We live in a time of repeated scandals in which prominent church leaders turn out to be hiding egregious sinful behaviour.

If you’re near my age, or older, you likely remember seeing this photo in a newspaper in June 1972, probably on page one.

I joined the faculty at Wycliffe in 2019 only a few months before the start of the pandemic. I was in Toronto first, and visited a number of churches in-person, but by the time my wife joined me the city was in lockdown.

As someone who has spent several decades in Church-land, I've heard literally thousands of sermons, homilies, and meditations. Too often, I hear preachers representing Jesus as someone who was uncomfortable with Judaism.

I’ll be retiring next summer.  People ask me “why now?”.  Lots of reasons, probably: let someone younger have a place at the faculty table; family responsibilities; health; fatigue; out of synch with the culture; “work is done,” “new things to do,” generational stage of life; and so on.

The struggle for justice seems never to be won, and it is easy for those who fight for it to become weary.  

During the 1960s, which were a decade of upheaval in western Christianity in general, the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) registered some fundamental changes in its worship, theology, ecumenical outlook, discipline, and cultural inclusiveness.  

The following comments were transcribed from opening remarks by Professor Ephraim Radner delivered at Morning Prayer in the Wycliffe College Founder’s Chapel, on Thursday, Dece

“One must not argue about opinions.

This blog post is the first in a series, in which Wycliffe theology professors consider the COVID vaccination debate. In the following, Ephraim Radner, Professor of Historical Theology asks, “How did the issue of vaccination so divide the church?”

How can studying the past help us in our Christian formation?

My first degree was in history. I was educated at the University of York in England by professors who were by and large resolutely unimpressed by notions of human progress.

My wife Annette and I own several charcoal and wash drawings by a wonderful artist, Churchill Davenport. We acquired them when we were married in the late 1980’s.

C. Douglas Jay, the founding director of the Toronto School of Theology, died peacefully on January 1st, at the age of 95.

The ventilator may well come to be one of the sorrowful symbols of the time of the Virus. We will associate it, as even now we do, with intense suffering, loss, and even death.

Students generally expect to learn from their professors, but I can attest that professors also have a great deal to learn from their students. I want to say a bit here about some things I’ve learned from Indigenous students in particular, and how I’ve been changed as a result. 

In the last few weeks, the coronavirus pandemic has introduced a new and deep anxiety and uncertainty into our lives. All kind of features of our daily lives that we formerly could rely upon have been radically altered and we have no idea about what the future holds.

Who should you listen to?  Who do you trust to learn something from?  These are important questions for students, obviously.

A basic failing in much Christian preaching and teaching about the New Testament is not explaining to congregations the rich relationships between what the New Testament authors say and Old Testament texts.