It woz the Sun wot dissed ‘im
I almost never read the Sun, and when I do I usually wish I hadn’t. Today The Church Mouse lured me there. Mouse noted that the Sun had covered the story of a vicar who installed an ice rink in his Church for his Advent service. With the over-the-top polemic the Sun is famous for, they called the Rev’d Stuart Cradduck “barmy” and “eccentric”; they also said he was “trendy” and it didn’t sound a whole lot like a compliment. He did have 4,500 visitors to his Parish church at the weekend, though, and raised a lot of money for a local hospice in the process. I was congratulating myself on a congregation of a mere 250. If that had been Back To Church Sunday Rev’d Cradduck would have won an award.
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author musician theologian
Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
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