Category: Books & Articles

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…

Recently there has been plenty of discussion about reviving the UK economy after Covid to create new (and “greener”) jobs, especially to “level up” former “Red Wall” parts of the country, and “Build Back Better”.  One solution gaining interest and scrutiny is Universal Basic Income, through schemes which guarantee everyone enough for their minimum needs….

DEVELOPMENTS IN YEMEN – 2021 One of the first insights into new developments in the Middle East in 2021 and of the foreign policy of the new President Biden, specifically in the area, has come in his announcements on Yemen. As Pierson puts it however, just because the US President says a war has ended,…

the Protestant Churches of Nauen District, Brandenburg      PROTECTING THE CHURCH At the time Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, the parishes of the Nauen District were led by Superintendent Grasshof, who had been in post for less than a year.  But two years later ill health forced his retirement, and he was…

the Protestant Churches of Nauen District, Brandenburg    OPPOSITION TO THE GERMAN-CHRISTIANS In the first part of this series we looked at the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power that came from many members and pastors of the Protestant churches of the Nauen District near Berlin, an enthusiasm which persisted with some pastors,…

the Protestant Churches of Nauen District, Brandenburg  WELCOMING HITLER Twenty-five miles west of the centre of Berlin, and eleven miles outside its city limits, is the municipality of Nauen, in the Havelland district of Brandenburg, with eighteen thousand people living in the town and its surrounding villages.  Havelland is a mainly farming and not densely…