Category: Social Media
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The Pain of Pretended Omniscience
There can be little doubt that in the present day most of us are awash with knowledge and parched for wisdom. We have rationalised the processes for understanding until we assume answers, are impatient with the process of learning, and struggle to confess genuine ignorance. We are constantly consuming unfiltered and mostly insignificant information, and…
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The loneliness of the long distance Pastor
At the moment it seems like everything is interim. The decisions that we were agonising over a fortnight ago about public events and human contact seem like the naive deliberations of an earlier age, such has been the spread of coronavirus and the protective measures seeking to shore up our defences. The United Kingdom and…
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Ministry and Meltdown
One of the mirages of our modern lives is that we are stable and secure in terms of our most basic needs. Far from famine ravaged territories, where one’s chief drama is to watch for rainfall for next season’s crops, away from war torn regions where one’s home and livelihood might any day be overwhelmed…
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Why we still need nuance
One of the unfortunate things about words is how readily weaponised they are. Language, by its very essence, is in constant flux, embodying the tension that will always exist between tight definition and everyday use. This is something which is irreducible, a simple fact that bears no resistance. With the advent of a new textual…
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The cessation of virtue
With the now ubiquitous use of social media, we have come to democratise our ethics and publicise our convictions on at least a daily basis. The intrusion of a news event, the appearance of a public figure, the rise and ruin of a zeitgeist, the policies and politics of our current era, are all up…
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Living in important times
I have lived in important places, times When great events were decided; who owned That half a rood of rock, a no-man’s land Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims. – Patrick Kavanagh There can be no doubt that ours is an age of tumult and upheaval, of movement, change, and discontentment. We are living lives which,…
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No private matter – Pt.2
For the present generation the private sphere has been sacrificed on the altar of easy publicity, and the democratic platforms of social media. The days wherein a public figure could hold private opinions unmolested are largely over, and as ordinary citizens we have come to believe that even our thoughts need a forum in order…
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No private matter – Pt.1
When we prize the interests of party above those of the whole community, when we make our perspective prescriptive, our personal preferences into binding principles, then we have lost a significant part of our apology for the Christian faith, and our voice within the Church. This is a truth which seems sadly lost on much…
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I read the news today, oh boy
Over the past two weeks I have been devoting time to thinking through some of the unexpected sources of stress in modern life, and resolving to put them in their place. Among the most surprising of these factors for me has been the influence of news media on my peace of mind and levels of…
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Shame on You
Recently Amnesty International, normally the darling of social media liberal chic, learned that even they are not immune from the censure of the Twitter censorati. In their case the collective outrage of so many smartphone sentinels and keyboard campaigners was focussed on a glossy cover they used for their magazine, in an effort to showcase…
THINKING PASTORALLY 