Katherine Birbalsingh, has got herself into hot water this week. Bibalsingh is a free school headteacher associated with an education philosophy that focuses on knowledge rich pedagogy and strict behaviour policies. She has also been appointed the chair of a social mobility commission recently. Her comments that have caused an outcry have been about the… Continue reading Is Original Sin a terrible concept?
Category: ethics
Be careful little lips – on the language of political debate
Over the weekend, there was significant discussion about political culture and how politicians talk about each other and how the rest of us talk about politicians. Now, given that it looks likely that the person who attacked and murdered Sir David Amess was motivated by Islamist extremist, there is a reasonable response to this. Namely,… Continue reading Be careful little lips – on the language of political debate
Should there be a “David’s Law” against anonymous online abuse?
Yesterday, MPs gathered in Parliament to pay tributes to Sir David Amess MP. There were a number of moving contributions. I thought that both the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition spoke particularly well. One particularly passionate and powerful speech came from back bencher Mark Francois. In it he called for MPs to… Continue reading Should there be a “David’s Law” against anonymous online abuse?
I’m not convinced we need a public inquiry on COVID
We’re expecting a full public inquiry to follow the COVID-19 pandemic and that is generally seen to be a good thing. Some people want an inquiry because they believe that there are people culpable either through intent or at least wilful neglect and they should be held to account. Others are looking for lessons learnt… Continue reading I’m not convinced we need a public inquiry on COVID
On grief, anger and agendas
It’s funny how things said can suddenly take on a whole new level of poignancy. On Friday morning I was involved in two little twitter threads. The first was started by Daniel Blanche sharing the lines of a beautiful worship song: The second linked to a TV discussion that Graham Nicholls of Affinity was involved… Continue reading On grief, anger and agendas
On authors, Israel and boycotts
Author Sally Rooney has announced that she will not allow her most recent novel to be published in Hebrew through an Israeli publishing house. She claims that this is part of the BDS action to campaign against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. I’ve not read her work but my wife’s immediate response… Continue reading On authors, Israel and boycotts
Is complementarianism harmful and dangerous?
In our #FaithrootsLive sessions we’ve been looking at church leadership and the roles than men and women can/should play in this. I come from what is usually referred to as a “complementarian” position. Now, one of the challenges about this conversation is that it is a difficult, if not impossible conversation to have because as… Continue reading Is complementarianism harmful and dangerous?
Who condemns?
Yesterday in his guest article, Ash Cunningham wrote: This week Karen Ingala Smith published research detailing the ‘Femicide’ statistics in the UK, including the 81 women killed by men since the brutal murder of Sarah Everard. As Ingala Smith herself points out, neither the police nor the government have analysed the data, it has taken,… Continue reading Who condemns?
Vaccine conversations -Am I a truth suppressor?
Yesterday I published this article from Ash Cunningham in response to my article about Vaccine hesitancy and vaccine denial which Ash had prior sight of. I don’t want to prolong a debate but I did think it might be helpful to clarify one thing from the conversation and that might in turn help us to… Continue reading Vaccine conversations -Am I a truth suppressor?
Taking the man out of mandatory vaccines
From time to time I publish guest articles on faithroot.com. This article comes from Ash Cunningham, assistant pastor at Grace Church Cheltenham and is in response to my article yesterday on vaccine hesitancy and vaccine denial which Ash had prior sight of. I’m no Ghetto Barbie I hope that the following article wasn’t entirely prompted… Continue reading Taking the man out of mandatory vaccines