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The biopic, Tolkien, opens this weekend. It doesn’t look like it gets to what I think was a key inspiration for the great author, namely the thought of his fellow Inkling, Owen Barfield. I’d wager that The Lord of the Rings would never have been all that it is without Barfield’s genius. More on films… Continue reading What Tolkien learnt from Owen Barfield

This interview with Dan Koch at You Have Permission turned into something close to a What I Believe-type discussion.

Three ways to contemplate that life may be bigger than death. (They’re not proofs but hinting analogies which Plato argued have an advantage over proofs: they can expand your sense of reality whilst indicating their truths, rather than just dotting i’s in the reality you already know.) 1. No scientist would write an equation unless… Continue reading Three ways to contemplate life and death

In paradise, the Cross is explained to Dante in a way not heard in churches. It’s not how God restores life, but rather was required by human notions of justice – penalty, payment, etc. It was not for God’s sake, a nonsensical notion, God being God, but for the sake of human myopic sight. But… Continue reading Dante’s meaning of the cross

The Idler has published the text of my BBC Radio 4 Lent Talk on doubting Thomas. Uncertainties in life are generally felt to be something to reduce, if not cut out. People try to ease their personal doubts and worries, business leaders dislike uncertainty and, perhaps partly in response, politicians seem increasingly inclined just straightforwardly… Continue reading Dying and rising: “I tell you a mystery!”

I’m making some short films to get the ideas of Owen Barfield circulating in the run-up to the publication of my book, A Secret History of Christianity. The full set are online here. They cover questions including who was Owen Barfield, why Christianity is failing, how to save the planet, why we take photos, and… Continue reading Who was Jesus, and other questions

It’s been noted that the human experience of life has changed over time, and that during an “axial age”, in the middle of the first millennium BCE, a consciousness that is akin to our own first began to emerge. It’s why, in the west, we feel that philosophy began with figures like Socrates who lived… Continue reading Lecture on the evolution of consciousness and Owen Barfield

This piece was written for The Idler magazine. One of things that happens when countries, organisations and individuals fall into crisis is that they lose the power to imagine how things can be different. They feel that there’s no happy way forward, that the only option is to stay trapped. It’s as a good definition… Continue reading Confronting a crisis the idle way

“I feel nervous if I’m called a Christian. It feels like being boxed in. But I can also see that buried within Christianity lies a transformative wisdom. But what is it, and how might it work? Well, take the figure of Thomas.” My Lent Talk on BBC Radio 4, The Uncertainty of Thomas, is broadcast… Continue reading BBC Radio 4 Lent Talk