Silence – the good and the bad

Silence – the good and the bad

I recently attended a moving service at St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, that included times of silence as part of the liturgy.  It was arranged by Corrymeela and was entitled “Courage of Lament”.  After set prayers we were offered silence, to apply these prayers and let...

Justice for just us?

There was a hint of specks and planks (Matthew 7: 2-5) in recent statements in the Northern Ireland Assembly by unionist political representatives. Demanding apologies from the Irish government about their predecessors’ undoubted ambivalence towards IRA activity...

The ‘Twelfth’ 2012

In the days after the Twelfth this year a perusal of the different media gave a variety of different perspectives on how it had been. Unionist-leaning websites gave evidence of a happy family day out, in the sun, at Keady, Ballymena and elsewhere. More...

Scapegoats

Old ideas are endlessly recycled, as the author of Ecclesiastes observes: ‘Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time’. In our ceaseless search for the novel we may merely invent...

Shame on the Supermarkets?

Just before Christmas, a leading evangelical minister wrote on his blog about a Tesco executive who had reportedly backed gay marriage, also commenting on the supermarket chain’s sponsorship of the London gay pride festival. The article prompted some fine, heartfelt,...