Generally, I’ve not been following the Bible Lectionary when I’ve done these blog posts. That’s partly because there seem to have been more important readings and subjects to explore, but I’ve decided to do so this week, if only because the New Testament reading for last Sunday, Matthew 25:14-30, the ‘Parable of the Talents’ is, I firmly believe, almost always misunderstood
Author: James Blott
Fear, Death, COVID 19 and Justice
I wrote in my last post about our need for human relationships and the hope that the government would take full account of that, as they considered the next steps in the COVID national story. As it seems that we’re headed almost inexorably into more ‘lockdown’ (whatever you might call it), I think it’s worth considering the impact on people of the current situation.
The meaning of Life
I was recently reminded of what was said in a Christian newspaper The Tablet at the time of the death of David Cameron’s disabled son, Ivan, in 2009. The comments in the article served as a useful reminder that we can’t value people, or our relationships with them, on the normal social conventions, or based on some arbitrary post-modern values of ‘the quality of life’
Is the world becoming a worse place, or have we lost all hope?
In 2016, the polling company YouGov asked people in 17 countries this question: ‘All things considered, do you think the world is getting better or worse, or neither getting better nor worse?’ 58% of those answering thought that the world was getting worse and only 11% thought that it was getting better
Has Modern Science killed God?
I’ve been a member of possibly the last ever generation to be brought up as Christian as a matter of course. Those responsible for my education as a boy would find that shocking; in the 1950s it was the perfectly natural way of things. Then, as I got older, I started picking up that some people thought that Science had overtaken God; that Science had made God unnecessary; that Modern Science had even killed God (as Vaclav Havel claimed). This was almost the default position of anyone who left school in the 1960s.
The Church of England and Lockdown by the Revd Humphrey Prideaux,
I am delighted to post the following piece by the Revd Humphrey Prideaux, who became a friend after he became my tutor for the last term of my Foundation Degree in Christian Theology, in 2010. I have learned so much from him. The following piece that he shared with me, reflected so well my own thoughts, that I sought his permission to include it here, as a guest blog, with my thanks.
Reflective Preacher 