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THIS MONTH'S ARTICLE |
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A GRIEF UNOBSERVED |
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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 of people over ninety years of age set to quadruple by 2050. Shortly afte .................,
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LAST MONTH'S ARTICLE |
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WHEN HOPE AND HISTORY DON’T RHYME |
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We should let the darkness of the world into the Nativity story and the light of Christ into our hearts. They both have their place in the world God has come to rescue, but not yet rescued.
U2’s Bono, picking up on a phrase of his compatriot Seamus Heaney, has sung:
Jesus in the song you wrote
the words are sticking in my throat
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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DOUGLAS COUPLAND |
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One artistic voice from outside the Church is asking all the questions
that need to be asked about life on earth.
The bookshops of Britain are only ever full just before summer or Christmas, as frantic shoppers – desperate either for a good novel to read on the beach ...... |
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THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM |
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Politeness should not be deemed the preserve of petty minded people but the means to
confer dignity and equality on all. The digital world has some catching up to do on this count.
There are some stories in life which are so deliciously dark and comical that you wonder if they have ........
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THE ADVICE CULTURE |
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The self-help industry is booming, but its overall message is surprisingly reactionary
and lacks the transformative power of grace.
One of the less remarked upon phenomena of the modern book trade is the growth in self-help literature. In a recent thirty year period, up to ........
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WHO OR WHAT IS TO BLAME? |
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A society which is averse to naming Christ in public debate is not doing itself any favours when
it comes to addressing deeply rooted personal and social problems.
How responsible are we for our own actions? This ageless question tends to polarise people. For some we are inescapably in
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DOES PRETEND VIOLENCE POLLUTE OUR CULTURE? |
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Spiralling levels of brutality in modern screen drama have desensitised us
to real suffering
which only the cross has the power to redeem.
Most of us do not experience violence in real life. Those who do are sometimes physically sick when they witness us, such is the impact,
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WHEN DOES ERRANT BEHAVIOUR MERIT PUBLIC ATTENTION? |
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Vindictive media make it harder to make a true moral audit of personal wrongdoing and reinforce sometimes spurious distinctions between the public and the private.
A series of alleged high profile sexual misdemeanours in 2011 has got the media buzzing with observations about ...
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TAKING A JOKE |
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Are there limits beyond which humour should not go? In the absence of a consensus,
the boundaries are being pushed incrementally further.
Three days after the terrorist atrocity on 9/11 someone told me a joke about the attack. I was shocked and in no mood for laughing.
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BEWARE THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE TIGER MOTHER |
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The hot-housing of children’s education is a long way from the invitation to love and curiosity
God would have us make to them.
At first I assumed it must be a joke. Amy Chua’s book, ‘World on Fire’ had opened my eyes to see how many of the ethnic conflicts around ......
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WHAT’S NEXT? |
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The relentless demands of daily work may not only impede our quality of life
but also a right judgment of its purpose.
The fictional Democratic President Jed Bartlet used a phrase which spoke powerfully of the relentless demands of high office. A problem would be solved or a decision reached ....
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THE EMPTY CHAIR AT THE FESTIVE TABLE |
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Sometimes the more privileged among us should walk through the dark shadows of life frequented by others and not shirk this Christian duty just because we are able to.
The difficulty with being an author in a problem corner of the world is ......
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PAST ARTICLES |
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THE PARENT TRAP
Today’s parents are tired of being blamed for the ills of
society. It’s time they were given a break |
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ONLY CONNECT
Is there more to being a developed nation than having
a strong economy? |
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SLOW MOTION
Slow would seem to be the new black. How is it that
churches haven’t caught on? |
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PAST ARTICLES |
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DARKER SHADES ARE COOLER
The fashion for casting screen heroes in a darker mould is
truer to the biblical characters we know |
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THE BACKLASH |
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If we permit our relationships to be mediated digitally in the future, we may be drawing the kind of veil over our faces we are critical of some cultures for doing in practice.
If we permit our relationships to be mediated digitally in the future, |
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THE UNSPOKEN LIMITS
OF TV NEWS |
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Grasping the TV news’ inherent limitations is the first step to understanding the world they purport to reveal
Before long, most governments in the UK seem to claim that BBC News is biased against them. For Margaret Thatcher its corporatist ethos stood in |
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LACK SABBATH |
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A day of rest is one of the most tangible indicators of the character of God.
The contempt with which society treats it may be one of its deepest failings.
The chances are that you have enjoyed a holiday somewhere this summer, beginning it in a fraught state of mind which turned to irritability as ........ |
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THE LEVELLING SPIRIT |
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Have we become too relaxed about wealth differentials within both Church and society?
The re-appearance of Gordon Gekko on our screens in Wall Street 2 has stirred memories of a time allegedly defined by his mantra ‘greed is good’. It may be unfair to a decade which ........ |
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TELL ME LIES |
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Rumours often make people miserable and yet we persist in passing them on.
Understanding their structure and power is vital if we are to limit their capacity for damage.
There are few social devices more pernicious and damaging than the rumour mill.
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WALKING THOSE BRIDGES |
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How integrated are Christians into their local communities?
When it comes to mission, churches often talk of the need to build bridges into the local community. Although this expresses an important truth, we sometimes state it unreflectively, and begin to sound like a ...... |
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SMILE LIKE YOU MEAN IT |
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Enforcing an unnatural sense of happiness on others is counter-productive.
Joy emerges as we learn to give our lives away.
American political thinker Barbara Ehrenreich is a woman on a mission. Her trenchant critique of consumer capitalism has taken a new ........ |
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MESSI CHURCH |
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For the committed supporter, football is a form of suffering with enjoyment a bonus.
This is the key to unlocking the mood of the nation at major tournaments.
For those who dislike football, the 2010 World Cup is a bitter pill to swallow at the end of a season that began ......... |
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HOW TO TIE A KNOT |
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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?
Jilting the groom at the altar is the kind of worn cliché that jaded soap opera script writers employ to boost flagging viewer numbers,. ........ |
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WHY EVERY CHURCH NEEDS A
MALCOLM GLADWELL |
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There is much that is hidden and unobserved in human life and it takes patience and vision to uncover the links that cause us to behave the way we do. Step forward a rare talent who manages this
The rise of behavioural economics has been a marked trend. ........ |
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THE GOD OF RWANDA |
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How did belief in God change for those caught up in the Rwandan genocide?
‘Since there was Auschwitz, God cannot exist.’
The laconic words of Primo Levi to his compatriot Fernando Cameron succinctly pose the dreadful question . ............ |
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HOW TO WIN YOUR FRIENDS’ FRIENDS’ FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE THEM |
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You have a breathtaking amount of social influence without even realising.
Did you know that friends of your friends can make you fat? And depressed? And pregnant? And give up smoking? It seems ridiculous to suggest so but this is exactly what painstaking and unusual research in ........ |
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THOSE WHO DENY THE TRUTH |
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Holocaust denial is a nasty and pernicious belief but should it be criminalised?
This question may become acute in the years ahead as the generation of people who lived through the holocaust as victims, witnesses, perpetrators and liberators is slowly extinguished. ........ |
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THE GLUE THAT HOLDS US ALL TOGETHER |
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One intangible quality is prized above all others today but the more we talk about it,
the further away it seems to recede.
Trust is in short supply today. The statistics concerning the Church are on the face of it somewhat gloomy, with trust levels markedly down in ........ |
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THE OBAMA DOCTRINE |
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The weather may one day turn from being a talking point to a cause for sending the troops in.
“When genocide is happening…around the world and we stand idly by, that diminishes us…and so I do believe we have to consider it as part of our interests, |
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PAST ARTICLES |
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MAKING A MEAL OF IT
The sacramental nature of the British family meal has
been lost. Can it now be regained? |
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PAST ARTICLES |
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WHAT WOULD JACK DO? |
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24’s Jack Bauer has made torture by the good guys seem cool. The producers have a case to answer
TV’s The West Wing and 24 have supplied us with visions of U.S. government at its very best and its very worst. They have also given us compellingly ...... |
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MATT SANTOS FOR PRESIDENT
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Was this the most prophetic piece of television in our generation?
As I write, the contest for the next President of the United States is clearly defined. On one side is the first non-white Democratic candidate: a young, charismatic ...... |
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The new Batman film is gripping thanks to a mesmerising erformance
by the late Heath Ledger.
But what are we to make of the new era of sadism that is upon us?
Modern media both influence and reflect the culture they emerge from and the new Batman ...... |
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VIRTUALLY UNSTOPPABLE |
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The new digital social networks have the potential to transform society..
British anthropologist Robin Dunbar has suggested that the natural size of a group is about 150. He calculated that this figure ‘seems to represent the the ... |
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THE EMPTY ECHO OF THE DAILY NEWS |
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We think the news gives us a reliable picture of what is happening out there
but the truth is more elusive
I once heard a woman say that she had no time left to read the Bible after she had finished reading the daily newspaper. Where do you start with ...... |
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GUERNICA |
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One Basque town inaugurated an era in modern warfare which should
guide our prayers more than it does.
Each journey we carried out as a family on our summer holiday in 2008 took us through the busy town of Guernica. We always encountered , ........ |
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ONLY A GAME? |
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In a few years most public figures will have had their early lives shaped by gaming.
So what do we know about this phenomenon?
When it comes to playing video games, which of the following groups do you think comprises the larger proportion of players:
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APOCALYPSE PORN |
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Digital images of future disaster are a crude distraction from the promise of renewal
A flood of films is presently swamping the cinema with nightmarish visions of a dystopian future. This recent trend was initiated by The Day After Tomorrow which purported to . ........... |
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THE RETURN OF CHARACTER |
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Character is becoming fashionable again in politics and it is a gift to the Church
Several political thinkers have spoken recently about the need for a new language of virtue in public life which is rooted in private behaviour.
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SHOULD WE EVER TRUST THE CROWD? |
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Groups are capable of showing remarkable collective intelligence.
Why then do we groan at the mention of committees?
Are crowds clever? Nietzsche famously observed that ‘madness is the exception .......
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KEEPING FAITH IN SATIRE |
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Christianity and comedy are uneasy friends.
A new relationship harnessing irony with passion is long overdue.
Steve Tomkins, a former producer of The Simpsons, says he keeps his faith in check when writing comedy because if it became a prominent feature of his writing
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BARBIE WORLD |
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The commercial world cynically promotes unrealistic aspirations among young people, who are most vulnerable to them.
Barbie is fifty years old in 2009 and yet even in comfortable middle age she has kept her impossibly proportioned
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