Ekklesia | Columns | The Giles Fraser Column

The struggle between good and bad religion

Giles Fraser — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:24:41 +0100

The struggle between good religion and bad religion is at a crucial juncture on te domestic and global stage, says Giles Fraser. He believes the Quilliam Foundation, a new Muslim think tank, can make a positive contribution.

True faith is always asking questions

Giles Fraser — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:34:36 +0100

Fundamentalism is a 20th-century invention, in many ways a response to the rapid social change brought about by modernity and global capitalism, says Giles Fraser. It is a perversion of religion, and in no way the real thing, let alone its 'heartbeat'.

Putting an end to scapegoating

Giles Fraser — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 13:15:05 +0000

Easter is not about some nasty death cult where a blood sacrifice must be paid to appease an angry God, says Giles Fraser. The crucifixion reveals human death-dealing at its worst and the resurrection offers a new start, refusing the logic of scapegoating.

Staring death in the face

Giles Fraser — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:09:31 +0000

"Know that you are dust and to dust you shall return", the church says in its liturgy. Where else do we speak of such things in public? asks Giles Fraser, reflecting on our cultural habit of shrinking from the reality of death.

Worrying about 'moral' foreign policy

Giles Fraser — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 21:55:33 +0000

Talk of 'moral' foreign policy has led to 'liberal interventionism', notes Giles Fraser. And along that path of good intention has lain disaster, as with some 'just war' thinking.

God is beyond metaphysics

Giles Fraser — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 03:03:57 +0000

Christianity has suffered as a result of trying to subject an ineffable and transcendent God to the inevitable limitations of speculative philosophy, says Giles Fraser. But divine reality impinges upon us much more immediately in the Gospel.

Christianity - is it all Greek to us?

Giles Fraser — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:47:01 +0000

From its earliest times, Christianity has been associated with Greek thought, says Giles Fraser. But the legacy of Plato is one that needs a good deal of questioning.

A very political festival indeed

Giles Fraser — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 10:45:15 +0000

Traditional categories of right and left don't always work when applied to faith, says Giles Fraser. Yet there is no comfort for the 'religious right' in the Christmas Gospel, which is about giving not consuming and love not power-mongering.

Humans are not just cogs in a vast machine

Giles Fraser — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 05:12:46 +0000

In the world of efficiency savings, productivity and league tables, humans are often treated as tools in a vast machine-like system, says Giles Fraser. We all too easily cede our humanity to the impersonal workings of the day-to-day routine.

A church house divided against itself

Giles Fraser — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 04:18:45 +0000

Parallels between civil wars and the escalating crisis within American Anglicanism are now being made, says Giles Fraser. Issues of truth and justice cannot be suppressed by a false and forced kind of unity.

Being agents of transformation

Giles Fraser — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 23:00:23 +0100

What we need in the Church is not less ambition, but more, argues Giles Fraser. We are charged with the most ambitious calling of them all: to be agents of God’s all-transforming love to the world.

How religions can be a force for democracy

Giles Fraser — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 10:52:15 +0100

These days, it can so easily feel as if religion is an anti-democratic force in our polity, writes Giles Fraser. No one votes for Bishops in the House of Lords, for example. So it's worth remembering that in this country, as indeed in many others too, religion was the nursemaid of democracy.

Terror and transitoriness in the city

Giles Fraser — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 21:37:26 +0100

It was six years ago this month, but some scars do not heal quickly. The two planes came out of a perfect September morning sky, and nothing at all could have prepared the world for what followed - writes Giles Fraser of the anniverary of 9/11.

A threat to the US religious right's hegemony

Giles Fraser — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 10:54:54 +0100

If the Roman Catholic Rudy Giuliani is the next Republican candidate for US president, as seems likely, says Giles Fraser, it could well mark the beginnings of a historic GOP divorce from the religious right.

How Gibson feeds religious blood lust

Giles Fraser — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 04:13:04 +0100

Apocalypto is a sequel to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, reckons Giles Fraser. And he is less than impressed with its message about religion and violence.