Category: Books & Articles

9.30 am- “WE REFUSE TO BE ENEMIES”, led by Daoud Nassar, of the “Tent of Nations”, West Bank, and Sally Azar, Pastor of the Lutheran Church in Jerusalem.  “Tent of Nations” is a farm at Nahalin, south-west of Bethlehem, owned by the Nassar family since 1916, but now threatened by Israeli settlers, who have built…

Hannover Evangelischer Kirchentag, April 30th to May 4th 2025 On the train from Brussels and Cologne, which arrived 45 minutes late in Hannover on Tuesday evening, April 29th (IMG_9867.jpg), passengers had complained that poor time-keeping and infrastructure maintenance had become a noticeable feature of German trains in recent years. The first post-war Protestant Church Congress…

Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church:  Jesus under the Rubble February 18, 2024-  Munther Isaac Is not this the fast that I choose:    to loose the bonds of injustice,    to undo the straps of the yoke,to let the oppressed go free,    and to break every yoke? (Isaiah 58:6)                                                                                                                                                                    Sisters and brothers                                                                                                                                      It has been more than more than 130 days since…

In the Hebrew Scriptures there are two (at least) contrasting images of what Israel could be.  The first is in chapter 23 of the Book of Exodus:                                                                                                         I will send swarms of hornets in front of you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. I will not drive them…

These are the sessions we attended- a small selection of the many available in the Kirchentag (Church Congress). These Protestant meetings happen every two years, alternating with Catholic Congresses, with joint ecumenical meetings every few years. ACT OF REMEMBRANCE, Wednesday 14.00 to 15.00  at the Charterhouse Tower Ten murders were committed between September 2000 and April…

These days, Advent Sunday is often seen simply as the beginning of the Christmas season, mixed up with all the television adverts, “Black Friday”, and the preparations for family feasts, present-giving, and all the rest. But in the Church’s Year it is the celebration of the “Coming of the Son of Man”- usually understood as…

“Blessed are you poor” said Jesus.  “God’s kingdom belongs to you.  But woe to you who are rich, you have had your consolation” (Luke 6, verses 20 and 24).  That was the Gospel reading for one Sunday in February (13th).  It’s clear enough what he meant in the context of his own day.  According to…

The Church of England, it seems, is having a debate with itself about the future of traditional parishes alongside more informal, lay-led worshipping communities: ‘A church without walls’: Anglicanism divided on shift away from tradition | Anglicanism | The Guardian Although the Church vehemently denies abandoning “old-style” and sometimes (though by no means always) ailing…

On October 31st 1517, Martin Luther is said to have nailed 95 Theses to the church door at Wittenburg in Germany (although some say he simply sent them to the Archbishop). Those Theses provoked what is known today as the Protestant Reformation. Since the time of Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses Paul’s letters to the Romans…

Polyarchy??  Oligarchy I recognise, and monarchy, and even anarchy, but who are you? (with apologies to Acts 19:15).  The word was (first?) used in the mid-1970s, but “Promoting Polyarchy” is the title of a book published in 1996, written by William I. Robinson, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Tennessee.  In it…