Sacred Treasure One man mission - a fascinating story about reviving Welsh chapels - and fascinating it gets such a high profile on the BBCJames Hannam has written one of my favourite books of history (God's Philosophers: How the Mediaeval…
Yesterday was an unusual day. Which is, of course, not exactly news. In these turbulent times, each day tends to reveal its strangeness, especially if you read a newspaper. But for me, it marked the end of a decade's invovlement…
A couple of weeks ago, James Cary invited himself for lunch - and then we hooked up online with our old friend Barry Cooper (now living in Florida, for reasons best known to him and his new wife) for a…
To assume that what is going on with Trump, Weinstein, Spacey et al is 'merely' about transgressing sexual boundaries is woefully inadequate and patronising. Is not good enough to head off for some therapy at a health spa either, as…
Sacred Treasure Former LibDem leader, Tim Farron has been saying some really important things in the last week about the state and nature of western liberalism. Here is his original Theos lecture: What Kind of Liberalism do we want? Then…
I've felt overwhelmed in recent weeks. I've started posting about it on at least 5 occasions and then each time deleted my meagre thoughts. There really are no words. But there need to be words. The presenting issue has of…
Sacred Treasure Good stuff: 7 Differences between Judaea and Galilee - Jesus was Jesus of Nazareth... from Dick France. Chris Green offers a rather unexpected but powerful reason to appreciate really soppy Christian songs once in a while. Emma Scrivener is…
I wouldn't call it panic or even alarm, exactly. But we could call it mild perturbation. Nearly a fortnight ago, I finally departed the life known as Facebook. I gave a week's warning of this revolution, and it provoked quite the…
Revolutions invariably eat their children.
It’s an almost inevitable fact of history. The expression was coined by a royalist journalist during the French Revolution, Jacques Mallet du Pan. But perhaps, if tweaking was needed, more often than not revolutions eat their parents. Think Robespierre in France; Trotsky in Soviet Russia; Röhm in Nazi Germany. (more…)
John Stott was scrupulous in attempting to do this. It was a key element of the respect that he garnered amongst those he debated or disagreed. He would unfailingly attempt to honour an opposing position by seeking to understand it from…