Latest Posts
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The Kalendar for 2022 – 2023 is available free!
For years now, I’ve produced a Kalendar for the Scottish Episcopal Church with all the bible readings set out for the year. In the past I’ve sold it for around £4. For a range of reasons, I’m not going to be selling it this year but am releasing it online so that anyone can download…
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Fact checking Sandi Toksvig
Sandi Toksvig has published an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury that a lot of people are getting very excited about as it seems to be a slam dunk refutation of the wicked, homophobic Archbishop of Canterbury. The only trouble with the letter is that it is based on a number of claims about…
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The Lambeth Conference: Homophobic by Design
Next week the long delayed Lambeth Conference gets underway. The conference is the gathering of bishops from around the Anglican Communion which used to take place every 10 years. The conference hasn’t taken place for 14 years and was delayed by Covid and also because relationships within the Anglican Communion were so difficult that it…
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I respectfully disagree…
I respectfully disagree with the latest College of Bishops statement on Aberdeen and Orkney and I do so in two respects. Firstly, there is no mention of a mediation process in Canon 53. If the College of Bishops wishes to use Canon 53 section 11 and subsequent sections, then they should follow the procedure laid…
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Don Giovanni – Scottish Opera – ***
It is difficult to know why Scottish Opera have revived Thomas Allan’s production of Don Giovanni, which they first presented in 2013. It wasn’t exciting then and isn’t exciting now. The curtain goes up to reveal a gauze that will remain in place to obscure the first scenes. Clouds can be seen scudding across it…
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Easter Sermon 2022
https://youtu.be/738ChTRb61I?t=2104 Years ago I remember going on holiday. It was my kind of travel – ferries and trains and buses and then a sailing trip with friends who used to take me despite and not because of my sailing abilities. And there was this one morning that I remember. Will always remember. I’d managed to…
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That Damn Magnificat
A sermon preached in St Mary’s Cathedral on Good Friday 2022 There’s something about spending these three hours in a church dedicated to Mary. Through the year, we often get particular joy from keeping the Marian festivals. We’ve got more music in the choir library about her than about any of the others who accompanied…
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Ruth Innes RIP
This week the funeral will take place of an extraordinary priest, the Rev Canon Ruth Innes of the Diocese of Edinburgh. Ruth served various congregations in that diocese – St Fillan’s, Buckstone, Christ Church, Falkirk, St Mark’s, Portobello and St Peter’s (formerly St Mildred’s) in Linlithgow along with St Columba’s, Bathgate. Ruth never worked in…
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Predictions for 2022
Boris Johnson will be replaced with a Prime Minister who is more competent, more right wing and more difficult to beat. A good year for Michael Gove (who is almost invisible at the moment). Church of Scotland General Assembly votes to allow same-sex couples to be married in church. More significantly, almost no-one leaves in…
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