![Christian message: the cross, like this one erected at the Chevin outside Leeds every year, is the true symbol of Easter. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire Christian message: the cross, like this one erected at the Chevin outside Leeds every year, is the true symbol of Easter. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire](http://web.archive.org./web/20170411220005/http://cdn-01.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/incoming/article35604764.ece/76824/AUTOCROP/w135square/east1.jpg)
Easter egg row shows that churches need to preach the faith more clearly
This week's story about Cadbury and the National Trust leaving out references to Easter in their great British Egg Hunt publicity was a bit of a storm in an egg cup.
This week's story about Cadbury and the National Trust leaving out references to Easter in their great British Egg Hunt publicity was a bit of a storm in an egg cup.
On Sunday Sinn Fein, led by a resurgent Gerry Adams, pulled the plug on the Stormont talks and thereby dashed the hopes raised at Martin McGuinness's funeral, and attended by Arlene Foster, that there might be a softening of approach.
The Studio Symphony Orchestra in Belfast will celebrate its 70th anniversary at the Ulster Hall today with a concert filled with European classics.
By the time you read this I will hopefully be celebrating St Patrick's weekend in bright sunshine some 2,000 miles from home, but my thoughts will still be on our patron saint.
Far be it from me to take pleasure in criticising our Church leaders who have a difficult job to do, but I think that they have misjudged the public mood in their statement on the Stormont talks.
This week the subject of sex and gender raised its head again when the Church of England General Synod narrowly rejected a bishops' report affirming the Christian teaching that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and not between the same sex.
This has been a week of announcements about the departures and arrivals of leading clergy. The Dean of Belfast the Very Reverend John Mann announced that he is leaving St Anne's Cathedral at Easter to take up the post of a group rector in England.
The arson attack on St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Belfast this week is a reminder that some people here have learned nothing from the past, and want to condemn us to an acrimonious future.
One of the most profound stories in literature is that of Pontius Pilate's question to Jesus "What is truth?" It is a question that continues to perplex us more than 2,000 years later, and one that has been brought into sharp focus by current major developments at home and abroad.
One of the salutary lessons of recent days has been the revelation in newly-released official papers that senior Catholic clergy were ambivalent about the appointment of Robin Eames as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All-Ireland.
What a year it has been in politics and religion in Northern Ireland and the rest of the world, and what can we expect in 2017?
Earlier this week, a national newspaper carried a story about the deaths of innocent people in the Berlin Market massacre, and asked "So what about Christmas and its message of peace and goodwill towards men?"
Are you a Christmas person? Are you looking forward to tomorrow? Some people will be beside themselves with excitement tonight and quite unable to sleep.
In the run-up to Christmas, there is the sobering thought that this year over 15,000 people have been killed worldwide in nearly 1,700 terrorist attacks closely associated with sectarianism and political upheaval.
Tomorrow, Christians in their Churches around the world will remember John the Baptist, whom Jesus described as the greatest of all people, yet least in the Kingdom of Heaven. John announced the start of the ministry of Jesus, and called everyone to get ready for the dawn of the Messianic Age.
At the end of the first week of Advent, may I wish you all 'A Happy Winterfest', instead of a 'Happy Christmas'. This might seem odd, but sadly our society is now so deeply in the baleful grip of political correctness that some people cannot bear to use the word...
While President-elect Donald J Trump continues to surprise and shock us, some people have been trying to fathom what has made him the extraordinary man he is.
'The scientist has marched in and taken the place of the poet. But one day somebody will find the solution to the problems of the world, and remember, it will be a poet, not a scientist".
One of the people I most admire is Joan Wilson, whose daughter Marie died after a Provisional IRA no-warning bomb exploded beside the Enniskillen Cenotaph 29 years ago this week. Ten other people died and many were severely injured.
Tomorrow morning members of the Church of Ireland all over this island will be asked to fill in, anonymously, forms about their age and gender.
Right on cue for Halloween and the eve of All Saints' Day, when traditionally people remembered the Saints and their own dear departed, the Vatican has produced a ruling about human ashes.
The very public removal of the former Alliance leader David Ford from his position of elder in his home Presbyterian Church has big implications for churches and society.
This weekend, many Christians will hear Our Lord's parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector which warns us about replacing God with our own ego.
On the US dollar bills there is the message "In God We Trust", but there is nothing Godly about the debates between the two candidates for next month's American Presidential election.
When any young woman leaves a successful professional career to become a nun, people sit up and take notice. And if that person is a well-known television journalist like Martina Purdy, there is an even greater widespread interest.
It is fashionable in some circles to dismiss the Churches as irrelevant and, although some of the main churches are still maddeningly conservative, there are a number of individuals who continue to work for better community relations.
Today is a milestone in the life of Dean William Morton, formerly of St Columb's Cathedral in Londonderry, and also that of his family.
One of the great, and enduring songs of the Sixties was Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Sound of Silence'.
Church of England Bishop of Grantham, the Rt Rev Nicholas Chamberlain, has put the ecclesiastical cat among the pigeons by revealing that he is in a gay relationship.
There's a recurrent tendency to think that the crises of the moment, the traumas of the present are deeper and worse than those of other people. The phrase 'existential threat' has come into vogue recently, a way of indicating that there are certain dangers that threaten the very core of our being, not just as individuals but as a culture or a society.
Many people are now back from their summer holidays and the memories remain to be savoured throughout our long autumn and winter.
Today, the last Saturday in August, marks the end of the main marching season, and people will breathe a little easier.
There are times when you fear that our world is being smothered by political correctness gone mad, and also by a lack of plain common sense. A recent story in this newspaper revealed that a French-owned soft drinks company is not promoting one of its new products in...
The death of Bishop Edward Daly this week, at the age of 82, was a reminder of how difficult it was to hold high office during the worst of the Troubles.
It's hard to believe that the Olympic Games are here again. Memories of London 2012 are still very much in our minds but the Rio games have now begun and over the next two weeks an international array of competitors will be gracing our television screens.
It has been a bad week for humanity and for Christianity at home and abroad. The butchering of the French priest Fr Jacques Hamel was horrible beyond words, and the graphic description of that poor man's last words and actions were chilling and deeply disturbing.
There is no logical reason why anyone would try to burn down a church building, but obviously those who do so are immune to logic, reason or common sense.
One of our best-known hymns by Isaac Watts is 'O God our help in ages past', which is sung at Remembrance Day services and at the New Year.
Will Theresa May be a better Prime Minister because she is a practising Christian or not? The answer might be "one hopes so" because Mrs May would be expected to show the qualities of integrity, social conscience and a greater regard for other human beings which are some of the...
One of the challenges of public office, and indeed of private life, is to deliver a speech on an important occasion and to get it right. This can be difficult, even for an experienced speaker. Far too often I have sat through long, boring speeches by people who have missed the point,...
This weekend is one of the most sombre in our calendar, as we remember those who fought and died or were injured, in the Battle of the Somme, which began on July 1, 1916. Many commemoration services are being held in churches all over Northern Ireland, and...
Europe has been heavily on our minds, and now that the referendum is over let us hope that the people of the UK have made the right decision, though I am extremely doubtful about that.
One of the often-quoted sentences in the Bible is: "You shall know the truth and the truth will set your free".
Some people may not be surprised by the decision of the Presbyterian Church to close the retail units in the ground floor mall at Assembly Buildings in Belfast.
Last Sunday I listened to BBC Radio Ulster's Morning Service, when the address was given by the Rev David Gray of Portaferry Presbyterian Church. It was a thoughtful sermon, delivered in the classic stentorian tones of Presbyterianism.
The grief of a parent at the loss of a child is a unique anguish. Those of us who minister to the bereaved often feel helpless before such raw pain.
Looking back, the 1960s were a wonderful time to be alive and to be a student in University College, and Trinity College, Dublin. Term had hardly begun and I met fellow student John Feeney.
This week's inquest on the Kingsmills massacre of January 5, 1976 has revealed the horrific details of that winter evening when 10 Protestant men were shot dead on their way home from work.
One of the talking points of recent weeks has been the ITV series The Secret which graphically dramatises the grisly story of double murderers Colin Howell and Hazel Stewart.
The Church of Ireland has been making news at the General Synod in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin this week, and the Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Richard Clarke, reflected on how we all look on historical commemorations, including the Easter Rising and the Somme.
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