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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.

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

Simon Barrow looks back at recent history.

Simon Barrow reflects on conflict and confusion, and suggests that the place to focus is on the human beings in the middle - and work outwards from there.