Richard Hagan (LN 1991-93) returned to King's on Friday 7 February to deliver a talk to the Cranmer Society. Mark Smiley (Carylon Housemaster and teacher in charge of the Cranmer Society) reports on his visit. 

It was a pleasure to welcome Richard Hagan, now a local minister at Emmanuel Church Canterbury, back to the Cranmer Society, a meeting he keenly supported when he joined the school as a music scholar in Linacre from 1991-1993. A good turn out greeted him and there was the usual hotly contested ‘around the world’ table tennis fuelled by copious doughnuts.

We have been looking through the challenging yet inspiring New Testament book of James this term. Richard’s task was to explain Chapter 2: ‘Faith vs Works’, where James counters the argument that as long as you have faith, it doesn’t matter how you live. Richard used some simple but effective analogies to explain James’ point. The root of our faith is in Christ where we are not saved by what we do but what He has done, but the fruit of faith is shown by our deeds. It is by the fruit produced you can tell the nature of the tree. Faith is to be worked out and walked out. Richard finished by describing two examples of Old Testament characters who did just that: Abraham’s costly faith and Rahab’s risky faith. He then challenged us to live out our faith in action in the way that we look out for others at King’s.

It was so helpful that this excellent and well-received talk finished on such a practical note. There were some astute and heartfelt questions from the pupils afterwards showing that they had been listening hard. We all left encouraged and challenged. Thank you Richard!