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Simon Barrow is involved in the new Accord coalition, aiming at Reform of Faith Schools in the UK. Here he explains why, and what changes he would like to see made.

At the end of an interview about the work of Ekklesia last year, I was asked a pertinent personal question. “Is your own major professional concern in all this journalistic, campaigning or academic?” It wasn’t something that came out in the final product, because I think I just said “a bit of each”. But it made me reflect more on how those three approaches may complement or contradict one another.

Put positively, it seems to me that good journalism is about condensing fact and opinion for rapid consumption without confusing the two; that good campaigning is about effective advocacy which builds bridges for change; and that good academic work is about deepening human enquiry so that the difference between a matter of thought and an arcane point of scholarship becomes clearer.

The problem with campaigning is that there are enormous temptations to simplify, exaggerate and polarise in order to get a point across or build a support base sufficiently indignant to apply political pressure. This is not helped by the media naturally preferring ‘either-or’ narratives to ones marked by the kind of complexity, plurality and ambiguity which are the features of actual life… but which require a bit more unravelling than 2 minutes, a sound bite or 500 words will allow. Yet these are the currency of modern communication, along with a blogsophere that can dish out enlightenment and bile, discussion and demonisation in equal measures (with a far greater preponderance of the latter, the observant cynic might suggest).

Simon Barrow’s “Thinking Aloud” yesterday was late out since he was lost in the wilds of Birmingham (I didn’t ask for further details, but a canal was not involved).

The piece is about the limitations of the formal political process. Simon says:

“I am a ‘political animal’. Always have been. But political processes can easily become overbearing, distorting, disconnected and over-determining of the many features of life that they touch upon. I explore how and why the church might play some role in generating alternatives in this area. There’s also an anecdote about Nelson Mandela at the 9th WCC Assembly in Harare ten years ago, illustrating my point that “grace as well as power is needed to triumph over injustice, and to hold on to the vulnerable dream that a different world is possible.”

I see an echo of this in the demand that knife attacks be solved by policing and policy; like many things, I think that the long term solutions lie in the area of recovering a human scale and trust in local life. That cannot be mandated, since it has to be voluntary.

Visit Simon Barrow’s article The Limits of Politics.

For all too many people in Britain, politics appears to be a form of organised bickering and special pleading that intrudes in unwelcome or un-engaging ways on everyday life, but just has to be accepted – like road humps and rain clouds. For another, much smaller class of persons, it is a fascinating and all-absorbing occupation, seeping into every corner of human activity, demanding careful attention and observation.

The former demographic is, one can be sure, far closer to the heart of the Ministry of Justice, currently charged with finding ways of encouraging participation among the large number of people registered to vote who rarely participate in general elections and almost never in local ones – roughly 40 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively.

On the other hand, the professional political class, policy researchers, the commentariat and readers of worthy websites such as this one (who together probably make up less than 5 per cent of the population) are bound to be the ones salivating at the launch of Iain Dale’s new, all-encompassing print publication and online resource, Total Politics, which comes yelping at us like an excitable, over-informed puppy.

Just how influential is fundamentalist Christianity in mainstream public life in Britain today?

Simon Barrow looks back at recent history.