Devon Churches

Devon churches now have 15 new clergy after a special ordination service was held at Exeter Cathedral.

The Rt Rev John Ford, Bishop of Plymouth, conducted the ceremony, which saw 15 men and women being ordained as deacons in the Church of England. They have been called from all walks of life from the army to teaching to serve God in Devon’s villages and cities and are listed below. Ben Bradshaw to serve in the Braunton Mission Community, with the Revd Anne Thorne (Braunton with Saunton and Knowle). Madeline Bray to serve in the Bideford and the 4 Villages Mission Community, with...

In a democratic society any government should be judged by both how it has deepened and enhanced democracy, and by the quality of life it leaves for future generations. On these two criteria our recent politicians do not have much to be proud of. In my view, they have been short-sighted, especially (though not exclusively) by the way they have failed to recognise and act urgently to address climate change, and by the way our (albeit immature) democratic processes have been eroded.

More and more powers have been removed from the English regions and from local authorities, at a time...

Do you think people are basically good or bad? Is humanity intrinsically evil or fundamentally benign? Or, if we are a mixture of both, what is the balance? And, if you are a person of faith, you may ask what does your church or tradition say about this ancient and ongoing enigma? One view is what history calls ‘dualism’. There are forces of good in life and they oppose forces of evil, and the world is the arena in which this struggle takes place. But if this is so, why do good people do bad things and bad people do good things? Big questions and not immediately relevant or applicable to...

Devon’s churches are getting greener. Eighty churches from all over the South West took part in a pioneering conference to look at heating their buildings more effectively. Churches are encouraged to carry out energy audits or benchmarking to determine both the use of their buildings and also energy demands, with a view to making more efficiencies in the future. The new national energy- measuring scheme aims to grade our churches like fridges and to improve each year from F towards A ratings. The conference was held at the recently re-ordered St. Stephen’s church in Exeter High Street,...

So let’s face it. We are in a huge mess, despite the rose-tinted spectacles used by some of our political leaders who are clearly not well in touch with the realities that most of us face. The neo-liberal economics of recent decades combined with the assault on the ecology of the planet may be reaping dividends for the rich few, but for the majority of us the immediate outlook is bleak.

Our society is fracturing and breaking up, and, in my view, this is being encouraged by a government which seems intent on systematically dismantling the structures which have held us together since...