A year of living dangerously

Gordon Brown’s one hope for survival at least until next spring if not the next general election is to come back from his holiday in Suffolk with some eye-catching moves and hope against hope that economic events out of his control get better not worse...

Christ’s star rises again in the East

China wants to be seen as an open and generous host of the Olympic Games but its attitude to the rapidly growing Christian population shows its determination to control faith groups. Members of ‘unregistered’ churches can still expect harsh treatment...

Lambeth: covenant, crisis – and wit and charm

Anglican bishops left Canterbury after the Lambeth Conference last weekend convinced that they can unite around a new covenant that will spell out commitments and beliefs held in common. Obstacles remain but there was a clear will to stay together...

‘Perhaps … it would be possible … to think of a new Oxford Movement, a retrieval of riches … within your own household’

The president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity last week told Anglican bishops at the Lambeth Conference that the “ordination of women bishops effectively and definitively blocks a possible recognition of Anglican orders by the Catholic Church”. In this edited extract from his address he sets out the thinking behind his statement ...

Little Ireland on the sands

The next stop in our summer series on seaside parishes is St Patrick’s, Southport, and the story of a once struggling church built by Irish immigrants in the nineteenth century that has blossomed into a flourishing community...

Voice of the Gulag

A literary genius and a key element in the collapse of Soviet Communism, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was also a man of profound moral integrity, drawn from a Christian faith that came to him during the worst days of atheist persecution of the Church in Russia...

Bishops by any other name

Anglican interest in ordaining women as bishops has gravely concerned the Vatican, with Cardinal Walter Kasper warning the Lambeth Conference that it could harm ecumenical relations. But there is clear evidence that women with episcopal powers have served the Church, argues a professor of theology...

Gifts given and received

At the heart of this week’s prayer lies the powerful, redemptive effect of gifts. So powerful indeed that God himself gave his only begotten Son in order that we may be saved. And, as Daniel McCarthy explains, we in turn give ourselves in gratitude back to God...

Let the Spirit move you

In the past four decades the notion of spirituality has changed fundamentally from merely describing that which is not temporal to covering all aspects of Christian witness. Developing people’s prayer life means helping them to have access to spiritual direction...

Lightening up down under

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