Nicholas Baines

LATEST ARTICLES ( 612 )

• 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

• When the ‘mind’ Fell out of the Independent Mind

  Good grief. The debate about foodbanks continues in the UK media, sometimes getting distracted by stuff that misses the point.OK, the Daily Mail has no... Read more

  Posted on 22 February 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Obedient Freedom

  

  I had hoped to finish Ferdinand Schlingensiepen's biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer before coming to Basel to begin my study leave proper. I failed. But, I... Read more

  Posted on 21 February 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Bashing the Bishops

  Before I went to Kazakhstan for the first time in 2003 I had little idea of its post-independence history. I knew it quite well (from a distance and in a bit... Read more

  Posted on 20 February 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Remembering Memory

  

  On the way to the Brocken with friends a couple of days ago, we drove through a village called Elend. Elend is the German word for 'misery'. There is a place... Read more

  Posted on 13 February 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Faith and Patriotism

  

  It is a bit odd to be in Germany at a Meissen Theological Conference while the General Synod meets in London – especially as both bodies seem to be addressing... Read more

  Posted on 12 February 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Reconciliation

  

  Any conference in Germany is haunted by the 20th Century. The fact that churches in Germany and England maintained their contact and solidarity during the... Read more

  Posted on 11 February 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Reading the Times

  

  Just a question, but if every country in Europe did what the Swiss have done today – voting in a referendum to limit immigration into their land – what would... Read more

  Posted on 09 February 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY