Alpha minus

Does God exist? Yes, no or probably?

Is this attempt at Christian communication good, bad or indifferent?

To my mind, the Alpha Course poster is very bad theology. In fact, it is harming my daughter’s idea of religion. She is having an eight-year-old flirtation with atheism, thanks to some know-it-all mini-Dawkins boy in her class. When we passed this poster the other morning she said, ‘There ought to be a Probably Not.’ Pretty much what Dawkins would say (he’d opt for ‘almost certainly not’).

My point is that this framing of the God-question...

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A very digested read

I’ve now read a big chunk of Diarmaid MacCulloch’s new book, A History of Christianity. It’s hard to get into: one feels a bit daunted by dry detail, especially in the unfamiliar (to me) territory of the Syrian and African churches. But worth it.

Perhaps the biggest story of the first five or six centuries is the disunity over the Trinity. The idea of the incarnation was too strange and scandalous; it failed to stabilize, become coherent. This endless Middle Eastern dispute was the root cause of Islam: for Mohammed the idea of...

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Will MacCulloch elaborate about himself?

I’ve just bought Diarmaid MacCulloch’s new brick - sorry, book, A History of Christianity. I thought I might do a gradual review here, reflecting on a new chunk each week, for as long as it takes.  

So far I’ve read the introduction. Here he restates his religious position. In his previous book he said that his viewpoint “is neither confessional nor dogmatically Christian”, which seems to imply, tentatively, that it is loosely Christian. In the present book he calls himself “a candid friend of Christianity”. He explains that he “appreciate[s] the seriousness which...

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What the reaction to Pope's visit tells us about the Church of England

There’s a good piece by Andrew Brown in the Guardian, on what has changed since the last papal visit in 1982. The C of E has lost a lot of confidence, he says, and this is related to our loss of imperial confidence. He quotes Enoch Powell in 1982, warning that a papal visit would imply that the Queen could not be "on earth the supreme governor of the Church of England". No one worries about this any more, says Brown.
 
The really big change since 1982, it seems to me, is that Powell’s form...

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What is religious comment?

If I may be allowed a self-referential moment, let me share a few thoughts about religious comment, and comment on religion. It is a uniquely strange, little section of journalism. Political comment is straightforward. A writer expresses an opinion about this or that political story. Whether he is right-wing or left-wing or somewhere in between, the basic set-up is the same. These important public events must be analysed, judgement must be passed on them by an informed, engaged citizen.

There is no such stability of discourse when it comes to writing on religion. The...

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Let them pray

Over on the Guardian belief site, atheists have been praising prayer – or at least refusing to dismiss it entirely. Adam Rutherford, who has been blogging on the Alpha Course, of course rejects the efficiacy of petitionary prayer, but thinks there is nevertheless something of value in the exercise:

‘Prayer has no external effect, just like blowing candles on your birthday cake doesn't. But that doesn't mean there is no value in it. The humility of asking for help is a thing to be cherished, even if that is simply giving yourself

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