Planted by Water

I thought we’d have a slightly political reflection today, for a change!

So the Tories have rejected Ken Clarke. Are they mad? They have booted out the most experienced, able, affable and popular politician they have, and the one that the government front benches would have been most afraid of. I remember thinking when they first rejected Ken in 1997, and even more so in 2001, that they were consigning themselves to the political wilderness in doing so - he was their …

Two weeks ago, before I went on my retreat, I wrote something about the Religious Hatred Bill. It received a fair bit of comment, and a number of people have asked me about it. So I’ve been doing a little more thinking about it.

The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is about adding to the Public Order Act of 1986 to make it a crime to ‘stir up hatred against people on religious grounds.’ The motivation for the new law was especially to protect Muslims from attacks on them, which have apparently …

I’ve been to a meeting today to hear about the proposed new law on Religious Hatred, listening to my local MP, and to a barrister form the Lawyers Christian Fellowship. I am not sure what I think about this bill, but most others there seemed to be ‘Christians’ who were dead set against it because they thought it would be used - or abused - to stop us from preaching the gospel or stating we believe that Jesus is the only way to God, or being critical of other religions.

Now, …

As I am getting used to blogging and the time it can take (!) I haven’t got round to writing my thoughts today, and it’s almost gone. So I’m just posting a review of one of the books that I read over the summer. It was a review that I originally wrote for my own records (with a little bit of polishing up) so it may come across as a little strident at times.

 Whilst Jim Wallis certainly comes from the ‘left’ of the …

I have been staggered as I have watched my TV screen over the last few says to see what is happening in New Orleans and other places in the Gulf Coast states of America. Obviously, it is with great horror and sadness at the suffering of the poor people caught up in the aftermath of possibly America’s worst natural disaster. But it is also with incredulity at the initial lack of response - only now, after five …