Today

A court decides who holds a church in Exeter, as writers turn to memory, scripture and rest

By The FaithDaily Desk

Good morning. The day's most consequential story comes from Anglican Ink, which reports that the High Court of Justice in London, sitting in its Property, Trusts and Probate List, has ruled on who controls the principal properties of Christ Church Exeter. The court held that the Free Church of England Central Trust — the denomination's central body — is the charity trustee of those properties. It rejected the claim of the trustees of the congregation that withdrew from the denomination in 2023. In plain terms, a local church split from its denomination, and both sides claimed the buildings; the court has now placed them with the denomination, not with the breakaway. For any congregation weighing a departure, the ruling is a reminder that leaving a denomination and keeping its property are two different questions, and that the second may be decided by a court rather than by the people in the pews.

Remembrance shapes the next story. Religion News Service reports that the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks this year falls on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Jewish leaders, rabbis and their interfaith partners are reflecting on what it means to remember a grief that cannot be forgotten and still to move forward into a new year. It is a reflection that neighbours of every tradition can read with care.

Three pieces turn from news to the life of faith. The Gospel Coalition examines what it calls the four senses of scripture — the long tradition of reading a passage in more than one way. Its argument is that the best versions of this approach do not reject the plain, historical meaning of the text; they affirm it. Christianity Today offers a book review on being friends with God in a distracted world, naming distraction as a burden Christians carry no less than anyone else. And Christianity Today revisits the NFL quarterbacks who, it says, found God in defeat. Its account recalls the night before Super Bowl XL, on 4 February 2006, when the Seattle Seahawks assistant coach Jim Zorn gathered his quarterbacks after a chapel service and said, "Isn't God so good?" — a scene the outlet uses to ask how faith holds when the game, and much else, is lost.