The Land of the Living

“He’s no longer in the land of the living,” we say with great solemnity as we pronounce that our friend has fallen asleep on the sofa. It’s a phrase we use fairly commonly, either to mean prosaically, “they’re dead”—which is actually uncommon because we prefer cleaner euphemisms that hide the reality entirely—or to refer to… Continue reading The Land of the Living

Children of Choice

Have you noticed that we don’t seem to be able to wait? Perhaps you’ve stood in a queue at a shop or waited at a bus stop recently. I stand on the platform waiting for the train to get to work a few days every week. If you have done the same recently, I’d forgive… Continue reading Children of Choice

Commercialising Church

This article in the New York Times describes two tools that Facebook are developing for churches. Firstly, a subscription service, “where users pay, for example, $9.99 per month and receive exclusive content, like messages from the bishop” and secondly a prayer service “where members of some Facebook groups can post prayer requests and others can… Continue reading Commercialising Church