Many Western political leaders, both those in power and those in opposition, claim to have moral standards superior to those of Mr Putin, the Russian President. Russian involvement in the covert annexation of Crimea last year and in the ongoing war against a neighbouring independent country – at a steeply rising cost to human life – has been deliberately shrouded…

From time to time some extremely nice and kind people tell me that they found a particular sermon of mine interesting or inspiring. Unbelievably I have even come across some who think that all my sermons are good. Which is very flattering, as my own perception of my weekly creations is that they are at best mediocre and more often…

A walker spotted a man in a boilersuit sitting high up on the branch of the tree while trying to saw off that same branch. The walker told the man: ‘If you keep going, you will fall down and get hurt.’ The man on the tree mumbled something under his breath, ignored the advice, and kept on sawing. So the…

As a student in the seminary, I had to pass exams at the end of every term. Each time I faced an uphill task in getting to grips with the overwhelming amount of knowledge I had both to remember and to use intelligently in those exams; my professors demanded that I displayed my skills to process that knowledge and produce…

“Freedom of expression” has been on the lips of many people across Europe and beyond since the appalling and absolutely unjustifiable killing in Paris. The right to say anything, to mock and insult everything and everyone, with no boundaries, has been presented as the foundation stone of civilisation and democracy; that any restriction or limitation would open the door to…