Powerful letter from Clare Herbert in today's Church Times

If I said 'hell's bells and Dennis Potter', would you know the reference or would you think me unhinged?

1. This is, and I do not say this lightly, evil. 2. The number of people who have become politically aware because of their children/ grandchildren being unable to marry non-British partners and live in the UK is non-zero. Can I hope that this will backfire??

Today we celebrate St Luke, whose Gospel and Book of Acts invite us into the story of God’s love. As a physician, Luke reminds us that the Gospel bears healing for body, mind and spirit. May Luke’s care for the marginalized inspire us to tell the story of Christ’s compassion.

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V niche #CofE tweet. Does anyone else who was on the Shared Conversations on Human Sexuality (c2015) run into people with whom they were in the horrible small groups and have to have a professional conversation whilst thinking WE SAT IN A LITTLE ROOM AND TOLD EACH OTHER ABOUT OUR SEXUAL AWAKENINGS.

Having heard 2 consecutive Today interviews with cabinet ministers, I'd really like someone to object to Nick Robinson's premise that state spending is all a black hole. Perhaps even say supporting people in need is an objective good and one of the functions of the state. #RadicalLeftOpinions

Just had to sing Cauliflowers fluffy for the first time this year and nearly disgraced myself at the sinister line 'down in the darkness where the celery sleeps.' (in its house at Ry'leh dead celery lies dreaming?)

Possible causes of your problems. It’s a diagram that (sadly) still seems relevant in 2025, so reposting a year and a bit on.

It is the first-worldest of first-world-problems, but I do resent paying for adult entry to soft play. I am not here by choice!

Very much enjoying the Hugh Bonneville-read Sherlock Holmes stories on BBC Sounds. Sending me right back to teenage fandom (Holmes/ Watson is BARELY SUBTEXT and I will die on this hill).

O Lord, arise, help us;

If all the money being poured into AI on the pretext of 'solving the loneliness epidemic' was used to pay a universal basic income to as many people as possible, I wonder a) how many people would be lifted out of poverty and b) how many people would become less lonely?

Blessed feast of Jonathan Myrick Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian, civil rights activist, and martyr Died in 1965 while using his body to shield 17yr-old Ruby Sales from a racist attack May light perpetual shine up upon him

We're 300 followers away from 70,000. 300 more would be really nice. But you know what would be even better? 300 plus 30,000. Bluesky: help a museum out

Morning Prayer gang: re. Romans 16, if you haven't heard Fred Craddock's sermon 'When the roll is called down here,' I commend it to you. youtu.be/X20Sd8NKLsk?... (Sorry - not brilliant quality, best I could find.) #MorningPrayer 🕯️

Connected to a lot of complicated feelings about breastfeeding, but my experience was that when I was breastfeeding in public people would stop to tell me how much better I was than Those Formula Feeding Mothers, and it was bottle feeding in public that drew hostility.

If you were my passport, where would you be?

There was someone on Anglican Twitter (RIP) who had written a series of novels online about the Church of England of 2050, focused on a woman bishop (Ruth?) and her chaplain Tom. Is she here? Or does anyone remember the novels and can link them? (Trying to send to a friend but never bookmarked!)

I bow to nobody in my respect for Eric Milner-White, but the line in the Nine Lessons and Carols bidding prayer 'because this above all things would rejoice his [Jesus's] heart ..' has me HOPPING MAD for exactly this reason. He ISN'T DEAD.

Transphobes spent decades like "my exclusive theology allows me to discriminate no matter what the law says" well uno reverse card, fools! Because my firmly held religious conviction is that to be trans and to transition is to follow God's call upon my life and is therefore my duty as a Christian.

Frightening and convincing. 'An unspeakably dismal choice is being made before our eyes and without our consent: machines over humans, inanimate over animate, profits over all else.... sacrificing this world’s real and precious resources and creativity at the altar of a vampiric, virtual realm.'

Only just managed to write to MP. Posting text here in case it helps anyone else. I'm writing to register my deep disquiet at last week's Supreme Court ruling that the legal definition of 'woman' is based on biological sex. I write as a (cis) woman and as a priest in the Church of England. (1/10)

A belated Christ is Risen, Happy Easter to all! With thee O let me rise As larks, harmoniously, And sing this day thy victories: Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

May Pope Francis rest in peace. On Easter Day he spoke of the resurrection of Jesus as the basis of the renewal of hope that peace is possible - evil no longer has the upper hand: “Love has triumphed over hatred, light over darkness and truth over falsehood. Forgiveness has triumphed over revenge.”

Had missed that there was a protest today and couldn't have made it anyway. But will be doing these today. Join me? #TransRightsAreHumanRights #GodWelcomesAll

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This country and its leadership (and the rest of the world, and frankly this century) can get in the bin.

And again: I have done more harm to my trans friends over the years by saying stupid and unthought through things than any trans person has ever done to me. The percentage of cis women harmed by trans people is vanishingly small compared to the percentage of trans people harmed by cis people (1/2)

As a biologist, I find the term “biological woman” meaningless at best, a dangerously unscientific cudgel at worst. As a woman, perception and projection of my gender identity is not infringed upon in the least by anyone else’s. I stand with my trans sisters.

Trans friends: I'm so, so sorry. Love and solidarity. Cis friends: this is our battle too. Trans people are tired of having to fight to be recognised as full human beings. Cis Christian friends: trans people like us are made in the image of God & called to display God's glory in being fully alive.

The banners read “Fact is not hate”, Space is not hate”. But hate is hate. And this ruling will make it easier for haters to hate. From hard laws we will see bad cases. Prayers and solidarity for all trans people today. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

I would like to say that I have never felt that trans women's rights in any way reduce my rights as a cis gendered woman.

I spent a really happy year in America a decade ago. I have dear friends there and have been looking forward to going back and seeing them, and seeing parts of the country I didn't see then. But now, absolutely not.

Last night I dreamed I went to Mrs Dalloway again.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of Mrs Dalloway.

No words. Abhorrent and terrifying. (Finding this terrifying is not an admission that I've been unaware of the slide to the authoritarian right or of Labour's refusal to stop it.)

Interesting to see the Telegraph coming out against measures to make the church a safer place for children and vulnerable adults. As an aside I am continually impressed by how seriously volunteers and frontline staff across the CofE take our shared duty to safeguard the vulnerable.

I refuse to pay for Daily Telegraph 'journalism' so it is POSSIBLE that the actual article is more nuanced, but this headline (provided by Google alerts, whom I didn't ask for it) has made me CROSS. After the last ten years of exposing safeguarding failures and the prevalence of abuse where...

This is apparently a story written by AI. I read Jeannette Winterson's piece about this (linked at the top) and thought she must have lost it. Then I read the story and... however much I still disagree with her conclusions, she has not lost her critical faculties. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

Dydd gwyl Dewi hapus i pawb!

I'm glad my MP is willing to act from principle. More of this sort of thing.

#SentencesYouNeverThoughtYoudSay 'That's the preacher's avocado, just leave it'

Happy birthday to Small, who is now Eight and Large, and has gone to school with sparkly cupcakes for his class.

This is a survey clearly designed to put off from replying anyone who isn't going to give the answers they want. Don't be put off - be angry (and channel it into icily polite answers to their stupid questions based on flawed premises)

As a historian, I can tell you that trans people have always existed but the counterpart to that is that trans existence has been hard through the ages, the last century has seen unprecedented progress on the social and medical fronts, and those *huge* gains are what they're trying to take away.

I'm going to say it again: Immigration is good, actually. There are no qualifications on this statement other than "don't be a comemierda" and that goes no matter what. "Legal" and "illegal" are artificial categories imposed by States with arbitrary rules, usually with suboptimal outcomes.

Have been meaning to do '5 books that shaped me ' for ages, and having just finished Jessica Martin's astonishing _The Eucharist in Four Dimensions_ in floods of tears (read it! It is SO GOOD!) now feels like the time. Might not be 5. Will definitely not be the only possible answers. 🧵

As promised, here are the slides I shared with students to convince them to NOT use chatGPT and other artificial stupidity. TL;DR? AI is evil, unsustainable and stupid, and I'd much rather they use their own brains, make their own mistakes, and actually learn something. 🪄