Kester Brewin

Extraordinary story on the BBC site today. An armed robber who raided a mobile phone shop in Florida was talked down from his robbery by a shop assistant who ‘spoke to him about Jesus.’ The man said he was a Christian and was “embarrassed” to be doing what he was doing but that he needed [...]

Interesting group of posts on TractrorGirl’s site, relating to Other, and the nature of TAZ, which Jonny has critiqued too, and I’ve responded to here. One thing in particular from TG’s site: the question about whether Greenbelt is a TAZ or not. In the book I use it as an example of one, based on [...]

One of the sources I quote a number of times in Other is The Spirit Level – Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. The thrust of their thesis is very simple: by collating hundreds of studies over a long period of time they have concluded that the [...]

I promised some further thoughts following on from yesterday’s post… One of the most common questions I am asked is ‘how can I begin to get my church to change’, and while I’d never claim expertise, or that there was a simple answer to this, I thought it might be useful to note a few [...]

Had a good time at my first visit to New Wine yesterday. I’d been asked to go and speak about the book, which I duly did, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Speaking at Greenbelt you’re pretty much already in a place where people are critiquing the forms and structures of faith, so it was very interesting [...]

Jonny has posted a very comprehensive review of ‘Other’ on his blog, which is well worth a read. He admits that he found it tricky to get right given the back-and-forth we’ve had recently over the issue of institutions, but I think he’s done a good job. It seems that the book is causing quite [...]

Interesting piece in The Independent about the battle over the right to remain anonymous online – especially as waged in World of Warcraft recently. That’s not a world I have ever ventured into, but many many have, and, as Rhodri Marsden sets out: Female players were particularly concerned, very aware that revealing their gender could invite [...]

HT to Barry for putting me on to this animation of a short talk by Marx-expert David Harvey. Brilliant.

I’ve been following the discussions that have been going on in the Church of England recently over the issue of whether women should be able to be bishops. It appears that the answer is going to be ‘no’. Or, at least, ‘not yet.’ What I’ve not quite been able to tease out is precisely why. [...]

Ben Edson, who I know well and admire a great deal, posted a review of ‘Other’ on his site recently, and I wanted to take the opportunity to respond to a few of the points he makes there. Firstly, I want to say thanks to him for taking the time to write it, and that [...]