“Time passes” wrote Dylan Thomas in Under Milk Wood, “Listen. Time passes.” It certainly does. The ebbing away of an old year and the promise of a new one makes us acutely aware of the passing of time. The joys and sorrows of 2023 are gone and can never be recovered. Crane our necks as we may, we cannot peer into the future.   In his great work, The Confessions, Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) ponders the nature of time. He can’t quite pin it down, reflecting, “What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know. Yet ..read more

  “What's in a name?” asked Shakespeare’s character, Juliet, “That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet.” Smell as sweet, maybe, but I can't help thinking that roses are called roses and turnips, turnips for a reason. Although, maybe the Bard had a point. When it comes to the names our parents bestowed on us, or we gave to our children, I doubt the meaning of the name was a big factor. My mum wanted to call me Alexander, which has a rather distinguished ring to it. But my dad registered the birth and dubbed me Guy. The name means ‘wood’, apparently. I  g ..read more

‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there', wrote L.P. Hartley. Just how foreign and exotic is the past was brought home to me the other week. My wife and I went to hear the author Tom Holland give a talk on his new book, Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age (see report here). In the opinion of Edward Gibbon, the era covered by this work (69-138AD) was ‘the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous’. Not so much, perhaps, if you were a woman. These days there is widespread outra ..read more

According to a survey cited in The Times newspaper, around 75% of Church of England clergy believe that the UK can no longer be called a Christian country. The latest census data bears that out. In 2011 the number of people identified as Christian was 60%, but by 2021 that had dropped to 46%. For hardline secularists the decline of Christianity in our country may be an occasion for rejoicing. But as Rod Liddle argued in a recent column in The Sunday Times, what we’re left with as Christian influence has receded is a more individualistic society, devoted to the pursuit of material gain. The tr ..read more

In his article God's emotions in September's Evangelical Times, Psychiatrist Alan Thomas argued that God has emotions that correspond to our human feelings. He tries to square this view with the impassibility of God taught in historic Reformed confessions such as the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. Here is my response.  God's 'emotions' and accommodated divine self-revelation  Thomas notes that biblical revelation depicts God as having 'a complex range of emotions', including 'raging, painful emotion' (Genesis 6:6). Such descriptions of God reveal ..read more

Last night we headed for Waterstones in The Galleries, Bristol to hear the author Tom Holland give a captivating talk on his latest tome, Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age. I received the book as a birthday present from my son and have just started to dip into it. The last time we heard Holland speak at the same venue he was promoting his previous work, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (see a report here).  The speaker began by taking us to Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northernmost point of the Roman Empire. The Emperor Hadrian liked to visit the outpos ..read more

Even Jesus needed a break. After a time of extremely busy activity he said to his followers, ‘Come away and rest a while.’ The trouble was that the crowds got wind of where Jesus was heading and followed him there. Cue the feeding of the 5000. So much for that break. At least the intention to stop for a rest was there. The Lord did not make us to keep going 24/7. We need a good night’s sleep and beyond that, regular breaks from the daily grind. God commanded the people of Israel to rest on the sixth day of the week, or the Sabbath. The Christian day of rest is Sunday, the first day of the wee ..read more

Yorkshire is often called 'God's own country', especially by Yorkshire folks. Never by anyone from Lancashire, though, apparently. But I have no wish to reignite the Wars of the Roses, you'll be relieved to hear. What side would Wiltshire people be on, anyway? According to the well-known saying, 'it's better to travel than to arrive'. If you're driving from Wiltshire to Yorkshire it's not, as we did the other week. At first it's OK as you speed north up the M5, casting a pitying eye on the columns of traffic making little progress as they head to the beaches of the South West. But the furthe ..read more

Paul Weller at Westonbirt Way back in the late 1970s/early 80s, I was a teenage mod. I had the Sta-Press trousers, button-down shirts, and desert boots to prove it. Plus the obligatory fishtail parka.  When it came to music, my favourite group at that time was The Jam. How heartbroken we fans were when lead singer and songwriter Paul Weller announced in 1982 that he was splitting the band. But for Weller the music didn't stop there. He went on to form the Style Council and then became a solo artist. Riding the crest of a Brtipop wave, his album Stanley Road (1995) was a massive ..read more

On Saturday 6 May millions of us watched on TV as His Majesty King Charles III was crowned in Westminster Abbey. The Coronation Service was rich in ceremony and symbolism. The Archbishop of Canterbury anointed the king with oil and placed St Edward’s crown upon his head. The newly crowned King Charles III was given the ceremonial Orb and Sceptre, tokens of his royal power.     Much of the symbolism associated with the Coronation was drawn from the Christian faith. The anointing recalls that kings in the Old Testament period were anointed with oil to symbolise that they were emp ..read more