jesus had this habit of making people rethink what they had thought before. You’ve heard it said an eye for an eye, but I say to you turn the other cheek, he said in his Sermon on the Mount. He said it was servanthood that was the marker of greatness. The disciples thought they would see their enemies defeated but instead witnessed Christ’s humiliating and torturous crucifixion. We all of course have strongly-held convictions. And there are some beliefs I hold, that I hope really are right, rather than just my subjective opinions: the equality of every human being no matter their gender, no matter their race or religion; that human beings are capable of thinking beyond their own self-interest to the interests of all, that it’s possible to love your neighbour as yourself, that God has no favourites. Nevertheless being wrong is part of being human. Christian author and apologist GK Chesterton put it like this: “The answer to the question, ‘What is wrong?’ is or should be, ‘I am wrong., he said, “Until a man can give that answer, his idealism is only a hobby.” Maybe what the world needs is more “flexibility of thought”, more compromise, more of the humility required to build our common life together. Maybe being proved wrong can’t fix all our problems, but maybe it can be a start.
 

16 Sep 25 — Vishvapani

The incendiary views Charlie Kirk expressed on race, gender, trans rights and much else, make it hard to reflect dispassionately on his underlying philosophy, especially in the wake of his assassination last week. But I want to try to explore his position on free speech. Kirk opposed any attempts to control or regulate what can and can’t be said on college campuses, social media platforms and elsewhere. True to his principles, he debated his opponents, and that’s what he was doing at Utah Valley University when he was shot. It’s no surprise that Donald Trump called him ‘a martyr for free speech and truth.’ Perhaps no-one, Kirk included, really believes in completely unrestricted freedom to say whatever we want. That would mean legalising fraud, forgiving perjury and letting people shout ‘fire’ in crowded theatres. But regulating speech is tricky. Who decides, and on what basis? Buddhist teachings alert me not just to our words but to their context. We think we know the truth, but our perceptions of the world are filtered through our beliefs and biases. On a meditation retreat last week, I recognised (once again) that my mind was full of things I thought needed to be done urgently. It’s uncomfortable to feel that without being able to act; but that’s the point. I eventually sensed what lay behind my thoughts – anxiety. And I saw how the stories my anxiety generated prevented me from experiencing the feeling itself. That’s a microcosm of the basic Buddhist insight: our thoughts make the world, as we experience it. We form our beliefs from a sifted, partial slice of our perceptions, and then we look for ways to confirm them. Extending that to modern culture, we could call consciousness the original filter bubble. Social media simply magnifies our innate human tendencies, and then siloes us within the competing realities they create. I think free speech becomes a problem when it’s coupled with undue certainty. Getting to the truth requires a degree of humility. The first Buddhist speech precept asks me to speak the truth; but further precepts ask me to speak in ways that are kind, helpful and conducive to harmony. The last is especially important. It means holding our beliefs lightly, being willing to listen, and recognising whether our words bring people together or drive them apart. Whatever rights we may possess, I think that’s a duty.
 

15 Sep 25 — Rt Rev Philip North

Over the weekend the streets of London were packed with up to 150,000 protestors noisily expressing their anger about immigration and the small boats crisis, their frustration occasionally tipping over into violence. Here in Lancashire, anger over the Gaza conflict risks undermining years of careful social cohesion work. It is no wonder that in churches yesterday, I met many who are alarmed that rage is becoming the defining feature of our social discourse. As any child brought up in a domestically abusive home will tell you, anger is a terrifying emotion to witness. It is also terrifying to feel because its overwhelming intensity can strip away a person’s self-control. However it is not an emotion that is healthy to suppress. The important question is what to do with it. Christian theology has developed a nuanced approach to anger. St Augustine drew a distinction between anger rooted in charity and anger rooted in pride, and that has led other Christian thinkers to describe two types of anger. Just anger is a measured response to a clear wrong. It is motivated by love or by the desire for truth and can be channelled into words and actions that build a better world. Destructive anger on the other hand is rooted in hatred or impatience. It is uncontrolled and it feeds on itself. It harms not just the angry person but also those around them. It’s a nice distinction, but the problem is, how do you know out which type of anger you are feeling? For example I expect that many of those on Saturday’s march would say that their anger is just and that they are seeking to deepen national unity by honestly naming a problem that they feel is being downplayed. One way to answer the question is to think about the fruit of one’s anger, and Moses, who demonstrates both types of anger, is a classic illustration. Early in his life Moses showed destructive anger by murdering an Egyptian. The fruit of that anger was bitter: Moses had to flee Egypt, his people suffered, his community was damaged. Many years later he showed just anger when he smashed the tablets that bore the words of the ten commandments. That ferocious sign bore fruit in rebuilding a community divided by idolatry and restoring his people’s faith. In an era defined increasingly by rage, maybe people need to examine themselves about the fruit of their own anger. Too much destructive anger undermines the values that hold a society together. But the raw energy of an anger that is just means that it can be channelled in constructive ways to build unity and change lives for good.
 

13 Sep 25 — Martin Wroe

‘Do you ever think about moving back?’ That was the question of the taxi driver, taking me from my London train to the funeral of my Auntie Olive in Swansea earlier this week. I’d told him how my Welsh Dad had first met my English mum while working in London shoe shop. And that not long before her due date he’d announced he’d bought plane tickets to Wales. He said his child – that was me – was going to be born Welsh. It wasn’t until their fourth and final child was born, 12 years later, that he felt it was ok for us all to move to England. But something in the land of his fathers was always drawing him back. The land exerts a special hold on us. I was reminded of this on reading about an American soldier, stationed in Italy, whose wife was due to give birth. He shipped out a Tupperware container of earth, from his home state of Texas, which he placed under the bed when his wife went in to labour. He wanted his son born on Texan soil. Pretty eccentric you might think but then we often carry deep attachments to land and place, to the ground that was first beneath our feet. Ties that bind us in history and culture and family, how we carry our identity in a world on the move. We’re sometimes said to have multiple identities which is another way of saying that we can hold several homes in our hearts… and our hearts can make room for them. We hold them with both joy and grief – the ground where we grew up or fell in love or raised a family… the ground we left, not always by choice. But geography does not exhaust biography. In autumn days, walking through falling leaves or pulling apples off a tree, we’re unusually aware of the ground beneath our feet… this living earth that we come from and return to. In mystical religious traditions there is a deeper ground which is sometimes called ‘the ground of our being’. One very early Christian text describes God as “the one in whom we live and move and have our being.” For some the ground of our being might be the divine, for others it might be our common humanity, that which connects us below all our differences. For some it might be earth itself. The idea of being global citizens is noble but can feel a little grand or abstract. But citizens of earth, maybe less so. Earth, always right under our feet. Grounding us all. As the Sufi poet Rumi put it, ‘There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground’.
 

12 Sep 25 — Dr Rachel Mann

In the past thirty-six hours, my news feeds have been full of emotive language: words like fury, outrage, shock, and dismay. There have been calls for calm and, troublingly, calls for revenge. Whatever one’s personal politics, the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk not only reveals the febrile state of US politics but reminds me that political violence is anathema. I have been especially shocked that the internet is now awash with videos of the horrifying moment when Kirk was killed. Though I have not seen them and nor do I wish to, I do not mind admitting that their very existence challenges my trust in the basic goodness of human nature. Are there things we should not see or, even, know? It seems almost absurd to ask that in an era when I, as much as anyone, am inclined to act as my own moral arbiter. Many of us, with good reason, talk in very individualistic ways about my social media feed, my life, my choice. John Stuart Mill said, ‘Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.’ This, one might argue, is a guiding principle of the social media age. As an archdeacon, I have a role in clergy discipline and I must see the evidence before bringing an allegation of wrongdoing. Sometimes I have to see in order to know what has happened and the most graphic evidence always exacts a psychological cost. There are things which cannot readily be unseen but must be attended too. Jury members, among others, know this too and it is a measure of the cost of seeing unpleasant things that counselling is offered to help guard the heart from long term damage. The Bible suggests there are limits on what it is wise to know or see. Famously, God bans Adam and Eve from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. When they disobey and eat the fruit, they find they can see with the eyes of God, but without his divine understanding, judgment, and love. The world is never the same again, and violence, death, and suffering enter in. I do not think that God wants adults to be like innocent children. Rather, the Bible invites trust in the belief that there is knowledge that is both too wonderful and, sometimes, too horrifying for us. It commends personal restraint. I recognise how difficult it is to do so, especially when anyone can use a smart phone to garner attention by providing shocking content. Nonetheless, I am convinced that living well sometimes requires choices about what not to see, most especially when I am struggling to judge what it is wise to know.
 

11 Sep 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

It was reported yesterday that a significant number of Russian drones – were shot down in Polish airspace. An escalation of the war with Ukraine. Surgeons working in Gaza have testified to the International Development Committee in Parliament the Israeli tactic of deploying armed drones to fly over recently bombed areas in the aftermath, to shoot people following the bombing. And over the summer, in another new development, Ukrainian drones were, for the first time, powered by artificial intelligence. Three drones decided on their own when and how to strike a Russian position. AI-powered drones deciding when and how to kill humans has military advantages: improving the speed of decision-making, and reducing the number of military personnel needed to run the operation. But it’s a development that raises ethical and moral questions in the prosecution of war. What’s currently the stuff of dystopian movies – thousands of armed drones overwhelming a city or a nation – killing at will from the air – seems to be getting closer. The waging of war is increasingly mechanised and decision making is beginning to be outsourced to artificial – not human – intelligence. Ever since the invention of the first machine gun in 1884 and the replacement of cavalry horses with mechanised tanks from 1917, the way that wars have been fought has been changing. Increasing use of technology has meant that the trajectory has been to distance human beings from the violence we perpetrate. Military personnel guiding drones from far away reduce the risk to us while maximising the risk to our enemies and increasing exponentially the number of people we can kill at any one time. War – any war – is a tragedy that toxifies the human condition. Scripture hallowed by both Christians and Jews imagines a time when swords will be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks: an early vision to reverse the technological advances that turn peaceful tools into killing machines. For a drone operator in a remote warehouse, the blood and dust of the attack is far away. And what we as citizens ask our armed forces to do is beyond most of our imaginings. For understandable reasons then, technology is being used to distance us from the consequences of our violence. It’s hard to face. But with a God’s eye view of the aggression of which every one of us is capable, however far we try to remove ourselves, the responsibility is now and will forever remain, human.
 

10 Sep 25 — Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg

I have always loved the call of the shofar, which we blow throughout this current Hebrew month of Elul, before it is sounded at length on the Jewish New Year in two weeks’ time. Made from a ram’s horn, carved hollow but unadorned, the shofar produces a raw animal cry more visceral than any human voice. The shofar has three notes. The first is long and clear, simple and sustained. It carries my mind into the mountains, the landscape of stone, water, wind-blown trees and the glimpse of deer. It pierces me with awe, as if to say, ‘Be mindful, you mortal, as pass through this world.’ It brings me wonder, as if I could hear nature itself, life’s very soul, singing out. The second note is called ‘fragments.’ It consists of three bursts, three gasps from a broken heart for the world smashed apart. They bring me the desperate voice of the mother in Jerusalem, whose heart aches because her son is still held hostage in the dark tunnels of Hamas. They carry me into ruined, hungry, devastated Gaza, where a mother is crying out, ‘In God’s name, let my child live.’ They take me into the desolation of landscapes destroyed. The third note is nine stuttered sobs, nine tears. ‘Weep with me,’ the shofar cries. ‘Weep for the wounds we have inflicted on each other and on God’s earth.’ I see a man bent forward, his hands covering his eyes. Between his fingers, the tears trickle slowly down. What’s happened to him? What cruelties has he endured? From what country has he been exiled? Don’t yet ask him questions; overwhelming sorrow has silenced his words. But don’t walk away. Stay here, with his tears; maybe, weep too. If we weep in our heart too, maybe we will learn to bring comfort. For, now, the shofar repeats its first long opening note. It’s not the same as it was before, because this time it carries within it all our wounds and weeping, as if to say: ‘If we’re honest about what’s broken, if we feel for each other’s pain, perhaps, in whatever small capacity, we can become healers and save what still can be cured and repaired.’ This last, prolonged shofar call is a summons to our humanity. It’s a demand to take responsibility. It’s an appeal to hope, a reminder that this fragile, injured world can still be beautiful, if we give it our urgent care. The shofar’s cry must be answered with our deeds.
 

09 Sep 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

There’s been a lot of comment in the last few days about resignations and new appointments. The Labour Party needs a new deputy leader, and the Church of England is waiting for a new Archbishop of Canterbury. Some notable figures have managed to return from mistakes or failure or wrongdoing and gone on to play a distinguished part in public life. Christian faith includes belief in repentance and the chance to start again. I’ve been reminded of how in my own Anglican tradition most acts of worship include a prayer of confession of sin. Some sins are deliberate, others less so. When I was a child I remember kneeling beside my mother in church and saying We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, which always made me think of runaway lambs and barking sheepdogs, all rather jolly really. And when I got to know the music of Handel’s Messiah, I was struck by the fact that he composed a bouncy little chorus for the words All we like sheep have gone astray. Well, if you know the piece you’ll know what I mean. There’s a distinction between malevolent wrongdoing and the sort that is well all too human. Towards the end of the 20th century there were many attempts to revise the language of the prayers of confession. One such revision had congregations saying We have sinned against you and against our fellow men in thought, word and deed, through ignorance, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault. No one had a problem with confessing sins of deliberate fault, but many people were unsure about whether you could actually sin through ignorance, and so the word was changed to negligence. The things we do wrong through negligence and weakness are usually understandable, though not always excusable. I ate the last croissant because I couldn’t resist it, and I feel bad about that. So does the friend who lost out, and I feel bad about that too. I drove the wrong way up a one-way street because I didn’t see the sign. When the inevitable letter comes with the photo of my car in the wrong place and the demand for a fine, I feel cross with myself. Both these examples expose me to a sense of shame. They’re not malevolent actions. They’re not the results of deliberation. They come rather from carelessness, the endless human propensity to screw things up. We’ve all messed up, which is why we can understand it. The question is not whether our sins are forgivable, they are, but whether we can be trusted with a second chance.
 

08 Sep 25 — Rev David Wilkinson

We’re in the midst of political conference season, and a very different season to those I remember as a teenager in the 70s. Then, they seemed to be all about thrashing out policies and airing grievances between the grassroots and the leadership on the conference floor. Today, the set piece carefully curated media-friendly speeches are more about energizing the faithful and reaching out to the uncommitted. How this is done in a way that respects the complexity of issues and gives voice to those at local level is a challenge not just to political parties, but also to faith communities. For me, some help is found in John Wesley, an Anglican priest and high church Tory who led an 18th century church renewal movement, which became the Methodist Church. A transforming encounter of the love of God led him to preach to miners in the open air, condemn slavery, and warn about wealth and overconsumption. His influence on political thinking has been much debated. Some point to Methodism’s role in the growth of trade unions and the Labour Party, while others, such as the Marxist historian E. P. Thompson, suggest that Methodism was an opiate, leading working people to focus on heaven rather than issues of justice. However, often neglected is Wesley’s influence as an organizer of a movement, which would bring about change. His legacy was a three-tiered structure of leadership and conferring, first in the local chapel, then in a region, and then in a national annual conference, a model which was adopted directly by many trade unions and had wider influence on the rise of party conferences. The first Methodist conference met in 1744 when Wesley gathered his preachers to confer together about what to teach, how to teach, and how to regulate our doctrine, discipline, and practice. My Methodist colleague Dr. Liz Kent points out that this culture mutuality was fundamental to the growth and influence of Methodism. Even if the leadership of the emerging denomination often resisted change, the conference structure energized the drive at grassroots for justice, especially for the poor. What would Wesley make of today’s conference season of competing claims? He would understand the need to get the message across, but in his own conference he called his preachers to an unwavering commitment to mutual questioning and truth seeking and to the highest standards of personal conduct. At the same time, his own encounter with the overwhelming love of Jesus meant that there was always the hope for new beginnings, for justice in society and for transformed individuals. An important framing for conferences, churches and my life.
 

06 Sep 25 — Chine McDonald

This week saw the publication of Arundhati Roy’s new book. Described as a ‘memoir like no other’ ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’ details the writer’s complicated relationship with her mother. An educator and women’s rights activist, Mary Roy broke with the conventions of what was expected of her. In 1986, for example, she won a lawsuit in Kerala which gave Syrian Christian women in the area, the same rights to inherit their ancestral property as their male siblings. Arundhati Roy describes how in the conservative South Indian town in which she was raised, her mother “conducted herself with the edginess of a gangster” when in those days women were “only allowed the option of cloying virtue – or its affectation”. Now here’s where Mary Roy reminds me of another Mother Mary: Jesus’s mother. That might come as a surprise to you, but she was also complex and powerful. She also challenged the status quo. Mary of Nazareth lives in the public imagination in the form of a doting, beautiful, passive and virtuous receptacle of societal ideals about what a woman and a mother should be like. Through thousands of Western European images Mary is instantly recognisable; an iconic portrayal of perfection. But to me the real Mary, described in scripture, was far more interesting than the one-dimensional portrayals of her we’ve come to know. This Mary faced the isolation and taboo of being pregnant and unmarried, spoke – or sang – of the powerful being torn down from their thrones, and watched her son become an enemy of the state, eventually bearing witness to his brutal murder. Mary’s story didn’t end with picturesque and softly-lit nativity scenes, but she was present throughout Jesus’s ministry and beyond. And yet so often we see her caricatured as a vacant – yet holy – mother. In our polarised society, we can make snap judgments about people based on what we think they are like – because of their gender, race, sexuality, or political affiliation. But no one is just one story. Arundhati Roy writes of her mother that she was “never a coherent, tidy character”. Are any of us? Roy describes too how her mother shaped her as a writer. As is the case for most of us, our mothers’ influences leave marks on the pages of our lives. Dr Rowan Williams believes Mary shaped how her son saw the world. “Mary,” he said, “teaches Jesus humanity”. Though many might consider the Christian story simplistic and saccharine, I’m continually surprised by the way some of the Bible’s heroes – from Abraham to David to St Paul and to Mary – were, like Arundhati Roy’s mother, and just like every one of us, messy and complicated, and beautiful.
 

05 Sep 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

2025 has been a year for what might be some of the last large scale commemorations of the end of the Second World War in both Europe and Japan. And the anniversary has brought to light too the many ways in which war – then as now – demands new thinking, forces innovation – and reminds us that when a nation is fighting, there is nothing that can’t be made into a weapon. Even art. A film will be shown this month at Bletchley Park about the gift given by a troupe of Russian Boy Scouts to the US ambassador in Moscow 80 years ago in 1945. The gift was stunning: a large, beautiful hand-carved maple wood replica of the Great Seal of the United States of America. It hung in the ambassador’s residence for all to see before it was discovered to be in fact a listening device, activated from time to time by Russian intelligence agents, able to hear confidential conversations within the office. About two feet across with no wires or batteries, this bugging device was incredibly successful, undetected for seven years. As a weapon of the Cold War it revealed not only secrets and confidences, but held up a mirror to the assumptions that made it so effective. Assumptions that operate still today. That something beautiful is probably good. That something decorative is peripheral, trivial even. Our unspoken assumption is that a weapon is made of something like steel; is probably noisy, disruptive, disturbing. Not a silent, beautiful decoration on a wall of a diplomat whose currency is courtesy and, well, diplomacy. Christian teaching has always challenged this assumption. The personification of evil in the Christian scriptures: called Satan in Hebrew – or Diabolos in Latin – is a deceiver and a beguiler – not unattractive or immediately threatening. And right in the middle of the Cold War in 1958, the sculptor Jacob Epstein portrayed evil to be a handsome man, defeated at the foot of St Michael. Not repulsive but charismatic, captivating, appealing. But in the end, defeated all the same. This Christian challenge to deep seated human assumptions about beauty and goodness is itself a powerful weapon in today’s war against fake news and the relentless falsehoods of the internet. That evil can be attractive as well as deceptive helps us question what we see at first: and, importantly for our age, provokes independence of thought and individual conscience. It says to us, even while we look at something we find alluring, attractive, even beautiful; challenge your assumptions, be open to what you can’t imagine – and never passively accept the status quo.
 

04 Sep 25 — John Studzinski

As we move into the autumn, my mind goes back to a bitingly cold evening in early 1985. I was walking down Victoria Street in London with Cardinal Basil Hume, then Archbishop of Westminster. In almost every doorway we saw figures huddled on the ground, wrapped in cardboard boxes or tatty sleeping bags. Cardinal Hume paused and said quietly: “People have no shame. The word ‘shame’ has disappeared from our vocabulary.” He was not for a moment putting any shame on the people sleeping on the streets. For him, shame lay with the entire city and country. And he understood shame as a point on the moral compass, directing us towards constructive action rather than passive complicity in social injustice. 40 years on, to all our shame, people are still sleeping in doorways, but a distorted concept of ‘shaming’ has become part of the vocabulary. Victims are often perceived as fair game. On social media people even undergo ‘body shaming’ for failing to measure up to some kind of physical ideal. That might seem trivial, but it is revealing of the world we live in. By leaping onto bandwagons and proclaiming ‘Shame on you’, we do little good for ourselves or anybody else. We need to rediscover shame, defining it not in terms of humiliation, but as a call to conscience, an assertion of shared humanity. If we are shocked by something we have never previously recognised as our responsibility, we need to think ‘Shame on me’ and to set about playing our part. Shame reminds us that we are not always what we are meant to be. It steers us towards the compassion and justice that the world still so desperately needs … Modern slavery is at an all-time high, a global big business often hidden in plain sight … Democracy is increasingly threatened … Climate change endangers livelihoods and lives … Food security remains elusive for many … Tensions arise as people cross borders in their sometimes desperate search for a better life … If any of this gives us cause for shame, it proves that shame is not a relic of the past, but a moral imperative for the present and future. Our society values self-assertion to a point where bravado, even shamelessness, is sometimes prized as bravery. But we can all give proof of bravery if we acknowledge any shame we feel, and, beyond that, if we commit to remedying its cause. And if this means that we no longer pass by on the proverbial other side, there really is no shame in feeling shame.
 

03 Sep 25 — Dr Rachel Mann

For those of us who simply cannot face the day without several cups of espresso, Americano, or filter coffee there is some encouraging news. New research from Warwick and Bielefeld Universities suggests not only that coffee can boost concentration, but might make us happier. The research tracked the mood of more than 200 young adults for up to four weeks reporting on how they were feeling across the day. Apparently, caffeine consumption is linked to an immediate increase in positive emotions like enthusiasm and happiness most especially first thing after waking. Interest in what makes humans happy is clearly ever popular, and this study only adds fresh evidence to claims that what we consume has an impact on our moods and emotions. While I doubt the Warwick and Bielefeld research is interested in quick solutions to the desire for happiness in a busy, tiring world, it is now tempting to add coffee to my list of short-cuts to an improved mood. Understanding happiness in terms of our emotional or psychological state of wellbeing is a relatively recent development, however. Aristotle suggested that ‘Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.’ For him, it is a chosen activity in which we seek to cultivate virtuous habits like truthfulness and courageousness rather than achieve a blissful state of mind. If that sounds a little po-faced, Aristotle approved of pleasure in moderation. A drink like coffee, for example, can be part of a happy life when not taken to excess. For a Christian like St Thomas Aquinas, complete happiness is not possible in this life. Perfect happiness can only be found when a person meets God face to face in heaven. For Aquinas, while we live on earth, happiness is partial and contingent; we can grow in it by developing virtues like love and hope, but our happiness on earth can never be complete whilst we are separated from meeting the God who is Love. As annual publications like the World Happiness Report reveal, interest in happiness is something of a modern obsession. I certainly want to be happy, and I do not want to dismiss anything that can aid its growth. I welcome any good research which suggests that coffee has a part in fostering happiness. I adore its freshly brewed aroma, and the first cup of the day gives me a cheering hit. Nonetheless, like Aristotle and Aquinas, I cannot equate happiness with a state of mind, fuelled by coffee or not. Happiness, I sense, is a choice, requiring a repeated commitment to act for the good whilst daring, like Aquinas, to let go of the belief that it is fully achievable in this life.
 

02 Sep 25 — Professor Mona Siddiqui

At the recent summit in China, India and China pledged to be partners not rivals with President Xi commenting on the long-term strategic relationship “it’s the right choice for both sides to be friends”. And in a move of cultural diplomacy to strengthen the ties between the UK and France, President Macron is loaning the Bayeux tapestry to the British museum next year. Despite some French concerns over transporting this fragile medieval relic, the director of the British Museum Nicholas Cullinan, spoke of his gratitude and said that the artefact ‘illustrates the deep ties between Britain and France and has fascinated people across geographies and generations.’ When countries speak of being friends, it’s often more about self-interest than emotion, mutual recognition rather than human affection, but meaningful alliances between nations can, like friendships, have an immensely powerful political and social worth. For me, friendships aren’t simply private matters – who you have in your life, says something about you as a person and as a citizen. The classical philosophers regarded friendship as the most important ingredient of a worth-while and happy life, essential to creating a good society. Aristotle famously said, `no-one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all the other good things.’ For the Roman orator Cicero, friendship was what made life worth living. And a famous Prophetic saying cautions the potential influence a friend can have over us, ` A man follows the faith of his friend; so each one should consider whom he makes his friend.’ In our globalised world where different cultures, races, and religions come together but also collide, a fundamental question of the modern era is who are our friends in fragmented and divided communities? I count myself lucky that I’ve lived in the liberal, social milieu of a western society where I’ve enjoyed the freedom to be friends with people of all backgrounds. It’s left me convinced that my faith in God has been strengthened by some of the personal soul searching I’ve done over friendships. So many of those relationships have been part of my journey of faith – the ones who stayed in my life, brought out the best in me, unsettled me or challenged my beliefs. Because whether it’s countries or people holding out a hand of friendship, both rely on trust and open honest dialogue as a meaningful foundation. This isn’t easy nor always selfless but as the Muslim poet Rumi said, ` the one who has a good friend, doesn’t need a mirror’.
 

01 Sep 25 — Rev David Wilkinson

Today is deadline day, with football’s transfer window closing this evening. An all-time record of over £2.6 billion has been spent so far, with more deals to be finalised, including the long saga of Alexander Rysak leaving my beloved Newcastle for well over a hundred million. Is a human being worth such money? Bill Bryson in the body a guide for occupants suggests that the total cost of the oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, sulphur, potassium, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium, which make up a typical human body would be £116,000. Author and broadcaster Jenny Kleeman, in her book, The Price of Life, looks at financial values placed on human life, from a hitman she interviewed who claimed the price for a murder was around about $15,000 to statistical measures used in healthcare, warfare, government and industry. These calculations are used to make decisions on limited resources, from investment in road safety through to compensation for those wrongfully imprisoned. As Clemen points out, this putting a price on human beings can seem cold, but it is a way of trying to be fair. There are more exploitative ways of valuing the worth of human beings. Yesterday, Radio Force The Body Shop explored the murky industry of the global trade in body parts. Then of course the transatlantic slave trade made huge amounts of money through the capture, selling and forced labour of people from Africa and financial reparations are still contested. Further human trafficking continues in an ongoing modern slave trade. In the world of the Old Testament, human slavery was widespread, but a person could be redeemed, that is released to freedom, through a payment of money. In the New Testament, Jesus uses this image referring to his own life, death and resurrection, when he says he came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Therefore, Christian theologians speak of the worth of human beings as being beyond financial price, because each is loved and valued by God who lives and dies for us. Immanuel Kant, the 18th century German philosopher, also argued that human beings are irreplaceable and human dignity places their lives above all price. But by itself, this doesn’t recognise the way that the structures of the world devalue people through prejudice and injustice, taking away their ability to experience dignity. The challenge for me as a Christian is to serve and work for others in a way that they experience and know their worth to God, whether an in-demand footballer or an ignored victim of slavery.
 

30 Aug 25 — Rev Canon Dr Rob Marshall

We all know someone affected by cancer. Even so, prediction by a coalition of 60 charities this week took me aback. One cancer voice predicted that by 2040 in England alone, someone will receive a cancer diagnosis every two minutes. Now that’s up from four minutes in the 1970s. The stark warning is aimed at encouraging government to continue developing their national cancer plan, a strategy to make the country a world leader in tackling the disease. It’s not a comfortable subject, of course, but talking about cancer matters. The journalist and broadcaster Dermot Mirnahan is the latest to speak openly about his experience. After falling ill on holiday, he was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer, news which he said came like a bolt out of the blue. In an interview this week, he thanked the wonderful healthcare professionals who care for him. He also spoke about living in the present and continuing to come to terms mentally and spiritually with his diagnosis. Now, of course, as a priest, it’s a privilege to talk with people almost daily who are dealing with the disease at all stages. Any pastoral approach I might have taken changed completely a few years ago when I was diagnosed myself with stage 3 melanoma. After treatment and ongoing regular check-ups, which become part of life’s rhythm, I’m now doing fine, but for sure, such a bolt-out-of-the-blue moment certainly demands creating space to think, to think about your loved ones, about practical things such as work and finance, to ask what really matters in life and what will I do with the time that I have anyway. You know, it can be strangely a hugely positive and creative time. A substantial amount of Jesus’ ministry is taken up with stories of healing. He never treats illness as a problem to be solved. Rather, he sees both the person wanting to be healed and those who bring them to him as people to be loved. He listens, he shows compassion. And in the church, we pray that healing may make people whole, not just in their body, but in mind and spirit too. I’m really grateful for the work of one cancer voice. I’m encouraged that we now seem more able to speak about cancer and its effects. And many of those voluntary groups are available for those who just want to talk. By advocating prevention, early diagnosis and support for those living with and beyond cancer, they and those who share their own experience in the public domain are doing us all a real service.
 

29 Aug 25 — Dr Anna Rowlands

A Christian should have their Bible in one hand and their newspaper in the other, said theologian Carl Bart. This week I had a moment that brought Bart to mind. It’s August and academics are busy with research. In my case, hopelessly distracted research, a book in one hand and my phone just in reach of the other. In come the pinging headlines. The killing of five journalists and eight children, Garzin, Ukrainian, American. Pope Leo begging the world. No more collective punishment. No more indiscriminate use of force or forced displacement. By chance, the text I’m reading is the French philosopher Simone Vay’s dissection of Homer’s poem, the Iliad. A war story, she says. Unlike the headlines of this week, the tragedy of force is its central character. Vay’s essay holds the Iliad in one hand and the Gospels in the other. Its 1939 and her distilled message on force is this. The human soul is always changed by its encounter with force. That’s true, whether you’re the person intoxicated by wielding force or the person bowed beneath it. Force penetrates the soul of perpetrator and victim. It risks making people into things indiscriminately. In the end, force makes victims of us all. It just takes a while to see this. There’s force that kills outright and force that makes someone a thing whilst living. Both are deadly. To break the cycle of force requires the miracle of turning things back into people. This means never admire force, oppose injustice but don’t hate, and don’t ever despise suffering people. For Christians, Vay’s message is stark. You can only speak convincingly of the love and justice of the gospel if you can look force in the face and refuse to worship or obey it. As the mayor of Minneapolis said, please don’t just say thoughts and prayers. These children were literally praying. In its place, enact the hospitality and justice that breaks the cycle. On Wednesday, Cardinal Pizza Baller of Jerusalem confirmed that the priests and nuns and the churches in Gaza City will stay with the weak and infirm. Their churches will remain sanctuaries. This is the interruptive hospitality that says no to force. This is the witness to the miracle of Jesus, who on the cross refuses to recycle force and aggression. And this is good news.
 

28 Aug 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

In the church’s calendar, today is the feast day of St. Augustine of Hippo, who died on this day in the year 430. Augustine is regarded as one of the key figures in the development of Western philosophy, and his work ranges from a massive survey through time, the city of God, to the intimate story of his conversion to Christianity in The Confessions. When I used to teach church history, I always recommended that students read the Confessions if it was the only ancient work they ever read, because it’s extraordinarily accessible and human. The earliest portrait of Augustine is in the Church of St. John Lateran in Rome, and it shows him as middle-aged and white, sitting on a throne-like chair, teaching from the scriptures. But the real Augustine was almost certainly brown. He was a Berber from what is now a small town in Algeria. A recent biography by the scholar Catherine Conebert is titled simply Augustine the African, and in it she explores how ambivalent Augustine must have felt about the wider Roman world. Those aspects of Augustine’s thought which have been most influential in Western Christianity derive from inner conflicts about his identity. Latin was his first language, and it helped him on his career as an academic in Rome and Milan. But every time he opened his mouth, he would have sounded like the inferior provincial that he was, and in spite of his brilliance, he struggled to find acceptance. He always felt displaced, an outsider. In Milan he converted to Christianity and made his way back to Africa where he became bishop of Hippo. He then spent years trying to heal a damaging split between the local African church and the authorities in Rome. He was on the Roman side of the argument, but he used the African Punic language as much as he could. Later he was mercilessly teased for this by an upper-class Roman adversary, Julian of Aitlanum. Great minds don’t come without baggage. Augustine is rightly famed as a pioneer of the Western philosophical tradition, but he came with his particular history and with a touchiness and anxiety that came from crossing between cultures. Who am I? Where do I belong? What is most worthy of my love and loyalty? For Augustine, it would always be God first, but he shows us that more important than any particular answer is the question, because it’s the question that keeps us moving, seeking, exploring. Our hearts are restless, Augustine prayed, until they rest in thee. For Augustine such restlessness is evidence that in this life we are always on the way to what he called the city of God. Only there shall we see at last what our whole messy, conflicted human pilgrimage through time has been about.
 

27 Aug 25 — Professor Mona Siddiqui

One of the most memorable dissertations I ever read was by a student who wrote on the ethics of photojournalism. She focused on the South African journalist Kevin Carter, whose photo called The Vulture and the Little Girl won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994. This was a shot of a small child who had collapsed under the waves of famine while attempting to reach a UN feeding centre in Ayod, Sudan. A vulture landed nearby, watching silently. The photo captured a moment of horrific suffering of the Sudanese famine into a single unforgettable frame of frailty and dread. But while the photo brought Carter international fame, he was also criticised for why he didn’t help the child. Four months later, Carter took his own life, depressed and in debt, but also haunted by the memories of the starvation and the corpses he’d witnessed. It’s said that this picture didn’t speak to us, it screamed at the world. But such photos remind us that behind every headline is a human story and behind every camera a human being. The news that five journalists were among the 20 killed in the most recent attacks at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza is yet another example of how in giving voice to the voiceless, journalists around the world can face a dangerous and often thankless task. Yes, journalists like all of us can have their biases. They can be conflicted. But in a world filled with noise and threats, journalists who work with integrity in conflict zones know that sometimes there’s nowhere to hide, even as they themselves cast a light into the dangers. Their deaths remind us that journalism can work on a moral commitment to witness and speak out, and in refusing to turn away from other people’s traumas, many of them end up paying with their own lives. There is a profound courage needed in not turning away from any kind of injustice, as reflected in the prophetic words, whoever among you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand, if he cannot, then with his tongue, and if he cannot, then with his heart. And that is the weakest of faith. Acknowledging the wrong we see isn’t always easy, especially in today’s world where most of us prefer comfort to confrontation. Yet at its best, investigative journalism, whether it’s news report or a photo, reminds us that truth isn’t a luxury. Telling other people’s stories, especially of grief and suffering, might instil in us not just pity, but purpose. How we can witness horrors from afar, but still play our own part in bringing a little more hope to the world.
 

26 Aug 25 — John Studzinski

“Who am I to judge?” That question, while apparently disarming, carries a powerful charge. I’ve heard it asked by such leading lights as the late Pope Francis, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Behind their words was a resonant warning from Jesus, reported in the Book of Matthew: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” Yet, these days, as it seems to me, we are suffering an epidemic of premature judgement. Public figures and private individuals – leaping off the springboard of social media, often careless about fact-checking or possible AI fakery – become all too ready to label and condemn. Compassion, like context, gets lost in the mix. Before sharing our views with the world, we should all take a moment to ask ourselves “Who am I to judge?” Not to shirk responsibility, but with a positive outcome in mind. If we simply voice a judgement and do nothing, we fail to move things purposefully forward. Over decades of working with the street homeless I’ve met many people whose lives have gone dangerously awry, seemingly because of decisions taken and unforeseen events. Rather than asking “What’s wrong with them?”, my first questions are “What happened to them?” and “How did they get here?” I listen actively to the stories that homeless people tell of trauma and resilience. The empathy I come to feel serves a pragmatic end as we work together to find practical, humane answers. On the other side of the equation, I’ve handled offers of charitable funding from companies that sell alcohol and tobacco. Pragmatism again has a role to play. I assess their commitment to making amends for the harms they can cause, to redirecting resources and accelerating change. If I instantly and categorically refused to listen, I would close a door – not just to funding, but to other forms of collaboration. Instead, together we can succeed in extending the reach of corporate social responsibility. In my efforts to combat modern slavery, I take care to use the word ‘survivor’ rather than ‘victim’: to call someone a victim is somehow to judge them. Rather than making rapid judgements, each of us should use our judgement. It can take time, investigation – and empathy – to reach a more informed decision. So today, as you navigate headlines and conversations, remember to ask yourself “Who am I to judge?”. It will help you to understand and even forgive errors of judgement. And it might help you arrive at a judgement that is better – or even absolutely right.
 

25 Aug 25 — Rev Professor David Wilkinson

On this programme on Saturday, there was a discussion of the significance of dust. That is, recent scientific papers have identified in the dust retrieved by NASA from the Bennu asteroid, ‘presolar grains’, material from before the solar system was formed. This material, older than 4.6 billion years, was itself formed by a previous generation of stars to our Sun. It is a reminder how small a part we are in the vast cosmic story and yet within this there is a deeper question concerning our significance. As an astrophysicist I worked on this process of star formation and the evolution and distribution of the chemical elements, dependent on a landmark paper which was started sixty years ago by Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, William Fowler, and Fred Hoyle. Hoyle had proposed that all the elements apart from hydrogen, helium and lithium, such as carbon, oxygen and iron were synthesised in the life and death of stars. The Burbidges and Fowler were able to work with Hoyle to give convincing evidence for this proposal. Not only did this work demonstrate that the carbon in the solar system and indeed my body is the ash of dead stars, it also was a significant theological moment for Hoyle. He had become well known, not least through a series of BBC broadcasts, as an atheist. Yet he saw that the creation of carbon in this way is dependent on some very fine-tuning of the energy levels in atoms. This unlikely situation led Hoyle to speak of being shaken in his atheism, and would later conclude, ‘A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics’. As a result he would move to writing a book entitled ‘ The Intelligent Universe’. We now know of a number of these ‘unlikely situations’ of fine tuning in the law and circumstances of the universe which have to be just right for its evolution and human life. The cosmologist Paul Davies calls it ‘The Goldilocks Enigma’. Some have argued that the only explanation of this fine-tuning is an intelligent designer. I’ve never been theologically or scientifically convinced of the logic of this attempt to prove God. But it is an intriguing pointer that while we are simply products of stardust, there may be a deeper story to the universe. And this resonates for me with the Christian claim that there is a Creator who sustains the evolution of human beings out of dust and walked in Jesus through the dust of Israel and Gaza showing that all human beings are significant and loved by God.
 

23 Aug 25 — Brian Draper

Two nature stories leapt at me from the papers yesterday. First was first the amazing news that a Wollemi pine, a species of tree which till recently was thought to have vanished 80 million years ago, is now fruiting in a garden in Worcestershire. A few Wollemis were discovered in the 1990s in a remote Australian ravine, and a hundred or so have now been cultivated globally, as the Wollemi teeters on the precipice of an incredible return. Second, less spectacular but for me just as moving, was news of an urban project in Bristol which has set the city’s back-alleys buzzing vibrantly with bugs and insects and colour. A local resident, Flora Beverley, inspired neighbours to help her plant wild flowers along litter strewn, unloved concrete passages to create ‘nature corridors’ for our vital but oft forgotten pollinators which are, themselves, on the edge of catastrophic decline. Her vision is not just to enliven the city with nature but to join up separate pockets of wildlife habitats such as parks and reserves which have until now, unhelpfully for wildlife, sat in fragmented isolation. Such happy re-connection need not be reserved for insects alone, of course. As Flora Beverley herself says, “The things that are good for nature tend to be very good for people too.” The nature poet Mary Oliver writes movingly of our own belonging within the ‘family of things’. And I love to think myself as belonging not so much to the ‘kingdom’ of God as the ‘KIN-dom’ (without the g) – as for me that’s how God created our world to be: a joined-up whole; an ecosystem in which we come to life in relationship with the least as well as the greatest. ‘The deepest mystery of all,’ says the eco-theologian Thomas Berry, is how ‘all forms of life, from the plankton in the sea and the bacteria in the soil to the most massive mammals are ultimately related to one another … in the entire complex of earthly being.’ (From the smallest bugs of the backyards of Bristol to the revival of the ancient Wollemi trees.) Perhaps we can join things up a little more, today – re-join the family – by planting autumn flowers for the bees, say; pausing to wonder at a forgotten part of nature; reaching out to a neighbour – or indeed as Flora Beverly has done so beautifully, to bring love to an unloved place, and to watch life return.
 

22 Aug 25 — Catherine Pepinster

Governments, inevitably, have to focus on affordability, just as much as we all do when balancing our household budgets. In the last few days, it’s emerged that ministerial advisers are going to study evidence about automatically raising the state pension age, according to life expectancy. It means that we could see the pension age, now at 66 and rising next year to 67, go up to 70 sooner rather than later. There are not far short of 10 million people over 70 in the UK; 50 years ago there were more like seven million. I know from my own family just how long people can claim the state pension; some of my relatives had 30 years of retirement. Actuarial advisers question if it’s really sustainable for the public purse. There’s something very significant about 70 – that’s the Biblical three score years and ten, the agespan mentioned in Scripture. And yet, much as it’s good to see people living longer, and that 70 is not the end of our lives but the start of supposed years of leisure, I wish notions about old age today reflected Biblical ideas more strongly. Many people complain they’re written off when they reach retirement – that they have nothing left to offer, because society so often values people only for the paid work that they do. And in an era when technological change happens so fast, even plenty of people younger than retirement feel disregarded. But rather than be identified by their work, the Bible sees those getting older as still having purpose – for their life experience, for their knowledge and particularly for their wisdom. Wisdom, says the Book of Job, is found with the elderly and understanding comes with long life, while the Psalms say “In old age, the righteous will still bear fruits; healthy and green they will remain.” A faith like Christianity sees a person as made up of not only the body, which diminishes in time, and the mind, which might lose its intellectual vigour, but your spirit too, which is constant. This was highlighted when the parents of Jesus took him to the temple, where they met Simeon and Anna, both very old people whose final years were spent focused on prayer. They recognised Jesus, according to the Gospel writer Luke, as the Messiah. Now, Simeon prayed, let thy servant depart in peace. His life was complete. Simeon represents someone whose last years were not a time of frustration and thwarted ambition but fulfilment. In other words, old age need not be a time when purpose fades, but grows.
 

21 Aug 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

Building Beautiful Council Houses is the name of a cross-party report published earlier this week. It recommends that we should be aiming to build 100,000 new council houses a year, and that they should be built to high architectural standards. We desperately need more houses – the government hopes to deliver over a million new homes and is overhauling the current planning system. Given the scale of the crisis the temptation for any government would be to put quantity before quality. This has happened before, with disastrous results, particularly after the second world war. I remember visiting Berlin before the fall of the iron curtain and looking into the east of the city and being horrified by its grim, soulless architecture. Across the world Pete Seeger sang of American urban sprawl in terms of ‘little boxes on a hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky, little boxes, little boxes, little boxes all the same’. Drive through any city in Britain and you’ll see urban blocks, cheaply built, and sometimes now oozing damp and mould as well as depressing the spirit. It was not a good omen when, earlier this year, the word ‘beautiful’ was deleted from the National Planning policy framework in an attempt to speed up construction. The mistake in ANY crisis is to think short term. Desperate as we are for more housing we need to think what houses are for. They are not just boxes made of ticky-tacky to store people in as though they were Lego pieces. Houses are homes, and for most of us ‘home’ means both privacy and neighbourliness. Secure in our own space we connect to the flat next door or to neighbours over the fence. One of my favourite quotations from the Bible is from the Book of Micah which describes the ideal community as one in which ‘they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees and no one shall make them afraid’. It’s a lovely image of people who are relaxed and at peace, in sight of their neighbours, yet still separate, and with nature’s harvest on the trees. It is no accident that the Bible is full of imagery of gardens and cities which speak both of our origins and our heavenly destiny. Perhaps that’s why people these days aspire to having what they call a ‘forever home’, as though it is a foothold in heaven. I would like to think that our architects are striving to design houses that they would like to live in themselves, and not just because they are pleasing, but because they help us to be human.
 

20 Aug 25 — Tim Stanley

In 1928, Eric Fenby, a young organist from Yorkshire, heard a piece of music on the radio that changed his life. It was by the English composer Friedrich Delius, and Fenby thought it so beautiful, he had to meet him. He learnt that Delius, now 66, was paralysed and blinded by illness – so he wrote to his house in France offering to take dictation and complete his final works. Delius accepted – and the story of their partnership is told in Ken Russell’s 1968 film Song of Summer, which was rebroadcast last weekend on BBC4. It’s a case study in why you should never meet your heroes. The illness turned out to be syphilis. Delius was nasty and egotistical. Moreover, Fenby was a devout Catholic and Delius, an atheist, mocked his Christianity. That old debate about separating great art from flawed artists is one Catholics are painfully familiar with. The stations of the cross at Westminster Cathedral, depicting the crucifixion of Christ, were created by the sculptor Eric Gill, later revealed to have molested his own daughters. A Catholic artist once told me that the stations cannot be beautiful because the mind behind them was evil. But I still think Gill’s work was brilliant. And I still think Delius was inspired by something beyond our ken. Fenby persevered. For hours, he would sit at the piano and Delius would shout out notes he wanted him to write, their pitch, time, or phrase lengths, while Fenby desperately tried to jot it down. Together they created tone poems, recreating a scene in music – the most famous of which is the Song of Summer. The violins evoke the waves on a beach; the flute, a gull floating on the breeze. Fenby looked after Delius till he died. Delius insisted he be buried in a churchyard in England. His composition “the Mass of Life”, a nonreligious worship of man’s potential, was played at the Proms this week. Fenby later wrote that “the musician Delius was greater than the man Delius”. He argued that we should celebrate the individual’s talent and effort, but the impetus for creation ultimately comes from God: the artist is less a genius than a conduit. I fell in love with Delius the musician when I first heard the Florida Suite, based upon his early life spent managing an orange plantation in America. I think it expresses the religious relationship with music – even though it is an entirely secular subject. Why? Because Delius evoked nature, which I believe is itself composed by God. And music’s ability to lift us out of time and space, to deposit us on an Atlantic shore, beneath a purple sunset, is a spiritual act.
 

19 Aug 25 — Professor Mona Siddiqui

Police aren’t helping, so I’m shaming the shoplifters myself’ so said Suki Athwal, the co-owner of a convenience store in Kent. Frustrated with the growing number of thefts, Mr Athwal put up a screenshot of a customer who’d stolen from his shop. But he was told that he would have to remove the poster as it could be a violation of data protection laws. This isn’t the only story to make headlines – in recent months I’ve often heard the phrase ` they’re shameless’ to describe such law breaking -the implication being that many people now stealing from shops and stores not in secret but quite openly, simply don’t care. Being caught carries neither stigma, humiliation or remorse. Shame is a complex word, and shaming is a blunt tool. In much of moral philosophy, shame isn’t really considered a virtue but a moral emotion which can guide our behaviour towards virtue acting as an internal stop sign. For some, shame is too dependent on societal norms and its collective moral standards or the communal gaze. The argument is that true morality must be more autonomous, coming from within a person. A few years ago, an American Christian organisation invited me to think about the virtues I would like to explore in my research and when I suggested shame as a possibility, he looked at me quizzically and asked ` in today’s society is shame really a virtue?’ But I think it can be when we see it as moral awareness, our conscience which can restrain dishonourable or indecent behaviour and help us to acknowledge our guilt and accountability when we do something we know to be wrong. Perhaps we struggle with the concept of shame because its often used to dehumanise others. Those who were shamed into keeping quiet about suffering abuse and exploitation, those who are mocked or rejected for who they are or who struggle with how they look – here, shame can be destructive and paralysing and I’m reminded of Charles Dickens words, `Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears.’ There’s an Islamic saying that `every religion has its character, and the character of Islam is haya’ a word meaning shame or modesty. While today, modesty has become largely synonymous with clothing and covering, the word haya’ goes deeper invoking humility, self-respect and empathy for others. It reminds us that our moral life is relational, that mutual bonds of trust enable a flourishing life for us all, and that when we disrespect others, its often a sign of how we see ourselves.
 

18 Aug 25 — Rt Rev Nick Baines

There once was an ugly duckling … whose story improved with the telling. The man who wrote that story, Hans Christian Andersen, died 150 years ago this month, but his stories live on. When I heard these – ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘The Snow Queen’, and so on – when I was a child, I just took them as stories. Coming back to them decades later I realized that they were really for adults. The imagination that writers bring to their art is crucial. What was clear from Andersen himself is that he was primarily and essentially a good listener. He knew that understanding and imagining begins with attentive listening. I guess everyone knows what it is like to have a conversation with someone who is interested only in themselves and shows no interest in listening to you. Good listening. This is true not only of artists, but of politics, religion, and just about all walks of life. I am a Christian and worked originally as a professional linguist. Being a linguist means learning to listen, to understand what is being said by someone else. Only then can I begin to interpret in a language understood by another. Interpreting does not mean necessarily agreeing with what is being said, but enabling the other party to hear and understand it anyway. The interpreter has to learn by listening. And this also goes also to the heart of what it means to be a Christian: listening to the culture, digging deeper into meaning and intention, being careful not to use language that obscures rather than opens up. Reading the Bible daily is a discipline of listening to what is sometimes a challengingly different way of seeing God, the world and us. So to speak biblically is not merely to offer an opinion. I would love to know what Presidents Trump and Putin’s interpreters made of the private conversations in Alaska on Friday. They will be people who read both the Washington Post and Pravda. Only by careful listening can they calibrate reality and comprehend how what is being said by one party might be heard and grasped by the other. This is where religion might have something to offer politics. Not only must I read the Bible (and wrestle with it), but I also have to read the times (with a small ‘t’). This demands a humility – that the languages being spoken might not be entirely within my competence. When I speak with Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or secular humanist friends I know I cannot fully understand what it is to live in their skin. I can only use my imagination to try. As Hans Christian Andersen insisted: it all begins with good listening.
 

16 Aug 25 — Martin Wroe

The big news in the Suffolk village of Blythburgh this weekend is the annual church service for the blessing of animals. This year, for the first time in a decade, the jodhpur wearing vicar won’t be saddled up as, sadly, Neville his horse, recently died. But other horses will be trotting on the medieval stone floor. The cast some years has included cats, dogs, llamas, tortoises, parrots, hamsters and a bull. All creatures great and small. If it sounds like a scene from The Vicar of Dibley, that may be because Richard Curtis, who wrote the sitcom, lives nearby and is said to have taken inspiration from this service…although in the real life version the church choir don’t sing Donny Osmond’s Puppy Love. Animals mean more to us than most of us know. In a revelatory new study, How Animals Heal Us, the writer Jay Griffiths explores how our non human companions transform our wellbeing – how they restore our health, as guardians or confidantes, as friends or therapists. On the bed, lying at our feet, licking a face. For those of us who have a creature we turn to for consolation or conversation, it’s no surprise to be told these creature comforts are real. Or how animals may be wise without words. In ancient times, wrote Terry Pratchett, cats were worshipped as gods… and they have not forgotten this. The zoologist Jane Goodall says animals too are spiritual creatures – meaning they are amazed at things outside of themselves. Chimpanzees are as spiritual as we are. They are part of nature’s wild alleluia. One reason our non human companions are so good for us, says Griffiths, is that they are often drawn to play. From wrestling frogs to kittens chasing their tails or dogs retrieving sticks, from mud wallowing elephants to whales blowing underwater bubbles at each other. In serious times, when history is walking a tightrope and the morning news can make our nerves jangle, the sight of parents playing with children at the beach or teenagers kicking a ball in the park, is a reminder of the deep human call to recreation – the need to be re-created. To make ourselves up again. Animals seem to get that we are wired for play. In his latest novel Playground, Richard Powers explores the hidden playful lives of deep ocean creatures and he quotes the biblical voice of wisdom from the story of creation. ‘I was delighted every day, playing at all times…playing in the world: and my delights were to be with the children of humans. ‘ We may bless the animals in church, but they may bless us every day. Ask the animals and they will teach you, says the Bible, the birds of the air, they will tell you…
 

15 Aug 25 — Catherine Pepinster

When US president Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, meet later today in Alaska, millions will be hoping they can find a way to end the war in Ukraine. It’s estimated that around a million Russian troops have been killed or wounded since Russia first invaded Ukraine three years ago, while the Ukrainian army has apparently lost around 100,000 troops. Then there are the thousands of Ukrainian civilians killed and wounded, among them children. Children for whom life has become a narrative of bombs and loss. When Putin and Trump meet, I wish that they might be surrounded by paintings of children in Ukraine by the war artist Arabella Dorman that I saw at an exhibition in London a year ago. One of them, Child’s Play, showed Ukrainian boys playing with toys. A closer look revealed that the toys were shards from bombed-out vehicles. Others showed broken teddy bears and traditional Ukrainian dolls lying in the dust and dirt. The paintings conveyed both the immediate impact of war – losing parents, homes and schools — but also its lasting psychological impact on a whole generation of children. One of the most striking paintings of all was one inspired by the many bomb-damaged icons of Mary with her son, Jesus, that Dorman has seen as a war artist. As well as all its other traumas, war in Ukraine has led to growing religious divisions between those who follow the Russian Orthodox Church – a supporter of the invasion – and others who belong to the breakaway Ukrainian Orthodox or the Roman Catholic Church. But they share a devotion to Mary. President Zelensky, himself Jewish, highlighted that traditional devotion when he handed Pope Leo a gift at his installation in May – an icon of the Madonna and child, painted on an artillery crate from the front line. Catholics often say they are drawn to Mary because they feel she understands human suffering – an empathy so beautifully expressed by Michelangelo’s Pieta sculpture, of Mary cradling Christ’s corpse after he was taken down from the cross. Today is one of Mary’s great feast days – that of the Assumption, when Catholics believe she was taken up into heaven after she died – a sign that the great suffering of this life was over. The icons of Ukraine and Russia depict Mary and her son gazing out at humanity. The one that I saw in that exhibition depicted her looking out, challenging people as if to say: “You have not done enough for my son”. The mothers of Ukraine – and Russia – may well be joining her today, asking of Putin and Trump: will you do enough for our children?
 

14 Aug 25 — Dr Rachel Mann

Eighty four years ago today, a polish priest and Franciscan friar was murdered by lethal injection in Auschwitz. His name was Maximilian Kolbe and he was incarcerated because his friary gave shelter to thousands of Jews. While he was imprisoned in Auschwitz, another prisoner escaped and its deputy commander picked ten men to be starved to death in reprisal. Kolbe volunteered to take the place of one of those selected and after weeks of starvation he was killed with carbolic acid. In 1982, Pope John Paul II canonised Kolbe, calling him a ‘saint for our troubled age.’ Ahead of tomorrow’s summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, Kolbe’s example of self-sacrifice has been much on my mind. At face value, the meeting could not be further removed from his story. Kolbe’s life unfolded at the micro level, among ordinary, unknown people, whereas Trump and Putin are world-famous, discussing huge geo-political matters. They exercise leadership far removed from someone like Maximilian Kolbe. Nonetheless, I wonder how their leadership might look if they took note of Kolbe’s self-sacrifice. In his well-known analysis of leadership, the psychologist Daniel Goldman suggested that people tend to deploy one of six classic styles. Authoritarian politicians, for example, tend to use the coercive leadership style which commands and directs subordinates to act in specific ways. While Goldman says there can be a time and place for such leadership, unless it is balanced with other approaches like coaching and participative leadership, it can have damaging effects. Maximilian Kolbe displayed sacrificial leadership. He set an example by offering his life for the sake of another prisoner. He drew on Jesus’s words, who when faced with his own death, said, ‘Greater love has no one than to lay down their life for their friends.’ Kolbe gave his life for a stranger. Through self-sacrifice he placed the interests of another ahead of his own. But one does not need to face death to show sacrificial leadership. In my own work I know how tempting it is to act in a way which promotes my own advantage. For the sake of the common good, however, sometimes we have to let that go. When Presidents Trump and Putin meet tomorrow, I cannot imagine that Maximilian Kolbe’s self-sacrifice will be on the agenda. Kolbe is reputed to have said, ‘Let us remember that love lives through sacrifice … Without sacrifice there is no love.’ I know a resolution in Ukraine will take more than self-sacrifice, but I also sense that when we exercise leadership at any level it benefits from setting aside the temptation to burnish one’s own reputation or gain a selfish advantage and, instead, to focus on promoting and achieving the common good.
 

13 Aug 25 — Dr Krish Kandiah

We are not born afraid. Psychologists and neuroscientists explain that babies arrive in this world with only two natural startle responses: one to falling, and the other to loud noises. Most other fears—whether of heights, failure, spiders or strangers—are learned, picked up through experience and the influence of others. When my children were born, I felt afraid leaving them alone in their cots. I hesitated to let others hold them. I felt my stomach twist when they walked through the school gates for the first time. Even now, as I count down the days to my daughter’s wedding, I feel butterflies in my stomach. Across the country many parents, carers and grandparents will be feeling a similar nervousness ahead of tomorrow’s A-level results. They seem so important, shaping our children’s next steps—towards university, a job, a career. But in truth, our fears are misplaced. A grade on a piece of paper does not define who our children are, nor does it dictate their future success or happiness. A front-page story in the Mail on Sunday quoted Shadow Justice Minister, Robert Jenrick talking about the fears he has for his young daughters. He said: “I certainly don’t want my children to share a neighbourhood with men from backward countries who broke into Britain illegally, and about whom we know next to nothing.” These words echo a fear many have absorbed: fear of the stranger. It is understandable that many people are scared by the unknown. Especially if they’ve been told illegality and un fairness are part of the story. However, after rigorous Home Office assessment, the majority of people arriving in small boats are found to be genuinely fleeing war, persecution, and famine—circumstances we would never wish on our own families. The idea that they pose a greater risk to our children than those already within our communities simply isn’t supported by evidence. Most crimes against children are committed not by strangers, but by people they know—often from within their own families or neighbourhoods. Fear, when it makes us cautious, can keep us safe. But when it makes us unnecessarily suspicious it can be dangerous, making society more fractured and fragile, and eroding the very values we want our children to experience—kindness, fairness, and open-heartedness. Martin Luther King Jr., standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, spoke not of fear, but of hope. He wanted his children to share a neighbourhood with those others considered a risk – children from all races walking hand in hand in peace. His words, rooted in his Christian faith, echo what Jesus taught: to love our neighbour and to welcome the stranger. Just as fear may be learned. I believe it is possible for us to learn hope, by choosing empathy over suspicion, by listening before judging, and by building bridges instead of walls.
 

12 Aug 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

The Sahara desert is the largest hot desert on earth. At over three and a half million square miles it is found in eleven north African countries. It’s emerged this week that in 2023, the largest ever recorded meteorite from Mars fell into the Agadez region of the Sahara, in the Republic of Niger. At 24.7kg and 40 cm across, it is by far the largest ever found, and most likely has been floating around in space for millions if not billions of years before falling into our desert. A dramatic and evocative arrival on our planet; a time capsule from another world that could help us unlock the mysteries of the universe. But this exceptional Martian rock was sold at auction in New York 3 weeks ago by an anonymous private seller to an anonymous private bidder for a record $5.3m. How it made its way from Niger to an auction house in the United States is not completely clear, and the government of Niger has issued a statement raising the possibility that this is contrary to international law, the necessary legislative framework not yet being in place in the country. The government isn’t the only body to be protesting about this: the scientific community are now dependent on the permission of this individual owner as to whether the rock can be studied in detail, to analyse more effectively the processes of the cosmos. Of course, the operation of licensing systems, inter-governmental agreements on regulation and access for scientists are important practical considerations that are raised by this sort of event. But the landing of this meteorite and what has happened to it since throws up fundamental moral questions about land, possession, the commercialising of natural resources. Who, if anyone, thinks they can own space? In Christian spiritual practice, the cosmos and the day-to-day ethics of human living are intimately linked: the unseen God who holds the stars apart is intimately involved in the mess of human living. This rock came to us from beyond the horizon. A horizon that is simply the limit of our sight. Imagining what’s out there, in a spirit of exploration and studying to learn more, are God-given human gifts that can be harnessed for good or ill. But when does a spirit of adventure change into the determination to colonise? When does the desire to share values turn into coercion and the destruction of what was already there? When does excitement about finding a beautiful rock from another world fuel its exploitation for personal profit and power? The arrival of the largest piece of Mars to ever fall to earth raises fundamental challenges for us as human beings, and in this first test, I want to suggest, we have not covered ourselves in glory.
 

11 Aug 25 — Rt Rev Nick Baines

It’s not just what we say that matters, but also how we say it. Every day in Parliament begins with the Lord’s Prayer. It will be said daily by millions of Christians and in most church services. But, how we say it reveals what we really think it means. So, for example, should I stress “Your kingdom come” or “your kingdom come”? I think it should be the former, with the stress on the “your”. Why? Because there are plenty of other kingdoms on offer and vying for dominance. When Jesus taught his friends to pray this way, you could get executed for claiming that anyone other than Caesar was ‘the Lord’. To pray “your kingdom come” was potentially – or maybe even essentially – seditious. This isn’t a merely religious question. Whose kingdom we choose to serve has real-world consequences. For some people, it means protesting against the state or the law, thus coming into conflict over what they believe is more fundamentally right than what the dominant culture allows. Those taking part in protests against the proscription of Palestine Action are counting the cost of this ethical choice. At the end of October this year I will be preaching in the Augustinerklosterkirche in Erfurt. This is the church where Martin Luther was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. It was at the centre of the Reformation and the subsequent Peasants’ War of 1525. It is a town whose prison held opponents to the Nazis and Soviet Communists. The walls bear witness to the choices ordinary people made about whose kingdom should have the priority – the prevailing political masters (Caesar) or the kingdom of God as lived out in Jesus of Nazareth? This is also the epicentre of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), the Far Right party growing in electoral popularity. What should I be saying in October on Reformation Day to a congregation comprising people whose assumptions about God’s kingdom will be conflicted? I have an old photograph from another Thuringian town, Jena, of several thousand Nazis protesting against an academic Old Testament theologian who wouldn’t tow the official line. Not a light decision for that man, but one that reveals what he meant when he prayed for the coming of God’s kingdom in the Lord’s Prayer … and saw around him the nature of a different rule. This theologian knew the Bible. He was shaped by the plea of the prophets that a state must be built on humanity, justice, mutual love and mercy. Anything else must, however quietly, be challenged.
 

09 Aug 25 — Professor Tina Beattie

An alarming story about microplastics caught my attention this week. Barely visible to the naked eye, these tiny particles have been found in all our bodily organs, even the brain. Once hailed as a miracle of scientific ingenuity, plastic has become an insidious threat to many life forms, including our own. As we face the new challenges posed by artificial intelligence, these are timely reminders that the most brilliant human inventions can be blighted by unintended consequences. It’s easy to feel a sense of despair, as the modern myth of progress implodes around us in the media’s daily delivery of bad news. It can be tempting to switch off or seek relief in escapism. This includes a burgeoning industry of commodified spiritualities and lifestyle movements, with the seductive promise of finding peace of mind amidst these turbulent times, often with some significant cost involved. A mature Christian spirituality doesn’t offer such a way out. It’s not about escapism but about finding hope within the often brutal and tragic realities of life. The story of Jesus confronts us with terrible cruelties and betrayals. When I was a child, my parents taught me to pray every night to gentle Jesus, meek and mild, but that’s not the Jesus of the Gospels. Jesus wept. He raged against the moneylenders in the temple. He had a robust capacity to mock the hypocrisies of religious bigots, as present in our own time as they were in his. He looked tenderly on the foibles and failings of everyday life, but he was harsh in his condemnation of those who exploited and oppressed others. I believe that it’s right to respond to the daily news with grief and rage, to be unreconciled to the state of the world as it is. Christians are called to discover hope not in progressive optimism nor in spiritual escapism, but in the promise that, in spite of everything, there is meaning and purpose to our stumbling journey through time’s labyrinth. The ultimate horizon is redemption, not futility. Anger can be holy, and tears can water the sacred ground where new life might grow. I echo singer-songwriter Nick Cave’s sentiment when he says I’m religious, not spiritual. My struggling faith offers me little by way of spiritual serenity, far less theological certainty, but I draw hope from believing that in Christ, divine life is woven into the fabric of time and space in the form of one vulnerable, mortal, and persecuted human, in whom was embodied an unquenchable love.
 

08 Aug 25 — Catherine Pepinster

This week, a new production of the celebrated play ‘A Man For All Seasons’ opened in the West End, starring Martin Shaw as Thomas More. The play, written by Robert Bolt, recounts how More, Lord Chancellor and friend to Henry VIII, was forced to choose between his loyalty to the King and his beliefs over Henry’s desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. The play and the Oscar-winning movie version captured the public imagination in the 1960s, which seems somewhat surprising, given that the Sixties was an era when people pushed boundaries over Christian conventions. But Robert Bolt, who described himself as an agnostic, saw something in More that the 1960s audience would find appealing – that he was a man of conscience, an individual who resisted Henry’s demands. Rather than swear an oath of loyalty to Henry, More refused to cave into pressure – even if it cost him his life. And yet in recent times, More hasn’t been quite the hero that he was when Bolt wrote his play. Rather than be perceived as someone who won’t compromise, there has been renewed focus on how he served Henry VIII for years, by often sending others to their deaths. Instead, thanks to Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall, the Tudor hero of our time has been Thomas Cromwell, with his pragmatic efforts to do Henry VIII’s bidding. In Wolf Hall, Cromwell denounces More as a blood-soaked hypocrite – the judgement of a 21st century version of Cromwell, for whom hypocrisy is one of the greatest of sins. Thomas More, in the hands of Robert Bolt, is a far more attractive character, what Bolt called “a hero of self-hood”. But it seems to me that isn’t quite right either. When More was canonised a saint by the Catholic Church in 1935, there was a focus on something else: More’s sacrifice wasn’t about stubbornly holding on to his own private notion. It was due to a principle he shared with others, his fellow believers, and he was duty bound to defend it. Giving up his life was, yes, a highly individual act, but what was at stake was staying true to shared principles, not taking on something new to save your skin. In the year 2000, the Catholic Church declared More to be the patron saints of statesmen – not because being a good statesman – or woman – means you must make the ultimate sacrifice. Rather, this patron saint is for the Church a symbol of standing up for shared beliefs, rather than anything more individualistic. The greatest statesmen and women, not just in sixteenth century England but today too, represent something greater than themselves.
 

07 Aug 25 — Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith

Most days I walk past the high stone walls of the Bank of England, just a few blocks from where I live. Today its Monetary Policy Committee are widely expected to reduce the base rate of interest. As they meet, there’s speculation and warnings from many that the United Kingdom’s economy is not growing anywhere near enough. Reducing the base rate of interest is meant to make it more accessible for businesses and individuals to borrow money, to stimulate economic growth. It does however carry risk – not least with rising prices, the new US tariffs, and fewer jobs around. Growth is meant to mean a bigger cake to cut among public services: more nurses, more social care, more for schools and local communities. All good. And of course, growth means that I have more money to buy more things to keep the growth going. But what does growth actually mean? John Wesley taught that we should gain all we can, save all we can, give all we can – but his goal was never that we have enough to be self-sufficient, but that we have enough to share. In the community where I live, legitimate needs can feel like they are in competition with one another sowing division rather than solidarity. And then growth, if and when it comes, may feel like it is making someone else’s life easier, yet someone else’s significantly worse. Growth, if it is just about promoting a fearful self-sufficiency, does not feel to me like it will make things better on its own. Jesus told people to ‘seek first the kingdom of God’ – by which he meant many things in addition to the growth of faith in God – among them my neighbour’s wellbeing, safety in my home and on our streets, the justice of enough food and care for all. If I seek these things for my neighbour as my first priority, he taught, my own will follow. No one who has struggled to find a safe place to live, provide enough food, or care for an older relative would be in any doubt of the need for more of these things to go around. But there is a paradox about the feeling of financial security – it may come exactly from being involved in helping another person, and knowing the help will be there for us. Solidarity, not competition, and being involved in one another’s needs. I hope for growth in my sense of well-being that comes from faith in my community and its future, not just from my own bank balance.
 

06 Aug 25 — Dr Krish Kandiah

It was a beautiful morning. Children lined up in the playground before school. Parents headed to work. Grandparents tended their gardens. Then, at 8.16, came the flash that changed everything. The gruesome explosion… instantly vapourised children in their playgrounds, parents, grandparents, friends and neighbours. The dropping of the atomic bomb above Hiroshima – a town of similar size to Newcastle or Bristol – remains the deadliest use of a single weapon in human history. Today is the 80th anniversary of that horrific event. At the time some people justified the bombing. President Truman, who had given the green light for the drop, said in a national radio broadcast: “We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.” The bombing of Hiroshima remains a deeply controversial military decision. It may have been an effective demonstration of political and technological might, but it was marked by a chilling indifference to human life and suffering. The plane that delivered the bomb was named ‘Enola Gay’, after the pilot’s mother. The bomb itself was christened ‘Little Boy’. How cruelly ironic that the machinery of death was humanised, while humanity was stripped from those it destroyed. Civilians were reduced to ‘collateral damage’ and ‘acceptable losses’. Eighty years after Hiroshima, I find myself wondering—what have we learned? Today’s nuclear arsenals hold the power of hundreds of thousands of Hiroshima bombs—enough to destroy the world many times over. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s threshold to use nuclear weapons has been reduced. Bombs have struck Iran’s nuclear sites. Even this week, American nuclear submarines have been moved closer to Russian waters. Whenever I feel afraid for the future of our planet I turn to the Bible. I read the words of Jesus, who was no stranger to conflict, and yet became known as the Prince of Peace. When Jesus was arrested, and about to be brutally killed under a warring imperial regime, he told his friend to disarm. “Put your sword back in its place,” he said to Peter, “for all who take the sword will die by the sword.” His words echo across the centuries, a quiet rebuke to the logic of violence, and a radical invitation to choose peace—even in the darkest moments of human history. Hiroshima is more than a monument to tragedy. Near ground zero today lies the Peace Memorial Park, which draws millions of visitors each year to honour the victims, reflect on the horrors of nuclear warfare and to promote the peace and disarmament our world still so desperately needs.
 

05 Aug 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

The strip of water that separates southern England from Northern France is called ‘the sleeve’ in many European languages, referring to its shape. Historically named the English Channel in the UK, this is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean, choppy, busy, cold. And at its narrowest point, only 21 miles wide. So far in 2025, 25,000 people have crossed from France to southern England in little boats. And notwithstanding the fact that just under 70% have their claim for asylum accepted, the journey is hazardous, and the exploitative trade run by smugglers today is up 48% so far on last year. The political debate is often polarised, heated and permanently urgent regarding what should happen practically. The ‘push’ factors of persecution in the countries with the largest number of travellers – Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria- combine with the ‘pull’ factors that the French President Emmanuel Macron identified last month as the UK’s ‘informal economy’ making it easier to work without papers. A variety of policy solutions are offered and lobbied for: ranging from identity cards, re-patriation schemes, or the provision of safe and legal alternative routes. Organised religion must acknowledge its own culpability in generating the despair that leads people to put their families into leaky boats. From the time of the Huguenots who crossed the English Channel in the 1570s in great numbers, the misuse of religious power by Christians and many other religions has to be confronted before any reflections on more philosophical themes can be credible. But the operation of bad religion doesn’t negate a proper consideration of the themes that spiritual practice reveals. Christian belief insists that inherent dignity, purpose and worth are inalienable aspects of the human condition. This dignity is universal and irreducible. The application of market principles to the fear and despair of people fleeing persecution introduces a fundamental challenge to this principle: a challenge which results in the commodification of people who, akin to the modern slave trade, can be bought, sold, trafficked and exploited. But these are human beings, for whom God insists there can be no price. And in this market, there has been no ‘invisible hand’ to save many from drowning in sight of the shore. In its extreme and dramatic images, the smuggling of people across the Channel holds up a mirror to the way we live now, demanding that all of us, by way of opposition to this trade, hold to the principle of innate and inherent dignity for everyone without exception always. And to oppose the corrosion of this principle wherever we find it weakened, not only in the life-threatening practice of trafficking, but in every transaction that threatens to diminish that dignity, whatever the work and whatever the cost.
 

04 Aug 25 — Rt Rev Nick Baines

Some people are good with words, some are good with numbers. If you want to tie me in knots, then pile on the statistics and watch me flounder as I try to make sense of them. Everyone knows Mark Twain’s entertaining observation that “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics”, but he also knew that facts are facts and numbers shouldn’t be messed with. Well, it’s certainly an interesting world in which someone can get sacked for having provided inconvenient numbers. Erika McEntarfer was head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States until last week when a report showed that far fewer jobs had been created than had been projected. President Trump claimed that the results were – block capitals alert – “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad”. I guess we’ve now got used to opinion trumping facts in a post-truth world. But, what this episode shows is that fear of reality is a dangerous thing. To reject data on the basis of political preference or personal convenience is surely worrying. The President might interpret the numbers in a particular way, but the data cannot simply be dismissed or discredited. Of course – while statistics can tell us something, they can never tell us everything. Similarly, recent claims – based on an opinion poll – that there is a “quiet revival” in the church in England require statistical analysis and don’t necessarily tell an obvious story. We’ll see. Two things strike me. The first has to do with reality and my ability to face it. If I only accept data that reinforces what I want to see, then I am deluded. In the eighth century BC there was a religious revival going on; but the prophets warned that this phenomenon could not simply be read as evidence God was on their side … especially whilst, against God’s character, the religious leaders of the day institutionalised injustice. It would not end well for the fantasists. The second has to do with truth itself. Surely something is true because it is true; it can’t be made true because it is convenient to me or someone else – especially if it represents a play for power. CS Lewis reportedly said: “If Christianity is true, it is true because it is true; it is not true because it is Christianity.” Truth is not always easy to discern …. But, a deliberate rejection of inconvenient facts (or data) leads us down a decidedly dodgy path of illusion.
 

02 Aug 25 — Professor Tina Beattie

Have you ever agreed to something in haste and then wondered what you’ve signed yourself up for? It happened to me when I said I’d give a paper on the Prophet Jeremiah at an academic conference. Not an easy task: Jeremiah’s name is a byword for doom and gloom, but even so, on first reading I was appalled by the lurid pessimism of the text. What could it say to a modern audience? Yet as I read and reflected, my perspective changed. I could see Jeremiah railed against the false prophets of his time, those who spoke of peace when there was no peace. He was persecuted because nobody wanted to hear his dire warnings about how their betrayal of divinely ordained principles of justice and truth would result in social and environmental catastrophe. I believe he has a message for us today. Prophecy is not about crystal-ball gazing. It’s a capacity to see deeply into the nature of things, and to become attentive to the interconnectedness of creation. We enjoy a freedom and a power over nature that have been given to no other creature, and we are responsible for how we use this freedom. We can channel our energies into the flourishing of life for all, but we’re also free to engage in destructive and violent behaviour that drags us into chaos. This afflicts not only humankind but the whole natural order. Jeremiah speaks of the earth in mourning and desolation. Jeremiah interpreted this in terms of divine reward and punishment. Today, we use the language of politics and policies, science and ecology, but the underlying message is the same. The healing of the natural world depends upon the transformation of human behaviour. This requires a collective commitment to seek dignity, justice, and compassion in our communities and nations. Political commentators speak of the threatened breakdown of the international order, which has sought to preserve a fragile peace after the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust. This is a warning as dire as any given by the ancient biblical prophets. When the false gods of violence, injustice and tyranny run amok amongst us, we unleash the forces of catastrophe. Jeremiah spoke an unwelcome truth because he laid the burden of responsibility, not on an interventionist God but on the people themselves. ‘Deal justly with each other’ he says, ‘do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood’. He tells us that God’s promise of peace is dependent on us changing our ways and our actions. We must heed the prophets of doom before it’s too late.
 

01 Aug 25 — Professor Anna Rowlands

Fifty years ago today, 35 world leaders from the Soviet East, North America and Europe met to sign a landmark document. The Helsinki Accords, as they became known, committed their signatories to respect for sovereignty, non-aggression and human rights. As Pope Leo pithily noted on Wednesday, ‘from Vancouver to Vladivostok’ the Accords forged a commitment between ideologically divided nations to pursue dialogue and cooperation over force and isolation. Looking at the week’s news, we could rightly wonder at Helsinki’s legacy. We are in an era of the politics of force. The East is at war with itself, the West wrangles over trade and security, a man-made humanitarian emergency unfolds in Gaza, and flows of refugees bring the ill tidings that all is not well with the world of nation-states. But the Accord arguably does have a legacy. Peacebuilding and reunification in Ireland and Germany are part of this. And, ironically, perhaps its greatest legacy lies in the political and religious dissidents who took courage from its signing and tried to hold their Cold War leaders to its letter. Nicknamed ‘the Helsinki effect’, movements like Polish Solidarity and the Czech Charter 77 drew life, courage and a platform from its commitments. The Vatican sent its own envoy, Agostino Casaroli, to the negotiations. Casaroli argued that there would be no peace or real security for any country without a strong internal defence of freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, and freedom of religion. Without these, other human rights would be meaningless. Freedom of belief was the first, not the last, human right. In a week when nature has reminded us that from the shores of Russia to the coast of Japan, when the land quakes, we are utterly interconnected, we surely need to protect something of the spirit of Helsinki. Even where ideological divisions exist, dialogue is possible, indeed essential. But a broad commitment to dialogue means little without the internal commitments made by each nation to protect the basic freedoms of thought, conscience and religion that provide the moral visions that we bring to such dialogue and cooperation. Helsinki defends thinking and believing in itself, and it defends these as an integral part of how we live peacefully in a world of difference. Would that our leaders protect this, and more realistically, courage to our own age of dissidents who necessarily defend it.
 

31 Jul 25 — Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith

‘Peace, be still,’ said Jesus to a raging sea, and the waters calmed. The people in the boat where he had been asleep were amazed: ‘Who is this that even the waves obey him?’ During the storm they had been terrified, but also on the edge of outrage with Jesus: ‘Do you not care that we are going to die?’ They had to shake him awake, after all. What are we to make of the Tsunami set in motion by the slip of one continent under another, sending millions of people to flee for higher ground around the Pacific rim? Thank goodness the warnings have been downgraded. But the question remains, was God asleep? There was a moment of extraordinary, inexorable creation, and threat, as the continent quaked and shifted. The waves came for all, but the risk of harm was not shared equally. The risk is, as ever, greatest for communities already impoverished, without warning systems or infrastructure to support evacuation and recovery. Thus, a natural event like a Tsunami can become a far greater disaster because of human failings and existing inequality. This should and does lead beyond the edge of outrage – it is not inevitable, and if someone was asleep, I do not think it was God. Imagine with me that Jesus, if speaking today, ‘peace be still’, might not face the waves but might instead turn to speak to humanity, together as we are in this one boat. And it might be in our power to listen not just when a Tsunami is coming. On Tuesday on this programme, a volunteer with the RNLI, the lifeboats, spoke about why they try to rescue ALL in peril, including those crossing the English Channel in small boats. ‘We are driven by compassion,’ she said. Driven is an interesting verb – it implies not just a warm regard or easy sympathy but being compelled. Not against their will – far from it. But compelled, nonetheless. Compassion is a muscle that strengthens as we use it more, and our communities are changed by its use: they get stronger, more resilient, dare I say of my adoptive nation, more British. To obey in Christian teaching is never to be forced against my will, but rather to choose to let compassion takes my will and drive my response. In the life of these islands, the sea has carried our missionaries, our armed forces, our goods in trade – sometimes to our great shame, and sometimes to our honour. The sea has always been a source of danger, and of opportunity. Today as it ebbs and flows, may all who travel on it or live beside it find safety.
 

30 Jul 25 — Professor Michael Hurley

The August edition of Vogue magazine has upset a lot of people. But I’m not one of them. I was, admittedly, pretty alarmed when I first heard that it had included an advert with an AI-generated fashion model. As a father of three young daughters, I worry enough already about the unrealistic standards promoted by the fashion industry. What fresh hell of perfectionism are we entering now, I wondered, with these computer-generated images of stereotypical beauty? On reflection, though, I’ve come to feel less apocalyptic about AI’s emerging role in fashion. When cameras were first invented, artists worried it might be the end of art. If photographic equipment could perfectly reproduce a landscape, or a bowl of fruit, or a person’s face, what chance was there for human beings attempting the same with a paintbrush? But cameras didn’t destroy art; they refocused it. Artists pivoted to what photography couldn’t so easily portray. Impressionism, Symbolism, and Expressionism were all attempts to explore the inner worlds of human life and experience. Might AI provoke a similar shift within the fashion industry? Christianity, along with many other religious traditions, insists that human beings are more than material beings, that they possess souls, and are made in the image of God. At the same time, Christianity affirms the body’s role in expressing the soul and participating in divine life. It’s a deeply incarnational faith. At the heart of the Christian story is, after all, the shocking claim that God Himself took on a human body, vulnerable to suffering, scarring, aging, and death. At its best, the fashion industry celebrates the beauty of the human form and the power of the imagination. Models are dehumanised, however, insofar as their images are edited to eliminate wrinkles, blemishes, or supposed imperfections. AI has not changed this. It has merely taken the airbrushing habit to its logical conclusion, creating images of humans with literally no human beings in them at all. Pure fabrication and fantasy. AI has not changed this. It has merely taken the airbrushing habit to its logical conclusion, creating images of humans with literally no human beings in them at all. Yet the uncanny appeal of AI models may be just what the fashion industry needs to force a long overdue conversation on the representation of the human form. Things may finally be bad enough that they might start getting better. Now that artificiality has so thoroughly triumphed through the creepy unreality of AI, there may be reason to hope for some kind of rebalancing towards greater authenticity. Perhaps that’s wishful thinking. But we as consumers do have some power to effect positive change. As well as making known our distaste for the use of AI models, we can, individually, each work harder to regard human models with more dignity. The advent of AI would be a good thing if it encouraged us all to see, and not just look at, our fellow humans.
 

29 Jul 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

In 4 hours time, the Lionesses, the England women’s football team, will be on an open top bus heading for Buckingham Palace. They will be accompanied by military musicians from the Royal Marines and the Royal Airforce, as if a conquering army is returning home from battle. And the police expect the crowds to be large – and noisy – welcoming the first England football team to retain an international title and to do it on foreign soil. These are women who are physically strong, victorious, patriotic. The exceptional teenager Michelle Agyemang -kneeling during the penalty shootout and giving glory to God at the end has been a striking feature. As have the dance moves of the scorer of the winning goal Chloe Kelly. The players have spoken of pride in the team, their unwavering commitment to leave it all on the pitch, never giving up and as several players said in their post match interviews, being proud to ‘be England’. This parade might feel like a distraction in the face of such terrible and unrelenting news. But the playing of sport and games – at any level- has a function in society that goes much deeper than the drunken rendering of Neil Diamond songs when we win. In 1945, just as the catastrophic Second World War was ending, George Orwell wrote that sport was ‘war without the shooting’. Before the war in Gaza, the towns of Rafah and Khan Younis, now synonymous with the unconscionable suffering of their people, both had football teams in the Gaza Strip Premier League. Two years ago, the last time the league was played, Rafah came 2nd and Khan Younis was 3rd. And in Gloucestershire, it was reported last week that free tickets to football matches are now part of a pilot social prescribing scheme, recommended for patients with mild depression or anxiety. Physical connection to relieve mental isolation. The exercise of physical muscles stretches our mental and spiritual muscles too. St Paul knew what he was saying when he used the analogy of running a race to describe the life of faith. Perseverance, energy and commitment are needed in the spiritual life as much as they are physical disciplines. At a time when the world’s conflicts seem to be being directed from a golf course, at a time when bellicose rhetoric fills the air and many governments are normalising war as a way of resolving problems, international sport, in its ability to channel human aggression – and loyalty- is much more than a game. As I’m cheering the Lionesses later today, I will be thankful that sport gives us a creative way to exercise all our muscles: physical, mental and spiritual. To be fierce rivals, to fight together and to win. Without the shooting.
 

28 Jul 25 — Rt Rev Dr David Walker

Good morning from here in Media City, Salford. With or without an actual dotted line, signatures matter. Even in an increasingly digital age, for the decisions that matter most, from buying a house to marrying a partner, we take pen in hand and scrawl our name. American presidents, I gather, when signing the most important papers, often use multiple pens, making just one stroke with each. That way there are souvenirs of plenty to go round. Being in public life, I’m frequently asked to add my name to some letter or statement, promoting this or condemning that. In practice, unless I’ve had a hand in drafting the document and expect to be involved in following it up, I almost always refuse, even when I agree with the thrust of the statement. But later this week, I’ll be breaking my normal rules. As war rages on in Gaza, and the pictures that emerge become ever more horrific, a group of senior Muslim and Jewish figures from across Greater Manchester have drawn up a joint declaration. Alongside them, CIBIC and other leaders, including myself, will add our own names to the statement in support. Together we seek to signify, pun intended, our shared commitment, to step out of our comfort zones and to have the difficult conversations we need to have with those with whom we disagree profoundly. The Declaration recognises the harm done to community relations here in Britain since October 7th, 2023, and notes the increased level of hate incidents and crimes. It affirms the right to protest peacefully for the causes and concerns that matter most deeply to us. But above all, it seeks to build on the long-standing warm personal relationships within our city region, relationships that were strengthened in the aftermath of the murder of 22 people at a city centre pop concert eight years ago. We chose then, as we choose now, not to find scapegoats in our midst against whom to seek vengeance, but to defy evil by seeking ever deeper relationships. St. Paul, writing in a time of deep tension and trouble, tells his Christian readers in Rome, Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Good conversation is not about persuading others to our views, nor about lessening our own firm commitment to how we see events of huge global import. It’s about what a popular phrase describes as disagreeing agreeably. It won’t make intractable issues such as Middle East borders or the status of Jerusalem go away. But living peaceably, as Paul puts it, can help reduce tensions among us. And that is, we believe, a course worth putting our names to.
 

26 Jul 25 — Rev Canon Dr Rob Marshall

The Lionesses have done it again. Tomorrow evening in Basel, after a helter-skelter week, full of twists and turns, England face Spain in their third, consecutive, major final. It’s because football is one of the most universal languages in the world that people so easily connect with it. It also produces many contemporary parables about belonging and believing, hope & uncertainty. Football is often about facing insurmountable hurdles and still daring to believe. It’s the taking part which brings diverse people together. Throughout the gospels Jesus uses parables about everyday life to talk about what really mattered. He didn’t rely on lofty or technical language that would only have confused people. Instead, he told them about fishing, farming, losing & finding things, what happens at work and the injustices of discrimination. He was relevant. And they listened. I’m sure that’s why football works so well in helping people to see how, whilst belief is not always easy, persistence usually brings hope. Ours is a culture where it’s hard enough simply establishing what’s true and what isn’t. In the digital jungle of our existence, we easily despair. We need examples of how to believe again, and football can bring out the best in us. I want to set aside, just for this morning, the vital goals of equality and eradicating racism and not only in football. They should be taken as a given. Instead, what about the twin parables of “belief” and “hope” as we look ahead to tomorrow’s game. Not even four years ago, Michelle Agyemang was a ball girl at Wembley. Twice, in the space of a few days, this unknown youngster, who grew up playing gospel music on her piano, has displayed exceptional talent and astonishing confidence. Her goals in consecutive matches, with only minutes to spare, lifted millions of hearts and restored belief. And what about hope? The bible talks a lot about persistence and never giving up as well as the joy that hope brings. Well, England fans have been here many times before. Any parable illustrating how defeat is transformed into victory is well understood by any soccer fan! I certainly don’t believe that God favours one side or another – that would be crazy. But football has always shown me how belief and hope inevitably raise people’s spirits and we need a lot more of both in today’s world. Having said that – come on England!
 

25 Jul 25 — Professor Anna Rowlands

Sometimes a single phrase comes to define a week in politics. This week that phrase for me is human dignity. Cardinal Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, used it as he stepped out of a bombed church in Gaza, and so did the Foreign Secretary commenting on humanitarian assistance. We’re accustomed to discussing human rights, but human dignity carries a distinct connotation. While human rights refer to something we believe we possess, something that belongs to us, human dignity is about who we are. Secular traditions emphasise that dignity speaks of who I am, rational, capable, with conscience. Religious traditions add, and I’m made in the image of God. My dignity is my infinite worth. Rights language is often now sadly distorted into a competitive form, my rights or yours. We often mistakenly perceive rights as a finite pie to be divided. Dignity language is interesting because it can’t be reduced to competition or scarcity in this way. My dignity is innate. I’m a unique, unrepeatable person. Yet in secular and religious traditions, this innate dignity is also social. My dignity is tied to yours and yours to mine. Dignity is also vulnerable because we are vulnerable. Every major news story of the last few weeks spells out this truth. It reverberates through stories of the death of Constance Martin’s baby, the assisted dying debate, the treatment of asylum seekers and cries from war zones. Dignity requires that our basic needs be met. It’s also how we try to remain human amid horror when our rights are shredded. Our religious traditions teach that being dignified and fully human means being entrusted with the life of one’s brother or sister. I am their keeper and they are mine. We must reckon with the challenging fact that from birth to death we hold each other’s dignity in trust. The philosopher Sam Moyne observes that we often turn to the language of dignity in moments of deep violence and trauma. It’s no surprise then that we owe the development of the idea to anti-slavery campaigners and Holocaust survivors. Dignity continues to be a way to pose the question of suffering and injustice and to place before us in entrustment the body and soul that cries out to God for protection. In this sense, dignity signifies who we are and its defence becomes our collective task.
 

24 Jul 25 — Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith

Get me to the church on time, or the registry office or the licensed venue. We are in the heart of wedding season. Weddings come in wonderful variety. It feels poignant, with the death of Ozzy Osborne, to note the joy of a metal-themed wedding reported by BBC West Midlands a few weeks ago. In recent years, I’ve had church weddings, ranging from the intimate and Elvis-themed, to full-on TikTok with a dozen bridesmaids and groomsmen dancing down the aisle, to extended families blending traditions from several different African cultures. Although there’s an accepted difference of opinion about it in Methodism, as in wider Christianity, Wesley’s Chapel does all weddings, so same-sex couples in our congregation have been part of that mix as well. Of course, along with news stories about trends in dresses and music, comes the inevitable lament about cost. Industry surveys say that the average British couple marrying this summer will spend over £23,000, and the average guest close to £700,000. Jesus had nothing against a party, but we know money doesn’t make the day. What does? In the story of a wedding at Cana, where the wine had run out, the Gospel tells of Jesus asking for the vast clay water jars, usually used for the rites of purification, to be filled. When the steward poured out a glass, he found not just wine, but the best he had ever tasted. In the scripture, this not only saved the party, but also pointed towards Jesus’ promise of new life, justice, and peace, his promise to purify our hearts, our households, and our communities. However different, my favourite weddings share the sense of doing something that points beyond the couple’s own relationship. This is fundamental to a Christian wedding, but not unique to it. The dress may not be designer nor the reception extravagant, but we have a sense of strong, often counter-cultural joy, a statement of hope for the future in the face of all we know about the present. Recently, I saw a news story about a wedding photographer in Gaza. The story followed her during the short-lived ceasefire earlier this year. Getting married is a small act of defiance, she said. In her photos, mothers danced with joy and rubble and a groom wiped his bride’s tears. The ceasefire did not hold, and those couples have begun married life in the hardest of circumstances. But every wedding, from the metal mad to the white meringued, can be a statement of hope. So, congratulations to anyone getting married today. You are in good company, and every blessing.
 

23 Jul 25 — Professor Michael Hurley

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. So said the 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard. He was painfully right. Clarity comes with retrospect. We often realise what we should have done only when it’s too late. The one who got away, the road not taken, the fatal mistake or missed opportunity. History can, however, offer more than a stiff report card. It can also be a crib sheet. If, as Shakespeare wrote, what’s past is prologue, then looking backwards can also be a way of looking forwards. Patterns in the past may point to what’s coming next. Scientists recently recovered an ice core from East Antarctica over 1.5 million years old. Now in the UK for study, the core is nearly twice as old as any previously analysed. Researchers will examine air bubbles in the ice to reconstruct ancient greenhouse gas levels, temperatures, wind patterns, and sea ice conditions. Understanding how the Earth responded to CO2 shifts a million years ago will deepen our knowledge of long-term climate behaviour and help improve how we respond to current environmental change. A good news story then. But I have a confession. Reading it, I wasn’t thinking much about ice bubbles. I was struck instead by how far back the story goes into what geologists call deep time. We humans tend to think in human time, days, years, lifespans, generations. At a stretch we may count centuries. But millennia are pushing it. And at the scale of millions of years, our minds fail. The effort induces a kind of vertigo, like standing at the edge of a cliff. How small we are, how vulnerable. What do our tiny selves matter within such a vast expanse? But Kierkegaard’s wisdom about living life forwards speaks to the challenge of deep time too. The only difference is scale. We can look to the past for insight, but we can never fully know what the future holds. That uncertainty can be unsettling. Yet flip the dilemma around, and there is also relief in it. If we are not required to have full understanding, we can only act as wisely and faithfully as we can in the moment, and trust that the worth of our lives is not measured by worldly outcomes alone. Kierkegaard’s reflections are shaped by his Christian faith, which holds that human value lies not in status or success, but in the relationships we’ve nurtured, with truth, with others, and with the divine. All of us fumble along without full clarity. That is the human condition. But the Christian promise is that our lives, however small, fleeting, and seemingly insignificant, are known, loved, and held in the hands of a God who sees the whole.
 

22 Jul 25 — Rhidian Brook

Enough is enough. It is completely unacceptable. This is crossing a red line. Events in the world continue to test the limits of the language of outrage and the effectiveness of words to change things. Even the sincere phrases of protest seem inadequate to the task. As was pointed out on this programme yesterday, for example, the government is using increasingly strong language about the situation in Gaza. But increasingly strong language doesn’t seem to be cutting it. The sheer volume of violence in the world is only reinforcing the feeling that words are futile. Last year, state-based conflicts reached a record high of 61 in 36 countries, the highest since 1946. And such is the depravity and speed of some of the violence being committed that yesterday’s atrocities quickly become today’s norm. To compound matters, it feels we can’t even agree on where red lines should be drawn. There was a day when killing civilians and children was seen as wrong, whether by insurgents or armies. But for some, even that red line no longer applies. Despite what was said yesterday, it can’t be assumed that people all want the same thing. There has been a fragmentation of the rules-based order, and it seems even ancient universal principles are up for grabs. It is as if morality has become a fungible commodity for political or ideological gain. So where do we go when words fail? How do we advocate for victims of violence wherever they are, when basic human rights are being flouted and even questioned? There are many ways to protest about violence. Some give money, some take to the streets, or more contentiously unfurl banners at public events. Others will fast and pray, or like the prophets of old, they might enact a visual critique. Today, leading charities are calling on people to create a human red line outside Parliament before it closes for the summer recess. Long ago, a biblical prophet called Amos took a stand at the way people were, and I quote, trampling the heads of the poor into the dust. The story tells us that God gave him a vision of a plumb line, an instrument for measuring true uprightness in the construction of buildings. He applied the plumb line to show the moral degradation of those who had moved away from God, the God who not only told us not to kill each other, but who seeks mercy rather than revenge, and who sides with the victim. I believe this plumb line is still a guide of what is true. It is an immovable red line that shows us when we really have gone too far.
 

21 Jul 25 — Rev David Wilkinson

Trials in American history, John T. Scopes was found guilty of violating the Butler Act, a Tennessee state law prohibiting the teaching of human evolution in public schools. The trial was deliberately staged to bring publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, and to challenge whether the act was constitutional. It attracted hundreds of newspaper reporters and was the first trial in American history to be nationally broadcast on the radio. It would lead to the play and subsequent movie Inherit the Wind. The intense interest came first from the high-profile defence lawyer, Clarence Darrow, clashing with prosecutor William Jennings Bryan, a leading Presbyterian layman and three-time presidential candidate. Second, the trial embodied in the teaching of evolution a wider culture war, where the authority of the church in American life was being challenged by science, education and the media. Third, the journalist H. L. Mencken colourfully called it the monkey trial. Brian was critical of the theory of evolution for teaching children that human beings were descended not even from American monkeys, but from old world monkeys. Underneath this was the issue of what makes human beings special, if we are simply the product of an evolutionary story rather than special creation of God. Affirming identity and status can be achieved by establishing difference or superiority over the other. Yet the Christian understanding was not well represented by Brian. In the 15th century, the great theologian Nicholas of Cusa was one of a vast majority of Christians who didn’t interpret Genesis as a scientific textbook. Further, he suggested that in the Bible, what makes us special as human beings is not what we’re made of or that we’re at the centre of God’s universe. Rather, we’re special because we are loved in the gift of relationship with the Creator God. This love shown supremely in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus meant that we didn’t have to fall into defining humanity as special in opposition to the other, whether from the animal kingdom or fellow human beings of different genders or races. To be special is not about fame or fortune, reputation or being superior, all of which lead to insecurity. What makes us special as human beings is how we respond to other humans and the planet with care and justice, and not using others for our own political or personal ends.
 

21 Jul 25 — Rev Canon Dr Rob Marshall

On BBC Two, it was great to finally see the world premiere of Eralyn Worrell’s The Elements. She’s the first black female master of the King’s music and describes her work as being about the sheer joy of music, of life and love. Eralyn’s passionate too about ensuring that every child learns a musical instrument and has the chance to sing every day because she says music is not an optional extra. It’s part of the very fabric of who we are. It’s a sentiment I can definitely relate to because I once served in a parish just along the road from the Royal Albert Hall and I used to often grab a last-minute ticket for a concert and the experiences of listening to music in that beautiful building could be transcendent, taking me out of the here and now. It certainly used to put me in mind of C.S. Lewis who likened beauty in this world to a longing for God’s kingdom like the scent of a flower we haven’t yet found or the echo of a tune we haven’t heard. Of course, faith and music have always been intertwined. The theologian Karl Bach described music as the closest thing to heavenly language. And in the Bible, we find many examples of music connecting the human and the divine. In the book of Psalms particularly, Psalm 96, sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord all the earth. And of course music in the temple is illustrated brilliantly in Psalm 150, which really puts you in mind of the proms. Singing, clapping, clashing cymbals, harp, lyre, strings, and pipe. As well as putting in touch with something spiritual, music certainly steadies the heart. It feeds the soul. It gives courage and hope. It nurtures resilience. Yes, even in the most traumatic of times. Take Paul Wittenstein, for instance. After losing his arm in the First World War, he refused to believe his days as a concert pianist were over. So he commissioned composers like Maurice Ravel to write music that he could play with just his left hand. Now, his is an extraordinary story of determination to ensure that he could play on, and at tomorrow night’s prom, one I’ll certainly also be watching, Nicholas McCarthy, the world’s only professional one-handed pianist, will be performing Ravel’s concerto for the left hand. So from the grandeur of the opening night to the celebration of the last night, the proms reflect our ever-changing moods, whilst at the same time for me echoing something of the divine. Such is the wonder of these days across these summer weeks in London and beyond. I’m sure that music will stir memories and lift hearts and spirit, reminding audiences of the occasional vulnerability, unexpected resilience and sheer joy of our shared humanity. It really was a great last night, first night last night.
 

18 Jul 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

Morning traffic will die down a bit. Streets outside schools will be less clogged at the end of the school day. And let’s hope the weather will be good. There’s a rhythm in the school year which affects us all. One of the things I missed most when I started full-time work was the prospect of a long summer break. The expectation of that break had got into my soul, and for the first few years of my working life, I desperately missed the prospect of eight weeks off, and it was eight weeks then. The two-week holiday just seemed too short. Education is not only about learning things, though it is about learning things. Facts, yes, but also competences, habits of organisation, intellectual discipline, living by the clock, and being responsible. Schools declare their ethos in naming their values, whether formally or informally. We had a headmistress who told us often that everyone matters. A school near me has work hard, be kind, which is bland enough, but then no excuses, which pulls you up a bit. This is very important and challenging. Good. But what the school year and its disciplines don’t always help you with is when and how to switch off, relax, stare into space. This is a challenge in itself. Empty days can be well empty. Lack of structure can feel threatening. Friends are less available. You can feel adrift. Holidays matter because they enable us to experience ourselves in a different way, to have time on our hands, rather than to be endlessly chasing time to catch up. We have to resist the tendency to live as if work is everything, to programme even our leisure time for self-improvement, to begin the summer break with a list of tasks to be ticked off. Somewhere in all of this, I suspect there’s a fear of boredom, that empty time stretching ahead for weeks, how can we best fill it? But perhaps boredom is an invitation to a different way of being, one many of us need to discover. I remember a bishop coming to a college I was at to lead a day of reflection, and he started by saying, you’ll never learn to pray unless you’re prepared to be bored. For prayer read also thankfulness, contentment, gratitude. Just relearning the art of staring into space and being a creature of God and nature. These are habits of the wise heart, and the summer break may be a chance to recover them.
 

17 Jul 25 — Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith

Do you trust him? There followed a long pause. I trust almost nobody, to be honest with you. Thus, President Trump responded when asked about his Russian counterpart by the BBC’s Gary O’Donoghue earlier this week. Trust, the confidence that a person or institution will be reliable and truthful, or deliver on promises. Trust, and breaking it or rebuilding it, runs as a theme through our news this week, not least in the revelation of the superinjunction hiding the Afghan data leak, or the work of the General Synod of the Church of England to offer redress to survivors of abuse, welcomed with cautious hope. Trust is a complicated virtue. It’s basic to human relationship and necessary for the simplest things like crossing a street or buying a cup of coffee. And yet, misplaced trust can allow great harm, even under the very noses of those meant to prevent it. If we are lucky, we learn the habit of trust from the love and care we receive as children, as we learn what it is to be trustworthy ourselves. It is not for nothing that the Bible has so much to say about mistaken trust. Put not your trust in princes in a son of man in whom there is no help, the Psalm counsels. Trust God and God’s providence we’re told again and again. But that may not be as easy as it sounds when bad things happen. John Wesley, founder of Methodism, treated trust in God as a habit made over time. It would grow, he taught, not by accepting things as they were and calling that trust in God’s will, but by involving ourselves day to day to show God’s trustworthiness by our own commitment to change things. As we trust God, he taught, we were to risk trust in God’s people, and when disappointed to tell the truth, hold ourselves and others to account and begin again. It is good news that most of us consider ourselves to be trustworthy, and also other people. Trust is so easily broken and so hard to restore. Yet mistrust will not protect us either. Chronic lack of trust does not make good policy nor good community, nor will it increase the accountability of those with power. So how can we do trust well, appropriately? How can I become more trustworthy, and strong enough to risk trust in others? And when trust is broken, help rebuild. Jesus asked his followers to be wise as serpents, gentle as doves, that is, both shrewd and innocent. And, of course, in what we might find a startling risk, God trusts us with God’s world and its future.
 

16 Jul 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

The Japanese artist Shimabuku loves the octopus. Empathetic, intelligent, able to appreciate art as far as he’s concerned, he’s made ceramic pots for them to enjoy. Shimabuku is an artist who has the gift of fresh eyes. He discovered that the Alps were once coral reefs, with even now fossils of crustaceans visible in the mountains. And so he imagined the sky as it once was, sea, flying kites shaped as fish to make the point. Shimabuku is taking part in a new exhibition that’s just opened in the UK called More Than Human. Of course, artists have long engaged with the natural world. Landscape painters have been painting the view for centuries. But this is the point of the exhibition. The view. Whose view? One of the other artists in the exhibition, Alexandra Daisy Ginsburg, has made a huge tapestry that immerses human viewers in what is seen not by us, but by bees. Our view of a landscape is not the only view, she says. Perhaps if we could see more like them, we could develop a degree of empathy. Hidden within the publicity for this art exhibition is one of the most profound truths of human living. It’s not just what we see, but where we see it from, that shapes our views, our beliefs, and therefore the actions we take and the priorities we commit to. Radical changes of perspective, truly placing ourselves in another’s shoes, has the effect of deepening our empathy, enlarging our sympathies, strengthening our compassion and changing our lives. This is an insightful interpretation of the teaching shared by many faiths and taught by Jesus, do to others as you would have them do to you. In other words, love your neighbour as yourself. And for Christians, this means immersing yourself in the presence of God, who is love, and in the process of loving, realising that our neighbours include not just the human beings who live next to us, but the adjacent life in all its forms that God created and declared unequivocally to be good. The gift of imagination, not just across species and neighbours, but across time towards future generations, is needed to empathise, and from that, understand, to commit to act for the common good today. In 2019, the first Icelandic glacier completely to disappear as a result of global warming was commemorated. A monument was placed on the ground, and in what the authors called a letter to the future, the monument said, In the next 200 years, all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what has to be done. Only you will know if we did it.
 

15 Jul 25 — Rhidian Brook

40 years ago that live aid was broadcast around the world. It was 40 years ago that live aid was broadcast around the world. Despite its flaws, it remains a noble effort of protest and a proper heart response to terrible events that were a consequence of war and famine. A challenge to make and change then and now. The lyrics of musicians from over the decades and those who performed at Live Aid and Live Aid 20 years later can and still do resonate, singing out for compassion and justice. Here’s a sample of a few. Good morning, good morning, good morning. London calling to the faraway town. It was 20 years ago today, and we’ve still got something to say. Not talking about London, Paris, New York, Munich. Talking about my generation. There’s a feeling I get when I look to the West, and it makes me wonder, where is my beautiful car? Where is my beautiful house? I want it now. I want it all. I want money. Get back. I’m all right, Jack. Keep your hands off my stack. Money, it’s a crime. Share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie. I read the news today, oh boy. Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying. Brother, brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying. Help, I need somebody. I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me. Them belly full, but them hungry. You never give me your money, you only give me your funny paper. Help me get my feet back on the ground, won’t you please, please help me? Don’t leave me here all alone, helpless, helpless, helpless. Don’t walk on by, fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way, ’cause maybe you’re going to be the one that saves me. There are still many rivers to cross. Sometimes you can’t make it on your own. Don’t give up ’cause you have friends. Imagine, life is bigger, it’s bigger than you. Consider this the hint of the century. The world is full of refugees, a lot like you and a lot like me. War is not the answer. You don’t have to escalate. Only love can conquer hate. It’s easy if you try. Come on, everybody, mister President, come on, come on, let’s go. Jesus loves you more than you will know. But it’s a hard road to follow and a rough, tough way to go. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do? Nothing to do, it’s up to you. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need. Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights, with or without you. Give a little bit, give a little bit of my life for you. While you see your chance, take it. Are you such a dreamer to put the world to rights? Dry your eyes, mate. We can be heroes just for one day. Today is going to be the day they’re going to throw it back to you. By now you should have found out, realize what you’ve got to do. Look at the stars, see how they shine for you. All the people, so many people, and they all go hand in hand. Nothing to say but what a day. It’s going to be a glorious day, a beautiful day. I can feel it coming in the air tonight, O Lord. Won’t you sing, help to sing those songs of freedom, redemption songs, right here, right now. You know we’ve got to find a way to bring some loving here today. And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
 

14 Jul 25 — Rt Rev Philip North

Good morning. The Bishop for Prisons, Rachel Treweek, is running a survey for young people at the moment, drawing on the fresh thinking of teenagers to answer a really complicated question. Is locking people up the best way to build safer neighbourhoods? It’s an important question against a backdrop of government plans to expand the prison estate. And for me, it brought to mind a conversation I was part of a couple of weeks ago with a group of leaders from Lancashire. One was a prison governor who offered a stark challenge. We won’t do anything about re-offending, she said, until the community we build outside a prison is as strong as the one inside prison. The room fell silent. How could community life be stronger inside a prison? They’re frightening, sometimes dangerous places, with overcrowded cells and overworked staff. But prisons are also places where friendships can be made and meals shared, with a structure to the day, medical care and other means of support. Once you get out, it’s very different. Many ex-offenders face isolation and loneliness, widespread mistrust, joblessness and homelessness. It can be virtually impossible to reintegrate or find friends. For some, prison is the easier option, which is why over a third of adults released from custody gone to reoffend within a year. So what might be the response to that prison governor’s challenge? For me, it means working out a practical expression of mercy. It’s striking in the Bible that mercy invariably comprises reintegration into a community. Joseph in the book of Genesis is one example. When he forgives his brothers for trying to kill him, a whole family is reunited. It’s right that people who’ve committed crimes are punished, but that punishment can itself become unjust if it is not tempered by mercy. And the evidence of mercy is reintegration into a community where people feel responsible for each other. There are many opinions about what should happen to people inside prison. Maybe even more attention needs to be given to the context into which people are released, and especially on building a society that is resilient enough to welcome back those who’ve done wrong and who want to live differently. At that same meeting in Lancashire, the owner of – Rt Rev Philip Northern supermarket chain described the employment opportunities they’re providing for ex-offenders. The voluntary sector spoke of its work supporting people with addictions. And church leaders described the safety agreements that enable ex-prisoners to attend worship. It is actions like these that can build a community outside the walls that is stronger than the one within.
 

10 Jul 25 — Professor Tina Beattie

The criminal justice system is under increasing strain, and policymakers are seeking ways of dealing with a growing backlog in the courts. Delays in trial and sentencing mean that victims of crime suffer prolonged psychological anguish as they wait for justice, and innocent people sometimes languish in prison, waiting to clear their names. The plight of prisoners is a frequent theme in the Bible. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus repeats the words of the prophet Isaiah, saying he has been sent to proclaim freedom for prisoners and to set the oppressed free. He was a victim of what today we would call a miscarriage of justice, an innocent man crucified not for any crime or act of violence, but because he posed a threat to the political and religious powers of his time. Those who commit crimes must be held accountable, but a properly functioning legal system is the sine qua non of a just and fair society. When we see that people are being denied justice either as victims or accused, we need to ask ourselves hard questions about our shared values, the extent of our freedoms, and the limits of our demands for protection. There is a delicate and difficult balance to be maintained between liberty and security, legality and suppression. This calls for vigilance and, sometimes, resistance in relation to the law. The preservation of social justice means distinguishing between laws that are intended for the protection and good of society, and those that serve the interests of the rich and powerful by denying ordinary people’s freedoms and rights. A tragically recurring theme throughout history is the extent to which tyrannies and dictatorships arise through the corruption of laws. The maxim, ‘an unjust law is no law at all’, is threaded through western theology and jurisprudence. We cannot uphold society’s fragile defences and protections unless we insist that the law serves justice, not power, and that means identifying laws that are, in effect, no laws at all. To quote another famous saying, this time by Martin Luther King: “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”. Whatever our political or religious views in these troubled and muddled times, I believe that we have a personal and shared responsibility to remain vigilant to abuses of power in our political, religious and civil institutions. That means seeking to discern that bending towards justice, and learning to bend with it through our attentiveness to those who are failed by our society’s laws and institutions.
 

10 Jul 25 — Catherine Pepinster

One of my favourite plays is Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, and a theatre production is being shown in cinemas soon. There really was a streetcar called Desire because the tram’s destination was a neighbourhood of that name in New Orleans. But it also refers to the underlying sexual tension of the play. Its most famous line from the leading character Blanche Dubois is I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers. Literary critics say that this comment of Blanche’s indicates why she hasn’t fared well in life, that she relies on others rather than herself, and those strangers have been kind only in exchange for sex. But I wonder whether for Tennessee Williams himself this line meant something more. He had a complex relationship with religious belief, but eventually converted to Roman Catholicism in his fifties. So might that idea of the kindness of strangers have been something he took from Christianity? This Sunday, the main reading at Catholic Masses will be one of Jesus’ most celebrated articulations of this teaching, the parable of the Good Samaritan. It’s the tale of how a man was mugged, left for dead, not only by the thieves who attacked him, but others who passed by, and was eventually helped by a stranger, an unlikely helper, for he was a Samaritan, at the time considered a social outcast. This story of a person helping a stranger has become so familiar that this week headlined about a crime called it the Good Samaritan Murder. Hassan Jhangur was convicted of killing Chris Marriott after Jhangur deliberately crashed his car into a group of people. Mr Marriott was moaned down because he’d stopped to help Jhangur’s sister. She was left lying in the road after she had been injured in an earlier brawl. Mr Marriott has rightly been praised for his public spiritedness in stepping in to help when he saw someone he didn’t know in need. Like the good Samaritan in the parable, he stopped rather than walk by on the other side of the road. The familiarity of this parable can mask the originality of Jesus’ thinking, how different it was to what had gone before. Loving your family can partly be down to instinct, to biology and survival of your genes. Loving your neighbour, well, that can sometimes be difficult, but at least it’s about people you’re familiar with. But stepping in to help a stranger, someone you don’t know, and might not even want to know, is very different. And in an era when the stranger is so often demonised, it’s a truly radical take on our responsibilities to one another.
 

09 Jul 25 — John Studzinski

As a listener to the Today programme, it could surprise you to learn that traditional radio is still popular with many of Generation Z … These young people, now aged between 15 and 30, grew up entirely with digital media. They can seem addicted to their screens, socially detached. But that’s a mistaken assumption. Around 2010, when the last Gen Zers were born, social media was opening new horizons. Now, two-thirds of young people in Britain, conscious of dangers to self-esteem and mental health, support a ban on social media for under-16s. When it comes to their love life, nearly 80% of Gen Zers admit to burnout with dating apps. For all their digital connections, younger people embody a huge paradox: they feel isolated. In the UK, almost two million of them claim they are chronically lonely. This epidemic of loneliness is rooted in a loss of shared meaning. As they search for community renewal, many young people are turning toward religion and spirituality. In the US, one-third of them now declare a belief in a higher power. Across North America and Western Europe, with more Gen Zers espousing Christianity, the decades-long decline in the church is slowing down. Young people are finding that a moral architecture can reassure and anchor them. Increasingly. they recognise that a route to healing and enlightenment lies in silence, meditation and prayer. On a more corporeal level, they are losing their obsession with projecting a ‘personal brand’ on social media. The are readier to set boundaries and dial things down. The oft-heard acronym FOMO – Fear of Missing Out – is making way for JOMO – Joy of Missing Out – as they seek internal fulfilment rather than external validation. I’m reminded of St Paul, reflecting on the benefits of his faith in his letter to the Philippians: “I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances …” Too often, Gen Zers are dismissed as snowflakes. But if they are hypersensitive, they are also more acutely aware of what it means to be human – and of the challenges the human race must overcome. When I ask young people about the passions that drive them, they go blank. But when I ask what makes them angry, they give me chapter and verse. It’s heartening to see how they channel that anger, putting their digital savvy to good use as they form grassroots movements, mutual aid networks and spiritual communities. Yes, young people are anxious and angry, but we all need to recognise that Gen Z, the rising generation, is far from being lost.
 

08 Jul 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

I was intrigued to read over the weekend about the current odds on who will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. It’s likely to be months before we know. Meanwhile on Sunday the 14th Dalai Lama celebrated his 90th birthday in exile from his Tibetan homeland. Having suggested earlier that the succession might come to an end he affirmed last week that there would indeed be a next Dalai Lama, appointed by the Dalai Lama Trust. He also said that his successor might come from ‘a free country’. This poses an ongoing dilemma for the Chinese government in its continuing attempt to absorb what remains of Tibetan culture. More teasingly the 90 year old spiritual leader has speculated that the next Dalai Lama could be female, a ‘mischievous blonde woman’. You can’t help suspecting that he wants to keep everyone guessing. By tradition there is a host of secret tests involved in finding the child who will be recognised as his reincarnation. The Chinese government has suggested that the Chinese Communist Party might choose the next Dalai Lama and is clearly looking for a successor born in China. The official atheism of the regime blends with a degree of tolerance for religious practice. And of course the aim of taking control of the succession would be political, to ensure that Tibetans people have no focus for any aspirations for independence. But religious tradition has a habit of surviving against the odds. The Dalai Lama is not only the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people he is acknowledged as a figure of spiritual significance for the world. He describes himself, modestly, as a simple Buddhist monk whose life of renunciation is based on Buddhist practice. He has declared this year to be a year of compassion and preached that peace in our troubled world relies on the peace we should all seek within. The mysterious practice of discerning his successor reminds us that the human spirit craves something which goes beyond pragmatic instincts, whether those come from the Chinese government or the Church of England. We know that our fate does not lie within our own control. For those of us who feel that there is a transcendent dimension to life, there must be more, we even hope there may be guidance from above. Christians would speak of the work of the Holy Spirit, discerning, preparing, enabling as the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer puts it, ‘a right judgment in all things’. Tibetan Buddhism suggests that its next spiritual leader is already with us, waiting to be discovered by a process beyond the design of worldly governments. I want to hope that this is true and am glad that so many world leaders wished the Dalai Lama a happy birthday.
 

07 Jul 25 — Tim Stanley

A friend of mine, a Catholic priest, has been suffering for months with lung cancer. Last week I got the call: “Tim, he’s started to die”. I jumped into the car and arrived at his nursing home in time. Three of us sat by his bed praying, whispering in that soft tone one adopts around the gravely ill. Professionals take it in their stride. A nurse came in, shook him roughly by the shoulder and shouted: “RAY, ARE YOU STILL WITH US?” A milky eye opened and he groaned. I think I heard: “Oh, go away.” I witnessed Ray receiving the anointing of the sick – commonly known towards the end of life as the last rites – by which the priest prays for the ill person and draws a cross on their forehead and hands with oil. It put me in mind of ancient Egypt, when priests anointed the body in preparation for a spiritual journey up the Nile. In Catholicism, too, the path from life to death is eased by ritual. I went home to bed and received another message, at 7 in the morning, to say Ray had died. He was lucky. He had little pain, another friend was by his side. This is what most of us, I think, would want. A sudden and violent death steals that from us. Today is the anniversary of the 7/7 suicide attacks that took the lives of 52 people. It was an appalling crime inspired by a pitiless version of faith I’ll never understand. For added cruelty, some people only discovered that their relative had died when they heard their name read on the news. Death is hard to fathom as it is. To lose someone because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time must be heartbreaking. Many faiths teach that there is life after death, that there is the promise of judgement for the wicked and peace for the innocent. Some might dismiss this as a story told to bring comfort, the kind of thing we’ve moved on from in the age of science. But science hasn’t conquered death, and human beings will, I’m sure, continue to navigate that mystery with stories. Religious ritual articulates beliefs about God, but it also expresses the human condition. It takes the emotions of grief and love and channels them into words and action. After I had left Ray, and gone to bed, I slept like a baby. Why? Because I felt everything that should be done had been done, and trusted that Ray would soon be with God. On this sad anniversary of 7/7, one hopes that those left behind have found peace and comfort, too.
 

05 Jul 25 — Rev Roy Jenkins

The Chancellor’s tears in Parliament this week glistened on television news and dampened almost every front page in the land. Shock, horror – highly pressurised politician has one bad day too many and gets upset. Away from the cameras and the pundits, it happens to most of us, but the world doesn’t know. Shedding tears might cause occasional embarrassment, but it’s part of being human, and probably far healthier than the philosophy which insists that ‘strong men (or women) don’t cry.’ I don’t think the men and women we see weeping over their slain children in the barbarism of today’s killing fields are weak; nor people nearer home, struggling with painful and life-limiting medical conditions, or working crazy hours and barely able to meet their bills. They can be some of the strongest, bravest we’ll meet, but their often hidden tears are real enough. They might identify with the Bible’s prophets and psalmists who said things like: ‘My eyes are worn out with weeping. My soul is in anguish’ – a distress echoed by Jesus as he wept at the death of his friend Lazarus, mourned the coming destruction of Jerusalem, agonised in Gethsemane about whether his crucifixion might be avoided. Such lament at suffering or injustice, or a nagging distress at the state of the world, can make us want to weep, too. Tears are part of some people’s prayers. They’re recognising that things are not as they should be, pushing back against the darkness, seeking light from the God who also weeps at the frustration of loving intentions. My friend Sean has been finding a new perspective on this. An enthusiastic Harley Davidson rider, he’s spent much of his work among the biker subculture, in the UK, and across Europe. He has a passion for sharing his faith with people on the margins. He also leads a small church in the centre of Swansea. It has bikers, of course, and many of its regulars live on the city’s streets, often fragile people, attracted by the offer of food, warmth and acceptance, a community, he says, of ‘glorious chaos and complicated beauty.’ A few years ago, Sean was diagnosed with Parkinsons. He still rides, still speaks, but he fights to control his tremors, drops things, sometimes gets exhausted, his legs wobbly, finds it hard to chew or swallow. His faith still sustains him, but he’s had to learn about loving God in weakness, not strength. He reckons Gethsemane is a place to visit with our doubts, and scream through our tears. But it’s not a place to set up camp. Seeing his grace as he navigates his condition, I reckon there’s something in that.
 

04 Jul 25 — Rt Rev Richard Harries

Arguably the most significant painter of our time is the German artist Anselm Kiefer. Born in 1945 and brought up in the ruins of bombed German cities, his paintings portray a world devastated by war. What is intriguing about an exhibition of his work which has just opened at the Royal Academy however is that it shows his response the some of the most famous paintings of Van Gogh, a painter who lifts our hearts at the sheer beauty of life. Kiefer’s paintings are vast, filling a whole wall, and using straw, ash, clay and lead powerfully convey a world laid desolate. With the continuing bombardment of Gaza, and the wars in Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere they well express a mood we all sometimes feel. The paintings also seem to convey a world now experiencing the effect of climate change. On the other hand, on a nice July morning our personal world can feel very different. Kiefer and Van Gogh seem to reflect the two different moods we all oscillate between, and in the end two very different stances on life. Of course Van Gogh’s paintings are not all just sunny optimism. In his famous painting of a corn field there are some black crows flying above. It has long been suggested that this reflects his mental instability, the fact that he cut his ear off and later died of a self-inflicted gunshot. But Kiefer in his response to that painting makes the crows even larger and more sinister, dominating the whole scene. When I got home and told my wife, who does not fully share my enthusiasm for Anselm Kiefer, about the exhibition, she responded ‘Was there any redemption?’ Good question. In fact amongst all the greys and blacks of Kiefer’s paintings there are flecks and streaks of gold. In Icons and painting of the early Renaissance such as those of Duccio, there are great sheets of gold, gold representing the glory that is behind, beyond and within the universe. Perhaps Kiefer is saying that despite the desolation there is still some glory to be seen. Few poets have expressed better than Robert Browning the way we can oscillate between a tragic and a hopeful view of life. In his poem Bishop Blougram’s apology he records how one moment we may be deeply pessimistic about life and then as he put it There’s a sunset touch, A fancy from a flower bell, someone’s death, A chorus ending from Euripides And once again there is what he called ‘The grand perhaps’. Flecks and streaks of gold as signs of a glory beyond and within. Perhaps.
 

03 Jul 25 — Catherine Pepinster

There were plenty of photos of Prince William in the media this week – not at Ascot this time or another social occasion, but launching the annual report of his homelessness project, Homewards. The Prince of Wales first launched Homewards two years ago and this years’ report records all kinds of different initiatives designed to tackle homelessness. But one initiative particularly intrigued me, and it’s about storytelling. Homewards is now backing a project called Invisible Cities, which trains people who have been homeless to become tour guides. The Prince’s project will help fund more guides to give visitors insights into what they love about the cities where they live. But they’ll talk to them not just about the usual tourism hotspots but the city they’re familiar with as somebody who knows what it is to be homeless. In other words, the idea is to provide a different perspective. Travelling alongside others to see life in a different light is an ancient tradition in many faiths. There is something a about the shared experience of a journey – what believers call a pilgrimage – that provides a space for conversation, bringing people that bit closer. Other journeys, not just walks, can be helpful too. Parents have told me that teenage children who barely talk to them will open up during a drive, whether it’s on the way to school or going off on holiday. Perhaps it’s the rhythm of a journey, or the space it gives in a crowded schedule that makes the difference. Travelling along somehow frees people to focus on something much deeper too. One such journey – one that was life-changing – is mentioned in Luke’s Gospel. Two of Jesus’ followers were walking along the road to Emmaus, a few miles from Jerusalem, deep in conversation about the dramas they had recently experienced. They discussed Jesus being arrested, condemned to death, crucified, and then his body disappearing from his tomb. Joined by someone they did not recognise, they told him all about it, only for this person to offer a detailed interpretation of all that had happened. They realised eventually that this man was Jesus, risen from the dead. “Were our hearts not burning within us while he was talking to us on the road,” they said. For Christians, this is one of the key stories of the Resurrection but it seems to me another message is here too: that on your journey, if you are fully open to the other, even a stranger, if your heart burns within you, then it can be a special moment of revelation and understanding.
 

02 Jul 25 — John Studzinski

War, and efforts to bring it to an end, has been on all our minds in recent weeks. As the Book of Ecclesiastes reminds us, war is part of the human condition, “There is a time for everything … A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.” While we should never deny the horrors of war, we should also heed the words of the US general George S Patton: “It is better to fight for something than live for nothing,”. For some eight decades after 1945 – the year of Patton’s death – the world enjoyed relative peace … Or so received wisdom tells us. The truth is that there was always a war going on somewhere on the planet. If war is part of the human condition, it is also a test of human nature in all its contradictions. The fiery crucible of war produces atrocities, destruction and waste, but it also gives rise to grace under pressure, to altruism, courage and heroism. We think about wars ending in victory, but what matters more in the long term is the resilience and victory of the human spirit. And what can the human spirit do to bring about that proverbial time for peace? It can apply its energies to resolving conflict. The word ‘diplomacy’ tends to evoke the corridors of power, but when war rears its ugly head the essence of diplomacy lies in the disciplines of conflict resolution – and in very human actions and qualities that we know as a positive force from our daily lives, such as listening, communication, purposefulness, empathy, and creativity. When it comes to promoting peace as a simple human being, I cannot forget the answer that Mother Teresa of Calcutta gave to a question on that theme. It was asked by an energetic, impatient young sister who worked in her hospital. I watched as Mother Teresa looked her in the eye and said: “You can start by not slamming the door.” What she was saying in her inimitable way was that true strength lies in restraint. When it comes to war, diplomacy is not the coward’s way out: it takes action and bravery, not passivity or resignation, to resolve conflict. The world does not lack wisdom, but sometimes it lacks the resolution to apply it. Each one of us can make a difference by following Mother Teresa’s advice. Let’s make sure to close the door gently – so that we can open our hearts and set about creating our own time for peace.
 

01 Jul 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

At 11 o clock at night – still quite hot – in a London park this week – I took part in the public art project ‘The Herds’. People of all ages were walking through the darkness looking for hundreds of animals that, over these months, are travelling the 20,000 km from the Congo Basin to the Arctic Circle. The Herds are life sized corrugated cardboard puppets, strikingly moving, and fragile, worked by teams of volunteers. The project’s director Amir Nizar Zuabi reminds us that animals are the early warning systems of nature. Birds flock before volcanic eruptions, herds run before earthquakes hit. But current warnings are not being heeded. It’s because, he says, the debates about climate breakdown are happening above our heads. Cerebral arguments about data points and temperature are important for public policy of course, but for the change of heart that’s needed, not as effective as tears. And tears are what I found myself shedding in the middle of the night in the park. The actors moving the life-sized puppets were themselves models of human sensitivity and cooperation with the animal world. Co-created movements, learned from the giraffe and baboon, re-created by teams of human beings intent on bringing their puppet elephants, deer, marmosets to life. ‘Ask the animals and they will teach you’ says the Book of Job in the Hebrew Scriptures. And what I learned from this herd was that the animals, in fleeing disaster, were warning the planet, warning me. Having made their way through hectic crowded Soho, their movements juddered and stalled, as their exhaustion in the city became more pronounced, even though they’d found some sort of relief amongst the dark and plants of the park. The power of the project was in the creation of the real-time dynamic between the animals and humans. Those of us taking part were inevitably shining our torches into the eyes of the animals who retreated, shied away, made tracks into the trees. This encounter placed me as a human being as one who invades, exploits and exposes. Along with my fellow humans, I became someone to be feared and avoided: someone from whom the animals just wanted to hide. The Herds are sweeping through the planet’s cities Kinshasa, Lagos, Marrakesh, Venice, Madrid, Paris, London in these months. And the day after tomorrow they arrive in Manchester. ….to say to us city dwellers – who are now the majority of human beings on the planet – that time is short for us to do what we have to do. As Scripture tells us; ask the animals, heed their warnings and fall back in love with nature itself.
 

30 Jun 25 — Rt Rev Dr David Walker

Economists are not generally known for their humour, so I love the quote often attributed to John Maynard Keynes. After an opponent accused him of not sticking to his position, Keynes quipped, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?” As the House of Commons prepares to debate the Welfare Bill tomorrow, the merits, or otherwise, of the Prime Minister’s and government’s late change to their proposed benefit cuts, are topics to be argued in other parts of this programme. What piqued my particular interest was how much of the conversation so far has appeared to be about the very concept of senior politicians changing their minds. Yesterday, I ordained 20 new deacons into the ministry of the Christian Church. I spent Friday meeting with each of them privately, hearing something of their journeys to this point. Much of what they told me was deeply moving. How the sudden realisation of the reality of God, or a slow process of deepening in faith, had led them to the point where, for them, internally at least, the facts had changed. From that moment on, whatever hopes and expectations they had for the rest of their lives, they had to change too. Around England, many other bishops have also been conducting Ordination Services in their Cathedrals over the weekend. We do it at this time of year because yesterday was the feast day of St Peter and St Paul, perhaps the two greatest leaders of the Church in its first generation. For both, the facts changed when they met Jesus. Peter abandoned his fishing trade, Paul, hearing Jesus’s voice as he travelled to Damascus on a mission to arrest Christians, became Christianity’s greatest advocate. There is of course a big difference between reacting to a change in the facts and simply being blown along by every passing wind. My new deacons have been through several years of testing and training, Were their calling simply a whim or passing fashion, it would never have survived the scrutiny to which they have been subjected. Many of us, in whatever our walk of life, may reach a point where simply carrying on as things are no longer works. We need to let go of the old, in order to firmly grasp the new, whilst recognising that to do so may well come at a cost. Indeed, it can take more courage to embrace change than to carry on with things as they were. As my new deacons are well aware, Peter and Paul ultimately paid for their conversions with their lives. Yet for all of us, including priests, politicians, and economists, Keynes’s challenge holds. When the facts change, what do you do?
 

28 Jun 25 — Chine McDonald

I was shocked last week when my seven year old asked me whether World War III had actually started. Amid the bombings involving Iran, Israel and the US, the “wars and rumours of wars” spoken about in Matthew’s gospel have clearly hit the playgrounds of south-east London. I never imagined that me or my children would have to even contemplate the prospect of conflict. But, according to a recent YouGov poll, 41% of Britons think another world war is likely to happen in the next five to 10 years. I hope, of course, that we’re wrong. I’d love to see us instead pull together to work for peace, however unlikely that seems in the current climate. . Because, I’m with novelist Alice Walker, when she said: “War will stop when we no longer praise it, or give it any attention at all. Peace will come wherever it is sincerely invited.” News this week that the Church of England is making plans for what its role would be in a time of serious conflict in this country, is perhaps not surprising. The Church will seek to play a spiritual role. First, in the military itself through strengthening its chaplaincy services, and also by providing spaces of prayer and reflection for the potential influx of people who may come through church doors anxious about war, life, death, and how to make sense of any of it. In short, the Church is preparing to be a sanctuary – a place of refuge – at a time of violence and upheaval. The Church, though imperfect, and often rightly perceived by some as unwelcoming, has done this for centuries throughout the world. Though it no longer has any legal meaning – as a place where fugitives can find immunity from arrest – sanctuary in its original Latin meaning describes a place where holiness or holy people – are kept in, kept safe. The Church as sanctuary keeps the world – that at times of war is a place of great violence and horror – out; and offers to those seeking solace, a place of peace; a safe haven in a world that shows us only destruction. Retreating to a place of quiet safety doesn’t necessarily mean blocking out the realities of the world either. Start The Week on Radio 4 explored this sense of sanctuary on Monday. Reverend Fergus Butler-Gaillie described how Canterbury Cathedral in the wake of Thomas Becket’s murder there became symbolic of a place where the difficult and violent and traumatic were not shied away from. “Here,” he said, by facing the wickedness of the world, one could “find healing”. The Church as sanctuary is a place where we could possibly reframe our minds. To imagine a space and a world of peace rather than violence. Because, 80 years after the UNESCO charter was written, in the aftermath of World War 2, it’s opening words still ring true. “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”.
 

27 Jun 25 — Rt Rev Richard Harries

I was introduced to a new word this week. Peter Kellner, the political analyst in his Substack post wrote about “paltering”, meaning to tell a narrow truth in order to mask a big lie. He gives various political examples but a light hearted one would be if someone asked me how my tennis game went and I replied that it was a great second set which I just won, without mentioning the fact that I had actually lost the match, that would be paltering. Something true would have been said in a way deliberately to hide the truth, which Peter Kellner regards as one of the great enemies of politics today. In a world beset with conspiracy theories, fake news and allegations of fake news, and AI generated stories and images, it is more important than ever to try to get a grip on what is true. For truth is fundamental to what it is to be a human being. Unless we can assume that most people, most of the time, mean more or less what they say, human communication would be impossible and therefore human life as we know it could not exist. I would go so far as to say that if I define myself as a human being, I commit myself logically and morally to be a truth-seeking, truth-telling being. Of course it is not as easy as that. As a young teenager I was in a play called ‘Nothing but the truth’. The plot was quite simple. Someone had accepted the challenge to go for 24 hours without telling a lie. It is not difficult to imagine all the difficulties and dilemmas which emerge. You are faced with someone who is very vulnerable for example. What they need is encouragement, something positive, not cruel candour. Then of course every news source has its own point of view, its particular selection and weighing of the facts. The good thing about our society of course is that there are different sources of news, to balance one against the other, as well as the BBC which is committed to carefully scrutinising all the evidence and reflecting different stances on controversial issues. But it leaves us the hearers, readers and watchers in a very responsible position. We too have to scrutinise and judge. The ten commandments don’t actually mention the words truth or lie, but the ninth commandment conveys what these terms mean very powerfully when it says ‘Do not bear false witness against your neighbour’ Deliberate lying, and indeed paltering is false witness, an offence against others and ourselves. It goes against the essence of who we are that we are as truth-seeking, truth-telling beings.
 

26 Jun 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

Probably one of the most famous teachings from the Christian tradition is ‘love your neighbour as yourself’. As a way of being in the world, the idea of ‘neighbour’ – the one who is in proximity to us – not necessarily family or even friend – just there – is a powerful one in Christian teaching. In answer to the question from a lawyer – ‘who is my neighbour’ – Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. A powerful and imaginative tale in which a random act of violence was followed by an equally powerful random act of kindness. And although the 4.2 million people in England who live in social housing live peaceably with their neighbours, the Housing Ombudsman has reported a doubling of complaints about anti social behaviour in the last 5 years. Loud noise during the day and night, music, abusive shouting, unmanaged dogs, damage to property, graffiti, and in extreme cases, threats to the person. Complainants describe significant mental and emotional distress, and crucially, exhaustion. One 17 year old told the BBC that having little or no sleep had a huge impact on her ability to study for her GCSEs. Another that he was so sleep deprived he lost his job. Practical political questions are live in this situation: what are the relative responsibilities of the individual themselves, the landlords, the police. But there are deeper questions that we as a society must ask ourselves. Who is our neighbour may be clear, but how they are is a tougher question. Many of the people making the noise, shouting abuse or attacking their neighbours are themselves vulnerable, distressed or angry –sometimes addicted or unwell. The feeling of helplessness, and being trapped in your home, indicates the power that neighbours have on us, and makes the ethical challenge to ‘love my neighbour as myself’ a live and urgent one. Christian teaching will emphasise individual responsibility; I can’t blame anyone else if it is me smashing the camera or turning up the volume. But why I am doing that – day after day – stuck in patterns of behaviour that damage me and others – requires the strength of a community – to discern and change. As challenging as it is, the Christian ethic of loving my neighbour as myself asks me to place myself in my imagination in the shoes of the one whose daily habit has become to disrupt, intimidate, hurt and attack my neighbour. And then to ask myself: what would I want people to do with me when I did that? Similarly, to place myself in the shoes of the neighbour being hurt. And then as part of building a just and fair society, create systems that insist on the slow and painstaking work to make and keep peace.
 

25 Jun 25 — Akhandadhi Das

Yesterday, perhaps like many of you, I listened with relief and some surprise that both Israel and Iran planned to cease hostilities. This certainly felt welcome after the real danger of escalation. However, the ceasefire didn’t seem to last until the end of the Today programme; is the so-called “12-day war” was actually “over? If it holds, is it just a diplomatic pause; or the potential for lasting concord between two adversaries deeply suspicious of each other’s intentions. After the attack on their nuclear facilities, Iran’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi stated in defiance: We can rebuild them, because the knowledge is there…technology….cannot be destroyed by bombs.” This is a challenging truth about knowledge – there is no way to put the genie back in the bottle. Despite its limitations, the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty has at least slowed the spawning of nuclear-armed countries eager for that status and deterrent power. This reflects a key idea in Hinduism – karma, that the information of our activities is never lost. As explained in the Upanishads: Our actions inform who we are and who we become. They define the context of our life and our relationships – both individually and collectively. There will be no way to move forward within the Middle East – and in the other flashpoints of the world – without addressing the context that past actions have created for us today. And to reflect that, however well intentioned, our current actions might further exacerbate the context and legacy faced by future generations. Information of our past actions persists in our minds. It influences our hopes, fears, motivations, outlook, and prejudices. It is imbedded in our history, our traditions and the dreams we create for our families, communities and countries. As the Mahabharat says: “Even if an action is long forgotten by the doer, its effect and future impact linger like fire nascent in wood.” President Trump encouraged Iran and Israel to keep to the road of truth and righteousness and gain “Love, Peace and Prosperity” for their nations. That’s a lofty aspiration. But, in some ways, it reflects the Gita’s proposition for building lasting peace. The Gita calls each of us to see beyond our immediate circle of interest by recognizing the ultimate unity that binds us all with equal status; equally deserving of security, dignity and happiness. It is such broad-minded consciousness that nurtures inner peace, says the Gita, and it creates a new context for our hopes of achieving real peace and prosperity.
 

24 Jun 25 — Professor Tina Beattie

Last week, Parliament voted for two bills that change the ethical bedrock upon which our laws and institutions have evolved. In voting for assisted dying and decriminalising abortion up to birth, many believe the near-absolute principle that forbids the intentional killing of the innocent has been set aside. This is rooted in Christian beliefs about the sanctity and dignity of human life, but it has persisted through the process of secularisation. It provides a restraint on the conduct of war, and is intrinsic to the idea of universal human rights. Abortion and assisted dying arouse passionate convictions and sensitive emotions – and there are fervent proponents on both sides of the debate. They elude the luxury of certainty. To reflect on the distress of terminal illness and unwanted or unviable pregnancies is to confront our humanity at its most vulnerable. No law can ultimately protect us from the suffering that is part of every human life. Many hold different views with often painful personal stories – mine are those of a Christian and a feminist. An open letter by women of faith focused on the impact of the assisted dying bill on victims of domestic violence. Women who are expected to provide for all the needs of their husbands and families become particularly vulnerable to coercive control when they, the carers, become seriously ill and need care. The threat of domestic violence increases when women are sick or pregnant. Women who self-abort late in pregnancy might no longer face prosecution, but anybody who assists them can be prosecuted. A woman who, for whatever reason, ends a pregnancy outside the law must do so alone to avoid implicating others in what would for them be a criminal act. Whilst the vast majority of terminations happen within the 24 week window in some extreme cases where women seek a late termination they may now have to give birth with no help to a fully developed baby, , and must cope with the consequences. I believe that Christians must be attentive to those who are most vulnerable to the unintended consequences of laws that prioritise the desires of the many over the needs of the few. Cardinal Vincent Nichols once said that Christian social justice works by multiplication, not addition. If one person is of zero value, then nobody is of value. That, for me, is food for thought in these most challenging times.
 

23 Jun 25 — Rt Rev Dr David Walker

Direct American involvement, bombing nuclear sites across Iran, takes the Middle East conflict up to a whole new level. Over the airwaves and on the internet, military, economic and political commentators are barely into a second day of striving to guess what will, or what should, come next. Wherever our personal views might incline, we can expect to find voices both reflecting and rejecting our take. Much of course depends on where individual interests lie. Were I a citizen of Israel, whether or not in support of the Gaza conflict, I might be relieved that a dangerous enemy, one publicly committed to the destruction of my country and its people, now seems far less likely to be able, at least in the near future, to unleash a nuclear attack. Were I sitting in a central US state, a family member stationed with American forces on a ship or base within reach of Iranian retaliation, my first thought might well be of how this puts their lives in jeopardy. The regime in Iran denounces it as a violation of international law. However, for the large Iranian Christian diaspora in my city of Manchester, who both love their country and detest its current government, hopes and fears, not least for loved ones still in country, will intermingle. Yet, whilst personal perspective matters, many religions, including my own, seek to overlay that with a call to put ourselves in others’ shoes, however hard that may be. It’s exemplified for me in the teaching of Jesus to love our neighbours as ourselves. Yet, it reaches its zenith in the very person of Jesus himself. For thirty years, from his birth to his execution, God has made the effort to see the world, not from a throne in heaven, but through human eyes. To me, the greatest shadow cast over human affairs in this present era is not the risk of nuclear war, it is the increasing unwillingness of political leaders and their regimes to look beyond immediate and narrow self interest. The names and the flags may have changed since the nineteenth century, but I fear we increasingly live in an age of expanding empires, some political, others corporate, each unable to look beyond maximising its territory, wealth and power. I confess it grieves me deeply how often the very religions that should be committed to fostering a wider viewpoint, too readily line up behind the dominant forces of the empires they rely on to flourish. Yet despite this, the example of Jesus still spurs me on. If I can do nothing else today, I will at least try to see the world through many and varied eyes.
 

21 Jun 25 — Chine McDonald

This month, I attended a reunion of students who worked on my university newspaper 20 years ago. Reconnecting with people I’d not seen for many years was like stepping into a time machine. The sense of nostalgia was joyous. University was one of the few sustained periods in my life in which I’ve lived and worked – and danced – alongside people whose views and backgrounds were totally different to my own. This week, Dr Arif Ahmed, director for free speech at the Office of Students, said students should “expect to face views” they “might find shocking or offensive”. It’s part of the process of education, he said. His organisation can sanction universities with fines potentially running into the millions of pounds if they are found not to have upheld free speech. This is, of course, a thorny issue. The differences I encountered at university did not put me in any physical danger, nor did they express hatred towards me. Some speech does do that, and walking the tightrope between upholding these freedoms and protecting people – especially from marginalised groups – is one of the biggest challenges of our pluralistic society. I was shaped by difference at university – my views sometimes abandoned, sometimes sharpened by being presented with other points of view. I saw this in action during the parliamentary debate on assisted dying yesterday . Demographic studies show we as a society are now far less likely to come into sustained physical contact with people unlike ourselves. Parliament – like university – is one of those places that does hold together difference in one physical space. I’ll admit the institutional Church has not been a shining example of doing this well. We too are fractured. But the earliest church communities, in which people came together from different backgrounds and religions and political positions to form a new community, were. Here, we read in Ephesians, the “dividing wall of hostility” was broken down. For me, the beauty of being part of a church community; worshipping and communing and hearing about each other’s lives, is that it is a weekly moment in which I am part of a body that holds together difference, even when it is uncomfortable. And even when we are confronted with views opposed to our own. Christian ritual confronts us with this call for unity despite difference in inviting us to share the peace with each other and to take communion together. We gather in spite of our difference, but around something – or someone – else entirely. On a Sunday morning, when the early Church lived together and shared everything they had, just as during those years at university, it is the intensity of shared space that perhaps makes it so unique. Perhaps, as philosopher Martin Buber once said: “All living is meeting”.
 

20 Jun 25 — Rt Rev Richard Harries

About 20 years ago my wife and I had a wonderful holiday in Iran visiting the main sites. Persepolis, of course, the centre of a huge Persian empire in the 6th Century before Christ where we were reminded that one Ruler, Cyrus, was a great friend of the biblical people. As a result of his decree in 539 BC the Jewish people in captivity in Babylon were allowed to go free and return to Jerusalem. One of those decisions which changed the whole course of human history. Then there is Isfahan with its amazing mosques dating from the Safavid empire in the 16th century covered in their stunning Persian blue tiles, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. When we landed at Shiraz airport and got off the plane we were greeted by a group of young teenage girls who wanted to speak to the passengers to practice their English. One girl came up to me and to get the conversation going asked me what I did. I replied that I was a kind of Christian Imam-to which she immediately responded with the words ‘I don’t think God is a woman’. Where on earth had she got the idea that I thought this to be the case? I can only imagine she had picked up something from the English media about a debate in the Church of England about feminine terms for God. Anyway I explained to her that God is beyond gender and all that we mean by masculine and feminine are contained in their fulness in the Godhead. She then preached me the most beautiful little sermonette on the theme that God is love. Perhaps this was not totally surprising for Shiraz was the home of Rumi and Hafez in the 13th and 14th centuries, mystical poets of love revered not just in Iran but round the world. So there I was in an Iranian airport, an Anglican Bishop, listening attentively to a 14 year old girl as she told me, in what was for her a foreign language, about the love of God. I wonder what that girl, now grown up, is doing with her life? Whether she has put up with the regime or resisted it? According to a major survey conducted earlier this year by the Netherlands based Gamaan Institute 80% of Iranians contacted said they preferred a democratic form of government to the Islamic republic. Many of them will no doubt hope and pray that the time will come one day when they will be free from rulers they have experienced as oppressive and aggressive – at least 901 people were executed last year for example. And I pray that those of us outside the country will once again be able to enjoy the richness and beauty of Iranian culture and its people.
 

19 Jun 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

Today at the Natural History Museum in London a new exhibition is opening. Designed to give all visitors an immersive experience of the natural world, the guide is David Attenborough – who recently commented that after almost a century on the planet, he is still learning that the oceans are the most important place on earth. And today, that earth is hot: the UK will be hotter than Hawaii. Today is also, in the Christian church, the feast of Corpus Christi. It’s a day when Christians gather around altars in churches across the world to give thanks for what is known as the sacrament of Holy Communion. Celebrations will range from public processions through the streets, to quiet gatherings in homes, at hospital beds, in prison chapels: wherever the people of God gather to mark in prayer, as is said at the service, ‘we are all one body because we all share in one bread’. But of course we don’t. Christians are great at arguing, finding points of theological difference that mean this holy sacrament –a sign of our unity with Christ – and with the whole of the created order actually – is also a cause of division. Until we’ve made everyone else agree with us as to what precisely it means, many Christians say, we’re not sitting at the same table. This raises a fundamental human question that’s shared whatever our faith or religious practice. Do we believe something in order to do it, or do we do something in order to help us believe it. What is the relationship between ritual and belief? The scientific knowledge we have now about climate change can, for some, be motivation enough to behave differently in the world. But faced with existential questions, humanity, the most influential species on the planet, seems unable to act in a unified way, for the good of the whole, for all life on earth. Greed and compassion fatigue are just two of many barriers to our unity: what Christian theology would call sin. Holy Communion is also called the Eucharist – a Greek word that simply means thanks. On this feast of Corpus Christi then, we will gather around the altar where time meets eternity, in thanksgiving for the astonishing gift of life itself, at the same time in sorrow for the brokenness of the world made visible in broken bread and poured out wine. We will turn our gaze to the sacrificial love that is at the heart of all creation. And with others, I will pray that we will know again that we humanity are one body, able – and willing – to act for the common good.
 

18 Jun 25 — Jasvir Singh

I had the honour of collecting my CBE from Buckingham Palace with my family last week. The significance of my Investiture taking place during Pride Month was not lost on me. The mere fact that, as a married gay couple, my husband and I were treated the same as other recipients and their families was not one that I took lightly. As a teenager in the 1990s, Section 28 meant schools could not “promote the teaching…of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. Fast forward to today, and gay marriage is so common that I can buy wedding cards for Mr & Mr from the supermarket down the road. The pace of change in the UK has been phenomenal. And yet, there are constant reminders of how many around the world are denied the freedoms we have here. Just a few weeks ago, a Pride march in Amritsar in India was cancelled following threats from religious extremists. A figure from the armed Sikh order of Nihangs told reporters that if it went ahead, they would stop it “in their own way”. Such threats are not idle. A popular female influencer on social media was killed just last week by extremists in Punjab because of, in their words, “defaming Sikh traditions” and using double entendres in her videos. To such extremists, queer people and raunchy women are fair game. LGBTQ+ activists across the world continue to fight for their rights on a daily basis, with many of them literally putting their lives on the line so they can love who they want to. And for the first time in years, the number of countries where homosexuality is criminalised has actually increased, with Mali and Trinidad & Tobago joining the nations where my husband and I would be imprisoned, or worse. This rollback of rights is something that the Global LGBTI+ Rights Commission, launched this week, is looking into. It’s a call to action to queer people to stand up to the challenges of 2025 and act together, collectively. Amongst his many teachings, Guru Nanak said “If you wish to play this game of love, step on to My Path with your head in your hand. If you place your feet on this Path, give Me your head and ignore public opinion.” That verse has always stood out to me. Although Guru Nanak was talking about humanity’s relationship with the Almighty, for me, it encapsulates the life of queer people well. To love who we want, we need to be proud of who we are and ignore what others may say. It is a fight for the right to love and exist. My family means the world to me, even if the world isn’t entirely ready to accept my family. For me, Pride Month is a call to arms, to show who I am, and defend to the last breath my right to exist in this game of love.
 

17 Jun 25 — Professor Mona Siddiqui

Despite calls for de-escalation and stability, Israel and Iran continue to engage in heavy strikes, with more destruction and lives lost on each side. When nations go to war, it is often after years of suspicion, ideological clashes and decades of shadow warfare, all of which leave its citizens wary, wounded, and hardened. In this dangerous time when there are so many wars and conflicts around the world, who can you rely on as a friend and who can you really trust? In wartime it’s easy for truth to become muffled as propaganda echoes and thrives. Battles are dangerously portrayed as a fight between good and evil, especially on social media where polarization, emotion and extreme language are everywhere. In this world you’re always on the right or wrong side of history, whereas truth in almost all aspects of life is complex, messy and nuanced. War tests a country’s own citizens as well as its enemies and allies. In his short story, The Child goes to the Camp, the Palestinian writer and activist Ghassan Kanafani tells the story of a young boy who lives in poverty with his large family in a refugee camp. The story repeats the sentiment that in a time of hostilities the only virtue that matters is to keep yourself alive. In one of his daily tasks to search for food, the young boy finds some money. He holds onto the money for himself even though his family needs it. For a while it’s his secret and power because for him when there is hostility everywhere, you can’t trust anyone. War can distort trust and breed suspicion and betrayal. Who’s on your side today might turn tomorrow – alliances, enmities and friendships can all blur. But in war, as in ordinary life, even when people find their world falling apart, trust albeit fragile, can still flicker through the cracks. Unlike the boy in the story, unless we cultivate a level of trust and reciprocity between people and nations there is no hope. I think this is why the concept of trust in God is so repeated in Islamic thought. It’s precisely because it’s hard that the qur’anic verse `place your trust in God’ isn’t just an emotion rather a divine command which ultimately binds us together. It can recentre and comfort as well as remind us why holding onto our humanity even in the darkest of times, is always the greater good. And perhaps this is what Maya Angelou meant when she reflected on what sustains and gives meaning to human relationships: ‘Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time”.
 

16 Jun 25 — Rt Rev Dr David Walker

A Public Inquiry into Grooming Gangs, one with the power to compel witnesses to testify, will now be set up. Baroness Casey’s recent Report to the Prime Minister comes after several months of political wrangling. Greater Manchester, where I live, has seen more than its fair share of such cases. In the last three months two gangs have been convicted and sentenced. One, in Rochdale, comprising men of Pakistani origin, the other, in Bolton, all with names and appearances that suggest a White British background. This is not a pattern of offending confined to any particular ethnic, cultural or religious group. I hope that the forthcoming Inquiry will help us find ways to keep young girls safe from groups of predatory older men, whatever their origin. It’s a natural human tendency to want to think that such horrendous crimes are only carried out by people who are not like us. When I was called by IICSA, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, to be an expert witness on Anglican Religious Communities, it struck me how people moving in circles like my own had twisted aspects of our shared Christian beliefs, to justify horrific behaviour. What made matters worse was the collusion of those who had at least some suspicion of what was going on, but who chose, out of closeness to the perpetrators, not to report it. Matthew and Luke both tell how Jesus calls us to cast out the log from our own eye before seeking to remove a speck from someone else’s. It’s a powerful image, almost always interpreted solely at an individual level. Yet with this, as with many other Bible passages, I’ve learned how important it is to seek to apply it collectively. Read in this way, it calls me to pay full attention not just to my personal sins and wrongdoings but to those committed by people close by me; not to retreat into the relative comfort of denouncing the misdeeds of more distant others. For whilst gangs may dominate the news headlines, Child Protection experts affirm that the vast majority of child sexual exploitation is committed by the victim’s close family members or friends, something which accords with my own experience over 24 years as a bishop. It is here, where children should be safest, that harm is most likely to go unreported. It is here, where the words of Jesus might be hardest to hear. Protecting young girls from the predations of gangs is a laudable aim, one that has my wholehearted support. But just as vital is the challenge which remains of keeping all our children, boys and girls, safe in the home and family.
 

14 Jun 25 — Rev Roy Jenkins

The photograph suggests one of the happiest occasions of the week. King Charles smiles as he lays a ceremonial sword on the shoulder of a legend. 90-year-old Billy Boston beams back at him in open-mouthed delight: he’s just become Rugby League’s first knight of the realm… in 130 years that is. In that time, many other sportspeople have been knighted – not least ten from rugby union: but none from the league code – a historic wrong, said the prime minister, a scandal tied up with snobbery and prejudice, insisted other politicians. Billy was raised in Cardiff’s docklands just half a mile from this studio, one of eleven children of a seaman from Sierra Leone and a mother of from the local Irish community. He learned his rugby here – union, of course – in a mixed-race team, was spotted by a League scout while doing national service, and is said to have wept knowing that signing professional forms meant that he’d never play for Wales. But his League career for Great Britain and Wigan was stellar and an inspiration not least for other black players. One of the all-time greats of his sport, he’s, won medals and awards galore, features in statues in Wembley, Wigan and Cardiff – but the knighthood many considered his due eluded him, until now; a fitting honour for one described as ‘the most modest of men.’ So where should honour be given? The system comes in for regular criticism from those who reject it on principle, and when it’s seen to be used for political advantage, or as a tool for those who already hold more wealth, privilege and power than might be good for any of us. I hear few criticisms of people getting medals for impressive achievements in medical science, making music which thrills millions, or spending lifetimes in building communities where it’s toughest. The earliest followers of Jesus were told that they should honour all people simply because they are human beings made in the image of God. He lived it by reaching out to the despised foreigner, the marginalised poor, society’s disreputables and honoured them with the practical care of a message of love, grace and forgiveness. Some of his closest disciples took a while to get it. The brothers James and John asked that in the coming kingdom, they should be seated in places of honour either side of him. They hadn’t understood, he told them: ‘If one of you wants to be great, he must be servant of the rest’. He’d not come to be served but to serve, he said, and to give his life to redeem many.’ A humility reflected, I think, in the newly honoured Sir Billy Boston.
 

13 Jun 25 — Chine McDonald

The family of Muriel McKay – kidnapped and killed 56 years ago – are offering a million pound reward for information that can help lead to the discovery of her remains. Though Muriel died decades ago, finding her body may provide the possibility of a moment of collective ritual to enable the family to grieve their loss. Tragic deaths which make the recovery of a body challenging – when people are killed in bombings, when hostage bodies are not returned, when planes crash as we saw in the heartbreaking scenes yesterday – there can be a sense of incompleteness. On Monday, I was in Belfast at a wake following the death of my dear friend’s mother. The unforgettable Angela – mother of 14 , grandmother of 29, and married to Brendan for 54 years – had died two days before and, as is the way in Ireland, her home was opened to relatives and the community to say their final goodbyes and put their arms around the family at their time of deep loss. I found it profoundly moving; devastatingly sad and unexpectedly beautiful. Not only did I witness the community ‘mourning with those who mourn’, as the book of Romans commands, but I was reminded that our bodies – even in death – matter. Celtic spirituality has – as poet John O’Donohue wrote – “a refined sense of the miracle of death”. For Celts, he wrote, “the eternal world was so close to the natural world that death was not seen as a terribly destructive or threatening event”. Though there was a deep sadness during Angela’s wake, there was a kind of beauty in the strange juxtaposition of her coffin and the cups of tea and sandwiches of the mourners gathered in her living room. Bodies eat and drink, just as bodies die. Elsewhere in the West, death is usually kept hidden; far away; out-of-sight. Technological advancement and the increasingly disembodied lives we lead push death even further away. There’s a common misperception that Christianity is concerned only with the spiritual – the soul – the bit of us we can’t see. But theology over many centuries has highlighted we’re neither just material nor are we just spirit. The rituals the Church has honed over millennia to help us deal with the circle of life place importance on the body. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we say; a return to the earth out of which God formed us. Christian hope centres on Christ’s triumph over death. This isn’t to diminish the fact we’ll miss the bodies we embraced, touched, held and laughed with while they were living, but it provides a glimmer of hope about what’s to come. As O’Donohue wrote, Celts are comforted that they “are going home to where no shadow, pain, or darkness can ever touch you again”.
 

12 Jun 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

A young girl called Mal lives in a magical hidden world of mythical creatures. She can fly – sometimes – because she has a special coat – and she finds a helpful companion in a boy called Christopher, from the human world. Together they set out to save her land called the Archipelago. The creator of these characters and the ‘impossible creatures’ who accompany them is Katherine Rundell, who commented on this programme yesterday on the Literacy Trust’s findings that reading for pleasure amongst under 18s is at its lowest since records began. She described what she thought was a ‘crisis of attention’. And with a particularly strong comment about social media – that your child’s attention is being mined for billions of pounds worth of profit. This ‘crisis of attention’ shows up in the assumption that the only and best way to communicate is in ever shorter forms– and not just on social media. Attentiveness and concentration are becoming rare skills which take practice, which we are not always willing or able to commit to. The formation of habits of attentiveness, in this case with reference to reading, is diminishing at an alarming rate. Christian spiritual practice includes a variety of such habits, including learning to be in silence, trying to face honestly the deepest movements of our soul, and a commitment to attend to the ultimate presence of God in the world. Christian communities learned that when people were able to read sacred texts in their own language, and were no longer dependent on the hierarchy to tell them what they said, a more diverse and wiser community-building was possible. The crisis of attention we’re in mistakes the ‘short’ for the ‘simple’ – which we crave in a complex and over-loaded information landscape. Our craving drives our desire to ‘get it done’, and destroys our patience along the way. The evidence that we’re losing our ability to concentrate isn’t something that just affects individuals and our enjoyment of stories. Our deeper empowerment is at stake. If we the people are not able to read and absorb more complex writing, we’re more likely to be taken for a ride by the few who can. Nurturing our attentiveness to the slower, deeper themes of life, will help us know the difference between information and wisdom, between catchphrases and reflective decision making. And most profoundly, will help us handle that most essential of human characteristics – the ability to deal with contradiction and paradox. The crisis of attention is serious – because if all we can cope with is short slogans, then we the people will get the religious – and political – leaders we deserve.
 

11 Jun 25 — Rev Jayne Manfredi

I’ve never liked John Lennon’s Imagine. The opening lyrics always seemed so hopeless to me. “Above us, only sky.” It’s a line which reminds me of the Phillip Larkin poem, High Windows, where he looks through the glass at the sky which, “shows nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.” Imagination is a great gift so if we’re going to imagine something, anything, then why not be extravagant? Theologian Walter Brueggeman, who died last week, and was a huge influence on me at theological college, knew all about the value of imagination and its power to make the world a better place. “Imagination is a danger,” he wrote, “every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist.” You can see why. If you have the means to imagine a more beautiful world, you might start to thirst for it, and if that happens, well. Suddenly, you have possibility. The opposite is also true. When we exist in a harmful feedback loop of cynicism and despair, we lose the ability to imagine that things can be any different. This is what it’s like to live with no hope. I think we’re living in such times, right now, where many of us are numbed to the possibility of change. “It’s all so awful,” we say. When imagination dies, so does hope. Brueggeman knew this, but he also knew that hope wasn’t cheap. He understood it must be tempered by reality, and suffering is a part of that. He named the role grief plays in the prophetic work of imagination, insisting that in imagining a better world we are being invited to participate in its creation, not merely being asked to offer utopian promises. His book, the Prophetic Imagination is a call for the church to be a counter-cultural voice with the courage to imagine a better world. The imagination of Christians is partly shaped by the prophets, by Jeremiah’s warnings about social injustice and moral decay. Ezekial’s reminder that God is in charge. Isaiah’s message of hope, trust and salvation. Elijah’s example of faith and courage. Each of them carried an unwelcome message to a weary and cynical audience, imagining a radically different world from the one they were living in. Time and time again, they and their words were rejected. They dared to imagine anyway. John Lennon imagined there was no heaven, but imagine if there was? Imagine if the kingdom of heaven was here on earth, right now, just as Jesus said it was, providing a challenge and an alternative perspective to the dominant culture around us. Because without imagination we simply have deep blue sky, “that shows nothing, and is nowhere, and is endlessa”.
 

10 Jun 25 — Rt Rev Philip North

Recent days have demonstrated that there’s nothing quite like a good old-fashioned feud to get people engaged in current affairs. Much of modern politics can feel technical and complex. The finer details of the Chancellor’s spending plans or the President’s trade policy can be bewildering. But when there’s a feud and political debate is replaced by the relational dynamics of the school playground, everybody understands. That’s especially so in the modern era when the whole row is played out in real time on social media. But whilst it’s engaging to watch, political feuding can do massive damage. Following a highly publicised fallout in the United States, concerns have been raised about the future of NASA’s space programme and nations across the globe are worried about economic stability. Rowing is so emotionally intense that it takes energy away from everything else. Political vision and the purpose of government is lost. It may be attention grabbing, but feuding is bad news. The Bible offers a different way of approaching things. When I read the Gospels I am always struck by how Jesus spends relatively little time laying out ideas or speaking about theology. He spends more time building relationships and growing community. The long passage of teaching he offers at the Last Supper is an example. These are among the last words Jesus will speak to his band of followers. But he doesn’t tell them what to believe. He assumes they know all that by now. Instead he teaches them how to belong to each other, how to be responsible for each other and how to love each other. He uses rich images of the vine and the flock to do so. Productivity and fruitfulness rely on co-dependence, Jesus is telling us. If you want to change things, good ideas aren’t enough. It also needs good relationships. That’s why the most effective governments have at their heart a group of people whose dedication is not just to a project but also to each other. And exactly the same applies to other walks of life. Good schools, good businesses, healthy churches invariably feature a strong team of people who don’t just share common goals but who are also purposeful in building good relationships. Even in the busiest team, time spent attending to each other and simply listening is never time wasted. Because whilst ideas matter, it is relationships that change the world. Of course there will always be feuds. In fact some conflict is necessary and even productive. But when small groups of people share not just a vision but a sustained commitment to each other, anything can happen.
 

09 Jun 25 — Rt Rev Dr David Walker

Ethics was engaging, theology was fun, but the bit of training to be a vicar I most struggled with, was singing parts of a church service solo. Whilst I do enjoy singing, I’m not especially good at it. If I’m going to stay in tune, I need other, better voices around me, ones I can follow. Maybe that’s why the story that grabbed my attention this weekend, is that of a group of people from Wales, all affected by the Horizon Post Office scandal, who have formed themselves into a choir. A few days ago, they made it right to the finals of a televised national talent competition. Members of the group, appropriately named “Hear Our Voice”, describe how their choral efforts have helped rebuild shattered confidence, and brought back joy into lives wrecked by wrongful prosecutions and convictions. At the same time, the choir has projected the message of their continuing fight for justice well beyond what any single voice could reach. I’ve come across similar stories in other places. In Manchester I’ve enjoyed many performances by a choir drawn from survivors of the Arena terrorist attack, whilst nationally, one made up of partners of British military forces then serving in Afghanistan, famously achieved a number one hit. In each case, a diverse group of people join together, first to offer mutual support and second to promote a common cause. As they do so, they discover how singing takes it all to a new level. What’s more, in an age of rampant individualism, the particular discipline of a choir demands its members sacrifice something of their own self-expression for the common good. Singing together has long been a part of many people’s way of supporting and expressing their religious belonging. The Hebrew Scriptures contain notes as to the long lost tunes that accompanied Psalms sung on particular occasions. Later, St Mark, in his Gospel, describes how the final thing Jesus and his disciples did together, before heading to the place where he would be arrested, was to sing a hymn. I know from my own experience, not only in church but also at many sports events, how being part of a congregation or crowd, singing together, can be hugely uplifting, with no great technical ability required. Whether it’s my faith or my football, like those members of the choir born of the Post office scandal, both my sense of belonging and my commitment to the cause, are enhanced by being one voice among many, singing, as the old saying has it, from the same hymn sheet.
 

07 Jun 25 — Professor Tina Beattie

Like many English speakers, my command of other languages is woefully poor. My conversational French is probably at the level of a five-year-old. Just use an English word with a French accent, I was once told, which is why, looking for the light in a toilet in Paris, I asked a French waiter, ou est le lit? Where is the bed? I’m humbled by people willing to make mistakes and fumble for meaning, speaking unfamiliar languages in their desire to communicate. Today, Christians worldwide celebrate Pentecost. The New Testament tells us that the Holy Spirit came upon Christ’s followers as a rushing wind and tongues of fire, and they all began to speak in different languages. When the crowds from many cultures gathered in Jerusalem heard them, they were amazed to hear their own languages being spoken. Some laughed and said the speakers had been drinking, to which Peter replied that they couldn’t be drunk, because it was only nine o’clock in the morning. That always amuses me. Pentecost is a contrast to the story of the Tower of Babel. The Book of Genesis recounts a time when the entire world spoke with one language. The people said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’” God thwarted their ambition by confusing their language so that they couldn’t understand one another, saying, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” This suggests a divine constraint on the dangers of unbridled human power. The story of Babel can be read as a caution against every form of totalitarianism or imperialism that seeks domination through the elimination of difference. The fact that native English speakers don’t have to bother learning other languages has much to do with the British Empire’s imposition of a single language on its colonial subjects, which is why English is the most widely spoken language today. There are still those who, like the people in the story of Babel, seek power through different forms of nationalism and populism that value uniformity over diversity. But such uniformity is not unity, for it can only be achieved by violence and force. Unity can accommodate diversity, for it finds common ground not in the imposition of sameness but in the celebration of difference. Pentecost invites us to enjoy the freedom of allowing ourselves to be enriched by the glorious abundance of the human family in all its colours, languages and cultures.
 

06 Jun 25 — Professor Mona Siddiqui

I read recently that leaving a job isn’t just about walking away from a pay check; it’s like saying goodbye to a chapter of your life. I agree – after 13 years I’ll be leaving the university of Edinburgh this summer. I feel very lucky to have had these wonderful years but very soon, my little office will need to be cleared out to make way for someone new and I’m still wondering what to do with my books. It’s the right decision for me but I do have mixed emotions – thinking about my colleagues and friendships, the students who have taught me so much about myself, the opportunities and difficulties all of which have been a gift. I’m grateful that I have the freedom to leave. Colleagues have asked whether I feel this is a milestone but I feel we shouldn’t see life as a checklist or measure it in milestones – its more the moments in between which reflect who we are and our hopes and desires. A few weeks ago a Muslim friend told me he’d decided to go on the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca as he was restless, and despite a successful career, he wasn’t sure where his life was going. Maybe this spiritual journey might help, be a new awakening. This week as thousands of Muslims perform the rituals of hajj in Mecca and Medina, it’s been an experience where tradition and technology converge. Pilgrims guided by the latest ai -powered crowd management systems to help reduce congestion, multilingual chatbots to answer urgent questions and advanced technology which instantly translates and transmits sermons into multiple languages for worshippers. All these tools are designed to make the experience easier for everyone. But within all of this, many will have carried the essence of the hajj quietly, praying that they return home with a more peaceful and forgiving heart, a renewed faith and sense of purpose. There’s always risk in making a change but it’s important to make peace with change. Whether it’s in our professional or personal lives, sometimes we should embrace rather than fear feeling unsettled by our own wants and needs. Of course there’s huge comfort in familiarity and routine but fundamentally our lives are a search for meaning and fulfilment. We are created for more than mere accumulation of things or external validation. In the constant noise around us it’s important we don’t drown out our own inner voice, that we have the courage to listen to our heart whether it be in a quiet corner of a pilgrimage, or leaving your office one last time.
 

05 Jun 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

Supposing you were looking for a therapist to talk through a problem in your life and you were fortunate enough to find one who affirmed and encouraged you, asked all the right questions and never ever made you feel judged. That is the experience some have had with AI therapy, the mental health support powered by Artificial Intelligence. This is not new, years ago there was a programme called Eliza, which you had to type in and it came back with, ‘Tell me more’, and ‘How did that feel’ and being at the other end of it you certainly felt affirmed as you were echoed back to yourself. From Freud onwards some therapists and analysts have favoured a blank wall approach. The client talking, the analyst listening. The client on the couch, the therapist not making eye contact. But while this cost an awful lot, A1 therapy is free. And if you are the kind of person who always feels judged by others I can see that an impersonal presence could be liberating. Unless of course you confess a desire to do harm to yourself – one recent programme withdrew an update which had cheerfully endorsed a patient’s desire to stop taking her medication Having a human relationship is always risky, but having a non-human relationship does not come without risk. One of the most challenging things said by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount was, ‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged’. He then expanded this by explaining that when we judge other people we make ourselves vulnerable to being judged back by the same standard. In psychological language, we project our fears and fantasies and desires on to others and they reciprocate. So anyone training as a therapist needs to be aware of their personal prejudices and discount them as far as possible. The AI counsellor of course, not being human, has no prejudices unless they are programmed in. That could be done of course. In theory you could train the algorithm in ‘client-centred therapy’, or ‘Catholic moral teaching’ or ‘best-friend over a drink at the pub’. What this shows us is that as humans we crave human connection and we also crave unconditional acceptance. The problem is that we can’t easily have both at the same time. Jesus having told us not to judge, actually made many judgements. His insight into human heart got him into trouble, especially when he condemned the religious leaders of his day for their hypocrisy. It seems to me that there is no risk free therapy, whether from other people or from machines. We carry our histories with us, the best we can hope for is to be, as Jesus put it, aware of the log in our eye before we attempt to remove the speck in our neighbours.
 

04 Jun 25 — Dr Krish Kandiah

When I was a penny-pinching student in the 1990s, I was struck by comedian Jack Handey’s piercing one-liner: “If I ever get real rich, I hope I’m not real mean to poor people, like I am now.” This joke was rather too close for comfort. Generosity, I realised, isn’t about how much we give, but about who we are – and how much we choose to keep for ourselves. That challenge has come into sharp focus for me again with Bill Gates’ recent pledge to give away 99% of his wealth, mostly to facilitate better healthcare for African mothers and children. In a recent blogpost he wrote: “People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them.” The founder of Microsoft is being incredibly generous, especially when contrasted with governments who are retreating from global responsibility. One study from Boston University estimates that as a direct result of USAID cuts alone, 200,000 children around the world have already died. Bill Gates will remain a billionaire, even after donating 99% of his wealth. But ultrahigh net worth individuals do not have a monopoly on generosity. We must all wrestle with how to be generous with the resources that we have. In a world of seemingly infinite need what moral equations could possibly answer the question of who should receive our charity? Some people take a utilitarian approach, seeking to get the most beneficial bang for their buck. Others are steered more by emotionalism. But generosity is not an exact science, and sometimes well-intentioned acts of charity are not well-informed and can end up doing more harm than good. Generosity has a central place in Christian theology. The gospels show this in action from Jesus – but also pass on Jesus’ teaching about how to be generous. On one occasion Jesus sat near the Temple in Jerusalem watching people bring their offerings. He observed the rich giving large sums from their surplus, and a poor widow who quietly dropped in two tiny coins. She, Jesus said, had given more than anyone else -because she had given everything she had. When God does the accounting, it’s not the size of the gift that counts – but the size of the sacrifice. However much we have – or don’t have, our generosity connects us to the God who gave us everything and with those in need around us. True generosity doesn’t just depend on government’s aid budgets. Nor does it depend on the world’s billionaires – though I encourage others to follow in Bill Gates’ footsteps. True generosity depends on all of us.
 

03 Jun 25 — Rt Rev Nick Baines

“Sometimes the best map will not guide you. You can’t see what’s round the bend. Sometimes the road leads through dark places. Sometimes the darkness is your friend.” Those are the words of the Canadian musician Bruce Cockburn from a song called ‘Pacing the Cage’. But, as only the poets can do, he shines a light onto a fact of life which easily gets lost amid the uncertainty inherent in life. We human beings make our decisions and commitments on the basis of certain assumptions about the future … which might well prove to be unfounded. And this works at every level of our experience. Yesterday the Defence Review was published, based on assumptions and calculations about how other actors in global politics might behave in the future. In 2021 a UK Strategic Review told us that we were tilting towards the Indo-Pacific. In 2023, following the invasion of Ukraine, this had itself to be reviewed, and Europe began to feature again. Who knows what might happen next in Russia or China which might shed a different light on our submarine needs, for example? The challenge here is that long-term decisions have to be made on the basis of calculation in contexts of uncertainty. Stuff happens and everything changes. I think it’s easy to stand on the sidelines and criticise leaders for not having had the foresight to have decided with pre-emptive hindsight. But, it impacts at the personal level, too. In the last nine months I have had a brain tumour – benign but growing – dealt with by gamma knife surgery. Then more recently minor heart surgery after a problem emerged. The upside is that I now have documentary evidence that I actually have both a brain and a heart. Mortality is a given. I come from a tradition that takes seriously not only what decisions are the right ones, but also how – on the basis of which assumptions – decisions are made. The Bible makes it clear that justice matters, that people matter, that power corrupts, that governing is hard, that mortality limits. It also encourages a humility towards statements of certainty where certainty does not exist. “Without a vision the people perish”, writes the sage; but, contrary to a popular musical, not “any dream will do”. Some dreams are simply fantasies of power and security, rooted in fear. A vision of justice for my neighbour, of love for my enemy, is more challenging. After all, my security is not isolated from the security of my neighbour or my enemy. Uncertainty has to be navigated because it is the only certainty we have. Sometimes, indeed, the best maps are limited.
 

02 Jun 25 — Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg

I’ve never been to Mount Sinai, but I one day hope to visit, because here God gave the Jewish People the Ten Commandments in the revelation we commemorate today on Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks. God’s message can be summarised simply: ‘I’m your God. Don’t abuse me or one another.’ I hear these words with sorrow and shame, but also hope. I’m horrified by how we hurt each other, the wars, the cruelty and hunger. Yet the world remains intricately and inspiringly beautiful. That’s why I cling to the deeply imaginative interpretation, rooted in Jewish mystical thought, by the Rabbi of Ger, a popular Hasidic teacher who died in 1905: ‘When God said, “I am your God,” every creature experienced those words as spoken directly to them.’ For an instant, every living being, humans, donkeys, birds, understood that their deepest nature, their innermost spirit, comes from, and belongs to, God. They heard those words ‘I am your God’ not just from the mountaintop, but from inside their hearts. Afterwards everything returned to normal, each human and animal to its separate consciousness, its own reality, in this material world which conceals from us the deepest truth of who we are. But, in that moment, we understood that one life, one consciousness, fills us all and that something sacred, something deeper than all divisions, unites us. For that brief interval, said the rabbi, we were incapable of harming one another. This was long ago. But, he maintained, if we listen deeply, we can still catch the after-echo of God’s voice in all creation. If we could be attentive to that voice in our fellow humans, and in all life, we would instinctively hold back, and, in Isaiah’s words, not cruelly hurt or destroy any living being, but instead do our utmost to bring healing to our world. Maybe it’s that after-echo we hear, when, in a heartfelt conversation, we reach a pause and sit silently together, knowing that something words can’t reach has touched us. Perhaps it’s what my congregant Alan meant when he wrote to his beloved sister: ‘Listen to the trees for they have much to teach us.’ It’s the sound I feel David Attenborough may have been talking about, when he wrote that the ban on whale-hunting came about after millions heard for the first time the recordings of the humpback’s deep-sea songs.
 

31 May 25 — Chine McDonald

The Salt Path, a film about a married couple who trek 630 miles along the southwest coastal path after losing almost everything they had, is out in cinemas this weekend. The film stars Gillian Anderson as Raina Wynne, who set off with her husband, called Moth, from Somerset to Dorset via Devon and Cornwall, just a few days after he was diagnosed with an incurable brain condition. The film depicts what happens when the couple lose their farm and livelihood after a business deal gone wrong. Penniless and homeless, they embark on a coastal path journey of discovery. The Bible is full of such symbolic journeys. They’re never simply just about getting from A to B. Something happens on the way. Each journey tells a story of the people walking it. In Luke, two disciples walking and talking on the road to Emmaus meet the risen Jesus, but don’t recognise it’s him. St. Paul is converted on the road to Damascus. More and more people, including younger generations, are embarking on journeys of transformation, hoping to find themselves, peace and maybe a touch of transcendence. In 1984, just 423 pilgrims completed the famous Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, the most famous in Europe. By 2024, that number was up to more than 500,000. Today, pilgrims may not themselves belong to a religious tradition, but are hungry for something more. In what can often feel like an overly materialistic world, where each of us accumulates more and more stuff, there’s a beauty in pilgrims walking these paths unencumbered, with just a backpack and some walking boots. They’re travelling light in more ways than one. Most, however, are of course unburdening themselves through choice, stepping aside from the basic needs of their life to find something. For some people, particularly those living in poverty and conflict zones around the world, the state of having nothing isn’t just temporary, but reflects the reality of their daily lives. But those of us who can choose to leave our possessions behind for journeys of discovery can learn something precious in the process. St. Francis of Assisi, who did just that, said, You cannot all abandon your possessions, but at least you can change your attitude about them. All getting separates you from others. Maybe it’s the lack of distraction by our material possessions that enables pilgrims to open their eyes to the world and what might be out there, beyond the physical things they see, or the paths they tread. As the protagonist Christian notes in the Pilgrim’s Progress, a man there was, though some did count him mad, the more he cast away, the more he had.
 

30 May 25 — Professor Michael Hurley

What’s the most powerful technology humans have ever invented? Not agriculture or electricity; not vaccination or the steam engine; not computers or the internet. More potent than any of these – and more so than any gun or rocket or bomb too – is, I would wager, the human capacity for language. Not all uses of language suggest its technological refinement. On Sunday, Donald Trump called Vladimir Putin “absolutely crazy”, and Russian officials the week before called Volodymyr Zelensky a “clown” and a “loser”, the geo-political equivalent of playground taunting. We have a right to expect more from public discourse – and from our own verbal lives too. A new book by Laura Spinney, Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, tells the fascinating tale of how a tiny, long-lost ancestral language – Proto-Indo-European – gave birth to a great family of languages, including English, now used by almost half the world’s population. These languages express more than mere grammar and vocabulary. They carry with them a whole, evolving cultural memory, belief and belonging. They are vast reservoirs of imaginative potential waiting to be unleashed. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”: that well-known English proverb is a helpful reminder for anyone unduly upset by trivial or accidental misuses of language. The biblical Book of Proverbs, however, makes the point that, in certain contexts, words can actually cause great harm – or indeed, great good. “Death and life”, we are told, “are in the power of the tongue.” To be mindful of how our actions affect others is a familiar Christian sentiment. Intriguingly, though, Proverbs has a twist in its tail. Those who “love” language, we’re advised, “will eat its fruits.” The wisdom here reminds me of something Virginia Woolf once observed about clothes: that while we wear them, they also wear us. Try on a new dress or suit, or put on an unfamiliar outfit, and we not only seem to be a different person so far as the rest of the world is concerned; in some sense we come to think of ourselves differently as well. Language has that same reflexive quality – but at an even deeper level. We use words to shape the world through our interactions, but the very act of communication also changes us in the process. Over time, we become what we speak. Wielding our tongues, then, we have a surprising, often-overlooked moral responsibility to ourselves as well as to others. The Book of Proverbs sounds a salutary warning that, for good and for ill, the transformative technology of language recoils on those who use it. Beware. To live by verbal swords risks dying by them too.
 

29 May 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

My mother tells me that when I was not much more than 1 year old, she took me to the window of their flat and told me to look up. There I was to see the moon – on which Neil Armstrong was walking on that very day in July 1969. The first British astronaut who may similarly land on the moon is Rosemary Coogan, who, it was reported last week, has spent the last 6 months training at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston. Today in churches and cathedrals, the question will be asked from Scripture – why are you looking up? On Ascension Day, today, the stories are told of Jesus withdrawing from the world after all the heat and dust of crucifixion, and those heady resurrection appearances on beaches, in gardens, behind locked doors. Today, the friends who’d been with him all that time are left – looking up into the sky – into heaven as the story goes. Medieval Christianity imagined God up there – we could look up – and although we couldn’t physically see – we could imagine a large throne, with millions of angels and gold leaf, with crowns and chariots, and in the incomparable imagery of the Book of Revelation, all accompanied by the sound of rushing waters and the glassy sea. Just 8 years before that moon landing, human beings had gone into space for the first time and found, if we ever needed to know for sure, that this sort of heaven wasn’t there. But what was there – what is there now – is atmosphere that the World Meteorological Organisation reported yesterday, contains so much carbon that the world will now heat close to 2 degrees, heat that is already bringing such destruction and suffering on the earth. Why are you looking up? is the Biblical question asked of Christians on Ascension Day. And now, as then, the searching of the skies is a search for meaning, for truth. But now as then, this searching is not isolated from the earth, but intimately connected to human wellbeing, the hope and suffering of creation. The disciples of Christ, left gazing into the sky, were compelled to turn back to earthly life, plunging themselves into the daily negotiations of politics, sickness and health, the economics of society and a radical re-think of spiritual life: the forming of new communities rooted in love. And so today the same question might be asked of us: why do you search the skies for meaning? And the answer might come back: Look up, or don’t look up: but Ascension tells us don’t look away.
 

28 May 25 — John Studzinski

The 8 o’clock news is approaching. Sometimes, you need to be brave just to listen to the headlines. But it’s a mistake to try and hide from what’s going on in the world. As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, “A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.” We all know that the world can be a wonderful place. But it has also always been a frightening place. Most frightening right now – after decades of relative, if uneasy stability – are the radical changes in the world order. They are happening so quickly and dramatically that even the experts can’t predict what will happen next. The world’s dominant fears today are radically different from the universal fear we experienced five years ago. Then, it was Covid. Surprisingly, the pandemic and its lasting consequences play little part in current narratives – it could be that we’d like to pretend that it never happened. The truth is that lockdown changed us all. Fear was undoubtedly a factor in 2020, and it will be a factor in our responses to the very real possibility of a future pandemic. Back in 1987, it wasn’t a virus, but a serious car accident that almost deprived me of the ability to breathe without the aid of a machine. That was a prospect that filled me with fear, though I never lost my faith. For me, the turning point came with some perceptive advice from a senior doctor. He wanted me to breathe into a medicine ball in an attempt to inflate my one remaining lung. Recognising my faith, he told me to pray first. I prayed very hard and blew – as hard as I possibly could – into the medicine ball … It worked. Now I know that will not be everyone’s experience, but…Some words from the Book of Timothy come to my mind. “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power, and love, and of a sound mind.” Still more than that, I believe that God has given us a soul. Fear can attack our body, our intellect and our emotions, but our soul exists on a different plane that only we can access. If we succeed in finding ways of tapping into our soul, we can put our fears into context and make ourselves at least a little braver, more able to formulate strategies for survival or even to learn to prevail. You will soon hear the news. The headlines might turn out to be daunting. But …This is as good a time as any to start putting your fears aside.
 

27 May 25 — Canon Dr Paula Gooder

According to a report in the Times, 1 in 7 homes plan to buy a robot vacuum cleaner in the next year. This statistic comes from the Aviva report ‘How we live’ which also states that 1 in 10 households already have one. With mild embarrassment, I feel the need to admit that our household is one of those 10% and not only that, but, like many other people, we have personified the machine. In our house, she’s called fluffy and we talk about her as though she is an actual person. If a robot vacuum cleaner is at one end of a spectrum, just a small step along from a washing machine or a vacuum cleaner that you push round the house by yourself, at the other end lies generative artificial intelligence chatbots, representing a much greater leap forward. They challenge us to ask a whole raft of questions about what we use technology for. The writer, Joanna Maciejewska has famously said “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.” Of course, that is not really the choice. The reality is that AI can do both the laundry and dishes, and art and writing. This poses the question of what human beings will do then? If we use technology to make our lives easier what are we going to do instead of vacuuming the carpet? At its heart, this asks us to reflect on what makes our lives worthwhile. If a machine can do much of what we currently do, what will we do instead? One response to this question is to reflect on the fact that we are human beings not human doings. As the Genesis creation stories remind us, God created humanity in the image of God and our worth is in our very existence, not in what we do. At the same time, to be created in the image of God means that, like God, we create. Human beings are, by their nature, creative and our calling is, constantly, to work out what that means in the world today. We cannot know how technology will evolve in the future nor how it will affect us, but we can be confident that human creativity will continue to be essential. Whatever happens and however AI develops, the human capacity for growth and ingenuity is immense and our creativity will take us to places we cannot yet imagine.
 

26 May 25 — Jasvir Singh

The holiest of holies for Sikhs is Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, India and it’s also known as the Golden Temple. A hundred miles away in Pakistan is another sacred Sikh site –Nankana Sahib, where Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh faith was born Over the last fortnight, India and Pakistan have claimed that these holy places were targeted by the other side as part of the recent conflict. Pakistan said that Nankana Sahib had been subject to a drone attack by the Indian armed forces. Meanwhile, India said it had prevented Pakistan from firing missiles at the Golden Temple. Both countries denied the claims of the other, and the sites thankfully emerged unscathed, but the reports sparked widespread concern, confusion, and alarm. In this age of disinformation, provocative claims, regardless of whether true or not, go viral in a matter of moments. They can inflame situations and stoke further mistrust. And sadly, religion and identity often get caught up in the middle, with faith at times weaponised by foes and allies alike. It’s a pattern we see in so many conflicts across the world. For Sikhs, the fraught relationship between India and Pakistan is especially painful. Punjab is a region twice the size of the UK, and it’s the birthplace of the Sikh faith. It was split in two during Partition in 1947, and it now lies on either side of that tightly sealed border. Sikh history and identity are tied to both lands. In the 1950s the daily prayer of supplication, the Ardas, was amended to call for a time when Sikhs could openly visit gurdwaras which had been largely closed off to them because of Partition. One such place is Kartarpur Sahib, in Pakistan, where Guru Nanak died almost five centuries ago. In 2019, the “Kartarpur Corridor” was opened to allow visa-free access for Indian Sikhs to visit and pay their respects there. It was a moment of extraordinary hope. Families and friends divided by the border for almost 80 years were suddenly able to reunite for a few hours a day at this holy site. The Corridor became a literal bridge of peace, cutting through decades of hostility. Sadly that bridge is now shut – another casualty of the conflict. Sikh teachings say that despite worldly divisions, there is oneness in all of creation. Guru Nanak’s message was one of unity, of truth transcending difference, and of compassion overcoming hatred. In the words of the Fourth Guru, “There is only one breath; all are made of the same clay; the light within all is the same”. In conflicts such as these, it’s easy to get caught up by emotional responses designed to pit one group against another. But when identities are weaponised, the power of faith to heal divisions and bring people together becomes all the more important.
 

24 May 25 — Dr Krish Kandiah

The smartly dressed man was pacing back and forth in the lobby, visibly distressed. Those who saw him were concerned for his welfare. Perhaps he had been upset by the incident that had just occurred on the street outside. Sirens were still sounding, officers were cordoning off an area, there had been gunshots. People rallied round to offer the poor man what help they could – a friendly smile, a glass of water. It was a beautiful image of strangers coming together to offer simple human kindness to someone in need. But that moment of tenderness did not last long. Suddenly armed police officers ran in and arrested the man for murdering two Israeli embassy staff. Sarah and Yaron were a young couple on their way home from attending a humanitarian relief event. They had been planning to get engaged in a few weeks, before their lives had been so cruelly cut short. It’s a disturbing contradiction. On one side a spontaneous act of compassion, in the form of a simple glass of water, offered to a stranger, irrespective of who he was, what he believed, which side he was on. On the other side a premeditated act of violence against two strangers who had unwittingly become political pawns in someone else’s narrative. For me, hospitality is at the heart of compassion, the hallmark of those who want to relieve suffering, who refuse to become like those who dehumanise. Nowhere is this distinction seen more acutely in our world at the moment than in Gaza. An 11-week-aid blockade is very slowly easing. World leaders are speaking up to end the suffering of Palestinian people who have been without food for so long but not everyone recognises their humanity. Where some see victims, others see terrorists. You may have seen news reports about Shaimaa, a mother in Gaza. Her husband scavenges through rubble each morning in search of food, often returning empty-handed. Their baby daughter, Sham, was delivered by caesarean in January without anaesthetic. All Shaimaa has to offer her is water, with salt added to trick the baby’s stomach into feeling full when it isn’t. The response on social media is divided – between those who are outraged and want to offer help – and those who are outraged at those who want to help. It’s not a new problem. Thousands of years ago Jesus divided people by their willingness to offer a simple glass of water to a stranger. “Come”, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance”, he tells those who respond with compassion. Any of us who do not show such compassion receive a warning – the risk of being cursed and cast out. Jesus reminds us that a glass of water given to any stranger speaks volumes. It declares a common thread in our shared humanity, and a commitment to respond to suffering and hatred with compassion. We can’t always stop violence, but we can choose not to dehumanise. I want to be like those this week whose instinct was to offer water to someone in need.
 

23 May 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

Around 88 thousand people are waking up in prison in England and Wales today. Around 11,000 are serving sentences of 10 years or more and maybe around 500 people are waking up this morning on their first day in a prison cell. The Government’s Sentencing Review published yesterday, essentially a pragmatic response to the reality that UK prisons are full, raises not just practical considerations but deeper questions for our society about what prison is for, what it’s like to live in there or work in there, and what happens, what should happen, when people come out through the gates again as nearly every person in prison today will. The review highlighted that it costs £54,000 a year to keep someone in prison. And in England and Wales, a higher proportion of people are sent to prison compared with the population than any other country in western Europe. This reveals something about not only government policy or the criminal justice system, but the culture, expectations, beliefs and assumptions of a society that seems to say more than other countries that prison is the answer to crime. Teaching the difference between right and wrong is a key preoccupation of organised religion, including Christianity, which as a set of beliefs and values, has had an unusually close relationship with the state over the centuries. But it would be a mistake to imagine that these lines between right and wrong, even if rooted in Christian values, have always been agreed or have stayed the same. What is wrong enough to deserve your freedom being taken away has changed significantly, with still the predominant presumption that conviction of a violent crime requires prison more than, say, fraud. Profound themes of justice, redemption, restoration, forgiveness and punishment lie underneath a governmental review of something as practical as sentencing. For some, the deprivation of freedom is punishment enough. For others, the balance towards rehabilitation mustn’t tip too far. Christianity has a centuries old mechanism which confronts individuals with the harm we cause each other, gives us strength to face it, not avoid it, and offers the possibility of spiritual if not physical release. It’s called confession. And hidden within it, is a sign that the movement from incarceration to freedom is at the heart of what it is to be human, but that starting again isn’t something that’s easily done. A bracing confrontation of the truth of our crimes is required. ‘Restore thou them that are penitent’ we pray. Restore: a sign that in a just and free society, for nearly all those in prison today, with hard work, honesty and sorrow, our culture still wants to say there is, must be, a way back.
 

22 May 25 — Daniel Greenberg

There is no word for “mine” in the Hebrew language. For any Hebrew speakers now shouting “sheli” at the radio, the late Rabbi Morris Swift (a leading UK orthodox Rabbinic judge of the last century, noted for powerful and idiosyncratic sermons) used to respond to similar cries of “sheli” from around the synagogue by explaining that it is a conflation of two words: “yesh” meaning there is, and “li” meaning to me. This etymological construct reminds us that the Jewish concept of property is that God assigns property to my use and control from time to time, but it remains God’s in all real senses. The theme of the Torah portion that we will read this week in synagogues around the world is that of responsible property ownership. That includes the laws of the Sabbatical year: the farmer’s determination to maximise profit from agricultural land is subordinated to the duty to leave the land fallow once in every seven years, to preserve its health for others, including future generations. The duty to remit debts at the Sabbatical year, and the Biblical prohibition of charging interest on loans, carry the same clear message: if I have spare money I should lend it in a spirit of sharing my blessings, and not as a way of increasing my wealth through the exploitation of others’ need. Through land law, credit law and employment law this week’s Torah portion focuses the Jewish concept of property on responsibility and not on possession. I am a guardian of any property that is “sheli” – allocated to me from time to time – and I must nurture it and share it in that spirit. This was a radical message in Biblical times in many societies where might was right and possession was ten tenths of the law: but of course today it is widely accepted throughout different societies and cultures. It chimes with environmental policies that see us increasingly as only guardians of the planet and its resources; and it fits with widespread and growing understanding of social responsibility at the heart of successful commercial and corporate culture. Organised religion can come with a dangerous sense of entitlement: prosperity becomes a reward flowing from God’s approval of my way of life. We read about Jewish property law this week shortly before the festival of Shavuot, which is a harvest festival but also reenacts our acceptance of the Torah’s commandments, to remind us that social responsibility is an essential prerequisite for accepting ritual laws in a setting that makes them a blessing, and not a burden, for humankind.
 

21 May 25 — John Studzinski

The world we live in is filled with noise, much of it generated by remote communication. But if you really want to listen to somebody, a mobile phone just won’t do: you need to be in the same room. On Sunday, I was in the same room as Pope Leo. It was an enormous room – St Peter’s Basilica – and I was some 50 feet away from him. But there I was, listening to the successor to St Peter himself as he said: “If the rock is Christ, Peter must shepherd the flock without ever yielding to the temptation to be an autocrat.” Perhaps surprisingly, the late Pope Francis – for all his warmth and humility, and his emphasis on a synodal church – was sometimes times not averse to imposing his wisdom. Pope Leo, for his part, has already given proof of a consultative approach to leadership. As the Italian newspaper La Stampa observed, in forming the new Curia to administer the Holy See, he has favoured individual interviews, targeted questions and listening. Listening would have been of the essence in his years as a grassroots Augustinian missionary in Peru, living with people who were poor, marginalised or in danger, learning to understand their experiences and needs, and helping them to realise their aspirations. In our daily lives, we must remain conscious of the need to listen. It could be that social media has made us all too concerned about having our say. Or perhaps we are too busy trying to formulate a smart response. But, as the Book of Proverbs warn us, “To answer before listening – that is folly and shame.” Our priority should be to listen with an open mind, without judging, so that we can understand, empathise and find a balanced perspective – and learn a great deal along the way. There is an art to listening, and it’s an art that can hold transformative power. My friend Erling Kagge, the Norwegian explorer, has written extensively about listening, and about the way it works with silence to deepen our understanding of ourselves and others. On a larger and more momentous scale, listening was at the heart of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa in the 1990s: in providing a space for both victims and perpetrators to make themselves heard, it set an example for the world. Through listening we can honour the dignity of every person. So let us pray that we listen actively, use silence wisely, and go on to communicate with empathy and purpose, strengthening relationships and communities. Listening can give us the wherewithal to create a world that is both more compassionate and more cohesive.
 

20 May 25 — Canon Dr Paula Gooder

On Sunday Pope Leo XIV presided at his inaugural mass attended, it is thought, by over 200,000 people. Now as the pomp and ceremony fade away, the pope must turn his attention to leading the nearly 1.5 billion Catholics around the world, as well as making a contribution on the world stage among those who do not count themselves as being part of his flock. It is hard to imagine what it might feel like to be him. Nearly a fortnight ago, Cardinal Robert Prevost entered the conclave. He was not well-known outside of the Catholic church, and seemed to live as ordinary a life as a cardinal who worked in the Vatican could. Apparently he played wordle and words with friends regularly with his brother and went to the gym two or three times a week. Indeed one of the lovely stories to emerge this weekend was that his personal trainer had no idea who he was or what he did. He assumed he was a professor, and was, to put it mildly, somewhat surprised when he recognized him on the balcony of St Peter’s square. The former Cardinal, he reports, was a truly serene and balanced person – and in excellent physical condition. So how do you cope with going from being relatively unknown two weeks ago to being one of the most recognized faces in the world? The key for Pope Leo seems to be in knowing who he is and in knowing that he is loved by God. In his first speech given on the day of his election he said ‘God loves us, all of us…we are all in the hands of God.’ His words bring to mind Psalm 139 in which the psalmist talks about being searched out by God, knitted together by God in his mother’s womb and knowing himself to be fearfully and wonderfully made. Leadership experts also often suggest that understanding who you are and being comfortable in that knowledge is the first pillar of good leadership. Fortunately most of us will never be called upon to undertake a learning curve as steep as Pope Leo’s but we will from time to time find ourselves facing huge challenges. and expectations upon us that far exceed what we think we can do. When those times come, when we find ourselves suddenly expected to summon up something extraordinary, may we rest in the knowledge that we are known by God, created by him to be who we are, and that our ordinariness can become extraordinary in his loving presence.
 

19 May 25 — Chine McDonald

The scenes were enough to make even the most hardened of us cry. Crystal Palace lifted the FA Cup on Saturday – a win over Manchester City securing the team’s first ever major trophy in 119 years. After the win, I thought of the devoted Palace fans I know, who had supported the club without ever seeing the promised land of a title. Their entire relationship with the club marked by a kind of wilderness as far as silverware is concerned. Until now. One lifelong supporter and friend of mine, overcome by the moment, replied to my congratulations with the words: “I wish my father could have been here to see this.” Saturday’s scenes – and all significant sporting moments – speak to us of something deeper. As Terry Pratchett said: “The thing about football – the important thing about football – is that it is not just about football.” Palace’s win brought home to me the profound reality that it’s about family and it’s about hope; and sometimes it’s about pressing on towards the goal, as St Paul put it, eyes fixed on the prize, despite the challenges. For me, this was poignantly captured at Wembley when Palace supporters in one of the stands created a huge image showing a moment from 2011 when a father – Mark Wealleans – tears streaming down his face and clad in red and blue – held his young sons up as they celebrated a goal. His boys were crying too. Tragically Mark died a few years later from cancer. But on Saturday his two sons – now grown men – were there to see a moment their dad could only have dreamed of. The Bible is full of stories of people – sometimes generations of people – committed to a future hope they can’t see. After escaping from captivity in Egypt, the Israelites wander in the wilderness for 40 years before they reach their promised land. Moses dies before seeing it himself. The earliest Christians thought Jesus’ return was imminent, and though they didn’t see this moment they so hoped for – they persevered nonetheless, some giving their lives for their cause of sharing the good news. Yesterday saw the inauguration of Pope Leo the 14th, who has devoted his life to following in the way of St Augustine. For Augustine, the Christian life is an “exercise of holy desire”, of longing and waiting for the thing we hope for. “Simply by making us wait,” he wrote, God “increases our desire, which in turn enlarges the capacity of our soul, making it able to receive what is to be given to us”. For Palace fans perhaps it’s precisely the long wait that added to the glory. Even if it took 119 years to come.
 

17 May 25 — Rev Canon Dr Rob Marshall

It’s just over a week since Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost was unveiled on the balcony in St Peter’s Square. His gentle smile and unassuming manner have lifted the mood in Rome after the sadness surrounding the death of Pope Francis. Tomorrow morning the 267th successor to St Peter, will officially begin his ministry as Pope Leo XIV. The new Pontiff faces a huge challenge leading the world’s 1.4bn Catholics into the future. Two symbols and two saints will be the focus of an elaborate service at the Vatican tomorrow. Pope Leo will first be presented with a pallium, a strip of lambswool to wear over his shoulders, representing his pastoral role as shepherd of his flock. But perhaps most intriguing is the Fisherman’s Ring. Following Pope Francis’s death, his papal ring was ceremonially destroyed—a symbolic gesture marking the close of his papacy. Tomorrow, during the inauguration, a newly cast gold signet ring, crafted especially for Pope Leo, will be placed on his finger. Traditionally, the ring bears an image of St. Peter the fisherman, Jesus’ foremost disciple and one of the key figures in the foundation of the Early Church. The pallium and ring, simple symbols of pastoral care and mission, will remind the new Pope and the faithful of the huge task facing the whole church in uncertain times. Two particular saints, it would seem, will serve as clear inspirations to Pope Leo. St. Peter embodies honesty and vulnerability and bravery throughout the New Testament. He does his best- yet often falls short—nearly sinking as he tries to walk on water before denying Jesus in a moment of fear. Yet it was precisely through the strength he revealed in his vulnerability that Jesus named him Peter—Petros in Greek—the rock upon which the Church would be built. But there is another saint who will no doubt shape Pope Leo’s ministry. While Francis was a Jesuit—renowned for his compassion towards the marginalized and the poor—Leo comes from the Augustinian tradition, a perhaps lesser-known religious order that follows the teachings of the 4th-century bishop and theologian, St. Augustine of Hippo. Central to their charism is a call to humility: to serve the community, to seek truth through the gift of grace. Indeed, there’s a famous quote often attributed to St Augustine that’s fitting for these troubled times. He’s believed to have said that Hope has two beautiful daughters: anger at the way things are, and courage to ensure they don’t stay that way. Words that certainly resonate as prayers are offered for Pope Leo XIV, the newest successor of St. Peter.
 

16 May 25 — Rev Dr Sam Wells

Eighty years ago, Harvard Law School acquired a manuscript it thought was a copy of the Magna Carta for $27. It got a surprise this week when it turned out to be a genuine version from the thirteenth century worth untold millions. There are two stories of the Magna Carta. The historical one is that in 1215 the Archbishop of Canterbury proposed an end to the king’s conflict with the barons, by protecting them from delayed justice, arbitrary imprisonment, and undue feudal payments. The mythical story is that from medieval times English customs protected individual liberties, asserted the role of Parliament, and prohibited unlawful detention. This mystical account encouraged the early advocates of democracy and inspired the American Founding Fathers. Much as we might wish to recall Magna Carta as the first step on the long walk to freedom, in truth the notion of these liberties being extended beyond a select few never entered the original signatories’ minds. Everyone likes the sound of individual freedoms: but guarding the freedom of others is another matter. One challenge advocates of liberty have never satisfactorily solved, is what happens when my exercise of my freedom inhibits your exercise of yours. Freedom is only a virtue if I recognise I need voluntarily to limit the exercise of my liberty in order to give space to let you inhabit yours. The Acts of the Apostles is an extended study in what freedom means. The early Christian disciples, empowered by the Holy Spirit, face a series of confrontations and opportunities that force them to explore and discover a world without exclusion. Gradually they open their imaginations to realise that the gift of life isn’t just for some, but for everyone. They’re constantly fighting an impulse to restrict, demand, limit, exclude. But they’re amazed and humbled as each time the Holy Spirit finds a place for everybody. Like the early apostles, the modern world faces daily challenges to preserve personal security while advancing individual freedom. The librarians of Harvard Law School found they’d got rather more than they bargained for when their Magna Carta turned out to be more significant than they realised. Maybe today society faces a similar realisation. It transpires that long-cherished liberties are protections of the strong that disregard the weak. And perhaps while freedom and security are blessings when qualified, they can become curses when turned into absolutes. The struggle to ensure freedom is not for some, but for all, is the story of society and church. Maybe what’s emerging is that this struggle, far from being settled long ago, is very much in full swing.
 

15 May 25 — Rev Dr Michael Banner

‘Men are bad for the planet’. That would be the sensational way to announce the findings of some sober research which looked at the carbon footprint of some 15,000 people in France. It showed that men are responsible for 26% more greenhouse gas emissions than women – and even allowing for the fact that men typically need and eat more calories and travel longer distances, there is still a gender gap, explained by what men eat and how they get around. ‘Our results suggest’ says one of the researchers from the London School of Economics, ‘that traditional gender norms, particularly those linking masculinity with red meat and car use, play a significant role in shaping individual carbon footprints.’ One of the first converts to Christianity after Christ’s death, as reported in the Books of Acts, is strikingly out of step with traditional gender norms. He arrives in the story riding in a chariot – which was probably the equivalent for its time of driving an over powered sports car – but after that he significantly fails to be a man’s man, to use an expression from my parent’s era. The Ethiopian eunuch, as he is known, is an important figure – the treasurer to a great queen. But there’s the point – he serves a woman, and he has been unmanned to do so. In the classical world eunuchs were regarded as deeply ambiguous figures, neither man nor woman, transgressing traditional boundaries. But rather than skirting round the issue, Luke, the writer of the book of Acts, rather draws attention to this convert’s tricky status – he fails to give us his name, but refers to him five times in one short passage as a eunuch. Of all the expressions of conventional conceptions of masculinity, driving more than you really need to and eating steak rather than fish, are probably low down on any scale of toxicity. And yet if a man needs to reassure himself of his masculinity by driving a car – the more powerful the better presumably – the chances are that being powerful and dominant is also part of what he thinks it is to be a real man. If the Ethiopian eunuch, the model convert, doesn’t measure up, neither of course does Jesus. A man who strips off and gets down on his hands and knees to wash his disciples’ feet is not signalling alpha male, at least as generally understood. And yet to resist the stereotypes – to choose a non-conventional way of being a male by eschewing expectations of mastery and domination – is surely an expression not of weak conformity, but of powerful self possession. For the sake of the planet, but more generally for the sake of healthy human relationships, we need to be strong enough to ditch the stereotypes.
 

14 May 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

In a report published this week by Intergenerational England, a bleak picture was painted of our society in that we are increasingly separated not only by geography or wealth but by age. It’s said in the report that “The UK is facing a stark level of age segregation, in where we live and how we connect online. This deepening divide fuels mistrust between generations.” Yesterday on this programme we were asked directly – how much time do you spend with someone of a different generation from you who is not in your family? And one of the statistics in this week’s report gave one answer: only 7% of care home residents spend regular time with anyone under 30. Surrounded by the possibility of connection online and in person, we seem to be struggling to make it real, and the divide across the generations is yet another version of this. Living in London as I do, I observe that the peaceful operation of a city depends on a high degree of cooperation across the generations: on the pavement, on public transport, in public spaces, parks, shops and cafes. But the loneliest place is in a crowd, when the people you can see, whose voices you can hear, are not people you know, let alone people you love. The mother of Jesus, Mary, sang in her Magnificat that generations after her would look back and see that she had been blessed: her stance was towards the young, and her assumption was that this blessing was for all of them. This is intergenerational wisdom needed in a society struggling with patterns of living that have made us more distant, more liable to disassociate and therefore requiring more intention and effort to connect. One of the most instructive intergenerational friendships in Scripture is shared by Christians and Jews. It is the story of Naomi and her daughter in law Ruth. Their fates tied together because of social and economic circumstance, and united in struggle and grief, they pledged across the generations because each recognised that their flourishing depended on the other. What sort of society could we imagine if we were able to pledge our common humanity similarly today, whatever our age, as they did? If we intentionally sought out the stories and wisdom of those younger and older than us and pledged ourselves to listen well? We might be able to see one another as fellow travellers on the road, and be able to say, as Ruth said to the older Naomi: where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.
 

13 May 25 — Canon Dr Paula Gooder

A study published this week has demonstrated the effectiveness of certain ‘weight loss drugs’ on regulating appetite. For some, this will be wonderful news. Weight loss interventions in the right contexts can be nothing short of life-transforming. But the story raises, yet again, the age old question of how we relate to our bodies in a positive way. While for some people these drugs will bring healthiness and well-being, there are worrying reports of people using them harmfully, to achieve thinness at all costs, with the risk of them becoming malnourished. The need for body positivity is not new. Talk of ‘fat-shaming’, and the need to resist it, began as early as the 1960s. Yet, as I grew up through the 1970s and 80s, it felt as though I was bombarded constantly with images of unfeasible and unhealthy skinniness and the threat of being deemed ugly. When I had two children myself, both of them girls, I worked really hard to instil in them the value of healthiness rather than thinness but it has, over the years, felt like an uphill battle. Somedays the effort to resist the narrative that my value rests solely in what I look like, takes every ounce of mental energy that I have. The Christian tradition hasn’t always helped with this. Talk of spirituality can imply that it is more important to look after our souls than our bodies. But actually, throughout the Bible, bodies are hugely valued and significant. God created human beings, with bodies, and declared them to be very good. The apostle Paul when he talked about life after death assumed that this would be bodily and, when he spoke about Christians gathered together, he called them the body of Christ. Jesus, himself, declared that he had come to give life, life in all its fullness. The life he was talking about was as much physical as it was spiritual. We are embodied beings, beloved by God, bodies and all. This week is mental health awareness week, and BBC Wellbeing week, with content across channels exploring mental health and emotional wellbeing.. It is a really good time to remind ourselves that we do not have bodies we are bodies, and they are not a source of shame, not something to be loathed or despised. They are to be loved and cherished exactly as they are, with all of their curves, squidgy bits and quirkiness. Our bodies are glorious and they are worth celebrating and looking after in every way possible.
 

12 May 25 — Vishvapani

As an outsider, I was fascinated to observe the process of finding a new Pope through a combination of human negotiation and openness to divine inspiration. There’s no Buddhist Pope, but we have our own version of the issues of succession and legitimacy that affect every organisation and collective endeavour. These have a particular resonance today, Buddha Day, or Wesak, when Buddhists around the world celebrate our founder. The ancient sources say the Buddha gained Enlightenment aged thirty-five and spent the next forty-five years teaching and establishing a community. He was a unique figure whose guidance others naturally followed. But towards the end of his life, when people asked him to name his successor, he refused. He told his followers to rely on themselves and the Dharma – the body of his teachings – and the community that supported their efforts. Even the teaching was merely a raft whose purpose was to help people cross a stream, not something to which they should become attached. Putting this into practice wasn’t from straightforward. Preserving the Buddha’s words meant establishing a canon of scriptures and a system for reciting them. The challenge was combining fidelity to the letter of his teachings with the spirit of wisdom and liberation they expressed. Buddhists responded in various ways. When Tibet’s Dalai Lama dies, his followers identify the child in whom he has been reborn. That’s one way to maintain a teacher’s inspiration, but the process has always been politically fraught, no more so than now, as the current Dalai Lama approaches his ninetieth birthday and the Chinese government demands involvement in choosing his successor. In any case, the arrangement’s unique to Tibet, the Dalai Lama isn’t a Pope and Buddhism as a whole has no leader. Some schools affirm the transmission of a sacred spark from teacher to disciple, who is relatively free to innovate; others emphasise continuity. Some resist innovation while others embrace it. The result is that the Buddhist tradition is extremely diverse. But there are sources of unity. All Buddhist schools share an understanding that life is transient, that actions have consequences and that we can follow a path of transformative understanding. The purpose of the various forms the tradition has taken is to help people do that. If Buddhist history offers a lesson about negotiating succession, perhaps it’s the need to continually rediscover the ends a tradition serves and bring them alive in every generation.
 

10 May 25 — Martin Wroe

It was built in 1863 to accommodate a congregation of 930 Calvinist Methodists in the town of Pwlhelli in north Wales. Capel Salem, was designed by Thomas Thomas, the national architect of Wales, but if you’re watching Channel Four’s absorbing makeover show, Our Welsh Chapel Dream, then you’ll know that the ministers vestry has now become a light-filled open-plan bedroom. And the former Sunday school a huge living room. The new kitchen is all red, the bathroom bible-black. The Grade II listed Chapel is being redeveloped by Potter Keith Brymer Jones and his actor partner Marj Hogarth and will include a studio and community hub. Out with the dry rot and in with the underfloor heating. Out with the Sunday service and in with the pottery workshop. A small Welsh town no longer needs seating for 930 Calvinist Methodists. It doesn’t need any seats actually. It was closed a while ago. It’s the end of a tradition. The chapel will house new rituals and practices. ‘You sometimes forget as an adult,’ says Marge, ‘You can do whatever you want.’ Not a sermon ever previously heard in this chapel. Although religion may be the most enduring form of popular culture, no tradition has a free pass to the future. Every tradition must allow for its own succession. Among the images of the new Pope Leo is one of him being embraced by his predecessor, Pope Francis. It was Francis who made him a Bishop in Peru and, two years ago, made him a cardinal. Of those electing the new Pope, eight in ten were chosen by Francis, carefully ensuring that someone would follow him who would also follow his path. The story is about succession… or the story is over. And not only in religion. In the recent Bob Dylan film A Complete Unknown, the young folk singer regularly visits the bedside of a dying Woody Guthrie. It is a folk music version of the laying on of hands, one generation passing the holy flame to another. But sometimes the successor is seen to betray the tradition – as the film shows when Dylan goes electric and folk fans go apoplectic. One generation thinks a tradition is fixed, but another comes along and thinks… well, maybe not… Those who hold power, who regard themselves as keepers of the flame, may be insecure, even control freaks, but if they don’t make room for a new generation, their tradition is soon history. We are said to ‘break with tradition’ or to ‘uphold tradition’ – but it’s not so binary. Unless we refresh the tradition and give it new life… we let it die. As a musical genius from an earlier age, Gustav Mahler, put it: ’Tradition is passing on the fire not worshipping the ashes.’
 

09 May 25 — Tim Stanley

Yesterday, the Catholic Church elected a new pope: Leo XIV. I was in St Peter’s Square for the historic event, which is just around the corner from where I’m speaking now. I was also in floods of tears. Why? I’ll explain. I’m a catholic. I’m a convert. I also have a weak bladder. After several hours waiting for white smoke in the Square, to indicate the cardinals had chosen a winner, I decided to go into the Basilica. To be honest, I needed to use the loos. But it turned out to be providential. I attended Mass. I knelt by the tomb of John Paul II and prayed that we’d get a good pope – soon. It was almost exactly when I stepped back outside, just after 6pm, that white smoke began billowing out of the chimney. The crowd went wild. Catholics love their pope. That doesn’t mean there aren’t difficult personalities in the office or serious mistakes made. But we remain one big family, something that really hits home when you’re surrounded by thousands of believers from across the planet. The pope is this messy family’s holy father. Being in Rome always reminds me of the texture of my faith, its sights and sounds, and its history. That’s why we were stunned when we heard the new pope was Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost. An American! We’ve never had one of those before. A missionary to Peru, then an archbishop. And then I heard the name he’d chosen: Leo XIV. Papal names are picked for their significance; think of it like naming a baby after your beloved grandfather. And Leo XIII was one of my favourite popes of all. In 1891, he published “Rerum Novaraum”, meaning “of new things”, a document that condemned injustice and put the Church firmly on the side of the poor. We heard talk during this conclave of a tension in the church between clarity vs charity: between whether the next pope should defend ancient teachings or emphasise helping others. But I don’t believe there’s any contradiction. Jesus taught us to love God and to love human beings, and this alliance of faith and social action is what being part of any church is all about. Some watching at home might have found the ceremony antiquated and odd. But religious people, like all people, are simply trying to work out the best way to live and to live it – and one rarely makes that journey alone. I’ve found myself immersed in other people, in their values and kindness. I converted to catholicism twenty years ago, and to this day I can’t quite explain why. But being in St Peter’s Square, I felt I’d come home.
 

08 May 25 — Rev Jayne Manfredi

I’ve been exploring the idea of slow living, a movement which seeks to quietly reject late-stage capitalism by focussing on paying attention to the rhythm of the seasons, spending more time in nature and less time plugged into social media and our phones. It’s a concept which encourages us to embrace the present moment. This is all very well for those who have the time and finances to step away. For most people, living is about being on a hamster wheel of work and busyness that we can’t seem to get off even if we want to. To reject the prevailing mindset of our culture, feels impossible, but this is partly what Christians are called to do. Today is the feast day of Dame Julian of Norwich, my favourite theologian, and the ultimate example of stepping away from the world. Julian lived in the late 14th and early 15th century, and she was an anchoress, an early form of Christian monasticism like that of a hermit, except anchorites took vows which consecrated their lifelong withdrawal from the world. They chose to be permanently enclosed in a cell, communicating with people only through a small opening. The vows they took were similar to the funeral rite, symbolising that this withdrawal from the secular world was regarded as a type of death. From the moment Mother Julian was enclosed in her cell, she was symbolically dead to the world. Jesus taught that death was the way to feel truly alive, and this didn’t just mean a promise for a future, eternal life, but a death of self and ego which would enrich life here and now, in the present moment. Julian understood this all too well. Her most famous quote, “but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well,” grounds us to the present moment, in a troubling world where all is not well. Somehow, in ways we can’t understand, God will have the last word. Sadly, it’s not possible for me to live out the anchorite dream as Julian of Norwich did. Like most people, I can’t just step away from the things which trouble me, to become dead to the world and all its pain. But, All shall be well is more than just a platitude. It’s a challenge to surrender, to acknowledge that, whether we are people of faith or not, we don’t have the control over the universe that perhaps we wish we did. All shall be well is a powerful exhortation to live in the world without being destroyed by it, with hope as an anchor. God has the last word, and that word is love.
 

07 May 25 — Rev Dr Michael Banner

It will come as no surprise to anyone that the papal conclave which is meeting today to elect a new pope is meeting in Rome. The pope belongs to Rome and Rome to the pope just as surely – even more surely – than the King belongs in London and the President of the United States in Washington. But that the pope should find his home in Rome is in fact, a turn up for the books. Christianity grew up in a world dominated by Rome, and the apparatus of Roman imperialism – soldiers, prefects, centurions and governors – is the backdrop to Christ’s life and death just as surely as are fishermen, donkeys and palm trees. Later Christians would find in the achievements of Rome something of divine providence – the peace that Roman authority maintained allowed, for example, the travels of the first apostles and missionaries, such as Peter and Paul, taking them and their message even to Rome and the very heart of the empire. But the sense we get from Christ’s life that the Roman presence is a rather dark and ominous drum beat in the story, doesn’t just go away. The less than favourable references to Babylon in the Book of Revelation for example, are generally taken to be cryptic references to Rome itself, ‘drunk on the blood of the saints’. Early Christians were certainly not running the city back then, but more likely trembling in the catacombs on account of persecution. What a turn around then, that the leader of the worldwide Catholic church, should have his seat here, and now preside over a realm greater in extent, and of longer duration, that the Roman Empire. But even in this story, a story of Christian triumph you might think, an ominous drumbeat can still be heard. ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ says Jesus at his trial before that most prominent of Romans from the New Testament, Pontius Pilate. And yet once Christ’s followers, not just in Rome, but just as much in Canterbury or Constantinople, had gained success the early Christians could barely have imagined, all the snares and temptations of worldly power were there to trip them up. Jesus was a king who threw off his robes to wash his disciples’ feet. Many of Christ’s official representatives have found that sort of servile kingship less than enticing. All Christians, I believe, not just Roman Catholics, had cause to be grateful for the work and witness of Pope Francis. Francis seemed to find a way of embodying and representing something of Christ’s conception of leadership as a form of service to all people, but especially to the powerless – and I think we can all join today in hoping that the conclave will elect someone who, like Francis, will speak to worldly empires and rulers of such a radically different kingdom and a radically different kingship.
 

06 May 25 — Rev Dr Sam Wells

In the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, the runner Harold Abrahams sits quietly in the changing room, holding the Olympic 100-metre gold medal he’s just won. Friends burst in to congratulate him, confused that he’s sitting reflectively alone in the corner. But his best friend holds them back, whispering, ‘You don’t realise how difficult it is to win.’ VE Day evokes a diversity of emotions. There’s the clenched fist of conquest. There’s the whoop of joy, jumping into the fountain and kissing the stranger. There’s relief at the end of sacrifice. But there’s also grief for those who didn’t live to see this day. The experience of victory entails a further, rueful element: how long will the victors be able to keep the fruits of their conquest? Will it be a token victory, in which one wins the battle but loses the war, or a pyrrhic victory, in which the cost of winning almost constitutes a defeat? In Chariots of Fire, Harold Abrahams is glad to have won a gold medal after so much effort. But he knows it’s done nothing to change a 1920s society in which he experiences no true belonging because he’s a Jew. The truth is, despite the hold that rivalry and competition have over our imaginations, life isn’t fundamentally about winning. It’s more about finding ways to live with one another without resorting to violent confrontation. And that requires the nonviolent apprehension of differences. Arguably the greatest aspect of the Second World War for Britain was that it brought about an unprecedented level of mutual respect and equality, because it required every citizen working together to win it, and thus everyone knew they belonged. For most of its history, Christianity too has been captivated by the notion of victory, in the idea that the cross of Jesus conquers sin and death. The trouble is, sin and death seem to be very much still with us. I wonder if a better way of understanding Jesus’ cross is to see it as the ultimate demonstration that God will be with us, whatever befall: not that reality is a battle that’s already been won – instead, that existence is full of tragedy, conflict and despair, but there’s a love that will never let us go, and will ultimately endure. I imagine on May 8, 1945, while some jumped into fountains, others sat reflectively like Harold Abrahams cradling his medal. Victory can be ecstatic. But it’s fleeting. Life isn’t something you can win. Its truth lies perhaps more fully with those things that ultimately endure; and never let us go.
 

05 May 25 — Rev Professor David Wilkinson

Later today, the VE Day celebrations will feature extracts from Churchill’s famous ‘This is your hour’ speech, given originally from a Whitehall balcony. He did many other important things that day. He had already gained assurances that there were enough beer supplies in the capital! Then at 3pm he announced, on the radio, Germany’s unconditional surrender. He went on to give the same message in the Commons but added his gratitude for the strength of Parliamentary democracy in a time of war, and that the House should follow what happened at the end of the first War. He therefore moved that the House attend the Church of St. Margaret, ‘to give humble and reverent thanks to Almighty God for our deliverance’. So the Prime Minister led the Commons to push their way through ecstatic cheering crowds to St Margaret’s while the Lords went to Westminster Abbey. While the iconic image of VE Day was people dancing in the streets, the lesser-known image was of packed churches with the Abbey, St Paul’s and other churches around the country having services hourly throughout the day. Historians have pointed out that this relationship between faith, the British state and war is of course complex. There were those among the allies who saw Christianity as the only belief system able to match the power of Nazi ideology, and so used it to motivate and unite the population. Recruitment of religion in times of crisis to support the political righteousness of a cause was nothing new and the troubling message of ‘With God on our side’ is still proclaimed today from the US to Russia. Yet, I see in this need to pray and worship on VE Day something deeper. Worship in the Christian tradition is a framework for expression of celebration and thanksgiving. It is also a place to lament and remember those who’ve been killed or injured in the pursuit of victory over evil, which was so important for many that day. It is also an encounter with the story of Jesus, who embodies the way of peace and justice for all. As Churchill commented, ‘We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead.’ The St Margaret’s service finished with a rousing version of an Isaac Watts hymn that originally began, ‘Our God, our help in ages past’. But the Methodist John Wesley changed it to ‘O God, our help’, to say that God is my hope, but I do not own him. Worship allows me to celebrate but it also brings humility.
 

03 May 25 — Martin Wroe

The practice, in marriage, of taking a husbands surname is falling out of favour with millennial and Gen Z couples – that’s according to a report in the Times. In an age of gender equality alternative options are gaining popularity, perhaps with each partner retaining their last name or maybe going for the old school double barrel. This reminded me of several friends in recent years who’ve created blended surnames from each of their originals The Berrys and Rowes became the Roweberrys. The Leighs and Winters became the Winterleighs. While the Cross household and Starkey household became Starcross. Traditions insist on evolving, this is how they stay alive. Many popular UK surnames originate in the trades of long forgotten ancestors – people who were once smiths or butchers. Your name – Baker or Taylor — advertised your business. As we no longer need them to do that, this might explain why we don’t know anyone called Ted Programmer or Sheila Consultant or Mary Deputy-Headteacher-Brackets-Lower-School. Not only are we humans far more than simply what we do for a living but those traditional names were always rooted in the male ancestors, which, as the writer Rebecca Solnit observes, means that women were disappeared. ‘Names erased a woman’s genealogy and even her existence.’ Names tell a story about us. The names we are given and the names we grow into. When I’m invited to take someone’s funeral it’s often in the tributes of grieving loved ones that I catch a sense of the true name of someone I never met. Bill was a retired boxer who ran a chain of betting shops and loved a drink. The luminous tribute of his sons ended like this. ‘Dad would like us to give a special mention to the people who made his life more interesting – William Hill, Paddy Power and of course… all the Teachers.’ In the creation stories carried in the ancient book of Genesis, one of the early jobs that God asks of Adam is to give names to the animals. Names help us make sense of the world around us… and of each other. They help us see who we are. An ancient Hebrew commentary says that we all have three names – the one from our parents, the one people call us and – the best one – the one we gain for ourselves. In the end we name ourselves by the lives we live each day … and that’s a sacred act. We’re named Generous. Or Funny. Or Patient. Or Kind. Or Courageous. We’re named a good listener or a trustworthy friend or a loyal colleague. Along with our first name or our surname, every day is a naming ceremony. And, as that familiar prayer puts it, hallowed be thy name.
 

02 May 25 — Catherine Pepinster

Yesterday was one of the great days in the European calendar – May Day, once associated with folk traditions marking the start of summer, now a bank holiday in the European Union celebrating workers’ rights. Once it was always linked to the Virgin Mary but 70 years ago the Catholic Church announced May 1 as the feast of St Joseph the Worker. You might say that in creating this new feast it recognised the signs of the time: the then Pope, Pius XII, did so in the aftermath of the Second World War, knowing that the world had changed and the Church must change with it. He wanted to make it clear that the Church stood alongside ordinary people and that it recognised the worth and dignity of work. What better way then, than to make May 1 the feast day of St Joseph the Worker, husband of Mary, foster father of Jesus and a carpenter who toiled at his workbench all day? This week and into next, before cardinals begin on Wednesday the secret voting in the conclave to elect the next pope, they will hold many talks together – and their focus will be reading the signs of the times. They will discuss the age in which we live, discern how the Church should respond and therefore who should lead it. For some the signs of the times may reveal that the most important issue is speaking up for those enduring poverty and injustice. Others will argue that people across the globe feel that it is so troubled that they are looking for reassurance and stability, so this is what the Church needs to offer. But a key question facing the cardinals will be one which has perhaps always beset the Church – but certainly did in the 12 years of the pontificate of Pope Francis. Should the Church change to walk alongside people where they are now or should its focus be standing for truth, for the eternal verities? For some this tension can be resolved by your approach. One cardinal participating in the conclave is Cardinal Mario Grech, of Malta, who has said priests used to tell people to put their lives in order before thinking about Christ. Now, said Grech, you approach Christ first. At the funeral of Pope Francis, there was a Gospel reading where Jesus told his apostle Peter, who Catholics believe was the first pope, to “feed my lambs”. The cardinals will be looking for the one they think can shepherd the flock. The destination may stay the same – getting closer to God – but how do you get there – the cardinals may well ask that of the new shepherd.
 

01 May 25 — Chine McDonald

A new play opens this week that tells the story of an industrial Welsh town that in 2019 temporarily became the home of a Banksy mural. On this programme yesterday, its writer and director Paul Jenkins described how locals had a real “reverence” for the artwork, how it really spoke to them. For me, the power of street art lies in the aesthetic juxtaposition it presents us with. It’s the bursts of colour alongside the concrete that get me, the fragments of hope amid the grey, portals into another vibrant world. . I saw this for myself over Easter as my family and I wandered through streets in Ostend in Belgium, following the trail of its famous street art festival, The Crystal Ship. When Banksy’s mural mysteriously appeared on a steelworker’s garage in Port Talbot, it captured the heart of the community; as the town became a destination for culture lovers, the art came to symbolise possibility. In another town, hundreds of years ago and hundreds of miles away, the possibility of art as a medium for change entered a new era with a 14thcentury local artistic phenomenon that sprang up in Siena, Italy, and made waves around the world. Highlighted in a new exhibition at the National Gallery, work from artists such as Ducco and Martini introduced new and vivid ways of painting, sometimes with gilded glass, gold, and ivory. Art has always had the power to present us with possibility, new and alternative realities – about ourselves, our cultures and societies. Art can shine a light on the things we’d rather turn our eyes from – the grotesque, the inequality, the wickedness. We’ve heard that all art is propaganda; but in so far as it can shape our views of the world, it can also show us what is beautiful, and in turn shape us and our world for the better. For centuries European artists have attempted to depict the grand narratives of the Christian tradition: creation, the birth of Jesus, the Last Supper, the death of Christ and the resurrection. But the best Christian art, I think, is inspired by the meanings of those iconic moments to tell us new stories about ourselves and God, that mean something today. Theologians have long spoken of the power of art as prophetic imagination, that is conjuring up possibility in a world that feels bleak and impossible. A year ago, the late Pope Francis met with artists at the international cultural exhibition the Venice Biennale. He spoke of the power of art to act a type of “city of refuge”. “I beg you,” he told them, “to imagine cities that do not yet exist on the maps: cities where no human being is considered a stranger.” In this appeal, I see the power of art to open new doors, whether that’s in Ostend, or Siena, or Port Talbot.
 

30 Apr 25 — Rev Dr Giles Fraser

It was the biggest power cut in recent memory. All across Spain and Portugal the lights went out. People were stuck in lifts and on trains. Internet and mobile phone coverage went down. Businesses suffered. It wasn’t quite mass panic, but it was near enough. Similar technological breakdowns have recently affected Heathrow Airport and Marks and Spencer. Isn’t it extraordinary how our society has become so overwhelmingly dependent upon something that a few hundred years ago most people had never even heard of. Some years ago, I used to be the Chaplain of an Oxford College where the chapel didn’t use electricity. It was lit exclusively by candles. Some thought this was deliberately arcane, and perhaps it was. But there was also a lovely simplicity to that space that some modern churches, with all their reliance on overhead projectors and whizzy sound systems don’t quite manage to achieve. And that includes my own, I confess. Because all this technology can also be a terrible distraction. That still small voice of calm is often frazzled by the introduction of shiny new tech. I suppose that is why many find their God out on a walk in the sunshine or playing in the garden with their children. These technological breakdowns remind us of the way our society is now inextricably bound up with a technological complexity that rules our lives. Yes, technology enables us to achieve so much more than our ancestors were able. It creates wealth, puts food on the table, allows us to communicate with people all around the world. But I also understand those who think we are addicted to it and can never be completely free whilst so deeply enmeshed within it. The French anarchist theologian Jaques Ellul argued that the problem with technology is that it comes to mediate everything we do in the name of efficiency – and because of this something about ‘simply being’ is lost. Technology, he said, has become the new sacred. We worship it and the tech moguls who supply it. Every new app promises a kind of salvation, every gadget an ever better way of doing things. But is my fancy smart phone a tool for me to use, making life easier, more efficient. Or am I just it’s slave, its servant. Are the solutions we find to life’s many challenges just creating a new network of constraints to trap us inside? I am not meaning to sound insensitive to the terrible consequences of what just happened in Spain and Portugal. But I wonder if there were also some people who, freed from the tyranny of the internet and the train time-table, found a surprising lightness. Or something else perhaps – I wonder if there will be a spike in the birth rate in 9 months time? For a moment something had lifted – where older gods and more human pleasures could be given the time and space they need.
 

29 Apr 25 — Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith

Today marks the end of the ‘First 100 days’ of the Trump administration. It was Franklin Roosevelt who introduced the phrase: he used it on the radio in 1933 as he promised urgent action to a country in the grip of the great depression. Since then the hundred days has become a way of measuring the initial success of a new government: are promises translating into policy? Is power in safe hands? But on this 100th day, I want to cast my mind back to day one. In her sermon before his inauguration, Bishop Mariann Budde asked President Trump to be merciful. Specifically she asked mercy for people who were ‘scared’ of his policies. Some lauded her, others condemned. To ask for mercy as a public political virtue involves risk. To offer it does as well. What if someone takes advantage? How can I make space for the claims of others, without compromising my own? For Christians any mercy is modelled on the mercy of God – if we show mercy it’s because we have received it. We can all have it, and we all need it. Mercy is more than simple reprieve – it cannot be separated from justice: it requires relationship and context, care for and knowledge of one another. Joseph showed it at the very beginning of Jesus’ life, refusing to expose Mary to the law when he discovered she was pregnant. Pontius Pilate, a ruler with an eye to the will of the mob if ever there was one, released the criminal Barrabus instead of Jesus to quiet the crowd. He used that pardon to secure power and evade responsibility. That doesn’t feel like mercy to me, but did it, to Barrabus? Early 20th century French poet Anatole France observed that ‘..The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges…’ but we know ending rough sleeping might just take more than enforcing laws against it. In an imperfect world, mercy can be a way of moving things forward, the adaptive edge by which reform happens. Scripture tells of Jesus appearing to Peter after Easter and giving him a clear instruction: ‘feed my lambs.’ This was the same Peter the Roman Catholic church looks to as its first Pope, and the directive for mercy was almost the last instruction Jesus gave. As a public virtue, mercy might mean I do not have to assert all my rights every day, and that my care for others does not stop where the law says a minimum standard has been met. There will be another 100 days of the American administration, and 100 after that: but the thing about mercy is that we don’t have to wait for Presidents or anyone else to model it – its something we can start learning to cultivate today.
 

28 Apr 25 — Rev Professor David Wilkinson

From the funeral of a global religious leader, the focus for many will turn to local political leadership AND Thursday’s elections for 23 councils and six mayors in England. These elections are often seen simply as a barometer for the national state of parties. Yet this masks that more than 1600 elected councillors will make decisions within big picture issues such the environment, immigration and global conflict as well AS about local issues from social care to cycle lanes. Standing for election is a big step. Over a century ago, the German economist and sociologist Max Weber gave a lecture ‘Politics as a Vocation’. While Weber’s discussion of ethics and the state has been much debated among academics in social and political theory, I’m interested in how much time he devotes to the character of politicians. He warns of the danger of vanity in leading to the misuse of the power they exercise. Instead, he suggests politicians should combine passion with a sense of responsibility, and a sense of proportion. This means that politics is a difficult and messy business which can come with considerable personal cost. In this sense, it is beyond a profession, rather it is a calling. Calling and vocation are often exclusively used in relation to priests. But in Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers, whose work influenced Weber, salvation by faith alone led to an understanding of the priesthood of all believers. This meant that one could be called to work in science, government or the home and such work should be done for the glory of God and for the service of others. I find it at times easy to be cynical about the motives and actions of politicians. Yet as a Christian, I’m struck BY how much time Jesus spent with those who were outcasts – and that included local government officials as well as the poor and the lepers! He heals a Roman Centurian’s servant, he ate at the homes of Simon the Pharisee and Zaccheus a tax collector. Indeed, Zaccheus’s priorities were transformed by this encounter. Jesus recognises their vocation and challenges them to see that calling FROM in the perspective of the love and justice of the Kingdom of God. So this week I thank God for people standing for election and pray that all politicians will exercise power not OUT OF vanity but FROM A DESIRE to serve others. And this challenges my own vocation as scientist and church leader. For vocation is not always about a direct call from the Holy Spirit, but God’s gift of passion and responsibility to make the world a better place.
 

26 Apr 25 — Catherine Pepinster

In a little over an hour’s time, world leaders, the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church, crowds of pilgrims, as well as millions of television viewers around the world will bid farewell to Pope Francis, as his funeral takes place at St Peter’s in Rome. The last time there was such a global gathering for a funeral and this level of public interest was in 2022, when the late Queen, Elizabeth II, was laid to rest. At her committal, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, the regalia of her office – the crown, the sceptre, and the orb – were taken from her coffin and placed on the altar. The burden of office was gone. Something similar has happened with the death of Pope Francis. The ring he had worn since he was elected pontiff in 2013 was taken from his finger and smashed. It was a dramatic symbol, signifying the end of the onerous responsibilities he carried. Symbols and signs are all important in Christianity. A phrase frequently used by the Catholic Church of the dead is that they “have gone before us marked with the sign of faith”. This sign refers to baptism, the ceremony of Christian initiation using water as a symbol of spiritual cleansing. There are other material signs too: the cross that many Christians wear, or the cross made with ash on the forehead at the start of Lent. There will be other signs at Pope Francis’ funeral too: people crossing themselves, kneeling in prayer, receiving Holy Communion. But there’s an even more profound sign of faith: how a Christian lives, responding to God’s call. Jesus was quite clear about how to inherit the kingdom of heaven. Serve others, he said: feed the hungry, visit prisoners, offer strangers hospitality. In other words Christians are called to service – a service of love. The Jesuit religious order, to which Pope Francis belonged, expresses this as a call to the margins of society, being with those dealing with the greatest difficulties of life. After his funeral, Pope Francis’ burial across Rome at the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore will be a much simpler ceremony. Among those attending will be people he previously met, among them prisoners on day release and migrants. Each will carry a white rose, a symbol of respect, to remember a man who tried to live according to the words of Jesus, whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do to me.
 

25 Apr 25 — Rev Professor Rob Marshall

The Bafta winning programme Race Across the World returned to our screens this week. In each series, five pairs of contestants (each with a story to tell) cross a different part of the world old-school style with just maps and cash. This year the fourteen-thousand-kilometre journey is through China, Nepal and India complete with stunning scenery and John Hannah’s great commentary. Although there’s prize money, you soon realise that the programme is about much more than winning. It has an unexpected, spiritual side which is subtle and constantly surprises. The Celtic proverb – “the way you think it; may not be the way it is after all” is true. It sums up many of the examples presented in the programme both in terms of the journey itself and in the relationships which develop over time. As is usual when travelling, the discovery of new places and communities is exhilarating. There’s history in abundance. Different cultures conjure up many surprises. There’s also unexpected challenges to overcome. Often a stranger will then pop up in ‘Good Samaritan style’, to offer a lift, a room for the night, some work when cash is low. And the result? Faith in humanity is restored. Barriers broken down. There is genuine kindness on display. It’s really uplifting. Because of the programme’s competitive nature, glimpses of faith and moments of transformation are often unexpected. But the nub of Race Across the World is still how any kind of journeying with others forms and nurtures us. That’s certainly true whenever I’ve been on a trip with other people, including leading pilgrimages to far-flung places. It’s usually only when I return home, and assimilate all that happened during my travels, that I can appreciate the places I’ve visited, and the stories shared with others. Good relationships usually never stand still. Priorities and aspirations inevitably move on and hopefully for the better. The Irish poet George Augustus Moore is right: “A person travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it”. A daily conundrum facing most of us is which is the best route to take in life to arrive at your desired destination? And there’s surely not much better advice than the wisdom of Moses. In the Book of Exodus, having undertaken one of the most extraordinary and well-known journeys of all time, Moses finds, as one commentator observed, that the best route through life isn’t necessarily the shortest, but the one that shapes us most.
 

24 Apr 25 — Chine McDonald

I’ll remember Pope Francis as the pope who wasn’t afraid of doubt. “Crises of faith are not failures against faith”, he said, “a faith without doubts cannot advance”,. This week, the Church hears again the story of the disciple Thomas and his encounter with the risen Jesus. This very human moment – in which an angry Thomas says he needs some firm and hard evidence to believe in the resurrection – has even attached the word doubt to his name. But I think we’re all doubting Thomases, really. I’ve been a Christian my whole life, devoted much of my career to writing and thinking and speaking about God. But there are moments when I’m not sure God exists. Yes I feel a sense of devotion to God, observe rituals, praise and worship God; feel a sense of wonder and beauty and transcendence, just like other believers. But it’s funny how we’re called that, believers. When belief is just one element in the experience of faith. Sometimes we might wonder: is anybody really there? Doubt is part of the human experience. We may believe in democracy, but doubt whether it can withstand authoritarianism and populism. We may believe in the triumph of good over evil, but doubt that’s true when we see newspaper front pages or listen to horrific news items on the airwaves. Doubt is part of the journey of faith, too. Over the past week there’s been much discussion of new data from Bible Society and its YouGov poll, which shows an increase in churchgoing, particularly among younger people. Some have debated whether those arriving at church doors really believe, or are just looking for belonging. I’m not sure the distinction between the two is that clear. In this week’s Beyond Belief on Radio 4, writer and podcaster Justin Brierley said of Christians: “We’re a mixture of faith and doubt, belief and unbelief. Faith is actually trusting in something regardless of whether you feel into it or out of it from one day to the next.” Perhaps what has led to our increasingly polarised world, is the human desire for absolutely certainty; certainty that our way of seeing the world is the correct one, certain that our politics, our theologies, are the only way. Many clever people over many centuries have sought firm answers to the existence of God. When CS Lewis doubted, he found answers not in the cerebral, but in turning up, in paying attention. As he wrote in Letters to Malcolm: “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito..
 

23 Apr 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

Today is St George’s Day, though because it’s Easter week the Church has deferred its celebration until next Monday. Still, the 23rd April will be marked today all round the country with parades and flags, dancing and even epic mock battles. St George was not an Englishman of course, and we share him with other countries including Ethiopia and Ukraine. God, though, is an Englishman at least according to the provocative title of a new book by Bijan Omrani which explores the way the Christian faith has helped form much that we take for granted today. This is not, repeat not, an apologia for Christian nationalism or triumphalism, rather an argument that what is most valuable about ‘Englishness’ goes back to its interaction with Christianity. Our culture is one of many products of Western Catholicism, something worth remembering after Pope Francis’ death on Monday. Our Catholic roots ensured that rulers had to reckon with the idea that there was a higher authority than earthly power; our monarchs, nobility and justice were ultimately constrained by the rule of law. So no dictators. Think here of Alfred the Great, Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus and the insistence that fairness and redress should be available to all, the humble as well as the mighty. Then there was the Bible in English, read from cover to cover in homes and churches with its insistence on social justice. Omrani quotes the tireless efforts of 18th and 19th century Evangelicals to abolish the slave trade and improve working conditions for the poor. And then there are the first English scientists with their deeply held Christian beliefs including our greatest mathematician Sir Isaac Newton. Our literary, musical and artistic traditions would never have developed the way they have without Christian inspiration. Omrani regrets the loss of well-known hymns in church and school. I know plenty of atheists who love the hymns they once sang at school assemblies. They brought us together and helped us to connect at weddings and funerals. But fewer and fewer people know them today. In all kinds of ways Christianity helped us answer that question a certain lawyer asked of Jesus, Who is my neighbour? He got from Jesus the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story of compassion and inclusivity if there ever was one. Free speech, fairness, toleration and kindness. Bijan Omrani’s greatest fear is that we are letting this broad Christian culture go and the consequence is a loss of connection and deep loneliness. And with this loss of neighbourliness comes the danger of perpetual confrontation in which any vision which might unite us is endlessly contested. On St George’s Day it is worth thinking what our patron saint stood for and what scaly, fire-breathing dragons he would be fighting today.
 

22 Apr 25 — Cardinal Vincent Nichols

Today a voice has fallen silent. The death of Pope Francis takes from us a voice has been heard in every corner of the world: a voice of warm encouragement and sharp challenge, expressing both love of God and love of our shared humanity. He had a single focus in life: to do the will of God, as it was given to him in the Catholic Church and in honouring the summons to holiness which touches every human heart. Once asked ‘Who is Pope Francis?’ he instantly replied: ‘A sinner’. His discernment was sensitive and profound. He knew that maturity, growing closer to God, comes mostly through our struggle with weaknesses and not by the highway of our own achievements. He taught that our best way of life is one of loving mercy, received and given. For we know the mercy of God outweighs the burden of our faults. He gave his voice to be used by the Word of God. This is why he spoke so directly to countless people. He spoke of hope. To millions of young people he said: ‘If you want to be a sign of hope, go and talk to your grandparents.’ He spoke for those on the margins of society. He said: ‘If you want to know how successful your economy is, go and speak with an unemployed person.’ He spoke of those imprisoned in slavery and suffering other terrible forms of abuse. He said: ‘These are gaping wounds in the flesh of humanity, wounds in the flesh of Christ himself.’ This voice, filled with compassion, mercy, and righteous indignation, is now silent, for a more authoritative voice has spoken, that of his heavenly Father, calling him home, to be with his Lord and Master for ever. And he has done so on the day after the great feast of Easter, the solemn proclamation of the victory of Christ over death. Pope Francis died in the light of the brightly burning Pascal candle, the symbol of the risen Christ. In this hope he lived, in this light he has died. Its promise will be fulfilled. It is for us to continue this task: to make humanity great: great in strength of service, great in depth of compassion and great in richness of generosity. These are the measures of true greatness. May Pope Francis, beloved of so many, rest in peace.
 

21 Apr 25 — Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith

It’s been wonderful to follow the Easter family book club on this programme this week. Stories and how we tell them are more than entertainment; they are proving grounds for understanding the real world around us. Today is Easter Monday – Jesus’ disciples were full of wonder at the news he was alive, the tomb was empty – but that did not mean they understood what had happened or went off into some magical happily ever after. Stories spread like wildfire: “Is it really him? Can we trust what we have heard?” The danger around them was real, and they were still confused about what to do. Some saw him on the road, some in a garden – not all in moments of faith, but it was never their faith that made the resurrection true. I still like the feel of a book, especially a children’s book whose edges have been softened by many small hands. When I was small, stories read and re-read again by tolerant grownups shaped me – the words and pictures helped me build a sense of who I am, how to behave, and what I might expect from the world. Some have observed that all fiction, children’s or adult, falls into one of seven plotlines: Rags to riches, overcoming a monster, quest, rebirth, comedy, tragedy, or voyage and return. Fiction aside, these seven plotlines do between them describe much if not all of what is real, and important, and shared in human experience. When I read with children I hope I help them to rehearse for love, and courage, also for healthy sadness or confusion – for real life, in other words. It seems to me that reading is a way to prepare for the things in life that are the most joyous, and most costly. Story is not just an escape from life, but a pathway through it. A children’s book I still read is Charlotte’s Web, by EB White, in which one friend (a spider, Charlotte) sacrifices herself for another (a pig, Wilbur). The characters are loveable and flawed, and the peril is real – new life does come, but it’s certainly not a simple ‘happy ending.’ Charlotte’s Web is just a story, but it prepared me as an adult for the real faith in resurrection that still shapes my life – something more than story, if told and re-told in each generation. Easter is still not a straightforward ‘happily ever after’ – it never was. But stories taught me to look out for resurrection and notice it in the neglected corners of my neighbourhood, among forgotten people, and in every unexpected moment of love and joy.
 

19 Apr 25 — Professor Michael Hurley

What’s the most poignant of all of Shakespeare’s lines? For me, especially as we come round each year to Easter, I think of Hamlet’s last words: “The rest is silence”. What do these words mean? Perhaps they refer to the limits of language itself. Hamlet spends so much energy wrestling with words—soliloquizing, philosophizing, sparring – yet to what end? Does “The rest is silence” signal a recognition that, after all, language can only say and do so much? The stakes may be even higher. It’s another of Shakespeare’s plays, As You Like It, where we hear of all the world being a stage, and all the men and women merely players; but Hamlet too invites us to think about the relationship between theatre and real life. He stages a play to catch a king, and he himself takes on different roles throughout the story. So, when he says, “The rest is silence,” he may be acknowledging that his time is up, and that’s all there is. Only the hush of the audience remains. In his agonising musing, “To be or not to be”, he speculates about an afterlife, but perhaps the prospect of his own death has given him fresh clarity, to see that there is in fact nothing beyond. Maybe. But the opposite might also be true. What if “The rest is silence” is instead a final expression of faith, in the form of letting go? That is, of finding calm in the peace of heaven. His friend Horatio’s parting words certainly seem to chime with this possibility: “And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!” he says. Yesterday, Christian church services were marked by solemn readings and quiet reverence, ending without music or formal dismissal. Today, the day before Easter, goes even further in that direction. There are no liturgies at all. This is indeed the only day in the entire year when no Mass is celebrated. But Tonight, churches will hold Easter Vigils, when, gradually, light, Scripture, song, and words return to their services, culminating in a proclamation of Christ having risen from the dead. And with that news comes the triumphant reprise of the word “Alleluia” – literally, Praise the Lord – after it had been dropped entirely from worship throughout Lent. It’s an eruption of joy after forty days of penitence. In our busy-busy, information-overloaded modern world, it may be salutary for all of us occasionally to pause, to learn patience, and to imagine how silence itself may sometimes be eloquent. For 2.6 billion Christians around the world, however, this is especially true today: it’s an occasion for silent reflection on the belief that the rest is not silence, that death is not the final curtain. Today is a moment of intense, overbrimming, dramatic suspense: the quiet before the holy storm.
 

18 Apr 25 — Rev Lucy Winkett

Good morning. Is it good—this Good Friday? I’m sometimes asked why a religion would have an instrument of torture as its symbol. How can that be good? This healer… this prophet and poet… the one who called out the abuse of power in his day—in state politics, religion, and economy—the one who pointed people, all people, to God… always to god. Jesus is not only put to death today by the occupying state, but shamed in public. Crucifixion is a torturous way to kill a person. And it’s designed to be seen. Today’s Good Fridays… are not good. Shaved heads. Shackled hands. Underground prisons. . In our news cycle, we witness free rein being given to the human instinct to humiliate… the human instinct to dehumanise… the human instinct for revenge. Today’s Good Fridays are everywhere. And the lies we tell ourselves when we repeat the myth that violence is redemptive, and degradation well deserved. Today’s Good Friday’s, people are with me as I circle around this cross, invited to draw near to it… to stay this afternoon for three hours. To sit with my capacity for betrayal. My own hard-edged refusal to forgive. My own desire for revenge. My shame that the seeds of war are to found in my, in every, human heart. The reason this cross is powerful, and this day can be called “good,” is not because we look at it—but because it states at us. At humanities cruelty today. And it invites us to confront our fear, set aside our weapons, and live differently. The questions it raises are urgent: Is it possible that we can choose another way? Can we imagine that there is a love in eternity that holds the stars apart, and that endures beside all whose hearts are breaking in quiet despair or cacophonous pain? This cross poses a question. Throws down a challenge. It’s a provocation—to see the world as it is… imagine it to be different… and resolve to make it so. So help me God.
 

17 Apr 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

This evening marks the beginning of the Great Three Days of the Christian calendar which lead from the Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples, to the Empty Tomb on Easter Sunday. It’s interesting that in the Bible each new day begins with the evening before. Light is extinguished before it comes again. In the first chapter of Genesis where the creation of the world is described in seven days, ‘there was evening and there was morning’, the first day and the second, and so on. I find that strangely reassuring. It is tempting in these days of so much conflict and dysfunction to lose hope, especially when we recognise the concealments that go into our politics, and the rumours and speculations spread by social media. At a time when as a nation we are unsure who our friends and allies really are it is easy to conclude that our world is dark and getting darker. Yet we still yearn for truth and believe that evidence and conscience, and for many of us, faith, can guide us to live with integrity. But to do that we have to recognise the darkness. Evening comes before morning. Honesty calls us to acknowledge darkness while seeking to live in the light. There’s a traditional service sung this week known as Tenebrae with a candlestand bearing fifteen candles. As psalms of desolation are sung, pointing to Christ’s sufferings on the cross, fourteen candles are extinguished leaving just one alight which is then either hidden or covered over. In the same spirit I shall go to a service tonight which ends in darkness with candles and altar hangings stripped away leaving the church bare and silent. The separation of light from darkness in the Bible is the basis, not only of its cosmology, but its morality. God separates light from darkness, yet only the light is called good. While it is always in the interests of the violent and dishonest to conceal their intentions, the darkness of the human heart is not dark to God, the light is as clear as the day. We have a truth-finding, truth-telling instinct which we lose at our peril and is always under threat. ‘Truth will out’, we say. Yet we all know how the drive for truth sometimes fights with our material interests, our comfort and security. Very often it seems there is very little light around and what there is – is difficult to see. ‘Yet there is nothing hidden that shall not be made known’, says Jesus. As night falls, darkness has its triumph, but the light still comes in the morning.
 

16 Apr 25 — Rev Dr Sam Wells

Every story invites us to take an imaginative leap. The story of Holy Week invites us to take two. The first is to see in each character aspects of ourselves. Peter’s all mouth and no trousers, promising everything but denying when it matters. Pilate’s all procedure and no conviction, claiming to be even-handed but washing his hands of innocent blood. Judas is a mixture of motives, but whatever he was trying to achieve ends in disaster for him and for everyone. The crowd lurches unpredictably from praise to fury and awe to ridicule. It’s not all bad: Mary sticks it out at the foot of the cross with all its horror, the centurion who oversees it all recognises the true glory of the dying man, and the women who go to the tomb on Easter morning are faithful beyond death. The point is, all human life is here. Every element of this story – violence, betrayal, fear, denial, grief, horror – is part of our daily news cycle. This is everyone – good, bad and ugly. The second imaginative leap is to see the man at the centre of things as God. God is widely associated with thrones and power and glory. But there’s none of that in this story. This man rides a donkey of peace not a stallion of war. He’s beaten and mocked, not praised and lauded. He’s dragged through the streets and nailed to two pieces of wood. He’s executed among criminals and abandoned by his friends. The curious thing is, even though this is the way he’s portrayed in this fundamental story, both those who uphold Christianity and those who keep their distance still default to a picture of God as high and mighty. It’s as if Holy Week is sealed off, and the rest of the year everyone forgets this is what the definitive Christian notion of God is like. We live in a culture saturated with information and obsessed with judgement. When we hear something bad about someone, we quickly unfriend them, cancel them and put distance between us and them. This is a very different story. It displays everything bad about humankind. But amazingly, counterculturally, foolishly – the man at the centre of the story doesn’t retreat from this reality. He walks towards it. This is a story where God says, ‘I will never let you go. I am dying to be with you; come what may.’ To embark on a project and invest everything in it and see it get into terrible trouble is to face a moment of truth. It’s a very human problem. This story says it’s a divine problem. It’s the divine problem. It’s what Holy Week is all about.
 

15 Apr 25 — Rt Rev Dr David Walker

The Anglican Al Ahli hospital suffered a devastating attack two days ago. The 20 minute warning provided by the Israeli forces allowed staff and patients, along with refugees living on the site, to evacuate. But what was the only functioning hospital left in Gaza has been put out of action. Whether or not there was a Hamas Command Centre hidden within its buildings, as the military alleged, I’ve heard from my own conversations with Palestinians that terrorists have in the past forced them to accept military assets being placed in schools and medical facilities, precisely to make them harder to destroy. I can understand why some argue that the number of hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza should include much of the civilian population. One of the great moral questions is the relationship between means and ends. How do I balance the desirable outcome I am striving to achieve, against some evil that may be required in order to accomplish it? This matters for those who would frame themselves as modern military armies as well as those who claim to be ‘resistance fighters’. Augustine of Hippo, writing 1500 years ago, seeks to find that balance by setting down rules which any justifiable conflict would have to satisfy. What has become known as the Just War Theory, adopted far beyond the Christian tradition, has at its heart the protection of non-combatants. Using civilian populations as human shields appears to me a clear breach of that principle, as equally does bombing them in pursuit of a so called ‘high value target’, and preventing them from receiving adequate food and medical services. Whilst I try to be careful not to extrapolate too much from single occasions, and some events remain under investigation, the last 18 months has seen a clear and oft repeated pattern, including aid lorries hijacked and ambulance crews attacked, which makes it hard for me to conclude that either side of the conflict is adequately prioritising the welfare and protection of ordinary Gazan citizens. Whilst battle rages at street level, the moral high ground appears to have been left unoccupied. War, as I see it, can have only two outcomes. Either one side succeeds in annihilating or expelling the other, or there has to be some settlement which leads to peace. In a statement urging that the ceasefire agreement be respected by all sides, all remaining hostages be released unconditionally, and unfettered humanitarian aid reach the people of Gaza, the Church of England House of Bishops yesterday reiterated what I and many feel are the minimum first steps towards ending the present suffering and restoring moral values. Meanwhile, a clear commitment to the rapid repair and restoration of healthcare services, so that the Diocese of Jerusalem and others can resume their humanitarian work, would send a powerful signal that peace still has a chance.
 

14 Apr 25 — Jasvir Singh

Good morning. The last few days have seen the world’s economies being shaken, with many worried that globalisation is at grave risk and that the rules-based international order is all but over. But a country flexing its fiscal muscle isn’t a new phenomenon. Throughout history, strong economies have exerted their control and influence, at the expense of others. In the late 17th century, the Mughal Empire was at its peak as the wealthiest power in the world. An exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum currently displays some of its incredible jewellery and art. This, however, came at a price. Some of its population were targeted with deeply unfair taxes. Sikhs, in particular, came under direct attack. The ninth Sikh Guru was executed on the Emperor’s command in an order to humiliate Sikhs and bring the faith to its knees. The tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Rai, wanted his Sikhs to be brave enough to challenge the might of the Mughal Empire with confidence. In 1699, on the day of Vaisakhi, Sikhs from far and wide gathered at the Guru’s fortress in the Himalayan foothills. The Guru emerged from a tent and called for anyone prepared to sacrifice everything for their faith to step forward. Five people eventually came forward, and they established the Khalsa, the pure ones. It became the inner core of the faith. The five Khalsa Sikhs then initiated the Guru into their own ranks. Men took on the name Singh, or ‘lion’, and women Kaur, or ‘princess’ to show they had joined a new family as people with agency and strength. The Guru also changed his name from Gobind Rai became Gobind Singh, to show he was no higher than the Khalsa, and that as a true leader, he too would be bound by their rules. As Sikhs mark the festival of Vaisakhi and the birth of the Khalsa, we are also celebrating what it means to be Sikh itself. That includes the idea that we must fight for everyone’s benefit, not just our own The Sikh prayer, of the Ardas, concludes with the line, “With your blessings, may there be peace and prosperity for everyone.” It’s not about protecting one group above all others. It’s about knowing the difference between right and wrong — and ensuring we all rise at the same time. Guru Gobind Singh Ji stood up to the challenge of a strong economic and military power, while remaining bound by a rules-based order of the Khalsa over three centuries ago. He remains an inspirational figure to many. If we have the moral conviction to know what is just and right today — and focus on the global picture —there’s no reason why we can’t emerge from our current tumultuous period even stronger and more confident.` That is my belief — and my hope.
 

12 Apr 25 — Catherine Pepinster

If you’ve ever watched The Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night, you might remember a moment of chivalry from Ringo Starr that goes horribly wrong. I know it well because it was filmed just yards from where I now live. Ringo’s, strolling near a building site, spots a puddle and lays his coat across it for a beautiful young woman to step on. She goes straight through into the muddy hole in the ground. Walter Raleigh had more success with his cloak over wet ground, enabling Elizabeth I dainty shoes to remain dry. Tomorrow, Palm Sunday, is the day when Christians remember Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a donkey, with a rapturous crowd waving palm tree branches. It’s a moment of jubilation before all the agony of the following week—when the Romans arrest him, the crowd turns against him, and he’s crucified. On Palm Sunday, the crowd want to honour him, and so they lay their cloaks before him. It’s more than chivalry—easing his way into the city over rough ground. It suggests submission and respect. For people at that time, a cloak was the most important item of clothing they possessed. It was usually seamless, made from one piece of heavy fabric with a hole for the neck. You might carry crops home from the field in it and use it as a blanket at night. Under the law of Jesus’ time, it was forbidden to take that outer garment from someone as payment for a debt. The importance of a robe or cloak, and how strongly connected to someone’s dignity it is, will become evident in what happened to Jesus in the days following Palm Sunday. He was dressed in a robe by Pontius Pilate’s soldiers after his arrest, and mocked as a king. Later, after his crucifixion, the Gospels record that the soldiers divided his clothes among them. But rather than tear it, they cast lots for his seamless robe. On Palm Sunday, a psalm is sung with a verse that Christians believe foretells this: “They divide my clothing among them; they cast lots for my robe.” It was part of the humbling of Jesus. The cloaks cast before Jesus mirror that moment when the crowd offer him, in humility, what’s most precious to them—their cloaks. In recent times, the tradition of those ancient seamless garments has led to a shaping of Catholic thinking, known as the Seamless Robe. Based on Jesus’ own robe, faith is not just about prayer or church on Sunday this teaching says. It shapes your entire thinking—how you live, your values. It is all of a piece.
 

11 Apr 25 — Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis

On this day, twenty-five years ago, a defining legal battle reached its conclusion in a London courtroom. The libel trial between Holocaust denier David Irving and Deborah Lipstadt, alongside her publisher, Penguin Books, was not just a dispute between two sides. It was a battle between truth and falsehood; between history and its deliberate distortion. In the trial, the defence showed how Irving had intentionally manipulated facts to fit his agenda of diminishing Holocaust crimes. After several months of interrogating the evidence, Justice Charles Gray ‘s judgment was unequivocal: Irving was a falsifier of history. A Holocaust denier. A propagandist for antisemitism. This was not just a victory in the fight against anti-Jewish hatred. It was a victory for all who cherish truth. Because history, when rewritten in order to deceive, leads to moral blindness. And moral blindness leads to injustice, oppression, and ultimately, tragedy. Today, when one needs no more than a social media account and some home recording equipment to become a global influencer, the distortion of truth once again threatens to shape reality. The festival of Passover, which begins this weekend, has at its heart the antidote to the scourge of falsehood. Passover is our festival of questions. For more than three millennia, on this festival, we have recounted the famous story of the Israelite exodus from Egyptian slavery. But not by lecture or sermon. Instead, every facet of the Passover meal is designed to provoke questions. We eat unusual foods, sing unusual songs and, at the heart of it all, we pose the piercing, recurring questions: “For what purpose?” “Why?” It is a sacred task to ask, probe and explore, with the utmost integrity. Not simply to accept things as read. To question is not necessarily to reject or to undermine. Rather, it is seen by our intensely discursive tradition as a way of refining our understanding and uncovering the truth. The Nobel Laureate, Israel Rabi, explained how his mother had made him a brilliant scientist: “After school, every other mother would ask her child: ‘So? Did you learn anything today?’ But not my mother. ‘Isi,’ she would say, ‘Did you ask a good question today?’”. Passover inspires us not only to retell our story, but also to relearn how to ask. Let us all honour the courage of those who, like Deborah Lipstadt, examine evidence, test assumptions, and refuse to let truth be silenced. Because in every generation, truth must be defended. And the surest path to it begins with a question.
 

10 Apr 25 — Canon Angela Tilby

This week marks twenty years since Prince Charles married Camilla Parker-Bowles at Windsor Guildhall. The civil ceremony was followed by a service of prayer and dedication in St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. I remember watching on television, not quite knowing what to make of it. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams seemed a bit hesitant, a bit uneasy as he conducted the service. With millions of others I couldn’t get out of my mind the tragedy of Princess Diana’s death in 1997 and the massive outpouring of grief at her funeral. But by the spring of 2005 more people were prepared to shrug and accept what was going on. And that was not all due to good PR. Over time the public became used to the idea and it has become more and more obvious that the now King has a genuine partnership with Camilla which has lasted fifty years. Throughout history royal and high-class marriages have often been arranged to firm up alliances, or keep assets within royal or aristocratic circles. In the theology of the Middle Ages, marriage was a kind of contract, a way of ordering society and holding lust in check. Marriages took place in the Church porch, as if they were half worldly and pragmatic, half holy. In the first English Prayer Book of 1549 a more positive view was stated. The ceremony was brought into the body of the Church and was now accompanied by a compulsory little sermon on why God had ordained marriage. Three reasons were given: first to provide for the procreation of children and to ensure they were brought up in the fear of the Lord, second, for the avoidance of the sin of fornication – sex outside marriage. But then Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury who drafted the new service, added something quite new. ‘Marriage was instituted for the mutual society, help and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity’. Cranmer also added the words ‘to love and to cherish’ to the marriage vows. The historian Dairmaid McCulloch, suggests that we owe those additions to Cranmer’s own happy experience of marriage. It is all too easy to marry for the wrong reasons. The important question for those couples contemplating marriage is whether they really like each other, whether they are prepared to stand by each other and help each other to be strong and resilient. As I look back twenty years to that rather tentative ceremony in St George’s chapel it seems to me that Charles and Camilla’s lasting friendship has been a blessing, both to themselves and perhaps to the rest of us too.