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Culture and Society Spirituality Spirituality in the Ordinary

Quick Update

So I’ve been even busier than I thought – I always bite off more than I can chew – but the dynamic site for Spiritus et Locus is up. Missing a few features? Clunky? Far from perfect? Perhaps all these things. But, nonetheless, it’s up, and you can now register, and start adding images. Let […]

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Cafechurch Christianity Culture and Society Spirituality Spirituality in the Ordinary

Spiritus et Locus

It’s been quite a while since I blogged last. The reason? I’ve been very, very, very busy putting an exciting project together for Cafechurch and Carlton Church of All Nations, called Spiritus et Locus. It’s an interesting challenge – how do you reimagine the ancient practice of the examen for today’s distracted, wired, socially-connected generation? […]

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Christianity Culture and Society Faith Spirituality Suffering

The Ironic Gift of Doubt

A nun of my acquaintance (actually, I think she might be a sister) told I class I was taking that “your restlessness is what is right with you.” That really struck me because it is so counter-intuitive. The idea that this uncomfortable feeling of restlessness, of always wanting more was in any sense a good […]

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Christianity Culture and Society Faith Spirituality Spirituality in the Ordinary Suffering

Existential Doubt and Suffering

This post is about the experience of doubt – what it can be like to question deeply held beliefs about what the world is really like, what makes life living, what the universe is ultimately about. What we might call existential doubt, when you find your whole faith-commitment challenged. A lot of different things can […]

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Culture and Society Faith Philosophy

On Doubt

What is doubt? What are its good and bad points? Why is it such a big issue in faith circles anyway? There is so much to say that it is really hard to know where to start. However, I was a philosophy student first, so it is most natural for me to start there, with […]

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Spirituality Spirituality in the Ordinary

Fasting and Feasting

As Lent draws to an end, I have been thinking about fasting and feasting. Our culture finds fasting profoundly odd. It runs counter to the utilitarian way modern, liberal societies organise themselves. That is, we are encouraged to enjoy ourselves as much as is compatible with doing sensible, thrifty things like saving for the future, […]

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Cafechurch Culture and Society So You Want To Run A Cafechurch Spirituality in the Ordinary

The Ambivalence of Bivocationalism

I’ve come across a couple of articles on Bivocationalism recently and, as someone who has been a bivocationalist for a number of years now, pretty well acquainted with the good and bad of it, I though I might get my 5c worth in. First things first: What does this ugly word refer to? In my […]

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Suffering

Blog 1 Alister 0

Hi Everyone It has been a while since I last wrote here. I’m afraid I just haven’t had anything to say these last few weeks. I have gone to the river, cast my line, but no fishies. Perhaps they are all out at sea, spawning. I don’t know whether it’s the weather, or my problematic […]

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Cafechurch Christianity Faith Philosophy Religion Spirituality Spirituality in the Ordinary Suffering

Caféchurch, the Camino de Santiago, and Martin Buber

I’ve been struggling with finding some sort of way to write interestingly about my experience of being involved in Caféchurch. The problem it is unlike \anything else I have ever done. It is entirely all consuming, and has been amazingly rewarding and deeply costly – the most fun, and the most pain, I have ever […]

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Christianity Culture and Society Faith Philosophy Religion Uncategorized

Geoff Thompson on Progressive Christianity

I seem to be having a real problem writing my blog this week. Blame the heat, blame the lassitude which falls over the semi-employed, or blame the fact that I’m busy this week. Anyway, I came across an article by Geoff Thompson that might interest you. Geoff  teaches Systematic Theology at the Centre for Theology […]