Culture and Review

  • 22 Apr
    2008

    Millions of dollars have been spent promoting Ben Stein’s creationist propaganda movie ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ to conservative church groups, but that money would have been better spent on fact checkers, say its critics.

  • 22 Apr
    2008

    The bludgeoning conclusion of Paul Thomas Anderson's much-lauded, Oscar-nominated film "There Will Be Blood," which has recently been released on DVD, features a preacher forced to renounce his faith in God and admit charlatanry. Spencer Dew investigates.

  • 18 Apr
    2008

    A new painting of St George by Scott Norwood Witts, which depicts the saint as a man of compassion rather than a crusader, is to be unveiled at the Catholic Cathedral of St George, Southwark, to mark the saint’s day next week.

  • 21 Mar
    2008

    The United States and the United Kingdom are being forced this month (March 2008) to reflect on the recent heritage of their military interventions. Who or what are we trusting in when we choose the way of the sword over the way of the Cross, asks Simon Barrow. Where does salvation lie?

  • 21 Mar
    2008

    There is a strong link between positive psychological adjustment to a death and one’s ability to deal with of the loss through one’s faith and religious practices, says Andrew J Weaver, a United Methodist minister and professional research psychologist.

  • 14 Mar
    2008

    Forget Maria. How do you solve a problem like Jesus? After all, everyone has a view: well-meaning Jewish guru, dangerous heretic, son of God, charlatan. The list is endless. Mel Gibson gave us the fundamentalist's Jesus of gruesome realism: a tortured body offset by expensive LA orthodontistry (bad teeth would have been a realism too far). This year's Easter offering from the BBC - boldly scheduled for primetime on BBC1 - reaches for the other extreme and presents the inoffensive Liberal Democrat Jesus: Nick Clegg with a beard.

  • 1 Mar
    2008

    Leading British Methodist Ruby Beech's "day job" is a position that dates back to at least the 15th century, reports Kathleen LaCamera. As an assistant sergeant at arms in the UK Parliament, she helps look after the security and administration of the House of Commons.

  • 17 Feb
    2008

    The natural presumption of Establishment insulates the Church of England, says Simon Barrow. Even worse, it takes the opposite direction to Jesus, who rejected worldly power in the Temptation that Christians recall during Lent.

  • 10 Feb
    2008

    Asking where the Church of England can go from here, Simon Barrow looks at why and how Rowan Williams got hold of the wrong end of the stick over religious communal practice and the civil legal system, why a larger 'multi-faith settlement' is unhelpful, and how post-Christendom beckons.

  • 1 Feb
    2008

    In a provocative short article in the International Herald Tribune newspaper, Philip Blond argues that the dominant neo-liberal model of global economy is in crisis, and that both the political right and the political left have failed to understand the nature of the challenge this embodies.

  • 14 Jan
    2008

    The history of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is not just about church cosiness, says Kersten Storch. It is about the quest for healing in a divided church and an unjust and unequal world.

  • 25 Dec
    2007

    Whether we love or hate Christmas, we know all about it. But the same may not be true of the coming of Jesus, says Simon Barrow. In Christ, God radically disrupts religious 'business as usual'.

  • 13 Dec
    2007

    While Rowan Williams rightly criticises Richard Dawkins for unfeasibly reducing religion to a pre-scientific explanatory system now superseded by science, says Ricahrd Skinner, he seems to have misunderstood Dawkins on evolution and survival strategies.

  • 13 Dec
    2007

    Theological truth and creative fiction are much closer to each other than might at first be presumed, Alison Goodlad discovers in reviewing Peter C. Hodgson's evocative treatment of the work of George Eliot.

  • 7 Dec
    2007

    As well as preparing worship resources for World Aids Day the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance. has this year put together an excellent Advent calendar of daily readings, pictures and meditations. Many of the meditations are written by people living with Aids.

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