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Doug Gay – Remixing the Church: Towards an Emerging Ecclesiology, Book Review

By on January 17, 2012 in Book Reviews, Charismatic/Pentecostal Christianity, Churches & Reconciliation, Ecumenism, Emerging Church, Evangelicalism, Post Modern Theology, Postmodern Theology, Religion in Britain, Social Justice

Last month I posted about Doug Gay’s examination of the relationship between the ecumenical movement and the emerging church, as put forward in his new book, Remixing the Church: Towards an Emerging Ecclesiology (SCM Press, 2011). Gay’s insightful and original treatment of this matter, almost entirely overlooked in the popular and academic literature on the [...]

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Does the Emerging Church Mix with Ecumenism? Doug Gay on Remixing the Church

By on December 11, 2011 in Book Reviews, Churches & Reconciliation, Ecumenism, Emerging Church, Evangelicalism, Post Modern Theology, Postmodern Theology, Religion in Britain

I’ve recently read Doug Gay’s excellent new book, Remixing the Church: Towards an Emerging Ecclesiology (SCM, 2011), which I plan to review in full on this blog, in due course. (In due course means that we are coming to the end of our academic term, and I am even more busy than ever, so my [...]

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Peter Rollins’ Insurrection: Book Review & Talk in Belfast 5 September

By on August 25, 2011 in Book Reviews, Emerging Church, Evangelicalism, Post Modern Theology, Postmodern Theology, Religion in Britain, Social Justice

Peter Rollins’ forthcoming book Insurrection is an extended meditation on how our existing churches essentially teach us to deny the Resurrection of Christ. As such, the book is a plea to reject the religion that Christianity has become. It’s a project that Rollins admits ‘can never be described as some project in constructive theology; it [...]

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A Church Boat for the Titanic Quarter: New Post on Slugger O’Toole

By on March 22, 2011 in Churches & Reconciliation, Ecumenism, Emerging Church, Evangelicalism, Irish Catholic Church, Religion in Britain

I’ve written a new post, ‘Keeping the Church Afloat?: A Church Boat for the Titanic Quarter,’ on the Slugger O’Toole blog. I particularly liked the BBC description of the project. Commenting on the enthusiasm of Chris Bennett, the Church of Ireland minister behind the project, who  is unintentionally keeping with the theme of my blog, [...]

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New Monasticism as Fresh Expression of Church? Book Review

By on March 7, 2011 in Book Reviews, Ecumenism, Emerging Church, Evangelicalism, Post Modern Theology, Postmodern Theology, Religion in Britain, Social Justice

What’s new monasticism got to do with the emerging church? That’s a question that receives a variety of answers in a new book edited by Graham Cray, Ian Mosby and Aaron Kennedy, Ancient Faith, Future Mission: New Monasticism as Fresh Expression of Church (2010, Canterbury Press). But the first question raised by the title of [...]

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Is the Emerging Church Liberal? Peter Rollins on Atheism

By on February 28, 2011 in Atheism, Ecumenism, Emerging Church, Evangelicalism, Post Modern Theology, Postmodern Theology, Religion in Britain, Social Justice

I cringe when I hear the emerging church described as liberal. I’m an American from a conservative evangelical background, so maybe that’s because I got so used to hearing ‘liberal’ used as a term of derision when I was growing up. Or maybe it’s because critics of the emerging church, especially in the United States, [...]

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Launch of Building a Church Without Walls

By on January 18, 2011 in Churches & Reconciliation, Ecumenism, Emerging Church, Evangelicalism, Irish Catholic Church, Morality, Post Modern Theology, Postmodern Theology, Religion in Britain, Social Justice

I started this blog just over a year ago. My first post was called ‘Count me Out? Responding to the Report on Child Abuse in Dublin Diocese.’ I saw this blog as a place where I could share my ‘perspectives on religion and politics,’ as the tagline said. After some reflection, I’ve decided to give [...]

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Jennifer Sleeman Mass Boycott: Can Protest be an Ecumenical Matter?

By on September 23, 2010 in Churches & Reconciliation, Ecumenism, Irish Catholic Church, NI Politics, Religion in Britain, Victims

Jennifer Sleeman, an 80-year-old mother of a monk, has called on women to boycott mass this Sunday, September 26. Her proposal is in many ways old news, having been debated in various media for the past month. As I’ve written previously on this blog, it annoys me when Sleeman’s critics claim that she doesn’t know [...]

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The Pope’s Apology – Will there be a ‘Benedict Bounce’ or a Boycott?

By on September 20, 2010 in Churches & Reconciliation, Irish Catholic Church, Religion in Britain, Victims

Pope Benedict expressed his deep sorrow for clerical sexual abuse yet again during his state visit to the UK. The BBC has called his remarks on Saturday his ‘strongest public apology yet over the scandal.’ On the same day, the Pope met privately with five victims of clerical abuse, at least one of whom it [...]

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Kester Brewin Book Review: Other

By on August 10, 2010 in Book Reviews, Emerging Church, Post Modern Theology, Postmodern Theology, Religion in Britain

What does it mean to be a Christian? That’s a question that is at once too simple and too broad. One answer that could be given is in the subtitle of Kester Brewin’s latest book, Other. That subtitle is: Loving Self, God and Neighbour in a World of Fractures. To me, that subtitle sums up [...]