The concept of ‘the West’ seems to mean anything you like
First formulated by Auguste Comte in the 19th century, its later proponents would even embrace Japan while questioning the inclusion of belligerent Germany
The story of Noah’s flood will never go out of fashion
Most cultures have a universal flood myth, and the idea of a cataclysmic climate event brought on by human wickedness is always bound to resonate
The report of Christianity’s death has been an exaggeration
Immigration is revivifying congregations, with many people showing signs of spiritual openness, in contrast to the bare-knuckle rationalism that characterised New Atheism, says Rupert Shortt
Dinosaurs, dogma and the Victorian mind
The ‘monsters’ dug from the cliffs of Lyme Regis did not sit well with the literal reading of Genesis – but many other issues contributed to the famed Victorian crisis of faith
Jesus the radical
David Lloyd Dusenbury finds Jesus a ‘philosophically intriguing’ figure – and much bigger than a ‘mere’ revolutionary
A washing of hands
In 1866, the Russian historian Alexander Popov made an astonishing discovery. Leafing through a Renaissance Slavonic translation of the first-century…
Who pays tribute to whom?
At a well-reported political meeting at London’s Queen’s Hall during the first world war the preacher and suffragette Maude Royden…
When atheists stole the moral high ground
In 1585, Jacques du Perron presented to the court of the French king Henry III, as a kind of after-dinner…
The brutish origins of British liberalism
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the one to heaven may be surfaced with bad ones.…
