A new guide to my visits to churches in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire

The Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Since moving to Stony Stratford in Milton Keynes on my retirement at the end of March 2022, I have enjoyed visiting many churches, church buildings, and religious centres in Stony Stratford and the Milton Keynes area, and I have been writing about them and photographing them.

As the weeks turned to months and the months became years, the number of churches and religious centres I have visited in Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire, and further afield in the neighbouring counties of Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire, continues to grow, so that in time it became difficult for some readers to find these postings on this site.

An earlier posting that offers a guide to these places has become cumbersome to edit, and so this posting offers fresh links to these and similar postings, and a guide to churches and similar places in Oxford and Oxfordshire is to follow in the days ahead.

As I write about more churches and religious buildings, I intend to update this guide to my postings, indicating the date of the latest update at the end of this page, and to provide a link in the toolbars on the front page of this blog.

The tower of the Church of Saint Mary Magdalen in Stony Stratford … originally a chapel-of-ease for the parish of Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Milton Keynes:

1, The Church of Christ the Cornerstone, Central Milton Keynes (7 December 2022) and here (21 May 2026)

Bletchley:

2, Saint Mary’s Church, Church Green Road, Bletchley, Church of England (16 December 2023)

3, Whaddon Way Church, Church of England and Baptist (13 November 2023)

4, Water Eaton Church Centre, Drayton Road, Bletchley, shared by Saint Frideswide’s Church (Church of England) and Spurgeon Baptist Church (16 January 2024)

5, Queensway Methodist Church (15 November 2022)

Bradwell:

6, Bradwell Abbey (5 April 2022)

Calverton:

7, All Saints’ Church, Calverton (11 September 2022), and here (16 April 2022)

Crown Hill:

8, The Oak Chapel, Crown Hill Crematorium, Milton Keynes (5 August 2026)

Downs Barn:

9, The Cross and Stable Church (12 June 2022)

Eaglestone:

10, The Chapel and Quiet Room, Milton Keynes University Hospital (20 March 2024)

Fishermead:

11, Trinity Church and Centre, Fishermead (13 June 2026)

12, Chinese Overseas Christian Mission, Fishermead (10 June 2026)

Furzton:

13, Church of the Servant King, Dulverton Drive (12 March 2025) and here (11 February 2026)

Great Linford:

14, Saint Andrew’s Church, Great Linford (25 May 2022) and here (3 November 2022)

15, The Old Rectory, Great Linford (17 November 2022).

16, The former Congregational Chapel, Great Linford (17 November 2022)

Middleton (Milton Keynes Village):

17, All Saints’ Church, Milton Keynes Village (29 January 2023)

New Bradwell:

18, Saint James Church (22 May 2022)

19, New Bradwell Gospel Hall, Caledonian Road (27 March 2023)

Newport Pagnell:

20, Saint Peter and Saint Paul (5 May 2022)

21, Saint Bede’s Roman Catholic Church (30 May 2022)

22, Newport Pagnell Methodist Church (11 May 2022)

23, Newport Pagnell United Reformed Church (7 May 2022)

24, (former) Tickford Priory (4 May 2022); see also here (19 May 2025)

25, Former Baptist churches, Newport Pagnell, 30 May 2022

Olney:

26, Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Olney (13 April 2025)

27, Olney Baptist Church (12 April 2025)

Shenley Church End:

28, Saint Mary’s Church (15 October 2022)

29, ‘Glastonbury Thorn’, Shenley Church End (15 November 2025)

Stantonbury:

30, Christ Church, Stantonbury (8 January 2025)

31, Saint Peter’s Church (ruins), Stantonbury (9 January, 2025)

Stony Stratford:

32, Saint Mary and Saint Giles (27 March 2022), and here (18 April 2022)

33, Saint Mary Magdalene (Church of England), church tower and church ruins (11 April 2022)

34, Saint Mary the Virgin (Church of England), former parish church (28 March 2022)

35, Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Ambrosios and Saint Stylianos (10 May 2022)

36, Saint Mary Magdalene Roman Catholic Church (14 April 2022)

37, Stony Stratford Methodist Church (20 April 2022)

38, Stony Stratford Community Church, Baptist (20 April 2022)

39, Stony Stratford Evangelical Church (Congregationalist) (20 April 2022)

40, Saint Paul’s former school chapel (13 April 2022) and here (29 June 2026)

41, Saint Peter’s (the Old Cross Keys), former church hostel or hospital (29 June 2026)

42, The former rectories in Stony Stratford (29 May 2022)

43, Calverton Limes, former home of two generations of Percevals, rectors of Wolverton Saint Mary, Stony Stratford (28 December 2022)

Walton:

44, Saint Michael’s Church, Open University campus, Walton (14 November 2022).

Wavendon:

45, Saint Mary's Church, Wavendon (11 September 2024)

Willen:

46, Saint Mary Magdalene (26 May 2022)

Wolverton:

47, Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton (19 April 2022)

48, Saint George’s Church, Wolverton (9 April 2022)

49, Woverton Methodist Church, Church Street (24 January 2023)

50, West End United Church, Church Street (24 January 2023)

51, former United Reformed Church (Congregational Church), Wolverton (26 February 2023)

52, Wolverton Evangelical Church, former Emmanuel Hall (25 January 2023)

53, Wolverton House, birthplace of Archbishop John Habgood of York (23 January 2023)

54, Urban Farm, Windsor Street, church-run project in Wolverton (10 July 2026)

Woughton-on-the-Green:

55, Saint Mary’s Church, Woughton (21 March 2024)

The Chantry Chapel of Saint John the Baptist … the oldest surviving building in Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Other parts of Buckinghamshire:

Addington:

56, Saint Mary the Virgin, Addington (30 November 2025)

Aylesbury:

57, The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Aylesbury (14 September 2022)

58, Aylesbury Methodist Church (11 January 2026)

59, (former) Congregational Church, High Street (14 September 2022)

60, Friends’ Meeting House (Quakers), Rickford’s Hill (14 September 2022)

61, New Tabernacle Church of God, Rickford’s Hill (14 September 2022)

62, The Prebendal House, Aylesbury (5 August 2025)

Buckingham:

63, Saint Peter and Saint Paul Parish Church (31 May 2022)

64, The Chantry Chapel of Saint John the Baptist (31 May 2022), and here (5 November 2025)

65, Saint Bernardine’s Roman Catholic Church, Chandos Road (6 November 2025)

66, former Franciscan seminary and church, London Road (18 July 2026)

67, The Old Meeting House, former Independent or Congregational chapel, Well Street (18 November 2025)

68, The Radcliffe Centre, former Congregational and United Reformed Church, Church Street (16 November 2025)

69, Salvation Army Citadel, Moreton Road, previously Primitive Methodists, Baptists (16 November 2025)

70, Well Street United Church, Methodists, URC and Baptists (16 November 2025)

71, Barton’s Chantry and Hospital, Church Street (9 June 2022)

72, Prebendal manors and houses, Buckingham (8 June 2022)

73, Saint Rumbold’s grave and legends, Buckingham (6 June 2022)

74, The Mitre Inn, Mitre Cottage on Mitre Street, Buckingham (25 November 2025)

Castlethorpe:

75, Saint Simon and Saint Jude Church (26 October 2025)

76, Castlethorpe Methodist Church (27 October 2025)

Gawcott:

77, Holy Trinity Church, Gawcott (23 November 2025)

78, Gawcott Methodist Chapel (24 November 2025)

Hanslope:

79, Saint James the Great Church, Hanslope (2 November 2025)

80, Hanslope Methodist Church (3 November 2025)

81, Gold Street Gospel Hall (former Baptist Chapel), Hanslope (3 November 2025)

Maids Moreton:

82, Saint Edmund’s Church, Maids Moreton (9 November 2025); see also here (11 November 2025) and here (12 November 2025)

83, The Old Rectory, Maids Moreton (8 November 2025)

Padbury:

84, Saint Mary’s Church, Padbury (14 December 2025)

85, The Old Chapel (former Wesleyan Methodist Chapel), Padbury (14 December 2025)

Seer Green:

86, Holy Trinity Church (18 January 2026)

Winslow:

87, Saint Laurence’s Church, Winslow (6 September 2022)

88, (former) Congregational Church, Horn Street (7 September 2022)

89, Keach’s Meeting House, Bell Walk (7 September 2022)

90, Winslow Tabernacle, the former Baptist Chapel off High Street, Winslow (8 September, 2022)

Bedfordshire:

Bedford:

1, (former) All Hallows’ Church, Church Square (8 August 2024)

2, Bunyan Meeting Church (Baptists, Congregational, URC), Mill Street (4 August 2024)

3, Holy Trinity Church, Bedford (1 August 2024)

4, (former) Howard Chapel (Congregational, URC), Mill Street (5 August 2024)

5, Saint Cuthbert’s Church, Bedford (31 July 2024)

6, Saint Paul’s Church, Bedford (29 July 2024)

7, Saint Peter de Merton Church, Bedford (30 July 2024)

8, (former) Panacea Society, Albany Road and Castle Road (28 July 2024)

9, sculpture of Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, Bedford (3 August 2024)

Dunstable:

10, The Priory Church of Saint Peter, Dunstable (31 May 2026)

11, Christ Church, West Street, Dunstable (2 June 2026)

12, Dunstable Baptist Church at Saint Mary’s Gate, Dunstable (2 June 2026)

13, Dunstable Methodist Church, the Square, Dunstable (2 June 2026)

14, Saint Mary’s Church (Roman Catholic), Dunstable (1 June 2026)

Leighton Buzzard:

15, All Saints’ Church, Leighton Buzzard (17 August 2025)

16, Trinity Methodist Church, North Street (14 January 2026)

17, (former) Wesleyan Church, Hockliffe Street (14 January 2026)

18, Hockliffe Street Baptist Church (14 January 2026)

19, (former) Lake Street Baptist Chapel (14 January 2026)

20, Friends’ Meeting House (Quakers), Leighton Buzzard (31 August 2025)

Linslade:

21, Saint Barnabas Church, Linslade (24 August 2025)

Luton:

22, Saint Mary’s Church, Church Street, Luton (7 June 2026)

23, Bury Park United Reformed Church (12 January 2026)

The Cathedral of Our Lady Immaculate and Saint Thomas of Canterbury on Barrack Road, Northampton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Northamptonshire:

Cathedrals:

1, The Cathedral of Our Lady Immaculate and Saint Thomas of Canterbury (Roman Catholic), Barrack Road, Northampton (5 February 2023)

Northampton:

2, All Saints’ Church, Northampton (6 February 2023)

3, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Sheep Street (7 February 2023)

4, Saint James’s Church, Saint James’s Road (8 February 2023)

5, Saint John’s Church (former), Bridge Street (9 February 2023)

6, Saint Peter’s Church, Marefair (9 February 2023)

7, Christ Image Assembly, Wellington Street (11 February 2023)

8, Friends’ Meeting House, Wellington Street (11 February 2023)

All Saints’ Church in Yelvertoft … Henry Comberford was the rector in 1546-1560 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Northamptonshire:

Badby:

9, Saint Mary’s Church (20 September 2023)

Blisworth:

10, Saint John the Baptist (7 September 2024)

Crick:

11, Saint Margaret of Antioch Church, Church Street (23 March 2023)

Deanshanger:

12, Holy Trinity Church, Deanshanger (22 March 2025)

13, Possible site of a monastery, Deanshanger (22 March 2025)

Lamport:

14, All Saints’ Church (6 May 2024)

15, Isham family chapel (6 May 2024), and the Lamport Crucifix (4 May 2024)

Long Buckby:

16, Saint Lawrence’s Church (4 April 2023)

17, Long Buckby Baptist Chapel (4 April 2023)

18, Long Buckby United Reformed Church (4 April 2024)

Old Stratford:

19, Memorial Hall, Old Stratford, venue for some evening services, Deanshanger parish (22 March 2025)

Passenham:

20, Saint Guthlac’s Church (21 April 2022), and here (8 June 2025)

Roade:

21, Saint Mary’s Church, Church End, Roade (9 September 2024)

22, Roade Baptist Chapel (9 September 2024)

23, Roade Methodist Church (9 September 2024)

Shutlanger:

24, Saint Anne’s Chapel-of-Ease (4 September 2024)

25, The Monastery, the former Parles and Comberford family chapel (4 September 2024)

26, (former) Wesleyan Methodist Chapel (8 September 2024)

Stoke Bruerne:

27, Saint Mary the Virgin (3 September 2024) and here (5 September 2024)

28, the Old Chapel, (former) Wesleyan Methodist Chapel (8 September 2024)

Towcester:

29, Saint Lawrence’s Church (20 March 2025)

Watford:

30, Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church (11 March 2023)

Yelvertoft:

31, All Saints’ Church, Yelvertoft (20 March 2023)

The Quaker Meeting House at the north end of Wellington Street in Northampton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Other Religious Traditions:

Synagogues in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire:

Bedford:

1, Jewish Bedford (12 July 2024) and here (9 August 2024)

Bletchley:

2, Bletchley: Bletchley Hebrew Congregation (1 December 2023)

Dunstable:

3, former synagogue, Watling House, 123 High Street North, Dunstable (5 June 2026)

4, former synagogue, 132 Luton Road, Dunstable (5 June 2026)

5, former synagogue, Poynters Road, Dunstable (5 June 2026)

Great Linford:

6, Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue, Great Linford (25 November 2022)

Luton:

7, Luton United Synagogue, Dunstable Road, Luton, and Jewish Luton (5 June 2025)

8, Luton Town Hall, venue for occasional Jewish services, 2001-2009 (5 June 2025)

9, 5 Moor Path, the first-ever synagogue in Luton (5 June 2025)

10, former synagogue, Bury Park Road (5 June 2025)

11, former synagogue, 51 John Street, Luton (5 June 2025)

Northampton:

12, Northampton Hebrew Congregation, Overstone Road (10 February 2023)

13, the Mediaeval Synagogue, Sheep Street (3 February 2023)

Wolverton:

14, The Wolverton United Synagogue Membership Group, or the Haversham Jewish Community, New Bradwell and Haversham (24 March 2023)

Mosques:

1, Fishermead: the Islamic Centre Milton Keynes, Fishermead Boulevard (12 June 2026)

2, Wolverton: The Central Jamia Mosque, Church Street, Wolverton (11 March 2024)

3, Luton: Islamic Cultural Centre, Bury Park Road (5 June 2025)

Buddhists:

1, Japanese Peace Pagoda, Willen, 24 May 2022

Other traditions:

1, The Tree Cathedral, Milton Keynes, 3 August 2022

The Peace Pagoda on the shores of Willen Lake was built in 1980 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Last updated: 30 August 2026

Martha Nussbaum: a philosopher’s odyssey from an Episcopalian childhood to Reform Judaism’s pursuit of political justice

Looking out from Preveli Monastery in Crete towards the island of Gavdos, said to be the Ogygia of Calypso where Odysseus stayed for seven years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

While Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey was the topic of conversation, I was writing in recent weeks how the Revd Dr Giles Fraser, in ‘Thought for the Day’ on Radio 4 last month (24 July 2026), talked about an essay on why Odysseus is right to refuse the temptation to eternal life while he stranded with the nymph Calypso on the island of Ogygia.

He referred to the American philosopher Professor Martha Nussbaum of the University of Chicago, who he interviewed for The Guardian many years ago (29 June 2012). In his Thought for the Day’, he referred to how she argues that there are some things that the immortal gods are not able to do that mortal human beings are: not least amongst them is to show courage. If I cannot risk everything because I cannot die, he asked, then how could I possibly be courageous?

Martha Nussbaum, who is Jewish, suggests that there is something about this refusal of invulnerability that explains one of the key features of Christian theology: of God becoming human, of God who is prepared to suffer and die in the name of love. ‘What is attractive about both Odysseus and Jesus is that they are prepared to have skin in the game, which is pretty much the very definition of incarnation’, Giles Fraser says.

Since then, I have found myself reading some of the work of Martha Nussbaum, who is one of the world’s foremost public philosophers. She is Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is part of both the law school and the philosophy department and and an associate member of the Divinity School faculty. She has also taught at Harvard and Brown.

In her work, Martha Nussbaum has engaged with ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy, existentialism, feminism, and ethics, such as animal rights. She has written more than two dozen books, including The Fragility of Goodness (1986), she has received a number of prestigious international prizes, and some years ago she was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Martha Nussbaum was born Martha Craven in New York on 6 May 1947, the daughter of George Craven, a Philadelphia lawyer, and Betty Warren, an interior designer, and grew up in an affluent Episcopalian home in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Her mother was an alcoholic whose forbears arrived on the Mayflower; her father was a successful southern-born lawyer from Georgia and she has described him as ‘bigoted against African Americans and Jews.’

She has spoken of her upbringing as ‘East Coast WASP elite … very sterile, very preoccupied with money and status’. She later explained her impatience with ‘mandarin philosophers’ and her dedication to public service as a repudiation of her own upbringing: ‘I don’t like anything that sets itself up as an in-group or an elite, whether it is the Bloomsbury group or Derrida’.

She studied theatre and classics at New York University (BA 1969) and philosophy at Harvard (MA 1972, PhD 1975), and went on to teach philosophy and classics at Harvard, Brown University, and the University of Chicago Law School.

Her book The Fragility of Goodness, Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (1986) made her a well-known figure throughout the humanities. In that book, she confronts the ethical dilemma that individuals strongly committed to justice are nevertheless vulnerable to external factors that may deeply compromise or even negate their human flourishing, and she defends the practical ethics of Aristotle over the metaphysical supernaturalism of Plato.

She rejects the Platonic notion that human goodness can fully protect against peril, siding with the tragic playwrights and Aristotle in treating the acknowledgment of vulnerability as a key to realising the human good. Her interpretation of Plato’s Symposium in particular drew considerable attention.

Further books, including The Closing of the American Mind (1987) and Frontiers of Justice (2006), established her as a theorist of global justice. She has also written about the unequal freedoms and opportunities of women, and has developed a distinctive type of feminism, drawing inspiration from the liberal tradition but emphasising that liberalism, at its best, entails radical rethinking of gender relations and relations within the family.

In her philosophical work, she has also written widely about emotions and about grief, compassion, and love, and about disgust and shame. Following a court trial in Colorado in which she gave evidence, Nussbaum wrote a lengthy article on ‘Platonic Love and Colorado Law’, drawing on Plato’s Symposium and his interactions with Socrates as evidence for her argument.

In Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (1997), she appeals to classical Greek texts as a basis for the defence and reform of the liberal education. She notes how Greek cynic philosopher Diogenes aspired to transcend ‘local origins and group memberships’ in favour of becoming ‘a citizen of the world’.

In Sex and Social Justice (1999), she argues that sex and sexuality are morally irrelevant distinctions that have been artificially enforced as sources of social hierarchy, and that feminism and social justice have common concerns. She shows how sex is used to deny some people, including women and gay men, social justice.

In Hiding from Humanity (2004), Nussbaum examines the arguments for including two emotions – shame and disgust – as legitimate bases for legal judgments, and notes how projective disgust has wrongly justified group subordination, mainly of women, Jews, and homosexuals. She dismisses disgust as a reliable basis of judgment.

In From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law (2010), Nussbaum analyses the role that disgust plays in law and public debate in the US, including the constitutional legal issues facing gay and lesbian people. She argues that the fundamental motivation of those advocating legal restrictions against gay and lesbian people is a ‘politics of disgust’.

She explicitly opposes the concept of a disgust-based morality as an appropriate guide for legislating. Nussbaum notes that popular disgust has been used throughout history as a justification for persecution, and recalls how at various times, racism, antisemitism and sexism, have all been driven by popular revulsion.

In Creating Capabilities (2011), she outlines a unique theory on the Capability approach or the Human development approach. She criticises existing economic indicators, such as GDP, for failing to fully account for quality of life and assurance of basic needs, instead rewarding countries with large growth distributed highly unequally across the population, and she argues the Capability approach should be prioritised by development economics policymakers.

In The New Religious Intolerance, Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age (2012), she writes a vigorous defence of the religious freedom of minorities in the face of post-9/11 Islamophobia. And, as Giles Fraser said in The Guardian at the time, by minorities she mostly means Muslims.

Her book The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal (2019), engages critically with important examples of the cosmopolitan ideal from ancient Greece and Rome to the present. The cosmopolitan political tradition in Western thought begins with the Greek Cynic Diogenes, who, when asked where he came from, responded that he was a citizen of the world. Rather than declaring his lineage, city, social class, or gender, he defined himself as a human being, implicitly asserting the equal worth of all human beings. Nussbaum pursues this ‘noble but flawed‘ vision of world citizenship as it finds expression in figures of Greco-Roman antiquity, Hugo Grotius in the 17th century, Adam Smith during the 18th century, and various contemporary thinkers.

Earlier that year, the Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in 2019, claimed the American middle class had been betrayed by an out-of-touch ‘cosmopolitan elite’ that catered to the needs of multinational companies while forgetting ‘the heartland’. Given Brexit, Donald Trump’s election, and a global turn to nationalism more generally, Hawley’s comments were anything but exceptional. What made them unique was that he directed his ire at particular academics for promulgating the beliefs of what he called the ‘cosmopolitan consensus’. Perhaps the best-known of these was Martha Nussbaum, wh o was accused by Hawley of teaching her students that ‘world citizenship’ trumps being the citizen of a nation-state.

Her latest book is The Republic of Love: Opera and Political Freedom, published earlier this year by Oxford University Press.

Nussbaum has criticised Noam Chomsky as one of the left-wing intellectuals who hold the belief that ‘one should not criticise one’s friends, that solidarity is more important than ethical correctness’.

She is known for her contributions in developing the capabilities approach to well-being, in which she asks, ‘What is each person able to do and to be?’ She asserts that all humans – and non-human animals – have a basic right to dignity. To provide human dignity, she insists governments must provide ‘at least a threshold level’ of a number of capabilities: life; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses, imagination, and thought, emotions; practical reason; affiliation; other species; play; and control over one's environment, including political and material environments.

‘Knowledge is no guarantee of good behaviour, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behaviour’ … Martha C Nussbaum (Photograph: University of Chicago Divinity School

From 1969 to 1987, Martha Nussbaum was married to Professor Alan Nussbaum of Yale and Cornell, a linguist and classical philologist known for his work on the language of the Homeric epics. During their marriage, she converted to Judaism and her commitment to Judaism has continued. She became a bat mitzvah at Temple KAM Isaiah Israel in Chicago in 2008, delivering a D’var Torah on the connection between genuine, non-narcissistic consolation and the pursuit of global justice.

For Nussbaum, coming to Judaism was both comfort and reprieve. She has described ‘the combination of joy and relief I found in entering a community in which outrage at injustice was normal.’

She soon came to appreciate the Jewish tradition of spirited debate. ‘In great contrast to my Christian education, focused on catechism and professions of faith,’ she wrote, ‘I discovered that in a Jewish conversion process it was possible to dispute about everything.’

Whether treating literary, legal, or political issues, she has consistently argued that any comprehensive ideology that claims to understand the good life fails unless it is accompanied by a love for that which is imperfect and vulnerable. ‘Philosophy does not compel, or threaten, or mock,’ she has said. ‘It doesn’t make bare assertions, but, instead, sets up a structure of thought in which a conclusion follows from premises the listener is free to dispute. In that way it invites dialogue and respects the listener.’

In her essay ‘Judaism and the Love of Reason,’ she describes her love for the ideas of the leaders of 19th century Reform Judaism, a movement she praises for its rationalism, its moral mission and commitment to justice, and for ‘returning the religion to its original Biblical core.’

In Women and Human Development (2000), she criticises secular feminists for ascribing patriarchy to religious traditions. In ‘Judaism and the Love of Reason’, she cites feminism and cosmopolitanism as ‘issues that have been at the heart of the Reform movement since its inception and to which Reform Judaism gives … more satisfactory answers than do other varieties of Judaism.’

In an interview with Benjamin Balint in Sources in Spring 2022, Martha Nussbaum said she does not ‘even really think that Biblical Judaism is inherently patriarchal. I once wrote a paper on the Creation stories in Genesis and learned a lot about how great interpreters have read Genesis 1 as holding that the first human was a hermaphrodite. And there are many other ways in which the apparently misogynistic aspects of the text have been differently interpreted by great textual scholars.’

Asked why religious ritual is important for people who seek to live a moral life, she cited Immanuel Kant, who ‘said that people have a duty to join a religious group of the right sort (the rational sort, and Reform Judaism is pretty much the rational religion he had in mind), because we are all weak and inclined to deviate from the moral law, but in a group with others our resolve is strengthened.’

In her speech when she received an honorary degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, she painted a portrait of the Judaism that inspires her, including the commitment to correct injustices in the community and to welcome all strangers.

The Israeli novelist David Grossman, who received an honorary degree the same day, said to her that that is the sort of Judaism Israel needs. In his speech, he talked about the capacity of the literary imagination to see the infinite in each person, and to cross the boundaries that divide us in life. He then asked whether that capacity is being lost in the Israel of today.

She told Benjamin Balint, ‘So that is what Reform strengthens, I believe: that imaginative capacity to see the infinite in each person and to welcome the stranger.’ And, she added, ‘the Judaism I belong to requires the pursuit of political justice.’

Catching up on the history of the churches in Oman, from Biblical times to dialogue and a new Anglican church

Farewell to Muscat … without visiting any of the religious centres (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

My brief and furtive passages through Muscat Airport early on Friday morning and two weeks earlier left me with no time to consider the long history of the Christian presence in Oman. But in sleepless bouts brought about by jet lag in the last two days, I have been catching up on some of the stories, form Biblical times to a late 19th century Anglican missionary bishop, Oman’s role in advancing Christian-Muslim dialogue and peace-making in the Gulf region and Middle East, and the emergence of a new Anglican church in Muscat.

Christian churches in Oman are mainly found in the Muscat area, Sohar, and Salalah, meeting the needs of a large expatriate population. The major denominations include Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and various Protestant and evangelical groups.

Islam is the official state religion, and Article 28 of the constitution limits freedom of religious practices to the boundaries of Islamic law and proselytising in public is forbidden. Instruction in Islam is compulsory in public schools, but people who are legally non-Muslims are exempted from this.

Christianity is the religion of 3.63% of the population of Oman, with about 90 Christian congregations. Almost all Christians there are from other countries, including the Philippines, India and some Western countries.

Oman can claim to be one of the Biblical lands: Job’s tomb is claimed to be in Oman, although it is one of three places that claim to be his burial place; the Queen of Sheba, who brought spices to King Solomon (see I Kings 10), held territories in what is now south Oman; and the gifts brough to the Christ Child by the Magi may have been from the region, such as frankincense and myrrh found in the Dhofar. Later, it is said, the Apostle Thomas brought Christianity to the shores of Oman on his way to India.

The Chronicle of Arbela, which may date from the mid-sixth century, tells of a diocese at Bet Mazunaye, an area that included Oman. The Bishop of Sohar or Beit Mazunayeh attended synods in the years 424, 544, 576 and 676 CE.

There are few official records of Christianity in Oman from that time until the arrival of the Portuguese in 1504. Portugal occupied from 1507 to 1650 and the ruins of what is thought to have been a church have been found in Suhar.

Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church in Ruwi is the oldest Catholic church in Muscat

The Roman Catholic Vicariate, the Anglican Church, the Protestant Church of Oman, and the al Amana Centre are among the recognised religious bodies in Oman, and there is a Christian cemetery in Muscat.

Roman Catholics, who number 138,000 in Oman, make up almost 70% of all Christians in the sultanate. They are part of the Apostolic Vicariate of Soth Arabia, with four parishes in Oman – Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church and Holy Spirit Church in Muscat, Saint Anthony’s Church, Sohar, and Saint Francis Xavier Church, Salalah. Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church in Ruwi, the oldest Catholic church is in Muscat, was built in 1977. Most Catholics in Oman are from India and the Philippines, as well as some from Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.

Eastern Orthodox Christians in Oman are part of the Archdiocese of Baghdad, Kuwait and Dependencies and of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch. There are 24,000 Orthodox Christians in Oman, accounting for 12.5 per cent of Christians in the country The first Orthodox church in Oman, Saint Constantine and Saint Helen, was built in Muscat in 2019.

Bishop Thomas Valpy French died three months after arriving in Muscat in 1891

For Anglicans, Oman is part of the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf in the Anglican or Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East. The Anglican presence in Oman dates back to Bishop Thomas Valpy French (1825-1891), who became the first Bishop of Lahore in 1877, and who moved to Muscat in 1891 shortly before he died.

Thomas Valpy French was born in the Abbey, Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, on 1 January 1825, a son of the Revd Peter French, Vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Burton upon Trent, for 47 years, and was educated at University College, Oxford (BA 1846, MA 1849; Fellow 1848-1853)

French joined the Church Mission Society (CMS) in 1850 and was sent to Agra in India, where he founded Saint John’s College. French learnt seven languages, including Hindustani, Punjabi, Urdu, Persian, Pashto and Arabic, and moved to the Punjab in 1861, but ill-health forced him to return for England in 1862. He was consecrated the first Bishop of Lahore in 1877 and remained there until 1887. He founded the Lahore Divinity College, supervised the translation of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into Hindustani and Pashto, and visited Kashmir and Iran before returning to England in 1887, once again due to ill health.

French insisted all must be equally welcome and respected within a house of worship, with no differences defined by race ot station, or between individuals in ‘a House of Prayer for all people.’ French arrived in Muscat on his final missionary journey on 8 February 1891 and was the first missionary to visit the region. He had just started setting up his work there when his health started failing. He was cared for by Portuguese Catholic missionaries until he died on 14 May 1891 in Muscat, and he was buried in a Christian cemetery.

Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury has described French as a personal hero. He has said that while French ‘seems to have made no converts’ during his final years in the Middle East, he was not there primarily to make converts but out of ‘the desire to be where Jesus was … to be in the company of Jesus Christ.’

Bait al Noor church in Ruwi, Muscat, is part of the Protestant Church in Oman

Two years after French’s death, missionaries from the New Jersey-based Arabian Mission opened a mission station in Muscat in November 1893. Peter Zwemer (1868-1898), a younger brother of Samuel Marinus Zwemer (1867-1952), one of the founders of the Arabian Mission, arrived in Muscat in 1893 and died in 1898.

The mission set up schools, medical facilities with missionary doctors and a printing press in Muscat. For much of its history the primary focus of the mission was the Arabic church, but with the advent of oil the English-language congregation become the main focus.

The Protestant Church in Oman was supported by the Reformed Church in America and became a partnership between the RCA and the Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, with both traditions appointing pastors and supporting what has become a multidenominational, multicultural and multinational church.

The PCO that has provided an umbrella group for a number of churches and traditions, with two campuses in Muscat, Ruwi and Ghala, and one in Salalah in the south and Sohar in the north. There are English, Arabic, Tagalog (Filipino) and Korean congregations. The PCO also oversees or sponsors more than 60 congregations in Ruwi and Ghala, and 21 denominations in Oman all come under its umbrella.

Al Amana Centre is one of the few Christian-led organisations in the Muslim-majority world working toward sustainable peace. It has been cultivating dialogue and deep understanding in Oman for over130 years. The centre’s roots are in the work of the Reformed Church in America and it works to foster peace and deeper mutual understanding between all people of faith.

Inside the Anglican Church of Saint John, Muscat

Prince Charles (now King Charles III) was a guest at a service in Bait al Noor church (House of Light) in Ruwi, Muscat, in 2016 to mark the 125th anniversary of the final missionary journey of Bishop Thomas Valpy French. Recent Anglican clergy in Oman have included Alan Gates (1978-1980), John Hall (1980-1982), Daniel Lloyd (1982-1984), Richard Boulter (1984-1986), Ray Skinner (1987-1989), Robert Fieldson (1990-1995), Gerard Storey (1995-1999), John Aldis (2000-2001), Mike Clarkson (2004-2006), Ruth Lichtenberger (2005-2007), Benjamin Chase (2006-2007) and Chris Howitz.

Until the end of January 2023, the Revd Chris Howitz, like Anglican priests in Oman before him, worked under the local auspices of the PCO. The Church of Saint John, Muscat, emerged with reconfiguring the Anglican presence in Oman and an opportunity for a fresh start. The new Church of Saint John was celebrated at the Eucharist on 13 April 2023, attended by Archbishop Michael Lewis and about 100 people, including people who have continued with the PCO, representatives of the RCA and staff of the Al Amana Centre.

Bishop Sean Semple of Cyprus visited Saint John’s Church, Muscat, at the end of last year (13 November 2025 ). He met officials of Oman’s Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs and the PCO and thanked them for the partnerships with the Anglican Church in Muscat.

• The Prayer Diary of the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf today (8 March 2026) invites prayers for ‘the Provinces of the whole Anglican Communion, their people, and Primates’ and for ‘St John’s, Muscat, Oman’.

The Revd Chris Howitz and the Church of Saint John, Muscat

Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 18, Saturday 7 March 2026

Minarets and church domes on the skyline in Rethymnon in Crete … the Parable of the Prodigal Son is an important aid in the Christian-Muslim dialogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Patrick Comerford

Lent began over two weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (18 February 2025), and tomorrow is the Third Sunday in Lent (Lent III). The Church Calendar today remembers Perpetua, Felicity and their Companions (203), Martyrs at Carthage.

I am back in Stony Stratford after two weeks in Kuching and a long and arduous journey that took me through Oman in the Gulf on Thursday and Friday. Later this morning, I hope to drop in to Το Στεκι Μας, Our Place, the pop-up Greek café which opens every first Saturday of the month at the Swinfen Harris Church Hall beside the Greek Orthodox Church on London Road, Stony Stratford, between 10:30 am and 3 pm. Later in the day I hope to find somewhere appropriate to watch this afternoon's Six Nations rugby matches between Scotland and France (14:10) and England and Italy (16:20).

But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son depicted in a window in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32 (NRSVA):

1 Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

3 So he told them this parable:

11 … ‘There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” 22 But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.

25 ‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” 31 Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found”.’

The Church of the Annunciation in Kaş in southern Turkey was converted into the Yeni Cami or New Mosque in 1963 … how does the Parable of the Prodigal Son assist Christian-Muslim dialogue? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist in the Lectionary (Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32) is the Parable of the Prodigal Son, one of the best-known parables, even among people who seldom go to church, and it is one of the parables that are unique to Saint Luke’s Gospel.

I have spent two weeks in Kuching, where I was woken each morning by the bells of Saint Thomas’s Cathedral and the call to prayer from neighbouring mosques, and my journey back to England has brought me back through Muscat and the Middle East. During these weeks, both in Malaysia and in Oman, I have conscious of the way in which Lent and Ramadan overlap for Christians and Muslims this year. This morning I am also reminded this morning of a course on Muslim-Christian dialogue I did over 30 years ago, back in 1995, when how I learned how the Parable of the Prodigal Son is an important resource in this dialogue.

At the time, I was the newly-appointed Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times, and I was writing a number of features on Islam and on Muslim-Christian dialogue. I realised I needed to ‘upskill’ myself in these areas, building on my theological education, and the editor, Conor Brady suggested I identify some short courses that could equip me in these fields.

I took two courses, one year after another. The first was a short residential course at CME level in the then Church of Ireland Theological College (now CITI) in Dublin in 1995, organised by my friend the Revd Declan Smith of the Church Mission Society (CMS), who died earlier this year (2 January 2026)`.

That course was delivered by the Revd Dr Colin Chapman, a British missiologist who specialises in Islamic studies. He worked in the Middle East for 18 years for CMS and the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). He taught in Cairo, Bethlehem and Beirut, where he was a lecturer in Islamic studies at the Near East School of Theology (1999-2003). He also taught at Trinity College, Bristol, and was the principal of Crowther Hall, the CMS college in Selly Oak, Birmingham.

Colin Chapman’s publications include Cross and Crescent: Responding to the Challenges of Islam (1988, 2007), Islam and the West (1998), Whose Promised Land?: the continuing conflict over Israel and Palestine (1983, 1992, 2002, 2015), Whose Holy City? Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (2004) and ‘Islamic Terrorism’: Is There a Christian Response?’ (2005).

His Cross and Crescent was submitted in conjunction with his thesis ‘Teaching Christians about Islam: a Study In Methodology’ at the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Selly Oak, at the Department of Theology in the University of Birmingham in September 1993, a year before I took his course in Dublin.

He was strongly influenced by the work of the American theologian Professor Kenneth Bailey (1930-2016), who also taught at the Near East School of Theology in Beirut (1962-1985) and at the Ecumenical Institute for Theological Research in Jerusalem.

On that course in Dublin, as throughout his work, Colin Chapman drew heavily on the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which he finds unique in the context of Christian-Muslim dialogue. He finds it especially valuable as a story told by Jesus himself, because it presents the message of Jesus and as a story that can be told, elaborated, dramatised and discussed in ways that are culturally familiar within Middle East contexts.

Kenneth Bailey, in his study of the parables of Jesus, believes that the basic message of Jesus can be summed up as the costly demonstration of unexpected love, God’s yes to all people. Not only does he proclaim his love, but he actually defines and declares his love in action. As Colin Chapman interprets Kenneth Bailey’s writing, this demonstration of God’s unexpected love is costly for him, since in a sense he suffers in the process of forgiving.

Colin says the Parable of the Prodigal Son expresses all these points with special force. The father loves his sons – both the rebellious son who wants to leave home, and the older son who has such a cold and formal relationship with him. He goes on loving them, even when we might expect him to want to punish us and reject us. He demonstrates his love to both of them in ways that would have been considered surprising, if not shocking, in Middle East societies. And in demonstrating his love to them, the father suffers in the process.

Colin has summarised Bailey’s understanding of the significance of the Prodigal Son’s homecoming: ‘On his return, the prodigal is overwhelmed by an expected visible demonstration of love in humiliation. He is shattered by the offer of grace, confesses unworthiness, and accepts restoration to sonship in genuine humility. Sin is now a broken relationship which he cannot restore. Repentance is now understood as acceptance of grace and confession of unworthiness. The community rejoices together. The visible demonstration of love in humiliation is seen to have dear overtones of the atoning work of Christ.’

This parable comes from a culture that is similar to the culture of the Islamic world, Colin argues. The strong emphasis in Islam on the unity of the family and family loyalties and the fact that most of the Muslim world is in Africa and the Middle East should make it easy for Muslims to understand what is happening in the story, he suggests.

But the parable also raises question for Muslims, he points out. What Muslim could imagine a younger son asking for his share of the inheritance while his father is still alive? Should a father not punish his sons when they dishonour the name of the family? Has the elder brother got to swallow his pride and welcome home his younger brother who has disgraced himself?

The second course was a year later, in 1996, in the College of the Ascension in Selly Oak, Birmingham. It was led by the Principal, the Revd Canon Dr Andrew Wingate, in association with USPG. That course in 1996 included Saint Patrick’s Day, and Andrew surprised me by asking me to preach at the Eucharist in his college chapel that Sunday.

CMS moved some of its training to Cowley, Oxford, in 2005 and closed Crowther Hall. The United College of the Ascension closed in 2006. Some of its work, and that of the Department of Mission, continues in the Selly Oak Centre for Mission Studies, based in the Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham, an ecumenical theological foundation close to Birmingham University.

Later, Andrew Wingate was the founding director of Saint Philip’s Centre for Study and Engagement, Leicester, where I was involved in yet another a course in interfaith dialogue 2012. He continued to be available as a consultant and teacher in Inter-Faith Relations, and we continued to meet at USPG conferences and events.

I drew heavily on Colin Chapman’s work when I produced resources on Christian-Muslim dialogue for CMS and when I was a lecturer in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. Later, in semi-retirement in Milton, Cambridge, he assisted at All Saints’ Church. We met occasionally at Saint Bene’t’s Church, Cambridge, when I was studying at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and staying ay Sidney Sussex College.

I have been a lifelong supporter of USPG, and I sometimes wondered whether some people in USPG saw me as a ‘Prodigal Son’ when I worked for CMS for four years (2002-2006), or did CMS see me as a ‘Prodigal Son’ when I subsequently joined the boards of USPG in Ireland and became a trustee of USPG?

The former College of the Ascension in Selly Oak, Birmingham, where I studied Christian-Muslim dialogue in 1996 (click on image for full-screen viewing)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 7 March 2026):

The theme this week (1-7 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been: ‘Saint David’s Day’ (pp 34-35). This theme was introduced last Sunday with Reflections by the Revd Sarah Rosser, Team Vicar in the Netherwent Ministry Area, Diocese of Monmouth, Church in Wales.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 7 March 2026) invites us to pray:

We pray for ourselves: help us to know your love, to listen for your call, and to live as salt and light in the world.

The Collect:

Holy God,
who gave great courage to Perpetua, Felicity and their companions:
grant that we may be worthy to climb the ladder of sacrifice
and be received into the garden of peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Eternal God,
who gave us this holy meal
in which we have celebrated the glory of the cross
and the victory of your martyrs Perpetua, Felicity and their companions:
by our communion with Christ
in his saving death and resurrection,
give us with all your saints the courage to conquer evil
and so to share the fruit of the tree of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Lent III:

Almighty God,
whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain,
and entered not into glory before he was crucified:
mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,
may find it none other than the way of life and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Lent and Ramadan overlap for Christians and Muslims this year … a sign by the Floating Mosque in Kuching. Can the Parable of the Prodigal Son assist Christian-Muslim dialogue? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in Christmas 2025-2026: 26, Monday 19 January 2026

Feasting and fasting are important topics in all three Abrahamic faiths (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). This week began with the Second Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany II), with readings that continue to focus on the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist, one of the three great Epiphany themes, alongside the Visit of the Magi and the Wedding at Cana.

Today is the Second Day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, from 18 to 25 January. This year’s theme is ‘One Body, One Spirit’ – from Ephesians 4: 1-13 – which was prepared by the Armenian Apostolic Church, along with the Armenian Catholic and Evangelical Churches. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Wulfstan (1095), Bishop of Worcester in 1062-1095.

I have an appointment this afternoon for a regular injection that helps me to cope with my B12 deficiency. Before today begins, however, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak’ … the HIV+ Women’s Group Quilt at Open Heart House at an exhibition in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 2: 18-22 (NRSVA):

18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ 19 Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.

21 ‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.’

Ramadan bread on sale as sunset draws in Kuşadasi (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The story of the Wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-11), The Gospel reading in two weeks’ time (Epiphany IV, 1 February 2026), is one of the three great Epiphany themes, along with the Visit of the Magi (Matthew 2: 1-12, 6 January 2026, The Epiphany), and the story of the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist (Matthew 3: 13-17, 11 January 2025, Epiphany I). These three themes at Epiphany tell us who Christ truly is: truly God and truly human.

That wedding theme in Gospel reading on Epiphany IV is also found in today’s reading, with a wedding feast used to illustrate a debate about feasting and fasting.

Saint Wulfstan, who is remembered in the church calendar today, was known for his guilelessness, his remarkable simplicity and humility, and his campaigning to abolish 11th century slave trading. Wulstan, together with Lanfranc, was mainly responsible for ending the 11th century slave trade between Bristol and Ireland. He was canonised by Pope Innocent III in 1203 on the testimony of Archbishop John Comyn of Dublin. His views on feasting and fasting have made him the patron saint of vegetarians and dieters.

Feasting and fasting are important themes in the three Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

For many Jews, the central act of worship and prayer is not what takes place in a synagogue on a Saturday morning, but the shared family meal in the home on Friday evening, when the candles are lit and blessings are said over the shared wine and bread.

Passover or Pesach begins this year on the evening of Wednesday 1 April 2026, and ends after nightfall on 9 April. Passover involves elements of both feasting and fasting, with the Seder meals but removing all leavened foods or chametz and abstaining from all food and drink that includes anything leavened or fermented, such as bread, crackers, cookies, pretzels and pasta, and most brands of beer, whiskey, vodka and gin.

The Eucharist is the central act of worship for Christians. The Church of Ireland, for example, teaches that ‘Holy Communion is the central act of worship’ and ‘warmly’ invites ‘all communicant members of Christian churches to join us at the Lord’s Table.’

The Iftar meals are shared, communal and spiritual experiences for Muslims.

Fasting is not only a Christian tradition, but is a form of spiritual discipline in all the great religious traditions: think of Yom Kippur, the great Jewish fast, or of Ramadan, a whole month of fasting for Muslims.

The association between feasting and fasting and the quest for justice are emphasised by Orthodox Christians in the prayers and readings on Clean Monday (Καθαρή Δευτέρα), which marks the beginning of Lent and which falls on 23 February this year (2026).

Greeks traditionally mark Clean Monday (Καθαρή Δευτέρα) by gathering for a traditional κούλουμα (koulouma) celebration, flying kites and eating halva. A special kind of azyme bread (λαγάνα, lagana) is baked only on this day. Some Orthodox Christians abstain from eating meat, eggs and dairy products throughout Lent, eating fish only on major feast days.

Liturgically, Clean Monday – and Lent itself – begins with a special service called Forgiveness Vespers, which ends with the Ceremony of Mutual Forgiveness, when those present bow down before each other and ask for forgiveness. In this way, they begin Lent with a clean conscience, with forgiveness, and with renewed Christian love.

The theme of Clean Monday is set by the reading appointed for the Sixth Hour (Isaiah 1: 1-20), which says in part:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.

Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be like snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool (verses 16-18).

In the first week of Lent, the Orthodox Church celebrates the hope that, as the Vespers that Wednesday say, ‘the springtime of the Fast has dawned, the flower of repentance has begun to open.’

Ramadan this year begins on Tuesday 17 February and cotinues until the evening of Wednesday 18 March 2026. I have visited in Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey during the month of Ramadan, or Ramazan as it is known in Turkey, and I have found it is a very spiritual time to be in a country with a predominantly Muslim population.

In Kuşadasi, a resort town on the Aegean coast, I have noticed how among tourists no-one is affected by Ramadan – the cafés, bars and restaurants stay open and life goes on as normal. But during Ramadan, practising Muslims are taught not to eat, drink, or have sexual relations between dawn and sunset. I realised there how it must be tough on the cooks and waiters in hotels, restaurants and bars as they cook and serve food and watch the tourists eating and drinking throughout the day.

One tradition in many places in Turkey is the ‘Ramazan Drummer,’ a ‘human alarm clock’ who starts to stroll and beat his drum in the streets around 3 am to wake up those who are fasting so that they can rise and prepare the Sahur, the morning meal before sunrise.

The fast of Ramadan is broken each evening with Itfar, which is a celebration and a sharing with the community. In the evening, a cannon booms out to announce the end of the fast and the beginning of darkness.

Stewed fruits are indispensable foods at both iftar dinners and sahur breakfasts. Stuffed bagels are associated with sahur, while Turkish bread is preferred at the evening meal.

But, before the evening meal, the fast is traditionally broken with olives and water firstly, with the main meal following later. It is unhealthy to fill empty stomachs with heavy foods, and – in any case – for centuries the olive has been considered a holy food by every religious tradition in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Once the sun goes down, many restaurants become busy with local people who come out to eat with their family members. Or people rush home to be with their families to enjoy the Iftar, or the breaking of the fast.

Many young people use those evenings to meet and visit their friends, and there is often a party atmosphere … although most of this passes unnoticed by the many young Turks in Kuşadasi working until well into the night in the hotels, tourist shops and bars, and the young tourists who know little about the spiritual values of feasting and fasting and of tolerance and justice, and how they are intertwined.

I find it interesting that there is going to be a partial overlap this year between Lent and Easter, Passover and Ramadan.

‘The springtime of the Fast has dawned, the flower of repentance has begun to Open’ … an image in the journal Koinonia, Lent 2011, Vol 4, Issue 13, Kansas City, MO

Today’s Prayers (Monday 19 January 2026):

The theme this week (18-24 January 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Freedom Theologies’ (pp 20-21). This theme was introduced yesterday with Reflections from Dr Thandi Gamedze, poet, theologian, and senior researcher at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 19 January 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, we thank you for the stories of courage in South Africa’s history and for the Kairos Document that called the Church to justice. Help us to learn from this witness and act with boldness in our own faith.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, ow and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God of glory,
you nourish us with your Word
who is the bread of life:
fill us with your Holy Spirit
that through us the light of your glory
may shine in all the world.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal Lord,
our beginning and our end:
bring us with the whole creation
to your glory, hidden through past ages
and made known
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Sunset in the Aegean at Ladies Beach in Kuşadasi … practising Muslims are expected to fast from sunrise to sunset each day during Ramadan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org