UNDERSTANDING AND CRITIQUE AN INTRODUCTION TO STUDYING RELIGION   This course is designed as an introduction to the academic study of religion. It is open to people who are religious believers and equally to people who have no faith commitment. It is taught in a spirit of open enquiry and offered in order to share … Continue reading New course online starting Wednesday 13th May 5pm

Last week The Church of England brought out a report about the history of Jewish-Christian relations entitled God’s Unfailing Word Theological and Practical Perspectives on Christian–Jewish Relations. The report contains an account of the history of Christian anti-Semitism. It also offers what it believes to be an appropriate response that the churches should take toward … Continue reading The history of Anti-Semitism and its misrepresentation today A comment on a recent Church of England report and the BBC’s Sunday Programme

While attending a conference about multiculturalism a week ago, I got talking to an Islamic scholar, a woman finishing her PhD about Muslim marriage in the UK. I was keen to understand more about why Muslim women, in particular, agree to marriages that are not marriages according to British law but counted as marriages by … Continue reading A Conversation about Islamic Marriage

Today of course is Armistice Day. For the last twenty years I will admit to feeling some apprehension about the reassertion of Remembrance Day within our national life. I have wondered why this is taking place. Yesterday I saw football teams standing in remembrance before a match. Remembrance has come to take greater prominence within … Continue reading Remembrance

    The disturbing rise in Islamophobia over the last twenty years is now well documented, and has not come from nowhere. Several factors have played their part in its rise, but in this blog I am going to simply focus on one such issue, because I believe this factor is insufficiently understood and very … Continue reading BLOG #4 SOMETHING DOES NOT COME FROM NOTHING – OUR MEDIA DIET AND THE RISE OF ISLAMOPHOBIA IN THE UK

Protests outside Parkview School in Birmingham have been an issue now for many months. The protests have been against the ‘No Outsiders Programme’ designed by assistant Headteacher, Andrew Mofatt. An injunction against the protests resulted in a ban on protests at the school. We wait to see whether a High Court ruling will make this … Continue reading Protesting Against the Curriculum

  The Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended for almost three years following disagreements between nationalists and unionists in January 2017. In May 2017 the Belfast High Court made a ruling in the case of Sarah Ewart. She had travelled to England for an abortion due to a fatal foetal diagnosis. The High Court ruled, … Continue reading Tonight is a landmark for human rights in the UK. Until now abortion rights for women in Northern Ireland have lagged behind Tunisia, Turkey and even Iran[1]

There are things of value in Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. For example, I believe that Dawkins has helped to give rise to a climate of opinion in which deference to religion or unquestioning respect no longer holds sway. This has to be a good thing, if critical thinking is to be a key guide, … Continue reading Outgrowing Misconceptions

The purpose of my blog is to share views about a range of issues of interest to me and of general public interest. My forthcoming book Judging Religion A Dialogue for Our Time indicates that much of my thinking is about appraisals of faiths in a fast changing world. I am passionate about the importance … Continue reading Welcome to my blog