Non violence works. That’s the evidence from a study carried out by Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth, which argues that ‘major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 per cent of the time, compared with 26 per cent for violent resistance campaigns.’ For those who are committed to nonviolent methods as a matter of principle, [...]
Archive | May, 2010
Christians v. Atheists? The Battle for the Buses and the Ulster Museum
In its annual report, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) has noted that it received 392 complaints about the British Humanist Association’s campaign slogan: ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.’ The presence of this slogan on city buses became almost iconic. But what received the most complaints? It was the [...]
A Marathon Debate Continues …
I blogged previously about the controversy around moving the Belfast City Marathon from Bank Holiday Monday to a Sunday. The Alan in Belfast blog has a constructive and thought-provoking new post on this topic.
David Stevens – In Memory of a Peacemaker
David Stevens, Leader of the Corrymeela Community, died from cancer on Sunday at the age of 62. A founding member of the Community Relations Council, Stevens also worked for 25 years in the Inter Church Centre in Belfast, serving for 12 years as General Secretary of the Irish Council of Churches and Executive Secretary of [...]
Are there any Christians in Religionless Christianity?
In the West, where ‘institutionalised’ forms of Christianity seem more tired, creaky and discredited by the day, some people involved with ‘emergence Christianity’ or the ‘emerging church’ are advocating a ‘religionless’ approach to Christianity. The term ‘religionless Christianity’ is associated with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor implicated in the plot to assassinate Hitler during the [...]
Alistair Little Book Review: Give a Boy a Gun
Recently one of the students on my School’s Master’s in Reconciliation Studies programme told me that the most powerful book he had read during the year was Give a Boy a Gun: One Man’s Journey from Killing to Peace-Making, by Alistair Little (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2009). The book is the autobiography of a former [...]
The Ryan Report and Irish Catholicism One Year On
In the recently published book, The Dublin/Murphy Report: A Watershed for Irish Catholicism? (Columba Press, 2010), Fr Enda McDonagh writes (p. 113): ‘Given the spate of commentary on and of proposals for Church reform which have followed the Ryan and Murphy Reports of 2009, there is bound to be little new to say or to [...]
Cardinal Sean Brady Keeps his Post, But do People want him to Stay?
Cardinal Sean Brady has decided to stay on as the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Brady has been ‘reflecting’ on his position for the past two months. The controversy around his position was sparked when it was revealed that in 1975 he was involved in a situation in which clerics asked two teenagers [...]
Communion with One Another? Questions from the Symposium on ‘The Eucharist in Ecumenical Perspective’
What does it mean that Christians all over Ireland have begun to quietly defy the official teachings of their churches, choosing to receive Eucharist/ communion in churches that are not their own? No one really knows how widespread this practice is in Ireland. Unlike the Catholic Church, not all denominations officially forbid the sharing of [...]
What’s Faith Got to do with Human Rights? Publication of Rights and Righteousness
What’s faith got to do with human rights? That’s one of the questions explored in a new publication, edited by Dr David Tombs of Trinity College Dublin at Belfast (the Irish School of Ecumenics), Rights and Righteousness: Perspectives on Religious Pluralism and Human Rights. The publication was featured this morning on BBC Radio Ulster’s Sunday [...]
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.
