Category Archives: Ethics

Are interest rates immoral?

Interest rates are such a central part of our economic life that it seems difficult to imagine what life would be like without them. Yet for most of its history, Christianity was fiercely opposed to them. Why? How was its … Continue reading

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Planet versus agenda

Heatwaves. Wildfires. Massive destruction in one country after another, caused, as even the fossil fuel companies now have to admit, by human industrial actions warming the planet up. So what are the most powerful people in the world doing about … Continue reading

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Early Christian marriage

This is another post on marriage. A recent post used the story of Isaac and Rebecca to illustrate how marriage in biblical times was very different from today. This one describes marriage in the early Roman empire. One thing that … Continue reading

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The Parable of the Sower

This post is a reading of Jesus’ Parable of the Sower ( Gospels of Mark 4:1-9; Matthew 13:1-9; Luke 8:4-8; Thomas 9), mainly drawing on Bernard Brandon Scott’s Hear Then the Parable and John Dominic Crossan’s In Parables. It is … Continue reading

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What the Bible doesn’t say about marriage

Culture wars. Wokeness. One way of claiming to be ‘conservative’ or ‘traditional’ is to say that whatever you approve of is in the Bible. In fact marriage in the Bible takes a wide variety of forms, all the way from … Continue reading

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Fancy identifying as a cat?

Not that anybody did, but the idea has done the rounds of the mass media. I am following Nesrine Malik. At a Year 8 class in a school in Rye, it seems, a heated debate took place between some schoolgirls … Continue reading

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What should governments value?

This is a British question. For the best part of another two years, Britain is stuck with a government that seems not to know what it is supposed to be doing. Lots of people are on strike, mainly people providing … Continue reading

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Why does it take an archbishop to crown a king?

There is a reason. It’s rooted in religious sensibilities since prehistoric times. But it’s a reason that only works with some religious traditions, not others. This post describes why: why we can’t escape the religious significance of coronations, but also … Continue reading

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20 years on, have we learned anything?

It wasn’t just Tony Blair. He certainly got it wrong about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and that was his main argument in favour of attacking. But what if Iraq had had them? How would that have added up to … Continue reading

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Britain’s spiritual leader: a football commentator

The British Government’s ‘Small Boats Bill’ – technically the Illegal Migration Bill – has been condemned for breaking eight fundamental rights – including the home secretary’s duty to protect people from being killed and to prevent inhumane and degrading treatment. … Continue reading

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