P.S.

PS is an email and web-based blog format issued regularly by Contemporary Christianity. The format provides an online space for writers toexplore issues relating to church, culture and life in Northern Ireland, seeking to understand the times through insights from Scripture, theology, reason and the observations that flow from lived experience.

 PS will never claim to have all the answers, but we hope to prompt questions that leave our readers a little closer to the answer at the end of the piece than they were at the beginning.

 Our writers range from well-known names in academia and full-time ministry, to professionals with particular subject matter expertise, to lay people with passion for a subject and a gift for writing.

 You can get involved in conversations by posting comments in the threads below the blogs, and if you’re interested in writing for us, you can get in touch by emailing info@contemporarychristianity.net.

Who am I?

Who am I?

Recently I delivered dialogue and mediation training to a group of 24 young women from Belgrade and Pristina who had never met before.

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Why should we care for creation?

Why should we care for creation?

We often address God as Creator in our prayers, and He is often described as Creator in our worship songs, but do we take Him seriously as Creator? Alongside this, do we take seriously the mandate He gave to humankind to rule creation when He created us?

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Shiny and German

Shiny and German

A handful of years ago, I attended a Saturday morning event run by none other than Contemporary Christianity.

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Not in a Hurry

Not in a Hurry

Last year on a short visit to Barcelona we as a family had opportunity to visit the iconic Sagreda Família, the largest unfinished church building in the world.

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Not Just Being a Bystander

Not Just Being a Bystander

Last week I had the most surreal experience of my life. A musical, based on the memoir of my student days in the 1980s, has been playing at the Lyric Theatre.

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Finding Elpis

Finding Elpis

As I mentioned in my last blog, in retirement I have been writing the history of my previous congregation, First Presbyterian Church, Armagh.

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It is time to say HELLO!

It is time to say HELLO!

It is interesting how unusual or exceptional circumstances can make one acutely aware of things previously taken for granted. The Covid pandemic made us all much more aware of the importance of relationships, or, as we now refer to them, social connections.

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Remembering Aleksei Navalny

Remembering Aleksei Navalny

I spent some time looking at the BBC coverage of events surrounding the service in the Church of the Icon of Our Lady Quench My Sorrow, and then his burial in Borisovskoye Cemetery.

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Cultural Violence: A tribute to Johan Galtung

Cultural Violence: A tribute to Johan Galtung

The recent passing of Johan Galtung* leaves the field of Peace Studies without one of its founding giants. His work was about understanding violence and building positive peace; a society in which all people can flourish. This is in contrast to negative peace, which is simply the absence of direct violence.

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I felt privileged to have been a witness

I felt privileged to have been a witness

For those seeking to find a path of understanding through the burgeoning body of literature exploring our troubled past Mallie offers both a reliable and trustworthy guide. He writes as one who was there. “I felt privileged” he writes, “to have been a witness.”

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