The question of how we prepare those called to serve the Church, to guide souls, and to keep watch in an age of unease grows more pressing by the day. Our institutional churches, burdened by financial strain and shaken by conflict and scandal, often find themselves weakened. Many local churches, thin in community and practice, lack the habits needed for deep formation. A generation shaped more by individual expression than by discipline, more by fleeting sentiment than by thoughtful reflection, now stands unsteady before the gathering darkness of the age. We built churches suited for an era of affluence and confidence, yet we now find ourselves in a world turning ever more towards despair, suspicion, and division. And so, the need for clergy who can minister—truly minister—has seldom been greater.

In times past, in the assemblies of both church and state, there was always an old hand who’d rise at the appointed moment and call for a point of order. He was usually a lawyer, often from the South, and in my memory, he wears a seersucker suit. His words would bring a collective groan, a ripple of impatience through the crowd. But he stood undeterred, and more often than not, he was right. His insistence on proper order, on what was fitting and lawful, stopped many a foolish decision, held power in check, and kept things fair. He didn’t rule by force, but by reason, by memory, by an enduring sense of proportion.

In a dream, St Jerome found himself standing before the Judgement Seat, his ears ringing with the accusation, “You’re a Ciceronian, not a Christian!” Stricken by “fire of conscience”, Jerome fell silent. It was a fitting vision for his time, when the Church vigorously debated whether Christians should read pagan literature at all. In 398, the Council of Carthage banned bishops from studying such works, fearing they might lead the faithful astray. Even Augustine hesitated to praise Cicero, from whom he had learned so much.

Immigration, especially illegal immigration, raises difficult questions—of law, security, and belonging. But Christians can’t consider these matters apart from Scripture and the life of Christ. At the heart of our faith is the command to love God and neighbour, and Christ, in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, defines our neighbour not by proximity or kinship but by need.

There is a rhetorical habit, a curious inclination of the mind, to drape ordinary ideas in the solemnity of Latin, as if the old imperial language might adorn ordinary words with additional significance. Take, for instance, the American motto, e pluribus unum. The Latin adds gravitas to an otherwise unmemorable, “one out of many.” But by placing the English words in a tongue foreign to most of us, we make them seem more profound, as if by naming them thus we are invoking some well-developed and articulated tradition. To say that God created man and woman in his image is all very well; it’s entirely another matter to discuss the “imago Dei.” Do you see what the Latin does there?

I offer here the first of what I suspect will be a regular series of reflections that seek to teach something crucial about the Christian faith in the context of a world going mad. But I write these words with some hesitation, not because I lack conviction but because the act of speaking plainly about faith and our disordered world has become a perilous thing. We live in an age where discourse has been stripped of patience, where the habit of reflection is drowned out by the clamour of scoring points, and where to think aloud is to risk condemnation from all sides. Even so, silence is no option when the faith we hold dear is distorted into something unrecognizable—something wholly at odds with its true nature as the Body of Christ.

Reactions to the recent sermon by the Bishop of Washington have got me reflecting on the role preaching plays in our age of viral soundbites and divisive rhetoric. From pulpits to podcasts, the words we choose have the potential to build communities or tear them apart. The rise of demagogues—figures who manipulate emotions and distort truths for personal or political gain—poses a profound challenge. However, by uniting wisdom and eloquence, preachers can offer an antidote to destructive rhetoric, guiding their audiences toward understanding, justice, and renewal.

Yesterday, I posted my comments on the Bishop of Washington’s sermon at the National Cathedral. I did so with great trepidation, more as a reflection than a critique. I felt I ought to since a great deal of my theological research and writing has been on the Church and rhetoric. If there’s is one thread running through my writing, it’s a plea for the Church to become more mindful of its vocation as a rhetorical community— shaped by the truths it utters and the manner in which it proclaims them.

There is a temptation, especially in the fast-moving, consuming culture we inhabit, to see the troubles of our day as something new. It can seem as though the divisions and distrust we feel now began only yesterday. But that is not the truth of the matter. These troubles, though magnified now, are the fruits of seeds sown long ago—seeds of rootlessness, greed, and the worship of power over place and people.

Among the appreciative comments, I’ve had two main challenges. The first is that the ‘Ten Theses’ don’t directly connect with my original concern about the Church not understanding the importance of morale. The second is that I don’t offer a strategy for how the ‘Ten Theses’ might be implemented. I could say that since I’m just a Canon Theologian and vicar, doing so is above my paygrade…but thinking it through has actually turned out to be a rather fun exercise over my morning coffee. So, if someone were to make me the Grand Poobah of Church Renewal, I’d begin with something along the following lines:

I recently (and probably without sufficient reflection) posted a series of tweets arguing that the most undervalued currency of the Church is morale. I never imagined the response it would get. It obviously struck a chord. As lovely as that has been, it has left me with a sense that Twitter offered me too few characters to do the subject justice. Moreover, I could be accused of doing something I loathe: moaning about the Church without offering any alternative ideas. So, here are my Ten Theses for Church Renewal:

Advent is possibly my favourite season in the liturgical calendar. That’s mostly because of its music and hymnody. I can still remember as a boy growing up in Florida when I first became aware of ‘O come, Emmanuel’. I say ‘became aware’ because I must have heard it many times before in church. But on this occasion, something about it’s tune and its strange and indecipherable words evoked a sense of my participating in something ancient. I had no idea what ‘root of Jesse’ or ‘desire of nations’ meant, but the music of those phrases suggested something mysterious and rich. I came to adore the other Advent hymns, too. ‘On Jordan’s bank’ remains a cue that Christmas isn’t far off and I can still hear an elderly ex-coal miner in Durham belting out ‘Lo, He comes in clouds descending’, pronouncing ‘naught’ in the second stanza as ‘nowt.’ Who doesn’t enjoy singing ‘Hills of the North rejoice’?

A thing about writing books in the 21st century is that unless you’re fortunate enough to land a good agent, it’s left largely up to you to market your work. Publishers have too tight a profit margin (I suppose) to risk splashing lots of money on most authors who haven’t proven themselves in the marketplace. And it’s too easy now to turn to social media as a cheap alternative to get the word out about whatever it is the author has written. To be successful, therefore, most writers must not only be decent at their craft but also adept at self-promotion.