The Age of the Spirit
The Great Emergence and the rise of Emergence Christianity are an expression of a 500-year cycle in the church's history, but perhaps also something more. In fact, the time we are entering might be...
Religious or Spiritual? None of the above
The Christian landscape is marked by a debate between whether Christianity is better described as a religion or as a type of spirituality. These terms mean different things to different people, but...
Beyond the Grave: What happens after we die?
The creed states boldly that “We believe in the resurrection of the body”, but do we really? Popular views of life after death involve our spirits or souls going to heaven but with very little,...
Do Angels have wings?… and Other Impossible Questions
Bookshops have ranks of books on angels and their influence, but when was the last time you heard Christians talking about them? Aren't angels a central part of Christian faith? So what does the...
Our Lady of Greenbelt
What does Mary, the mother of Jesus have to do with Greenbelt? Are doctrines such as the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary examples of the Roman Catholic fear of sex and deification of...
Poverty Over: Why Martin Luther King changed the world and Mother Teresa never did
If you want to see an end to world poverty then giving money will never be enough. We also need to be political and, where necessary, challenge the dominant economic thinking. Put simply: it's...
Can startups save the world?
The social and environmental problems facing us show no sign of being solved. Big business is slow, governments take forever to change anything and campaigning only gets you so far. But new...
The Phyllis & Nadia Show
Nadia Bolz-Weber and Phyllis Tickle mix it up about pastoral authority, Emergence praxis, and why the liturgy is here to stay.
Speaker(s): Nadia Bolz-WeberJesus was a home wrecker
Research by The Children's Society shows how important family is to the nurture and care of children. But Jesus' attitude to family and children is at best ambivalent and sometimes hostile. Was...
A Sane World
Recent evidence from the Human Genome Project suggests that only 5–10% of differences in psychology between us and our siblings are due to genes. It also appears that ethnic groups and social...
Suicide: A pastoral challenge to the church
Suicide is a taboo topic, yet among young males it is the second highest means of death – and the church is not exempt. This session takes a theology based on Easter Saturday to help understand the...
Preacher Girl: The peril and promise of proclamation
Writing a sermon can feel like a wrestling match between the preacher and the text; a match in which the preacher should not walk away before demanding a blessing from that text for their community....
Speaker(s): Nadia Bolz-WeberThe Homing Instinct
John O'Donohue wrote that spirituality is the art of homecoming. Drawing from his book, Dreaming of Home, Michael Mitton will explore the homing instinct in all of us that yearns for a place of...
The Gospel According to Everyone
How come in church we only ever hear the gospels of four men in Palestine 2,000 years ago? What about the gospels of the people sitting right next to us: the woman who gave up her child for adoption,...
Speaker(s): Martin WroeRelationships, power action: the practice of the common good
Maurice Glasman outlines the basic practices of community organising, particularly the centrality of one-to-one conversation and the primacy of building relationships. And then asks you to work...