When the vicar won Wimbledon
Richard Bewes mixes the gospel with the strawberries and cream
‘Lawn Tennis’, wrote J.B. Priestley, ‘is a name with the mildest associations.
Charlie at the Corner
On Sunday 11 January, while the big unity rally was happening in Paris, Speakers’ Corner in London saw Jay Smith, veteran debater with Muslims, take up the issue of the recent terrorism in France.
Bearing in mind the violence against cartoonists such as Georges Wolinski and others at Charlie Hebdo’s office in Paris earlier in the week, and because of the enormous outcry by millions around the world, Jay Smith decided to show six of the most controversial covers used to mock Muhammad and compare them to others which have been used to mock Jesus Christ. He then sought reactions from Muslims concerning whether these caricatures, which are offensive, should be censored, or whether the cartoonists should be killed.
Jean Wilson, 1928-2013
She deliberately kept well below the radar. But around the world of gospel enterprise ‘Queen Jean’ underpinned, administered and supported servants of Jesus Christ, the prominent and the unknown alike. She passed from this life on January 13.
It appears that Jean Wilson never had more than three or four hours’ sleep a night. If she was not phoning across the world, she would be checking the proofs of Decision magazine, or waiting at Heathrow’s Arrivals having already arranged London accommodation for an incoming overseas visitor on behalf of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Jean Wilson spent 50 years with BGEA (and later, Samaritan’s Purse). At the age of 26 she had been asked by Billy Graham to set up a London office for him in the wake of his momentous 12-week nightly campaign at Harringay Arena in 1954.
