This morning’s BBC Radio Ulster edition of Sunday Sequence featured an interview with the newly elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Norman Hamilton. Hamilton had a fairly wide-ranging conversation with presenter William Crawley in the ten minute … Read more...
Category: NI Politics
Atheism in the Public Square: Marginalised or Militant?
Are atheists marginalised in our public conversations, even in the largely secular West? Last week, atheists had their first ever official visit to the White House. Sixty representatives from the Secular Coalition for America met with officials and discussed … Read more...
Choosing Our Religion: Workshop at East Belfast Mission
Today Dr Claire Mitchell and I visited East Belfast Mission, where we spoke about our forthcoming book, Meet the Evangelicals: Journeys in a Northern Irish Religious Subculture, due to be published by UCD Press in the next year.
The … Read more...
Gerry Adams & Jesus: Forgiveness is the Core of the Gospel
Gerry Adams’ presentation of a programme on the Channel 4 series ‘The Bible: A History,’ has provoked a flurry of comment and indignation on this morning’s radio phone-in shows and in the blogosphere.
The subject of Adams’ programme was ‘Jesus.’ … Read more...
Gerry Adams & Forgiveness: Alan McBride on the Channel 4 series ‘The Bible: A History’
Tomorrow, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams will be the featured guest on the Channel 4 series, ‘The Bible: A History.’ The series bills itself as, ‘the story of the most influential book ever written, interpreted by seven prominent figures from … Read more...
Choosing My Religion: A Conversation about our Book, Meet the Evangelicals
Dr Claire Mitchell and I will have a conversational workshop about a book we are writing together, provisionally titled Meet the Evangelicals: Journeys in a Northern Irish Evangelical Subculture, from 9.30-12.30 on Friday February 26, 2010, at East Belfast Mission … Read more...
Marianne Elliott Book Review: When God Took Sides
Marianne Elliott’s latest book, provocatively titled When God Took Sides: Religion and Identity in Ireland – Unfinished History, (Oxford University Press, 2009) describes how Catholics and Protestants in Ireland perceive each other – and explains why this matters so … Read more...
Church Action Poverty: Northern Ireland Launch and Call to Action
“The churches in Northern Ireland are too posh-looking, their hedges are too high.”
This was the assessment offered by Margaret Blair, a volunteer at The Gap Christian outreach project in Coleraine, speaking on BBC Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence. Blair’s interview … Read more...
Northern Ireland Reconciliation – Those who [try to] forget their past are doomed to repeat it…
Northern Ireland is dealing with its past every day – but usually not in a way that is helpful or constructive. That was the message from a panel discussion, ‘Can we Handle the Truth?’ that I attended on Saturday 30 … Read more...
The Platform for Change Northern Ireland: Dare We Dream of Normal Politics?
Northern Ireland’s two largest parties are locked in yet another round of negotiations on policing and justice, the spectre of the Orange Order and its marches casting its usual shadow over proceedings. But the new ‘Platform for Change Northern Ireland’… Read more...
The Iris Robinson Scandal and Evangelical Culture in Northern Ireland: Rejecting or Redeeming the ‘Sinner’?
Today’s Sunday Sequence programme on BBC Radio Ulster featured a segment by Malachi O’Doherty on the effect of the Iris Robinson scandal on evangelical culture in Northern Ireland. Amongst others, O’Doherty interviewed Dr Claire Mitchell of Queen’s University Belfast, a … Read more...