When all is done, the hell of hells, the torment of torments, is the everlasting absence of God, and the everlasting impossibility of returning to his presence…to fall out of the hands of the living God, is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our imagination…. What Tophet is not Paradise, what Brimstone is not Amber, what gnashing is not a comfort, what gnawing of the worme is not a tickling, what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation, to be secluded eternally, eternally, eternally from the sight of God?

–From a sermon to the Earl of Carlisle in 1622

'Death be not proud … for thou art not so' – John Donne, poet, priest & Dean of St Paul's, died #OnThisDay 1631 pic.twitter.com/KXNGZlsv7m

— St Paul's Cathedral (@StPaulsLondon) March 31, 2016

I can bring it so neare; but onely the worthy hearer, and the worthy receiver, can call this Lord this Jesus, this Christ, Immanuel God with us; onely that virgin soule, devirginated in the blood of Adam but restored in the blood of the Lambe hath this Ecce, this testimony, this assurance, that God is with him; they that have this Ecce, this testimony, in a rectified conscience, are Godfathers to this child Jesus and may call him Immanuel God with us for as no man can deceive God, so God can deceive no man; God cannot live in the darke himself neither can he leave those who are his in the darke: If he be with thee he will make thee see that he is with thee and never goe out of thy sight, till he have brought thee, where thou canst never goe out of his.

–John Donne (1572-1631), Preached at St. Pauls, upon Christmas Day, in the Evening, 1624

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to’another due,
Labor to’admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly’I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me,’untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you’enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

–Holy Sonnet XIV

And this is where the oddity of today’s celebration touches our lives in challenging ways. If I may speak personally, I find it increasingly difficult to resist the onslaught of information that is directed at me or required from me. My life feels as though it is regulated to the point of near extinction, by Government, by economic responsibility, by social and cultural suspicion, by commercial bureaucracy. And this is before I start on the day job! My space as a human being sometimes feels so thoroughly invaded and occupied that I just want to switch off, cut the wifi, abandon the mobile, stop the emails, and regain some quality of human and spiritual equilibrium.

It is no wonder that so high a percentage of young people in Britain today register anxiety as a dominant emotion. The tank of our potential for human flourishing is cluttered up with too much stuff. It’s as though we’ve filled the empty tomb so full with an unhappy blend of debt, regulation, kitsch memorabilia, and a craving for novelty, that there is no longer any expectation of room for glory, space for mystery, allowance for the confounding of limited expectation.

This is a situation that was recently described by Jonathan Sacks, in his masterly book, Not in God’s name, where he observes that we have attained “unprecedented achievements in knowledge, freedom, life expectancy and affluence”¦.[and] the result is that the twenty-first century has left us with a maximum of choice and a minimum of meaning”.

Which is why the symbol of the empty tomb is so powerful and haunting. Here is the sign of our mortality and death. One day the frame of this body will come to resemble that tomb, when the breath stops and the agency of control and demand is lifted from us. Then, as now when we celebrate the dawn of Easter glory and the glory of life, the very breath of God will be able to fill the space within us, to satisfy our deepest longing, to give freedom to our best and greatest loves, to perfect our every thought and deed that has already expanded the meaning of goodness, truth and justice.

As Easter celebrations begin, those of you who gave up alcohol, sweets, cakes and biscuits, can look forward to your Easter gin and tonic, the glass of remarkable claret, and unbridled pleasure as you accept the offer of a chocolate after lunch. This is your enactment of the reception of divine love in the glory of resurrection; you have made an empty space in your appetites and desires, in order to rehearse what it will be like to receive, all over again, a perfect and eternal gift in the new creation that evokes something you have already known so well. The full to overflowing font is the symbol of that perfect gift and what resurrection means. It is the recovery of our total capacity to expand into the divine life of God, as in baptism we are united with Jesus Christ: “In him the whole fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form, and you have come to fullness in him” ”“ is how St Paul describes it (Col. 2.9) So, happy Easter. Savour the gin, raise a toast to the CofE with the claret, enjoy the chocolate, and expand into the freedom of a bank holiday. But more than these transient celebrations, attend to the eternal fulfilment they betoken. Don’t run away from the empty tomb; it is your destiny. Let its haunting beauty inspire you. Make space for the glory of God to begin its transformative effect in your life now.

Read it all (emphasis mine).

Cigarette breaks between hymns, candlelit services in pubs and parties serving halal food to welcome Muslim neighbours are among unlikely new ideas helping revive the fortunes of once run-down inner city churches, highlighted in a new report.

The breach with traditional ecclesiastical style is singled out in the study into an at-times controversial plan by the Church of England to “plant” new congregations into historic parishes where numbers in the pews have dwindled for decades.

The policy, backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other senior clerics, involves asking a group of often young, enthusiastic members of successful, growing congregations to move to another church as “planters” to inject new energy and ideas.

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Via Facebook from Bishop Samuel Azariah, Bishop of Raiwind, and Moderator of the [United] Church of Pakistan – and there is also a video recorded by Bishop Azariah on Sunday.
Bishop Samuel Azariah, the President Bishop of Church of Pakistan condemns in strongest terms the terrorist attack in Gulshan Iqbal Park Lahore, claiming lives of innocent people.

Bishop Samuel Azariah, Bishop Irfan Jamil (Bishop of Lahore) and Bishop Mano Rumalshah (Bishop Emeritus of Peshawar) expressed their deepest condolences to the bereaved families and prayed for peace and speedy recovery to those who were injured in the blast.

The Lahore blast has taken lives of over 72 people and left over 300 injured, many of them children and women, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at Gulshan Iqbal Park on Easter evening.

Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, one of the largest parks of Lahore, is usually packed with visitors on weekends. But there was an extraordinary rush Sunday evening as a large number of Christians had turned up to celebrate Easter.

Following the blast, the President Bishop of Church of Pakistan visited the hospitals to console pray for the injured and analyze the situation.
Bishop Azariah, who actively participates in promoting interfaith activities, stated that such acts weaken and damage the struggle and effort toward bringing a relation of peace and harmony between Christians and Muslims.

It is unfortunate that these inhuman terrorists identify themselves as Muslims and by performing such barbaric acts damage the image of their faith community. In a context of this nature, it is the primary responsibility of our majority brothers and sisters from the Muslim community to identify, silence and eliminate this minority. This minority claims to be the real Muslims, and primarily acts against the teaching of Islam and this should be resolved.
Mere statements of condemnation and quotes from The Holy Scriptures are not enough. We as a nation have reached a breaking point that ”˜enough is enough.’ How many more soft targets have to be sacrificed?

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The Anglican Archbishops of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia have condemned an Easter Sunday suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan which killed at least 70 people.

“The targeting of the innocent, in this case Christians celebrating Easter, is the hallmark of terrorism and such cowardice should be condemned,” the Archbishops said.

They said people of peace from all faiths should stand in solidarity to condemn the bombing.

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”˜For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.’ Paul’s classic challenge to the wisdom of the world echoes down the centuries and confronts us once more as we come face to face once more with the great events which not only stand at the heart of our faith but are etched into our geography and architecture, as this great building makes clear. One of the paradoxical signs of the continuing and urgent relevance of the message and meaning of the cross is that it is once more under attack from several directions; and we who today declare that we will be true to our ordination vows, and who will this evening and tomorrow commemorate those high and holy, disturbing and decisive events in the story of Jesus himself, must take a deep breath, summon up our courage, and learn again what it means to discover the wisdom of God in what the world counts foolishness, the power of God in what the world counts weakness.

The first challenge comes from within, in the temptation to water down the message of the cross so that it becomes less offensive, more palatable to the ordinary sensible mind. We must of course acknowledge that many, alas, have offered caricatures of the biblical theology of the cross. It is all too possible to take elements from the biblical witness and present them within a controlling narrative gleaned from somewhere else, like a child doing a follow-the-dots puzzle without paying attention to the numbers and producing a dog instead of a rabbit. This is what happens when people present over-simple stories, as the mediaeval church often did, followed by many since, with an angry God and a loving Jesus, with a God who demands blood and doesn’t much mind whose it is as long as it’s innocent. You’d have thought people would notice that this flies in the face of John’s and Paul’s deep-rooted theology of the love of the triune God: not ”˜God was so angry with the world that he gave us his son’ but ”˜God so loved the world that he gave us his son’. That’s why, when I sing that interesting recent song and we come to the line, ”˜And on the cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied’, I believe it’s more deeply true to sing ”˜the love of God was satisfied’, and I commend that alteration to those of you who sing that song, which is in other respects one of the very few really solid recent additions to our repertoire.

But once we’ve got rid of the caricature, we are ready to face the reality, the reality of the foolishness and weakness, but in fact the wisdom and the power, of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Read it all.

Let man’s soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
Th’ intelligence that moves, devotion is;
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey;
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl’d by it.
Hence is’t, that I am carried towards the west,
This day, when my soul’s form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget.
But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees Gods face, that is self-life, must die;
What a death were it then to see God die?
It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us ? or that blood, which is
The seat of all our soul’s, if not of His,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg’d and torn?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed Mother cast mine eye,
Who was God’s partner here, and furnish’d thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom’d us?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They’re present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and Thou look’st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang’st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity ;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I’ll turn my face.

–John Donne (1572-1631)

Think of Jesus. His words are few. He is exhausted and in pain. Two words however remain: a word of mercy to the criminal who repents; a word of fidelity, handing himself to his Father, his mission completed.

Lord we live in a world filled with words. Perhaps never in history have there been so many words: spoken, printed, electronically stored or moving invisibly. Help us to realise that few words are necessary. Empty words foster empty hearts. There are realities which do not need words. Give us Lord the words to ask for forgiveness, the words which touch those things in our hearts we would not want anyone to hear, but things that keep us entrapped in sinfulness and isolation. Give us words to forgive, to be generous and loving.Open our heart in mercy to those who long for freedom. Keep us faithful like Jesus to what we are called to, to what is most noble and good in our lives.

In a world where everything has a shelf-life and what we dislike can be quickly discarded, help us to learn that singular characteristic of God: being faithful. The events of Good Friday realise something that has been spoken of throughout the history of God’s encounter with his people. God remains faithful to his people, even when his people generation after generation fail him and fail him and betray him and betray him[.]
True goodness is not a passing emotion. It is not about feeling good. It is about being faithful to goodness when it is easy, when it is challenging, and even when it leads to our annihilation in the eyes of those who seek their only own interest.

Jesus dies. He breathes his last and that last is the same as the first words recorded about Jesus: “I must be about my Father’s business”; “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”.

Jesus humbles himself, he empties himself, and his love is so great that he empties himself even unto death, death on the Cross. But the Cross triumphs. His self-giving love is so complete that it brings new life, true live.

Lord help us to reject everything that is trivial and superficial. Give us the love that Jesus showed on the Cross: love that endures and that saves.

Read it all.

A historic declaration from the Anglican Church of Canada regarding it’s part in the horrific cultural genocide and many abuses done to an estimated 150,000 Aboriginal children and their families in the name of Christ was delivered at North America’s oldest Anglican Church, Her Majesties Chapel of the Mohawks in Brantford, Saturday afternoon.

Canada’s top Anglican Bishops and leaders were on hand as Anglican Archbishop of Canada, Fred Hiltz and National Indigenous Bishop, Right Reverend Mark MacDonald delivered a humble and heartfelt apology to all Indigenous children forced to attend residential schools operated by the Church and their families.

The Chapel is only a short distance from the Mohawk Institute, Canada’s first and longest running residential school where atrocities were committed in the name of education and Christianity against Aboriginal children.

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Fifty years ago, on March 22nd 1966, a new centre was set up in the heart of Rome dedicated to the building up of Anglican-Catholic dialogue. The Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey presided at the dedication ceremony in the ancient Doria Pamphilj palace, the day before his first historic encounter with Pope Paul VI that took place in the Sistine Chapel.

Exactly half a century on, Christians of many different denominations gathered in the Anglican Centre chapel on Tuesday to give thanks for those events and to commit themselves anew to the task of reconciling their divided Churches.

Read and listen to it all.

The Anglican diocese of Bathurst is being forced to sell church property following a NSW Supreme Court order to settle an outstanding debt of up to $25 million to Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

The diocese, which covers one-third of the area of NSW, is likely next month to approve the first sale of properties at a synod, or governing council, after losing a lengthy battle in which it argued it did not have the authority to sell property it held under trust structures.

“We will be selling church trust property in order to satisfy what we owe,” Ian Palmer, the bishop in charge of the Bathurst diocese, said.

Read it all.

This is my annual Easter message to the people of Uganda, and, today, I want to talk mostly about Jesus. Because Easter is first and foremost about Jesus.

We have been through a lot recently as a country. Since Christmas, I have tried to remind all of us that “politics is not our salvation ”“ only Jesus is our salvation.”

During the wonderful commemoration of Archbishop Janani Luwum’s life and martyrdom in Mucwini on 16th February, I stressed that “Politics will change, but the Word of God does not change.”

Now, during this Holy Week, I want to call all of us, once again, to “turn our eyes upon Jesus.”

Read it all

Posted on Anglican Ink [pdf]
16 March 2016

Your Graces, dear brothers in Christ

As we enter Passiontide, with less than two weeks until Easter, I wanted to write to wish you all a celebration of Holy Week and the day of Resurrection that is all-consuming in its joy and power. Uniquely, we proclaim a saviour who has overcome death, having lived fully through every experience and temptation of life, and having himself died.

Our great enemy, who tells us that all things end in pointlessness, is defeated by the empty tomb, and with all Christians around the world, we should celebrate without limit.

On Easter day, at Canterbury Cathedral, full of the memories of our Meeting in January, I shall be praying for you and rejoicing in your fellowship in the proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ.

Since that Meeting, there have been numerous developments. First, we should be aware of the great rejoicing and thankfulness that the outcome of the Meeting gave to many Christians around the world. We have all received numerous comments of thankfulness that the Anglican Communion, deeply divided in many areas, managed in the part of its leadership which is the Primates’ Meeting, to vote unanimously, amongst those present, to walk together. As you will remember, at that crucial moment, we undertook to seek personally to ensure that what we voted, was put into practise.

Since that time, as I undertook to you, I have followed through by changing the representation of those bodies where I have the ability to make a decision, so as to put into effect the agreement we reached amongst ourselves.

We must, of course, remember that as in the early Church, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, there is never an end to these issues. So long as the Church is made up of human beings, it will be made up of sinners. In consequence, we will take decisions and say things that are inappropriate or wrong. The strength of the East African revival was not that it produced sinless people but that it taught sinners to walk in the light. That meant that they were to confess their sins, repent and acknowledge them.

The issues which have divided us over so many years still exist, and will resurface again at the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Lusaka. We are called as Primates to work closely with the ACC, as they are called to work with us. For example, Resolution 52 of the Lambeth Conference 1988 said: “This Conference requests the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council to give urgent attention to implementing the hope expressed at Lambeth 1978 (and as confirmed by recent provincial responses) that both bodies would work in the very closest contact.”

At Lambeth 1998, Resolution III point 6, as well as affirming “the enhanced responsibility here in offering guidance on doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters” of the Primates’ Meeting, also said that the responsibility of the Primates’ Meeting “should be exercised in sensitive consultation with the relevant provinces and with the ACC or in cases of emergency the Executive of the ACC, and that while not interfering with the juridical authority of the provinces, the exercise of these responsibilities by the Primates’ Meeting should carry moral authority calling for ready acceptance through the Communion”.

There are numerous other examples indicating that we should work closely together.

In all cases, back as far as 1857, it is well recognised that there is no single body within the Anglican Communion that has juridical authority over individual provinces. We are autonomous but interdependent.

For these reasons, I hope and pray that every province that is able will be present in Lusaka. The decisions we took in January can only have effect if they gain general ownership amongst the Communion, taking in laity, priests and bishops. Even if a province is not able to be present, I urge you to pray fervently for the outcome of the ACC. We will need to elect a new Chairman, and such a position should be someone, who, speaking the truth in love, seeks to unite the Communion in truth-filled service to Jesus Christ, and not to uphold any particular group at the expense of the Common Good, so long as we are within acceptable limits of diversity.

The ACC is the only body in which laity and clergy, other than bishops, are represented, and is thus of a special importance. It will discuss many matters, including those that we raised in January at Canterbury. These will include our evangelism and witness, the impact of climate change, our response to the great global refugee crisis, our support for those caught in conflict, and above all persecution.

Only those who are present will be able to make their voice heard and their votes effective. I therefore urge you to make every effort to join us in Lusaka, so that, in the presence of the risen Christ, we may continue our often painful, but ever hopeful journey in his service.

This brings my love, respect and commitment to service in the name of Christ our peace, Christ our saviour and Christ our truth.

+ Justin Cantaur

The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Justin Welby
Archbishop of Canterbury

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The Church of England has today released its film marking Easter 2016 featuring a passion play which features individuals who have struggled with drug addiction, crime and homelessness on their journey to faith.

The film is based on Psalm 22 and contains the lines “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” words spoken by Jesus on the Cross.

The striking imagery in the film includes a re-enactment of a passion play with Christ’s Crown of Thorns being replaced with a crown of syringes to reflect the struggles of addiction faced by those who have recently come to faith in a Halifax Church called “The Saturday Gathering”.

Read it all and follow the links.

At the Bloxham Festival for Faith and Literature, 19-21 February 2016, the short list of six books for the Michael Ramsey Prize 2016 was announced.
………..
I was asked to present:

– Francis Spufford, Unapologetic: Why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense (London: Faber and Faber, 2012) and

– Frances Young, God’s Presence: A Contemporary Recapitulation of Early Christianity (Cambridge: CUP, 2013)

Alison Barr, Senior Commissioning Editor at SPCK, gave an overview of the prize and the books.

The following is a development of my comments at the Bloxham Festival on the two books by Frances and Francis.

1. Unapologetic by Francis Spufford

This could win a prize for the longest sub title. The publishers, Faber and Faber, have even managed to squeeze it onto the spine of the book.

Spufford explains that he wrote the book ”˜to try to extricate for people, from the misleading ruins of half memory, what Christianity feels like from the inside.’ (p.22)

(a) What kind of a book is this?

Well, unapologetically, it is a popular defense of the Christian faith from emotional sense and a presentation of the good news of Jesus Christ in the face of New Atheism..

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A bishop has to be a teacher of the faith. That is, he or she has to be someone who is animated by theology and eager to share it ”” animated by theology in the sense of longing to inhabit the language and world of faith with greater and greater intelligence, insight, and joy. So, yes, bishops need that animation and desire to help others make sense of their commitment….

This means that I would plead with the Church to take seriously the need for investing in theological education at all levels ”” to recognise that there is a huge appetite for theology among so many laypeople, and thus a need for clergy who can respond and engage intelligently. The middle-term future may need to be one where there are more independent centres of theological study outside universities, given the erosion of resources in higher education, and I think it’s time more people started thinking about what that might entail in terms of funding.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, today announces, on the third anniversary of his installation, a new set of non-academic Lambeth Awards to recognise outstanding service in various fields.
……
The Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation
…Sir Andrew Pocock KCMG..

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The former British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Dr Andrew Pocock, has disclosed that the United States and the United Kingdom knew the whereabouts of about 80 of abducted Chibok girls by Boko Haram but failed to launch a rescue mission.

Pocock further claimed that a large group of the missing girls were spotted by the UK and the US surveillance officials shortly after their disappearance but experts felt nothing could be done.

The former UK envoy, who stated this during an interview with The Sunday Times of London, added that Western governments felt “powerless” to help as any rescue attempt would have been too risky with Boko Haram terrorists using the girls as human shields.

Pocock said: “A couple of months after the kidnapping, fly-bys and an American eye in the sky spotted a group of up to 80 girls in a particular spot in the Sambisa forest, around a very large tree, called locally the Tree of Life, along with evidence of vehicular movement and a large encampment.”

Read it all and there is an article in the International Business Times here

Lahore is a stunningly beautiful city, with historically important monuments dating to the Mughal era, Sikh empire and even colonial rule, dotting its landscape. It is also a city in desperate need of modernisation — especially when it comes to transport as the city has barely any public transportation.

Cue the Lahore Metro — an ambitious project that is the first such mass transit system in Pakistan. The Orange Line is the first leg of the project, scheduled to be completed in October 2017. It is also beset with a host of problems and challenges.

For one, the line runs dangerously close to several of Pakistan’s historically important architecture. According to reports, the line involves the destruction of the Anglican Cathedral..

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Archbishop Wabukala expressed confidence that the church’s neutral stance on politics will not change even after he leaves office.

“There should be no cause for alarm. A competent transition team is firmly in charge,” he said.

Those said to have expressed interest in the position are Dr Christopher Ruto (Diocese of Eldoret), Bishop Moses Masaba (Mbeere), Bishop Julius Wanyoike (Thika), Bishop Joseph ole Sapit (Kericho), Bishop Joel Waweru (Nairobi), Bishop James Ochiel (South Nyanza), and Lawrence Dena of Malindi.

However, it is only after April 1 that the official list will be known.

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Bishop Richard Condie was consecrated on Saturday and is now the highest clergy member in Tasmania.

The Anglican Church reached out to abuse survivor and long-time campaigner Steven Fisher to invite him to meet with the Bishop.

It was an invitation Mr Fisher was pleased to receive.

“I believe it’s a huge step for them to reach out and ask a victim to come down and actually talk to them,” he said.

“It’s something we’ve been campaigning for for 15 years.”

Read it all and there is a report in the Tasmanian Examiner

The BBC’s controversial documentary on Judas will not win souls for Christ

By Thomas Pascoe
This year the BBC will celebrate Good Friday by broadcasting a documentary called ”˜In the Footsteps of Judas’. It will be presented by a female Anglican vicar who stars in ”˜Gogglebox’ which is a show based on the questionable but apparently winning premise that it would be immensely entertaining to be able to watch a variety of pub bores as they themselves watch television.

It is worth quoting the Reverend Kate Bottley at some length on what the programme seeks to do. The Telegraph reports her as saying: “I don’t think any of the other disciples were whiter than white ”“ we just probably didn’t hear about it ”“ because they were all human and we are all a bit messed up. Up until that moment of betrayal, Judas seems no better or worse than any of the other disciples. But he has been defined by the worst thing he did. What Judas did is not OK but I think he holds up a very important mirror to our own human condition.

“Jesus forgave people as they were putting the nails in to his hands and there is no reason why he would not have forgiven Judas but he just didn’t hear that.”

There are a number of things which strike me as worrying about this summary. They are worthy of debate because of the deep theological ignorance of modern Britain, the fact that its national broadcaster has chosen to use one of its few headline religious programmes in Holy Week to propagate this message, and because the Anglican communion, which abounds with clerics making statements such as the one above, is still the main conduit in this country through which the layman with no particular religious instruction encounters Christ.

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As we again ponder, and ”˜pray with’, the events of the first Holy Week and Easter, we once more become aware of the enormity of God’s mercy to humankind. In the darkness of Calvary on Good Friday and in the celebration of Our Lord’s resurrection on Easter Day, we see both sides of Divine mercy. God is with us in the darkness of all human suffering and bewilderment, but God also holds out the hope of a new and wonderful dimension to human existence, both in this life and beyond this life. Herein is the miracle of that great mercy held out for us.

This year is a particular ”˜year of mercy’ in the Roman Catholic tradition, but for all Christian disciples ”“ of whatever tradition ”“ the heartbeat of the Beatitudes echoes through all true spiritual endeavour with its central message, ”˜Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.’ (Matthew 5.7)

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Goodson Muleya originally hails from a village in the Mazabuka District in Zambia’s southern province. His parents died when he was seven and he was taken in by his uncle, but not treated well. Eventually, Mr Muleya ran away from home and spent time living on the streets while also trying to complete his studies and find work.

It was during his time on the streets that someone shared the gospel with him. Although like many in Zambia Mr Muleya had grown up going to church, he did not truly know and follow Jesus. It was after this chance encounter that he thought hard about whether he was truly a Christian and he decided he needed to change.

“After this confession my life was transformed,” he says. “I felt the need to forgive my uncle and everyone else who harmed me, as I was living in bitterness all these years after the death of my parents. Also, it dawned to me that not everyone who goes to church is Christian.”

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Bishop Richard Condie is sworn in by Anglican Primate Philip Freier

A healthy church…transforming life

The Tasmanian Church and community has celebrated the Installation and Ordination today of The Right Reverend Dr Richard Condie as the 12th Bishop of Tasmania.

The Installation service took place at St David’s Cathedral, Hobart, with the Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, Archbishop Dr Philip Freier conducting the Installation. Local, State and Federal Tasmanian political leaders, and Aboriginal elders were there representing the Tasmanian community. There were also heads of a significant number of other Tasmanian church denominations in attendance, as well as representatives from the 45 Tasmanian parishes, Anglican Schools and agencies. You can read the full Media Release here. The Revd Dr Peter Adam preached the sermon. The text is available here.

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The head of the Anglican Church of Kenya Eliud Wabukala has called on Christians to be on the forefront in the fight against corruption.

Speaking in Nakuru on Saturday during the commissioning of an ultra-modern shopping mall, Wabukala urged Christians to desist from taking part in corruption so that they can be emulated by others.

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Tucked away in England’s magnificent landscape lies the small village of Peterchurch. At the annual crafts fair the Anglican church bustles with activity. But this kind of church could become an endangered species, in part because of changing demographics as people migrate to the city.

A Church of England report shows that more than half of its churches are in rural areas, although only 17 percent of the population lives there. This means smaller congregations, fewer resources, and a bleak future, given the average age of attendees hovers around 55.

“A lot of it is about the demographics,” said Anni Holden, Director of Communications for the Diocese of Hereford. “But also, you know, we have to be realistic, secularization amongst the indigenous population. There’s no two ways about that.”

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Church leaders have spoken out against the growth of “gang culture” in the West Indies, urging Anglicans to take the lead in combatting the moral causes of the region’s crime wave.

In an interview published on 27 February, the new dean of Barbados, Dr Jeffrey Gibson, told Barbados Today the church was “not only concerned about the level of violence” but was “prepared to do something to change people’s outlook, to provide care for people who have been affected by violence and to serve in some position where we can rehabilitate those who might have been affected by violence.”

He argued the church should seek to address the moral and social causes of crime.

“We denounce all forms of violent behaviour but we should also seek to uncover what might be the underlying causes of the violence and to see how one can move persons from that sort of spiral of violence, where they perpetuate violence and experience violence to adopting a new form of harmonious living,” the senior cleric said.

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