Perspectives on religion & politics
Bishops of the Irish Catholic Church are in Rome, and will meet the Pope on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the state of the Irish Catholic Church and its response to clerical sexual abuse. So What? Will what happens in Rome really matter to Catholics on this island?
The Irish Times reports that Bishop Joseph Duffy, the Chairman of the Communications Commission of the Irish Bishops’ Conference, told a press conference today that
Back at Christmas time, I reviewed Peter Rollins’ latest book, The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales. With the traditional Christian season of Lent nearly upon us, Rollins’ publisher Paraclete Press has released seven additional parables, available to all those who have purchased the book.
Rollins’ tales are short and sometimes cryptic. In the book, he urges readers to digest them slowly, contemplatively, rather than rushing from one story to the next. With tidy symbolism, the seven new parables plus the 33 in the book bring the total available to 40 – one for every day of Lent. That gives you an entire day to ponder a single parable, or to discuss it with others.
Dr Claire Mitchell and I will have a conversational workshop about a book we are writing together, provisionally titled Meet the Evangelicals: Journeys in a Northern Irish Evangelical Subculture, from 9.30-12.30 on Friday February 26, 2010, at East Belfast Mission on the Newtownards Road.
The book is the product of more than a decade of research on evangelicalism in Northern Ireland, and draws on over 100 in-depth interviews with evangelicals from all points on the political, religious and social spectrum.
Continue reading ‘Choosing My Religion: A Conversation about our Book, Meet the Evangelicals’
Marianne Elliott’s latest book, provocatively titled When God Took Sides: Religion and Identity in Ireland – Unfinished History, (Oxford University Press, 2009) describes how Catholics and Protestants in Ireland perceive each other – and explains why this matters so much today.
Elliott’s title conveys the idea that both Catholics and Protestants assumed that God was on their side throughout this island’s centuries-old religio-political conflict.
Continue reading ‘Marianne Elliott Book Review: When God Took Sides’
Writing in today’s Irish Times, Dr Derek Smyth, a psychotherapist and a priest in Foxrock parish, Co. Dublin, offers a stinging critique of Irish Catholic clerical culture and asks, ‘Why were we so silent on child abuse? Why didn’t we speak up?’
Smyth draws on research that
Continue reading ‘Sex Abuse & the Irish Catholic Church: A Resounding Critique of Clerical Culture’
Last month Bishop Paul Verryn was suspended from the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. Bishop Verryn was a prominent anti-apartheid campaigner and has in recent years become well-known for opening the doors of the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg to Zimbabwean refugees.
About 2,000 displaced Zimbabweans sleep in the church every night. Everyone seems to agree that this stretches the capacities of the church and its resources to a breaking point. South African authorities have claimed that the church has become a health and sanitation hazard, and there are rumours that some children have been sexually abused in the church.
One issue that is sure to bring Christian voices out in the public sphere is gay rights. The overwhelming impression that one gets is that Christians are opposed to extending gay rights, particularly when it comes to marriage or civil partnerships.
A surprising exception to this has been the Evangelical Alliance in the Republic of Ireland (EAI). In December, EAI published a document, endorsed by its General Director Sean Mullan, which essentially supported the bill that is still being debated in the Irish parliament (the Dail).
There’s a new sculpture in St Anne’s Square in Belfast. Crafted by Lucy Glendinning, it is the figure of a woman being lifted up to the heavens. She faces out towards St Anne’s Cathedral, and it appears she is being ‘raptured’, taken up to meet the Lord in the air. I think the sculpture looks great.
For those of us who grew up within evangelicalism, the coming Rapture was a prominent theme in the sermons we heard and the Sunday School lessons we attended. We were told that the Rapture is what will happen when Jesus comes back and rescues all the people who have been ‘born again’ or ‘saved,’ sparing them from a period of seven years of woe and punishment on the earth.
Continue reading ‘Peter Rollins & The Rapture – St Anne & ‘Evandelism’ Tracts’
When I attend a Catholic Church, one of the saddest parts of the service for me is the Eucharist. I’m a Christian – but not a Catholic – so that means that I’m prohibited from taking part in that meaningful and central ritual. Sometimes I feel angry, because in other Christian churches everyone is invited to receive communion. The message I’m getting from the Catholic Church is that, somehow, Christ’s grace doesn’t extend to me.
This week’s Church of Ireland Gazette (5 February 2010) reports that Gillian Kingston, a leading Irish Methodist laywoman and former President of the Irish Council of Churches, has called on the Catholic Church to share Holy Communion with other Christians at the Roman Catholic Eucharistic Congress, set for 2012 in Dublin.
Continue reading ‘Shared Eucharist – Should it be a Priority for the Irish Churches?’
I’m intrigued by the astronomical growth of Christianity in the majority world, and I think it’s important that Christians in the West ask themselves what the churches in all the far-flung corners of the globe can teach us. That’s a part of what motivates my research on charismatic Christianity in Zimbabwe.
During my fieldwork in Zimbabwe in 2007, I couldn’t help but notice the Masowe Apostles. They are distinctive for dressing in white robes and meeting for hours in the open air. It is hard to miss them.
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