CATHEDRALNEWS

A New Video for London: Sarah Mullally in Conversation

Following her historic installation as the 133rd Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally will be in conversation with David Ison, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, about her faith, her life, what matters to her most, and how she feels about being the first female Bishop of London.  

Paradoxology

Many of us have big questions that the Christian faith seems to leave unanswered. If God is both compassionate and all-powerful, why is the world full of suffering? Why does God seem to sanction genocide in the Bible? If God is always present, why doesn’t it feel like that? Krish Kandiah says that we need to look questions like these in the face, and that not doing so is neither healthy for us nor honouring to God.  

God-Soaked Life - Chris Webb

God’s presence permeates our lives and activities, reverberating throughout all creation. Chris Webb says that it can be easy to miss that in the ordinariness of our daily lives but we can learn how to open ourselves to the presence of God and, despite all our weaknesses and failings, find new lives of freedom and joy.  

Who am I? Identity, Faith and Being Human

What is it that makes you who you are? In the West we live with a passionately autobiographical sense of self – I am who I am so long as I can tell my own story. Research tells us that people are more afraid of dementia than cancer because loss of identity is the worst thing we can imagine. But are there other ways to think about this? Beginning from the experience of people whose identity is seemingly dissolving in dementia, two of our greatest theologians consider what it really means to be a human being. 

Scandal and Glory: The Cross in the Bible and Poetry

Is Christ on the cross our brother in suffering or our King in triumph? Jesus’ death is at the heart of Christianity, but the four Gospel accounts are very different and the cross has been seen as both the throne of God’s glory and the place of ultimate desolation and defeat. In addition we have 2,000 years of interpretations, paintings, poems, theologies and liturgies that add to the complexity, and sometimes to the confusion.  Paula Gooder and Mark Oakley will look at different aspects of the cross through the gospels and poetry, exploring some of what we might learn from it not only of sin and reconciliation, but also of new life, love, freedom and creation made new.  

Songs of the Spirit - Megan Daffern

The Psalms are a unique treasury of spiritual insights, central to both Jewish and Christian devotional life.  They were also Jesus’ own prayer book, and are full of themes and experiences which fitted and illuminate his life and story, as they do ours.  But they move from exquisite beauty and praise to despair and even vitriolic anger, and need wise interpretation. Megan Daffern describes them as Songs of the Spirit; timeless, making connections between past and present, and allowing us to come closer to God in prayer.