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After the Bible, John Bunyan’s wonderful Christian allegory, the Pilgrim’s Progress, is one of the most celebrated and widely-read books in the English language.  It has been translated into more than one hundred languages around the world and keeps its place as a Christian classic. Names of people and places from its pages have been...

Seventy-five years ago, on 16th August 1946, the Great Calcutta Killing took place in Kolkata, India. Muslim and Hindu mobs rioted across the city following the Muslim League’s demand for the creation of Pakistan. More than 4,000 people were killed and 100,000 left homeless. The riot sparked further religious violence in other provinces, leading to the...

In the 3rd century a Chinese philosopher, Chang Tsu, had a very vivid dream. He dreamed he was a butterfly, happily flying here and there. When he awoke, he thought to himself, ‘Did Chang Tsu dream that he was a butterfly, or did the butterfly dream that it was Chang Tsu?’ Dreams are often like...

In my local church, we use a parish prayer which includes the line: ‘Help us to be brave enough to fail – but try again.’ Encouraging words indeed, and if we look back throughout the centuries, many men and women who have made the world a better place have taken those words to heart. For...

The persecution of Christians is set to intensify in Iran, following the election of hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi as the Islamic Republic’s new president. That is the warning from Release International, which is also urging Iran’s new president to allow full religious freedom and release all prisoners of faith. “This victory for the hardliners will mean...

** Hard to tell During a summer music festival, a punk rocker stopped at the front desk of the reception tent to ask if there were any messages for her. The desk clerk handed her an unsigned note, and she asked for a description of the person who had left it. “That’s easy,” replied the...

Miscellaneous observations on life as a Christian…. Miscellaneous observations on daily life… ** Miscellaneous observations on life as a Christian…. One day we stand to lose everything – except those qualities that have eternal value.  – David Watson The weaker we feel, the harder we lean on God.  And the harder we lean, the stronger...

31st August is the feast of St Aidan, who brought Christianity to northern England.  He is a strong contender for the title of the first English bishop. Not that honours meant a great deal to this austere but captivating character. In 635 he came to Northumbria at the invitation of the local ruler, Oswald.  Oswald...

‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.’ Proverbs 9:10  These six words sum up a year in which many things we valued became impossible. Some we found we could easily do without, but others were vital things like friendship, community, and touch. Their gradual...

Scientists have been trying to work out a ‘formula’ for happiness.  The result is incomprehensible to most of us, beginning as it does with Happiness (t)=w0=w1, running on for three lines, and then ending with jRPEj…… But, in plain English, the neuroscientists at University College London (UCL) have concluded that happiness depends not so much...

Now here is something you may not have considered: if your diet includes high levels of junk food and unhealthy snacks, you could be more likely to have a car crash. It is thought that junk food diets and unhealthy snacking contribute to high levels of fatigue, which in turn lead to dangerous driving habits....

I’m involved in a project rooted in the Church of England’s St Albans diocese, north of London. We bring together people from a range of backgrounds and faiths to address the question ‘Where is Truth now?’ A vital issue for us from recent months has been ‘How has truth fared during the pandemic? Here are...