Vicar puts his faith in a parable and harvests the profits

A vicar gave 90 members of his congregation £10 each and told them to go forth and multiply.

They did and now, six months on, the repair fund at the 14th century St Peter and St Mary's Church in Stowmarket, Suffolk, will be more than £5,000 better off.

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Britain's richest Asians - the importance of family

In a survey about Britain's richest Asians published by The Daily Telegraph, in association with Eastern Eye (Britain's biggest selling south-Asian newspaper), the importance of family is clearly displayed...

'Our list, compiled for the past 10 years, recognises the extraordinary achievements over the past half-century and bears testament to the much lauded "Asian business values" of sustained hard work and family enterprise.

...family is the thread that runs throughout. A remarkable 17 of our top 20 businesses are family affairs run by brothers or husband-and-wife teams, or handed down from fathers to the next generation.'

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Truth brings all honest people into an alliance

Today, Good Friday, Christians remember the death of Jesus on the cross. It is to this bitter end that his declaration of the truth brought him. On Sunday, Christians will celebrate the Resurrection.

That event is the guarantee not only of the claims that Jesus made, but also of his ability to accomplish his promises. It means that the truth is something to stick to even when it leads to the grave. Perhaps Easter can only be reached by way of the Cross, yet there is no other route than the way of truth.

The world does not believe, any more than Thomas did. Why should it?

Belief is to accept the truth of another person's word, and the world has other business to attend to, just as Pilate had, without puzzling over what truth is and who has spoken it. And so the world staggers on, from war to war, from lie to lie, about who has what deadly armaments and how the other side will respond.

Just as peace is more than the absence of war, so the truth is more than the absence of lies. Yet those who search for truth should realise that they are all brought into an alliance. Doubting Thomas demonstrated that truth demands recognition when it is seen and felt.

That is something that can unite all honest people, Christian or not, this Easter time.

Comment in The Daily Telegraph

It's the fellow in the fishing boat that has a lesson for us at Easter, not Judas

...as I contemplate the meaning of today’s events 2,000 years ago, I find Peter has the most to teach us. It is Peter who most truly compels our attention as the flawed human in the narrative: not the good or evil figure sleepwalking his way towards fate, but the man with choices who can’t get them right; who oscillates between the inner angel and the demands of the flesh.

It was Peter who, on that Thursday and Friday, most captured the weakness, the sheer hopeless irresoluteness of humanity — fiercely promising one minute to fight and die with Jesus, impetuously slashing off the ear of the High Priest’s servant in the garden, bravely ready to take on all comers. And then, within hours, the same, shivering, cowering, feeble Peter frantically denying to everyone his very association with the criminal. You get the impression he’d hammer in the nails if they asked him.

It’s the same human Peter visible throughout the Gospels. He’s often depicted as bumbling, weak, scared, perennially hopeless, always putting his foot in it. Even after the Resurrection he can’t quite shake this basic frailty. When Jesus calls to him to walk across the water, his faith isn’t strong enough and he fails, again.

And yet we know, too, that Peter was the chosen one, pulled from his fishing boat by Jesus, picked again by Jesus to feed his flock. And that’s the real message in Peter’s bit part in the Easter story. We know we can’t really be like Jesus. We know too we can’t really be like Judas. But in our simple, human hopelessness, and in our mysterious capacity for greatness, we can all aspire to be Peter.

Read Gerard Baker in The Times

Good Friday

The apparent failure of Christianity has proved its greatest strength

Betrayal, torture and execution: few enterprises could end in such ignominy. The sense of failure among the Disciples on that terrible Friday must have been total. One of their number had committed the ultimate duplicity, betraying to the occupying force their teacher and inspiration, the man for whom they had abandoned all else in life. Not only had their movement been crushed, their message rejected; but the man who had represented in his person all the wisdom, humanity and spiritual enlightenment of a God far beyond their comprehension had been crucified as a common criminal...

But the truth of Christ’s death is the truth of all life on earth: that in the very depths of despair can come relief born of inner spiritual resilience. However adrift the Disciples must have felt, abandoned, ridiculed and disillusioned, they carried in them a message and a conviction that was stronger than anything else on earth — stronger even than death...

More in The Times

Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

The Spectator approached politicians, churchmen, media folk and entertainers — and members of its own staff — and asked them a simple question: ‘Do you believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead?’ Some did not answer the question: Tony Blair, Ruth Kelly, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Sir Menzies Campbell. Those who did reply gave some surprising answers.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster
‘If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile’ (I Corinthians xv,17). The Christian message stands or falls by this truth. Both the empty tomb and the witness of those first disciples who saw, ate and conversed with the Risen Christ highlight this.

Tony Blair
No. 10:‘I doubt we’ll be able to assist.’
The Spectator: ‘It’s a simple enough question.’
No. 10:‘It is a simple question, but that does not mean we’ll be able to help you, but if we are I’ll come back to you.’ Final answer: ‘I am afraid the Prime Minister does not take part in surveys.’
Ann Widdecombe, Conservative MP for Maidstone and The WealdYes, of course I believe in the physical resurrection of Christ.

George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow
Yes, I believe in the Resurrection. I believe God restored the life of Jesus of Nazareth and took him to his bosom. The example of suffering and sacrifice followed by vindication is central to my religious belief.

Nicky Gumbel, parish priest of Holy Trinity Church, Brompton Road, London
The Resurrection is the great miracle upon which the whole of Christian faith is founded. Remove the Resurrection and you remove the heart of Christianity.

Cliff Richard
Yes. For me the validity of the Christian faith stands or falls by the Resurrection. If it didn’t happen, then all we’ve got is a code of ethics. Good ones certainly, but we need more than ethics to change lives.

Richard Dawkins
No. People believe in the Resurrection not because of good evidence (there isn’t any) but because, if the Resurrection is not true, Christianity becomes null and void, and their life, they think, meaningless. From this it is grotesquely false logic to conclude that therefore the Resurrection must be true. The alternative — that their religion is indeed null and void — may be unpleasant for Christians to contemplate, but there is no law that says the truth has to be pleasant. And nature does not owe us a meaningful life. It is up to us to make it so.

Read full survey from The Spectator (Requires registration)

Christian values reach beyond the faithful

The vast majority of Britons think that Christian values are good for the country even if they do not personally believe in God, according to research.

Seven in 10 believe that Christian principles are still valid in today's society, the survey found, and that view was supported by half of those who said that they professed no faith.

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Death-case Christian flees Afghanistan for Italy

An Afghan man who faced the death penalty for converting to Christianity was flown out of Afghanistan yesterday to Italy, where he has been granted asylum.

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