Yesterday’s piece on the new Faith in the Community report by Christians in Parliament and the Evangelical Alliance took the number of posts on this blog to 300.  I’m giving myself a moment to pause and celebrate having got this far.  It’s been a hard old slog working at producing about 200 posts per year, […]

After all the build up to today’s vote in the House of Lords, the result was more one-sided than many were expecting.  The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill passed easily by 390 votes to 148.  And so same-sex marriage draws another step closer and ‘traditional’ marriage is consigned to history in this country. It’s a sad […]

This is the second part of the interview I conducted with Justin Lee, the founder and chief executive of the Gay Christian Network in the United States, which has thousands of members and hosts an annual conference.  Following on from the huge amount of interest generated by last month’s review of his book, Unconditional: Rescuing the Gospel from […]

It was hard going following the debate and developments on Twitter and in Parliament yesterday.  It was like the final push before election day as everyone gives it their final shot to make their point and influence those who somehow have yet to make their minds up on the issue.  Then following the result we had […]

The Government’s Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill has now been published with the second Reading on Tuesday 5 February, which will be the first opportunity MPs have to debate and vote on the Bill.  It’s a hefty piece of reading at 56 pages and even the explanatory notes are 49 pages long.  If you want to read a […]

We’re now fully into the second half of this coalition’ government’s term in office and they’ve been very keen to tell us how they’ve been getting on through their ‘warts and all’ mid-term self-assessment.  It’s impossible to assume that such a review is spin free, but overall it has been welcome to see even if […]

Before I return to the weekly routine of chewing over news stories, it feels appropriate to do the usual thing that happens as December passes into January by casting a reflective eye on the previous year and provide some philosophical ruminations to take forward into the next. It’s hard to identify trends accurately having only really got […]

Today is the big day that the Government reveals its plans for the introduction same-sex marriage.  There’s been plenty of talk about this over the last few days since the news that religious institutions will be allowed to conduct same-sex ceremonies, but I predict that will be nothing compared to what we’ll read and see once the […]

I can barely believe that it’s already three weeks since we found out that Barack Obama had won the US presidential election.  Following the race from a distance I frequently struggled to get my head round the way that some Christians were endorsing one candidate over the other and also making sense of what many Christians […]

One thing I’ve learnt about Brighton and Hove Council is that it’s not exactly the same as other councils around the country.  It’s the only one to be run by the Green party and it’s the only one I know of where a councillor has been kicked out of their party because they disagree with […]

In case anyone is concerned after yesterday’s post that I’ve gone all political with my knives out for Labour, I haven’t but sometimes you just can’t ignore party politics.  It’s the same with these links today which mainly relate to this week’s Conservative Party conference.  It’s not that I’ve chosen to forget the other conferences, […]

Last night I read this Telegraph article written by Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.  He has talked before about the value he places on Christianity being a moral bedrock of our society, but in this article he goes even further.  Here are a few extracts: “Christianity in all its forms […]

On Saturday I made a bit of a hash of things when posting a tweet saying that it would be beneficial if more gay atheists were like David Starkey, the high-profile and outspoken historian.  If you’ve seen Starkey in action then you might be inclined to describe his demeanour along the lines of arrogant, pompous, stubborn, […]

I generally enjoy reading articles by secularists and atheists in the media.  That might sound like a strange thing for a Christian to say, but if you only ever read things that you agree with, you’re never really going to get challenged and have your thinking stretched.  When you read something by a writer who […]

Apologies for saying that I would be having a break and then posting the very next day, but I felt that this was definitely in need for sharing. David Cameron hosted a reception for Christian leaders at Downing Street this week to celebrate Easter.  In the speech he gave there is much for Christians to […]

Well the announcement of Archbishop Rowan Williams’ resignation on Friday caught most of us by surprise, but it hasn’t taken long for the evaluations of his ten-year tenure in the job to begin.  The two I’ve enjoyed reading the most so far are The Church Mouse’s and Archbishop Cranmer’s.  Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, summed things […]

Unsurprisingly, yesterday’s launch of the Government’s ‘consultation’ on gay marriage didn’t do down well in most Christian quarters. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Government is making it clear that it has already decided that same-sex marriage will become legal.  This makes it hard to understand why they are even bothering to have a […]

The Government’s consultation on gay marriage has finally arrived today.  Entitled ‘Equal civil marriage: a consultation’, it lays out the Government’s plans for how equal marriage will happen.  The consultation document clearly states that the Government has already decided that  these changes to marriage will go ahead.  The foreword signed by the Home Secretary,Theresa May and […]

The whole argument over gay (same-sex) marriage has intensified over the last few days and looks like it’s only going to increase further.  It has got to the point where it has become more of a battle than an argument.  The Government’s NHS bill has produced plenty of controversy, but this issue is threatening to […]