Follow Rome back to Cranmer It must be thirty years since John Higginbotham let me teach in one of the half-dozen best Classics departments in England, at Lancing; and we must thank him for his explanation (ND June 2002) that [...]

The divisions may not be those we would expect IS the Episcopal Church tottering on the brink of schism or self-destruction, theologically and ideologically fractured, like many American religious groups, over homosexuality and other issues prominent in the nation's culture [...]

Gregory the Great, The Book Of Pastoral Rule The Art of Arts When the Anglican Communion is in turmoil over the appointment of bishops, here are some appropriate words of Gregory the Great (Feast day 3rd September) to ponder. They [...]

Robbie Low looks back on ten tumultuous years IT WAS February, 1993: three months after General Synod's vote to permit the ordination of women to the priesthood. Some priests and people had already set out for Rome. A not inconsiderable [...]

Reason Unreasonable REASON (often in its modern guise of `contemporary experience') is sometimes taken to be the strong suit of those in favour of the ordination of women. Certainly it is true that many were swayed in the Synod debate [...]

Patrick Henry Reardon on the tenor of the Biblical narrative MANY years ago a devout old woman of Irish extraction told me the story of her family's migration to the United States during the great potato famine, in the course [...]

Lambeth Briefing The death of Archdeacon Andrew Armitage-Shanks, latterly Bishop of Twyford, came as a shock to many New Directions readers. The editor was overwhelmed with letters expressing grief and unbelief that so promising a career had been cut short. [...]

SUBURBAN London is a wonderful place for autumn fruit. The large, untidy commons are full of blackberries, plums, damsons, sloes, crab apples. And surprisingly uncluttered with fellow harvesters; there seems to be enough for everyone. True, they are in the [...]

The Hymnal EASTERN Orthodox Christians curious about Anglicanism were advised by Nicholas Lossky, the Russian Orthodox theologian, to search in Anglicanism's liturgical and devotional literature, the Book of Common Prayer, the Hymnal and the theological works of Anglican divines, rather [...]

CAN we, ethically speaking, do anything about our sexual urges, or are we so to say conditioned to behave in particular ways? In the great Anglican debate about Issues in Human Sexuality (to adopt a phrase) it is becoming increasingly [...]