The Beckly Lecture 2020: Peace, pandemics and plastic bottles – prioritising the future?
This year’s Beckly Lecture was given by Revd Dr Inderjit Bhogal OBE on the subject of the challenges the Church faces going into the future. He spoke from years of experience as the founder and President of City of Sanctuary, a grassroots movement to build a culture of welcome for asylum seekers.
Inderjit spoke about the competing priorities for justice in a changing world and how we as God’s people can respond to these with integrity. Black Lives Matter, the climate crisis, war, and the pandemic: Inderjit called on churches and individuals to ‘play our part’ in making just and active peace by ‘being human and hospitable, and always challenging hatred.’
UK multi-faith statement on nuclear weapons – 2015
In 2015 faith groups came together to sign a statement condemning nuclear weapons. Our faith traditions share a belief in the dignity and unique value of every human life. Consequently common to our traditions is the invocation that we shall not kill. Our faiths discern a strong prohibition to mass slaughter and the indiscriminate killing of civilians. The threat of mass destruction can never become the norm among nation states and it therefore follows that our common security must be achieved by means other than the threat of use of nuclear weapons.
Remembrance Sunday 2018
You can find poems responding to Remembrance Sunday 2018 by our Poet-in-Residence, Revd. Lucy Berry, at our poetry hub.
Peacemaking Sunday 2016
The theme for the 2016 Peacemaking Sunday resource was solidarity with refugees. The
focus of our prayers on Peacemaking Sunday were for the success of meetings held by the UN and world leaders on refugees and migrants. We also prayed for our churches to continue to express concern for and act in solidarity with refugees. The resource was compiled and prepared by JPIT member David Bradwell, Co-ordinator of Scottish Faiths Action for Refugees.
Defence Committee Drones 2014
In 2014 we submitted evidence to the UK Defence Committee about Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones). You can read our Churches’ submission here (pdf version here), published 25th March 2014.