What I’m Working On…

Just taking a break from being in the Welsh hills with a school group and thought I’d write a quick post… With Other now out in the US and having been at Wild Goose and met a bunch of new people, I’ve been asked a fair bit ‘what are you working on now?’ Life is [...]

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Who’s The Monster Now? | Facing the Other in the Self

Interesting post from Brian McLaren, who, via a piece from Miroslav Volf, asks who the next ‘monster’ will be given that Bin Laden is dead: Fear is a foolish counselor, and it is also an addictive one. As the work of Rene Girard and others makes clear, our national anxieties love to vent themselves on [...]

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Free Will | Determinism | Heaven | Hell

Very good episode of In Our Time this week, which looked at free will. 50 mins or so – and very well worthwhile listening to, especially in the context of the debate on heaven and hell which is still rumbling around the publication of Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins. There are serious problems on [...]

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‘Heaven Is for Real’… or is Heaven ‘The Real’? | A Psychoanalytical view of Paradise and Hell

Thanks to KV for putting me on to a book that has been quietly notching up huge sales in the US. ‘Heaven is for Real‘ is the true story of a 4 year old boy, who ‘died’ and went to heaven, and then came back: Just two months shy of his fourth birthday, Colton Burpo, [...]

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“Lord I just…” | Do you believe in Prayer? | Speaking into the unknown

A couple of times recently I’ve been in situations where people have said ‘let’s pray together.’ It’s struck me that there are some interesting group dynamics going on when we do that, which I thought would be good to air. Firstly, if God is God, then why do we need to pray aloud? The answer [...]

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Becoming Conscious of the ‘Other Other’ [1]

Whilst driving the other day I was following a car which was progressing very slowly. It didn’t have a fish badge on the back, but I couldn’t help thinking that they were just waiting for a bigger one to be fitted at the next service because they very graciously stopped to let every car out [...]

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Apple 9 this Weds | The Price We Pay for Technology is Alienation

Apple – the series of talks trying to think more deeply about technology – is back this Weds with the 9th event (7:30pm, The Betsey Trotwood, 56 Farringdon Road). The title is ‘Digital Obesity’ and will be a panel discussion with Simon Jenkins of ShipOfFools, Gavin O’Carrol from the Digital Health Service and Vaux’s own [...]

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What Exactly is Community? | Gathering Around an Absent Christ

Whilst doing some sessions at St John’s College in Durham recently, the question of what community is was raised. There’s a whole lot of talk about ‘living in community’ and ‘faith communities’ and going out to plant ‘missional communities’ – but whilst a lot is written about what faith and mission may be, there seems [...]

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Forget Black History Month

I came across this poster advertising ‘Black History Month‘ at a local school. Black History Month now lasts… 5 days. I don’t think the school have it wrong actually. As a teacher I can see that Black History Month has become a distortion which can actually serve to perpetuate the white Euro-centric view of history. [...]

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Changing Educational… and Theological… Paradigms

Another quite brilliant animation from the RSA – this time of a lecture by Sir Ken Robinson. It’s on changing educational paradigms, but the applications to changing theological ones are there for the taking. Beautifully done, and very very inspiring.

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