Mostly Knitting – Sometimes Theology
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Exeter City Centre
For several reasons, I ended up driving down to Devon for my retreat. This meant that I had the freedom to stop off on the way back and spend some time doing church visits. This didn’t go entirely to plan thanks to a massive tailback on the M5, so I shelved my original intention of…
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Retreat at Sheldon
Observant readers may note that I am about three weeks behind in these posts. By the time I get round to writing about today, I will be back at work (Hurrah!). Did you know? You can leave comments on these posts. Click on the title of a post (e.g. “Retreat at Sheldon”, above) and scroll…
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Update – The final month
This week I am spending a few days at one of my very favourite places: Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden near Chester. It is a residential library, with books mainly on theology. The library stays open from 9am to 10pm and there is a restaurant on site, as well as bedrooms. When you get here, you…
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Givendale and Thixendale
Givendale In September, I was made a Canon of York Minster. Having been appointed to the Canonry and Prebendary of Givendale, it made sense to go and find Givendale and see what is there. The only information I was given was that the prebendary is of “Little Givendale in the East Riding”. These details, although…
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Liverpool
Three buildings visited – or scroll right to the bottom for my reflections. St Luke’s – the Bombed-Out Church I was particularly interested to see this church building because of the parallels with our St Martin’s. St Luke’s was also bombed during the second world war, but has been treated differently. Rather than being partially…
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Heritage and History – part 2
We use the term heritage almost without thinking about it, but it is worth knowing a bit about how the heritage movement has developed and what it is actually about. This post is based on notes I have taken from the book “The Heritage Obsession” by Ben Cowell. Heritage began with a concern for physical…
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The theology of place
One of the main books that underpins my project is John Inge’s A Christian Theology of Place. This quote sums up the main purpose of the whole project. But just as God can be encountered in the person of Jesus Christ, the scandal of particularity, so he chooses to make humself known to humanity in…
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General Update
I have been more silent on this blog than intended. I have quite a few posts in draft form but not yet ready to be published. There will probably be a whole rush of them before too long. This week marks the halfway point of my study leave. As I was warned by colleagues, the…
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Heritage and History – part 1
This is a bit of a mish-mash of a post. I’ve been trying to sort out in my mind what the influences have been on my relationship with heritage, in all its forms. Family and heritage My family are deeply committed to heritage, especially to heritage railways and the preservation of the age of steam.…
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Field Trip
Over the last couple of weeks, I have started my series of church building visits. Before I write them up, I thought I would write a little bit about what I am looking for. My main aim is to see what the building says about Christianity in its presentation. These are the questions I am…