Coping with the crunch
How should churches respond to the recession and economic crisis? Come along, share stories of what your church has been doing to help those affected, and discuss what more could be done. There will...
Giving It Up
Every Lent, people give up something like chocolate or alcohol. Is there some other kind of ‘giving up' that might be more useful? A look at some figures from Christian history to find out what...
O thou who changest not
The early Christians distinguished between our time in this life and a very different time, which was, for them, ‘real time.' This real time was the ever-presence of God, sometimes called...
How to be a religious agnostic
The new atheist argument with religion goes nowhere fast, and nurtures the dangerous vice of intolerance. Mark Vernon asks how can such an agnosticism be fleshed out? Mark Vernon was an Anglican...
Speaker(s): Mark VernonDid Darwin help us to understand God better?
Two hundred years on, are we recognising that far from undermining faith, Darwin may help us understand it better? With Dr Allan Chapman, historian of science at Wadham College, Oxford, Mark Vernon,...
The Republic of Heaven: A Catholic Anglican future
‘The Catholic tradition' in the Church of England is not what most people see as a seed bed of hope for the church, and before it can be, some aspects which are not authentically Catholic need to...
Yes we can? What Obama means for us
Barack Obama's experience as a Community Organiser working with churches in Chicago helped him win the Presidency. Do we believe churches can make political change in our communities? Find out how...
How to be human (with Hieronymus Bosch)
What can a painting 500 years old tell us about life today? Find out, in the company of Thomas à Kempis, Terry Pratchett, Bob Dylan, Brian Eno and Hieronymus Bosch. Justin Lewis-Anthony is Rector...
We are strange: God is stranger
Bookshops are full of argument and counter-argument between atheists and Christians, but what could theology actually learn from a ‘new physics' that has given us parallel universes, multiple...
Speaker(s): Kester BrewinA plea for Christian piracy
They make corporations' blood boil, and children's pulses race: what is it about pirates that remains perennially fascinating, and what possibly could our faith learn from Somalian bandits, 17th...
Speaker(s): Kester BrewinThe Sabbath for Beginners
Time has become an enemy rather than a gift, so in our contemporary frenetic lifestyles, the institution of the Sabbath is more important than ever. John was born within smelling distance of Johnny...
Speaker(s): John BellDid Paul mean it all?
A fresh look at St. Paul and the seeming contradictions in his writings – is he even the author of Ephesians, Colossians and Timothy? John was born within smelling distance of Johnny Walker's...
Speaker(s): John BellWill you still need me, will you still feed me…
The Long Now was never as long as in the developed western world, unless you think Methuselah did live until he was 969. We're living longer... and longer but what do we do with these extra years?...
Birmingham – It’s not sh*t
That difficult third novel: An exclusive preview
Jon McGregor's Even The Dogs was a difficult book to write, and isn't always an easy book to read. Hear Jon talk about the challenges of writing about darker themes, and how there is always,...
Speaker(s): Jon McGregor