Kester Brewin Book Review: Mutiny! Why We Love Pirates and How They Can Save Us

mutinyLast month, before leaving on holiday, my husband wanted to check the books I was taking to make sure that I was getting a break from my two main interests: ‘God and running,’ as he summarised it. My copy of … Read more...

James Bielo’s Emerging Evangelicals: Book Review

bieloMost accounts of the emerging church have been written by insiders to the movement like Tony Jones or Doug Pagitt; or by critics such as Kevin DeYoung or D. A. Carson. But in Emerging Evangelicals: Faith, Modernity, and the Desire Read more...

Protestant-Catholic Conflict: Debating Siobhan Garrigan & Stranmillis Conference 5-7 September

image1,238802,enLast year, I reviewed Siobhan Garrigan’s book, The Real Peace Process: Worship, Politics and the End of Sectarianism. In a largely enthusiastic review, I concluded:

Garrigan ends on a positive note, urging Christians on this island to begin ‘the

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Is Reconciliation Making a Tentative Return to Public Debate in Northern Ireland?

imageMy last two weeks have been more unsettled than usual, involving presenting my research at two conferences: The Political Studies Association (PSA) conference at the Europa in Belfast (3-5 April) and the British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion Study Group Read more...

Doug Gay – Remixing the Church: Towards an Emerging Ecclesiology, Book Review

imageLast month I posted about Doug Gay’s examination of the relationship between the ecumenical movement and the emerging church, as put forward in his new book, Remixing the Church: Towards an Emerging Ecclesiology (SCM Press, 2011).

Gay’s insightful and … Read more...

Does the Emerging Church Mix with Ecumenism? Doug Gay on Remixing the Church

imageI’ve recently read Doug Gay’s excellent new book, Remixing the Church: Towards an Emerging Ecclesiology (SCM, 2011), which I plan to review in full on this blog, in due course.

(In due course means that we are coming to the … Read more...

Peter Rollins’ Insurrection: Book Review & Talk in Belfast 5 September

image Peter Rollins’ forthcoming book Insurrection is an extended meditation on how our existing churches essentially teach us to deny the Resurrection of Christ.

As such, the book is a plea to reject the religion that Christianity has become. It’s a … Read more...

A Church Boat for the Titanic Quarter: New Post on Slugger O’Toole

image I’ve written a new post, ‘Keeping the Church Afloat?: A Church Boat for the Titanic Quarter,’ on the Slugger O’Toole blog.

I particularly liked the BBC description of the project. Commenting on the enthusiasm of Chris Bennett, the Church of … Read more...

New Monasticism as Fresh Expression of Church? Book Review

image What’s new monasticism got to do with the emerging church? That’s a question that receives a variety of answers in a new book edited by Graham Cray, Ian Mosby and Aaron Kennedy, Ancient Faith, Future Mission: New Monasticism as Fresh Read more...

Is the Emerging Church Liberal? Peter Rollins on Atheism

I cringe when I hear the emerging church described as liberal. I’m an American from a conservative evangelical background, so maybe that’s because I got so used to hearing ‘liberal’ used as a term of derision when I was growing … Read more...

Launch of Building a Church Without Walls

image I started this blog just over a year ago. My first post was called ‘Count me Out? Responding to the Report on Child Abuse in Dublin Diocese.’ I saw this blog as a place where I could share my … Read more...