New Cathedral Guide Book

Last Updated on Tuesday, 29 June 2010 13:46

Our old coffee-table style guide books to the Cathedral having run out, we’ve decided to replace them with a new text, to be published by Scala, who did our little walk-around guide booklets. This new book will appear hopefully in October. It will feature photographs by Angelo Hornak, who’s a bit of a specialist in cathedral guide book photography. And it will set out the history of the cathedral in time-line format.

Read more: New Cathedral Guide Book

Legacy and mission

Last Updated on Tuesday, 29 June 2010 13:36

The Dean explores how a legacy can promote the mission of Christ at the Cathedral

Legacies and gifts are a well known way of supporting the mission of the Church throughout the ages.

There are very good biblical precedents for this in both Old and New Testaments. Various gifts were asked of the Israelites to make the garments and to provide the vessels, etc when Moses was setting up the Aaronic priesthood.

This was also the case when the first temple was built. In the New Testament we read about those who possessed land deciding to sell the land and bring the proceeds and ‘laid it at the apostles’ feet’. These gifts were used to serve the needs of the poor as well as to promote the gospel to far off lands.

There are churches in the City that is largely endowed by a wealthy benefactor a few centuries ago. This legacy enables this small congregation to continue keeping the doors of the building open as a Christian witness to the people of our day. Our Cathedral itself has been blessed by the gifts of her people in ages past that enable the Chapter to offer a multi-faceted ministry to us and the people of our City and Diocese.

Read more: Legacy and mission

‘Loss of Innocence’: An exhibition of art work by children from Gaza

Last Updated on Tuesday, 29 June 2010 13:34

You will no doubt remember the scenes when in January 2009 the Israeli Defence Force invaded Gaza, seeking to put an end to rocket attacks on Israeli towns by Hamas. The conflict lasted three weeks, before they withdrew. It was bloody and traumatic.

From 23 July to 8 August the Cathedral will be hosting an exhibition of artwork by school children from Gaza, recording their experience of the event. Of course, this is a very sensitive issue politically. And I have therefore drafted the following statement of principle to accompany the exhibition:

Read more: ‘Loss of Innocence’: An exhibition of art work by children from Gaza

Preaching in Babylon

Last Updated on Tuesday, 29 June 2010 13:47

Look how the prejudices of this secular culture of ours have eaten into the English language.

Take for example the word ‘preach’. The Chambers Dictionary, nowadays, defines it as ‘to deliver a sermon; to discourse earnestly; to give advice in a sententious, tedious, obtrusive or offensive manner’.

‘Sententious, tedious, obtrusive or offensive…’ But hey there – that’s my job you’re talking about!

‘Don’t preach at me!’ people regularly say.

My Rastafarian neighbours used to tease me: ‘a preacher man in Babylon’. And yes – it’s true – this world in which the ancient art of preaching is held in such contempt is no real home to such as me. Like the Ancient Israelites in Babylon, anyone with the vocation of a preacher is pretty much a spiritual exile here.

There was a time when things were very different. If ‘Babylon’ is a name for the Establishment, then the Church of England was founded, for both good and ill, precisely to be a great Babylonian institution.

Read more: Preaching in Babylon