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Letters to London - 13 “Your faith today is a beginning, not a conclusion”-don’t shout about faith, just live it!
Letters to London - 13 “Your faith today is a beginning, not a conclusion”-don’t shout about faith, just live it!
by SPCK - Stephen J.Plant and Toni Burrowes-Cromwell
13 “Your faith today is a beginning, not a conclusion”-don’t shout about faith, just live it! Ernst’s confirmation in the Lutheran Church provided the original context for these letters and there are interesting questions about this important religious rite…
Great Christian Thinkers - 26 St. Leo The Great
Great Christian Thinkers - 26 St. Leo The Great
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Leo The Great Continuing our journey through the Fathers of the Church, true stars that shine in the distance, we next encounter a pope who, in 1754, Benedict XIV proclaimed a Doctor of the Church: St. Leo the Great. As the nickname soon attributed to him by tradition suggest…
Great Christian Thinkers - 23 St. Ephrem
Great Christian Thinkers - 23 St. Ephrem
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Ephrem Common opinion today supposes Christianity to be a European religion that subsequently exported the culture of this continent to other countries. But the reality is far more complex, since the roots of the Christian religion are found in the Old Testament, hence, in Je…
Great Christian Thinkers - 39 John Damascene
Great Christian Thinkers - 39 John Damascene
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
John Damascene John Damascene was a personage of prime importance in the history of Byzantine theology and a great doctor in the history of the universal Church. Above all, he was an eyewitness of the passage from the Greek and Syrian Christian cultures shared by the Eastern part…
Great Christian Thinkers - 53 St. Hildegard of Bingen
Great Christian Thinkers - 53 St. Hildegard of Bingen
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Hildegard of Bingen In 1988, on the occasion of the Marian Year, Venerable John Paul II wrote an apostolic letter titled Mulieris Dignitatem on the precious role that women have played and play in the life of the Church… Taken from Great Christian Thinkers by Pope Benedict XV…
Great Christian Thinkers - 69 St. Catherine of Siena
Great Christian Thinkers - 69 St. Catherine of Siena
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Catherine of Siena We now reflect on a woman who played an eminent role in the history of the Church: St. Catherine of Siena. The century in which she lived - the fourteenth - was a troubled period in the life of the Church and throughout the social context of Italy and Europ…
Great Christian Thinkers - 28 St. Benedict of Nursia
Great Christian Thinkers - 28 St. Benedict of Nursia
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Benedict of Nursia Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism, is also the patron of my pontificate. I begin with words that St. Gregory the Great wrote about St. Benedict: “The man of God who shone on this earth among so many miracles was just as brilliant in the eloquent …
Great Christian Thinkers - 35 John Climacus
Great Christian Thinkers - 35 John Climacus
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
John Climacus In presenting the great writers of the Church of the East and West in the Middle Age, I include the figure of John, known as Climacus. His name is a Latin transliteration of the Greek term klimakos, which means “of the ladder” (klimax). This is the title of his most…
Great Christian Thinkers - 64 St. Albert the Great
Great Christian Thinkers - 64 St. Albert the Great
by SPCK - Pope Benedict XVI
St. Albert the Great One of the great masters of medieval theology is St. Albert the Great. The title “Great” (Magnus), with which he has passed into history indicates the vastness and depth of his teaching, which he combined with holiness of life. However, his contemporaries did…
The Minister as Entrepreneur - 10 An entrepreneurial God?
The Minister as Entrepreneur - 10 An entrepreneurial God?
by SPCK - Michael Volland
An entrepreneurial God? I have written this book in the belief that entrepreneurs are a gift of God to the Church, and that in a time of discontinuous cultural change they have the potential to help the rest of us to recognize opportunities offered by the Holy Spirit and to step …
The Minister as Entrepreneur - 22 What do we do next?
The Minister as Entrepreneur - 22 What do we do next?
by SPCK - Michael Volland
What do we do next? I am now going to share with you a number of suggestions for what the Church might do next. But before that it is worth reminding ourselves that the only worthwhile starting place for anything in life – including, and perhaps especially, entrepreneurial approa…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Sixth Sunday of Easter Acts 10.44-48 1John 5.1-6 John 15.9-17 The desire for certainty goes very deep, and all of today’s readings look at that longing with sympathy, though the answers they give are as challenging as they are reassuring. In the Gospel, Jesus is at last givin…
Occasions for Alleluia - The opening of the eyes
Occasions for Alleluia - The opening of the eyes
by SPCK - David Adam
The opening of the eyes If the doors of the perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chambers of his cavern . . . Unless the eye catches fire then God will not be seen. (Willi…
Meanderings
Meanderings
by Roger Johnson
Evangelism Bulletin 261 – Meanderings So, the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt under the faltering leadership of Moses. Timidly he confronts Pharoah asking him to release the Israelites from slavery. At the God-ordained moment they make their hasty escape. Miraclulous even…
A Dead Sect
A Dead Sect
by Roger Johnson
Evangelism Bulletin 266 – A Dead Sect? John Wesley famously said, ‘I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist… But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Baptism of Christ - The First Sunday of Epiphany Genesis 1.1–5 Acts 19.1–7 Mark 1.4–11 What is nothingness? We have no concept of it. Our image of it consists of the absence of things that we can picture and describe, which is very different from the nothingness before creati…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year B