SDcamps•演辩营全国英语演讲与辩论赛
And of course that's just where the problems lie. Though people on both sides appeal to what is natural, nature unhelpfully supports both sides liking both consistency and variety in gender and sexuality. So most people are male or female, but there are some who are born with unfixed gender. Most people are heterosexual but some are not. Most parents have children but so...
There is a kind of tribalism in us all which can make us feel uneasy, even threatened at times by difference. But our prejudices often tell us more about ourselves than we would like to admit. When the Quran says "we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may get to know one another," the verse reads like a divine blessing in our lives but getting to kno...
Though it may be a small incident, it does raise the issue of personal responsibility and respect towards others, what should and shouldn't be said in public. But it seems to me that it is also another example of religious sentiment being singled out, even privileged, because it's religious, not because any kind of wrong has been committed. And when procedure is sacr...
Last week, I was in Bruges. We were standing in front of yet another unbelievably stunning painting by the Flemish artist Hans Memling, in a 12th century hospital built specifically for the poor, when my daughter said: "Oh no. Another picture of Jesus. Did they ever paint anything else?" 上周我去了布鲁日，在一家12世纪专门为穷人建造的医院里，我们正欣赏着佛兰德艺术家...
In the front gardens, even in the rain, I notice the first signs of spring and the greyness of winter giving way to small yellow white and purple flowers. Spring is rising in all the animals which include us humans. So we smile good mornings to our neighbours and put out food for our fellow creatures. I try to save some small spiders who’ve climbed up the water pipes into my...
To be compassionate is, if we take the word to bits, to suffer with another, to feel their suffering almost as if it is our own. So someone can work hard to relieve suffering, and be highly skilled in doing so, without thereby exhibiting compassion – they could simply be doing their job and enjoying its challenges. They show compassion only if their efforts to relieve ...
The debate on gay marriage is making me uncomfortable. Columnists tell me breezily that I should welcome it because of equality. Catholic and Anglican Bishops say I should shun it because it undermines one of the fundamental building blocks of society. Now my instincts are liberal. I think the introduction of civil partnerships was a great achievement and I don't like th...
The argument on how to get the balance right between the right to privacy in private life and the importance of having a free press working in the public interest to expose truth is still continuing. When I look for guidance in the New Testament, I come across these striking words said by Jesus,there's nothing covered up that will not be uncovered, nothing hidden that wi...
But social security carries a risk: the risk that some will abuse the system, taking without giving. It's a risk we seem increasingly unwilling to accept. Attitudes are changing. Yet coming down hard on the unemployed also carries a risk. The risk that we penalise those who want to work but cannot in a time of high unemployment, when jobs are scarce in one part of the co...
William Shakespeare wrote of the seven ages of man, starting with the puking infant and the whining school boy, through the lover, the soldier, the authority of the middle aged justice, then the slippered pantaloon, ending with the dependency of old age, sans teeth sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. But I find the categories or stages found in Hinduism more helpful and ...
So, as we continued walking through the city, I played a game, trying to separate what I thought was inspired by a true faith in God, and what was not. It quickly became difficult: for every almshouse there was a wealthy patron who'd paid for it; the money made in the market might have raised the tower in the square but it also bankrolled the foundling homes and the scho...
It was the late 70s and we thought him almost a god, my school friends Helen and Anne and I. An actor-director undergraduate, impossibly tall, dark and drop dead gorgeous, he co-hosted a party every summer for which all the guests had to dress in white. Everything he did was cool and desirable. Until, in the 80s, a killer disease from America swept through the beautiful peop...
Over the last few days we have seen and been reminded of two massacres. Last weekend Norway remembered the first anniversary of the 77 victims of a bomb and gun shooting. During a brief television clip a young Norwegian man said that this tragedy hadn't changed Norway's commitment to an open and transparent society, if anything it had made Norway stronger. And in a w...
The road to peace and reconciliation is a complex and painful process, whether in national or indeed individual conflicts. It involves the conquering of fear, the dealing with bitterness and outrage, and the building of trust. It can be supported or subverted by those outside of the immediate situation as well as those inside. Yet it has to start somewhere with one side maki...
For so long we have fought to be treated the same as men. And of course we have equal value in God's sight, and deserve equal pay, equal rights and opportunities. But we are not the same. That's the point. I will make a colleague and a companion meet for you, God says, fitting, appropriate and different.The men of Athens considered the threat of Sparta and the need t...
The London Olympics has given us new vocabulary: ORNs and PRNs. Or as we've been hearing, Olympic Road Network and Paralympic Road Network. And as from today London commuters travelling along the Olympic network will have to beware of the 30 miles of Olympic Lanes crisscrossing the capital to speed athletes and officials to the Games venues. So far responses to these Lan...
Last Friday a distinguished Anglican clergyman, the Rev Paul Oestreicher, told us that in his opinion Jesus Christ was probably gay because of his affection for his beloved apostle St John. Next day, however, the former Tory MP and Times columnist Matthew Parris challenged the very idea of an exclusive gay identity, saying "the categorisation of a whole section of males...
The spirit of the late Sir Jimmy Savile was alive and well in the Savile Hall in Leeds two days ago when personal items were sold to benefit his favourite charities. In a 12-hour sale over 350 items raised £330,000 for charity. Rolex and Rolls-Royce, shades and shirts all went under the hammer to help out the needy. Even from beyond the grave, it seems, Jim was still fi...
As things are, I see two dangers and they are linked. The first is that if the Church is quick to assert and slow to listen, it can give the impression to its own members that moral insight is never to be had outside Christianity and that can be heard by others as strident and bigoted. It may also leave churches with inadequate means of helping people faced with new moral ch...
It is said that faith is both a gift and a task. By Saturday this week most Muslims around the world will have begun observing the month of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar known as the month of fasting. Between sunrise and sunset, the adult and able Muslim, neither eats nor drinks and while many continue their day as normal, others take time out from th...