Virtual Methodist

Yesterday my friend Lesley Carroll put out a blog post that went viral, deriding the church for not speaking out in the wake of the Haass debacle, and in other important public policy issues... It is a piece that I could see myself writing, although less coherently... However, I found myself in the unusual position of being unwilling to promote her post too widely as I had been part of a group who met to discuss a joint-churches response and had appointed a team to draft a response... They got the guts of it done relatively quickly, but for various reasons it didn't get finalised, signed off or distributed as quickly as many would have liked... But it was released today , and here is the text: As Church leaders we encourage politicians to sustain the momentum and energy generated by the talks of the Panel of Parties in the Northern Ireland Executive, chaired and facilitated by Dr Richard Haass and his team. Significant work has been completed in recent months and we acknowled...

Just incase I didn't give you enough to read yesterday, here's a round-up of some of the interesting links I came across during the week that were too substantial to simply pass on via facebook... Carrying on a them from last week, there have been a number of lent-related posts, and many turning their backs on the "self-denial" discipline for various reasons. One of the more interesting reflections, was this piece by Mark Galli on "Giving up self-discipline for Lent."  But if you are still looking for resources to help you through this season you could do worse than check out Rachel Held Evans' "40 Ideas for Lent" . Meanwhile, a lot has been made recently of another attempt by Richard Dawkins and his atheist acolytes to demonstrate that the UK is not a Christian country, on the basis of a half-baked survey asking people basic Christian facts like "What is the first book of the New Testament?" Giles Fraser memorably derailed that...