One of the most treasured items that gets hauled out of storage in our household each Christmas season is the crêche, or Nativity scene. Ours is a simple affair. It is composed of wooden folk-art figures made, as I recall, in Costa Rica.

Outside my office window there is a stunning tree. Burnt-red, tall and thick, deep blue sky behind it, and on either side trees still bright green.

In a conversation with some students recently I made reference to Wycliffe College’s Six Principles, and was met with blank stares. I do not fault the students. The fact is that we don’t talk about the Principles nearly as much as we did when I began teaching here in the late 1990s.

When my children were young, Valentine’s Day was hugely exciting. We made cookies with pink icing in heart shapes.

In late October I attended a conference at Yale commemorating the centenary of Hans Frei (1922-1988), one of the leading historical theologians of our age, and the most important figure in the so-called “Yale School” of theology and scriptural interpretation.

I recently had the opportunity of spending two weeks in Rome as part of a course on Anglican Ecclesiology and Ecumenism. The course, ably taught by Prof. Matthew Olver of Nashotah House seminary and Dr.

Can a woman preach? Can women lead worship? Does God ordain authority for women in the church? It is a question that matters to me, as a woman and a priest in the Anglican church, now for more than 25 years. Greek points us toward an answer!

I believe our alphabet reflects one of the most significant inventions of all time. Without it, it would take years for me to learn the hundreds of pictographic signs that would be necessary to write this blog and for you to be able to read it. 

It never really occurred to me to not be vaccinated.

The word lenten, the Oxford English Dictionary tells me, is older than the word Lent.

Where I grew up, in southern Pennsylvania, Groundhog Day was a big thing. For weeks before February 2, the papers, the broadcasters asked: would the groundhog—who had a name, Punxatawny Phil, from Punxatawny, Penn.—see his shadow?

One of the sure signs of “Covid-tide” in Anglican churches is the absence of the common cup at Holy Communion. The priest partakes of both the bread and wine, while the congregation receives the bread only.

As a scholar of ancient Hebrew, I have spent decades puzzling about how best to translate the first two verses of the Bible into English. Finally, I have settled on the following:

Dr. Joseph Mangina wrote the following piece for his parish, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and agreed to share it here.

"What is the best Bible translation?"

As a biblical scholar, I am asked this question more than any other.

"What is the best Bible translation?"

As a biblical scholar, I am asked this question more than any other.

This blog post is adapted and abbreviated from an article by Prof. Mangina that appeared in The Living Church, Jan. 1, 2012

What can be said about Christian unity in a month that has seen yet another church propose to split?

The process of developing a sermon by drawing meaning out of a biblical text (also known as exegesis) does not have to be complicated.