Tag: Church

  • What Are The ‘Grand Challenges’ for Theology for the 21st Century?

    Wired reported a couple of days ago on the conclusions of Google co-founder Larry Page’s working group on improving life on earth, and the list of ‘14 Grand Engineering Challenges of the 21st Century‘. They included things like making solar energy affordable, reverse-engineering the brain and providing energy from fusion. Energy, quality of life, quantity…

  • So This Is What The World Wants: One Dimensional Men? | Bartlett and Williams

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    As the Archbishop heads for Synod this afternoon to defend himself and, according to some exaggerated reports, save his job, I’ve been mulling over exactly why he has been under such pressure for his comments on Sharia Law. Even the shallowest examination of him as a man would reveal a hugely intelligent thinker and a…

  • Rowan Williams and Sharia Law

    Archbishop Rowan is getting huge amounts of flack for his comments on a selective use of some parts of Sharia law in certain communities in the UK. Typically, his arguments, based on some serious reading, have been caricatured and turned into shock headlines. Which suggests he was perhaps ill-advised – this sort of reaction was…

  • God is a Londoner: Time Out

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    The usually so-antagonistic-its-almost-funny Time Out seem to have mellowed this year. They gave Greenbelt a great write-up as the ‘best family festival’ and this week have an actually really good series of pieces on religious London: Muslim speed-dating, living in a London monastery, Kensington Temple and a trip behind the scenes at the stunning Shri…

  • Autumn

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    Trees sense a moment when the balance between night and day changes. The shorter days trigger the development of a suicidal hormone in each leaf which creeps down the stem to the joint with the woody twig. Here it stimulates the growth of a sphincter of brittle, hard tissue that gradually closes in on itself,…

  • Gaza: Christian Bookseller Murdered | US: Pastors Use ‘Shoot ’em Up’ Halo Game to Attract Teens

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    Two stories on two pages in the Independent today: Gaza’s only Christian bookseller has been murdered by the Righteous Swords of Islam. As if Gaza didn’t have enough problems, these fundamentalists think they’re saving the world by killing off Christians. There are only 3000 or so left. While in the US, ‘church groups across the…