Rowan Williams

Covering the liturgical year outside Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter, this collection of reflections, readings, poems and prayers focuses on the life and ministry of Jesus – the rich subject matter of the lectionary readings during Ordinary Time. In addition it includes meditations by Rowan Williams and others for the major feasts of Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity, Transfiguration, Holy Cross Day and other special occasions in the calendar. This richly varied resource will be welcomed by all seeking fresh inspiration for preaching, leading worship – formal or informal, conducting retreats or quiet days. Containing around a hundred short and extended items by the very best of today’s theological and spiritual writers, it also provides rich fare for personal devotional reading.

Our writers celebrate the work of repair – of objects, relationships, communities, and landscapes – and reckon with its limits. Consumers campaign for a “right to repair” in protest of products’ wasteful “planned obsolescence.” Repair cafés spring up, in which old-timers teach greenhorns to mend clothes and appliances. But much more than our possession stand in need of repair. For some, the Jewish phrase tikkun olam – to repair the world – may have become little more than a secular social justice mandate, not unlike the Christian cliché “God has no hands but ours.” Yet while we wait on God to repair the cosmos, there are indeed countless ways one can participate in this work, whether one is a mother, a handyman, a farmer, an artist, an teacher, or a pastor. The work may not be glamorous, but it calls forth our creativity and holds its own rewards. On this theme: - A handyman settles for humble work and doesn’t wish more for his children. - A mother mends her daughters’ clothes into extravagant works of arts. - A pastor in a declining denomination asks where to start repairing the church. - A farmer says a restored landscape will be more than it was before. - Yazidi, Rohingya, and Uyghur survivors of sexual violence find ways to reclaim their dignity. - Painter Makoto Fujimura says artists don’t fight culture wars, they make culture. - Prisoners and staff say prisons don’t rehabilitate, but education in prison just might. - A schoolteacher says education requires family, school, and community. - A church that prays in the language of Jesus, scattered by war, lives on in new places. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to apply their faith to the challenges we face. Each issue includes in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art.

As the church emerges from the impact of COVID, how will it reimagine its mission? With all the disruption COVID caused comes an opportunity for congregations. How will the local church organize itself, engage with the neighborhood and world, and offer pastoral care to a planet dealing with the significant issues heightened during COVID? Returning to old patterns of behavior is a wasted chance. A theological opportunity for the church lies in rediscovering the classical aim of leisure. The early church during the first two centuries offers us an understanding of leisure quite unique from the dominant expressions of leisure, such as Greek schole, Roman otium, and the Jewish Sabbath. By exploring early Christian practices, we can find insights about leisure for mission today. These practices include setting aside a single day of the week to worship, sharing in a common meal open to all, and, following the meal, incorporating into nonwork time care and engagement in the health and vitality of the community in the name of Jesus Christ. The followers of Jesus were consistent, if extraordinary, in meeting weekly, on the Lord's Day, to worship, eat together, and go out into the neighborhood to live out their faith.

This book is designed to explore key questions surrounding faith, philosophy, science, culture and social progress by celebrating the life and thought of cultural leaders from Rugby School (estd. 1567).Some of the most distinguished historians, philosophers, social commentators and religious commentators are alumni of Rugby School. In this collection of essays, contributors explore the most important values that guide and challenge us today, by reflecting on the achievements of these cultural heavyweights.This collection is edited by Patrick Derham, the current Headmaster of Rugby School. Contributors include:John WitheridgeJohn ClarkeAnthony KennyDavid UrquhartRobin le PoidevinA.N. WilsonAndrew VincentA.C. GraylingJay Winter,Ian HeskethDavid BoucherRowan WilliamPatrick DerhamJohn Taylor

Darkness Yielding is an imaginative and engaging collection of ready-to-use liturgies, prayers and reflections for the richest seasons of the Christian year - Advent and Christmas, Holy Week and Easter. For all who may be looking for fresh and striking ways of expressing what the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus mean for human life, Darkness Yielding offers: Probing reflections by Rowan Williams and Martyn PercyComplete liturgies by Jim Cotter for a Christmas Eve vigil, a Maundy Thursday footwashing and Last Supper, a Good Friday devotional service, an Easter Eve vigil, and a dawn celebration of the ResurrectionA contemporary set of meditations on the Stations of the Cross and the Seven Words from the Cross from Sylvia SandsA series of seven Good Friday addresses by W H Vanstone

Two leading thinkers present alternative answers to one of the most difficult and divisive questions of our times: do we have the right to die? Published in conjunction with Intelligence Squared, the world’s leading curator of debate, this book is part of the THINK AGAIN series: short books that present two expert, contrasting but equally persuasive views in a single volume.

This book considers what it means to die. Trew achieves this through the prism of two significant twentieth century thinkers: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Christos Yannaras. In doing so, he continues an esteemed tradition of works considering the theology and philosophy of death, including Karl Rahner’s On the Theology of Death and Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time. However, Trew is also breaking new ground: this is the first English language book to compare the late Christos Yannaras with major western theologians, making this an innovative and ecumenical work. Different as they are, both Bonhoeffer and Yannaras are well-known for their robustly relational views of human existence. Trew elegantly guides us through a systematic unfolding of how they both believe that, in and through Christ and his church, human life stands newly formed and empowered before the radical individuation of death. Bonhoeffer and Yannaras both see in the means for modern theological anthropology to address the asymmetrical togetherness of historical existence and divine transcendence. Trew highlights how this is crucial for a redescription of what individual death might mean in the context of the church as ‘communion’. In doing so, he constructively recasts Heidegger’s best insights about anticipating death with Bohoeffer and Yannaras. Ultimately, Trew powerfully argues for the Christological conversion of human creaturely passivity into recapitulative activity wherein human beings, by their ‘daily dying’ take up death’s power and transfigure it into new life. Death becomes entangled within a distinctively and irreducibly relational vision of the human being.

From its use as a rallying cry by the labour movement to its central place in struggles for racial justice, the idea of solidarity is often invoked as the answer to inequality and conflict. And yet, as both a term and a practice, solidarity is tantalizingly slippery. We are encouraged to ‘show solidarity’, but how can we truly realize it? As Rowan William argues in this impassioned book, solidarity is not something fixed to be achieved, but a process of mutual recognition. From its origins in the French Revolution to the Nueva Solidaridad in Mexico City and the Solidarnosc movement in Poland, Williams traces solidarity’s myriad forms through its deep influence on Catholic social thought, its transformation in the hands of thinkers like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jan Patocka and the creative struggle so central to the writings of Gillian Rose. He reveals solidarity to be a constant exercise in self-scrutiny and dialogue in which we find that true recognition lies not in asserting that others are ‘just like us,' but rather in affirming their claim to be 'fully themselves’. It is in this work of recognition, this possibility of communion, that true hope can be found.

Man kan frestas att tro att 300- och 400-talens ökenfäder och ökenmödrar levde sitt liv enbart i stilla kontemplation och avskildhet. I Tystnad och honungskakor visar den brittiske teologen Rowan Williams hur det av de bevarade texterna klart framgår att kontemplation eller 'andligt liv' är omöjliga att tänka sig som abstrakta begrepp. De har samband med själva livet i Kristi kropp, livet i en konkret gemenskap. Eremiternas andlighet har tydliga paralleller till vissa inslag i vår tids andliga sökande. Här finns vishet och insikt att hämta. I den här boken, som nu kommer i nyutgåva, går Rowan Williams tillbaka till dessa ökenfäder och ökenmödrar för att hämta vishet och insikt. Han upptäcker att deras andlighet har tydliga paralleller till vissa inslag i vår tids andliga sökande. Med utgångspunkt från vad dessa kvinnor och män berättat och sagt reflekterar han över frågor som: Hur lever vi i rätt relation till andra? Hur kan vi upptäcka sanningen om oss själva? Vad lär öknen oss om våra livsprioriteringar? Vilken plats har tystnaden, och hur viktigt är språket? Hur kan vi skapa en gemenskap som inte präglas av fruktan? Hur lever vi inom ramen för våra begränsningar?Tystnad och honungskakor har blivit en modern klassiker, oöverträffad i förmedlingen av den insiktsfulla vägledning som växte fram i de öknar där den kristna klosterrörelsens vagga stod. Här slipas de redskap som främjar transparens och ansvarighet, avslöjar de inbillningskedjor som skapar falska föreställningar om det egna jaget, motverkar cynism och bitterhet, allt sådant som hindrar oss från att hålla själens dörr öppen. När Rowan Williams slår följe med öknens fäder och mödrar formas gemenskaper som utmärks av självförglömmelse.Peter Halldorf Rowan Williams bok Tystnad och honungskakor kan läsas som en utläggning av ökenfädernas levnadsregler och visdomsord. Men det är framför allt en skola i kristet liv för människor som lever i dag, mer aktuell än det mesta som skrivits i mellantiden. För mig själv och, vill jag tro, för många har den betytt både väckelse och upplysning.Gunnel Vallquist Rowan Williams (f 1950) är en brittisk teolog, samhällsdebattör och ärkebiskop emeritus i Anglikanska kyrkan. Sedan 2013 är han föreståndare för Magdalene College i Cambridge, och en efterfrågad föreläsare och författare. Han är författare till en rad uppskattade böcker bland annat Vara kristen, Vara lärjunge och Vara människa.

'Rowan Williams offers a typically intelligent, attractive, and beguiling picture of what it means to be a Christian... When I read Williams I feel something coming to birth inside me, whispers from a shore I want to set out for.' Mark Oakley, Dean of Southwark Cathedral, London Internationally acclaimed theologian Rowan Williams invites you to explore with him the vital questions that go right to the heart of Christianity: How does Jesus reveal God? Who or what is the Holy Spirit? Why do Christians treasure the Bible? What's the point of theology? Rowan Williams' guide to the essentials of the faith will get you thinking about God in fresh and exciting ways. It will help you to grasp the way in which the best Christian theology is arrived at through the creative interplay of scripture, tradition and reason. And it will help you develop a broader and deeper appreciation of the positive difference Christianity continues to make in the world today. Brief, engaging and profoundly simple, this book takes you to the heart of what Christianity is all about, offering food for thought for a lifetime.

The Eastern Christian tradition is filled with theological and spiritual riches. In Passions of the Soul, Rowan Williams opens up the great classics of Eastern Christian writing to show how it can help us to understand and cope with the ups and downs of modern life.With compelling and illuminating insight, he shows the cost of living in a culture that is theologically and philosophically undernourished, working with a diminished and trivialized picture of the human self. The Eastern tradition teaches us how to develop our self-knowledge and awareness, so that we can relate to the world without selfish illusions. Only then can we be ready for our eyes to be opened to God, and avoid destructive patterns of behaviour.Only in this way can we understand the kind of people we need to become.

As the church emerges from the impact of COVID, how will it reimagine its mission? With all the disruption COVID caused comes an opportunity for congregations. How will the local church organize itself, engage with the neighborhood and world, and offer pastoral care to a planet dealing with the significant issues heightened during COVID? Returning to old patterns of behavior is a wasted chance. A theological opportunity for the church lies in rediscovering the classical aim of leisure. The early church during the first two centuries offers us an understanding of leisure quite unique from the dominant expressions of leisure, such as Greek schole, Roman otium, and the Jewish Sabbath. By exploring early Christian practices, we can find insights about leisure for mission today. These practices include setting aside a single day of the week to worship, sharing in a common meal open to all, and, following the meal, incorporating into nonwork time care and engagement in the health and vitality of the community in the name of Jesus Christ. The followers of Jesus were consistent, if extraordinary, in meeting weekly, on the Lord's Day, to worship, eat together, and go out into the neighborhood to live out their faith.

Arguably the most imaginative and energetic church response to the pandemic has been that of HeartEdge, the interdenominational church renewal movement founded at St Martin in the Fields by Samuel Wells but now extending beyond the UK to Europe, North America and Australia. From serving thousands of meals on London’s streets to becoming, in all but name, an online conference centre and theological college offering hundreds of events, one outstanding feature of its programme has been Samuel Wells’ monthly conversations about the future of the Church with leading figures from Britain and America, attended by large online audiences. This volume offers a distillation of those conversations which, instead of being preoccupied with decline, focus on what Christian presence and practice might look like in the world that is being reshaped by what the pandemic has revealed, and the theology that is needed to sustain such a vision.

‘All serious lovers of poetry will want this book.’ A. N. Wilson All good poetry has the power to transport and transform us, to inspire and challenge us, to comfort and heal us, and to hold up a mirror to the world around us. In A Century of Poetry, Rowan Williams invites you to reflect with him on 100 poems from the past 100 years – poems with an originality and depth that can impel you to search your heart, and to explore your own experience and emotions at a deeper level. Featuring the work of both famous and lesser-known poets, from different faiths, languages and cultures, A Century of Poetry gives you a fresh perspective on works you may be familiar with, as well as introducing you to poems you’ll be pleased to discover for the first time – or perhaps discover again. These meditations, by a writer who is both a poet and a theologian, will open new doors into the experience of reading and absorbing great poetry, highlighting the ways in which their language and imagery can touch unfamiliar places in the heart and enliven the lifelong adventure of spiritual growth and exploration.

In Hidden Holiness, Michael Plekon challenges us to examine the concept of holiness. He argues that both Orthodox and Catholic churches understand saints to be individuals whose lives and deeds are unusual, extraordinary, or miraculous. Such a requirement for sainthood undermines, in his view, one of the basic messages of Christianity: that all people are called to holiness. Instead of focusing on the ecclesiastical process of recognizing saints, Plekon explores a more ordinary and less noticeable "hidden" holiness, one founded on the calling of all to be prophets and priests and witnesses to the Gospel. As Rowan Williams has insisted, people of faith need to find God's work in their culture and daily lives. With that in mind, Plekon identifies a fascinatingly diverse group of faithful who exemplify an everyday sanctity, as well as the tools they have used to enact their faith. Plekon calls upon contemporary writers—among them, Rowan Williams, Kathleen Norris, Sara Miles, Simone Weil, and Darcey Steinke—as well as such remarkable and controversial figures as Mother Teresa, Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day—to demonstrate ways to imagine a more diverse and everyday holiness. He also introduces four individuals of "hidden holiness": a Yup'ik Alaskan, Olga Arsumquak Michael; the artist Joanna Reitlinger; the lay theologian Elisabeth Behr-Sigel; and human rights activist Paul Anderson. A generous and expansive treatment of the holy life, accessibly written for all readers, Plekon's book is sure to inspire us to recognize and celebrate the holiness hidden in the ordinary lives of those around us.

How can we reconcile belief in a loving God with the suffering of innocent human beings and earthly creatures in the natural world? This question, as old as the Old Testament's book of Job, has been mainly grappled with over the centuries by learned theologians and philosophers. But in this groundbreaking work, the author is sent on a journey across thousands of miles to speak to Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians like himself following the 2004 colossal tsunami waves that killed more than 230,000 people. In the wake of such carnage, why do some people lose their faith while others emerge with it intact and strengthened? Are these events in the natural world really linked to divine justice as "punishment for sin"? And if not, what are the best possible explanations for why an intelligent and caring deity would fashion a world in which babies can die of leukemia and the elderly fall victim to deadly viruses such as COVID-19? This account will offer profound food for thought for troubled believers and curious agnostics alike.