Two weeks ago at the Re-Emergence conference in Belfast, Phyllis Tickle said that in the past 18 months, she had detected ‘emergence’ Christians beginning to distance themselves ever farther from the evangelical roots from which so many of them had come. The controversy brewing in the US over Brian McLaren’s new book, A New Kind [...]
Archive | March, 2010
Gerry Adams: The Troubles & The Truth
Will we ever know the truth about Gerry Adams and the roles he played during the Troubles? Perhaps the more important question is whether we want to know. The publication in the Sunday Times of the first part in a serialisation of journalist Ed Moloney’s new book, Voices from the Grave, contains quotations from a [...]
Johnny Cash for Holy Week: An Evening at Fitzroy Presbyterian
‘There’s probably more theology in that film clip than in the book of Romans.’ Rev. Steve Stockman, the minister of Fitzroy Presbyterian Church in Belfast, said words to that effect to those who had gathered there yesterday evening for what was billed as ‘The Man in Black – a Service Built around the worship songs, [...]
Fr Brian D’Arcy and John Waters: Is Christ in our Collective Conversation on Clerical Abuse?
Unlike the Vatican, Irish Times columnist John Waters doesn’t accuse the media of a deliberate smear campaign against the Pope or the Catholic Church. But in an article headlined ‘Has Christ no role in resolving this crisis?’ in yesterday’s paper, Waters claims that, Media coverage of clerical sex abuse ignores that most Irish are believers [...]
Smearing the Pope? Vatican’s Defence is not Endearing
Yesterday the New York Times made the case that Pope Benedict knew more, and did more to cover-up the actions of paedophile priests, than has previously been supposed. This has prompted another offensive from the Vatican, accusing the media of smear campaign against the Pope. As reported in today’s Irish Times, The Vatican angrily attacked [...]
Re-Emergence in Belfast: De-Institutionalising Christianity
Last week as the conference, ‘Re-emergence: Christianity and the Event of God,’ was coming to a close, we were shaken out of our conversations as the fire alarms in the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin at Belfast, reverberated throughout the building. It wasn’t a fire. The alarms had been set off by the [...]
Andrew McMahon: Research on the South Down Ecumenical Clerical Study Group
Today my School awarded our James Haire Memorial Prizes for the best dissertation and best essays produced by students on our Master’s in Reconciliation Studies programme. Andrew McMahon, a priest based in Lurgan, wrote the best dissertation among the class of 2009, while Ruth Sastre Sanchez of Spain was recognised for producing the best essays [...]
Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children: Review of the Documentary by Xoliswa Sithole
Xoliswa Sithole – an accomplished film maker who was once proud to call Zimbabwe her home – has produced a wrenching documentary chronicling the economic and political melt-down of her country, and the devastating impact this is having on children. The BBC aired the documentary, ‘Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children,’ earlier this month. When I watched the [...]
Pope’s Letter to Irish Catholics: He has let us Down Badly
By now most Irish Catholics and others living on this island have some idea of the content of the Pope’s pastoral letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland. They know that the Pope has said that he is sorry (sort of), that most victims of abuse are disappointed and angry by the content of the [...]
Notes from the Insurrection … Peter Rollins Pub Tour
It wasn’t tongues of fire descending on the disciples in an upper room. Rather, images of burning churches flickered across the back wall of a basement room in McHugh’s Bar in Belfast. And on Tuesday of this past week, that’s where the Insurrection began. The event was the launch for both the Re-Emergence Conference in [...]
About me
Welcome to Building a Church Without Walls, a website for people who are excited about how Christianity is developing in the 21st Century. I am a Lecturer and Coordinator of the Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation Studies Programme at Trinity College Dublin at Belfast (the Irish School of Ecumenics).
Please note this is my personal site. All views are my own and are not representative of TCD.
