Categories
Observations

The Danger of a Single Story

This 18 minute video is rich on all sorts of levels. It certainly has something very profound to say about the way we relate to the global church. HT Good Intentions Blog

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Church: World

Britain Doesn’t Want to Understand the Bible

The Independent reports an interesting survey which was carried out on behalf of the Centre for Biblical Literacy at St. John’s Durham. The public is widely ignorant of the stories and people who provide the basis of Christianity, a survey has found, despite 75 per cent of respondents owning a copy of the Bible. The […]

Categories
Christian Life

Religion and Public Service

After Caroline Petrie’s suspension for offering to pray for a patient and her subsequent reinstatement, there are a number of other cases of problems for Christians in public service. According to the Telegraph, teachers could be disciplined for discussing relgion with their pupils. I’m always slightly suspicious of ‘could be’ news stories, because there is […]

Categories
Observations

This Christianity Stuff Is Serious

The British media has been convulsed with stories about Creationism over the last few days. But while questions of origins are important, it is the way is the power of the Gospel to transform lives and help people to face the most heartbreaking parts of life that we should really be focussing on. A remarkable […]

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Church: UK

Ethnicity of English Church Goers

The latest edition of the Lausanne World Pulse has an interesting article by Peter Brierly on the ethnic make up of churches in the UK. Today, one person in six (seventeen percent) who goes to church in England is non-white. This is up from twelve percent in 1998. Black church people make up ten percent […]

Categories
Politics

Dignity in Work

I was very moved by the story of the closure of the Tower Pit in South Wales. This is the last deep coal mine in the Wales coalfield and it’s closure marks the end of an era. In a way, it’s hard to be sad at the end of an industry which was physically so […]

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Christian Life Church: UK

Christianity is Negative…

A while ago I wrote a post entitled religion is harmful. David Couchman has a review of a book called Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity…and Why It Matters which picks up a similar theme and shows that young people in the US have an overwhelmingly negative view of the Church. I’m […]

Categories
Observations

Islam in the UK

I’ve always liked Jasmin Alibhai-Brown, even when I don’t agree with her. Her article in today’s Independent on the reality of life for Muslims in the UK makes great reading. Around this time of the year, my mum, Jena, a devout Shia Muslim, who died last year, would ask to be taken to see the […]

Categories
Observations

The Best View in Britain

Apparently the viewers of an ITV programme have chosen the view of Wastwater as the best view in the United Kingdom. It just goes to show that phone in votes do sometimes get things right. For my money the view down Wasdale to Great Gable is by far the best view that Britain has to […]