sjdean on the blog

While President Trump continues to get the blame for being both Anti Semitic and also not Anti Semitic in the wake of the Pittsburgh shootings, I believe it has never been as important to talk openly, freely and honestly. With the same rights that both Jewish and Islamic people have to believe that Christ isn't the son of God, I believe I have the same right as a Christian to doubt the credentials of Mohammed as a prophet. I believe that fundamentally, that done without hatred, we can be free to disagree, to rip through each others scriptures and point out inaccuracies and contradictions in the same way we might agree to disagree with Jehovahs witnesses, or Mormons, Scientologists or even Atheists. Each one of us, is free to believe what we want to believe. But each one of us, as devout followers of our religion, will believe that we have the exclusive truth. We want our friends to be saved and enjoy the salvation that comes from what we consider the true path. We certainly d...

Here's one I was toying with a couple of years ago... It appears a load of black people, or the term I've heard, "people of colour" are furious due to under-representation at the Oscars compared to white people. Maybe it is a case that I do talk from a position of white privilege, but I don't feel privileged when one group of people seek special representation against my group of people based not on the great things they've done, but based on their particular classification. The thing I would say we should be arguing about, is that there should be more diversity in our mainstream - and Im not just talking about ethinicity here. The response to the oscars to call for a boycott, only furthers in my mind, to segregate further. It is a form of positive discrimination. It doesn't recognise our common and our shared humanity. It doesn't recognise that we all have strengths and weaknesses. It doesn't look at our merits, but actually does the very ...

A few years back, I was invited to give a talk at Church on what is holy to me. Believing in a God who made everything and everyone in it, I wondered how anything could possibly be unholy. If some things or some people and holy and others aren't, then where do we draw the line as to what is holy? We should know from the teaching of Jesus, that we are all one body but different gifts, so why should one of us be unholy because we practice our faith in a different way. One part of the body can not reject another member of the body because it does something different. In Church, I see an awful lot of interfaith work going on. However when we get the subject of politics, especially over the past year with the presidency of Donald Trump and Brexit, we find swathes of Christians preferring to walk in solidarity with other faiths than they do with other professing Chrisitans. Im not saying we shouldn't be walking alongside other faiths, but it does upset me when we talk in such a...

Over the recent months, we have seen continuing terrorist related incidents linked with Islamic extremism. What we see however is an attempt to distance such acts from Islam itself, which serves no other purpose than to sweep what is happening under the rug, to isolate such incidents from each other and so we fail to recognise any pattern. Whether we like it or not, there is something in the culture, the ideology, the teaching, whatever it is, that is encouraging people to commit atrocities in the name of God. Now is the time when the communities need to come together, learn from and support each other, in the same way we wish to wipe out Britain First, EDL, BNP and the like. We need to work together to find out what our fears and our prejudices are, and we need to be open about them. However here is where I diverge back on topic. We aren't going to achieve that by pandering to one group of society. Virtually every take away in our "multi cultural" part of E...

For everybody out there, welcome home! Here is a post for my UK readers. I have had a few adverts coming up from 1p Mobile and I thought I should offer you a warning. 1p Mobile are the company that offer amazing value at 1p per text, 1p per minute and 1p per Megabyte. Sounds great. Indeed, the service is great if all you are bothered about is SMS Text Messaging and Telephone calls. EE PAYG for Text Messaging costs 15p per text. So for every 1 Text you can send on EE, you can send 15 of them on 1p Mobile. Now one has to stop and wonder how 1p Mobile can actually afford to offer ludicrous rates at 1/15th of the cost of other networks. The clue comes in the final part, 1p per MB. Do not dream of signing up to these guys if you're using any kind of smart phone. You will be ripped off. 1 Gig of data, which is actually quite a low amount by todays standards, works out at 1000 Meg, or £10. £10 at EE will get you a Data Pack comprising 2 Gig of Data, 100 minutes and unlimit...