Christ Church Huntingdon Blog

I wonder if any of you have been watching the TV show “ Race across the World ” in the last few weeks. It’s a fascinating show. It features 5 couples from the UK racing (in this season across Canada) for £20,000 worth of prize money. Except what makes this race special is the competitors aren’t allowed any phones or any plane flights, and their budget is limited to cost of the equivalent airfare, and of course they have TV cameras following their every move. What I like about it is that not only do you travel with the couples across the beautiful scenery of Canada, but also you travel on a bit of their life story as well. There’s a pair of brothers who never got on as kids, who lost their dad and are trying to pick up the pieces of their relationship. There’s two dad-daughter couples battling through the highs and lows of a race together. But the couple whose story was perhaps the most moving was married couple Zeinib and Mobeen, medics from Manchester who for years have b...

Beth Lindon: I have recently been watching The Mandalorian on Disney +. This hit Star Wars spin off series follows Din Djarin on his various adventures across the galaxy. The Mandalorian is full of religious language. The way of the Mandalore is a religion followed by the main character. There are rules to be followed, character traits to be admired and creeds to be spoken. There is much to admire about the way of the Mandalore. They prize honour and loyalty; they protect one another and take in foundlings. However, to me the way seems fairly empty. It is unclear where this way is taking them or where it comes from. It mostly seems to be an arbitrary set of rules and traditions. Interestingly early followers of Jesus called themselves followers of the way. In fact Jesus says in the Bible that he is the way.  John 14:6 says “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Like the way of the mandalore this is exclusive – there is ...

  2868 diamonds, 269 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds and 4 rubies. Those are the precious gemstones that we will see on Saturday, when King Charles exits Westminster Abbey wearing the Imperial State Crown, which is estimated to be worth between £3bn and £5bn. Weighing in at 1.06kilograms it is actually only half the weight of the other crown that will be used on Saturday, the St Edward’s Crown that is only ever worn at the moment of coronation, and that comes in at a hefty 2.23kg (that’s almost 5lbs). The word Coronation means to crown someone. It comes from the latin word corona which means crown, (you’ll remember corona-virus was a named after the crown like image when seen under a powerful microscope). While King Charles took over from his mother Queen Elizabeth the moment that she died on 8 th September, the symbolic high point of recognising him as the monarch will be when the archbishop of Canterbury puts the crown on his head. No pressure! Christians beli...