The Art of Looking Sideways at the Church
Is there a “wisdom way” of looking at the support system that we call the church? How can we love it and not idolise it, learn from it and not ignore it, critique it without rejecting it, be a...
The art of looking sideways at us
The mind thinks it can look at things directly and understand them – which is a very big assumption.There is another way of knowing ourselves and one another that Fr Richard Rohr calls “non dual...
What Is A Good Politician?
In an era in which MPs are under scrutiny as never before and their credibility and integrity have plumbed new depths, just what is a good politician? Are our expectations too high or are their...
Speaker(s): Peter OborneA church of passion and justice
Sometimes the church behaves not as a community of the redeemed but as a tribal institution. In the light of the debates around women's ministry, the full inclusion of LGBT persons and equality of...
The struggle for queer freedom in Africa
In most African countries, LGBT people face criminalisation and violence, which is at best unopposed by Africa's churches and at worst supported by them. Variously described as a “homosexual...
Sometimes The Cheese Is Falling Off Our Cracker
We all need tools in our life toolbox for the times we are sharp with the ones we love or for “difficult” relationships at work. Level 5 is a tool, a skill to have ready for emotional moments. It...
Buy Bye Childhood
Has the commercialisation of childhood won? To advertisers children are anything from small, absorbent consumer capitalists, to fulcrums of parent pester-power, and receptacles of prematurely adult...
The bluffer’s guide to Israel and Palestine
Nigel Varndell first went to the Occupied Palestinian Territories ten years ago and has been going back every year since. He has talked with politicians, soldiers, gunmen, religious leaders, NGO...
It’s a Mad World
How Thatch- and then Blatcherism turned us into a nation of It Could Be You, Shop Till You Drop, credit-fuelled consumer junkies. Oliver James explains how a sane world can and will come...
How do you spell hell?
Dante's Vision of Hell has more mainstages than Greenbelt, and yet, at the pit of it all, there is an image of Luficer frozen in a lake of his own tears. This talk will use poetry, story and...
Internation Development: Does Theology Matter
A conversation about the theology that underpins the work of a Christian development organisation. Paula presents an approach based on relational theology and will include live comment from one of...
Middle Eastenders: The Bible As Soap Opera
Some Bible stories are perplexing if they are spiritualised in a sermon but make complete sense if you treat them like a TV soap. This sideways look at Bible stories digs through sex, betrayal and...
Speaker(s): Peter GraystoneThe Secret Life Of Human Beings
As human beings we soon realise that we are not one, but many. How do we live with the different parts within us: the judgement, lust, rage, and depression as well as the joy, passion and empathy?...
Speaker(s): Mark YaconelliThe Philosopher Jesus
Might Jesus have been a kind of philosopher – one in the Cynic tradition, even? After all, Jesus didn't write anything bar a few doodles in the sand, a fact he shares with Socrates, another...
Speaker(s): Mark VernonOn Not Teaching Your Grandparents To Suck Eggs
Today's religiously and socially plural society is in some respects very similar to that of the early Church. Being Christian was not “normal”, nor popular, and there were plenty of gods and...