Ipswich Unitarian Meeting House
Founded in 1699 – Still active
Tag: biblical
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Easter Mash-Up
What does Easter mean to people nowadays? I found myself asking this question when I was walking through my local cemetery one day during Holy Week, between the hope of Palm Sunday, and the despair of Good Friday. Passing by a new grave I was confronted by what, to me, was a truly bizarre sight
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Dying For Us All
Two thousand years ago, on a Friday morning in Jerusalem, at the season of Passover, a young Jewish rabbi named Jesus was led out to be executed, to be crucified on the orders of the imperial Roman authorities. That is what we commemorate today. In the eyes of the Romans he was a trouble-maker guilty
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Marianne Faithfull and the Ages of Women
I. Marianne Faithfull, one of the most truly iconic figures of the so-called ‘swinging sixties’, died on 30th January. I say “iconic” carefully and deliberately – it is such an overused word these days – because in the 1960s Marianne Faithfull’s image – which is what “icon” means – came to represent the feminine aspect
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The Religion of Jesus
Today we tend to see our Unitarian movement as inclusive and diverse to a remarkable degree, but we should never cease to be aware that our roots are in Christianity, and that many Unitarians – of whom I am one – identify as Christian, albeit of an extremely liberal hue. There was a time, not…
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Fifty Years of Embodying the Spirit: The Unitarian Young People’s League Remembered
“Service to the Unitarian movement was always one of UYPL’s objects, and leading worship in our churches was one way of doing it. Another way was to support and fundraise for Unitarian causes such as the Send-a-Child-to-Hucklow Fund and the Nightingale Centre at Great Hucklow. There was also fundraising for other causes too. UYPL raised…
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Hope Out of Darkness: From the Tomb to the Garden
“It is not a shallow thing, this hope. It is the hope that remains when more superficial hopes have gone. It is the hope that we don’t even know we have when life is hard and cruel. It is the hope that underpins our life and survives our death, carrying our love to those who…
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The World Jesus Came To
Jesus wasn’t born into a historical or geographical vacuum. He was born at a particular time at a particular place and we might imagine that the New Testament would provide us with this information in a clear and unequivocal way. But it doesn’t.
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Education, Education, Education
“If King Solomon, Jesus and God Himself struggle to get their students to listen, what chance does a humble secondary school teacher have?”
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Outside the Cliffs of Eden
“There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden” sang Bob Dylan back in1967, at the height of that decade’s idealism and optimism. In an ideal world there would be no need for kings or rulers of any kind. People would cooperate, not compete; they would be ruled by wisdom and reason, live together in…
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The Last Shall Be First
“One of the most notable aspects of the Easter accounts in the four canonical gospels is the presence of women at the crucial moments. And one woman in particular is named as being present at virtually all of them, namely Mary of Magdala or Mary Magdalen.”
Ipswich Unitarian Meeting House 