For whom the Bell tolls

Queens’ College, Cambridge Trinity Sunday 2018 Firstly, thank you to Fr Tim for the opportunity to preach this evening. That said, Trinity Sunday is not exactly a preacher’s dream. Often hailed by clergy as a yearly opportunity to play a round of ‘heresy bingo’, there is a distinct chance that anyone wanting to say anything about the nature of God will, instead, simply prepare the prosecution’s case for their own excommunication. I will almost certainly commit such heresy tonight – but, I would argue, that to push the boundaries and learn by thinking is not only sensible, but also very Anglican. Doctrine needs to be lived and learnt and tested – it’s not a museum piece, and if it becomes one, then it needs a good clearing out. A lot of people have a problem with the concept of doctrine. To many outside the church, it is often seen to embody the more bewildering and off-putting nature of the church – the elements that stop people from even going through t...

Given at S Paul, Deptford, Easter III 2018 Alleluia, Christ is Risen! It’s a very great pleasure to preach to you today – many thanks to Fr Paul for the invitation. And what a set of readings on which to preach! Easter probably feels quite a long time ago to many of us today – all the penitentiary mood of Lent evaporating in a joyful Easter weekend, and then ‘back to normal’ – back to work or school, and back to grind of daily living. With air strikes in Syria, an ever-rising violent crime rate in London, the world doesn’t feel quite like the world of the resurrection we are told to expect. Of course, in the Revelation of St John we hear all about the terrors and disasters that have to come before the end of time, but looking at the world through the lens of the past two thousand years, the current behavior of the human race looks more like ‘more of the same’ than anything exceptional. Humans can’t, it seems, just get on – we can’t behave in a way ...

This term’s theme has been that of faith and money – whether, indeed, having both is possible, and if so, how we might form a way of life that allows us to both be faithful Christians and yet live in a world which from year to year seems to become ever more a world of greed and lust after individual wealth. The old adage of ‘give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s’ – so often overused and misunderstood by generations of greedy and unholy clergy-folk to justify slavish obedience to law, either of the state or of mammon - is, of course, not what it is claimed to be. Absolutely nothing, nothing whatsoever, belongs to Caesar – the Earth is The Lord’s and all that is in it – so no easy fixes there, no greedy and self-absorbed capitalism Monday to Saturday and God on Sunday. It doesn’t work that way, and any clergy person, indeed any preacher, who tells you that it does, is not only a liar,  but a false prophet and a thief. If we’re going to take the Gospel seriously then it’s a Gospel ...

Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall flourish out of the earth: and righteousness hath looked down from heaven. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Mercy is, perhaps, something that the church has begun to think about more clearly and with more focus in the past few years. That is in no small part, of course, due to the Year of Mercy proclaimed by Pope Francis a year or so ago, in which the Roman Catholic Church began to take more seriously the idea that God, in his infinite goodness, and indeed in his infinite wonder and glory, truly does offer total, merciful loving-kindness to His people here on earth. For through the eyes of mercy, we see the nature of God. What, then, is mercy? This must be one of the key questions facing those of us who call ourselves Christian, yet it does seem to be one we willingly ignore in order to focus on other things. Whether we are...

The impact of exiting the European Union on Higher Education House of Commons Education Select Committee Pembroke College, Oxford (11.i.17) Evidence panel: Senior Tutor, Trinity College, Cambridge VC Coventry University VC Oxford Brooke’s University Pro-VC (Brexit) Oxford University The discussion took the form of questions from the MPs present (three Lab, one SNP, one Con (chair)) to the evidence panel. The second evidence panel was more subject-specific but I’ve covered the majority of the points in this briefing. The discussion focused on what the challenges and possible advantages would be for the university sector in exiting the European Union (some might suggest this conversation might have been more helpful prior to a decision being made!). In general, the feeling was quite clear – Brexit poses a significant risk to HE, and any benefits that might arise are more coincidental and would indeed be possible if the UK remained within the ...

‘Love created us out of love to share Love itself’ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This term, we will be looking at saints that are linked with the college, and asking the simple question – from their lives, from their writings, from their teachings, what might help us as a college and as a community to live more fully today? Starting with one of the patron saints of the college, therefore, seems apt. Initially, St Bernard seemed to me to be a really great saint to preach about. People like me, from the Catholic tradition of the Church of England and indeed Roman Catholics the world over, know of his writing even if they don’t know the author. The wonderful Marian antiphons, sung daily by monastic and religious communities around the world, are in large part derived from and influenced by his writing and preaching. This theme runs throughout his theology – it was greatly influenced by his love for and devotion t...