The Good News Is Better Than That
Everybody has a story, a narrative we tell ourselves about who we are and what we are doing here. The interesting part is when you are confronted with a different story, one that not only insists...
How Not To Read The Bible
The translators of the King James Bible made it look like a book, sound like a book, and walk like a book. Unfortunately, “a book” is exactly what the Bible is not: it is a library written in...
The Spirit Level: Inequality as the enemy between us
The more unequal a society is, the more ill health and social problems it has. Inequality increases status insecurity and competition and the prevalence of all the problems associated with relative...
Pure Undiluted Slog with Q & A
Whether you write or sing or play or give speeches or create in any way, for many the creative process has a way of bringing joy one moment and madness the next. So how do we tilt it in the joy...
Governance And Democracy Trends In Africa: Our fears, our hopes, our future
Africa is rapidly changing. The emergence of significant new trends in its governance and democracy have the potential to create fear and panic in what lies ahead for the continent. However, these...
Bye Buy Childhood
The Mothers' Union is campaigning to allow children to grow up free from excessive commercial pressures. This session looks at practical ideas to help parents and children to be aware of the...
Jacqui Smith in conversation
The former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith talks about her time in government and her recent documentary “Porn Again”. No doubt the subjects of being a woman at the heart of government and life after...
Gods Behaving Badly
From Britney and Brangelina to Tiger Woods and Michael Jackson, western society is obsessed with the idols and gods of the red carpet. Can our fixation on and devotion to celebrity culture itself be...
Emergence Christianity
Emergence Christianity is the new kid on the block, just as Protestantism was the new kid 500 years ago. And just as surely as Protestantism gave us Lutherans and Presbyterians and Baptists, so...
The Age of the Spirit
The Great Emergence and the rise of Emergence Christianity are an expression of a 500-year cycle in the church's history, but perhaps also something more. In fact, the time we are entering might be...
Religious or Spiritual? None of the above
The Christian landscape is marked by a debate between whether Christianity is better described as a religion or as a type of spirituality. These terms mean different things to different people, but...
Beyond the Grave: What happens after we die?
The creed states boldly that “We believe in the resurrection of the body”, but do we really? Popular views of life after death involve our spirits or souls going to heaven but with very little,...
Do Angels have wings?… and Other Impossible Questions
Bookshops have ranks of books on angels and their influence, but when was the last time you heard Christians talking about them? Aren't angels a central part of Christian faith? So what does the...
Our Lady of Greenbelt
What does Mary, the mother of Jesus have to do with Greenbelt? Are doctrines such as the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary examples of the Roman Catholic fear of sex and deification of...
Poverty Over: Why Martin Luther King changed the world and Mother Teresa never did
If you want to see an end to world poverty then giving money will never be enough. We also need to be political and, where necessary, challenge the dominant economic thinking. Put simply: it's...