Catholic school sacks teacher for saying Mohammed was a false prophet
There is something very odd about this. Perhaps we haven't got the whole story, so it's necessary to tread carefully. But on the face of it Joshua Sutcliffe, a Maths…
Religious fundamentalism
Taliban sharia: how will they ‘respect’ women’s rights and press freedom?
The media are full of reports of Taliban 2.0: the Taliban which promises to respect women's rights; the Taliban which is pledged to sustain freedom of the press; the Taliban which has assured equality for all, with roles in society,…
When did traditional morality become ‘fundamentalist’?
It was a question posed by Professor John Milbank on Twitter a few days ago. Or, rather, it wasn't posed as a question, such as the 'when' inquiry into conceptual…
Home Office refuses asylum to Iranian Christian convert – quoting violence in the Bible as evidence of bogus claim
An Iranian Muslim who converted to Christianity because it is the true religion of peace has had their application for asylum in the UK rejected because the Home Office didn't…
Islam, Islamism and Islamophobia: our culture has lost its reason, or its capacity to reason
This is a guest post by the Rev’d Dr Gavin Ashenden. ___________________________ The public square is a charged place. Three contenders are striving against each other. Emotion, reason and fundamentalism…
Integration tsar Dame Louise Casey has a problem with ‘religious conservatism’
In 2013 Dame Louise Casey was named by BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour as one of the Top 100 most powerful women in the UK. She was duly appointed by…
Dan Walker, creationism, and the witch-hunt against Bible-believing Christians
Dan Walker is the Bible-believing son of a Baptist minister. He is a TV and radio sports presenter who has just been appointed to front the BBC Breakfast programme…
Parliament's vote to bomb Syria has already won the moral victory against ISIL
As I began writing this within an hour of the Commons vote, 4 RAF Tornadoes were already on their way to bomb Syria. This is it; the UK is now…
The apocalypse of Islam and the signs of the times
The Temple of Baalshamin predated Mohammed by six centuries. It was a cultural jewel in the Syrian desert, revealing to the world a glimpse of the pre-Islamic religions of…
Was St Paul wrong about the timing of the Second Coming?
If Jesus, being fully and infallibly God, was not wrong about the time of his Second Coming, what about St Paul, being fully and fallibly man? The whole thrust…
Was Jesus wrong about the timing of his Second Coming?
The imminence of the long-prophesied kingdom of God and the end of time has occupied Christians and Jews more than any other subject of theological conjecture. Certainly, at the…
Tweeting the truth in love: Justin Welby affirms an unpalatable article of faith
We have a blogging, vlogging and tweeting Archbishop of Canterbury. He's on Flickr, too. Justin Welby has fathomed that the medium is the message: the social network is the…
The cult of Comrade Corbyn
A cult is a small, unpopular religion. A religion is a large and fashionable cult. When the disesteemed and shunned become desirable and popular, there follows respect, if not…
Tim Farron's Christian faith becomes an object of media scorn
There are plenty of people who think that you shouldn’t mix faith and politics. For some, such as the National Secular Society, they have made it a mission to…
The greatest weapons against ISIS are grace and truth
As our nation falls silent at midday on Friday we will mourn with those who mourn and hold in our thoughts and prayers those who lost their lives in Tunisia…
Communicating truth in a “dictatorship of relativism"
Cardinal Raymond Burke preached this week in Oxford against the “dictatorship of relativism” which brands Christians “fundamentalists and extremists”. The Tablet recounts: Quoting the Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Burke…