Phill Sacre

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Trying to see the world from a Christian perspective

Who am I?

This Blog

I only write occasionally here now, as you will see. However, there is an archive of over 2,000 posts which I’ve made over the last 20+ years, which are all still accessible.

Latest Posts

  • Homophobic bullying and CofE schools

    Today the Church of England unveiled a new document designed to help tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic (‘HBT’ – because there aren’t enough acronyms already) bullying in schools. You can read the press release on that page, and the document itself is linked at the bottom. Personally I find the document deeply troubling – although…

  • Worship Guitar for everyone else

    Update: as predicted in this post, the YouTube channel was short-lived. But, I did end up starting another YouTube channel, which ended up with Understand the Bible, so I guess every cloud… anyway, don’t go looking for Worship Guitar for Everyone Else – it’s not there any more! A few weeks ago I had a…

  • A Christian perspective on mental health

    Mental Health is the issue of the day, it seems. For example, the official charity of the 2017 London Marathon was Heads Together, a mental health charity started by Prince William, Catherine, and Prince Harry (you can see a video of the three of them discussing it on YouTube). Mental health is a big deal…

  • No more boys and girls: they’re not good enough apparently.

    On the BBC recently there was a two-part programme entitled “No More Boys and Girls: Can Our Kids Go Gender Free?” (Still available on the iPlayer at the time of writing). I watched both parts, and the programme was both intriguing and annoying in about equal measure. The basic premise of the programme is not a…

  • Some thoughts on "The Poor"

    I’ve been thinking a bit recently about “The Poor” (apologies for the quote marks, I’ll explain why in a minute). Clacton, where I’ve been for the last three years, is not a rich area – according to the Church Urban Fund, the parish of Great Clacton ranks 892 out of 12,599 parishes nationally for deprivation.…

  • Let's fix education and the country

    Let’s fix education and the country in one blog post. Simple, right? Oh, hold on a moment. Not simple. That’s the one. Still, it’s a subject worth thinking about. Over the past few weeks I’ve had a couple of thoughts about what might improve education (and, over time, the country). I know that education isn’t…

  • Thoughts on 'The Strange Death of Europe'

    I’ve just finished reading The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray. It’s not an easy read – it deals with an issue which we as a Western society do not want to talk about (immigration) – but I think it’s important to deal with these issues. If you want to listen to him talking…

  • Is Pentecost a reversal of Babel?

     I am writing this on Pentecost Sunday, where the church remembers the coming of the Holy Spirit on the early church (recorded in the Bible in Acts 2:1-13). One of the significant aspects of this story is that the apostles were enabled to speak in other languages – as verse 4 says, “All of them were filled…

  • Hymnology: Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken

    Although I don’t normally pay attention to such things, last weekend Pippa Middleton married her fiancé James Matthews. (I was only taking an interest because the wedding was conducted by the former vicar of our parish here in Clacton!) Apparently they had four hymns during the service, one of which was Glorious Things of Thee…

  • On not understanding Tim Farron

    On not understanding Tim Farron

    The latest thing which has prompted me to put pen to paper, so to speak, is Tim Farron. Specifically, his hounding by the media over whether he believes homosexuality is a sin. You can read some of the comments many media types have made in this Telegraph article, including Owen Jones labelling him an “absolute…