Simon Burton-Jones, Archdeacon of Rochester Expressing Christian faith in today's culture

True authority is found in the integration of what people say they believe with how they live. This highlights the modern crisis of authority and sets us a compelling challenge.

Among the many vertiginous changes to our shared life in the last two decades, the growing crisis in authority is one of the most pernicious and worrying.

Two political deaths within a day afforded a salutary reminder of the use and abuse of power.

They are an unlikely couple to be joined at death. Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright and reluctant president and Kim Jong-il, the overfed and egomaniacal leader of North Korea, a man without a shred of irony in his personality.

The invisible community of the bereaved possesses truths about life we need to hear. How odd, and perhaps significant, that theirs are the very voices we tend to block out.

Some time ago I heard a media report on how we are going to live much longer, with the number .

Mobile footage of the end of tyrants makes for compelling TV and leaves the sour aftertaste of voyeurism in the mouth

It was the first image of its kind to lodge in the imagination of this generation. The recently executed body, with its disfigured face, was nonetheless..........

ONE YEAR ON
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The new battle lines between parents and the child-free are divisive and can only undermine our generation’s legacy.

It was the author Helen Fielding who put the phrase ‘smug marrieds’ into the mouth of the luckless thirty-something single woman Bridget Jones to describe .......

Joy and prayer are a woven piece of fabric which gives us resilience in faith.
The task of sewing them together is made daunting by the unfriendly climate we live in.

‘Rejoice always and pray without ceasing’ exhorts the Apostle Paul of believers

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We value training for our jobs yet learning about private relationships
is considered an optional extra we can safely ignore. Why so?

No follower of Jesus is perfect, but some set a compelling high standard. What distinguishes those who are most alive with
the faith?

CELEBRITY CULTURE
Is it wrong to follow the lives of other people? The enduring power of celebrity culture is a mystery in a world where almost no-one admits to being taken in by it. It is hardly sophisticated to confess to celebrity ....
Read My Talks article.

LIVE AID OR DEAD AID?
Does aid to poorer nations deepen dependency or stimulate growth? The debate has just intensified. Dambisa Moyo is making quite a stir. The former Goldman Sachs economist argues in her book Dead Aid that the one trillion dollars .....
Read in Faith in Culture articles

GIVING OUR LIVES AWAY
Until more space is afforded staff by companies greedy for their time, the idea that we will solve social problems by recruiting volunteers remains elusive.We subscribe to certain views about social trends and one of these is the slow erosion of community.
Read in THOUGHT FOR THE MONTH

IN THE LOOP
A new satire spoofs a bankrupt political culture. Can we learn anything from the laughter it provokes? Alastair Campbell famously said ‘we don’t do God’, when a journalist wanted to press Tony Blair on an issue of faith. Armando Iannucci’s vicious, toxically profane ....
Read in Just Seen articles ...

THE WAITING GAME
The Christian journey is less like the measured pace of a ramble and more like the dreaded Heathrow experience. Among the virtues which are said to define Britishness – like fair play and hearing people out – is the willingness to queue.
Read in MY TALKS articles...

LEBANON
Two inventive films about the 1982 war in Lebanon remind us how high the stakes remain today. As people pray for fruitful developments in the new round of talks between Israel and the Palestinians it is naïve to assume that securing a viable nation-state for the Palestinians.
Read in JUST SEEN articles ...

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