Meanwhile, just when we needed to consolidate our remaining strengths, to re-energise parish ministry, and to reinvigorate the ordained ministry with funding, affirmation, and a theological rationale, the opposite course of action has been pursued: centralised control of policy and resources, disparagement of the parochial form of Anglican life, and devaluing of the ordained vocation.

Much has already been demolished, especially at the local level; much more has been weakened and made more difficult. It is hard going, these days, in parishes for clergy, together with churchwardens and other hard-working lay people. There are social and cultural reasons for the uphill nature of the task in the present era, but lack of support — in able clergy, in financial resources, in moral affirmation, in practical wisdom — is another. The Church of England on the ground is an ailing and failing Church. How has all this come about?

A minority of activists (lay and ordained General Synod members, some bishops and an Archbishop, and the Archbishops’ Council collectively) have contrived and conspired, over a period of years, to change the nature of the Church, to replace it with a different and alien ecclesial model. That replacement model is essentially managerial rather than relational, bureaucratic instead of organic, centralised in place of localised — all varnished over with the vacuous rhetoric of “leadership” (seldom has such a necessary concept been so misappropriated and abused). And all accompanied by complacent theological illiteracy and ignorance.

Centralisation of resources and of decision-making, whether at the national or diocesan level, subverts the institution as a whole. It sucks the life and energy out of the very places in which life and energy are primarily generated: the parish and (potentially) the diocese.

Read it all.

"We are now living in an upside-down, topsy-turvy, Church. Turning things the right way up again needs us to begin with the ethical imperative. What needs to affirmed, above all, is the priority of the ethical for thinking and acting" #ChurchofEngland https://t.co/oYoYqMdtQC

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 6, 2026

here is a difference between a revolution and a counterrevolution. It is a recurrent mistake of the American media to conflate the two. That is because the success of 1776—the 250th anniversary of which we celebrate this year—predisposes us to sympathize with revolutions. I can think of no better explanation for the naivete of much liberal commentary on subsequent revolutions: France in 1789, Russia in 1917, China in 1949, Cuba in 1959, Nicaragua in 1979, Egypt in 2011 and, most relevant to today, Iran in 1979.

Let it never be forgotten that, in The New York Times on February 16, 1979, the Princeton professor Richard Falk confidently asserted: “The depiction of [the Ayatollah Khomeini] as fanatical, reactionary, and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false. What is also encouraging is that his entourage of close advisers is uniformly composed of moderate, progressive individuals.” Moreover, “the key appointees” in the new revolutionary government had “a notable record of concern for human rights and seem eager to achieve economic development that results in a modern society oriented on satisfying the whole population’s basic needs.”

“Having created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics,” Falk gushed, “Iran may yet provide us with a desperately needed model of humane governance for a third‐world country.”

Nope….

Read it all.

The West wants a revolution in Iran. What’s actually happening is a counterrevolution—and history shows those are usually doomed to fail, writes Niall Ferguson. https://t.co/WjZRsgcy5R

— The Free Press (@TheFP) January 13, 2026

On Newsnight in 1999, David Bowie called the internet “an alien life form” with the power to revolutionize society: “We’re on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying”. He rightly discerned that the internet was a wild technological shift, extraordinary and volatile. Since then, we have witnessed the shattering of old monopolies and hierarchies, political and creative revolutions, seismic changes to everyday life, an eruption of open-source information and neologisms, the advent of data mining and surveillance capitalism, and the emergence of new monopolies and hierarchies, including a weird kind of technofeudalism. The AI revolution has emerged from this eruption, with the AI trained on vast “datasets” – our thoughts, our creative work, our lives.

In the books under review, three authors from different disciplines and backgrounds seek to fathom this revolution. They are: Tim Berners-Lee, who has written a memoir with a focus on his status as the inventor of the World Wide Web, though he also examines surveillance capitalism, tech monopolies and polarization. His title derives from a phrase he typed at the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in London in 2012: it was “my statement about what I wanted the web to be”. Then there is Cory Doctorow, an author, blogger and journalist who presents a “natural history” of…the process by which internet platforms are “getting worse” – along with his views on how this decline might be arrested. Finally, there is Nick Clegg, former British deputy prime minister and Facebook/Meta employee. His book is also concerned with the future of the internet, and is described by Tony Blair as “a wake-up call we cannot afford to ignore”. All three authors agree that the internet is suffering from at least one, and perhaps several, pathologies. But they disagree about the most effective remedies.

Read it all.

I suspect that people in the 4th century were better equipped than we are to discuss points of theology. But Hilary also recognised, like Wittgenstein 1,600 years later, that words can lead thinkers astray. He took a conciliatory stance towards those who said that the Son was similar to the Father, not the same. Obviously they are not the selfsame person, though the Council of Nicaea declared they are of one substance.

Anyway, Hilary wrote in a separate book, on the Psalms, that humanity finds salvation in Christ alone, Son of God and Son of man. In assuming human nature, he has united himself with every human being: “He has become the flesh of us all.”

This insight might be useful in trying to understand the puzzling question of why Jesus underwent baptism at the hands of John the Baptist. After all, Jesus had no sins to be cleansed from. 

I think Hilary agreed with Ambrose that Jesus was baptised “because he wished, not to be cleansed, but to cleanse the waters, so that they, being purified by the flesh of Christ that knew no sin, might have the power of baptism.”

Read it all (subscription).

As I gear up for the start of Hilary term, I’m grateful for this primer on Hilary of Poitiers by ⁦@BeardyHowse⁩. Sacred Mysteries: The man who gave his name to Hilary term https://t.co/LGYEs5rM9o

— Fitzroy Morrissey (@fitzmorrissey) January 10, 2026

O Lord our God, who didst raise up thy servant Hilary to be a champion of the catholic faith: Keep us steadfast in that true faith which we professed at our baptism, that we may rejoice in having thee for our Father, and may abide in thy Son, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit; thou who livest and reignest for ever and ever.

“He did not lose what He was,

but began to be what He was not.

He did not cease to possess His
own nature,

but received what was ours.”

– Hilary of Poitiers pic.twitter.com/J6fDKcIEgB

— Steve Meister (@SteveMeisterVDM) December 25, 2025

O Thou, in whom we live and move and have our being: We offer and present unto thee ourselves, all that we are and have, our thoughts and our desires, our words and our deeds, to be a living and continual sacrifice.  We are not our own; therefore we would glorify thee in our bodies and our spirits, which are thine; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Baptism of Christ.

The Sinless One to Jordan came
To share our fallen nature's blame;
God's righteousness He thus fulfilled
And chose the path His Father willed.

(No, Epiphanytide is not over and continues to Candlemas on 2nd February). pic.twitter.com/y7txAuNdDz

— Ninefold Kyrie (@Gda1238) January 13, 2026

Therefore we must pay the closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the message declared by angels was valid and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his own will. For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, “What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou carest for him? Thou didst make him for a little while lower than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering.

–Hebrews 2:1-10

Guten Morgen mit einer kleinen Winterimpression, heute aus Bayern.#Bayern pic.twitter.com/ZrMIuYYPxL

— Thomas Stiegler (@StieglerThomas) January 13, 2026