Courses
Bible Reading Guide: “30-day New Testament”
Added: 10th May 2007
Bible Reading Guide: “60-day Combined Guide”
Added: 10th May 2007
Lent Course 2006: The People of God: “Unit Two - Ranking as an analytical tool”
This sounds fearsome but it simply clarifies what we do subconsciously; it looks at a range of issues and asks us to say which are more or less important; or which are sub issues of other issues. The objective is to help us to separate issues so that they are not all tangled in a large bucket labelled "Theology".
Added: 17th October 2006
Lent Course 2006: The People of God: “Unit Three - Lay presidency at the Eucharist”
How important is this issue? How are we to understand the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist which is so central to the lives of many of us? What happens at the Eucharist? Is what happens so important that it requires the active presence of a priest? How does this fit in with St. Peter's idea that we are all members of the "Royal Priesthood" (1 Peter 2:1-10)?
Added: 17th October 2006
Lent Course 2006: The People of God: “Unit Five - Civil Partnerships”
How important is this issue? Why are some people in the Church so inflamed about homosexual people? What is the relationship between theology, ethics and natural science? Is homosexuality natural, inherited, socially acquired, or sinful? To what extent are homosexual people worthy to be people of God?
Added: 17th October 2006
Lent Course 2008: Christ on Trial: “Matthew: Wisdom in Exile”
Added: 20th February 2008
Lent Course 2009: Prayers for Lovers: “Public Prayer: The Corporate and The Catachetic”
Added: 11th January 2009
Lent Course 2009: Prayers for Lovers: “Supplication”
Added: 11th January 2009
Pastoral Care Training Pack: “Unit 1: Overview - Beginning the Journey”
Added: 5th June 2009
Pastoral Care Training Pack: “Unit 7: Money - The Lilies of the Field”
Added: 5th June 2009
Pastoral Care Training Pack: “Unit 10: Reflection - Journey's End and A New Beginning”
Added: 5th June 2009
Meditations
At the Foot of the Cross 2009: “The Scourging - Casual Violence”
Added: 23rd March 2009
At the Foot of the Cross 2009: “Thorns - Nature Subverted”
Added: 23rd March 2009
Added: 23rd April 2007
Study Sheets
Added: 28th April 2011
Added: 14th April 2010
Added: 16th May 2007
Added: 16th May 2007
Ethics: An Introductory Work-Out
Added: 3rd September 2007
Ethics: Judgment, Morality and Justice
Added: 18th November 2007
Evagrius: The Seven Deadly Sins, Origins: “History of Sin”
Added: 3rd February 2011
Evagrius: The Seven Deadly Sins, Origins: “The Eight "Thoughts" of Evagrius”
Added: 3rd February 2011
Added: 13th November 2006
Added: 9th February 2007
Added: 18th November 2007
Added: 28th April 2011
Added: 27th March 2007
Added: 18th November 2007
Added: 10th September 2009
Added: 18th November 2007
Paul Bradshaw: Eucharist Origins
Added: 10th September 2009
Added: 28th April 2011
Richard Burridge: John Chapter 6
Added: 10th September 2009
Added: 15th July 2008
The Eucharist of Christendom, 30-1520 AD
Added: 13th November 2006
Added: 9th February 2007
The Kingdom in Matthew's Gospel
Added: 28th October 2010
Vermes, The Changing Faces of Jesus - John
Added: 15th July 2008
Vermes, The Changing Faces of Jesus - Overview
Added: 15th July 2008
Vermes, The Changing Faces of Jesus - Synoptics
Added: 15th July 2008
Added: 9th February 2007
Sermons
Most of us are kind without calculation and calculation in human affairs is the source of our trouble; we should be channels for giving as transmission.
Year A, The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
Solomon chose the essential of wisdom; the merchant gave up all for a pearl; in the search for our 'pearl' of the kingdom we have sacrifices to make but we are not alone; we have God and each other.
Year A, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 27th March 2007
The assent to the conception of Jesus is more important than the mechanics; what is important for us is that Mary and Joseph took an immense risk for what they believed.
Year A, The Forth Sunday of Advent; Added: 19th January 2008
Humility means putting ourselves in a right relationship with God, recognising we can do nothing of ourselves; Judas got his relationship with Jesus out of proportion.
Wednesday of Holy Week; Added: 6th March 2007
There were very good reasons why people changed their minds between Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday.
Year A, Palm Sunday; Added: 25th March 2008
Christianity is the religion of the first person, not in boasting but in affirmation. Our great prayers are written this way. Matthew's Sermon the Mount is "they" whereas Luke's on The Plain is "you".
Year C, Sixth Sunday of the Year; Added: 12th February 2007
Judas and Victorian Triumphalism
Judas had earthly ambitions for Jesus; do not we also hanker after the apparent Church glory of the Victorian era; perhaps we are now in need of going back to a 1st Century mind-set.
Wednesday of Holy Week; Added: 27th March 2007
I prefer kings to wise men but our generation likes celebrity; but it both blunts are concern for the victims of arbitrary power; and distances us from wisdom. We are not suffering from compassion fatigue as passion fatigue and we confuse cleverness with wisdom. We need to stay in touch with the mystery of the God made child.
Year B, The Epiphany; Added: 6th March 2007
It is dangerous to confuse what we know about our own wishes with what we do not know about 'God's wishes'; that mistake has led to the Church's undue exercise of power, particularly in sexual matters.
Year A, The First Sunday of Lent; Added: 19th February 2009
The commonest Christian heresy is that the spiritual is higher than the physical: creation is The Father's sacrament; The Church is The Son's Sacrament; and love between humans is The Sacrament of The Spirit.
Year A, The Last Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
We have lost the physical and psychological shape of the seasons; we have lost the Austen parsonage and ancient controversies; and taking up our cross is different when we do not personally suffer as our forebears did; but preserving moral integrity has become more difficult.
Year A, The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
Matthew's story of the Talents bases our behaviour on fear and greed rather than on love. This strand of theology, elevated by Paul and Augustine, sees humanity as fundamentally corrupt, as opposed to the view of Aquinas that we are fundamentally good. Sebastian Moore poses questions in the context of desire and love which force us to ask where we stand.
Year A, The Third Sunday before Advent; Added: 18th November 2008
Superficial forgiveness helps no-one. We must know the pain and work from there, probably with friends, to a holistic forgiveness, knowing we are sinners and that Christ is in each of us.
Year A, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
Properly understood, 'political correctness' is essential in a fair society but love must go much further.
Year A, The Third Sunday before Lent; Added: 23rd February 2011
Power without service is hollow; Ezekiel and Matthew both show that the powerful must serve; and as subjects we should worship God as brothers and sisters of King Jesus.
Year A, Christ the King (The Sunday next before Advent); Added: 7th March 2007
We live in an unfocused, corrosive miasma of dislike so that our systems become toxic; so forgiveness is a self cleansing for which God has given us unlimited capacity.
Year A, The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
Re-Constituting The Royal Priesthood
Although the Church recognises that the harvest is great while the workers are few, it has become sclerotic and inward looking. The Lambeth Conference will only serve to show that the hierarchical model of church has broken down. We need to re-constitute the idea of Peter's "Royal Priesthood".
Year A, The Forth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 15th July 2008
The faith required at the end of the Sermon on The Mount is tough stuff, not to be confused with doctrine and its doubts. Faith is emptying ourselves out and recognising God working through us. Faith in God, not human sand, is the good foundation for a house.
Year A, The First Sunday after Trinity; Added: 27th March 2007
Holy Cross Sunday comes like Summer hail; it was the end of the blue skies by the lake and the journey to Jerusalem. In the return to Autumn routine we must take up our cross.
Year A, The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
Our neighbour is the alien and the stranger; and we love, like the Trinity, like the three colours - red, green blue - which produce all the colours on television; in love we are different from but equal to God.
Year A, The Last Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
In the face of recent teenage murders, we are tempted to blame others; but 'outsiders' come from among us. Economic well being and social policy have failed to secure happiness. There will be calls for longer prison sentences and we must resist this but can only do so if we commit ourselves to engagement, love and sacrifice.
Year A, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 28th July 2008
We are not asked to behave like the merchant to obtain the Kingdom pearl; we must rank it higher in our daily lives.
Year A, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 7th March 2007
Jesus' mission of love is now remembered in a church of fear; the image of God as a banker misunderstands God's fundamental purpose; no wonder it alienates so many. Matthew, Paul, Augustine and Luther were wrong on this point but that is because theology is a high risk business which must involve all of us.
Year A, The Third Sunday before Advent; Added: 18th November 2008
Matthew's dark account of the Nativity contrast with Luke but they both focus on deprivation and suffering which should encourage is to empathise rather than emphasise difference.
Year A, Feast of the Holy Family; Added: 24th October 2007
We are not good at welcoming; sadly, that extends to our clergy. They are our prophets but also the most vulnerable among us.
Year A, The Fifth Sunday after Trinity; Added: 27th March 2007
Liturgy
Compline for Shrove Tuesday (ii)
Added: 26th January 2010
Reviews
Jesus: A Portrait: “Chapter 1: The Beauty of Jesus”
ISBN: 0232527199; Added: 22nd June 2009
Jesus: A Portrait: “Chapter 2: God's Kingdom in Person”
ISBN: 0232527199; Added: 22nd June 2009
BCP Commentary
Added: 25th February 2009
Added: 25th February 2009
Added: 25th February 2009
(August 24)
Added: 6th September 2009
(July 25)
Added: 6th September 2009
(June 24)
Added: 6th September 2009
(October 18)
Added: 6th September 2009
(September 21)
Added: 6th September 2009
(June 29)
Added: 6th September 2009
Saint Simon and Saint Jude, Apostles
(October 28)
Added: 6th September 2009
Added: 25th May 2009
The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
Added: 9th January 2009
The Fourth Sunday after Trinity
Added: 25th May 2009
Added: 4th November 2008
December 28th
Added: 4th November 2008
The Seventh Sunday after Trinity
Added: 25th May 2009
The Sunday after Christmas Day
Added: 4th November 2008
Added: 25th February 2009
Added: 25th May 2009
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
Added: 9th January 2009
The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity
Added: 4th November 2008
Added: 25th February 2009
Added: 25th February 2009