Month: May 2026

I am sometimes greeted with surprise when people find that I am a vicar and also a scientist. Around 20 years ago, some prominent scientists did try to take on religion but their arguments soon faded, not least because they often attacked ideas of God that few people of faith hold. When I attend scientific meetings to give talks or present data, I always wear my clerical collar. I rarely get a second glance, although some people have thanked me for openly displaying my faith, most recently at a meeting where I spoke in Zurich. Science and faith should not be in conflict if they remember they are asking different questions. Science is a way of looking at the natural world and understanding how it works. It cannot say much useful about the existence and nature of God, because God is above and beyond the natural world. Scientific methods do not work when we encounter the spiritual; that is when we must listen to our souls as they respond to mystery.

Rev David Poyner

And so another football season draws to it close, this Sunday (24th) with the last round of games of the Premiership. Some matters have been decided, but not all; glory or dejection still await the supporters of Spurs and West Ham, Bournemouth and Brighton. I am basking in Manchester Utd finishing 3^rd and qualifying for the Champion’s League (despite playing awful football until the manager was replaced); Aston Villa finally wining a trophy after a 30 year hiatus, Kidderminster Harriers getting promotion. Who knows what glory awaits with World Cup in June/July? And yet, come August, none of it will matter as a new season starts with probable misery and dejection at the end. That is the glory of sport; it can uplift, it can give memories that will not fade, but ultimately, none of the results actually matter. It is all a game and there will always be another coming up. But for followers of sport such as myself, what does matter is the camaraderie and the spirit, the ability to applaud excellence whenever I see it. Perhaps in this there is something close to the generous spirit of the Kingdom of God?

Rev David Poyner

Today (Friday) is St Matthias’s Day. Who?…. He is one of the many one-hit wonders of the Bible; elected by the remaining disciples to take the place of Judas who betrayed Jesus, never mentioned again. For obvious reasons, the Church does not have a St Judas’s Day, but Judas features as much in this day as Matthias. He is described as the “betrayer Judas” in the prayer used by the Church of England for today as we ask God to preserve us from “false apostles”. He gets short shrift in the Gospels; he was in charge of the money for the disciples but is accused of being a thief by John. It is undeniable that he was the disciple who betrayed Jesus. Although he took money for his services to the authorities, Judas was then overcome with remorse; Matthew preserves a tradition that he hung himself. It is hard to know what Jesus made of him; the Gospel writers had to rely on the memories of his other disciples, whose recollections would have been coloured by the act of betrayal and its consequences. Jesus was well aware of what Judas intended to do and did not stop him. I can only speculate as to what his feelings might have been, but perhaps there was some understanding of the confused, even tortured, workings of Judas’s mind. At the point of betrayal, Jesus called Judas “comrade”; the Greek word can mean a friend but could also be ironic. Be that as it may, he did not call him “betrayer”. Orthodox belief has Jesus descending to Hell after his death, to release those who had died before he came but now would chose to follow him. I am one of those who like to think that, during that time, Jesus particularly sought out his tormented friend Judas, to bring him redemption.

Rev David Poyner

It is unlikely that you will have missed that Sir David Attenborough is now 100; the BBC have been celebrating this for the last month. He has combined his passion of natural history and his skills as a TV presenter to shape the way nature documentaries are shown on the television. He has very largely shaped the national conversation on the environment and polls consistently show him as one of the most trusted figures.

Some look at the natural world and see in it evidence for a loving, creator God. Attenborough is not one of these. He often speaks of the examples of parasitic worms, that debilitate their (sometimes human) hosts in order to live; he can see little evidence from these of a loving creator . From my perspective as a professional biologist, I admire the beauty of the natural world; I know this from staring at cells  through a microscope. I can praise God for the beauty. However, I am aware that this is a consequence of evolution by natural selection, driven by random changes to our genes. This process does not need an intelligent creator to drive it; indeed it relies on chance and does lead to suffering as well as progress. But I would agree with those who say that this shows that if God has chosen to “create” through natural selection, then this is inevitable. If God has given the universe the freedom to progress by this mechanism, their must be pain. But the glory and the love are shown in what God knew all along; the wonder of nature that Sir David has spent his life revealing.

Rev David Poyner

By the time you read this, I will be coming to the end of a week’s holiday on the Shetland Isles. For over 30 years I have had an annual trip to a Scottish island with a group of friends. When we started, we would think nothing of stopping off en-route to climb a Munro; the name given to a Scottish hill over 3000 feet. These days we have learnt to savour the delights of 500 feet elevations on the coast. The islands have a mystical quality; I enjoy visiting the numerous sacred sites on them, where Celts, Picts and Norse have worshipped God. Although there may be little left now other than a few stones, these places remain holy. They are often called “thin places”, where the barriers between earth and heaven break down. Except, for me, it is not quite as simple as that. When I visit these places, I am fascinated by the history; my brain is active trying to make sense of how the stones were once buildings. I have archaeological experiences at them, but usually not spiritual ones. I am not alone; I recently read an article by Dr Catherine Fox, a writer who has had the same experience as myself. To her, these are actually thick places; so much is going on in her head, she loses sight of God. But, like myself, she perseveres. I do this because I know that the memory of these places will return to me, when my mind is less busy. Then I will not be trying to work out the shape of the church; all I will remember is that on this site, God was present to people. And in that memory, God becomes present to me; it turns my living room into a thin place.

Rev David Poyner