Nicholas Baines

LATEST ARTICLES ( 599 )

• A New Day Dawns

  

  Happy Easter!Today we celebrate God's inability to stay down. Death, violence and destruction do not have the final word in this world, after all; God does. It... Read more

  Posted on 20 April 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Together Alone

  

  Yesterday I did Pause for Thought on the Chris Evans Show on BBC Radio 2. Normally, you have to be in the studio at Western House in London to do this piece. Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Friday Good?

  

  This is the script of this morning's Pause for Thought on the Chris Evans Show on BBC Radio 2 with Zoe Ball.When I was a kid in Liverpool I always felt I must b... Read more

  Posted on 18 April 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Tradition

  

  When the Apostle Paul rode on to the road to Damascus he clearly didn't expect to have his life abruptly interrupted and radically challenged. But, that is... Read more

  Posted on 17 April 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Moving on

  

  This is a poignant week. Not only do we we in the church consciously walk with Jesus and his bizarre group of friends through acclamation, popularity,... Read more

  Posted on 16 April 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• The Writing on the Wall

  

  One of these days I'll get back to posting about what's going on in the world. In the meantime, however, here is the script for this morning's Pause for... Read more

  Posted on 10 April 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• The Meaning of Words

  

  I am preaching in the Berliner Dom this evening in a Lent series of sermons under the general theme of 'Reformation and Politics'. I was given the theme: 'To... Read more

  Posted on 06 April 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Love, Actually

  

  This is the text of this morning's Pause for Thought on the Chris Evans Show on BBC Radio 2 in the presence of actors Emma Thompson, Celia Imrie, Paul McGann,... Read more

  Posted on 28 March 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Isolating Putin

  

  I remember reading a paper once in which the writer kept using the word 'insulation' when he meant 'isolation'. And now I wonder if I am seeing the same thing... Read more

  Posted on 23 March 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• 1914: Remembering World War One

  One of the reasons I wanted to read Christopher Clark's epic book The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914 was its rampant popularity in Germany. Read more

  Posted on 21 March 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Ukraine and a Case of Deja Vu?

  Maybe it's because I have just read Ruth Tzeko's excellent A Tale for the Time Being (time, culture, language, philosophy, suicide, Zen, quantum physics, the... Read more

  Posted on 19 March 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Keep on Doodling

  

  This is the text of this morning's Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2's Chris Evans Show:You know what it's like when you keep telling people some story about whe... Read more

  Posted on 12 March 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Imagination, Apologetics and Art

  

  The headline doesn't sound too promising, does it? But, it brings together the last couple of days before I return to Bradford tomorrow for a week of work befor... Read more

  Posted on 07 March 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Theology and Imagination

  

  This 'away-from-home-and-reading' bit of my sabbatical is coming to an end. I haven't read as much as I had wanted to, but there is also a life to be lived... Read more

  Posted on 06 March 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Religion Vs Spirituality

  

  Following on from Thursday's visit to Karl Barth's house and my sight of Barth's original handwritten draft of the 1934 Barmen Declaration, I wonder if such a... Read more

  Posted on 01 March 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Basel, Barth and Integrity

  

  Today, apart from taking time to start on Rowan Williams's excellent and demanding Faith in the Public Square, I met an academic friend at the University of... Read more

  Posted on 28 February 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Measuring Child Poverty

  

  I was just getting my keyboard sharpened to write about the government's reported reform of child poverty measurement when I saw this from the excellent Joseph... Read more

  Posted on 27 February 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Not Deep Stuff

  

  Aha! I see a thread developing here.I am on sabbatical (study leave) and in Basel for a couple of weeks. Staying with good friends, I can't spend all day every... Read more

  Posted on 26 February 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Learning the Language of Living

  

  Having read Ferdinand Schlingensiepen's biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I then read Tom Wright's Virtue Reborn yesterday and Miroslav Volf's A Public Faith... Read more

  Posted on 24 February 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• But, What’s It For?

  

  Both before and since the welfare row that blew up recently – and with a minor excursus into who allows whom to contribute to the public discourse – I have... Read more

  Posted on 24 February 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY