apologetics
60-second adventures in religion
I can’t remember who told me about these, but they’re fab. The Open University Religious Studies is obviously plugging its wares – but fair enough.
18th October 2012
1 Comment
communism
20th Century
The dehumanising metrics of modernist ministry 1: The Present
There is a clear counter-argument for every point I want to make here. In fact, I sort of agree with every counter-argument myself. But I
18th July 2012
4 Comments
20th Century
Living Underground in a Secret State – Jan Karski, Nazi Occupation & The Holocaust
The Story of a Secret State is an astonishing wartime memoir that seems scarcely credible. There are moments where the narrative seems more at home
23rd May 2012
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ARTS
Crisis in the Confessional from Graham Greene’s Human Factor
Maurice Castle is the wary protagonist of Graham Greene’s 1978 novel, The Human Factor. He works on the Africa desk for the British secret service. He
27th March 2012
1 Comment
20th Century
The Saigon School of Missiology and Graham Greene’s QUIET AMERICAN
It is not just the victims of imperialism who easily identify its sins and blindspots. Those who have wielded and then lost empires are quick
4th January 2012
6 Comments
20th Century
Q’s Espionage Festival: 3. Soviet Spies, John Stott and fleeting encounters
This is a mildly unserious combination of Q’s Espionage festival and Friday Fun. But London W1 is a spy-historian’s paradise – there are so many
21st October 2011
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20th Century
Q’s Espionage Festival: 1. Gordon Corera’s The Art of Betrayal
BBC Security Correspondent, Gordon Corera‘s new book, The Art of Betrayal – Life and Death in the British Secret Service covers ground that will be familiar to
11th October 2011
2 Comments
20th Century
The Soviet Utopia and the assimilation of Biblical Imagery
I was very struck by this fascinating article (“Building Blocks” from the latest Royal Academy magazine) about post-revolution architecture and art in the Soviet Union.
14th September 2011
2 Comments
20th Century
A Song for Norway – a Czech protest song & the redemptive power of suffering
The news from Norway has defied words. Senseless, mindless, pointless; it is cruel, irrational evil. And supposedly in the name of Christ. Sickening. I always
24th July 2011
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The oppressive shadows of the Berlin Wall: Anna Funder’s Stasiland
The Berlin Wall has been gone for over 20 years. But its shadows haven’t. People here talk of the Mauer im Kopf or the Wall
3rd March 2011
10 Comments
A courageous nod to God in a Soviet-era show-trial
Came across this fascinating morsel in a short New Yorker article by David Remnick from the run up to the recent Mikhail Khordorkovsky trial in Moscow.
7th January 2011
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A chance encounter with a great poet: Irina Ratushinskaya beaten but not lost
I can’t now remember why I was there, but back in early 1989 I had a couple of hours to kill in Oxford (it was
28th September 2010
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