Stephen Hawking, who is to be buried in Westminster Abbey, was famously an atheist who argued that God is not necessary to our understanding of the universe. ‘Because there is a law such as gravity,’ he reasoned, ‘the universe can and will create itself from nothing’. But this kind of statement begs the question: if... Continue Reading →

I finally got round recently to reading Nick Spencer’s The Evolution of the West: How Christianity Has Shaped Our Values, which has just been released in a new expanded American version. I was very glad I did, and would warmly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more (and certainly more than you will typically... Continue Reading →

This is a response to Pete Mulherin and Simon Kennedy’s article in POLICY magazine about the importance of voluntary associations for a healthy liberal democracy. It was first published here by the Australian-based Institute for Civil Society. Peter Mulherin and Simon Kennedy raise a number of critical issues in their timely piece 'Archipelago or Landmass?: Voluntary Associations, Civil... Continue Reading →