|
The following articles are taken from the monthly magazine for the Benefice (Berkeley, Stone, Hill and the surrounding area) - The Herald. To contact the editor, please email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
|
Written by Richard Avery
|
|
The Big Bang
In the years after Copernicus Galileo and Kepler, other astronomers developed our understanding of how the sun and planets fttted in to the vast array of stars. At first scientists realised that we were part of a large galaxy of stars, the Milky Way. Then, as the power of telescopes increased it became evident that blurry patches of light were not clouds of gas in the Milky Way but whole galaxies far beyond. The scale of the universe was mind-boggling.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Richard Avery
|
|
Sunday, 01 January 2012 00:00 |
|
What comes into your mind when you see this word heaven? Almost everyone, including young children, has something to say about heaven and most of us use the word from time to time. Commonly we use the word to describe what will happen to our loved ones or us when we die. The details of our thoughts may differ, but we are likely to think of heaven as a place of goodness and happiness. Heaven is referred to many times in the Bible, yet not in the way of popular thought. Last year Biblical scholar, Paula Gooder, wrote a book about what heaven really means in the Bible. Here are some of the matters she discusses.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by David Frith
|
|
Tuesday, 01 November 2011 00:00 |
|
Do you know the feeling when you go to fetch or do something, and once you get to the place, you’ve forgotten what you came for? Sometimes retracing our steps, or thinking hard about what we were doing helps. Sometimes it’s just plain gone – until we get a lucky reminder later on – ah, yes, that was it!
Or it may be we’re in the middle of a fiddly job or thinking through a complex issue, and an interruption occurs: the phone rings or someone calls us or something else comes into our mind. Then the job is disrupted and can be delayed, neglected or fraught; or the train of our thoughts gets derailed.
I’m going to call this common experience The Man from Porlock. Why ever that?
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Written by Richard Avery
|
|
The Birth of Modern Astrononmy
'The heavens declare the glory of God", writes the Psalmist (psalm 19:1). People throughout history have found the night sky an awesome sight. The myriad of tiny lights circling slowly above us draws us out of our daily labour to something mysterious, out of reach and beautiful. Many people ascribed divine attributes to these celestial bodies, but the Hebrew nation saw them as a witness to a marvellous and powerful Creator who had made himself known to them in a very personal way. The night sky was an inspiration to worship the one Creator God.
In recent times some have claimed that the advance in scientific knowledge has undermined religious beliefs, enabling us to explain everything through science and rendering God redundant. Although many in the scientific community are more humble than this and do not claim that science gives answers to everything, nevertheless there is an Impression that the more we know the less we need God.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Richard Avery
|
|
Thursday, 01 December 2011 00:00 |
|
If our British press had been in the Holy Land two thousand years ago, I wonder what headlines they could have come up with to! that special birth. What angle would interest the editors? Scandal of a birth out of wedlock, the decline in the morals of young adults, rental housing shortages, fear of usurpers by the murderous despot on the throne?
Some of you know that I had a brush with media fame last month I never dreamt of my photo making page 3 of a tabloid. And In the Sunday paper. There are lots of important things happening around the world that never surfaced on the pages of our press that weekend. But the whole of a paper's page 3 was given over to the wedding of couple with no special celebrity status, who happened to have their falling out with a relative plastered over the papers back in the summer.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Richrad Chidlaw
|
|
Saturday, 01 October 2011 00:00 |
|
Early in September, my brother-in-law and his wife came to stay with us overnight on the way to a wedding in Bath and they brought with them a Ugandan man called Sam. My brother-in-law and Gareth, a retired doctor, run a charity to help the development of a rural area of Uganda. They support the building of churches, primary and secondary schools and the digging of bore holes for fresh water. They provide medical support and my sister-in-law and Gareth's wife help by selling Ugandan products in this country to enable the people to develop their economy. Sam is their "agent" and he arranges things very effectively.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page 1 of 4 |
Herald