I have not blogged much over the last two weeks, largely because I have been at a summer school at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, “Societies in Transition – Sub-Saharan Africa between Conflict and Reconciliation”. It was a stimulating yet busy ten days, and I lectured on my own work on the role of [...]

Last week I wrote a post called Fr Brian D’Arcy and his Critics: How Should Christians Talk about each Other? This post was in part motivated by an increasing number of comments on this blog which are either spurious personal attacks, or have little or nothing to do with the substance of the blog post [...]

During the week I blogged about the launch of a new book, The Europeanization of Party Politics in Ireland: North and South (Routledge, 2010) edited by Dr Katy Hayward of Queen’s University Belfast and Dr Mary Murphy of University College Cork. Dr Hayward has contributed another perspective on the book, asking why it matters if [...]

Terror and wonder. Religious education has the power to instil such emotions in the young. Recent revelations have exposed the physical and sexual abuse that was rampant in many of the state-run, church-controlled churches on this island. On the other hand, in my own research in Northern Ireland I have spoken with people who cherish [...]

A ‘Progressive Christian’ congregation, St Matthew’s in the City in Auckland, New Zealand, has launched a provocative billboard campaign for Christmas, depicting Mary and Joseph in bed, with the words: ‘Poor Joseph: God is a hard act to follow.’ The priest at the church told Ekklesia that the aim of the billboard was to spark [...]