16th January 2026

I’m writing on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s birth in 1929. A Baptist minister, his  prominent part in the 1960s Civil Rights movement is honoured on this day as a federal holiday across the USA since 2000. A favourite time for me in teaching was playing to pupils a recording of MLK’s ‘I have a dream speech’ in Washington in 1963, delivered to the quarter-of-a-million who came from all over the States to advocate for ‘jobs and freedom’ for African Americans.

I like anniversaries; in church services and school assemblies I have found them very convenient pegs on which to hang meaningful thoughts. This year, we will, I hope, hear a lot more of another of my great heroes, William Tyndale, after whom our church is named, as it’s the 500th anniversary of the publishing of his translation into English of the New Testament in 1526. Banned by King Henry VIII; burned by bishops; it has come to be recognised today by the British Library as ‘the most significant printed book in the English language’.

On January 15th 1535, Henry VIII declared himself ‘head of the Church of England’, breaking from Rome. Ironically, only three years later – and two years after Tyndale’s martyrdom – an English Bible was placed in every parish church in the land at the king’s command; that translation being largely Tyndale’s wording!

On January 15th 1559, Elizabeth I, yet another of my heroes, was crowned, whose reign significantly secured Protestantism in Britain.

“Life can only be lived going forwards, but can only be understood looking backwards.”

David Bell