Challenging Religious Issues:

Supporting Religious Studies at A-Level and Beyond

St Peter’s Saltley Trust is delighted to be part of a three year partnership with the St Mary’s and St Giles’ Centre to support the publication of Challenging Religious Issues –  a free, open access online journal designed to support teachers and students engaged in A-Level Religious Studies.  Challenging Religious Issues is designed to bring recent and relevant scholarship and research from the University into the A-level classroom. Three issues are published each year, in English and Welsh, and each issue contains four original articles.

Articles cover curriculum topics within A-Level RS/Philosophy and Ethics and are written in an accessible style by specialists in their field – including academics and RE teachers.  Each article contains a link to syllabus specifications, a glossary of unfamiliar terms, references for further reading and questions for discussion.  Issues from late 2017 appear below (English and Welsh versions available).  Both current and previous issues of Challenging Religious Issues are available from the St Mary’s Centre website, here.

Challenging Religious Issues – Issue 20 – 2023

  • Geoff Moore or Virtue Ethics in Business Organisations
  • Mathew Guest on Making Sense of Non-Religion
  • Stephen Jacobs on Was Hinduism Invented?
  • Phra Nicholas Thanissaro on Should Buddhists abandon Rites and Rituals?
  • Opinderjit Kaur Takhar on Sikh Discernment of the Divine

Challenging Religious Issues -Issue 19 – 2022

  • Francis Loftus on the Psalms as  Guide for Christian Living;
  • Joseph Powell on Christians Eschatological Engagement with Revelation;
  • Wm Andrew Schwartz on Process-Relational Theology;
  • Jeff Astley on James Lovelock and the Gaia Hypothesis;
  • Anthony Bash on the Morality of Forgiveness;
  • Phra Nicholas Thanissaro on Mindfulness and McMindfulness;
  • Leslie J. Francis on Religion in the 2021 Census of England and Wales

Challenging Religious Issues – Issue 18 – Spring 2021

James M. M. Francis on Jesus’ Public Ministry

L. Philip Barnes on Hume’s Criticism of the Argument From (to) Design

Leslie J. Francis and Andrew Village on Assessing the Impact of Covid-19 on Christianity in the UK

Challenging Religious Issues – Issue 17 – Autumn 2020

  • John Holdsworth on Jesus’ Family Tree
  • Martyn Percy on Religion in a Time of Pandemic
  • David Wilkinson on Stephen Hawking and a Universe without God
  • C. Mark Harrison on God, Dawkins and Genetics
  • Phra Nicholas Thanissaro on Buddhism and Violence
  • Samuel Tranter on Recent Trends in Eco-Theology

Challenging Religious Issues – Issue 16 – Spring 2020

  • John Holdsworth on Aliens: Ecclesiology and 1 Peter
  • Bridget Nicholls on The Nativity and Crucifixion in Christian Art
  • Mark Graves on Mind, Brain and the Unifying Soul
  • Francis Stewart on Implicit Religion
  • Jeff Astley on the Ineffable Mystery of God
  • Jessie Fubara-Manuel and Elijah Obinna on Made in the image of God: Experience of a Woman with Disability in Nigeria

Challenging Religious Issues – Issue 15 – Autumn 2019 – Special Issue on Science and Theology

  • Adam Willows on Technology and Human Nature
  • Jeff Astley on Evolution and the Argument from (or to) Design
  • Andrew Village on Stewardship of Creation
  • David Wilkinson on Thinking about the Human in a Universe of Aliens
  • Timothy Wall on Is Creation Complete? A Critique of Continuing Creation

Challenging Religious Issues – Issue 14 – Autumn 2018

  • Jeff Astley on the Atonement
  • Clive Marsh on Religious and Popular Culture
  • Hayley Matthews on Feminist Theology
  • Jeff Astley on Richard Swinburne and the Soul

Challenging Religious Issues – Issue 13 – Summer 2018

  • David Wilkinson on New Atheism
  • Abdullah Sahin on Islam and Democracy: Are they Compatible? (Part 2)
  • Jeff Astley on Non-Cognitive Theories of Morality
  • Daniel Moulin-Stozek on Religious Experience through Art

Challenging Religious Issues – Issue 12 – Spring 2018

  • Jeff Astley on Rudolph Otto and numinous experience
  • Leslie J. Francis on religion and psychological wellbeing
  • Abdullah Sahin on Islam and Democracy (part 1)
  • Samuel Tranter on utilitarianism and theological ethics

Challenging Religious Issues – Issue 11 – Autumn 2017

  • Jeff Astley on Ian Ramsey and Religious Language
  • Samuel Tranter on Protestants and Natural Law
  • James Francis on the Earliest Easter Narratives
  • Emily Pollard on Thomas Aquinas and Just War