De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

I am deeply embedded in the Triduum at present and I am really loving being wrapped in our Catholic Easter rituals. I found the following reflection from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks really very interesting: When people talk about religion, they tend to speak about beliefs. Which, for Jews, is very odd. Yes, belief is important, but for us, religion is fundamentally about rituals, the things we do together as an expression of collective memory and shared ideals. Ritual is the poetry of deed, the choreography of faith, and nowhere is this clearer than on Pesach. On it, we tell the story of the framing event of Jewish history, the exodus from Egypt and the long walk from slavery to freedom. We tell it around the dinner table, usually in extended families, and we don’t just tell it: we taste it as well, eating matzah, unleavened bread, and maror, bitter herbs, to remind us of what it felt like to be oppressed, and we drink wine and sing songs to celebrate the fact that we’re here to tell the t...

Regular readers of my blog will recognise that former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks is one of my great contemporary heroes. A man of huge integrity, intellectual thought, and an advocate for civilisation and society. I see him as a real leader: someone I can really look up to and admire. He is a man of vision and courage, who takes his responsibilities as a leader seriously and is always prepared to speak out about important issues with great intelligence and in a way which only ever contributes to the debate. In an interview with The Telegraph , Lord Sacks has made an important intervention, high-lighting some vital issues for our society today. Among his insights, he points out that: Societies have taken the trend towards outsourcing to new extremes by delegating responsibility even for moral decisions to companies or governments. The current crisis in the west is caused by falling birth-rates, our addiction to debt, the breakup of the family unit and a growing gap between the super-...

If you've read my blog for some time, you will know I am a bit of a fan of Jonathan Sacks who used to be our Chief Rabbi. He is a bit of a genius really, and is not at all afraid to stand up for faith, for God, or for society. On Monday 17th October 2014, Rabbi Sacks attended an International Colloquium on “The Complementarity of Man and Woman” convened by The Vatican under the auspices of Pope Francis (more details at http://humanum.it/en/ ). His input was widely reported as it was (as one might expect) very, very powerful and very good. The Complementarity of Man and Woman: An International Colloquium is a gathering of leaders and scholars from many religions across the globe, to examine and propose anew the beauty of the relationship between the man and the woman, in order to support and reinvigorate marriage and family life for the flourishing of human society. Witnesses draw from
 the wisdom of their religious tradition and cultural experience as they attest to t...

Dawkins: God love him! Ever since I first read The God Delusion, I have held a kind of exasperated respect for Richard Dawkins. It has always seemed to me that he was so incredibly ignorant about religion, yet asked all the right questions, questions that religious people should be answering, issues that religious people should be addressing. In this respect he has done religion a great service, I have no doubt, in that he has kept the important issues alive and being discussed. I have been consistantly frustrated by the lack of good answers coming forth from the religious community, although some have risen wonderfully to the challenge, notably the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Johnathan Sacks, in his wonderful book The Great Partnership. But also Professor John Lennox: I do think that Dawkins has become more and more a character of ridicule over the last few years however, to the point now where many atheists are exasperated with him and his bizarre opinions, as I have blogged about b...