Weekly Sermon: An Enduring Love.

This week I have recorded the weekly sermon for the Diocese of Chelmsford which is for Mothering Sunday, Sunday 30 March, titled ‘An enduring love’. All the weekly sermons can be found on the Diocesan YouTube page in the 'Weekly Sermon Videos' playlist. The recording of this sermon is above and the text is below:

At the back of Aston Parish Church in Birmingham is a small memory garden planted in memory of my brother, who died tragically in a plane crash in 1999. Most years, my sister takes our Mum to the memory garden on the anniversary of Nick's death to tend the garden and to remember. Last year, because Mum was staying with us at the time of that anniversary and because Nick had served in the armed forces and died as a result of doing relief work following the Bosnian conflict, we went to the local arboretum, the Living Memorial at Rettendon, and prayed in their chapel.

Such experiences parallel those found in the choice of readings used for Mothering Sunday. These include Moses born into slavery and only able to survive as his mother finds a way to have him adopted by the Egyptian royal family (Exodus 2.1-10), as well as Hannah praying into the experience of childlessness and then dedicating her firstborn to serve God in the Temple (1 Samuel 1.20-28). The Gospel readings including Simeon prophesying that Mary's heart will be pierced through her experiences as the mother of Jesus (Luke 2.33-35), a prophecy fulfilled when Mary sees Jesus die on the cross, and Jesus, on the cross, asking John, his disciple, to care for Mary after his death (John 19.25-27).

These stories and experiences take us into the heart of the mix of pain and pleasure involved in first, carrying, then giving birth to, and then supporting a child through life. The experiences and emotions involved are so many and so varied, even where the tragedy of a shortened life is not involved, that it would take a series of novels to really do justice to all that is involved.

At the heart of these stories is the understanding that, at its best, a mother's love will endure through all the challenges that being in a deep relationship with another human being will inevitably bring and that that love will adapt and change in order to be there for their child whatever circumstances may be. That is why motherhood can be used as a parallel for the love of God towards us, a parallel that we celebrate particularly on Mothering Sunday.

While, our personal experience of receiving parenting may not have had that same degree of consistency or care, the reminder that comes to us on Mothering Sunday is that God's love is like that of mothers whose love for their children endures through all the vicissitudes and changes of life, including the challenge of your child dying an early death, as was the experience of both Mary and my mother. The Bible celebrates love expressed in the challenges posed by the messiness of real life, rather than presenting us with an ideal from which we will always fall short.

I have seen, at first hand, how losing a child pierces a mother’s heart, as that is what happened to my Mum when my younger brother died. My love for and appreciation of my Mum grew through seeing her response to sharing the same experience as that of Mary. These are experiences from which we should all seek to learn, seeing them, as was the case for Mary, as being bound up in God’s good purposes for humanity; even, as in her story, as the seedbed for the greatest acts of liberation in human history.

Jesus remembered his mother while he was undergoing the most extreme agony personally. For some of us, to remember our mothers in the way we have just been discussing, might involve complex and conflicted memories which bring back to mind some of our more painful moments in life. Jesus ministered in and through and out of his pain; remembering particular people (his mother and John, his disciple), forgiving those who tortured and mocked him, and dying for the salvation of all.

It is from reflection on those experiences and actions of Jesus, that the idea of the wounded healer has come. This is the idea that our own pain and difficulties - our wounds - do not necessarily preclude us from ministry but may provide a resource or source from which our ministry can flow. To remember and reach out to support, sustain and strengthen others whilst remaining wounded ourselves may be, as was the case for Jesus, among the deepest and most profound of our ministries to others.

In bringing his mother into a mother-son relationship with one of his disciples, Jesus was extending our understanding and concept of what constitutes family life. For John to view Jesus' biological mother as his mother and for Mary to view John as her son, went beyond ties of blood into other forms of relationship. We could talk in terms of adoption (although in our day and time that word has a legal definition that is narrower than what is happening here) or we could talk in terms of extended families (a more helpful phrase, which we have, in part, lost sight of in a time when we still think primarily of nuclear families). However, we choose to categorise what Jesus did here, we need to recognise that he was initiating a family relationship which was not based on ties of blood and that this necessarily opens up space in which a range of family structures and family ties become possible.

In Jesus’s life and teaching there is less of a focus on the structures of our relationships and more of an emphasis on relationships which are characterised by qualities of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. These are qualities with which one of New Testament readings for Mothering Sunday (Colossians 3. 12 - 17) calls us to clothe ourselves. These are qualities that we can easily associate with motherhood but which are applicable to all of us as Christians. In Colossians 3 we are called to bear with one another, forgive each other; clothe ourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, to which we were called in the one body. These are all actions which are consistent with what we understand mothers, at their best, to do for their children. But the call, here, is to practice these qualities not just in our families and among our blood relatives, but with all those we encounter and, especially, here in Church. They are, perhaps, then, maternal qualities for application in Mother Church.

These are the qualities we need to practice and express if we are to share God's love in ways that endure through all the vicissitudes and changes of life as was the case for Mary and my own mother whose love for their children endured through the tragedy of their children’s shortened lives. May we learn from their example and follow in their footsteps. Amen.

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U2 - Iris (Hold Me Close).

Bill Fay R.I.P.

Dead Oceans recently announced the passing of Bill Fay, who died peacefully in London, aged 81.

They wrote: "Bill was a gentle man and a gentleman, wise beyond our times. He was a private person with the biggest of hearts, who wrote immensely moving, meaningful songs that will continue to find people for years to come.Bill’s first two albums, Bill Fay and Time of the Last Persecution, found a modest but loving audience upon their release at the dawn of the 1970s. While they weren’t considered commercial successes at the time, they continue to inspire devotion decades on, now known as overlooked classics from the era.

With enormous help from producer Joshua Henry, who tracked Bill down and convinced him to make another album, Bill later went on to make three more albums with Dead Oceans: Life is People (2012), his first release for forty years; Who is the Sender? (2015); and Countless Branches (2020), enjoying his cult status in real time.

Only a month before his passing, Bill was busy working on a new album. Our hope is to find a way to finish and release it, but for now, we remember Bill’s legacy as the “man in the corner of the room at the piano”, who quietly wrote heartfelt songs that touched and connected with people around the world."

'Bill Fay Was a Hidden Gem. One Musician Made Finding Him a Mission.' was the New York Times headline for an article exploring the background to Fay's album 'Countless Branches.'

Bill Fay made two albums at the beginning of the 1970s before losing his contract and disappearing from the scene. The strength of these albums, particularly the second 'Time of the Last Persecution,' led several musicians and producers to find Fay and assist in releasing more of his music.

Fay’s first two albums since his rediscovery, “Life Is People” in 2012 and “Who Is the Sender?” in 2015, were both profitable and effective follow-ups to the records he’d made 40 years earlier resulting in the recording of the most recent 'Countless Branches.'

Grayson Haver Currin notes that Fay's: 'self-titled 1970 debut featured idealistic odes to friendship, nature and peace swaddled in swooping strings and cascading horns. But only a year later, he’d turned to thorny rock for “Time of the Last Persecution.” Fueled by the horrors of the Vietnam War and the violence of the Jim Crow South, Fay railed against social corruption for 14 fractured songs, framing life as a revolving door of chances to get right with God.'

With the more recent albums Fay is: 'still writing about his distrust of governments and his belief in the goodness of people. Henry smartly dressed those songs in chamber-pop elegance. Tweedy lent his voice to a jangling tune called “This World,” while Spiritualized’s Jason Pierce added subtle harmonies to “Bring It On Lord,” a paean to valuing the days you have left. Fay’s voice wavered and rasped with age, the seams worn like proud wrinkles of wisdom.'

A Bill Fay song is often a 'deceptively simple thing, which carries more emotional weight than its concision and brevity might imply.' They are musical haikus on 'his recurring themes: nature, the family of man, the cycle of life and the ineffable vastness of it all.' The most recent releases being 'as pointed and as poignant as anything he’s ever recorded, as if songs waiting for their time have finally found their rightful place within our current zeitgeist.'

Bill Fay - Countless Branches - 'Countless Branches is the third of Fay's later-period albums, following Life Is People (2012) and Who Is the Sender? (2015). It might just be the best, too. It's palatable and concise, comprising ten tracks with bonuses pushing the total to 17. An incorrigible grouch might bridle at these guileless, gently philosophical songs, but they're delivered with such obvious sincerity that the rest of us will be charmed. As ever, Fay focuses on the search for meaning and substance in everyday life.'

Bill Fay's 'beautifully hymnal fourth studio album' Who is the Sender? 'contains sublime, heartfelt ruminations on nature and the world.' With less light and shade than Life is People but with a more consistently meditative tone, With profound simplicity, like that of Chance in Being There, Fay mourns the inhumanity of our warlike impulses while prayerfully calling for a new world to be manifest.

The song 'Who Is The Sender?' on Bill Fay's album of the same title is about the phenomenon which Fay sees as 'songfinding' rather than songwriting:

'Ask Bill Fay about his relationship with his instrument and he says something revealing, not "Ever since I learnt to play the piano", but "Ever since the piano taught me..."

What the piano taught him was how to connect to one of the great joys of his life. "Music gives," he says. And he is a grateful receiver. But, it makes him wonder, "Who is the sender?" ...

joy and sadness are indeed deep in this material, which Bill describes as "alternative gospel". Though it clearly stems from his belief, he doesn't seek to proselytise or convert anybody, but just hopes to share the concerns he puts into the words and the feelings that he receives from the music:

"Goodness, beauty, comfort. If something gives in the world, that's a good thing, isn't it? Maybe that's what music wants to do."'

Bill Fay’s songs on Life is People are simply astonishing - simple and melodic yet with unusual imagery and insights delivered with gravity and grace. 'Cosmic Concerto (Life Is People)' is a highlight from a collection of stand-out tracks; a celebration of the miracle of ordinary life, the infinite variation in each human face, which stirs his soul.

'Aside from Fay's plaintive cover of Wilco's Jesus Etc, Life Is People also continues with the lyrical themes established back in 1969-70 ... "They need space to convey," he stresses, "but, in a simple way, biblical prophecy. Not in some extreme or fanatical way but fundamentally, that this world - in the hands of different leaders, competing with each other economically - it can't carry on. It's belief in a change. There's comfort in that. I'm not so sure how you could handle the world if you didn't have that. It's God's world, yet we walk around as if it's ours."' (Mojo)

Bill Fay's Life Is People is an album to treasure produced by a man of real humility with a wonderful back story. The story is as follows:

"Bill Fay was born in North London, where he still lives. His debut on the underground Decca Nova label, Bill Fay (1970), included spacious big band jazz arrangements by Mike Gibbs, but it was the follow-up, Time Of The Last Persecution (1971), that cemented his reputation — a harrowing, philosophical and painfully honest diagnosis of an unhealthy society and a messed-up planet, that featured the cream of London's fieriest jazz session players such as guitarist Ray Russell. Unable to make ends meet as a musician, Fay wandered through a succession of jobs for years, writing songs privately. His albums were reissued in 1998 after being deleted for 27 years, and when the likes of Jeff Tweedy and David Tibet (Current 93) began singing his praises in the early 2000s, Bill began to come back into view. A third album, recorded piecemeal in the late 70s, was released in 2005 as Tomorrow Tomorrow And Tomorrow, by The Bill Fay Group. And Wilco even convinced the shy singer to join them onstage in London in 2007.

A CD of Bill's early demos and home recordings has also since emerged, but Life Is People is his first properly crafted studio album since 1971. He was motivated by American producer Joshua Henry, a fan who had grown up listening to the Bill Fay albums in his Dad's record collection. Spooling through Bill's home demos, Joshua discovered an incredible trove of material and decided to do something about it. Guitarist Matt Deighton (Oasis, Paul Weller, Mother Earth) assembled a cast of backup musicians to bring out the songs' full potential, Tim Weller (who's played drums for everyone from Will Young to Noel Gallagher and Goldfrapp), and keyboardist Mikey Rowe (High Flying Birds, Stevie Nicks, etc). In addition, Bill is reunited on several tracks with Ray Russell and drummer Alan Rushton, who played on Time Of The Last Persecution."

Fay's humility seems to run throughout this project - in his low-key, almost hestitant delivery, in lyrics such as "The never ending happening / Of what's to be and what has been / Just to be a part of it / Is astonishing to me" ('The Never Ending Happening')) and "I don't ask much, for myself / But for the one's I love" ('Thank You Lord'), and in liner notes which simply express profound gratitude for the support he has received from others in the making of this album.

His songs are simply astonishing - simple and melodic yet with unusual imagery and insights delivered with gravity and grace:

"Ranging from intimate to cosmic, epic but never grandiose, Bill's deeply committed music reminds you of important, eternal truths, and the lessons to be drawn from the natural world, when the materiality and greed threaten to engulf everything.

From the Eden-like hope for a better world in the opening "There Is A Valley" to the street sweeper gazing past the neon lights to the heavens in "City Of Dreams"; from the grand historical sweep of "Big Painter" to the compassionate hopefulness of "The Healing Day"; Bill's perceptive songs strike at the heart of the big issues facing us all today. But they're humble and down to earth too, full of striking images: witness the panoramic "Cosmic Concerto (Life Is People)", with its windblown seeds and grandmas blowing kisses into prams: as rapturous and soul-stirring as any music you'll hear this year."

'Cosmic Concerto (Life Is People)' is a highlight from a collection of stand-out tracks; a celebration of the miracle of ordinary life, the infinite variation in each human face, which stirs his soul. This is music to stir the soul, as Jim O'Rourke has stated "Bill Fay has quietly held his head high above the fray of chaos for years with the beauty of his music and the power of his spirit."

Bill Fay's classic Time Of The Last Persecution displays empathy in the face of apocalypse. Fay's songs are simply astonishing - simple and melodic yet with unusual imagery and insights (both whimsical and surreal bearing comparison with Syd Barrett and Nick Drake) delivered with gravity and grace.

Bill Fay was profoundly influenced by Teilhard de Chardin:

"Shortly after his debut was released, Fay stumbled across an old biblical commentary and quickly developed a fascination with the books of Daniel and Revelation. With the Vietnam War still escalating and the Kent State massacres in the headlines, the dark, apocalyptic tone of the ancient prophetic literature seemed disturbingly relevant. About this same time, Fay also began reading the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a mid-twentieth century Jesuit, scientist, and philosopher, who believed that all of reality, both human and non-human, is rapidly evolving toward an eternal state of unity and peace. The earth’s present travails (war, poverty, injustice), however overwhelming they may seem, are really the birth pangs of the coming paradise—evidence of both the deficiencies of our current existence and the imminence of the world to come.

Armed with these new intellectual resources, Fay fashioned a second recording that was darker and more desperate but ultimately more hopeful than the first. Time of the Last Persecution is dominated by Fay’s vision of the coming apocalypse, vividly described in songs like “’Til the Christ Come Back,” “Plan D,” and the bleak, bombastic title cut. Fay’s eschatology on the recording is a far cry from the Us-vs.-Them cynicism of religious orthodoxy, in which the chosen people are eternally rewarded while the rest of us are cast into a bottomless lake of fire. For Fay, as for Teilhard before him, deliverance is deliverance for all (hippie and soldier, young and old, human and non-human) from the structures and institutions that oppress and alienate us. And the coming of the messiah signifies that all of reality—however senseless it may now seem—ultimately has value and significance. “The album was a commitment,” Fay recently explained, “albeit a reluctant one at first, to the belief that there will be, and has to be at some point, some spiritual intervention in the world.”'

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Bill Fay - Thank You Lord.

Image: In the Face of Death: Damien Hirst and the Thrill of Mortality

Image Journal issue 123 is now available. This issue includes an essay I have written entitled 'In the Face of Death: Damien Hirst and the Thrill of Mortality':

"How we deal with death and what happens after, if anything, are among the central themes of the great religions, while how we live with the knowledge of that fate is one of the ethical conundrums we each face. Hirst’s work, therefore, has been ethically and religiously engaged from the get-go. In addition to his central focus on the inevitability of death, Hirst explores our efforts to prolong life, including the paradox that we kill other creatures as food in order to survive, the preservation and decay of bodies, death threats, and how we live in the light of our mortality."

The cover of Issue 123 features the work of Josh Tiessen, from a series of narrative, “hyper-surreal” paintings that explore the sources of wisdom, human and otherwise.

As the Image team put the winter issue together, they noticed several themes emerging. You’ll see candles, time-worn scraps of paper, and a set of images they think of as “Eden after the fall.” There are several gardens—some that are havens, others that reflect the world’s troubles—and marriage with all its beauties and difficulties, including sex, companionship, aging, and illness.

In her first editorial as editor in chief, Molly McCully Brown weaves these strands together. You’ll also find a surprisingly theological interview with a stand-up comedian, a documentary film about a dress made of nettles, a grandmother who is mysteriously knowledgeable about Cuban art history, and more.

For more of my writings on Damien Hirst, see my VCS exhibition entitled 'Fishers of People' and my Artlyst review of his 'Natural History' exhibition from 2022.

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Scott Stapp - Weight Of The World.

Bring us to life - transforming society

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine’s Wickford this morning:

Imagine a bed surrounded by the debris of a week’s illness, soiled sheets and slashed pillows, pills and vodka bottles, used condoms and tissues. This is ‘My Bed’ an installation by Tracy Emin was first exhibited in 1999. You’ll probably remember reading about it in the press at the time as it prompted the usual “call that art, my two-year old could have done better” kind of articles. A bed is a powerful symbol of birth and death, sex and intimacy but this controversial installation was perhaps an image of our culture’s sickness and dis-ease surrounded by the remnants of those things through which we seek a cure; sex, alcohol, drugs, tears, aggression. And the bed, like many lives, was empty. The morning after the cure that never came.

Sometimes our lives feel like that installation. Our relationships may have broken down, we may have been abused, we may be anxious, stressed or worried, our work might be under threat or have ended. For all these reasons and many others we can feel as though our lives have closed down becoming barren or dry or dead. Our communities and culture can feel like that too. Many years ago now, at the end of the 1970’s, The Sex Pistols sang about there being no future in England’s dreaming. And many people still think that our society is changing for the worse. When I had a holiday in Spain a few years ago I stayed on a street that was mainly occupied by British people who had left because they didn’t like the changes that they saw in British society. Such people think of Britain as being diseased and dead with no future for them. Being in the Church it is also easy to feel the same. We are regularly told in the press that the Church is in decline and the Church of England continues to deal with major conflicts that threaten to pull it apart. Again, it is easy to feel as though the Church is washed up, dried out and dying.

Whatever we think of those issues and views, the God that we worship is in the resurrection business. And that is where we need to be too. In our Gospel reading (John 11: 1-45) Jesus said that he is the resurrection and the life and demonstrated this by bringing Lazarus back to life. Through his ministry, Jesus resurrected a society and culture transforming the entire world as he did so. He calls us to follow in his footsteps by looking for the places where our society and culture is dried up or dying and working for its transformation and resurrection. Each of us can do the same as Jesus through our work and community involvements and we need to be asking ourselves how God wants to use us, through those involvements, to transform parts of our society and culture.

Raising Lazarus from death was a sign of what would happen after Jesus’ own death on the cross. By rising from death himself, Jesus conquered death for all people enabling us to enter in to eternal life after our physical death. This is good news for us to share with other people around us wherever we are - in our families and among our friends, neighbours and work colleagues.

Jesus also resurrected lives before physical death came. Look for a moment at John 11 with me. In the first section of that chapter from verses 1 to 16 we see the disciples struggling to understand what Jesus was saying and doing. He wanted them to see how God was at work in Lazarus’ illness and death. They kept looking only at their physical and material circumstances - if Jesus went back to Judea then he would be killed, if Lazarus was asleep then he would get better, and so on. Jesus wanted them to see that God can work even through death and in verse 16 he drew out of them the commitment to go with him even though they might die with him.

Then in verses 17 to 27, Jesus helped Martha move beyond her theoretical belief in the resurrection to a belief that Jesus himself is the promised Messiah. Finally, in verses 38 to 45, he helped all those present to move beyond their focus on physical realities to believe in God’s ability to do the supernatural. Throughout, Jesus was challenging all the people he encountered to move beyond their comfort zones, to step out in faith, to encounter and trust God in new ways. He wants to do the same with each one of us. Wherever our lives have got stuck, have become dried up or closed down or have died he wants to challenge and encourage us to move out of our comfort zones and to encounter him and other people in new and risky ways. He wants us to come alive to God, to the world, to other people and to life itself in new ways.

Jesus is in the resurrection business. Whether it is transforming society, sharing the good news of eternal life or encouraging us to step out in faith, Jesus wants to bring us to life. How will you respond to Jesus this afternoon? Is there an area of your life that he can bring back to life? Will you commit yourself to join in sharing the good news of eternal life with others and transforming society where you are? 

As you think about that challenge let us pray together briefly, using the words of a song by Evanescence: Lord Jesus, we are frozen inside without your touch, without your love. You are the life among the dead, so wake us up inside. Call our names and save us from the dark. Bid our blood to run before we come undone, save us from the nothing we’ve become. Bring us to life. Amen.

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Evanescence - Bring Me To Life.

Seen and Unseen: Theresa Lola's poetical hope

My latest article for Seen & Unseen is 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation:

'Masoliver notes that “The collection is book-ended with Lola’s own prayer and psalm”. “From the first,” she suggests, “there is an expression of doubt about the poet’s faith, though holding onto it ‘even when I fear God might be a thin shadow’”. Yet, “By the time we get to the final poem, there is a loss of innocence to the reality of the world around us, but a certain strength that comes with ‘fighting darkness’”. Niroshini states that “This poet speaks boldly of prayer as a call to arms for family, for love, for a survival, which as she concludes in the final poem, ‘Psalm 151’, ‘I prayed my fists into’”.'

My poetry reviews for Stride Magazine include a review of two poetry collections, one by Mario Petrucci and the other by David Miller, a review of Temporary Archive: Poems by Women of Latin America, a review of Fukushima Dreams by Andrea Moorhead, a review of Endangered Sky by Kelly Grovier and Sean Scully, review of John F. Deane's Selected & New Poems, and a review of God's Little Angel by Sue Hubbard. See also my review, for Tears in the Fence, of 'Modern Fog' by Chris Emery.

To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'. Read my ArtWay interview with artist, musician and poet David Miller here.

My first article for Seen and Unseen was 'Life is more important than art' which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions that tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.

My second article 'Corinne Bailey Rae’s energised and anguished creative journey' explores inspirations in Detroit, Leeds and Ethiopia for Corinne Bailey Rae’s latest album, Black Rainbows, which is an atlas of capacious faith.

My third article was an interview with musician and priest Rev Simpkins in which we discussed how music is an expression of humanity and his faith.

My fourth article was a guide to the Christmas season’s art, past and present. Traditionally at this time of year “great art comes tumbling through your letterbox” so, in this article, I explore the historic and contemporary art of Christmas.

My fifth article was 'Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration'. In this article I interviewed Shezad Dawood about his multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral where personal objects recovered from ocean depths tell a story of modern and ancient migrations.

My sixth article was 'The visionary artists finding heaven down here' in which I explored a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.

My seventh article was 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' in which I explain how curating an exhibition for Ben Uri Online gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

My eighth article was 'Infernal rebellion and the questions it asks' in which I interview the author Nicholas Papadopulos about his book The Infernal Word: Notes from a Rebel Angel.

My ninth article was 'A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics' in which I review Adam Steiner’s Darker With The Dawn — Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death and explore whether Steiner's rappel into Cave’s art helps us understand its purpose.

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Theresa Lola - 'For Those Who Listen When Courage Calls'.

A changing understanding of God’s revelation

Here's the reflection that I shared this morning at St Andrew's Wickford:

This is a story (Mark 12.18-27) about interpretation of scripture, which is possibly as important for our understanding for what it reveals about ways of interpreting scripture, as for what it says about resurrection.

The Biblical scholar Tom Wright has noted that: ‘Resurrection was a late arrival on the scene in classic biblical writing … Much of the Hebrew Bible assumes that the dead are in Sheol …“The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that go down into silence” (Psalm 115:17). Clear statements of resurrection are extremely rare. Daniel 12 is the most blatant, and remembered as such for centuries afterwards: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). Daniel is, however, the latest book of the Hebrew Bible.’

In Jesus’ day: ‘There was within Judaism a considerable spectrum of belief and speculation about what happened to dead people in general, and to dead Jews in particular. At one end were the Sadducees, who seem to have denied any doctrine of post-mortem existence (Mark 12:18; Josephus, War 2:165). At the other were the Pharisees, who affirmed a future embodied existence, and who seem to have at least begun to develop theories about how people continued to exist in the timelag between physical death and physical resurrection. And there are further options. Some writings speak of souls in disembodied bliss, some speculate about souls as angelic or astral beings, and so forth.‘

‘The Sadducees rejected the Oral Law as proposed by the Pharisees’ and ‘saw the written Torah as the sole source of divine authority.’ They insisted that the traditions did not contain this newfangled doctrine and that resurrection was not taught in the Torah itself. Their question to Jesus was based on the literal application of a commandment from the Torah and was ‘designed to make belief in a resurrection look foolish by proposing a dilemma it might entail.’ (Timothy J. Geddert, Mark, Herald Press)

In his reply to the Sadducees’ question Jesus goes back to the Torah itself (the five books of Moses) which were the only ones the very conservative Sadducees regarded as really authoritative, and stated that ‘God defines himself there in terms of his relationship to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ The underlying point was that ‘God would not define himself in relationship to people who were now non-existent.’ Therefore, Jesus implies or leaves unstated the remaining move in the argument that ‘if they are alive this must be because God will in fact raise them from the dead.’

Jesus therefore disagrees with a literal argument about scripture based on the earliest texts and affirms an emerging doctrine which only appears clearly in the last book of the Hebrew Bible. What he is affirming is an evolving revelation from God in scripture which develops or adds to or changes earlier interpretations and understandings.

The extent to which God’s revelation is fixed or emerging is one which continues to be debated within the Church and is a key ground on which debates about women’s ordination and human sexuality take place. What rarely seems to feature in these debates are the approaches to interpretation of scripture used by Jesus, the disciples and the Early Church, which are often very different from standard ways of interpreting scripture used today, particularly those which attempt to fix understandings of scripture for all time through literal interpretations. Here Jesus clearly teaches a later, newer doctrine which does not appear in the Torah and was not part of early Judaism. This emerging understanding, however, becomes central to Jesus’ mission and to Christian belief as Jesus’ resurrection and the teachings of the Early Church based on it are entirely new in the history of Judaism.

Tom Wright says: ‘The early Christian hope for bodily resurrection is clearly Jewish in origin, there being no possible pagan antecedent. Here, however, there is no spectrum of opinion: Earliest Christianity simply believed in resurrection, that is, the overcoming of death by the justice bringing power of the creator God … This is a radical mutation from within Jewish belief.’

Our core hope as Christians derives from a changing understanding of God’s revelation which Jesus taught and experienced. The literal interpretations of the Sadducees meant that they could not see or receive the new thing that God was doing in their midst. May God keep us open to receive the new things he is doing in our world through his Holy Spirit and prevent us from rejecting the unexpected moves of his Spirit because our rigidity in our own understandings of scripture. Amen.

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Paul Simon - Seven Psalms.

Resurrection and new life in the midst of adversity and hardship

Rev Moses Agyam and I had an ecumenical exchange in Wickford this morning. Moses led the service at St Andrew's and I led at Christ Church. Here's the sermon that I preached at Christ Church today:

Imagine a bed surrounded by the debris of a week’s illness, soiled sheets and slashed pillows, pills and vodka bottles, used condoms and tissues. This is My Bed an installation by Tracy Emin which was first exhibited in 1999. You’ll probably remember reading about it in the press at the time as it prompted the usual “call that art, my two-year old could have done better” kind of articles.

A bed is a powerful symbol of birth and death, sex and intimacy but this controversial installation was perhaps an image of our culture’s sickness and dis-ease surrounded by the remnants of those things through which we seek a cure; sex, alcohol, drugs, tears, aggression. And the bed, like many lives, was empty. The morning after the cure that never came.

Our Old Testament reading from Ezekiel 37. 1-10 suggested something very similar about the people of Israel. Ezekiel saw a valley of dry bones and God said to him that the people of Israel were like those bones, dried up without any hope and with no future.

Sometimes our lives feel like these two pictures - dried up, no future, diseased, empty, dead. Our relationships may have broken down, we may have been abused, we may be anxious, stressed or worried, our work might be under threat or have ended. For all these reasons and many others, we can feel as though our lives have closed down becoming barren or dry or dead.

Our communities and culture can feel like that too. Many years ago now, at the end of the 1970’s, The Sex Pistols sang about there being no future in England’s dreaming. And many people still think that our society is changing for the worse. When I had a holiday in Spain several years ago I stayed on a street that was mainly occupied by British people who had left because they didn’t like the changes that they saw in British society. Such people think of Britain as being diseased and dead with no future for them.

Being in the Church it is also easy to feel the same. We are regularly told in the press that the Church is in decline and my Church, the Church of England, is currently dealing with major conflicts that threaten to pull it apart. Again, it is easy to feel as though the Church is washed up, dried out and dying.

Whatever we think of those issues and views, the God that we worship is in the resurrection business. And that is where we need to be too. In Ezekiel God promised that he would put his breath into the people of Israel and bring them back to life and in our Gospel reading (John 11. 1-45) Jesus said that he is the resurrection and the life and demonstrated this by bringing Lazarus back to life. Jesus was the fulfilment of God’s promise to Ezekiel that he would bring the people of Israel back to life. In Jesus, Israel lived life as God had intended and fulfilled Israel’s mission of bringing light to the rest of the world. In this way, Jesus resurrected a society and culture transforming the entire world as he did so.

He calls us to follow in his footsteps by looking for the places where our society and culture is dried up or dying and working for its transformation and resurrection. I saw several examples of that happening in my time at St Martin-in-the-Fields, particularly in our response to the pandemic.

Here’s how the Vicar of St Martin’s – Sam Wells - described our experience in the book that we wrote about that period of time (Finding Abundance in Scarcity: Steps Towards Church Transformation - A HeartEdge Handbook):

“St Martin-in-the-Fields is a complex organization. It has a large congregation, by UK standards, and a significant public ministry, involving a good deal of broadcasting. It has a trading subsidiary (two cafés, a shop, and around 175 commercial concerts annually). It has a development trust, and two homeless charities, one local, one national.

The pandemic asphyxiated its commercial activity, at a stroke deleting two-thirds of the congregation’s income. At the time of writing, we’ve had to shed three-quarters of our commercial and ministry staff. It’s been a devastating, depleting and distressing experience. Yet online, the congregation, its public ministry, and its music have found a reach, purpose, and dynamism like never before. All is made new. The musicians have recorded music, weekly, for 4,000 churches across the land. HeartEdge seminars have become a hub for innovation and evaluation. A new enquirers’ course has drawn participation from people far and wide, a good many of whom were already inhibited by chronic illness before ‘shield’ became an intransitive verb. The national homeless charity has never been more in demand, or attracted more support, fervidly working to help people find secure accommodation …

our Nazareth Community, made up of people from all classes, including those who sleep outside, seeking the heart of God through shared practices centred on silent prayer [has] grown to 81 people, with … additional … online companions. It models the way we seek to see the assets in everyone, rather than regarding some as needy and casting others as benefactors.

It’s been as if we’re in a cartoon: on one side surrounded by footfall figures, government directives, church guidelines, protective equipment, and spreadsheets of redundancy calculations, earnestly trying to be humane, transparent, and compassionate as we cast staff out into a wilderness of high unemployment and considerable health anxiety; on the other side surprised by joy, with people coming to faith, hundreds of thousands downloading choral offerings, asylum seekers stepping up to leadership roles, donors tendering generous gifts, and the church reopening in July for tentative public worship, only to close again in November and open again in December.

Don’t tell anyone, but beautiful things have been happening – too many to recount. Keep it quiet, but it’s also been a complete nightmare, in which plans made and an institution crafted over generations has been torn apart in ways a raging inferno couldn’t achieve … And yet, like a ram in a thicket, something has been provided, or has emerged, or suddenly changed.”

This happened because at the beginning of the pandemic we realised that “It was in its most bewildered hour that Israel in exile found who God truly was.” As a result, we saw that this was “our chance to discover what God being with us really means.” “None of us would for a moment have wished this crisis on anybody, let alone the whole world. But our faith teaches us that we only get to see resurrection through crucifixion; that we see God most clearly in our darkest hour.” What we found was “beauty, truth and goodness in times of adversity, hardship and distress.”

I believe that each of us can have similar experiences of resurrection and new life in the midst of adversity and hardship. So, together with my colleagues and congregations, I’m seeking to apply the lessons I learnt at St Martin’s in the missional activity we’re getting started here in the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry. I believe that, as churches in this area, and elsewhere, we all need to be asking ourselves how God wants to use us to bring new life to those parts of our society and culture that are dying.

Raising Lazarus from death was a sign of what would happen after Jesus’ own death on the cross. By rising from death himself, Jesus conquered death for all people enabling us to enter in to eternal life after our physical death. This is good news for us to share with other people around us wherever we are - in our families and among our friends, neighbours and work colleagues. Think for a moment about the people and places where you can share the good news of life after death through our Lord Jesus.

Jesus also resurrected lives before physical death came. Look for a moment at John 11 with me. In the first section of that chapter from verses 1 to 16 we see the disciples struggling to understand what Jesus is saying and doing. He is wanting them to see how God is at work in Lazarus’ illness and death. They keep looking only at their physical and material circumstances - if Jesus goes back to Judea then he will be killed, if Lazarus is asleep then he will get better, and so on. Jesus wants them to see that God can work even through death and in verse 16 he draws out of them the commitment to go with him even though they may die with him. Then in verses 17 to 27, Jesus helps Martha to move beyond her theoretical belief in the resurrection to a belief that Jesus himself is the promised Messiah. Finally, in verses 38 to 45, he helps all those present to move beyond their focus on physical realities to believe in God’s ability to do the supernatural.

Throughout, Jesus is challenging all the people he encounters to move beyond their comfort zones, to step out in faith, to encounter and trust God in new ways. He wants to do the same with each one of us. Wherever our lives have got stuck, have become dried up or closed down or have died he wants to challenge and encourage us to move out of our comfort zones and to encounter him and other people in new and risky ways. He wants us to come alive to God, to the world, to other people and to life itself in new ways.

Jesus is in the resurrection business. Whether it is transforming society, sharing the good news of eternal life or encouraging us to step out in faith, Jesus wants to bring us to life. How will you respond to Jesus this morning? Is there an area of your life that he can bring back to life or will you commit yourself to join in sharing the good news of eternal life with others and transforming society where you are?

As you think about that challenge let us pray together briefly, using the words of a song by Evanescence:

Lord Jesus, we are frozen inside without your touch, without your love. You are the life among the dead, so wake us up inside. Call our names and save us from the dark. Bid our blood to run before we come undone, save us from the nothing we’ve become. Bring us to life. Amen.

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Evanescence - Bring Me To Life.

There is time

Here's the sermon I shared during Evensong at St Catherine’s Wickford this evening:

Last year, I led a Memorial Service for a friend from St Martin-in-the-Fields who died an untimely death. For those of us who gathered for the Memorial, there was no getting away from that fact, and lockdown had also meant that for many of us our contact with our friend had been less than it might otherwise have been. Those were tough truths and caused us real sadness as we gathered to remember her and give thanks for her life.

Nevertheless, the reading from Ecclesiastes (Ecclesiastes 3.1-11) that she had chosen for that reminded us that, although the time she had had with us was shorter than we would have liked, there had been time for her life to impact us and others, while there was also time for her to live through the whole gamut of life's experiences from great joys to great sorrows.

At her Memorial we heard of childhood friendships enduring into adulthood and later friendships built on lived experience of discrimination, leading to advocacy on behalf of others. There was time to reflect on places that, at points, provided safe space and community space to her and also places like the Wards of the Hospitals in which she stayed that were restrictive and conflicted spaces in which to be. There was time too, to also hear the voice, as through her writings, she had articulated her experiences and advocated on behalf of others whilst acknowledging the many ways in which hers was a voice insufficiently heard, sharing experiences that are insufficiently understood and appreciated. In her life there had been time for travel to places like Palestine that impacted her deeply and which gave lifelong commitments and also times in which she was confined to one place, whether on a ward or in her flat during lockdown. There had also been time for talking - conversation, prayer, presentations, advocacy - and time for silence - whether of reflection or of discrimination when her voice went unheard.

Her Memorial Service provided time in which we could say that ‘This was the woman I knew’ and time to hear others saying, ‘This was the woman I knew’. There was time to gather up the richness, the fullness, the diversity of her personality and experiences in order we all experienced a greater depth in our understanding of her, all that we appreciated about her, all that we had shared with her, could share of her with others and could learn of her from others. There was time for anger at the discrimination and lack of understanding that she and others face. There was time for inspiration from the experiences she articulated, the statements she left and the example she provided. There was time in which the extremes, the contradictions, the confusions, the paradoxes of life and experience could be held and where the limits of our own understandings could be acknowledged in a time and space where we each one valued and affirmed her for the dear, special, unique and gifted person that she was and came to know that we can now hold and appreciate in our hearts forever the time that each of us shared with her and had now shared with one another.

Ecclesiastes 3.1-11 tells us that there is time, even when lives are cut short, if we use the time that is available to us. All too often we do not take the time we have to be with those that are important to us. All too often we distract ourselves with unimportant tasks and fail to do the things that are truly of importance to us. Ecclesiastes 3.1-11 encourages us to use the time that we have. So, as we often pray during funerals, grant us, Lord, the wisdom and the grace to use aright the time that is left to us on earth. Let us use that time to know others more completely, appreciate them more fully, love them more deeply, and, in that knowing, know ourselves more intimately. For to know and appreciate and love and enjoy each other in that way is heaven. 

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U2 - 13 (There Is A Light).

As we cry out in grief God meets us

Here's the reflection I shared in tonight's Commemoration of the Departed Service at St Andrew’s Wickford:

Psalm 23 is a picture of life. Our lives contain both times of refreshment and joy – those times by the still waters and in the green pastures – and times of trial and loss – as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. These times of joy and times of trial are our common experience of life. But this Psalm says more. It says that God is with us in all of these experiences. He leads us beside the still waters and walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. He can do this because in Jesus he has experienced human life for himself. God understands and will be alongside us in our grief.

How can that be, particularly when grief involves a whole mix of different emotions at different times – anger, sadness, love, guilt and numbness – which mean that it is a very individual experience? All we can really do, as a result, is to share our experiences of how it has been for us. That is what Alfred Tennyson did in his poem ‘In Memoriam’, a sequence of lyric poems written over a 17-year period which comprise a requiem for the poet's beloved Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage in Vienna in 1833. Tennyson then wrote memorably again on the subject of death in ‘Crossing the Bar’ after he had survived a serious illness. Shortly before he died, Tennyson told his son, whom he had tellingly named Hallam, to "put 'Crossing the Bar' at the end of all editions of my poems." Just as Tennyson memorably shared his experience of God with him in his grief, I would like to do the same.

My younger brother, Nick Evens, died on 11th November 1999 in a plane crash in Kosovo. He was on a UN commissioned plane taking relief workers into Kosovo to work on reconstructing the country following the conflict there. Nick was part of Tearfund’s Disaster Response Team. He had been in Kosovo working with Kosovan villagers to rebuild homes, had returned home for a short break, and was then returning to continue work on the rebuilding programme.

The plane went off course as it neared Pristina Airport and crashed in nearby mountains. I remember taking a phone call from my parents who had been notified that contact had been lost with the plane and feeling absolutely unable to accept or comprehend the news. This was something that simply could not be happening.

My father and I were flown to Rome by Tearfund to wait for news together with the families of the other 23 people who died in the crash. After a few days we were flown to Kosovo to see the crash site for ourselves. On arrival at Pristina Airport, we were loaded into helicopters and flown the short distance into the mountains and over the site of the wreckage. This was the worst moment for each one of us. As we saw the small pieces of the plane strewn over the mountainside, we knew exactly what had happened to our loved ones and were faced full-on with the reality of their death.

When we returned to Pristina Airport, some refreshments had been organised for us in a tent and members of Tearfund who had worked with Nick had travelled to the Airport to be with us. We sat and listened as they told us about the effect that Nick had had on the Kosovan people with whom he had worked and also on other members of the team as they had valued his friendship, support and advice. As they talked, the tears flowed; theirs and ours and, I believe, God’s as he was with us at the time enabling us to express our grief. But, as they talked, I also had a growing sense that Nick had gone into God’s presence and had been welcomed with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” In that moment I glimpsed something of the glory into which Nick had entered and that glimpse continues to sustain and strengthen me in my loss.

Over subsequent days, I heard many more stories of the way in which Nick’s life had influenced others and, over the years since, I have seen the way in which the inspiration he provided has led others to continue the work that he began. Young people whose lives were turned around through the youth project that Nick worked for have continued his youth work and his charitable work in Uganda while Nick’s involvement with Tearfund inspired another member of our family to join their Disaster Response Team. In these ways, the stories about Nick that begun to be told at Pristina Airport have continued to be told and in the telling my sense that God is alongside me in my grief and that Nick has been welcomed into glory has grown.

My experience of grief suggests that it is as we cry out in our grief that God meets with us. He is alongside us through his Spirit and will speak for us in groans that words cannot express. We should not be afraid of tears, of memories or of stories, as they are an expression of the love we feel. As we share our grief together, we may catch a glimpse of the glory that waits to be revealed to us and into which our loved ones have entered and that glimpse can sustain us as we re-enter our everyday lives. In these and other ways God offers to lead us through the times of trial until we come to live with him forever.

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Delirious? - Find Me In The River.

What is mortal may be swallowed up by life

Here's the sermon that I preached at St Andrew’s Wickford this morning:

Imagine you were King or Queen for a day – what would you want to do with the power, fame and money you had?

We know well what Queen Elizabeth II did with that role and that opportunity. The new Queen, as Princess Elizabeth, in her 21st birthday broadcast from Capetown, on April 21, 1947, gave this message to the Empire:

“There is a motto which has been borne by many of my ancestors – a noble motto, ‘I serve.’

Those words were an inspiration to many bygone heirs to the throne.

I can make my solemn act of dedication with a whole Empire listening. I should like to make that dedication now; it is very simple.

I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great Imperial family, to which we all belong, but I shall not have the strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do. I know that your support will be unfailingly given.

God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.”

She chose to be the servant Queen and, with deep commitment, fulfilled that role throughout her life, which is why she is so loved by the people of this nation and so missed on her death.

Her prayer was that God would help her to make good that vow and it is to God that she turns for inspiration as she has sought to fulfil it. The Queen’s personal commitment to her role as monarch, and her service to the people of the United Kingdom, are grounded in a deep faith in Jesus Christ which is an inspiration to countless citizens of nation and Commonwealth. She has said that, for her, “the teachings of Christ” and her “own personal accountability before God provide a framework” in which she tries to lead her life (Queen and Country BBC1 08.05.02). She has said that: “For me, the life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace … is an inspiration and an anchor in my life. A role-model of reconciliation and forgiveness. He stretched out his hands in love, acceptance and healing. Christ’s example has taught me to seek to respect and value all people of whatever faith or none.”

In his sermon at St Paul’s Cathedral for the service celebrating the Diamond Jubilee, the Archbishop of Canterbury said that the Queen “has shown a quality of joy in the happiness of others” and “has responded with … generosity …showing honour to countless local communities and individuals of every background and class and race.”

There can, therefore, be no better way for us to remember Queen Elizabeth with gratitude than to take this opportunity to dedicate ourselves anew to the service of God, and to seek the common good through love for our neighbours near and far. As the Archbishop suggested in his Diamond Jubilee sermon, we should seek “the rebirth of an energetic, generous spirit of dedication to the common good and the public service, the rebirth of the recognition that we live less than human lives if we think just of our own individual good.”

It's not always easy to serve and think of others consistently as the Queen sought to do. We know that there were times of great sadness and difficulty in her life when, no doubt, she found it more difficult to keep her promise to serve all those she reigned over. In our Psalm today we read, ‘My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth’ and in 1 Peter 4:9 we read, ‘If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides.’ The Queen spoke often about how she asked for God’s help in undertaking her highly important role. She knew that she needed great strength to be able to serve others in the way she had committed to. What can we learn from the Queen’s example, I wonder, in asking for God’s help?

In her 2011 Christmas Message she said:

“Finding hope in adversity is one of the themes of Christmas. Jesus was born into a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: 'Fear not', they urged, 'we bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

'For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.'

Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves - from our recklessness or our greed.

God sent into the world a unique person - neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God's love.

It is my prayer that … we might all find room in our lives … for the love of God through Christ our Lord.”

That is what we need, not just to live a life of service in the here and now, but also for a life in eternity together with God; that future life that Queen Elizabeth has now begun. We heard in our Gospel reading of Jesus saying that, ‘it is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.’ Jesus gathers up all that is Christ-like and life-giving about our lives and raises it again for eternity. In the Epistle we heard the hope that ‘what is mortal may be swallowed up by life’; the hope that the reality of our mortal life will be become part of the more than that is our eternal life. Then, in St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we read that faith, hope and love remain; in other words, they continue into eternity. Everything that we do of faith, hope and love in this life survives into eternity and our future life with God.

That what we believe about Queen Elizabeth and her willingness to be our Servant Queen; that she takes with her into eternity all that was Christ-like about her life of service. That also needs to be our response to her death and our reflection on her life; that we might dedicate ourselves anew to the service of God, and to seek the common good through love for our neighbours near and far, not just because it benefits our world and society, but also because it has eternal consequences as all that is of faith, hope and love about our lives will also go with us into eternity. As a result, we should re-dedicate ourselves to acts of faith, hope and love and to lives of service of others.

Queen Elizabeth provides us with a marvellous example of a life committed to the service of others. She also provides us with a marvellous example of trust in God for the strength we need to live that life of service. Finally, through both her trust and service, she shows us something of the nature of eternity where all that has been Christ-like and life-giving about our lives will be gathered up and amplified in our future life together with God. 

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Bill Fay - Love Will Remain.

Artlyst: Damien Hirst The Visceral Reality Of Death

My latest review for Artlyst is of Damien Hirst: Natural History at Gagosian Brittania Street:

'God Alone Knows, Our Father Who Art In Heaven, and The Incomplete Truth have been grouped to form a crucifixion tableau with the dove of the Spirit above the central crucified sheep while a shorn sheep clutching a rosary and the Book of Common Prayer between its hooves kneels in the place of the grieving Mary or John at the foot of the cross. Exhibited separately, these are works that have sometimes been called profane and which can be understood in relation to themes other than the strictly religious ... Grouped together, as is the case here, these works exhibit a greatly increased sense of the hope that Christians see in the violent sacrificial death of God. Hirst once said, to Sean O’Hagan, the afterlife is a ‘phenomenal idea’. However, for me, it is the poignancy of expression on these crucified creatures that reminds of the once-for-all nature of Christ’s sacrifice, the sense that our violent actions and intentions are shown to be self-defeating – a literal dead-end – because by scapegoating and crucifying the Son of God there is nowhere else that our violent natures can possibly take us.'

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

• Sidney Nolan’s Africa: Interview With Andrew Turley
• Ilona Bossanyi: Tate’s Ervin Bossanyi Stained Glass Window Mothballed After 2011 Redevelopment
• Louis Carreon: Sampling Art History
• Modus Operandi - What Makes Successful Public Art: Vivien Lovell Interviewed
• Genesis Tramaine: A Queer Devotional Painter
• Lakwena Maciver: Review-Interview Hastings Contemporary
• Nicola Ravenscroft - Sculpture With A Peaceful Stillness
• Artist Hannah Rose Thomas – Tears of Gold – Interview
• Marcus Lyon: Human Atlas Explorations
• Elizabeth Kwant Interview
• Helaine Blumenfeld: Undulating Structures
• National Gallery Explores ‘Sin’ In New Exhibition – Interview Dr Joost Joustra Curator
• Betty Spackman: Posthumanism Debates
• Christopher Clack: Connecting The Material And Immaterial
• Peter Howson Artlyst Interview
• Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker On The Legacy Of ArtWay
• Alastair Gordon A Testament To His Faith
• Katrina Moss Chaiya Art Awards Interview: Where is God in our 21st century world?
• Apocalypse Now: Michael Takeo Magruder Interviewed
• Jonathan Anderson: Religious Inspirations Behind Modernism
• Caravan – An Interview With Rev Paul Gordon Chandler On Arts Peacebuilding
• Art Awakening Humanity Alexander de Cadenet Interviewed
• Michael Pendry New Installation Lights Up St Martin In The Fields
• Mark Dean Projects Stations of the Cross Videos On Henry Moore Altar

Articles -

• Ali Cherri: Artist in Residence National Gallery
• Audrey Flack Carlo Crivelli And Robert Indiana – March Diary
• Surrealism Outside The Usual Story – Tate Modern
• Marcus Lyon Creates Fields of Vision At St Martin-in-the-Fields London
• My Art Diary And Other Thoughts February 2022
• Van Gogh Self Portraits The Infinite And The Ordinary
• Marvellous Icons: The London Jesuit Centre
• And On An Art Note: End Of Year Diary 2021
• Albrecht Dürer Travels Of A Renaissance Artist – National Gallery London
• Diasporan Identities: Life Between Islands Caribbean British Art – Tate Britain
• Isamu Noguchi: Socially Engaged Art – Barbican Centre
• Pablo Bronstein: A This-World Vision Of Hell
• Bosco Sodi: In The Beginning Of Wisdom
• George Condo Lockdown Works Hauser & Wirth
• Theaster Gates Clay As A Profound Metaphor
• Mark Rothko: Mesmerising And Intimate Works On Paper
• International Autumn Art Exhibition Reviews
• Roger Cecil: A Once In A Generation Welsh Painter
• Tino Sehgal: Location, Nature And Pandemic – Blenheim Palace
• Michael Armitage And The Power Of Art – Royal Academy
• Marie Raymond And Post-War Avant Garde Painting In Paris
• Rachel Kneebone: A Complex Tableau Of Organic And Geometric Forms
• Rodin: Suffering And Conflict – Tate Modern
• Barbara Hepworth: Symbols Of Art & Life – Hepworth Wakefield
• 20th Century Women Artists Challenging Conventions In Britain
• Chaiya Art Awards 2021 Gallery OXO
• Marc Chagall’s Exquisite Stained Glass Window Commissions
• George Gittoes Equal parts artist and warrior
• Keith Haring: Personal Spiritual Imagery
• Sean Scully: Philosophical Poetic Pastoral The 12 / Dark Windows
• Arthur Jafa: The Art Of Cutting And Pasting
• Blackpentecostal Breath: Spirit-Led Movement Jumps From Music To Visual Art
• Made in USA Ed Ruscha An American Perspective
• Robert Smithson: The Archetypal Nature Of Things
• If Jesus Is A Man Of Colour Why Did We Make Him Aryan?
• Cosmic Patches And Quilts Five Exhibitions
• Everyday Heroes: Southbank Exhibition Celebrates Low-paid Key Workers
• Entwining Spiritualism And Art – Three Shows
• Of Church And The Visual Arts
• Has The Word Master Reached Its Sell-By Date?
• The People Behind Community Is Kindness Billboard Campaign
• André Daughtry: Art, Rebellion And Racial Justice
• Salisbury Cathedral 800 Years Of Art And Spirit
• Home Alone Together Twenty Five Artists
• Botanical Mind Online: Art, Mysticism and the Cosmic Tree
• Salvador Dalí The Enigma of Faith
• Art And Faith A Time For Seeing
• Andy Warhol: Catholicism His Work, Faith And Legacy
• Kiki Smith: Embodied Art
• Art and Christianity Awards A Positive New Millennium Legacy
• Arnulf Rainer: 90th Birthday Exhibition Celebrated At Albertina Museum
• A Belonging Project And Exiles Loss and Displacement
• Robert Polidori: Fra Angelico Opus Operantis
• Art, Faith, Church Patronage and Modernity
• Contemplating the Spiritual in Contemporary Art
• Mat Collishaw Challenges Faith Perspectives With Ushaw Installation
• Waterloo Festival Launches At St. John’s Waterloo
• John Bellany Alan Davie Spiritual Joy and Magic
• RIFT Unites 17 Art and Science MA Graduates At Central St Martins
• Visionary Cities: Michael Takeo Magruder – British Library
• Van Gogh’s Religious Journey Around London
• William Congdon Holy Sites And The Kettle’s Yard Connection
• Mark Dean Premieres Pastiche Mass At Banqueting Hall Chelsea College of Arts
• John Kirby: The Torment
• Underlying The Civilised Facade
• Curating Spiritual Sensibilities In Changing Times
• Homeless Highlighted: New Beau Exhibition At St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Ken Currie: Protest Defeat And Victory
• Bosco Sodi: A Moment Of Genesis
• Bill Viola And The Art Of Contemplation
• Art In Churches 2018: Spiritual Combinations Explored
• Sister Wendy Beckett – A Reminiscence
• Guido Guidi: Per Strada Flowers Gallery London
• Peter Howson: The play is over – Flowers Gallery
• Camille Henrot: Scientific History And Creation Story Mash Up
• Nicola Green Explores Recent And Contemporary Religious Leaders – St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Art And The Consequences Of War Explored In Two Exhibitions
• Helaine Blumenfeld Translating Her Vision
• Sam Ivin: Physically Scratched Portraits Of Asylum Seekers Exhibited
• Sacred Noise: Explores Religion, Faith And Divinity
• Bill Viola: Quiet Contemplative Video Installation St Cuthbert’s Church Edinburgh
• The ground-breaking work of Sister Corita Kent
• Picasso To Souza: The Crucifixion Imagery Rarely Exhibited
• Michael Takeo Magruder: De / coding the Apocalypse – Panacea Museum
• Giorgio Griffa: The Golden Ratio And Inexplicable Knowledge
• Arabella Dorman Unveils New Installation At St James Church Piccadilly
• Can Art Transform Society?
• Art Awakening Humanity Conference Report
• Central St Martins in the Fields Design Then And Now
• The Sacramental And Liturgical Nature Of Conceptual Art
• Polish Art In Britain: Centenary Marked At London’s Ben Uri Gallery
• Refugee Artists: Learning from The Lives Of Others
• The Religious Impulses Of Robert Rauschenberg
• The Christian Science Connection Within The British Modern Art Movement
• Artists Rebranding The Christmas Tree Tradition
• Art Impacted - A Radical Response To Radicalisation
• The Art of St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Was Caravaggio A Good Christian?

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The Clash - The Sound Of Sinners.