Saratoga Springs, N.Y., famous for its historic racetrack, is among the most idyllic places in America. But on a recent fall weekend, not far from the track, horses were serving a different mission: retired thoroughbreds were recruited to help returning veterans at Song Hill Farm. A group from the US Army 2nd Battalion, 135th infantry, united in grief over the death of a fellow solider, gathered for the first time in five years to be part of Saratoga Warhorse, a three-day program that pairs veterans with horses. Tom Rinaldi reports the emotional story of the veterans, paired with their horses, undergoing a rebirth of trust and taking a first step toward healing.

Watch it all, and, yes, you will likely need kleenex–KSH.

In C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, the demon Screwtape advises his protege and nephew Wormwood to convince his human target that politics are a key part of his faith. “Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part,” Screwtape said. That way, faith would become a mere pretext for politics…

Read it all

Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us, that in thy light we may see light: the light of thy grace today, and the light of thy glory hereafter; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Lord God Almighty, shaper and ruler of all creatures, we pray Thee for Thy great mercy, that Thou guide us better than we have done, towards Thee, and guide us to Thy will, to the need of our soul, better than we can ourselves. And steadfast our mind towards Thy will and to our soul’s need. And strengthen us against the temptations of the devil, and put far from us all lust, and every unrighteousness, and shield us against our foes, seen and unseen. And teach us to do Thy will, that we may inwardly love Thee before all things, with a pure mind. For Thou art our maker and our redeemer, our help, our comfort, our trust, our hope; praise and glory be to Thee now, ever and ever, world without end. Amen.

–James Manning,ed., Prayers of the Middle Ages: Light from a Thousand Years (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1954)

As he said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!” But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

–Luke 11:27-28

Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed more than 40 Christians in an attack in this town in northern Nigeria on Saturday (Oct. 15) and left another eight dead in an assault three weeks earlier, area leaders said.
Besides the eight slain on Sept. 24-26 in Godogodo, a predominantly Christian community in Kaduna state, the Muslim Fulani herdsmen also wounded eight Christians by gunshot and machete cuts, the leaders said.
Godogodo residents said that the second massacre began at 5 p.m. on Saturday (Oct. 15), barely two hours after Morning Star News left after investigating the September attack. The Rev. Thomas Akut of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) Good News Church in Godogodo said the assailants burned houses and shot Christians dead in the attack over the weekend.

Read it all.

I love thee, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
and I am saved from my enemies.

The cords of death encompassed me,
the torrents of perdition assailed me;
the cords of Sheol entangled me,
the snares of death confronted me.

In my distress I called upon the Lord;
to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears
Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations also of the mountains trembled
and quaked, because he was angry.
Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.
He bowed the heavens, and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.
He rode on a cherub, and flew;
he came swiftly upon the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering around him,
his canopy thick clouds dark with water.
Out of the brightness before him
there broke through his clouds
hailstones and coals of fire.
The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
and the Most High uttered his voice,
hailstones and coals of fire.
And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them;
he flashed forth lightnings, and routed them.
Then the channels of the sea were seen,
and the foundations of the world were laid bare,
at thy rebuke, O Lord,
at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

He reached from on high, he took me,
he drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy,
and from those who hated me;
for they were too mighty for me.
They came upon me in the day of my calamity;
but the Lord was my stay.
He brought me forth into a broad place;
he delivered me, because he delighted in me.

The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me.

–Psalm 18:1-20

I was in sixth grade. The teacher was Sister Everard. She was a slight but imposing woman. She was ancient beyond measure: 40. If you misbehaved or got lippy or were unprepared in class, she would lower her eyebrows and glare at you and you would feel that glare like a crisp ringing slap. She was stern and somber and orderly and firm and rigorous and organized and blank and un­emotional. I cannot remember that I ever saw her smile, which is a remarkable thing to say of a person I saw nearly every day for a year, but that is so. I cannot remember that she laughed or cried or lost her temper or sneered or snickered or cracked a joke or offered a sidelong wry remark or skipped or giggled or twirled her rosary for effect or groaned melodramatically at the profligate idiocy of her young charges, as some of the other sisters did. I suspect now that she had learned to manage her class by incarnating the quiet discipline she wished to instill and evoke in us; but that is the present conclusion of a man much older than she was then. Back then we thought her only stern and rigorous and dry as a skittered leaf””until one afternoon in October.

I’m not spoiling it for you by posting any more—go to the link and read it all.

While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.” And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them; and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve of them in all.

And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, arguing and pleading about the kingdom of God; but when some were stubborn and disbelieved, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them, taking the disciples with him, and argued daily in the hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

–Acts 19:1-10

Conservative and liberal Christians have criticised a new bishops’ group set up to discuss the issue of homosexuality.

Some conservatives are upset that such a group has been set up at all.

Liberal Anglicans are equally angry, complaining that the new Bishops’ Reflection Group contains no members who have advocated a change in the Church’s traditional teaching on marriage.

Others however have welcomed its membership as faithfully representing Biblical teaching on [same-sex relationships]….

Read it all.

Let us therefore, brethren beloved, pray as God our Teacher has taught us. It is a loving and friendly prayer to beseech God with His own word, to come up to His ears in the prayer of Christ. Let the Father acknowledge the words of His Son when we make our prayer, and let Him also who dwells within in our breast Himself dwell in our voice. And since we have Him as an Advocate with the Father for our sins, let us, when as sinners we petition on behalf of our sins, put forward the words of our Advocate. For since He says, that “whatsoever we shall ask of the Father in His name, He will give us,”how much more effectually do we obtain what we ask in Christ’s name, if we ask for it in His own prayer!

But let our speech and petition when we pray be under discipline, observing quietness and modesty. Let us consider that we are standing in God’s sight. We must please the divine eyes both with the habit of body and with the measure of voice. For as it is characteristic of a shameless man to be noisy with his cries, so, on the other hand, it is fitting to the modest man to pray with moderated petitions. Moreover, in His teaching the Lord has bidden us to pray in secret””in hidden and remote places, in our very bed-chambers””which is best suited to faith, that we may know that God is everywhere present, and hears and sees all, and in the plenitude of His majesty penetrates even into hidden and secret places, as it is written, “I am a God at hand, and not a God afar off. If a man shall hide himself in secret places, shall I not then see him? Do not I fill heaven and earth?”And again: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.”And when we meet together with the brethren in one place, and celebrate divine sacrifices with God’s priest, we ought to be mindful of modesty and discipline””not to throw abroad our prayers indiscriminately, with unsubdued voices, nor to cast to God with tumultuous wordiness a petition that ought to be commended to God by modesty; for God is the hearer, not of the voice, but of the heart. Nor need He be clamorously reminded, since He sees men’s thoughts, as the Lord proves to us when He says, “Why think ye evil in your hearts?” And in another place: “And all the churches shall know that I am He that searcheth the hearts and reins.”
And this Hannah in the first book of Kings, who was a type of the Church, maintains and observes, in that she prayed to God not with clamorous petition, but silently and modestly, within the very recesses of her heart. She spoke with hidden prayer, but with manifest faith. She spoke not with her voice, but with her heart, because she knew that thus God hears; and she effectually obtained what she sought, because she asked it with belief. Divine Scripture asserts this, when it says, “She spake in her heart, and her lips moved, and her voice was not heard; and God did hear her.”We read also in the Psalms, “Speak in your hearts, and in your beds, and be ye pierced.”The Holy Spirit, moreover, suggests these same things by Jeremiah, and teaches, saying, “But in the heart ought God to be adored by thee.”

–From his Treatise On the Lord’s Prayer

Proconsul: "Have you acted as leader in a community of impious men?" Cyprian: "I have" Acts of martyrdom of Cyprian pic.twitter.com/L2K97KUJlB

— Catholicity&Covenant (@cath_cov) September 15, 2016

But at least one critic thinks An Ember in the Ashes is something all its own. Marie Rutkoski is an English professor who also writes young adult fiction. She says [Sabaa] Tahir’s book is unlike The Hunger Games because Tahir writes from multiple points of view, showing empathy even with the merciless headmistress of the military school that the main character, Laia, has infiltrated.

“It felt so strange to be able to see from her perspective because she is so horrible,” Rutkoski says. She also appreciates the rich, dense layers of Tahir’s fantasy world, which borrows from ancient Sparta, Bedouin culture and the loneliness of the author’s own California childhood.

Tahir grew up in an isolated town in the Mojave Desert. Her parents owned a motel with 18 rooms and a pool they didn’t always fill. Even though the motel was near a bustling military base, it wasn’t the financial success her parents had hoped for. “Flipping the no vacancy sign was always a really huge deal because it happened so rarely,” Tahir remembers.

Read or listern to it all.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

–Psalm 1:1-3

O Lord our God, who hast committed to us the glorious gospel of our risen Saviour and Master: Grant that as we joyfully receive the good news for ourselves, so we may gratefully share it with others, and ever give glory to thee, by whose grace alone we are what we are: through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jeremy Schaap looks back at the life and career of Hall of Famer Pat Summitt, who was named head coach of the Lady Vols in 1974 and led Tennessee to eight titles and an NCAA Division I-record 1,098 wins.

Not long to go now until General Synod in July. The first part will involve normal business, and then the members will move into a closed session of Shared Conversations on sexuality and mission, guided by facilitators. I am not a member of General Synod and so will not be there, but I took part in the regional version of these Conversations and my report of my experience, the process and its implications can be read here.

”˜Grace and truth’ from ”˜affirming evangelicals’

In the lead-up to the Conversations, lobbying from groups on both sides of the debate has been taking place. Books and articles have been sent to members, and one such is ”˜Journeys in Grace and Truth’, from the newly formed Via Media Publications, which is a collection of essays by C of E leaders who describe themselves as evangelical but who have come to accept that same sex relationships are positive and worthy of celebration. Jayne Ozanne, who has edited the collection, has been doing a now familiar round of media interviews to promote the book and its main idea; Paul Bayes Bishop of Liverpool and the most senior ”˜evangelical’ to publicly endorse the ”˜affirming’ stance, was on the Radio 4 Sunday programme explaining why, in his view, the Church needs to change. He expressed his understanding of mission in this way:

“Since we’ve been called to be there for England as it is, how do we look at what we’ve got, in order to make it available to people who want to love God but who also want to be faithful to who they are?”

This idea that the church’s role is somehow to uncritically affirm the culture and hold out the love of God without any call to repentance is at the very least a defective view of New Testament Christianity and certainly cannot be called evangelical. But for me to say such a thing is itself the problem, according to another Bishop, Colin Fletcher who has been acting Bishop of Oxford for the past 18 months. Christian Today reports that Fletcher, who recently authorized an Oxford clergywoman to officiate at a celebration of a same sex marriage and wrote the foreward to the ”˜Grace and Truth’ book, accuses evangelicals who hold to the traditional position of causing pain to gay people. He calls for conservatives to continue to engage in conversation, and not to marginalise and write off those with a different interpretation of the Bible.
………
how can the very different opinions of Alan Wilson, Jayne Ozanne and someone like myself be held together to ensure continued unity in the church? Answering this question is the task given to the authors of a major new report from the Faith and Order Commission, approved by the House of Bishops to resource the Synodical Shared Conversations, entitled ”˜Communion and Difference’.

In his preface, the Chair of the Commission Christopher Cocksworth, Bishop of Coventry, explains that the document doesn’t attempt to resolve questions about sexual ethics (in fact it hardly refers to them at all), but serves as a reflection on “Scriptural, historical and doctrinal perspectives”, to analyse what happens when Christians disagree, and to look at possible options for continued conversation based on what is held in common. Written in careful, nuanced, academic language, the report reflects in detail on the meanings of Communion, the types of conflict in the church throughout history and in the present, and outlines some paths that might be taken towards resolution.

I will not attempt to make a full critique of the report (others better qualified than I will do that in due course). But I will say that it is very frustrating to read; although Scripture is used throughout, verses are often taken out of context
……………..
The report gives a tentative steer towards using the agreement reached over women Bishops as a model for future resolution (paras 67 and 68), ie a solution whereby change happens but there is protection and respect for those who disagree (similar to what has happened in the Episcopal Church of Scotland, perhaps?). Although the authors admit that this may result in a substantial number of people breaking communion over the issue, they feel that those who want to separate would be to blame, and would be acting like the Donatists of Augustine’s day (para 87). Rather, Christians are obligated to continue in communion with one another because of a commitment to love.

Unlike the Pilling report, this document does not openly advocate a change to the Church’s teaching and practice regarding same sex relationships, but in focusing on the priority of peace and unity at all costs and in questioning the possibility of knowing truth, it is intended to break down any resistance to incremental and inevitable change from the conservative side. It provides further evidence of the senior leadership of the Church’s complete lack of confidence in being able to articulate the key doctrines of creation, sex and marriage, the authority of Scripture and the Gospel of salvation which Anglicans claim to still espouse.

Read it all

I have just been in on a series of fascinating discussions on the future of theology in Yale Divinity School in the USA. The premise we were there to discuss was that theology needs to re-think itself as the ”˜secular’ world no longer listened to theologians (they don’t produce anything useful, scientifically verifiable or economically profitable) and church didn’t much either (churches being more interested in pragmatic leadership training and no longer read theological books). As a result, theology has tended to drift into the descriptive mode of ”˜religious studies’ and lost interest in God. The suggestion was that theology should ultimately be about ”˜articulating visions of human flourishing’.

It was a fascinating 24 hours. Broadly speaking the thesis held up. Guilty as charged, the theological guild does often come over as talking to itself in ever-smaller circles about ever more abstruse subjects, and did need a new vision of itself and its purpose. The idea that we live in a secular world, however, was roundly challenged. We are no longer so much a secular world but a plural one, where religion is reviving around the world, with the odd exception of Europe, but even there and in the west generally, the real divide is not between secular and religious views of the world but between transcendental ones (including but not uniquely religious) and ”˜closed systems’ which saw the world in reductionist mechanistic terms.

Read it all.

Let us now investigate what are our common conceptions concerning the Spirit, as well those which have been gathered by us from Holy Scripture concerning It as those which we have received from the unwritten tradition of the Fathers. First of all we ask, who on hearing the titles of the Spirit is not lifted up in soul, who does not raise his conception to the supreme nature? It is called “Spirit of God,” “Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father,” “right Spirit,” “a leading Spirit.” Its proper and peculiar title is “Holy Spirit;” which is a name specially appropriate to everything that is incorporeal, purely immaterial, and indivisible. So our Lord, when teaching the woman who thought God to be an object of local worship that the incorporeal is incomprehensible, said “God is a spirit.” On our hearing, then, of a spirit, it is impossible to form the idea of a nature circumscribed, subject to change and variation, or at all like the creature. We are compelled to advance in our conceptions to the highest, and to think of an intelligent essence, in power infinite, in magnitude unlimited, unmeasured by times or ages, generous of Its good gifts, to whom turn all things needing sanctification, after whom reach all things that live in virtue, as being watered by Its inspiration and helped on toward their natural and proper end; perfecting all other things, but Itself in nothing lacking; living not as needing restoration, but as Supplier of life; not growing by additions; but straightway full, self-established, omnipresent, origin of sanctification, light perceptible to the mind, supplying, as it were, through Itself, illumination to every faculty in the search for truth; by nature unapproachable, apprehended by reason of goodness, filling all things with Its power, but communicated only to the worthy; not shared in one measure, but distributing Its energy according to “the proportion of faith;” in essence simple, in powers various, wholly present in each and being wholly everywhere; impassively divided, shared without loss of ceasing to be entire, after the likeness of the sunbeam, whose kindly light falls on him who enjoys it as though it shone for him alone, yet illumines land and sea and mingles with the air. So, too, is the Spirit to every one who receives it, as though given to him alone, and yet It sends forth grace sufficient and full for all mankind, and is enjoyed by all who share It, according to the capacity, not of Its power, but of their nature.

—de Spiritu Sancto, Chapter IX (my emphasis)

Cast your bread upon the waters,
for you will find it after many days.
Give a portion to seven, or even to eight,
for you know not what evil may happen on earth.
If the clouds are full of rain,
they empty themselves on the earth;
and if a tree falls to the south or to the north,
in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.
He who observes the wind will not sow;
and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

As you do not know how the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.
In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.

Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to behold the sun.

For if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.

–Ecclesiastes 11:1-8

The Anglican Church has clarified its position regarding same sex marriages and why it has accepted the decision by Reverend Canon Mpho Tutu-van Furth of the Saldanah Bay diocese to give up her licence.

Tutu-van Furth, who recently got married to long-time partner and academic, Marceline Tutu-van Furth, voluntarily gave up her practice licence before it was revoked by the church.

Tutu-van Furth, the daughter of Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, recently made headlines when she decided to marry another female.

Anglican Church spokesperson, Father Bruce Jenniker says the church guidelines do not allow for same sex marriages.

Read it all.

O holy and ever-blessed Jesus, who being the eternal Son of God and most high in the glory of the Father, didst vouchsafe in love for us sinners to be born of a pure virgin, and didst humble thyself unto death, even the death of the cross : Deepen within us, we beseech thee, a due sense of thy infinite love; that adoring and believing in thee as our Lord and Saviour, we may trust in thy infinite merits, imitate thy holy example, obey thy commands, and finally enjoy thy promises; who with the Father and the Holy Ghost livest and reignest, one God, world without end.

AMBRIDGE, PA – May 18, 2016 – The Trinity School for Ministry Board of Trustees announced today their appointment of the Rev. Dr. Henry “Laurie” Thompson III as Interim Dean/President. He will take office on July 1, 2016. The Dean/President is the senior administrator and chief academic officer of the seminary and is responsible for all of the daily operations and fundraising efforts.

Mr. Douglas Wicker, Chairman of Trinity’s Board of Trustees, said, “Laurie Thompson is a superb leader and pastor and he has been an important senior administrator at Trinity for many years. He is intimately familiar with all aspects of the operation of the school and he will be able to take the reins without missing a beat.” He added, “We have received many excellent applications for the position of Dean President but we haven’t found the right leader yet. We feel confident that this is God’s will for us at this time. Appointing Laurie as Interim Dean/President will allow us the time we need to carefully discern God’s will. We continue to trust that God will bring us the right candidate at the right time.”…

Read it all

O Almighty and Eternal God, the creator of all things, who hast made our days upon earth as it were a span long, and our age even as nothing in respect of Thee; give us grace, we humbly beseech Thee, to live under such a constant sense of our mortality, and of the shortness and uncertainty of this present life, that death may never surprise us in an hour that we are not aware; but, being always provided with oil in our lamps, we may be ready, whenever the Bridegroom may come, to enter with Him into the marriage feast, and receive a blessing among those who watch and wait for the coming of their Lord; to Whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, world without end.

–Henry Stobart, Daily Services For Christian Households (London: SPCK,1867), pp. 95-96

You can listen directly there and and download the mp3 there. The sermon proper starts after a brief introduction and prayer.

‘The GAFCON Primates Council is meeting this week in Nairobi (18th-23rd April). As ever, they would value prayer as they seek to guard the Gospel so it can be faithfully proclaimed’.
Below are some points to guide your prayers as well as your praise to our God who is rich in mercy and grace.

Give thanks:

– for the Primates’ willingness to serve the Anglican Communion through the GAFCON Primates Council despite the heavy burdens they carry in their own Provinces.
– for the courageous and faithful leadership of Archbishop Wabukala as he stands down as chairman at this meeting.

Pray:

– for safety in travelling and at the venue, for visa arrangements to go smoothly and for everyone to arrive as scheduled.
– that the Primates will be united and strong in their love for God’s Word and their resolve to see the Church of God healed and renewed.
– for wisdom in the decisions that need to be made about GAFCON 2018 and the development of the GAFCON movement.
– for the Advisers, Consultants and Secretariat staff who will be supporting the Primates.
– for this meeting to be an encouragement to the Anglican Church of Kenya

Read it all

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that ”” pierced ”” died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

–John Updike (1932-2009)

As…[in this week] we keep the special memory of our Redeemer’s entry into the city, so grant, O Lord, that now and ever he may triumph in our hearts. Let the King of grace and glory enter in, and let us lay ourselves and all we are in full and joyful homage before him; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Handley Carr Glyn Moule (1841-1920)

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption; therefore, as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord.”

–1 Corinthians 1:20-31

Because thy steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise thee. So I will bless thee as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on thy name. My soul is feasted as with marrow and fat, and my mouth praises thee with joyful lips, when I think of thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the watches of the night; for thou hast been my help, and in the shadow of thy wings I sing for joy.

–Psalm 63:3-7

Under the new scheme, from September 2017, the diocese would be able to choose whether candidates attended a residential or a regional course. Different amounts of funding would be made available from central funds, depending on the age of the candidate.

It is this last detail that has alarmed the theological college principals. The proposal is that £41,900 be given to train candidates under 30, enough to cover a three-year residential course. Those in their thirties would receive £28,000; those between 40 and 55, £18,400; and those over 55, £12,300.

This bias to the young will, the principals write, “enshrine an inbuilt and systemic bias against women and in favour of men in financial terms. This is because the existing pattern and profile of ordinands shows more men than women in that age bracket entering training.”

Read it all from the Church Times.