January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany in the Christian calendar, is probably best known in today’s Western secular culture as the day when people take down their Christmas decorations. For me yesterday was one of those particularly hectic days, so alas – our Christmas decorations are still standing. But there are probably more important [...]
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South Africa & the World Cup: Challenging Stereotypes?
Today’s Irish Times carries a commentary by Joe Humphreys titled, ‘Africa Should not be Defined by Single Events.’ Citing the recent example of the successful World Cup in South Africa, Humphreys notes how media coverage changed dramatically from hysterical predictions that tourists would be murdered, to nearly universally positive, even fawning coverage of the tournament [...]
Poloma and Hood Book Review: Blood and Fire – Is this the Emerging Church?
Margaret Poloma and Ralph Hood’s recent book, Blood and Fire: Godly Love in a Pentecostal Emerging Church (NY University Press, 2008), left me feeling more than a little uncomfortable. Poloma and Hood offer a sociological account of a church that has ‘failed.’ By ‘failed’ I mean that Poloma and Hood’s research coincided with a time [...]
Aidan Donaldson Book Review: Encountering God in the Margins
If you yearn for economic justice and human flourishing in the southern hemisphere, you may be plagued by the nagging suspicion that there is little that you can do to promote this. Sure, you can give to charity or even go on a short term volunteering mission, but still there’s a sense that these efforts [...]
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 [...]
Matthew Engelke Book Review: A Problem of Presence – Beyond Scripture in an African Church. What Do the Masowe Apostles and Post-Modern Christians have in Common?
What can Christians in the West learn from the Masowe Apostles? Much can be gleaned from a remarkably insightful book, Dr Matthew Engelke’s A Problem of Presence: Beyond Scripture in an African Church (University of California Press, 2007). Not long ago on this blog, I reviewed Dr Isabel Mukonyora’s book about the Masowe Apostles, an [...]
Linda Hogan Book Review: Applied Ethics in a World Church
There is more to the Catholic Church than sex abuse scandals. Although that is a rather obvious point, in contemporary Ireland, it’s a fact that could quite easily get overlooked. Of course Catholics and other concerned citizens are right to criticise the Catholic Church and its failings in the Irish context. But a recent book [...]
The Suspension of Bishop Paul Verryn & the Zimbabwean Refugees: Problems with being a Prophet?
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 [...]
What can the Churches Learn from Zimbabwe’s Masowe Apostles?: Isabel Mukonyora Book Review, Wandering a Gendered Wilderness
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 [...]
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.
