We can't keep pretending that acts of terror are nothing to do with Islam

“Nothing to do with Islam.” These are words you can reliably expect to hear time and time again after every terrorist atrocity, be it in Paris, Brussels or Westminster. When the flurry of social media outrage dies down, we will look to understand and rationalise the situation, trying to work out what drove somebody like 52-year-old Khalid Masood to drive a car over a bridge, killing and wounding innocent people and causing devastation in a mere 82 seconds.

Reflection for New Year

So, once again, it’s New Year. This year, like many others, I found myself engaged in conversation with several people who shared equal bewilderment at what all the fuss was about. 2017, after all, won’t be a significant new year: no new decade, century or millennium is beginning.

I'm a thoroughly modern brand of old-fashioned

Originally written for, and published on Dear Cupid – the free advice site.

I was particularly amused by a recent comment about my views. I was described as living in “the 1950s,” which I found highly amusing. But when I’d had my chuckle, I got to thinking: what would it be like to be stuck in the 50s? How does the experience of my generation compare to that of my grandparents’? Have things got better or worse, easier or harder?

May's first appointments show she's a PM that means business

What a momentous day it must have been for Theresa May. Cool, calm and collected, she is said to have spent this very morning working on urgent papers at her Home Office desk, before the most significant event of her life – her appointment with the Queen, at which she replaced David Cameron as Prime Minister.
A somewhat mysterious figure, May’s comparatively low profile and close guarding of her privacy means that we don’t know much about this woman. What we do know, though, is that as Home Secretary, she has proved time and time again that she’s not to be messed with.

Labour must do better and Tories must think different

Local elections are a funny old business. The results, however the chips have fallen, tend to be viewed by almost everyone as proof that things aren’t that bad. Indeed, it always makes a nonsense of the journalistic proclivity to translate local results to general elections, even if said elections are 4 years away.

Letter on Good Friday: the limitless love of God

“After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A Jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
(John 19:28-30).

Dear Reader,
Good Friday is, undoubtedly, a difficult day. I have been moved to tears before on this day. It is difficult because we are forced to confront the hardest truth of our Christian faith.

It's about time politically-correct students just shut up

“Have you heard about this campaign for disabled students?” My friend’s question seemed fairly straightforward. Was it about financial support? Was it something national? Was it about highlighting the support needs of disabled students? “Which one would that be?”
It turned out to be none of these things.

Letter on Sunday: learning from an adulterous woman

This Sunday’s readings are:
Isaiah 43:16-21, Philippians 3:8-14, and the Gospel of John 8:1-11.

Dear Reader,
We all know the story in today's reading from John's gospel, of the woman caught committing adultery, in which Jesus invites whoever is without the first sin to cast the first stone, thereby setting the condemned woman free.