Every death is followed by a funeral service or ceremony, which marks a formal leave-taking of the deceased by the immediate community, and provides a seemly way of committing the corpse to either burial or cremation. This ‘rite of passage’ [...]

The manner of St Matthias' appointment to replace Judas exercised a horrified fascination on my methodical mind. How unlike the procedures of our own dear Mother Church! But should it have had this effect on me? Sortition was the common [...]

Highways and byways of Hymns From the top line The varied ways of announcing hymns range from an extended lecture on their authorship, history, meaning and omitted verses, to leaving it all to the organ since we can read the [...]

Wesley Smith on a movement which could get out of hand It is hard to tell the truth about assisted suicide. Actually, the difficulty isn’t in the telling, it is in getting people to hear, or more precisely, to listen. [...]

That the Church of England is run by gossip, and largely inaccurate gossip at that, should come as no surprise to serving clergy of any experience. That such gossip should occupy the front page of The Times newspaper is of [...]