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Showing posts from 2013

Is Winning all that matters?

In sport, is winning all that matters? Two stories this week have raised this intriguing question. The first was the 10 year anniversary of Roman Abramovitch’s reign at Chelsea. His millions turned a fairly good to average Premiership side into one that won all the major trophies at some point over the past 10 years, even the Champions League through their perhaps lucky but certainly plucky displays in 2012. In a recent interview on Sky TV, Matthew Syed pointed out however that this success has been built on dirty money. Abramovitch’s fortune was made when he and a group of other oligarchs made a deal to support Boris Yeltsin in return for the cut-price acquisition of much of Russia’s mineral wealth. Resources that should have gone to support the people of Russia ended up in the hands of a few wealthy moguls. The discussion on Sky was intensely revealing. Syed raised significant moral questions, which seemed to baffle Sky’s usual pundits, who could only see the football success Abramo

German Football - Recovering the Drama of Sport

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German football is all the rage these days. The age of Spanish tiki-taki is over, supplanted by speed in turning defence into attack, direct running into space, the ball delivered into those spaces by deft flicks, backheels, outside-of-the-foot passes – football played at pace, great to watch, with skill and panache, executed by the young Turks (or Poles) of Dortmund, and most effectively by Bayern Münich.    I had the privilege of being at the Champions’ League Final on Saturday (and it was a privilege). What struck me was not just the style of football but the difference between German and English fan culture, and the reminder of what English football lacks these days. Despite having been to what must be over 400 football matches in my life, this was different. Germans are famous for their organisation, and it seems to have been applied to their football as well as their industry – to BVB and FCB as well as to VW. I’ve been to a few Wembley finals: a play-off with Bristol Cit

What Christians do

We start and end each day with prayer We teach our children to pray We read the Scriptures daily We publicly confess our failures to each other & to God weekly We share bread & wine together when we meet We meet together with our local community of fellow Christians  We work hard, for God, not for our employers We give away a proportion of our income, often 10% or more We do not swear We do not get drunk We don't do drugs but experience the energy of the Holy Spirit We remain faithful to our wives and husbands We encourage those who are not married to stay celibate and develop deep friendships We try to meet the needs of the poor as far as we are able We support other Christians elsewhere in the world We try to share our faith with whoever is willing to listen We honour our dead with burial in hope of Resurrection We try to be honest in all our dealings We look for ways to love our neighbour as ourselves W

Why we need women Bishops: Why complementarians should support female episcopacy

The debate on women Bishops often follows familiar tracks. On the one side there is the argument from equality or justice. Men and women are and should be equal; therefore they should have equal rights to posts within society and within the Church. There is therefore no reason why women should not be ordained bishops, as they can do the job just as well as men. On the other side there is the complementarian case. This starts from the position that men and women are different and ‘complementary’ to each other. The argument is then often used to suggest that it is appropriate to reserve some roles for men and others for women. This usually ends up with denying the possibility of women being ordained bishops, or even priests or preachers. Does complementarianism always lead to a denial of the validity of female church leadership? I want to argue that when you take complementarianism seriously (mind you, I don’t really like the term - I want to suggest another which I will come on to i

Is Multi-Faith a Different Faith?

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In Heathrow airport recently, I saw a small yellow sign, pointing to the 'Multi-Faith Chapel'. Having a little time until my flight left, I wandered in that general direction, round various corridors, through a 'Relaxation Area', with people lying on what looked like sun loungers (only there wasn't any sun), until I found the centre of religious life in the vast sea of humanity known as Terminal 4. It was a small, square, rather drab room with not much in it. A table in one corner held a number of books: various copies of the Qu'ran, some Islamic tracts, a scruffy copy of the New Testament in Polish, a Gideon Bible and a few other assorted religious texts. A small cabinet had some prayer mats, there was a sign telling you the direction of Mecca and a distinctly scratched table which looked like it had been bought from a car boot sale, with a laminated sign saying 'Table/Altar for Christian use' containing some copies of the Bible. The walls were bare exc