Kester Brewin

I am reading through a manuscript for a friend which is partly a memoir of his growing up during ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland. As I’ve been doing so, I was reminded of a quote by the Irish journalist Jack Holland, who wrote that “the tragedy of Northern Ireland is that it is now a [...]

As I’ve recently posted, I’m enjoying using Facebook a lot. (Though for how long, with a big court case looming?) One concern though: the nature of ‘friendship’. I’m not sure what the etiquette is regarding friendship requests, but one thing is certain: you have to decide early on on some sort of policy about who [...]

Ben has an excellent and honest post here outlining his doubts about the ‘missional entrepreneur’ that is in popular parlance. I’ve posted a comment outlining some thoughts on how the role of the artist might help us imagine this in a new way. Technorati: Ben Edson | Mission | Entrepreneur

This month’s Prospect carries an excellent short essay outlining some arguments against Hitchens, Dawkins et al: ‘the evangelical atheists, shouting from their pulpits’. The author, Roger Scruton, is surprised by ‘the extent to which religion is caricatured by its current opponents, who see it as nothing more than a system of unfounded beliefs about the [...]

Over at JesusCreed.Org Some good debate going on about leadership, what it means to be ‘emergent’, and whether the book is ‘concrete’ enough. Thanks Scot. Technorati: JesusCreed | Scot McKnight

Having seen Ben and some others resign themselves to Facebook, I asked them why I should bother… do I really want another digital dimension to have to check/keep up? And with being a teacher, all social networking sites are slightly fraught with potential pitfalls. (Unlike an ex colleague, who I think is very unwise, I [...]

If we could all just stop throwing stones, and stoop, knees bent and write in the dust, we’d see that the dust was once stone – grand, and hard, and proud, and tough – now ground and dissolved in grace and tears. So… how much better to be a grain of dirt on that kind [...]

I’m very pleased to have been asked back to help facilitate the Soliton Sessions 07 in Ventura. If you’re in that part of the world I can’t recommend it highly enough; last summer’s sessions really were one of the highlights of my year. On the Friday night (10th August) we’ll be doing a book launch [...]

My brother came back from visiting two friends (not pictured in France the other day. They had sold up, moved over there with their kids and bought a tiny run down farm in the countryside. They live on/off it at pretty subsistence level with a few cattle to fatten and growing their own veg. They [...]

In a review of Campbell’s diaries, David Hare notes: “The virtues of pride, aggression and solidarity forged in the heat of New Labour’s difficult evolution proved pitifully inadequate to contain a neoconservative ally far more ruthless than itself… It was no longer enough to be on message. Sadly, for the lives of so many, it [...]