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Welcome to p.s. discussion board
Welcome to p.s. the new fortnightly e-mail from the Centre for Contemporary Christianity in Ireland.
In line with the Centre's aims, it seeks to "provide informed, credible and practical comment and analysis, rooted in biblical reflection and theological thought" on contemporary matters of broad public concern in Ireland.
We're aiming to engage Christian minds with issues in the public square, to inject new perspectives and provoke discussion. We hope you find p.s. stimulating and useful and look forward to hearing your responses as we seek together to live out biblical faith for a changing world.
Please feel free to post your comments by clicking on the link at the bottom of the post. The purpose of this discussion board is to extend the conversation, deepen understanding and share insights. Please be respectful towards others and their opinions and generous where you encounter perspectives which are different from your own.
One of Dougal’s most famous lines from Father Ted comes as he returns disappointed from opening the Advent Calendar and says to Ted: “Three guys pointing up at a star? Sure, what’s Christmassy about that?”
And yet, like Shakespeare’s fool, maybe Dougal was the one with the greater insight. What is Christmassy about the original Christmas story?
It’s that time of year again, when the media fills with up reviews and best-of lists reminding us of the political and cultural highlights of the past twelve months. Thinking with our souls, let’s take a look back at the best bits of 2007 on the big screen. If we managed to withstand the deluge of Pirates, Transformers, Simpsons, a Shrek, a Spiderman, and a Potter, we may well have enjoyed some of that elusive delicacy - cinematic spiritual sustenance.
Furious rows continue in the Republic about the manifest failures of the Irish Health Service. Mary Harney, Minister for Health, has just survived a vote of ‘no confidence’ in the Dáil. Misdiagnoses of women presenting for breast cancer screening, needless deaths due to long waiting lists, governmental mismanagement, a rich / poor divide over those who can afford to pay for access to healthcare, inflexible working practices by unions, resistance to restructuring by well-paid Consultants, poor hygiene standards, and a financial ‘black hole’ sucking up vast resources with little appreciable improvement in services are responsible for an apparent collapse of public confidence in the system. It is, we are told, a scandal to have such ‘third world’ services in one of the richest countries in Europe.
‘As a climate scientist who has worked on this issue for several decades the impacts of global warming are such that I have no hesitation in describing it as a weapon of mass destruction.’
Strong words from leading Christian scientist Sir John Houghton former co chair of the International Panel on climate change and a former Chief Executive of the Met office. But is climate change really happening? If so, is it a consequence of our sin? And what does it mean for us who live in the energy hungry west?
As people in Northern Ireland continue to experience a new political stability, the effects of nearly four decades of civil conflict and division remain as a potent legacy for all communities. The dreadful events with their pain and terror, destroying life and inflicting trauma on individuals, families and society are, hopefully, a thing of the past. However, the hurt and the memory remain.
Some wounds and hurts may heal, while many will carry the burden of their injury and loss to the grave. Nothing, however, can take away the memories. Indeed, the capacity to remember, however different our various recollections may be, is one thing we have in common as an integral part of our shared humanity.
When all else fails, we can always resort to, “I’m only human!” Typically delivered with a shrug of the shoulders, the defence of being only human reminds us of two fundamental things: human imperfection and the contingency of human life.
While it is easy to dismiss concern about innovations in biotechnology as overlooking the possible benefits and focusing on exaggerated fears of a Brave New World dystopia, developments in the sphere of biotechnology do raise some serious questions about the future of the human being. It’s not the existence of such questions that troubles me; at the moment, I’m more concerned with the apparent silence of the church.
The first day of January may mark the official beginning of the yearly cycle but for many of us the real start of the calendar year is in September, as the summer evenings darken, the temperature drops and the leaves on the trees start to turn from green to brown. It all goes back to our schooldays, when each autumn marked the move to new classrooms, new subjects, new teachers and a fresh academic start. For those of us who are parents, that September watershed is once again relived, as we watch our children don school uniforms after the long and lazy summer break.
I had a conversation recently with a local, “good living” politician, living on Northern Ireland’s “Gold Coast”, which can be summarised as follows: Where I live, “we” have no problem. We live together; we play golf together. Sure, we are educated apart in primary school, but when we get all to grammar school, we forget our differences and learn to get on with it. If only “we” can deal with “them” and “their sectarianism”, think where Northern Ireland could go?
‘God … richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment’ 1 Timothy 6:17
Raspberries and rhubarb grow side by side in my garden. Rhubarb has to be cooked but raspberries fresh – WOW! Splintering shards of flavour exploded through my mouth when I ate them in July – they were SO GOOD after the sunny April.
It was the American sociologist, George Ritzer, who invented the term ‘McDonaldisation’ to describe the pervasive effect of the McDonalds business strategy on western society. He identified four key characteristics of this model. Firstly there is a swift and efficient style of doing business with the customer. Secondly, there is an emphasis on rapid economic growth of the business. Thirdly, there is a dependence on generating a universal and predictable customer experience. Finally, every aspect of that experience must be carefully controlled at all times. The Scottish writer John Drane went on to argue that the church is one of the organisations in our society that is most prone to being ‘McDonald-ised’. There is much validity in this claim.