How can a supposedly all-powerful and all-loving God permit evil and suffering on a grand scale?The question has assailed people across cultures at least as far back as the biblical Book of Job. To sceptics, it forms clinching evidence that all talk of providence is childish -- or even a dangerous delusion. Writing clearly and concisely but avoiding simplistic answers, Rupert Shortt argues that belief in a divine Creator is intellectually robust, despite a...

A call for Christianity to recover its confidenceThe mainstream Churches are faltering - or even at risk of dying out - in their Western and Middle Eastern heartlands. Surveys confirm that only a minority of people in a country such as Britain now claim Christian allegiance. The pattern is being matched in neighbouring societies. At the same time many opinion formers preach secularist ideology with a self-confidence shading into dogmatism. Others, unsure of their m...

‘God is no thing, but not nothing.’ These words from the renowned thinker Herbert McCabe point to a fallacy at the heart of New Atheist polemics against religion: the deity rejected by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and their followers is not God as taught in classical tradition, but merely a blown-up thing. From this basic error flow many more misunderstandings about Christianity and other creeds. As a result, debate on life’s biggest questions has grown vitriolic as we...

This major new edition of Rupert Shortt's acclaimed biography of Rowan Williams provides fresh insight into the life and thought of perhaps the most gifted Christian leader of our time. Unburdened by national office, the former Archbishop has spoken more candidly than ever about the multiple conflicts - over gay clergy, women bishops and the place of faith in the public square - that rocked the Anglican Church and wider society during his decade at the helm.

'A masterclass.' - Church Times'A bracing demonstration that a Christian can myth-bust an atheist quite as effectively as vice versa.' Tom HollandIn his latest book Outgrowing God, Richard Dawkins tries to show that all religious belief is intellectually nonsensical and thus highly damaging in practice. But does he even understand what he rejects?In this incisive rebuttal, Rupert Shortt exposes the main flaws in Daw...

History is littered with wars and atrocities apparently inspired by religion, and today there seems no end to reports of cruelty and violence carried out in the name of God. But is it belief in God that motivates these evils? Or do they spring from other motives?At the same time, history testifies to numerous benefits to humanity brought about by religious individuals and movements. But despite these positive outcomes might it be true, as some atheists aver, that r...

On October 29, 2005, three Indonesian schoolgirls were beheaded as they walked to school -- targeted because they were Christian. Like them, many Christians around the world suffer violence or discrimination for their faith. In fact, more Christians than people of any other faith group now live under threat. Why is this religious persecution so widely ignored?In Christianophobia Rupert Shortt investigates the shocking treatment of Christians on several continents and expos...

The aim of this book is twofold: One is to counter the huge weight of column inches being spent on the perceived, and actual, persecution of Islam. The second is to turn up the volume on the side of Christians rather than Atheists (a position which has been underpinned so vociferously by Dawkins et al in recent times).In fact there have been - and still are - many terrible stories of murder, oppression and persecution of Christians around the world, in East Timor, Burma, Egypt, Chi...