Category - faith

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'.

Learning the many faces of humanism

Mark Vernon — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:48:58 +0100

Humanism is a philosophy and approach to life that has Christian, atheist, deist and theist roots, says Mark Vernon. So when it is taught in schools, what kind of approach will be adopted?

Re-assessing Turkey's faith and secularism battle

Simon Barrow — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:00:18 +0100

The real struggle in Turkey is not between the religious and the non-religious, but between those who value pluralism and those who want the victory of their ideology.

Ask tough questions about religion, says Vatican cardinal

Ecumenical News International — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 23:32:45 +0100

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, from the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, has said religions should be prepared to ask tough questions. He says it is unrealistic to pretend there is only one global faith.

Welcoming migrants is not optional, says world church body

agency reporter — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:16:47 +0100

Migration is a fact of life, an instinct to survive and an inevitable consequence of globalization - something we can neither turn our backs on it nor control, declared a statement of participants at a faith-led public hearing in Beirut.

Tackling the 'credit crunch' justly

Patrick Hynes — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:28:31 +0000

Everyone is talking about the 'credit crunch'. Patrick Hynes, from Oikocredit, reflects on how access to fair finance continues to be a problem for people who are poor, and proposes a simple solution.

More thought needed on religion and schools

Press Office — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:27:44 +0000

Ekklesia has welcomed debate on how publicly funded schools should be open to pupils of all faiths and none, but has questioned the National Union of Teachers (NUT) annual report's idea of requirin

Canadian church magazine sponsors Darwin exhibit

Ecumenical News International — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:12:56 +0000

A Canadian church magazine has become the first North American sponsor of a travelling exhibit of the life and work of natural scientist Charles Darwin, which opened at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on 8 March and will come to Britain.

Accounting for the hope within

Simon Barrow — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:04:21 +0000

Ekklesia's friends and associates are a varied bunch - Anabaptist, Catholic, Evangelical, liberal, Protestant, radical and more. Here Theo Hobson tells it like it is for him.

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.