PCN Britain has from its outset sought to promote a fully inclusive understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and a member of the Christian Church. The fifth of our eight points states: ‘We are people who…. seek to build communities that accept all who wish to share companionship without insisting on conformity.’ These eight points have been revised since the earliest adoption of them from our sister USA organisation and I rather preferred the much more specific referencing to inclusion which was there in the original fourth point, which read:

Contents: Easter Monday by Edward Conder

In the public debate about the coronavirus pandemic...it is being pointed out that this deadly germ seems to have the peculiar ability to expose the fundamental moral weaknesses in the way modern society functions. And to indicate the way that these weaknesses ought to be dealt with; indeed, to recall society to higher moral standards and a change of values. For instance, to abandon the worship of Mammon, which lies at the heart of contemporary capitalism. Mammon worship is known there as maximisation of shareholder value, both by dividends and by share price, and it has become the obsessive preoccupation of the entire finance industry.

At times of stress and anxiety, when there seems to be a multiplicity of voices offering advice, warning or explanation, I find a great deal of solace and inspiration in poetry and I know many other people do too. Recently there has been a poem read each morning on Radio 4’s Today programme and various initiatives have arisen for sharing poems on line.

The spread of the coronavirus has meant that we have all had to face restrictions, on our friendship gatherings, our social life, our work, our journeys, our contact with close family. For PCN, as you know, it has meant the cancellation of meetings and conferences. HOWEVER our friendships have not been quarantined and we can communicate with each other by email, telephone, SKYPE, social media and the good old letter! And so we have decided to make a virtue out of necessity, to find that silver lining, by sending you (if you are happy to receive this) a regular email containing a rich variety of thoughts, stories, musings, even theological debate! And we hope you will contribute by responding with your comments, opinions, articles, light-hearted and serious, via the dedicated page of our website, our Facebook page and other ways. Some of the PCN trustees will regularly offer ideas, perhaps a poem here, a book review there. Let’s turn the enforced inactivity into an active exchange of ideas. And lets also support those who do contract this virus and need our love and friendship. So……here is my little reflection on today…….

Instagram author “krugthethinker”, aka Cameron Bellm, who describes herself as “Writer of prayers. Seattle mom & maker. Generally just bumbling around, thinking about God.” Her account displays a lot of lovely and interesting other thinking about God.

This week I attended my first ever online meeting for worship. To my slight surprise it was a warm and spirited experience. In line with the government’s advice for those with a cough or temperature to stay home, I’d been in self-isolation since the middle of the week. I sent my apologies to Quaker Friends saying I wouldn’t be at meeting. When it emerged that meeting in person might not work for others either, we decided to try meeting for worship online.

Quakers have been working to reconcile opposed groups in conflict-ridden areas for decades, but the confidential nature of the work means that it is rarely talked about. Oliver Robertson writing in "Quake" reflects on the work so far, and where it may be going next.

In the twentieth century biblical scholar Krister Stendahl criticized theologian Rudolf Bultman and the entire theological enterprise of his time for his anthropocentrism when he observed: We [Christians] happen to be more interested in ourselves than in God or in the fate of his creation….Bultmann’s whole theological enterprise has one great mistake from which all others emanate: he takes for granted that basically the centre of gravity—the centre form which all interpretations springs—is anthropology, the doctrine of man. This narcissism in religion helps explain the climate emergency we are currently facing as well as much of the exodus from organized religion today. In contrast, Aquinas’s view of the world is cosmological and therefore prophetic for our times for it interferes with the anthropocentrism of the modern era that is so manifest in religion as well as in politics, education, economics and the rest of culture.

This is the time of year we hear those beloved Christmas Carols. And if you come from a Christian family like me, you delight in watching children participate in re-enactments of the nativity story from the Gospel of Luke. We re-create the pastoral scene of the shepherds, “keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8) to whom appeared a multitude of angels announcing the birth of a Savior. But these portrayals of the Nativity are highly romanticized and omit the underlying theme of struggle that is found throughout the story.

Bridging divides isn't just about building unity but becoming more comfortable in our disunity, says Oliver Robertson. To build bridges it's important to find connections wherever they may be – including over a cup of tea .

​On the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe a prayer is uttered ….for those of us of a more Protestant mind which sees engagement with the Blessed Virgin as a corrective to an overly patriarchal God it seems to me one we can adopt and address to God as Mother.

Reading Sr Jioan Chittister in the National Catholic Reporter it looks like politics in USA and Britain are on the same trajectory. Joan writes:- George Will, veteran journalist and social analyst, intoned in his avuncular way, "The strongest continuous thread in America's political tradition is skepticism." While looking for virtues suitable to a country in political and social disarray, I couldn't help but be particularly happy at the thought of nominating skepticism as the electoral foundation of the future. Why? Because I hope he's right. Without skepticism, democracy is dead. Then there's nothing but monarchy, tyranny and autocracy left.

Everybody knows the story of the birth of Jesus - or at least they did once upon a time. See Luke, Chapter 2: vs 1-12. Luke tells us that Joseph, who lived in Nazareth, had to go to Bethlehem. He was of the house and line of David, and Bethlehem was David’s town: a place where it was prophesied that a future ‘Messiah’ would be born. Luke says that “Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph”, but the New Bible Commentary, 21st Century Edition says that Mary and Joseph would have already been married, and the reference to Mary being “pledged to be married” should be interpreted as indicating that the “marriage was not yet consummated”.

This was the underlying theme that was explored during 26 events in three universities, six school Sixth Forms, a variety of other public events and more private occasions, by Letlapa Mphahlele and Howard Grace during the month of October 2019. Fifteen towns and cities were visited: Oxford, Faringdon, Reading, Thatcham, Coventry, Birmingham, Sheffield, Nottingham, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Carlisle,Liverpool, Bournemouth and London. Based from my home in Newbury, we travelled about 1,600 miles in total.

There’s a concept in particular that ebbs and flows throughout Hildegard’s writings: greenness, or, in Latin, viriditas....it sums up the essence of Hildegard’s theology, because for Hildegard, the whole universe is “green.” It’s alive, ecological, more of a verb than a noun. The whole universe is, as it were, pulsing with divine essence, sustained by Spirit’s evolving life-energy. God and the universe are greening.

In the chapter entitled “’Personal’ and ‘Real’ Ethos” Bonhoeffer debates another German Christian ethicist named Otto Dilschneider who, in Die evangelische Tat (1940) argued that “Protestant ethics is concerned with man’s personality alone.” (316) In contrast and contradiction Bonhoeffer responded with several rhetorical questions put to Dilschneider and those who agreed with him. (Nobody knows the exact date of this essay by Bonhoeffer but it had to be between 1940 and 1944.) Here is Bonhoeffer’s response: “The question here is whether within the field of Christian ethics any assertions may be made with regard to worldly institutions and conditions, e.g., the state, economics or science, i.e., whether Christian ethics has an interest in worldly institutions and conditions or whether these things fall within ‘the zone of the demands of ethical imperatives.’ In other words, is it the Church’s sole task to practice love and charity within the given worldly institutions, i.e., to inspire these institutions so far as possible with a new outlook, to mitigate hardships, to care for the victims of these institutions, and to establish a new order of her own within the congregation? Or is the Church charged with a mission towards the given worldly orders themselves, a mission of correction, improvement, etc., a mission to work towards a new worldly order? Has the Church merely to gather up those whom the wheel has crushed or has she to prevent the wheel from crushing them?” (316-317) (Italics added.) read full Pathos article at www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2019/08/dietrich-bonhoeffer-a-spoke-in-hitlers-wheel/

Her new memoir, River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey, chronicles the path from pre-conciliar nun to modern-day voice of conscience. This book (her third) ends where her first, Dead Man Walking, begins. It is the story behind the story — how the devout schoolteacher and aspiring mystic grew into her vocation, which took her behind bars and into the world of America's inhumane pseudo-justice system in order to bring the compassionate face of Christ to those least sympathetic in our society. Reading the book, I was reminded of the famous passage in the Letter of James, which tells us starkly that: "faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead" (James 2:17). I believe this is the constant refrain of Sister Helen's story.

Dom Bede Griffiths (1906–1993) was born in Britain and lived the latter decades of his life in India. Some of our Living School students have been deeply moved by studying his work which sought to make connections between Christianity and Hinduism. It has not diminished but rather expanded their faith. Robert Ellsberg describes Griffiths’ journey to God through both Western and Eastern spirituality: In his old age [Griffiths] looked every bit the part of an Indian holy man—with long beard, flowing white hair, and saffron robe. But while he felt equally at home in the [Hindu] Vedas and Upanishads as in the Christian Scriptures, he remained thoroughly rooted in the church. He had come to the point where all religions, indeed all creation, spoke to him of Christ. . . . [A theme I explore in my book The Universal Christ.]