Shortly after this year’s Greenbelt, Kester Brewin speculated on his blog about a coming ‘year of opposition’ to the ‘theological direction that a few of us have been taking’ in the emerging church conversation. Brewin wrote that: One of the things I’ve been wondering is if the theological direction that a few of us have [...]
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Remembering Fr Michael Hurley in Belfast
Fr Michael Hurley SJ, founder of the Irish School of Ecumenics, passed away in April. Following on from his funeral in Dublin, last week the Irish School of Ecumenics organised a special Service of Remembrance and Thanksgiving in Belfast. As readers of this blog may know, I’m a lecturer at Hurley’s creation (now part of [...]
Updates: Re-constructing Ikon and LGBT, Faith and Church Report
I spent most of last week at or preparing for the conference of the European Sociological Association in Geneva. During that time, there have been some useful follow-ups to two stories I’ve discussed recently on this blog: Ikon at Greenbelt: Reconstructing the Deconstruction In this post, I pieced together Ikon’s performance at Greenbelt, using the [...]
Peter Rollins: The Apocalypse Comes to Belfast
Peter Rollins, Belfast native and a founding member of the Ikon Christian collective, returned to his native city last night for a talk titled ‘The Apocalypse isn’t Coming, it’s already Happened.’ Rollins has been living in the United States for the last couple of years, establishing himself as a popular author, speaker and voice in [...]
"Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Communities’ Experiences of Faith and Church in Northern Ireland" – Report Launch 7 September
The Irish Peace Centres (IPC) will launch its latest report, “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Communities’ Experiences of Faith and Church in Northern Ireland” on Wednesday 7 September at 3.30 pm at the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast. The report, researched and written by academics Dr Claire Mitchell and Dr Gail McConnell, is already available on [...]
Ikon at Greenbelt: Reconstructing the De-Construction
Ikon’s appearance at Greenbelt produced a rave review on the official Greenbelt blog, which made me feel an even deeper tinge of regret that I wasn’t there to witness the event first-hand. As Ikon prepared for Greenbelt, they generously allowed me to sit-in on their planning sessions, as I am currently working on a book [...]
Peter Rollins’ Insurrection: Book Review & Talk in Belfast 5 September
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 [...]
Michael Bennett on the Major Christian Task of Reconciliation
I’m always heartened when I see graduates of our Master’s in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation applying our course material in their work once they graduate. Yesterday’s guest post by Joram Tarusarira was one example of that. Today Fr Michael Bennett provides another example in the form of an article titled simply, ‘Reconciliation,’ published in the [...]
Reconciliation – The Missing Ingredient in Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies? Guest Post by Joram Tarusarira
Last month I participated in a summer school at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, titled ‘Societies in Transition: Sub-Saharan Africa between Conflict and Reconciliation.’ One of the many pleasures of attending the summer school was catching up with former students, including Joram Tarusarira from Zimbabwe, who completed his master’s in Reconciliation Studies with us [...]
Evangelical Journeys Reviewed on Slugger O’Toole
Blogger Alan in Belfast has reviewed my new book, co-authored with Claire Mitchell, Evangelical Journeys: Choice and Change in a Northern Irish Religious Subculture, on the Slugger O’Toole blog. It’s a thorough and generous review, which goes into considerable depth about the content of the book and the stories of the evangelicals who we interviewed.
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.
