God is Back
So say John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, who believe (as I do) that it is impossible to understand the politics of the twenty first century without taking religion seriously; and that it is a fundamental mistake to try to sweep religion under the carpet and hope it will go away for ever. One of their arguments as to why religion is on the rise is intriguing – they think it flourishes in particular as a market-driven phenomenon. I was wondering whether to get all excited about disestablishment again… except that, as Dominic Lawson points out, Micklethwait and Wooldridge's argument works if you look at America, but not if you look at post-revolutionary France. Lawson found the book "boring" in delivery, despite being prodigiously informative, although he thinks it would be well worth having a copy on your coffee table incase Richard Dawkins comes to tea…
Lawson says, "…the common man’s innate appetite for what we call the religious experience is so powerful that its eradication is a fantasy that could only be believed by great intellectuals such as Karl Marx and Dawkins. God is Back? He has never gone away."
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author musician theologian
Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
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