Here we host debates on values, ethics, philosophy, spirituality, religions, and belief systems. There has never been a more important time to understand ourselves and one another better.

Heartfelt rationality

Magnus Nome 1 October 2012

The side effects of good intentions and tolerance can be more suffering. We must let our hearts set our goals, but use the mind to pursue them. Our Editor-in-Chief reflects on rationality and the fallout of a TV-series.

Our fallible prophet

Sara Azmeh Rasmussen 24 September 2012

Rational reflection and reasoning should not be a threat to religion. Drawing on religious texts, the author argues Muslims should embrace the fallibility of the prophet, and so free themselves of the shackles of history and paralyzing dogmas.

Manchurian mormon?

Seth Redniss 11 September 2012

Mitt Romney needs to answers basic questions about potential conflicts between his religious vows and his prospective presidential vows.

India is ready for change, but censorship, taxation and corruption plagued the Art Fair

Preti Taneja

The fourth annual India Art Fair (IAF), held earlier this year, was hailed by Indian and international media as proof of an art culture come of age. The private opening was packed with the art-hungry moneyed class from all over the world, not least among them Indian buyers with an eye on potential investments.

The Great Partnership: multiculturalism, faith and citizenship

Robin Llewellyn 20 January 2012
Do the supposedly civilised values of human rights and responsible citizenry become exclusionary, used to divide rather than unite? Is religion a partner of liberty? On the day the British parliament considers a bill proposing the banning of headscarves in public places, Robin Llewellyn reviews Jonathan Sacks' ‘The Great Partnership: God, Science, and the Search for Meaning’

2011, a year of wonder

Tina Beattie 21 December 2011
A great scientific breakthrough is also a path to appreciating the core ingredient of our humanity, says Tina Beattie.

An arch-visionary of Canterbury

Theo Hobson 23 November 2011
The leading religious authority of the Church of England has disappointed many of the hopes invested in him. Rowan Williams has indeed failed to address the challenges facing the Church and the Anglican Communion, not least its historic entanglement with state power. This is the project that his successor must understand, says Theo Hobson.

9/11: the identity-politics trap

Sami Zubaida 7 September 2011
The reaction to the attacks of 11 September 2001 included an instinctive veneration of their chief architect. Its deeper foundation is a regressive and widespread ethno-religious view of the world, says Sami Zubaida.

The dinner-party revolution

Keith Kahn-Harris 6 September 2011
The dinner-party is a symbol of complacent presumption, the last occasion to be associated with genuine dialogue or the jolt of rethinking. But it’s possible to renew the ritual in surprising ways - and really caring about the food is just the start, says Keith Kahn-Harris.

Indonesia: pluralism vs vigilantism

Charles Reading 26 August 2011
A pattern of violence against the Ahmadiyah religious community, in which the perpetrators enjoy near-impunity and official indulgence, is disfiguring Indonesia. It also presents a wider challenge to the country’s vital search for a model of religious tolerance in public life, says Charles Reading.

Bin Laden, Dostoevsky and the reality principle: an interview with André Glucksmann

André Glucksmann
Europe is trapped by complacency and an all too human desire for oblivious contentment, says a leading French philosopher. This helps ensure the success of the nihilistic terror and extremist ideology exemplified by al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. Nobody wants war – but genocide is worse than war.

Liss Gehlen/Jens Heisterkamp: Why do you return to the work of Dostoevsky to explain the terrorism of the 20th and 21st centuries?

Moderate secularism: a European conception

Tariq Modood 7 April 2011
The question of religion’s place in modern secular societies is intellectually contested and politically divisive. Here, the scholar Tariq Modood argues that European experience and institutional development can favour an accommodative model that respects religion yet goes beyond both toleration and even civic recognition. This moderate secularism, he says, meets the test of core democratic values while avoiding the dangers that fear-induced exclusion of religion from the public sphere would entail.

Egypt, and the post-Islamist middle east

Asef Bayat 8 February 2011
The portrayal of Egypt’s uprising in terms of its potential capture by Islamists is doubly misleading, says Asef Bayat: for this misses both the true character of the people’s movement and the transformation of the Arab world’s religious politics.

Multiculturalism, Britishness, and Muslims

Tariq Modood 27 January 2011
The idea of multiculturalism has been subjected to greater criticism in recent years, especially on the grounds that it is divisive and undercuts other solidarities of society, class or nation. But a fuller understanding of the context in which the arguments for multiculturalism arose and evolved can help both address some of the simplifications that now cluster around it and achieve a more nuanced view, says Tariq Modood.

The religious crisis of American liberalism

Theo Hobson 26 January 2011
The extraordinary arc of Barack Obama’s popular appeal tells a deeper story of America: of how the relationship between liberalism and religion was forged, then frayed and broken, and how the president’s rhetoric offered the mirage of healing. Theo Hobson asks what, if anything, can be recovered from the ashes of a once-potent compact.

This week's editor

Heather McRobie


Heather McRobie is a regular contributor to 50.50

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European Union stars in Paris. Flickr/notarim. Some rights reserved.

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