Ian Rees's Blog, page 12

Thrown out

Charles IIToday, 24 August, is the 350th anniversary of an event in English history known as The Great Ejection. On that day in 1662 a law came into effect requiring all ministers in the Church of England to use the newly published Prayer Book or face ejection from their livings. It wasn't the book itself that was the real problem. There were points over which the Puritan wing of the church in particular disagreed strongly, but it had many good features and it is still used today. Rather it w...

Imagine

I'd love to know if people around the world watching the recent Olympic opening and closing ceremonies understood what was going on. There were times when I wasn't sure, so there must have been whole periods in each presentation when overseas viewers thought we were raving mad. Did they get the quirky Englishness? Did they fathom the references to the NHS, or to Great Ormond Street's connection with Peter Pan? Were they rocking along to the party atmosphere or, rather like the designated driv...

The roar of heaven

guardian.co.uk   I reckon the Olympic stadium gives us an idea of what heaven will be like – not the agonies that the athletes put themselves through, so much as the applause of the crowds for those agonies. Saturday night was an astounding evening for British athletics, with three golds in under an hour (and six that day – I can remember times when Great Britain didn't get that many in the whole competition), but what was so stirring was the volume that the joyfully partisan crowd...

Trolls by nature

Earlier this week Tom Daley and his diving partner Pete Waterfield made one mistake in their synchronised diving event which cost them any hopes of a medal. There was plenty of sympathy for them in their disappointment at falling short after four years of preparation, with especial support for Daley whose father died from cancer last year. But it wasn't long before we were reading that a particularly unfriendly tweet had surfaced when a young man attacked Daley for his failure and accused him...

Going zoink! off the scale

Living in just four stops from the Stratford Olympic site means that we get a flavour of the excitement there is here about the games which begin tonight with the opening ceremony. Ok, there have been people complaining about anti-aircraft missiles sited on blocks of flats, not enough security people, fears about big delays at Heathrow and worries about the the capital's transport network, but it only takes Mitt Romney to mention them and all the complaining stops. It's as if we Brits are all...

Grey Areas: How explicit literature went mainstream

I haven't read Fifty Shades of Grey and am not intending to as reviews like this are published to inform and advise so that I don't have to. It comes from Martin Saunders, who is one of the team of writers at Christianity Magazine, and is a really helpful analysis of the way this series of books has normalised the reading of pornographic literature and the serious consequences of this change.
On the train into work one morning, I spotted a lady in her 20s reading a paperback copy of Fifty Shad...

For the beginning of Ramadan

This is a video posted on the 30 days of prayer website, urging Christians across the world to pray for Muslims during Ramadan, which runs from today, 20 July, to 18 August. The video challenges you to think whether you are willing to reach out to Muslims around you. The accompanying article is entitled "From Fear to Faith", reminding Christians that our attitude to Muslims should not be the all too common fear, mistrust and even hatred, but rather one of faith and love, believing that they t...

On collision course

guardian.co.uk  So they have found the 'God particle' and Stephen Hawkings has lost a $100 bet (that it wouldn't be found). The appearance of the Higgs Boson at the Cern Large Hadron Collider was announced yesterday with tears of joy and heralded as the most significant scientific discovery of our time. Those of us who try to keep up with such developments but have trouble understanding them need simpler explanations than the rather geeky announcement that was made. According to The Tele...

We was robbed!

metro.co.ukWe was robbed! Well, no we weren't. You need to say that with an accent like Alexandr Orlov the Meerkat. Last night's one-nil victory for England over Ukraine should have been a one-all draw, because even without goal-line technology it was clearly visible that John Terry's clearance of Marko Devic's shot was actually about a foot over the line. I guess England fans will say that makes up for Frank Lampard's disallowed goal against Germany in the last World Cup, when the ball clear...

Just shut up!

www.christianconcern.comWith Christian GP Dr Richard Scott yesterday found guilty of 'malpractice' for sharing his faith with a patient and issued with a warning, it is possible to see ever more clearly the way our society is going. You can find out the details of the case quite easily, but the point of interest is not that some take this to be serious because a Christian has been singled out where an adherent of another faith would not have been. I guess we can't really know whether that is...